by Claudy Conn
“Of course you are not, Papa. This is my fault, and I am very sorry I have, once again, given you and Mama cause to fret. I shall endeavor to be the paragon of virtue in the future.” She got to her feet. “Now, if you have nothing more, I should like to retire to my room.”
She was in a temper. Her mind kept clicking off all the absurdities of the situation and felt she might say something she would regret. She could see that her parents understood that she was trying to control herself. “You may go, child,” her father said quietly.
She was scarcely out of the room when she overheard her father tell her brother and mother, “What that young woman needs is marriage!”
Egad, she thought, I should count myself fortunate they are not trying to force me into marriage with a stranger, like my poor friend, Francine, was just last month!
Chapter Two
As it happened on the eve of Vanessa Grey’s fateful race in Brighton, odd occurrences were taking place in Cornwall!
On that particular night, the black sky was alight with the full moon and the stars glittered over Montlaine Castle.
On that night, a small world was crumbling.
“Step lively, m’lord, mistress, fer them coming up the hill be fearful, angry, and out fer blood,” cried Epps, the Viscount of Montlaine’s man.
Montlaine bent his head against the wind and put a protective arm around the gentle girl beside him. Time was closing in on him as he led her up the drive that led to their stables. They said not a word until they reached their horses and started the job of tacking up.
Then the girl spoke first, pushing aside her hood to exhibit a length of dark waves and the face of a young maid. “Bret, Bret, this is wrong. I think we need to take a stand. You cannot mean to run…not now! You must stand against their charges and prove them all false.”
Montlaine eyed her sadly. “You are understandably agitated and do not comprehend the full picture.” He took hold of her small chin, and saw the adoration in her eyes. “No, Mary. I’ll not allow the name of Montlaine to face a mob. No good can come of it. There is never any reasoning with a rabble out for blood.”
“But, what then, will you do?”
“My dear, there isn’t time now to explain. You take this note along with you and make for Lady Penrod’s establishment. There, you will be completely sheltered from all of this. The rabble will not follow you there. Their fight is with me.”
“Oh, Bret, they are saying you are the devil and they are calling me one of your minion witches. How can they say such things? I am so confused and frightened, not for me, but for you.”
He hoisted her into her saddle and tightened the girth. “Keep a tight rein, child. Hold your gelding’s head up and don’t take a reckless pace. Go now, that’s the lass.” With that, he saw her off into the night.
His groom moved with impatience. “M’lord, up wit ye. There is no time—no time to waste.”
The viscount’s black stallion snorted as Montlaine nimbly mounted him and took the reins in hand. He eased his horse onto the drive, but it was, as he had feared, already too late. The mob had arrived and began swarming, making his exit very near impossible.
Mobs, he thought, for he had seen a couple in his time, seldom had any viable leadership, but this one did. The Magistrate of Wadbridge, astride a chestnut, sat straight in his saddle and called out on a sharp note, “Halt! My lord, I must ask you to go no further.”
Silence filled the air and the viscount fancied that the wind itself calmed in anticipation of his response.
He laughed out loud and said, “Gentlemen, you are on my land. You are trespassing and dare to order me about? Really!” He then clucked his tongue.
The magistrate actually squirmed in his seat and the viscount smiled to himself, however, the man then held up an official looking warrant. “I…I…” the magistrate stuttered, “know that you have sway in many high offices, but this is a legal document, my lord…for your arrest.”
“Is it, by God!” the viscount roared, and was pleased to see the crowd shrink into itself. “What is the charge?”
“Murder, ye divil, murder!” cried a distraught woman as she wrung her hands and stepped towards him.
He looked at her and past her to the crowd. Everyone, other than the magistrate, was on foot. They had come a long way to confront him.
“Why do you say such a thing?” he asked, totally puzzled.
“Ye killed me daughter, ye did. Ye seduced the poor child to yer devilry, made her one of yer witches, and then cast her aside. She died in a convulsion from one of yer spells!”
“I am sorry for it, but…I don’t even know who your daughter is…” he started.
“She was Miss Melony Fry,” the magistrate said.
“Ah, Miss Fry,” he said slowly.
“Then you admit. You knew her?” the magistrate pursued.
“Yes, I knew her, but I don’t understand why I am being charged with her death?” The viscount was truly at a loss.
“I, myself, have seen you dallying with the poor girl in town. ‘Twas yer own unmistakable pendant that she held in her hand when she took her last breath,” the magistrate continued.
“My pendant? I lost that more than three or four days ago. If you had come up to the house first, you could have questioned my aunt, my servants…”
“And been put off!” the mother of the girl cried.
He turned to her now and said gently, “I am sorry for your loss, but I would have never hurt Melony or any other female.” He turned to the magistrate. “Sir, if you had come up to the house, as I said, my cousin, Mrs. Echworth, would have attested to the fact that I lost the pendant days ago…and that the entire staff had been put to searching for it.”
“A good story,” the magistrate cut him off. “However, it does not clear you.”
Out of patience, the viscount shouted, “Do you realize what you are doing, accosting me with that rabble at your back? By Jupiter, sir, I shall have your job and then your head for this insult, and stop waving that piece of worthless paper at me!”
