Moonstone Obsession

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  So she explained simply what James had told her of his complex relationship with Abigail, his intention to break off with her, learning that Abigail had refused to acknowledge the break, the scene she had witnessed on the beach, and his wish to meet with the Reverend Kirk privately this afternoon.

  Lady Margaret paused and Selina waited. The older woman bent her head as though in deep contemplation before raising her head. Instead of sympathy or pity those sharp eyes, there was anger.

  “You disappoint me,” she announced. “I thought you had more spirit in you than that.”

  Selina was stunned mute. She had hoped for help from this woman, not a tongue lashing.

  “Instead you are a craven coward,” Lady Margaret continued. “All it took was one advance on the battlefield by your opponent and you retreat under a white flag even before you know the strength of her position.”

  Selina found her voice and was livid.

  “You make James sound like a piece of ground to war over. He’s worth more than that.”

  “Indeed he is, so how dare you think of abandoning my grandson to that creature on the basis of speculation, suspicion, and assumption.”

  Lady Margaret stood and dusted off her skirt.

  “You’ve panicked under fire but I’ll forgive you this once. However, this is the last time I will hear you planning to go into employment.” She turned abruptly. “Good day.”

  Unable to move from the bench, Selina watched Lady Margaret walk up the street to the house. She shook with fury.

  How dare the old woman speak to her like that? Then as the seconds passed, Selina realised to her shame that Lady Margaret was right and her head fell.

  She recalled the night James first came to her room…

  “There’s so much more about me that I wish I could tell you … things that you might hear that might cause you to doubt us…

  “I want to earn the same look in your eyes that you gave your brother the night we first met at the ball. I want your love and respect.

  “You have my vow. I love you and we will be together.”

  How could she claim to love James and then run away at the very first difficulty? Were her feelings for him as mercurial as all that?

  Selina lifted her gaze to follow Lady Margaret's progress up the street.

  God bless her. The figurative slap across the face was exactly what she needed.

  She hurried after her then slowed to match her pace. Lady Margaret ignored her.

  “Thank you,” Selina said without further explanation.

  The older woman harrumphed and carried on, but Selina could see the edge of her mouth crease into a smile.

  * * *

  The day dragged on as it seemed that James had disappeared altogether. Selina swallowed her disappointment at his absence and masked her features to hide it. She learned from Mary, the upstairs maid, that he had ordered lunch be brought into his study and that’s where he and Jackson had locked themselves—literally—since returning home from church.

  She considered Jackson’s urgently whispered words to her on the beach, and the more she thought about it the more she became certain that Jackson knew the full story of James’ past.

  She decided that if James would not come to her this evening, she would go to him.

  Keen to spend the hours productively, Selina spent the afternoon in the conservatory. With its series of large windows running the full length of the room to capture the afternoon sun, it was the ideal place to paint.

  This time her canvas was a piece of fine ecru silk, held taut in a simple pine frame she’d asked one of the gardeners to make for her.

  After having pencilled in her design, Selina used a fine soft brush to paint the outline with a liquid wax before watering down her water colour pastels far more than she would if she was painting on board or paper.

  After about an hour Selina heard someone enter the room. She chose to say nothing, hoping they wouldn’t notice her in the corner.

  “Another painting Selina? Oh, what are you painting on? I can see right through it!”

  It was Edith. Selina continued painting without looking up.

  “It’s silk and part of my costume for Saturday,” she replied.

  “Going as one of your own paintings, now that is imaginative...” That was Lady Catherine, who had entered the room with Edith. “...although a gilt frame around your neck would make dancing difficult.”

  Selina looked up and offered a half smile.

  “And you still won’t tell me who you’re going as,” Edith pouted.

  “I thought the whole purpose of a masquerade was to conceal your identity?” Selina replied.

  “It is,” assured Catherine. “It’s just that little Miss here has not the patience, nor the attention span of a gnat.”

  Edith pulled an unladylike face before skipping around the room singing,

  “Catherine is more tetchy than usual because she’s in love with the Colonel and is so sad that she won’t see him again for three whole days.”

  Selina watched as Catherine’s face darkened with thunderous rage.

  “You little minx! I told you that in confidence!”

  Catherine darted towards her. Edith squealed and ran from the room, dodging around Abigail sailing in through the door.

  Selina decided to ignore her and continue painting her silk, but Abigail would not let her.

  “Are you feeling well, Selina?” Abigail asked in an exaggeratedly conciliatory tone. “You were looking awfully pale this morning and after the fainting spell yesterday, James and I are most concerned for you.”

  So that hadn’t gone unnoticed, Selina thought with chagrin.

  “Your concern for my welfare comes as an unexpected surprise,” she responded. “James, on the other hand, makes his interest abundantly clear.”

  Abigail’s eyes flashed with anger momentarily, then were cool and calculating again.

  “I’d like to give you the opportunity to be the first to congratulate me,” she began. “There’s going to be an announcement at the Masquerade Ball. James and I will be announcing our engagement then.

