Dark Prince

by Eve Silver

  How would he know, her enigmatic and unfathomable master? Had he set a watchdog to mark her every move? For an instant, she thought perhaps he had.

  The fog swirled around her, and the hairs at her nape prickled and rose. Unease crawled through her.

  Slowly, she turned a full circle, aware of the unshakeable sensation that she was not alone, that unseen eyes spied upon her and unspoken threat dogged her steps. She could see no one, but she sensed he was there, a watcher hidden from her sight. She had felt this way before, the day that Ginny’s body had been dragged from the ocean. The day that Aidan Warrick had come for her.

  That day she had been firm in her conviction that someone watched her, first from the shadows and then from the cliffs, and she was equally certain of it now. She had assumed that it had been Aidan on the cliffs that first morning; he had admitted his presence there. But she did not think he followed her today, or that he sent one of his minions. There was something cold and dark in the sensations that dogged her.

  Tensing, she glanced about once more, anxious, wary, searching for unseen menace. She found none, and that left her wondering if perhaps her distress was confounding her rationality, nervous apprehension conjuring danger where there was none in truth.

  She was tired and irritable, her emotions in turmoil. The long hours of the night had been a torment, restless and fraught, with the wind whispering through crack and crevice to taunt her and chill her, body and soul. She had huddled beneath her blankets, the horror of Aidan’s words crawling about in her thoughts until, at last, exhaustion had carried her away. She had found no easy rest.

  I have taken a man’s head in my hands and twisted until the sharp crack of death filled me with satisfaction. She had dreamed of that, the dreadfulness of it. And she had dreamed of Aidan’s eyes, burning, tormented, as though despite his avowal of satisfaction, he had in truth found none.

  Shaking off the remembrance, she sent a last longing glance at the road to the village and then turned instead to the graveyard. The fog draped the landscape, obscuring her surroundings. She glanced over her shoulder, unable to expunge the certainty that someone stalked her.

  She quickened her pace, her gaze fixed on the path. Her heart was heavy with the knowledge that she had taken Aidan’s wretchedness into herself, allowing both his gruesome confession and his suffering to haunt her. There were depths to his character—and his torment—that she could not hope to understand. She would give him ease if she could, even to her own detriment. The realization was frightening. And though she knew that his ghosts were not her own, she could not seem to muster the will to chase them off.

  Reaching her mother’s grave, Jane lowered herself to the ground at the base of the stone. She bent her strong leg beneath her to bear her weight while her ruined limb poked out at an angle. A pile of curled and desiccated leaves had accumulated in the shadow of the granite headstone, and as she brushed them aside they crackled and crumbled beneath her fingers.

  Though her thoughts were in disorder, her actions were rote, habitual, and she took some comfort in setting things to rights. With the grave now free of debris, Jane was about to rise when she spotted a small pink shell half buried in the dirt. She dug it from the ground and brushed the loose earth from its smooth surface.

  The shell was the one she had brought from the beach days past. Recollections of that morning spun through her mind, images of Ginny’s whitish green face, the snaking tendrils of her red, red hair and her limbs dragging deep grooves in the wet sand as Jem and Robert towed her from the ocean’s embrace.

  Pushing herself to her feet, Jane rested her hand on the headstone as she scanned the graveyard. Her breath eased out in a soft hiss. In the far corner, beneath the dead elm was the dark, turned earth of a fresh grave. Was Gaby buried there? Or Ginny? Alone, in a pauper’s grave with no one to care?

  Tears stung her eyes, and she swiped at them with the back of her hand. Strange that she felt such empathy and sadness for a woman she had not known.

  Jane swallowed against the tightness that closed her throat. She knew nothing of Ginny’s remains, and that lack hammered at her. She felt so isolated, so displaced. For most of her life she had been party to any seed of news or gossip that blossomed in the pub, snatches of talk that reached her as she smiled and served up another tankard of ale. In her old life, she had been a good listener; she would have known if that grave was Ginny’s. But now, she had no one, no human connection, for she could find no place among the servants at Trevisham. She was a woman accustomed to conversation and friendly association. Her new circumstance had left her robbed of both.

