by Candice Hern
It had all changed in the space of a moment. She had stopped fighting him and seemed almost to melt in his arms. God, but she had felt good. Soft and warm and responsive. From the moment he had sensed her own pleasure, he had been lost. He had wanted to devour her—in slow, succulent bites. He was about to set his lips on a path down that long white neck when he’d come to his senses.
If he had not forced her to leave, James could not be sure that he would have been able to restrain himself from taking her. Right then and there, stretched atop the table at her back. The thought of her soft, white body beneath his aroused him even now. But shame and guilt had stopped him. He had no right to treat her as though she were a common whore he’d purchased for the evening.
Yet she had fought him only when he had been rough with her. When he had become more gentle, she had responded. Would she have let him make love to her?
The thought of taking Verity as his mistress set his heart to racing. His wickedness was known far and wide. Why continue to deny his own well-deserved reputation? Why not make the tales true? What was there left to lose?
His own reputation had been as black as it could be for over six years now. Through no fault of her own, Verity’s reputation was in shreds. There was no redemption for either of them among the solid Methodist stock of this part of Cornwall.
Despite what the world may think of him, he would never take her by force. If he behaved like a gentleman, would she allow it? Would she allow him to make her into what everyone already believed her to be?
There was only one way to find out.
Grannie Pascow’s eyes narrowed as she glared at Verity. Her knobby fingers beat a tattoo on the carved wooden arm of the high-backed chair. “So,” she said, “’ee wants to know the truth, does ’ee?”
Verity nodded. The smoldering peat fire in the hearth filled the room with an odiferous smoke that caused her eyes to burn. She looked around at each of the room’s other occupants: sturdy, no-nonsense Kate Pascow, proud Ewa Dunstan, and sweet-natured Borra Nanpean. Verity had hoped to speak with Grannie in private, but the old woman never seemed to be alone. Women gathered around the hearth, children frolicked on the dirt floor, and men stopped by to greet Grannie on their way from the mine or the pastures.
It was easy to understand her status in the village. Verity felt the old woman’s strength of character as much as any of the other villagers who’d known her all their lives. She could trust Grannie Pascow. She could not have explained how she knew that to be true. Perhaps it was because the old woman reminded her so much of her beloved Edith. Whatever the reason, Verity liked her and respected her. If she wanted the truth, plainspoken and raw, that is what she would get from Grannie.
Verity blinked against the peat fumes and nodded again. “Yes,” she said. “I should like to know what happened. I should like to know what sort of man Lord Harkness is, since I am living under his roof.”
Grannie leaned back and squinted down the length of her nose. “T’aint a pretty tale,” she said. The others mumbled agreement.
“If what Mrs. Bodinar told me is true, then it cannot be very pretty.” Verity steadied herself for the cold, harsh truth and took a deep breath. The peat fumes burned her throat and she began to cough. She made a mental note to ask Mrs. Tregelly about providing firewood for the cottages. “Tell me, please,” she said at last. “Did he murder his family?”
Grannie’s fingers stilled and she let them hang loosely over the chair arms. “Aye, most likely he did.”
Verity’s heart sank like a wounded bird. No amount of expecting it had prepared her for this bald truth. “Most likely?” she said. “But you don’t know for sure?”
“Nobody do know nothin’ fer certain. Couldn’t be proved, one way or t’other.” The old woman shook her head and pursed up her lips. “Looked bad from the first, though. Looked like he done it.”
“But why?” Verity asked, trying without success to keep the plaintive note from her voice. “Mrs. Bodinar implied that he had been very much in love with Lady Harkness. Why would he have killed her? And their child?”
“Don’t rightly know,” Grannie said. “But when he come home from Spain, he weren’t the same. Sumthin’ happened to him.”
“Aye, it’s true,” Kate Pascow interjected. She bounced a pink-cheeked baby on her knee while she spoke. “After he come back, he were as like to bite yer head off as look at ’ee.”