  “I did warn you.”

  “Does James know about your supposed engagement?” Selina enquired sweetly.

  “Why do you think he’s having tea with the vicar?”

  “To repent?”

  Catherine, listening some yards away while pretending to read, snorted, then feigned interest in the West Country Farmer’s Almanac.

  “James knows what his obligations are and as an honourable man he knows what he must do,” Abigail pronounced.

  “At least we can be agreed on something,” nodded Selina. “James is an honourable man, but I fear where we differ is whether you and I have the same definition of honour. Now,” she continued, shifting on her stool and picking up a paint brush, “if you'll excuse me, I’d like to finish some more painting before the light goes.”

  From the corner of her eye, Selina watched Abigail consider her and then Catherine who had withdrawn to a further distance, determined to keep out of the discussion.

  “By all means dear,” said Abigail as she seated herself on a wicker back sofa. “It’s nice to have a little talent, so important to keep the wolf from the door. You keep up the good work; you’ll need to earn your living one day.”

  Catherine was apparently unable to resist. “Abigail’s little talents earn her an income too,” she chimed in, “but there’s a lot of competition on the streets around Covent Garden.”

  Abigail gave her friend a hateful stare, then Selina too, who was doing her best not to laugh.

  Chapter Seventeen

  James sent his apologies and didn’t join his guests for dinner.

  The study door remained not only closed but also locked, leaving his mother slightly anxious about how she was to entertain his guests, despite the fact that everyone assured her they could very ably amuse themselves.

  Thinking ahead, Selina arranged for a supper tray to be taken to
the study at ten o'clock and, at the appointed hour, was there by the door when Alice, one of the kitchen maids, promptly arrived.

  If Alice thought it odd that one of Sir James’ guests offered to take the tray from her, she didn’t mention it, nor comment on Selina asking her to knock on the door. To the query from inside of who is it? she replied, “It's Alice from the kitchen, sir. Miss Selina thought you might like some supper.”

  At the sound of the internal latch being opened, Selina quietly dismissed the maid. Alice smiled and curtsied then headed back to the kitchen.

  Jackson opened the door and showed momentary surprise, then put a finger to his lips in warning to be quiet. Selina stepped through the doorway and breathed in the distinct masculine scent of a room that had been shut up for too many hours.

  James didn’t look up. He was transcribing notes from the curled and stained pages of a large book onto crisp new sheets.

  “Just put the tray on the side table, Alice,” James instructed, absorbed in his work.

  Selina did so and was about to correct him about the name when Jackson shook his head violently, instead clearing his throat in an exaggerated fashion.

  James raised his head with a frown, then, as his eyes focused on Selina, the puckered brow cleared and his expression was replaced with a smile; a tired from work one, but a smile at seeing her nonetheless.

  “You both have not left this room for hours. I thought you might be hungry,” she explained softly.

  Jackson had already removed the tray’s linen cover and hastily devoured two quarters of one of the cut sandwiches but, instead of pouring tea, he had crossed to a glass cabinet and removed two tumblers and a decanter of whiskey. He was now in the act of pouring a healthy measure. In both actions, he behaved as though he owned the room.

  Clearly, Selina decided, Jackson was someone whom James considered not a servant but an equal.

  One glass Jackson placed beside his friend, then loaded a plate of sandwiches for his own consumption before helped himself to a cigar from the oak box on the desk.

  He stood briefly with glass in one hand and plate in the other, then announced around the unlit cigar between his lips, “I’m heading out for some fresh air.” He slipped through the French door to the private courtyard outside.

  Selina turned her attention back to James, who rose from his desk and stepped over to her. He enfolded her in his arms.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve missed you.”

  “You only saw me this morning,” she teased.

  “Too long,” he replied, running kisses along her ear. Selina shivered and clung to him, savouring the feel of his body against hers, but only for a moment.

  “Stop. You must eat.”

  “I am.”

  “I didn’t mean me!” Selina giggled. “Come, have some sandwiches and get some tea before it gets cold.”

  James began with the whiskey, slugging it back. Then he ate greedily, finishing the platter and two cups of tea poured by Selina.

  “Everyone is wondering what’s so fascinating in here that has kept you locked away for almost a full day,” said Selina. “It’s been just as well that Abigail has kept me in sight for most of that time, otherwise she would have beaten down the door hours ago. I’m fairly sure that she doesn’t believe you’re having an assignation with Jackson.”

  That earned her a grin, but no other explanation.

  “You can’t tell me, can you?”

  James shook his head regretfully.

  “There are people who know part of it and shouldn’t. As a result they have complicated this affair even more.”

  “Abigail, you mean?”

  James’ answer was a huff and frustrated nod.

  Selina stepped forward, back in to his arms. “I trust you, James,” she said. “That is explanation enough for me.”

  James groaned and turned the embrace into a bear hug before pulling his head back to look at her.

  “You don’t what it means to hear you say that,” he smiled before adding a soft kiss to her lips.

  “But it has something to do with that ship’s log,” she persisted, nodded towards the desk.