  A forlorn ache settled deep inside her, a feeling of sadness and loneliness. She hoped that was not Ginny’s grave. She hoped that family had come to claim the dead woman’s remains, that she had had prayers said for her and someone to mourn her passing.

  Speculation was not enough; she must know for certain what had become of Ginny. The need to know was suddenly fiercely important.

  Dolly would have news of Ginny’s remains. Wonderful, familiar Dolly, with her acerbic humor and cackling laugh.

  Yes, that was exactly what she needed. A visit and a hot cup of tea with her cousin, a few moments to pretend her life was just as it always had been.

  “I am sorry that I was away so long, Mama,” Jane whispered. She dragged her fingers along the glass that fronted her mother’s miniature. Suddenly, she froze. The glass was no longer cracked, but unmarked and intact. Someone had seen to its replacement in the days since she had been here last.

  Not her father. He lacked the means.

  Aidan.

  One more inexplicable kindness that deepened the mystery of him and accented her confusion.

  Frustration edged her actions as she snapped her skirt smartly to shake off the last of the leaves that yet clung to the hem. She must not think of Aidan, must not revisit his kindnesses again and again until they magnified and took on such proportion that they masked his cruelties.

  Since coming to Trevisham, she had slept poorly, tossing in her cold, lonely bed, missing the warmth of him and the scent of his skin and the even cadence of his breathing. Lying beside him in the bed at the New Inn, she had felt secure, protected, safe, things she had not truly felt in more than a decade. He had held the nightmares at bay.

  She thought of the way he had looked the previous morning, the wind catching his hair and the sun turning it the color of good ale. The curve of his handsome mouth. The shadow of stubble that darkened his jaw. How many times in the past week, alone in the night, had she closed her eyes and felt the touch of his hand, the lush caress of his lips, felt his heat and his need as though he was pressed full against her in truth?

  She was quickly becoming ensnared in a fantasy of her own weaving, one that was dangerous in so many ways. Aidan had told her exactly what he was.

  A man who professed satisfaction at twisting another man’s neck until he was dead.

  Dead, dead, dead. Like Ginny was dead. Was there any truth behind Digory’s ugly insinuations?

  Aidan’s own admissions cast him as the villain. But I aimed to kill. When wounding Gaby might have been enough. But Gaby had been a threat. What threat had Ginny posed? The Aidan she knew would not—could not—have murdered that girl.

  Oh, there was no benefit to this endless quarrel she fought with herself.

  Dragging in a deep breath, she proceeded between the headstones, determined to seek out Dolly’s company, and equally determined to leave her frightening fascination with Aidan Warrick buried deep. She limped from the graveyard, closing the gate behind her. The hinge squealed in protest, and she paused, her hand yet resting on the cold metal, the chill leaching through her glove.

  She snatched her hand away. How was it that the rusted hinges of the gate were exactly as they had been days ago, still in need of oiling? The intervening time had seen her entire life torn to bits and scattered on the wind.

  A shiver prickled across her skin, like the legs of a
thousand centipedes. Her head snapped up, and her gaze shifted to the dead elm, an eerie sight with the fog twisting around it like a shroud and its canopy of blackened branches reaching clawed fingers over the stone wall.

  There was a dull scrape, and the crunch of dead leaves. Her breath came in rough little gasps.

  Did something move behind the thick trunk?

  She heard a sharp snap, a twig broken.

  Three steps she took to her right, until she could see round to the far side of the blackened tree. Her heart thudded in her chest and she wrapped her arms tight about herself.

  The cry of a raven pierced the air.

  On a sharp exhale, she bowed her head, feeling foolish.

  There was no one there. Just a bird.

  The fog enveloped her, a heavy, damp blanket, pressing in. Pulse racing, she began to walk, slowly at first, then faster, her awkward gait making her foot scrape the ground with its distinct dragging rasp. Pressing her palm to her thigh, she reinforced each step, praying that her knee would not choose this moment to give way.

