A Gathering Storm (Porthkennack Book 2)

by Joanna Chambers

  Worse than that thought, though, was the little voice in his head that whispered that it wouldn’t be so bad to spend a day every week at Varhak Manor, would it? Last Sunday had been diverting in the end. Ward was knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his passions, and when it had come, at last, to the hypnosis, he’d been gentle in his manner.

  You want to go back, the voice in his head whispered. You’re looking forward to it.

  And to his mortification, it was true. Despite his lingering resentment at being blackmailed into this, he did want to go back, and God help him, he wanted to see Ward again. When he thought of Ward—standing at the top of the stairs at Varhak Manor all bathed in sunshine, or later in the laboratory, animated as he explained how magnets worked—he felt almost giddy, and then he would be miserable, because he knew very well how foolish it was to have such thoughts about another man. Especially this man. This wealthy, powerful, and untrustworthy man.

  Even Nick’s sleep was affected by his preoccupation with Ward. One night he dreamt that he was running along the sands at Mother Ivey’s Bay with Ma. They came upon a wide band of washed-up stones and Ma said, “Look, Nick, wishing stones!”

  Wishing stones. That was what she called any stone with an unbroken ring of white running right round it. When Nick was small, he’d make wishes on them, then throw them back in the sea. Ma said if he was lucky, he’d get one with the wish still in it, but a lot of them were no good because their wishes had already been used up by mermaids.

  In the dream, they bent down to look at the stones and Nick started filling his pockets with them. After a while, a devil said, “The white parts aren’t wishes, they’re lightning.”

  Nick glanced up. Ma was gone. Instead, it was Ward standing there, perfectly elegant in his well-cut clothes, that errant lock of hair falling over his forehead.

  Nick looked down at himself—he was dressed like a tinker in his oldest breeches, no stockings even, just his bare feet, all spattered with wet sand. He felt ashamed.

  “Lightning?” he said. He lifted the stone he held in his hand to peer at it more closely. It was a very ordinary grey colour, but the uneven band of white did seem to glint with tiny sparks. “How do you know?”

  “I cut them open to let it out,” Ward replied in his characteristic rasp. “Once I get enough sparks, I’ll bring your mother back from the dead.” He looked so very serious.

  Nick wanted to kiss that serious mouth.

  Instead, he asked, “Will she be like she was before?”

  Ward said, still serious, “I don’t know—what are ghosts usually like?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. Look.”

  Ward pointed and Nick followed the direction of his arm, towards the wet sand where the waves lapped the shore. And there he was: the Plague Doctor, unmistakable in his cassock coat, beaky mask, and low-crowned, wide-brimmed hat, moving with that eerie glide that Nick still remembered from when he was small and terrified.

  Why that gliding movement should fill Nick with such sickening, appalled horror, he couldn’t fathom, but it did. And when the ghost turned to look at him, staring at him with unfathomable, glassy eyes, he was overwhelmed by terror. Could have sworn he felt his very heart slowing, his blood growing sluggish, like the mill pond in winter when it bloomed with ice crystals.

  Fear gnawed at his belly as he gazed upon the Plague Doctor—there was something so profoundly and obviously wrong with him. So wrong it made the hair stand on end on Nick’s body and a bone-deep shudder run through him. Just the deadness of him, in the living world.

  It was then Nick realised that Ward was walking towards the ghost, his elegant, well-tailored figure full of purpose. Nick tried to scream, to call him back, but he couldn’t make his mouth move. He tried to stumble after the man, but he was weighed down with stones. They were in his pockets, tumbling out of his hands. He fell to his knees, among the stones, and tried to call after Ward, but couldn’t manage anything but a gibbering sort of sound—gah-gah-gah—and the man didn’t even turn, just kept walking inexorably towards the ghost.

  Ward was going to die. The deadness of the ghost was going to infect him—Nick was so suddenly sure of that, he finally he found his voice and screamed, a wild, unhinged scream that ripped from his throat—and woke him up, sweat-soaked and tangled in his blankets, in his own bed, in Rosehip Cottage. Trembling and panting, in the early light of dawn.