  “You can tell?”

  “You did know that I’m a sailor’s daughter, didn’t you?” she said playfully. “Of course I know a ship’s log when I see one.”

  “Can you read one?”

  “Of course!”

  Selina found herself the subject of James’ intense regard. She could see behind his rich brown eyes that he was warring with himself. Quickly, as though he’d come to a decision about something, he steered her to his desk.

  “This is the log of The Pandora. Jackson and I found it yesterday afternoon when we went out with Edgar and Reverend Kirk.”

  The Pandora… Selina recalled that James and William spoke briefly of the ill-fated ship and its captain on the first night they met. Her eyes scanned the columns—hours, knots, fathoms, courses, winds and remarks—all there, all painstakingly transcribed from the water damaged and faded originals that had been entered in the hand of Captain Francis Armsden or his first mate.

  Selina turned to the final page. Pencil lines marked out columns that were only half filled. The last entry read “9”.

  “It was the beginning of a tremendous storm. You can see there was a change in the barometer reading over the preceding three entries,” Selina explained. “All the same, The Pandora appears to have been making very good time…”

  She paused. “There’s something not right here...”

  Selina worked her way back up the rows until she reached the entry that noted when the ship had left Bristol.

  “Do you have a map of Cornwall and a drafting compass?” she asked James hurriedly.

  Without asking why, he pulled out a map and spread it on the desk beside the Pandora’s logs and his transcription.

  Selina adjusted the calliper and traced the route of the Pandora down the map, following the journey as told through the log.

  “In the last entry, Captain Armsden wrote that he'd passed the headland beacon at Trevose,” she began, “but that's wrong. The Pandora couldn’t have been there. At the speed she was travelling they would not have been that far south by 9pm.”

  Selina had James’ full attention.

  “An experienced captain would not have made a mistake like that,” she asserted.

  “Even on a violently stormy night like the Pandora was going through?” asked Jackson who had begun to listen in. He leaned against the doorframe, half in and out of the room, his half finished cigar trailing smoke outside.

  Selina turned. “Perhaps, but it should have been picked up by one of the other officers. It likely would have been the next day.”

  “But there was no ‘next day’ for the Pandora or her crew,” said Jackson. “She ran aground that night.”

  “Or was deliberately run aground.”

  All eyes turned to James.

  “Let’s assume the log is correct and the captain or his first officer made the entry accurately,” he said. “The light they see is not at Trevose but further north. The captain adjusts course…”

  “… and runs aground on the rocks here,” finished Selina, pointing to the spot at which the ship and its crew met their doom.

  “The only way that could be is if someone who had foreknowledge of the Pandora’s planned course and had deliberately lit a beacon to deceive,” said James grimly.

  Selina frowned deeply. “For such a thing to happen would require the conspiracy of a dozen or more men,” she murmured. “Surely the insurers already know about this.”

  “Or, in the absence of the Pandora’s log, they must at least suspect,” suggested James. “The more important issue is whether the full cargo can be accounted for.”

  “If smugglers deliberately ran the ship aground, just about everything of value will have been taken or destroyed in the attempt, surely?” asked Selina. “It should be a simple matter of checking wh
at has been recovered against that which is still missing.”

  “We don’t believe that everything on the ship was on the cargo manifest,” said Jackson, closing the French doors behind him.

  He paused and looked at James. His expression queried how much do you want to tell her?

  James gave his friend a slight nod, before turning to Selina. Her face still betrayed her surprise at the idea that the Pandora had been carrying unregistered cargo. James placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “You’ve just got a taste of what I’ve been up against since I returned to England,” he told her urgently. “There’s more I want to tell you but I can’t right now—for your sake and that of your brother.”

  “William?” Selina sat upright in her chair. “What does he have to do with this?”

  “I needed someone I could trust. Someone who could ask the right questions of the right people and not arouse suspicion.”

  Selina was appalled. “So the business venture with my brother is some kind of ruse?”

  “No. Our partnership is real—real enough to pass the forensic examination of Earl Canalissy,” responded James bitterly.

  Viscount Canalissy's father? “I don’t understand,” said Selina. “Why should this be any business of the Earl's?”

  “I have as many questions as you do, Selina—perhaps more—and no real answers for them, but I’m hoping to find them before the Masquerade Ball.”

  * * *

  The Wednesday before Saturday’s ball saw the majority of the Penventen Hall party travel ten miles south of Padstow to Newquay for a stroll along the wide sandy shoreline, lunch, and a matinee concert. Only Edgar and the Comte Alexandre had declined the invitation.

  The ladies travelled by carriage with the exception of Abigail. She rode behind the carriage on a bay gelding selected from the Penventen stable. Seated on an elaborately decorated black leather and silver saddle, she wore an impeccably tailored riding habit in garnet red that showed off her figure to its best advantage.

  Selina had to admit that Abigail looked impressive on horseback. However, Abigail did not appear to be enjoying herself as they progressed along the road on the hour and a half long journey.