  A sigh escaped her as she reached Dolly’s cottage. The building was small, the walls washed white, and off to one side was a strip of turned soil that Dolly used for her vegetables. A thin stream of smoke coiled from the squat little chimney. Jane smiled, touched by relief, glad to think that Dolly was at home.

  She found the door ajar.

  “Dolly,” she called, pushing the portal the rest of the way open. “Hello?”

  When there was no answer, she called again, and then limped around back, thinking that perhaps Dolly had stepped outside. She was not there. Odd. Jane walked to the front of the cottage once more. The open door and hint of chimney smoke were both good indicators that Dolly was likely to return very shortly. Knowing she was always welcome in her cousin’s home, Jane went inside.

  The simple square room was tidy as could be, neat and clean, the stone floor swept. A peat fire smoldered in the open fireplace and the rich smell of mutton stew flavored the air. On the table were a single plate and an empty cup. Jane considered boiling the water for tea. Deciding instead to wait for Dolly, she sat down in one of the two roughly hewn chairs. Moments passed, and she glanced at the dishes on the table.

  Pretty.

  The flowers made her think of the warm sun and summer. She ran her finger along the smooth edge of the plate. How long she sat and waited for her cousin, she could not say, but still Dolly did not come.

  She rose and strode to the fire, then back to the table where she sat once more. She edged the plate a little to the right, her fingers tracing the pattern on the china.

  The pattern of flowers...

  She cocked her head to one side, foreboding nipping at her with sharp little teeth.

  She could not name the source of her dismay, she only knew the sensation as it slithered through her. She wrapped her hands tight around the table’s edge, certain that there was something wrong here, very wrong.

  She spun and stumbled to the door. Suddenly, she did not want to be in this dark little room with the stink of mutton turned greasy now and repulsive. Confused by her change of heart, frightened by it, she wrenched the door open and raised her head to find a tall shadow blocking her way.

  Alarm twisted a cold lump in her chest and she cried out. Blinking, she pressed her hand to the hollow of her throat as recognition dawned.

  “Mister Hawker,” she said on a gasp. “Oh, you startled me.”

  There was wariness in his eyes as they met hers and then slid away. He looked equally surprised, she realized, as though he had not thought to find her here.

  He stammered his apologies, and Jane heard his words without really listening, her thoughts spinning. When she had first recognized him framed in the doorway, she had thought him sent by Aidan, instructed to follow her and act as warden as he had at the New Inn. But looking at him now, reading the caginess in his gaze, she acknowledged the error of that impression.

  Mr. Hawker had held no expectation of finding her here. She was certain of it.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Do you know my cousin Dolly?”

  His gaze slid past her to the dim interior of the cottage, shifty in a way she could not truly explain, and she was left with a feeling of suspicion as the silence lengthened.

  “Why, I’ve come to fetch you,” he said at last, with bluff good humor.

  He lied.

  The realization was shocking and with it came the recollection that Hawker had failed in his assigned task not once, but twice, failed to watch her and protect her as Aidan had ordered. Was there some hidden import in that, or was she simply spinning tales where none existed in truth?

  She kept her eyes downcast, lest Hawker read her growing mistrust, and then she noticed the leaves that clung to his booted feet. Like the leaves she had found at the graveyard. With a shake of her head, she silently chided herself. There were dead leaves all about, not just in the graveyard.

  Stepping from her cousin’s cottage, she pulled the door closed behind her.

  As she walked with Hawker back toward Trevisham, she pondered all the possibilities that might have precipitated his lie.

  And she failed to conjure even one that was not disturbing.

  * * *

  Jane returned to Trevisham in time to stand on the front step and watch Aidan leave. She had not spoken with him since their encounter on the beach when he had kissed her and touched her and roused such feelings in her heart that she was left trembling just thinking of them. Hands clasped tight before her, she watched him pause and turn and search her out, his gaze burning into her even from such a distance.

  Where did he go?

  She dared not wonder, had no right to wonder.