  After Nick woke from his nightmare, there wasn’t much point in going back to sleep. He got up, dressed in his oldest clothes and, with Snow at his heels, walked the coastal path right round the headland, then back to the cottage, across fields that were wet with dew.

  He changed his damp breeches and oldest boots for something more respectable before walking over to Roscarrock House. The kitchens were already busy. Mrs. Hughes, the cook, was kneading dough at the big table while her maids ran around, attending to her orders as they chattered.

  “Mornin’, Mr. ’Earn,” the cook greeted him. “Take yoursel’ a seat at table.” She nodded at his usual place, then lifted her chin and called, “Polly, fetch Mr. ’Earn’s breakfast.”

  Ten minutes later, a plate of eggs and ham with a thick slice of bread, still warm from the oven, was set down before him. Hungry from his long walk, he ate quickly, then tarried over his tea, listening to the maids gossip and watching as Mrs. Hughes worked another batch of dough with her massive arms.

  After breakfast, he headed over to the stables. Leaving Snow with Tom, the youngest stable lad, Nick asked one of the grooms to saddle up Valentine, a big, powerful chestnut gelding. While he waited for the horse to be readied for him, he decided to look in on Isabella’s new mare, now named Callista.

  When he leaned over the half door of her stall, the mare turned her head, all haughty disdain. Seeing it was Nick, though, she approached him. He reached into his pocket, drew out one of the sugar lumps he’d purloined from the kitchens, and offered it to her on his open palm.

  She considered the treat for a moment before lowering her great head and taking it delicately, huffing hot, moist breath against his hand.

  “I saw that, you knave,” said an amused but faintly cross voice behind him. “You’re bribing my horse.”

  Nick glanced over his shoulder at the pretty girl who stood there, pert in her pale-blue riding habit, an outrageously impractical confection of a hat perched on her bright curls.

  “And good morning to you, Miss Bella,” he replied evenly. He turned back to the mare, patting her powerful, dappled neck.

  Isabella joined him at the stable door, reaching up a gloved hand to pat the animal too. The mare gave her a scornful look and sidestepped.

  “Oh!” Isabella exclaimed, dropping her hand. “Callie, you’re so infuriating! You let Nick fawn over you but turn your nose up at me? I am your mistress!”

  Callie ignored her, instead butting Nick’s shoulder with her head and whickering softly.

  Nick chuckled. “Nobody can be master or mistress of an animal like this. You should be pleased that she graciously allows you to admire her.”

  “Well, that is not how it is supposed to be,” Isabella grumbled. “Grandy says one must always be master of one’s horse. I should thrash her soundly.”

  “I’ll thrash you if you try it,” Nick replied, though he didn’t think for a minute she meant the threat. Bella was spoiled and thoughtless at times, but not unkind. “Besides, there’s a difference between being able to guide and persuade a horse to do what you want and mastering it the way old Godfrey means. You are able to guide Callie, aren’t you? You rode her beautifully the other day.”

  “I suppose,” Isabella muttered.

  “Well then, that should be enough for you. You don’t need to master her as well.”

  Isabella rolled her eyes. “Guiding, persuading, mastering—however you put it, it all comes down to the same thing.”

  She was wrong, but Nick just shook his head, uninterested in arguing the point further. He
was fond of his spoiled cousin in his own way, but he wasn’t much in the mood for her company today. She needed too much entertaining. Was always prattling on when he wanted to be quiet.

  Theirs was an odd bond, delicately balanced. When Nick had first come to work in the stables at Roscarrock House, Harry had already been sent away to school, leaving his younger sister with no playmates. Little Isabella had taken a shine to Nick and followed him around like a puppy. Even now she had an annoying tendency to dog his heels from time to time, claiming to want to know more about the workings of the estate. In that sense, she was the supplicant between them. But she knew, too—had always known—that she was above him, and that knowledge coloured all their dealings. He couldn’t help but resent her at times.

  “You’ll have to excuse me. I need to be off,” he said now, spying the groom approaching with Valentine. “I’ve a busy morning ahead.”

