Within a week, the whole county was whispering that his death was down to Sir Edward Fitzwilliam’s mysterious electromagnetic experiments.
After that, there were no more subjects from Mr. Godolphin.
28th April 1853
The Hope & Anchor Inn, Porthkennack
“Well now, me ’ansome, what will you be having this fine day?”
Martha Trevylyn winked at Nick over the scarred wood of the bar and thrust her ample bosom out a little further. She was known to be a lusty one, Martha, and she’d made it plain to Nick on more than one occasion that she fancied him.
“A pint of ale, if you please, Martha.”
“No smile for me today?” she teased, lifting up on tiptoe to unhook a metal tankard from the beam above her. Nick just grunted in reply, and she sighed dramatically. “It’s a sin, is what it is, a man like you never cracking a smile. I daresay you’d be twice as lovely to look at if you did.”
“I’m hardly lovely to look at,” Nick scoffed, but Martha laughed.
“What’ve you to be so glum about anyway?” she demanded as she pumped out the frothy ale. “It’s a lovely day. The blossom’s on the trees, it’s warm as high summer, and the maypole’s going up today for the Young Oss on Sunday. If it stays like this, we’ll be dancing late into the night.”
“That so?”
“It is—not that you’re one for dancing.” She set the tankard down in front of him and lifted the coins he’d laid there.
He took a swig of the ale. “That’s true enough—I’ve two left feet.”
She eyed him, unimpressed. “No use lying to me, Nick Hearn. I seen you dance with Jenny Lamb three years ago, and you were fine. Better than fine.”
Nick forced a smile. “Jenny was a determined lass.”
Martha laughed. “Oh, she’s determined all right! I’ll wager you’re relieved she married the schoolteacher and laid off you. We was all sure she’d set her cap at you.”
Nick’s smile felt fixed and stiff, and he didn’t know what to say. He’d felt a lot of things over Jenny’s marriage to Gabe Meadows, but relief wasn’t one of them.
“Promise you’ll give me at least one dance, Nick,” Martha wheedled. She sent him a wicked look from under her lashes, the sort of look that should have given him a cockstand, but never would.
“We’ll see,” he said at last. “Mayhap I’ll fancy a jig come May Day, if I can get five minutes’ peace and quiet to drink this good ale.”
Martha put her hands on her hips and glared at him, mock-offended. “I swear you prefer the company of that ugly dog to me.”
Nick glanced down at Snow, who lifted his head and gave a little grunt, as though he knew he was being talked about.
“Well,” Nick said. “He talks less.”
Laughing, Martha sauntered off to see to her next customer, and Snow set his heavy head back down on his paws.
The inn was busy, despite it being the middle of the day. On a warm day like this, a working man liked a cool pint of ale to quench his thirst, and the place was full of labourers, fishermen, and other men who worked in the village and on the surrounding farms. There were a number of men his own age who Nick had attended the village school with and played with as a lad. Till the interest Godfrey Roscarrock had taken in him had marked him out as different from them.
Nick turned round to face the room, leaning one elbow on the bar behind him. He raised his tankard and drank deeply, enjoying the light, hoppy ale. He’d been out riding round the estate all morning and had been nursing his thirst in anticipation of this drink.
When he finally lowered the tankard, he glanced around the inn, nodding a few civil greetings at the other patrons without bothering to initiate conversation. He was a man of few words. He knew some people reckoned he thought he was better than everyone else because he’d risen from being Darklis Hearn’s bastard to being steward to the Roscarrock family, but that was their lookout. He couldn’t help what people thought or didn’t think.
When Nick finished his ale and turned to set his empty tankard down on the bar, Jim, the innkeeper, caught his eye. He raised a questioning brow at Nick.
Another? was the unspoken question.
Nick swithered briefly, then nodded, and Jim brought a fresh tankard to him a minute later. He was halfway through his second ale when the door of the inn opened and a newcomer arrived—or rather, two newcomers. The first man was plainly a toff. He was elegantly dressed, all in shades of brown, and had the typical air of a rich man—the air of someone used to getting what he wanted, whenever he wanted it. He strode inside and looked boldly around, not bothering to shield his curiosity about the gathered clientele. The second, older man seemed to be the first man’s servant. He appeared far less comfortable, his gaze flicking nervously about the room from behind his half-moon spectacles.