  Such tangled, twisted things were the caverns of her heart.

  She stood on the step long after he was swallowed by the fog, and Hawker with him. Only when she turned to go inside did she wonder if she might have been wrong, if in truth Hawker had been sent to fetch her back to Trevisham.

  The following morning Jane sought out the housekeeper, Mrs. Francis, and proposed the cleaning and airing of the uninhabited west wing. She expected the woman to present some opposition to her suggestion. She was surprised to find that despite a certain reserve, Mrs. Francis claimed she was glad for Jane’s help, and assigned the scullery maid, Penny, to accompany her.

  When Jane offered a word of thanks, the housekeeper turned her nose up just a little and replied, “Mr. Warrick was most clear in his instructions. You must do as you please, Miss Heatherington. Exactly as you please.”

  And so Jane had her explanation, one touched with an edge of irony, for she suspected that if her pleasure led her to the Crown Inn, there would be someone to stop her.

  Moving from room to room, she and Penny chatted as they worked, and Jane’s spirits rose as the hours passed and Penny’s reserve gave way to genuine camaraderie. Late afternoon found them in a dusty chamber on the third floor with thick cobwebs hanging in the corners and the smell of disuse coloring the air.

  Jane pummeled the velvet draperies and then the cushions of the settee. Her thoughts wandered to Hawker’s strange behavior the previous day. Questions assaulted her and she mulled over possibilities, in one moment assigning Hawker the role of villain and in the next finding herself unable to believe ill of him. With a sharp exhale she landed a solid slap on the settee cushion, and the cloud of dust made her choke and cough.

  “I wish you would let me fetch Patience and Clarey, miss,” Penny said, watching Jane with a frown. “You could tell them what you want done.”

  “No,” Jane replied, for what she thought might be the hundredth time. “I have no intention of sitting and watching while others work. I need to be busy, Penny.”

  “Yes, miss.” The maid turned away to wipe out the basin on the washstand, but her dissatisfaction was clear. “Pretty bowl,” she said after a moment. “I like the flowers.” She dipped her cloth and wrung it out, then dropped it in the mur
ky pail with a grimace. “I’ll just fetch fresh water. This lot’s too dirty to do any good.”

  “And some fresh cloths.” Jane crossed to the washstand and dropped her filthy rags in the bucket. Her gaze snagged on the bowl with its painted flowers. She reached out, almost touching the rim, almost...

  Jerking her hand back with a quick inhalation, she froze. Her vision narrowed, and all she could think of were Dolly’s plate and cup, certain she had seen the pattern before on china far too fine for a simple kitchen. Far too fine for her cousin’s cottage.

  Wenna’s plates had borne the same flowered pattern as Dolly’s.

  The realization was disturbing, though Jane couldn’t say why. There was a puzzle here, and was missing a piece.

  “Miss! Are you unwell, miss?” Penny asked, her tone high and frightened. “You’re white as parchment!”

  “I am well.” With a shake of her head, Jane tried to find the connection between her own cousin Dolly and Wenna Tubb. The china was identical, the pattern one she had never before seen on Dolly’s table. With a sick dread she battled the obvious association.

  Digory Tubb, with his sullen demeanor and his threats and his knife. By his own implication, he had been in Pentreath around the time poor Ginny had washed ashore. The day Dolly had whispered of seeing a wrecker’s light to the north.

  Was that how Wenna got her china? Had her son Digory lured a ship to the rocks and then murdered all survivors in a terrible orgy of thievery and evil?

  The possibility was ghastly.

  How had Dolly come to have such plates in her possession? Where had they come from? How was Dolly connected to Wenna and her sons? She thought of Hawker at Dolly’s door. Was he the connection linking all the parts?

  Horror nested in her, a wriggling, writhing mass of desperation and fear. Blood roaring in her ears, Jane stared at Penny.

  “Come sit. Come sit.” Penny tugged at her arm and tried to drag her to the settee.

  Jane looked to the window, forcing her lips into a smile. “I just need a bit of air, Penny.” The maid looked dubious.