“Answer one question for me, Ellington. Why would you kill Louis Cranford? You were his friend.”
Ellington shook his head as he stepped forward into the light spilling from the ballroom, where the orchestra was beginning to play. His face was contorted with rage that was, Arthur realized, not aimed at him. “I was not Cranford’s friend. Maybe once, but not for a long time. He had no friends.”
“I was his friend.” But Arthur would not have remained Cranny’s friend after learning how he had abused Gwendolyn.
Lord, in how many other ways have I walked through life without seeing? Or seeing, but not comprehending what is before my eyes. Not being there for those who need me because I failed to recognize their need. Not holding up those whom I love. How many have I hurt or allowed to be hurt while I went on the path I thought You chose for me? How can I learn how to tell them how important they are to me?
From the deepest recesses of his heart, he heard Maris knows how.
He glanced toward the ballroom. She would not be there. Instead, she would be in the nursery, close to the children who adored her and whom she adored. She never was stinting with her love, showing it freely. When he had drawn her into his arms and kissed her, love was on her lips. Why had he questioned it?
“If you were his friend,” Ellington said, “you were his last friend, Trelawney. He liked keeping you in the dark about his true nature. I am not sure why, but I think it amused him.” He swallowed roughly. “He joked about how you were as gullible as a child, and he could make you believe anything he wanted. As he had his wife until…” He looked away as he muttered, “No gentleman should act as he did with any woman, most especially his wife.”
“I agree, now that I know the truth.”
Ellington stood straighter. “I wondered why you did nothing about that, but I assumed you had your reasons.”
“Ignorance is the only reason I had.” Arthur rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Tell me about the duel you fought with him. The night he died.”
“It began when he challenged me.”
“You could have walked away.”
“I tried, but he threatened to fire a ball into my coachee. I could not allow that to happen. Cummings has served my family long and loyally.” Ellington’s hands fisted at his sides before he crossed his arms in front of him. “I know what you are thinking. I could have fired in the air and let honor be settled.”
“But Cranny would not have returned the favor.”
“No.”
“Go on.”
Ellington did. “We fired at the same time. I was struck in the arm and knocked from my feet. I lost my senses. When I awoke later in my own bed, I was told my shot had found its mark. Apparently Cranford tried to flee, but was found dead among the trees.” Tears rose in his eyes. “I am left with the burden of knowing I took another man’s life.”
“Are you certain it is your burden?”
Ellington’s gaze searched his face like a man seeking water in the desert. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t see your shot take him down.”
“But it must have. Who else could have slain him?”
Arthur sighed. “You know, as I do, the list of suspects would be very, very long. It could have been someone who took advantage of the situation or someone loyal to you.”
“Not Cummings! He had no weapon.”
“I am not accusing him. I have no doubts he, as a longtime servant to your family, was focused on your welfare. He must have been so busy tending to you that he would not have noticed anything else.”
“And he is half-deaf.” Ellington’s expression relaxed from lines of fear and self-hatred. “If he had his back to the other side of the field, he would not have heard a pistol fired.”
“It looks as if we will never know the truth.” Arthur sighed, knowing Gwendolyn was right. He needed to put aside the past he could not change and look toward the future. “Thank you, Ellington, for being honest with me.”
“I am glad I could finally tell the truth. I…” He looked past Arthur.
“Excuse me.” A woman’s voice came from the shadows. “Are you Lord Trelawney?”
He turned to discover a young woman emerging from the darkness. He could not see much of her face. “Yes, I am Arthur Trelawney.”
“I am Belinda Bell. Lady Belinda Bell.” She dampened her lips, then said, “Maris Oliver is…or I should say, she was my friend until I betrayed her.”
“I am sorry. I don’t understand.” He noted the fine fabric of Lady Belinda’s gown and recalled her father was a well-respected member of the peerage. Why would she call Maris her friend?
For the same reason you wish to give Maris your heart. Because she is a wonderful woman with a heart big enough to welcome everyone into it, no matter if they are of the ton or a waif cast upon the sands of Porthlowen Cove. Did she have a place for him there? He prayed he had not made such a complete muddle of everything that she had closed her heart to him.
“From a young age, we were friends,” Lady Belinda said. “Her family’s home was close to my father’s estate. Both her mother and father hoped she would meet someone with a higher rank than gentry, so they were delighted with our friendship. My own father was mourning my mother’s death, and he was glad for anything and anyone who kept me busy so he could be alone with his grief. When I asked, he even agreed to allow Maris to take lessons with me, both in the schoolroom and in deportment and dancing and other skills a lady needs to know.”
“I see.” That explained one aspect of Maris that always puzzled him. She curtsied as beautifully as a young miss about to be presented at court before embarking upon her first London Season.
“But then I betrayed her.”
“You said that before. Would you please explain?”
Whatever Lady Belinda might have said went unspoken as his name was shouted in a childish voice.
Bertie!