“Come home with a real mean streak, he did,” Ewa Dunstan added.
“How did they die?” Verity asked.
“Fire,” Grannie replied.
Verity shuddered. “Good Lord. And you believe he set it?”
“Could have,” Grannie said. “Likely he did.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Grannie surveyed the room in silence for a few moments before she spoke again. “Well now, from what I do recall,” she began, “young Trystan—that were his son—and Digory Clegg’s boy Billy was playing in one o’ them old stable buildings near the big house. Empty barn, it were, old and ramshackle. The boys did used to play there a lot. Not just Billy Clegg, but other village boys as well. Kate’s Charlie. Ewa’s Robbie. Lucas Kempthorne. Weren’t no children of his own kind fer young Trystan Harkness to play with, so he were left to mingle with St. Perran’s boys, nice as ’ee please.
“That day, a fire started in the barn. Nobody do know how, but with all the straw an’ such, ’twere bound to go up like kindlin’. Rowena, Lady Harkness that was, she seen the fire and runned outside screamin’ for help. Jammez stood watchin’ that fire, not movin’. Lady Harkness, she shaked him an’ shouted at him to help, but he wouldn’t budge. So she runned into the stable herself an’ tried to save them boys. But the fire be too far gone. The buildin’ collapsed and trapped all of ’em. They be all three killed—young Trystan, the Clegg boy, and Lady Harkness.”
“And Lord Heartless, the evil cur, he never stirred an inch to help,” Ewa Dunstan said. “Stood there and did nothin’ while that pretty wife o’ his and them two little boys died.”
“My God,” Verity said. “Oh, my God.”
Silence fell in the cottage, broken only by the occasional soft plop of crumbling peat. Anguish swelled like a tumor in Verity’s belly. This was not at all what she had expected. It was much worse. Though he may not have held a gun to their heads or a knife to their throats, his inaction had killed them just the same. How could he have done such a thing? It didn’t make any sense.
“But how do you know all this?” she asked, grasping for any thread to stitch it all together somehow. “If everyone died in the fire, how can you know what Lord Harkness did or did not do?”
“Old Nick Tresco, he seen it all,” Kate Pascow said, hoisting the restless infant onto her shoulder. “He were the steward at Pendurgan. Been there as far back as I can ’member. He were out in the fields when he seen the fire and started runnin’ back. He seen Lord Heartless standing there like a statue, big as you please, watchin’ that fire. He seen her ladyship try to get him to help. By the time he got close enough to lend a hand, it were too late. Old Nick do claim his bloody lordship didn’t say a word. Only stared and stared into that fire with a sort of wild look in his eye.”
“Old Nick left Pendurgan after that,” Grannie said, giving Kate a disapproving glance for her strong language. “He wouldn’t work for the man no more after what he seen. It fair made him sick, he said.”
Verity could certainly understand that; she felt nauseous herself. “What made him believe Lord Harkness had actually started the fire?” she asked.
Borra Nanpean looked up from her mending and spoke for the first time. “He were the only one near by,” she said in her soft, shy voice. “Old Nick said it looked like it been torched, with fire startin’ in more than one place, like. It weren’t natural.”
“He done it, all right,” Ewa Dunstan added. “Just like all them others.”
“What others?”
Silence fell among the women once again. Ewa
stared at her hands in her lap and did not respond. Verity looked to Grannie. “What others?” she repeated.
“There been two or three queer fires in the district since then,” Grannie said. “No one else never got hurt. But none of ’em ever made no sense, and Jammez—Lord Harkness, that is—were nearby when each of ’em happened.”
“What are you saying?” Verity asked, her voice rising, on the edge of hysteria. “That he is a madman who likes to start fires?”
Grannie shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. I just be tellin’ ’ee what happened, like ’ee asked. Told ’ee it weren’t a pretty tale.”