He had the satisfaction of seeing the magistrate’s lips quiver. The man looked momentarily uncertain, however, evidently he had no intention of backing off.
The crowd at his back called for action, and apparently he realized he had to appease them. He put up his hands, but it did not silence them and they started shouting for justice.
“Ah,” said the viscount quietly to the magistrate, “you see now, the crowd gets restless. Your superiors will not approve if this gets out of hand, and it is about to do just that. Look at him—to your left, calling for blood. Well, I don’t intend to give him mine.”
“Easy! Steady now,” the magistrate told the crowd, but the din was a roar and he was not heeded. “Perhaps if you come with me now, my lord,” he suggested. “Perhaps then they will calm down.”
“Go wit ye?” the viscount’s man, Epps, snorted.
“What, so as a jury of his peers can be dazzled by his name and his charm?” said a woman in the crowd. “No, Magistrate Rawkens, that won’t do. We have a mind to deal with him now!”
A man raised his pitchfork in the air and called for the viscount’s death. Another yelled, “An eye for an eye…what say ye, lads?”
“Aye,” growled yet another. “Bring him off that divil horse of his and hang him high!”
The chant went through the crowd as the viscount made his plans. He marveled at the way each individual lost his identity as they became one, a unit of power. Violence like a wave washed into them, and a stone was picked up and thrown at the viscount.
Unused to such treatment, the viscount’s horse reared and flayed his front legs in the air. The stallion’s whinny shook the atmosphere with an eerie sound and the proud steed was a beauty to behold. For a moment, the mob paused to watch him.
Montlaine grinned and felt the devil they had dubbed him as he called out his horse’s name, “Aye then, Midnight!”
He was down low, leaning into his h
orse’s neck, and in the splitting of a second he charged towards the rabble, who parted in a flurry of screams and terror as he jumped high to avoid trampling some who had not quite moved out of the way.
With a rumble of laughter and a rush of excitement, the Devil of Montlaine vanished into the night!
Chapter Three
The magistrate sat his horse in something of a total stupor. His mouth was open wide and his thoughts blasted into one another. He wasn’t sure what he should do as the mob dissented into fist waving calls for retribution.
He was actually concerned and frightened by the tension amongst the people, some of whom he had known most of his life. He had thought to bring Montlaine in for questioning, if only to clear the viscount’s name and move on. He had not expected any of this.
However, on the other hand, the law must not be flouted. It was his sworn duty to do what he had set out to do, arrest the Viscount of Montlaine.
It was at that moment he was joined by two mounted officers who had heard ‘talk’ in town about proposed violence to the viscount and had come unbidden to stand by their magistrate.
He sighed with relief and told them, “Thank God you have come. Chase him down. He must not escape.”
Shouts and shaking fists could be heard and seen as the villagers followed the mounted officers, who carefully covered ground and left those on foot in the dust.
Some ten minutes later, the exhausted villagers had lost sight of both officers and began, with mumbles and threats, to disband as they headed for their homes.
During this time, the magistrate attempted to catch up with his officers, but made a wrong calculation and became thoroughly lost in the dark.
It was then, as he sat his horse and attempted to make a decision as to which direction he should take, that he saw the unmistakable silhouette of horse and rider.
“What the deuce?” the magistrate said out loud. “Where is he headed?” He hurried after the viscount, but frowning, stopped his horse again. “Why is Montlaine headed for Bodmin Heights?” The magistrate had recognized some of the landscape and there was no question that was where the viscount was headed. There was no escape in that direction! Only cliffs and ocean.
What was Montlaine doing?
He could see the foaming waves crashing against the boulders that jutted into the brine and wondered why the viscount would race his horse in that direction?
He shouted, but the roar of the wind out-voiced him. Had the viscount gone mad?
It was then that his officers arrived beside him, then hurried after the viscount, shouting out to him to stop.
* * *
The viscount slowed his horse, dismounted, and bent to feel the ground. If he was being followed successfully, they were too far away to matter.
He remounted and changed direction. Exasperated, he had to do this several times before he headed where he needed to go. The officers were useless at tracking.
He was waiting for them. He had to time this just right.
As he slowed Midnight to a walk, he shook his head over his problem. This was worse, so much worse than he had anticipated. He needed a solution. At the moment, he only saw one, and it was an extremely unpleasant one.
He urged his horse forward, taking him carefully through the Bodmin Moors. As matters stood, the case against him looked strong on the surface. He would need help and time if he was ever to clear his name. Both were things he lacked at the moment, and he grimaced to himself as he veered southeast, heading for Bodmin Heights.
Montlaine knew they were getting close. It was what he wanted them to do.
He jumped off his horse, took a precious moment to pat his stallion’s wide black velvet neck and speak soothingly into the alert animal’s ears. Then tying the reins so they would not interfere with his horse and sliding the stirrups up so they wouldn’t bang his horse’s sides, he stroked him lovingly. They had seen much together, he and this wonderful horse. He had trained him for many things…but now would be another test.
“Home, Midnight. Home!” He gave his stallion’s rump a gentle but firm slap.