Seeing the little boy poking his head past the open door, Arthur rushed to him. He knelt in front of the child, who stared at him wide-eyed.
“What are you doing here, Bertie?”
“Be a bear!”
Baffled, he asked, “A bear?”
“Arthur is a bear. Be a bear. Bite hard. Run hard. Go fast.”
Arthur put his hand on Bertie’s shoulder. The little boy shivered as if caught in a north wind. Something had scared him. What?
“I am sorry, Bertie,” he said. “I don’t understand.”
From behind him, Lady Belinda murmured, “They get such odd ideas at that age. Do not let him unsettle you, my lord. I need to explain everything to you, so you can explain to Maris why I did not speak to her earlier.”
“Maris!” Bertie exclaimed. He tugged on Arthur’s sleeve as if afraid Lady Belinda had his full attention. “Maris!”
Gently Arthur drew the little boy’s fingers away. Holding Bertie’s elbows, he bowed his head so his eyes were even with the child’s. “Maris is not here, Bertie.”
“I know. Maris not here.”
“Shall we look for her together?”
Lady Belinda cried, “But, my lord, I need to speak to you!”
“I am sorry, my lady, but it must wait.” He never took his gaze from Bertie’s face as he stood and held out his hand. “Shall we go? Maris may be looking for you because you are not in bed.”
“No, Maris! Maris gone!”
Arthur froze at the child’s panicked words.
“Oh, no!” Lady Belinda swayed on her feet. “My warning is too late. He has found her.”
“He?”
“Lord Litchfield!”
“What are you talking about?” Arthur clamped his mouth closed when Lady Belinda swooned, dropping toward the terrace. He caught her before she could strike her head on the stones. Looking from her limp form to the little boy waiting impatiently in the doorway, he promised he would express his apologies to the lady later. For now…
He shoved Lady Belinda into Ellington’s arms. �
�See that she is taken somewhere to lie down while she recovers.”
“But, Trelawney—”
He did not wait to hear what else the man had to say. Scooping up the little boy, he pelted him with questions. With every word the boy spoke, Arthur’s fear grew, until it crashed over him like storm waves upon the shore.
A man shouting at Maris and dragging her to a door.
A carriage waiting just outside.
Another man flinging her into it.
“Pray for Maris?” Bertie asked, pressing his cheek to Arthur’s.
“Yes, Bertie. Pray Maris will be here soon.”
And uninjured, he added silently.
Taking time to leave the boy with Carrie, along with a hasty explanation that left her as pale as Lady Belinda, Arthur ran to the stable. He called for a horse, urging the stable boy to move at top speed. While he waited, he talked to the servants there, asking if they had seen Litchfield’s carriage and where it had gone.
South across the moor. There was only one road wide enough for a carriage in that direction.
Getting a description of the vehicle, which was distinctive with the red edging on its doors and windows, he swung into the saddle and turned the horse toward the gate. Litchfield had a head start, but a horse was faster than a carriage. If it did not turn off the road, he had a chance to catch it.
God, please help me get there before something more happens to her.
Chapter Sixteen
Pain crashed through Maris’s head, and a moan slipped from her lips. Lord Litchfield had smiled as he struck her as they neared a city along the south coast of Cornwall. She had already guessed it was Penzance, so there was no need for him to knock her unconscious.
The floor beneath her shifted, but she did not hear the horses’ hooves on the road. So why was the carriage still moving?
“Ye wakin’ up, dearie?” asked a scratchy voice that sounded as if the speaker had not had anything to drink in too long.
“Who…?” The single word sent another cacophony of pain along her skull.
“Slowly, dearie. Make haste slowly.”
It was good advice, and Maris heeded it. Talking was too much. Could she open her eyes? She tried and failed. She waited while she counted to twenty, then attempted again what should be easy.
Her eyelids rose, but it did not make any difference. The air was ebony, without a hint of light. Was she blind?
Did she ask that question aloud? Because the scratchy voice—a woman’s, she realized now—said, “Even if ye had a cat’s eyes to look through the dark down here, there be nothin’ t’see except us poor souls.”
Soft sobs came from the darkness.
“Who…?” She refused to give in to the pain. “Who else is here?”
“All of us who have been sent here t’be sent away.”
Maris tried to unscramble the bizarre answer, which made no sense to her. Had Lord Litchfield’s blow unsettled her mind?
She had to sit up. The motion beneath her was sending water through her clothes. Where was she? When she put her hand up to find a wall to steady herself, she recognized the horizontal curve of the boards beside her. She had touched similar ones during her tour with the children of Captain Nesbitt’s ship.
What was she doing aboard a ship?
Before she could ask, a woman cried out, “My daughter! My daughter! My dearest child!”
“What happened to your child?” Maris asked. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw at least a dozen women in the hold.
One crawled to where Maris sat and pushed her face close. Her hair was a matted tangle, and her clothes were tattered and smelled like an open sewer.