Indeed it was not. Was she living in the home of an arsonist? Oh, God. She’d been kissed senseless by a man who had passively watched while his family died, when he might have saved them. Or perhaps even by a man who had he set the fire himself, deliberately killing them. Was she doomed to forever recalling the passion of that kiss and, God forgive her, how she had enjoyed it? Or was she doomed to much worse?
She wiped the moisture from her cheeks, blinking away the peat fumes that stung her eyes.
The wind had let up and a thin ray of sunshine broke through a patch of blue in the northwestern sky. The hint of clear weather ought to have lifted Verity’s spirits, but she hardly noticed the change. She trudged up the lane back to Pendurgan, feeling as though she dragged a heavy weight behind her.
It wasn’t anxiety that burdened her thoughts, despite having every reason, she supposed, to fear for her safety. Instead, she felt unexpectedly disconsolate after all she had heard. She had expected she would likely hear some level of confirmation of Agnes Bodinar’s words. But why was it so much more difficult to accept danger from possible madness than danger from pure evil?
For surely that was the only explanation for what Grannie Pascow and the others had told her. Or perhaps all evil was ultimately rooted in madness.
She had wanted the truth and now had it. And in having it, she was more confused than ever.
Verity was pulled out of her melancholy reverie by the clip-clop of an approaching horse, muted by the rain-softened dirt of the lane. A moment of apprehension that it might be Lord Harkness was followed by relief and curiosity when she looked up to find a very handsome, fair-haired gentleman riding toward her. He reined in and doffed his hat.
“Good afternoon,” he said, smiling warmly.
Verity nodded politely, returned his greeting, and then proceeded up the lane. She had no idea who the gentleman might be, but considering her unusual situation and the rumors it prompted, she was wary of any stranger. She had not forgotten the coarse behavior of Mr. Bargwanath and had no wish to endure another rude encounter.
“Forgive my impertinence,” he said as she stepped around his beautiful bay mare, barely a trace of Cornwall in his cultured voice, “but is it possible that you are Mrs. Osborne from Pendurgan?”
“Yes,” she said in a guarded tone, “I am Mrs. Osborne.”
The gentleman’s smile broadened. He dismounted and stood before her. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I ought to have waited for a proper introduction but there has not been the opportunity. I am so pleased to meet you, Mrs. Osborne. I am Captain Alan Poldrennan, ma’am. At your service.” He swept her a formal bow, a gesture strangely out of place in the middle of a dirt path.
“Captain.” Verity acknowledged him with another nod, but remained wary.
“I have a neighboring estate, Bosreath,” he said, waving a hand vaguely toward the west. “The Poldrennan and Harkness families have been friends and neighbors for many years.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I have been a close friend to James—that is, Lord Harkness—since we were boys.”
“Oh.” She was surprised to learn that the man called Heartless had any friends at all. “I suppose that is how you know of me, then,” she said. “You must also know—”
“I know about the auction, yes.” He gave her a reassuring look. “But we shall not speak of that. We will keep to the explanation James has given for you, as a distant cousin.”
“Thank you,” Verity said. A genuine amiability was reflected in the benevolent gray eyes, and his words put her immediately at ease. “That is very kind.”
“May I escort you back to Pendurgan?”
“I would appreciate that. Thank you, Captain.”
He walked his horse around to face in the opposite direction, then fell into step beside Verity. He was the first person, aside from Lord Harkness and Agnes Bodinar, of her own class she had met since coming to Cornwall. She was heartened to know that he did not think ill of her because of how she came to be there. And perhaps the captain could help dispel some of her confusion about the deaths and the fires, if she could think of a reasonable way to introduce the subject.
“You have come from St. Perran’s?” he asked.
“Yes. I go into the village often.”
“I have heard of your knowledge of herbs and physicks,” he said. “I believe you saved the life of one of the servant children at Pendurgan?”
Verity chuckled. “The story grows with each telling. I merely prepared a few home remedies to help ease his breathing and reduce his fever. I do not work miracles, Captain, I assure you. It is simply common knowledge handed down to me years ago.”
