by Cheryl Holt
Winnie didn’t move, and for a horrifying instant, she worried she might burst into tears.
Why couldn’t anything ever go right? She’d always been a good person, a kind person, a loyal person. She’d taken charge of Jane and Bobby when no one in the world had volunteered to help them—no one but her.
She was twenty years old and all alone, without friends or family or money or a job. It had been a mad scheme to head to Dunworthy without having a clue as to whether their arrival would be welcome, but she’d been afraid and desperate and out of ideas.
For pity’s sake, Mr. Slater at Benton had evicted them! What other option had there been but to travel to Dunworthy where Jane had an uncle?
Throughout their reckless trek, she’d convinced herself that Mr. Dunn would aid them, but how could she have been so stupid? When she was so intelligent and so highly educated, why did she constantly make such idiotic choices? Why did she pick exactly the wrong path? Would she spend her life in peril and out of luck?
She opened her mouth to give Mr. Dunn a thorough dressing down, but Bobby prevented her. He stepped in front of Winnie and Jane, as if he could shield them from Mr. Dunn’s wrath.
“Don’t beg him, Miss Watson,” Bobby heatedly stated, and his livid gaze was locked on Mr. Dunn. “I won’t have you plead on our behalf, and even if you could change this tyrant’s mind, I’d never let you and Jane stay here with him. We’ll figure out a different conclusion, for I am sure any place in the kingdom would be better than this one.”
He was a striking, courageous, and wonderful boy, possessed of his aristocratic father’s best traits and none of his bad ones. His anger and righteous indignation carried around the room, and his comments shamed all of them. Even Mr. Dunn seemed embarrassed.
Bobby whipped away from the dais, and he pushed Winnie and Jane toward the door.
Jane was usually polite and quiet, but not always. She peeked over her shoulder at her uncle, imperiously saying, “I was hoping I’d like you. But I don’t. I could never like anyone who was rude to Miss Watson.”
Their insults caustically hurled, they marched out, people’s eyes slicing into them as they passed, but Winnie didn’t lower herself to look at any of them.
Who would treat a dog in the ditch as they’d been treated? She was a young woman on her own, with two children to protect, but they hadn’t been offered so much as a bite of food or a drink of water.
Bobby was correct to demand they depart. Even if Mr. Dunn had leapt off the dais and implored her to remain, she wouldn’t have. She was Sir Walford Watson’s beloved daughter, and Jane and Bobby were Lord Benton’s children. How dare the occupants of Dunworthy disparage them?
What was so special about any of them anyway? They were simply a bunch of illiterate, rural peasants, and she let her snobbish, city attitude flare into a hot inferno. If a single dolt had been brave enough to speak to her, she’d have ignited him with her vociferous response.
They tromped out of the hall, across the courtyard, and out the gate. They’d been inside for ages, waiting to address Mr. Dunn, so she’d forgotten the earlier admonition about the tide.
Evidently, it didn’t change every twelve hours. Clearly, it swept in much quicker than that.
They were on the promontory where the castle was located, so it was easy to see that the island was surrounded by ocean and cut off from the mainland by surging, turbulent seas. The path on the sand had vanished.
How long would it continue like this? How long would it be before they could return to the dry ground of England?
They gaped, disconcerted and dismayed, and ultimately, Jane said, “What now, Miss Watson?”
“I have no idea.”
Bobby assessed the water that prevented their escape, and he snorted with disgust. “This is just typical, isn’t it?”
“I was thinking the very same,” Winnie said.
“What else can go wrong?” They were silent for a minute, then Bobby muttered, “I’m not sorry for what I said in there.”
“Neither am I,” Jane added.
“You stood up for yourselves,” Winnie told them, “and I’m proud of both of you.”
Bobby bristled with annoyance. “What will they do to us when they discover we couldn’t leave? Might they simply toss us into the waves to drown?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jane fumed. “They were so awful. I couldn’t imagine living here with them.”