Gradually, the taproom fell silent. The toff removed his hat and regarded the inn’s patrons with bright-eyed interest. He had a willowy sort of youthful grace—Nick guessed him to be somewhere in his twenties. His neatly side-parted hair was dark blond and his golden-brown eyes shone with intelligence and unconcealed curiosity. There was a delicacy to his clean-shaven face, with its fine, symmetrical features, yet there was firmness there too. Determination in the sharp jut of his jaw, boldness in the unshirking gaze.
Unexpectedly, desire rolled in Nick’s belly, cresting like a wave that broke and flooded through him. The strength of his reaction took him by surprise, and he had to glance away briefly to consciously school his expression before he allowed himself to look back.
The toff offered the assembled company a smile. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said. Or rather barked.
Christ, that voice. The man might be fair, but his voice was scraping and hoarse. Nick waited for him to clear his throat, but he didn’t, merely continued in the same harsh tone.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am your new neighbour, Sir Edward Fitzwilliam. I live close to the Hole—I’m sure you all know it. You may be aware that I’ve built a house there, where I carry out my work.” He offered another of those engaging smiles. “I am a scientist.”
“We know what you are,” a voice assured him from the back of the inn. “You’re the one messing around with ’lectricity and putting up lightning rods.”
Sir Edward craned his neck, trying to find the owner of that voice. “Well, that’s rather an oversimplification, but in essence, yes. I am investigating certain effects of electromagnetism, amongst other things. It is, as I’m sure you all know, an area that is being studied in some depth at this time. No doubt you’re all familiar with the work of Mr. Faraday.”
“Oh, to be sure!” someone else said, with a snort. “We’re regular professors here at the Hope and Anchor.”
That voice was closer, and familiar to Nick. Jed Hammett, one of Nick’s boyhood friends. These days he was a fisherman—at least, he was when his brothers could extract him from the village hostelries. He liked his rum, did Jed, and he was a belligerent drunk as Nick knew too well, having had more than one run-in with the man when he was in his cups, when Jed would decide that Nick had gotten above himself and needed taking down a peg or two.
There were a few muted chuckles at Jed’s comment. Sir Edward frowned, as though not quite sure if he was being laughed at, which he was, of course—at least as blatantly as a group of working men would ever laugh at a titled gentleman in broad daylight. Nick glanced about the taproom, taking in the shared glances and grins of the other patrons. On the other side of the room, Sir Edward’s servant looked like he wished the ground would swallow him up. Nick lifted his tankard and took another swallow of ale, waiting to see what would happen next.
“Well,” Sir Edward said, turning his head to address his comments to Jed. “Perhaps you might be interested in assisting with my experiments then? For that is my purpose today—I am seeking volunteers, and I am, of course, prepared to pay. Generously.”
He gazed at the assembled company with a bright, e
xpectant look that made Nick’s gut twist. There was a spark of something in that hopeful look, something vital and rare. Something that he knew the other men in the taproom would see as nothing more than foolishness. That thought bothered Nick more than it ought to have, and he turned determinedly away to face the bar again, setting his tankard down on the wet wood and hunching over it, wanting nothing to do with that handsome, intriguing young man. Beside him, Snow pressed in close, his short, powerful body warm against Nick’s calf.
“So, milord, what would these volunteers ’ave to do?”
That was Jed again, the rich, round burr of his Cornish accent a stark contrast to Sir Edward’s upper-class rasp.
“Very little. Merely allow me to put them into an hypnotic trance, then open their minds to whatever messages might come to them from—” He faltered.
“From?” Jed prompted.
When Sir Edward spoke again, his voice sounded even harsher than before. More brusque. “From the spiritual plane—beyond the veil, if you will.”
“Beyond the veil?” Jed repeated, his words infused with real amusement now. There were some subdued chuckles from the other patrons too, and a few more backs turned on Sir Edward as some of them grew bored with the scene, preferring to buy themselves more beer. Jim took a flurry of orders while Martha began gathering in the empty tankards that were pushed forward.