  “I’ll ride with you, if you’ll wait till—” Isabella began, but he didn’t even wait to hear her out. Just strode away.

  “Can’t today,” he called over his shoulder. “I’m already late.”

  That wasn’t true and the scowl on Isabella’s face told him she suspected as much, but he didn’t care. He was a steward here, not a nursemaid. Isabella would have to find her own entertainment.

  Besides, she was the last person he wanted with him today. He planned to drop by each of Godfrey’s tenants, in an informal way. It was a few weeks till the next quarter’s rent was due, and since Godfrey was a stickler about prompt payment, Nick liked to ferret out any possible difficulties in advance. It was an approach that had proven invaluable last year when Abel Pendleton had been short for Michaelmas rent and Nick had had a chance before rent day fell to soften Godfrey up to letting the man have another month to pay the full amount. The tenants were reluctant to admit to any difficulties as it was—the last thing Nick needed was Godfrey’s granddaughter hovering at his shoulder and making them clam up altogether.

  Thankfully though, it seemed that none of the tenants had any such difficulties this quarter. Nick had a good long talk with each of them to satisfy himself on that score and carried out a myriad of other tasks besides—examining a suspect ewe for foot rot, inspecting the crumbling end of a boundary wall, making a list of repairs needed to the barn on Pendleton’s holding and giving the man a much needed talking-to about proper upkeep.

  By early afternoon he was done, though not quite ready to return to Roscarrock House and Godfrey’s irascible company over the ledgers. Instead, he took Valentine down to Constantine Bay and rode him up and down the wide stretch of beach, right on the edge of the waves so that his fetlocks splashed through the salty water.

  The wind ripped through Nick’s thick hair as he rode, and though it was an overcast day for the most part, from time to time the sun would split through the clouds, bathing the beach with sudden, unexpected sunshine. It was glorious. Glorious to ride the big, powerful gelding and feel all the world about him. Everything brimming with life and energy.

  Eventually, Valentine tired and Nick dismounted. He led the gelding into town by his bridle, as much to stretch his own legs as to spare the horse’s. Thirsty now, he tied the horse up at the hitching post outside the Hope & Anchor and went inside.

  The first person he saw was Jed Hammett, leaning back against the bar, a tankard held loosely in one meaty fist. When he caught sight of Nick, his eyes gleamed with his usual expression—mingled pleasure and malice. No doubt the man was already anticipating taunting him.

  “Jed.” Nick nodded at him briefly, then turned his attention to Jim who was stepping up to the bar to serve him.

  “How do, Jim?”

  “Aw’right, Nick.” The hulking innkeeper was already reaching up for one of the tankards that hung from the hooks on the beam above the bar. “Ale, is it?”

  “Ayes.”

  As he usually did when he was speaking to one of the villagers, or Godfrey’s tenants, Nick fell back into the rhythms of his childhood speech. They were a laconic people round here for the most part. No words wasted. Ma, who had travelled all over England, said people in Porthkennack rolled their words up together to get them out with as little effort as possible.

  “Not like the folks up north. They talk slow, like they’re chewin’ on the words like tough mutton. Takes ’em all day jest to ask ’ow you are!”

  Nick was a magpie when it came to speech. As a lad, he’d had one voice for the villagers, another for Ma, and a third for Godfrey—a careful, proper English one, that one, quite close to Godfrey’s own, though with enough of the Cornishman in it to avoid being accused of mimicking, or getting above himself.

  That proper voice was the one he’d used with Ward last Sunday. He’d fallen into using it without thinking, probably because, even though Ward’s own voice was harsh and rasping, it was still precise and upper class, reminding Nick inevitably of the Roscarrocks, with those clipped consonants and distinct vowels. Nick’s proper voice was all at the front of his mouth, at the tip of his tongue, the words falling from his lips like silver pins. His Cornish burr felt entirely different. It bubbled up from under his tongue, like water from a spring.

  His Roma voice, the one he’d used only with Ma, felt like a secret part of him. One he didn’t even hear himself anymore.