Bobby pointed down the hill to Dunn village where fishermen’s cottages lined the shore, but it contained no lodging for visitors. “Shall we walk down to it? We might get lucky and encounter a charitable Christian who will help us.”
Winnie was dubious. “I suppose anything is possible. There might be one kind, generous inhabitant on this accursed rock.”
“Let’s find out,” Bobby said.
He took off, leading the way, and Winnie and Jane followed him.
What choice did they have?
CHAPTER TWO
“What a cheeky tart!”
John Dunn stared at his widowed sister-in-law, Melvina. They were in the main hall, the Justice Day proceedings finally at an end. The ale cask had been opened, and people were drinking and clucking over his various decisions as if they’d been watching horse races or boxing matches. The winners were celebrating, and the losers had slinked off to lick their wounds out of sight.
He was so exhausted from listening to complaints all afternoon that he could have collapsed by the fire and taken a nap.
“Who was cheeky?” he asked her.
“The shrewish Miss Watson. She was insolent and overbearing, which I’m certain means she has many other dubious qualities.”
“That seems a bit harsh. I’d have described her as brash, brave, and too smart for her own good.”
“She was brave all right,” Melvina fumed, “but not smart. How dare she waltz in and disparage your poor, deceased sister.”
“Yes, it was badly done of her.”
“She’s lucky you didn’t have her flogged.”
“Yes, I’m definitely the sort of fellow who would flog a woman.”
John rolled his eyes in exasperation.
Melvina was vain, grouchy, and impetuous, and she’d been in charge at Dunworthy—with no male guidance—for far too long. She could be petty and cruel, and she enjoyed tormenting others. In the period since he’d returned, he’d heard numerous horror stories about the punishments she meted out for the smallest infractions.
She thought John relished that type of malicious conduct and would behave the same way if given a chance, but he wasn’t a malicious man. He’d spent the prior fourteen years in the army, having purchased his commission when he was sixteen. He’d witnessed plenty of violence, and he’d just as soon not witness more of it.
“Why do you suppose Miss Watson really visited us?” he asked Melvina.
“She probably discovered we’re wealthy and prominent, and she assumed she could swindle some money out of us.”
“We’re broke though, so that plan wasn’t much of a plan. And that girl—Jane—didn’t look like Rebecca.”
“No, she didn’t.”
But as John repeated the claim, he scowled. He didn’t have a clear picture of Rebecca in his head. How old had he been when she died? Sixteen? Seventeen? He could scarcely recollect.
He’d already been in the army and out of England, so he hadn’t been able to attend her funeral. Before her death, he hadn’t seen her in ages. As had happened for John, their brother, Duncan, had insisted Rebecca escape Dunworthy. Despite their mother’s strident objections, he’d sent her to boarding school, and once she’d had a taste of freedom, she’d shunned their isolated, backward island.
Duncan had been partially crippled in an accident as a boy, so he’d been trapped in his injured body and trapped at Dunworthy. Yet he’d been bright and kind, had constantly read books, studied maps, and dreamed of all the places he’d never go. He
’d been adamant that John and Rebecca experience the adventures he never would.
Their father had perished when they were little, so Duncan had inherited when he was very young. His great burden had been their mother who’d been tediously pious and completely mad, and he’d had to deal with her all his life.
She’d wasted away on her knees in the chapel, and in her later years, he’d begun locking her in her room to keep her safe, but also to keep others from having to put up with her. The entire debacle had been hideous, and John had missed much of it by joining the army.
Duncan had had a dreadful time of it though. He’d yearned to travel the globe, but his accident and their mother’s lunacy had ensured he rarely set foot off Dunworthy.
Rebecca had passed away from the flu when she was sixteen and away from home. There had never been any question as to what had laid her low, and John was flummoxed over Miss Watson and her story that contradicted their facts.