Midnight understood the command, the viscount was sure of it, yet he saw by the way the horse stretched his neck and then nuzzled him that his horse was loathe to leave him. So once again, he told him, “Home! Midnight, home!”
Midnight whinnied, then took off for home.
The viscount had wasted precious time, time he didn’t have. He wanted them to witness what he was about to do, but he didn’t want them close enough to stop him.
It had been a long time since he had last dived into the treacherous waters below. The rocks were deadly and the current just as bad, and this time, he would have to appear as though he were falling. There was every chance that he would not survive.
“Right then,” he said as he took up position.
“Get him!” one of the officers, gun in hand, yelled as he dismounted his horse to follow the other who had already dismounted.
“I think not!” yelled the viscount, stepping farther back, then suddenly releasing a scream as real as the event—for he was, in fact, reeling backward into space as he went over the edge at Bodmin Heights!
The officers ran to the edge and cried out with genuine horror. No one actually wanted this. After all, the viscount had not been proven guilty in a court and he was a Montlaine. There would be a price to pay for this day’s work and they knew it.
“Upon my soul!” the magistrate, who was breathing hard as he ran towards his officers, exclaimed. “Could he survive that fall?”
“No, no one could,” said one of his officers.
And even so, they stood at the edge, looking over, for a goodly while!
Chapter Four
An unpleasant week passed for Lady Vanessa as her parents made the final arrangements to ‘pack her off’, as she described it, to her godmother’s estate.
For the most part, Ness found herself confined to the house and its limited grounds. She was unable to attend the assemblies and routs. She pouted, she pleaded and huffed, but both her parents remained staunch and unapproachable. She tried logical arguments and even got her mother to agree with her in theory, but not in practice.
Even the morning visitors, who flocked to her home to see her when she did not appear at the assemblies, were turned away with tidings that the Lady Vanessa was suffering from a bout of fatigue.
So it was that Ness actually came to look forward to the journey to Cornwall.
At first, this proved to be something of a treat. She was allowed her steed, Shadow, and she used Shadow for a nice part of the day, riding beside her brother and her cousin, who she and her brother had forced to make one of their party. She did take to her coach to keep her maid, Millie, company, but Millie was happy enough to read and sent her off to ride.
The open pike was taken in fairly good spirits. When they passed through Romney Marsh, Ness told her male relatives exciting stories of the smugglers that used to dwell in the region, and probably still did.
“You know,” she added thoughtfully, “I am fairly certain that smuggling still persists in this area, as the locals benefit and help the ‘gentlemen’, as they are called.”
Her cousin, Randall, turned his fair head and said, “Have we gone on too far ahead of our coach? If this is that sort of territory, had we not better wait for Mooney to catch up?”
Ness laughed. “Scared, are you? We don’t need Mooney to protect us. We are very capable of protecting ourselves.” She patted a leather holster at her thigh.
“I told you, Randy, we would not make this trip unarmed. It would be foolish to do so with highwaymen lurking about,” her brother said sharply.
“You are both mad,” Randall said. “But you especially, Rick. How can you find it acceptable that your sister is carrying a weapon?”
“We are on the open road,” Ness declared. “It makes sense, don’t you think? Surprised you didn’t bring yours.”
Her cousin grimaced. “I wasn’t thinking, beside
s, you two practically abducted me.” Randall, son of the House of Southvale, put up his chin. “Besides, I didn’t realize what lonely, rugged, long roads we would be taking. Damn, but this part of the country is outlandish.”
“Do you think so? I think it beautiful and only think at low tide we shall be able to take our horses across to St. Michael’s Mount from Marazion. Buck up, cuz, for we shall find ourselves with endless things to do,” Ness offered enthusiastically.
“Yes, but you also said this trip would be exciting and so far, my girl, it has been dull work,” he answered on a sulky note.
“But, Randy, how poor spirited of you. Didn’t we pass through Romney, and didn’t we see the wild ponies of the New Forest and then again in Devon. And the scenery…ah, stunning. Enough to take your breath away!” Ness said.
“Scenery! Bah! Just look around you, rocks, more rocks, and sea,” Randy grumbled.
“Stubble it, Randy,” her brother admonished. “I explained to you at the outset, and I think it high time you adapted to this venture.”
Blue eyes glared into blue eyes and Ness smiled to herself. Her cousin and brother were much alike in appearance, but of the two, her brother was the one with a sense of adventure. They had all been friends since infancy, being so close in age, and usually got on quite well with one another. She waited, as she could see the two were about to have a spar of words.
“You hoodwinked me, is what!” Randy snapped. “How I came to be a part of this…?” He motioned in the air at nothing in particular.
“You are a part of it because the whole thing was your fault from the start!” Ricky retorted. “It was you who brought Shadow’s name into the argument and started the entire incident.”
“There you are, putting the blame at my door!”
Ness rolled her eyes and glanced behind to see if their coach had caught up since they had been walking their horses for a goodly while. Their coach not only carried their belongings for the protracted stay, but her dear Millie, also.
Ness was bored with the boys’ bickering, for they had been going at it for the last two days over various subjects. She called out, “I’m going to ride up ahead. I shan’t go far.”