“It is good of you to share that knowledge with the village women,” the captain said. “They are very fortunate to have you just now, when Dr. Trefusis is away. Have you been nursing one of them today?”
This was the opening Verity had hoped for. “No,” she said, “I was not helping them today. They were helping me.”
“Helping you?”
“Yes. You see, I went seeking information.”
He looked down at her with a quizzical expression. “And did you find what you were seeking?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
His brows drew together in a puzzled expression.
“I am sorry, Captain,” Verity said. “I do not mean to sound so mysterious. It is…well, it is awkward for me, as a stranger and one who came to be here under…unusual circumstances. I had heard it said that Lord Harkness had murdered his family. Naturally I felt somewhat uneasy and wanted to learn the truth.”
“Ah. And now you know.”
“I was told what happened, but it still makes very little sense to me.” She looked over at him to judge if she ought to proceed. He kept his eyes straight ahead as they walked. Though his mouth had tightened slightly, he did not appear to have closed her off, as Lord Harkness had done when they had walked back together along this same lane.
“Tell me, Captain,” she said. “You are his friend. Why did he do it? Is he mad, as all I heard today suggests?”
Captain Poldrennan walked on in silence for several minutes, and Verity thought she might have made a mistake in asking him such a bold question at their first acquaintance. A frown played across his face while he seemed to weigh his answer. After a long, uncomfortable silence, he finally spoke. “It is very complicated,” he said. “And I’m not sure anyone who has not been to war can ever truly understand.”
“Then something did happen in Spain? I was told that he was very much changed when he returned.”
“We were all changed by what we saw and what we did,” he said, his face still marked by the frown.
“You were there?”
“Yes. James and I were in different regiments but saw much of the same action.”
“And yet you seem…I do not wish to say unaffected. Doubtless you were. But you are, perhaps, unscarred?”
Captain Poldrennan laughed. “I wish it were so. Unfortunately I took a ball in the shoulder at Badajoz.” He sobered quickly. “But that is not what you meant, is it? You are speaking of scars of the heart or of the mind or of the soul. I doubt any soldier survives without his share. But for some the wounds are deeper than for others and the healing more difficult.”
“Is that what happened with Lord Harkness?”
He stopped abruptly. The mare sno
rted and tossed her head in irritation. He muttered endearments and stroked the long neck until she stood quietly. He continued the gentle stroking as he turned toward Verity, the frown back in place. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. Verity suspected he was concerned about betraying a friendship by revealing more than he should.
“We were at Ciudad Rodrigo,” he said at last. He gazed out into the distance over Verity’s shoulder. “It was an ugly siege, mid-winter and cold, the ground frozen so hard we thought we’d never get the trenches dug. We had no tents, so the troops had to be billeted in the village across the Agueda. The half-frozen river had to be forded each day to get to the trenches, the troops constantly buffeted by huge pieces of ice. We worked ten days before the assault began.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “I will not bore you with details of the assault. Suffice it to say it was gruesome. James’s regiment was among those storming the larger of two breaches. My own regiment was busy at the lesser breach, so I did not see firsthand what happened. At the Great Breach, the head of the column was cut down by French fire. When the French gunners had been dispatched, James’s regiment stormed ahead to the ramparts. A huge mine exploded beneath them, destroying the majority of his company.”
Verity’s face puckered up in horror. She had never heard the particulars of battle, and even though Captain Poldrennan was relating only the broadest facts without grisly detail, it was ghastly and upsetting to hear.
“Sometime afterward,” he continued, “when he was finally able to speak of it, James told me how he’d been knocked down and pinned by the charred corpses of his own men. He had broken a leg and couldn’t free himself. He watched his young sergeant and several others explode into flames and fall just a few feet away from where he lay. James has never been able to rid himself of the guilt over the deaths of those men. Though it was Picton’s order, he believes he sent his own men into a trap. The fact that he waved his men ahead and took up the rear himself, saving him from certain death, only intensified his guilt.”