He shouldn’t have been so rude to her. He had some manners after all, but his wound was bothering him, so he wasn’t feeling well. Plus, he hated the routines and customs that went with being lord and owner of Dunworthy. The traditions left him surly and abrupt, as Miss Watson had learned to her detriment.
He didn’t like to judge the trivial squabbles at Dunworthy, and he viewed the arguments as petty family fights. Nearly every single inhabitant was a cousin of some sort. They were born on Dunworthy, they grew up on Dunworthy, and they died on Dunworthy, residing either in the castle or down at the harbor in Dunn village.
The bolder members had migrated over to the main town of Dunworthy across the water, but that was as far as they ventured. Their situation had been the same for centuries, and he’d been ensnared in their tiny world like a fly caught in a spider’s web.
He had naught but bitter memories of his childhood on their remote, barren island, and on the final occasion when he’d spoken to his brother, Duncan had made him swear he would never come back.
John had had fourteen glorious years of liberty, but circumstances had dragged him home against his will. Did the accursed island cast an evil spell on the man who ended up owning it? Was escape impossible? It certainly seemed that way.
“She had some gall to besmirch Rebecca,” Melvina said, yanking him out of his pathetic reverie.
“Who?”
“Miss Watson. It was outrageous that she insulted Rebecca like that.”
“Rebecca is dead, so I imagine she’ll get over it.”
“That’s not funny,” Melvina huffed, “and Miss Watson should pay a price for her mischief. I hope you won’t allow her to saunter off without at least tendering an apology.”
John sighed. “Let it go, Melvina. I’m weary, and the woman departed without incident. I don’t care to fret over her.”
“You shouldn’t be so forgiving, John. There’s never a benefit in being sympathetic.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
He was thirty and Melvina was thirty-two. She’d run Dunworthy by herself for most of a decade after Duncan’s death. John had been busy and happy in the army, and he hadn’t worried over how she was managing things. But she was pompously proud of her position as Mistress Dunn, Mistress of Dunworthy, and she acted as if she were John’s wise grandmother, as if she had all the answers and he had none.
Often, he listened to her, but more often, he didn’t.
She’d run the island and the castle all right—right into the ground. The whole place was a decrepit, crumbling wreck, and they were almost bankrupt besides, with no money to fix any problems. If he’d had any sense, he’d have been in London, searching for an heiress with a fat dowry.
Her negligence had forced him to resume the family business of smuggling to generate some income. He was angry and worn out and too old to engage in criminal activity, but his penury meant he had few choices as to how he could repair his finances. Smuggling was a trade the Dunns had practically invented.
It was the prime reason he couldn’t have a guest like Miss Watson stay for supper. She’d snoop around and butt her nose into every nook and cranny. Rumors frequently leaked out about the illegal conduct of the Dunn clan, and he wouldn’t be surprised to discover she’d been sent by the tax collectors as a spy.
“May I speak, Lord John?”
The question had been posed by Melvina’s daughter, Ellen. She was sixteen and John’s niece, but he never recalled that she was. It was odd to envision Duncan siring a child on Melvina, but apparently, any miracle could occur.
Ellen could be sweet, but was also silly and flighty. She was a romantic dreamer who yearned to flee Dunworthy, but Melvina wouldn’t permit it.
She was nicer than her mother, smarter and kinder than her mother, and she had a sly way of handling Melvina that he liked to watch. She was thin, petite, and pretty, with the typical dark hair and eyes of everyone on the island. As she gazed up at him, her expression was derisive and scornful, making him feel petty and small.
“Don’t pester your uncle,” Melvina said. “He’s tired after sitting through so many hearings.”
John ignored her. “Go ahead, Ellen. What is it?”
“I thought you were horrid to Miss Watson.”
Melvina bristled. “When your uncle wants your opinion, he’ll ask you for it.”
“How was I horrid to her?” he inquired of Ellen, but he knew.
“First off, she’s a stranger, and you didn’t offer her any hospitality.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“And second of all, what if that girl, Jane, is actually Aunt Rebecca’s daughter?”