“You want us to speak to spirits? What do you think we are?” the first voice from the back of the room called out. “Gypsies with crystal balls?”
More laughter greeted that, a little less subdued this time. Some ineffective shushing followed. Tense and angry, and still facing away from the excruciating scene between the toff and Jed Hammett, Nick gripped his tankard so hard his knuckles turned white. As though sensing his emotions, Snow rubbed his head against Nick’s leg, and Nick leaned down to give him a reassuring pat.
“Well now,” Jed chuckled behind Nick, “if it’s a Gypsy you’re looking for, milord, we’ve got someone right up your street.”
Nick stayed where he was, his back firmly to the room, but he knew from experience that more jibes would likely be coming, which probably meant that one of his regular half-joking, half-aggressive confrontations with Jed was inevitable. He really wasn’t in the mood for it today. Not in front of this comely young man with his devil’s bark of a voice who seemed to be oddly oblivious to being mocked.
But perhaps Sir Edward wasn’t as oblivious as Nick thought, for when he answered Jed, his voice was all icy anger. “Kindly do not presume to tell me what I’m looking for,” he snapped.
The impact of that was instantaneous. The muted chuckles died away, replaced by a newly respectful silence, and as pleased as he was to hear Jed being set down, Nick couldn’t stop his lip curling at that. This was typical, wasn’t it? The rich, titled gentleman presenting himself, uninvited, in the taproom of the local inn and expecting respect to be handed to him on a silver platter. Then reminding them all of his power when he didn’t get it.
Nick half expected Jed, a notorious hothead in his cups, to snap back. But perhaps the fisherman hadn’t yet had enough rum for that since, after a tense moment, he chuckled again and said, “I beg your pardon, milord, I didn’t mean to offend you. Why don’t you tell us what you’re looking for, and we’ll see if we can ’elp you.”
“As I said, I’m looking for volunteers,” Sir Edward replied stiffly. “I need subjects to work with me on my experiments—as many as I can get. I’ll take anyone who’s willing, but—and I apologise for the indelicacy of this—the recently bereaved would be especially welcome.”
Nick blinked at those succinct and coolly spoken words.
“The recently bereaved would be especially welcome.”
The toff said that as though it was an incidental thing. As though being recently bereaved was like having a particular colour of eyes.
“The bereaved?” Jed parroted, unconsciously reflecting Nick’s thoughts. “Why would they be especially welcome?”
“It’s been theorised that the recently bereaved are more receptive to communications from . . . the other side,” Sir Edward explained stiffly.
“Oh, I see, it’s been theorised, has it? Well I never!” Jed’s clumsy sarcasm mimicked the man’s upper-class intonation—so perhaps he’d had enough rum to be foolish after all. But this time no laughter greeted Jed’s mockery, only silence. An uncomfortable, difficult silence that stretched and waited for Sir Edward’s reaction.
“It seems,” Sir Edward said at last, his rasping voice pricking at Nick’s jagged nerves, “that I was mistaken in coming here. Furthermore, it seems—” and here he paused, before continuing in a louder voice that addressed everyone in the taproom, not only Jed “—that the men of Porthkennack don’t have nearly as much backbone as I’d thought they would. To be frank, I’m astonished to find that there is not one among you that isn’t too craven to take part in a few simple scientific experiments.”
The nature of the silence in the room shifted at that and the men slouching against the bar beside Nick began, slowly, to turn around to face Sir Edward again. With a muttered curse, Nick turned too, resenting his own foolish inability to mind his own business, while Snow circled Nick’s legs anxiously, butting his head against Nick’s calves.
The scientist stood in the middle of the taproom, his angry gaze travelling over the men gathered around him. His golden-brown eyes glittered with injured pride and his determined jaw was rigid—perhaps from biting back yet more ill-considered words. Again, Nick’s senses tingled in response to the man. He had a spark in him that called to Nick. Like the quickness of Godfrey’s new dappled-grey mare, or the glimmer of life he’d seen in Snow when he’d first laid eyes on the dog’s torn-up body in that alleyway in Truro. Why that should be, Nick had no idea. It made his brows draw together with displeasure till he was fairly glaring.