  “’Ere you go, Nick,” Jim said, setting a pewter tankard down on the bar in front of Nick before moving away to serve another customer.

  Beside him, Jed turned to face him, leaning one elbow on the bar.

  “What you been up to lately then, Nick ’Earn?”

  “Nothing much,” Nick answered shortly. He lifted his ale and drank deeply.

  Jed chuckled. “Giss on!” he said, and when Nick glanced at him in query, winked at him. “I did hear tell you was up at that lunatic scientist’s house last week. Did he ’lectrify you?”

  Nick sighed. He might’ve known word would have got out about that.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Jed, but no. No ’lectrifying at all,” he answered, and lifted his tankard to his lips again.

  “I was right surprised to hear you’d been there,” Jed persisted. “You told ’im right ’ere to his face you wouldn’t go.” He raised one thick eyebrow. “Why d’you change your mind?”

  “None of your business,” Nick replied flatly.

  Jed chuckled again. “You’re not bein’ very friendly today, Nick. What’s got you so teasy?”

  “Nothin’,” Nick bit out. “What d’you want, Jed? I’m in no mood for your nonsense today.”

  It was foolish to let his temper show. Jed had an instinct for sore spots and was the type to keep pressing them out of sheer badness. But the thought of the man finding out the real reason Nick had agreed to help Ward with his experiments made Nick feel ill.

  Jed’s pale-blue gaze narrowed at Nick’s tone and his lips curled in a knowing smile. “Oh you are teasy,” he murmured. “What’s got your Gypsy breeches all twisted up, Nick?”

  Nick forced himself to stay calm, grinding his jawteeth together till he felt able to paste a semblance of a smile on his face.

  “Truth to tell, Jed, I’m having a right day of it today—old Godfrey’s in a bleddy awful mood. But Fitzwilliam?” He made himself wink. “Fact is, he’s paying me good money for my time, and all I’ve had to do so far is listen to him gab on.”

  Jed chuckled. “Is that a fact?”

  Well, no, it wasn’t. Nick hadn’t had and didn’t want a penny from Ward—the last thing he needed was to feel even more like the man’s servant—but his answer seemed to satisfy Jed, who leaned in closer, his expression all avid curiosity.

  “What’s the ’ouse like inside?” he asked. “Is it as fancy as Tom Cadzow says?”

  Nick shrugged. “Didn’t see much of it,” he said, then added, untruthfully, hoping to kill Jed’s interest, “It’s nothing like as fancy as Roscarrock House.”

  Jed looked disappointed. He turned away to catch Jim’s eye, lifting his empty tankard. The innkeepe
r, presently serving another customer, gave a nod of acknowledgement.

  “You want to watch out, you know,” Jed told Nick as he turned back. “Fitzwilliam might only be talkin’ at yer for now, but at some point ’e’s likely goin’ to want to put ’lectricity through you, and everyone knows that was what made Jago Jones’s brain go scrambled.” He jostled Nick with his elbow. “Course, Gypsy brains is likely already scrambled, I reckon.”

  Nick gritted his teeth. If he stayed here much longer, he was going to end up punching the big oaf, and given Jed was twice his size these days, Nick would likely end up spitting up teeth.

  He finished his ale in one long swallow, setting the tankard down on the bar just as Jim arrived to pick up Jed’s empty one. The innkeeper caught Nick’s eye.

  “Another for you, Nick?”

  Nick shook his head. “No, it’s back to work for me. If I drink anymore I’ll be falling asleep in front of old Roscarrock, and we can’t have that or I’ll be getting my marching orders.”

  Jed laughed. “Gawd, I’m surprised you’ve not ’ad ’em before now. Must be right tricky for you, goin’ in that ’ouse and not comin’ out with ’alf the silver in your pockets. You Gypsies are that light-fingered, the temptation must be somethin’ awful for you.” He offered Nick one of his leering grins, practically inviting him to plant a facer on him.

  “Ignore ’im, Nick,” Jim said mildly as he pumped beer into Jed’s tankard. “’E’s jest tryin’ to get a rise out of you. Bugger’s only after a fight.”