“She’s not,” he said, but without much conviction. “Your aunt died of the influenza.”
“According to who? Your mother? Didn’t you all agree she was mad? Why believe her on any topic?”
“Honestly, Ellen,” Melvina scolded, “don’t drag your deranged grandmother into it.”
“If Jane is Rebecca’s daughter, then she’s my cousin and a Dunn, and she deserves our help. Even if she’s not my cousin, we should still help her. We could at least give them supper and a bed for the night.”
“Miss Watson is a liar and a confidence artist,” Melvina insisted. “Anyone could see that about her.”
“I couldn’t see it,” Ellen staunchly declared, “and the tide’s rolled in. What are they supposed to do? Answer me that—if you can. Will they sleep on the street in Dunn harbor?”
“The villagers will assist them,” Melvina said.
“What if they don’t?”
There was a lengthy pause where Melvina stewed and groused, and John was ashamed of himself. Normally, he wasn’t so awful. For fourteen years of his life, he’d been an officer and a gentleman, proudly serving King and country, but after a few short months of residing at Dunworthy, he’d become someone he didn’t like very much.
He’d grown suspicious, surly, and unfriendly. But…
He couldn’t have strangers visiting, and he refused to have more mouths to feed. The castle operated as if it were still the Middle Ages and Henry Tudor on the throne. His family assumed it was his duty to take care of them, yet he was broke, the castle was deteriorated nearly beyond repair, and he was nobody’s savior.
“I’m going to fetch them,” Ellen announced.
“You are not,” Melvina scoffed.
“I am.”
Ellen glared at John, daring him to prevent her. Although he’d been a soldier, he wasn’t a fighter. Potent sentiment exhausted him, and he hated to bicker over any issue.
He wondered what sort of catastrophe he’d set in motion if he welcomed Miss Watson. She was full of sass and vinegar. She’d argued with him and had stood her ground as if it was entirely appropriate for her to have an opinion different from his.
She had no notion of a woman’s place in the scheme of things, no notion of her place in relation to a man, in relation to John. She was bossy and domineering and generally unlikeable, but s
he was quite beautiful. He couldn’t have failed to notice. He was only human after all.
With that glorious blond hair, and those big blue eyes that had sparked with fury, she’d definitely been a sight when riled. Since the day he’d trudged onto the sand that led to the island, he hadn’t seen a female who wasn’t a direct relative.
What could it hurt to have a guest? Why not enjoy a new person’s company? She would poignantly remind him that there was a wide, interesting world outside Dunworthy and he’d once been part of it.
He was certain he’d wind up regretting his decision, but he curtly gestured to Ellen, granting her permission to chase after Miss Watson.
“Thank you.” Ellen didn’t gloat over her victory. “I’ll be right back.”
“I can’t wait,” John churlishly muttered.
“While I’m gone, have a bedchamber opened for them.”
“I won’t,” Melvina said. “They can sleep by the fire with the scullery maids.”
John tsked with exasperation. “I’ll handle it, Ellen. Hurry and locate them, so we can get this over with.”
Ellen flounced out, and she was grinning, delighted with herself and her firm stance. He went to the ale keg and filled his glass to the rim, knowing he’d need extra fortification before Miss Watson arrived. A fellow shouldn’t spar with her until he’d strengthened his defenses.
* * * *
“Miss Watson!”
Winnie was so surprised to hear her name called that, at first, she didn’t pay attention. The castle looked particularly ancient, so there were probably ghosts everywhere, and they were taunting her. When the summons was shouted again, she halted and spun around. Bobby and Jane spun too.
A young lady was rushing down the trail toward them. She was petite, dark-haired, and pretty and, as opposed to every other person Winnie had encountered inside, she actually appeared cordial.
Winnie braced, curious and alarmed over what was about to happen.
“I’m Ellen Dunn,” she said as she raced up. “We weren’t introduced, but I’m so glad I caught you.”