Jed said quietly but ominously, “Did I ’ear you right, milord? Did you just call the men in this taproom cowards? After what you did to Jago Jones?”
Jed was a big man. He topped Nick by at least three inches and Sir Edward by more like six. In bulk, he probably outweighed the scientist near enough two to one. Yet Sir Edward was uncowed. He glared at the big Cornishman with scorn in his eyes.
“Any man in this room who won’t accept my offer because of Mr. Jones isn’t just a coward, he’s a fool,” Sir Edward spat.
There were a few intakes of breath at that, and some uneasy murmuring.
“Now, now,” Jim said from behind the bar. “Let’s ease up ’ere, shall we?” He looked at Jed. “No more accusations from you, Jed.” Then he glanced warily at Sir Edward, adding, “He don’t mean nothing by it, sir. I’m sure none of us really know what happened to Jag—I mean, Mr. Jones.”
Sir Edward eyed the innkeeper. “Well, I know what happened,” he snapped. “Mr. Jones overturned his cart and broke his head open because he was drunk. The only part of it that I had anything to do with was that I gave him the money that he drank himself into a stupor with.”
Jed greeted that blunt statement with silence, but his expression was ugly. He eyed Sir Edward with blatant, naked dislike and a couple of the onlookers standing nearest to the scientist took a step away from him, as though to disassociate themselves from whatever Jed might do, or perhaps just to avoid Jed’s fists. Sir Edward’s servant was eyeing the crowd carefully, as though weighing up the situation, and all the while, Sir Edward kept glaring at his aggressor, not giving an inch.
This was going to come to blows if someone didn’t step in. Nick mightn’t altogether mind the thought of Jed Hammett being dragged up before the magistrate again, and Sir Edward might be behaving with the usual high-handedness of the rich, but still, Nick found he didn’t like the thought of that comely face being marked with bruises from Jed’s fists.
With an inward sigh, he slammed his tankard down on the bar. The clatter of metal on wood caused half the heads in the taproom to turn his way.
“Well, Jed,”
Nick said. “Even you must admit that driving your buggy arse over tit is apt to do you in.”
There was a little uneasy laughter at that. Slowly, menacingly, Jed turned his attention from Sir Edward to Nick. Nick offered him an insouciant grin, feigning relaxed amusement, though in truth he was holding himself loose and easy, ready for violence should Jed rush him.
There was little love lost between him and Jed these days, but there was, at least, a modicum of respect if it came to a fight. When they were boys, they’d run wild together, playing and arguing and yes, brawling a few times, until Jed had finally realised that, despite being much bigger, he couldn’t guarantee he’d beat the Gypsy’s bastard every time—and he certainly couldn’t cow him, as he could so easily the other boys.
“Well now, if it isn’t Nick ’Earn!” Jed said, all aggressive friendliness. “I was just speaking of you to milord here.” He turned back to the scientist. “Mr. ’Earn is the Gypsy bast—sorry, gentleman I mentioned to you, milord. He is just the man for you, is Nick. For these ’speriments of your’n.”
Sir Edward’s jaw tightened, eyes flashing with irritation as he anticipated more mockery, but Jed held his hands up in a wait a moment gesture.
“Now, hear me out, milord. You’ll like this, what with you looking for someone who might be closer to the veil an’ all.” He pointed at Nick. “This ’ere Gypsy, not only did his old mother pass away just last year—which is one of the partic’lars you’re looking for, you said—but better’n that, he sees ghosts. Ain’t that the truth now, Nick?”
Nick’s gut clenched. He itched to ram his fist into Jed’s smirking face, and only the knowledge that that was precisely what the fisherman wanted stopped him. By sheer force of will he maintained a neutral expression, opening his mouth to disavow Jed’s words, only for Sir Edward to beat him to it.
“You’ve seen ghosts?” Sir Edward said, fixing that golden-brown gaze on Nick for the first time. His expression was curious. Avid. And somehow, without intending to, Nick found himself answering.
A Gathering Storm (Porthkennack Book 2) Page 3