“They took her from me,” the woman cried. “I had her with me, and they took her and sent her back to Lord Warrick’s minin’ village.”
Maris could not hide her astonishment as she asked, “A little girl? Taken from the mining village?”
The distraught woman pressed her filthy apron to her face. Through the thin fabric, she wailed, “She be all I got left. My poor baby!”
Such a simple explanation for a mystery that had unsettled everyone at Cothaire, as well as Lord Warrick. As soon as she found her way out of this horrid place, Maris would return to Mr. Miller’s house and share the truth with Arthur.
“I am sorry,” Maris said. “I have children I care for deeply, too.”
“I wanted to bring my child with me. How could I leave her behind forever?”
“Forever?” she asked, suddenly fearful of the direction of her own thoughts. A ship. Filthy women. A child left behind forever. That added up to…the nightmare that had haunted her after Lord Bellemore’s threats. Being sent far from England to a penal colony on the other side of the world.
“There be no comin’ back from bein’ transported,” the woman with the scratchy voice said. “Ye may be sentenced for seven years, but how will ye pay t’get back here? Once gone, always gone.”
A chorus of agreement came from the cramped hold, and a woman who had not spoken before said, “It may be better than what we are leavin’ here. I plan t’find me a fine young man who will treat me better than my husband did when he left me t’take the blame for his sellin’ stolen stuff for his mates. Fourteen years I am banished from England, but they be fourteen years I don’t have t’see his ugly face. I escaped a certain death, and I will take any chance for life.” She leaned forward, her foul breath puffing into Maris’s face. “How many years did ye get?”
“None!” Panic made her voice squeak. She took a steadying breath. “I am not guilty of a crime.”
Laughter rang through the hold. Even the woman who lamented about her lost child laughed.
“Ye are not standin’ in front of the justice, dearie. Ye can tell us the truth. No sense pretendin’ t’be innocent now.”
“But I am telling the truth!” She pushed herself to her feet, taking care not to hit her head on the low rafters. “I was never arrested. I never was brought before the justice of the peace. I was never convicted of a crime, because I never committed one! I should not be here. I need to get off this ship.”
Jeers and hisses were aimed at her until a voice at the far end of the hold spoke.
“Heed her,” the woman said. “She could be speakin’ the truth. Listen t’her. Talks like a fine lady.”
“Bah,” argued the woman with the scratchy voice. “We got caught and convicted. Life isn’t fair, but no sense pleadin’ innocent now. And fine ladies do crimes, too.”
The other woman said, “Shut yer chops, ye old crone! Ye know ye don’t need t’be a criminal t’be sent off on this ship to the end of the earth. Captain Evans be willin’ t’transport anyone for a price. Ye are not the first, m’girl, and ye will not be the last.”
“But how is that possible?” Maris sank to the floor, ignoring the water that soaked her gown. “How can people just disappear?”
“Others know, but why would they admit they have paid the captain t’take care of their problem of gettin’ rid of an unwanted wife, or a daughter who is just another mouth to feed?”
She put her hands over her face. Lord Litchfield had told her he wanted her gone from England so she had no chance to tell his betrothed what type of man he truly was. She had thought he was lying, as he had often, but for once he had told the truth.
“Where are we bound?” she asked in little more than a whisper.
“Van Diemen’s Land.”
She surrendered to tears. Her nightmare was coming true. Van Diemen’s Land was in the distant reaches of the southern Pacific. If she survived the journey—and she knew many did not—she would be condemned to hard labor and horrible conditions that killed many more. That did not seem as horrible as knowing she would never see Arthur again, never be able to tell him of her lies and ask for his forgiveness, as she had asked God’s. She would never again sing with the children and lead them in a jubilant dance.
From overhead, she heard running footsteps and shouted orders. The crew was
getting ready to cast off. Once they did, she would never be able to return to the ones she loved.
Lord Litchfield had tried to destroy her life once before. This time, it seemed he had succeeded.
*
Feeling his horse straining beneath him, Arthur rode along the darkened street. He saw St. Michael’s Mount in the bay, its great house at the top of the island’s steep hill. He looked up every alley he passed and down onto the piers where ships waited to catch the tide.
He had not once seen Litchfield’s carriage ahead of him, but he kept going. There were no signs of it turning off the main road on the nearly nine miles across the breadth of Cornwall. Following the curve of the bay, he slowed when he saw an elegant carriage near a pier where a ship was getting ready to sail.
The carriage looked as out of place as a saddle on a sow. As the ship beside it rocked, lights on the deck flashed over it, revealing the red stripes on its doors.
Arthur swung down from his horse and scanned the area. Seeing some men lounging, half-asleep, against some barrels, he walked to them. A quick question, and a few coins from his hands to theirs, and they were ready to answer his queries and follow his orders. He sent one boy running for the harbormaster, and another was directed to watch over his horse.
To the others, burly men he was glad could be bought to be on his side, Arthur said, “Keep that carriage from leaving!”
He did not wait to see how the dock rats managed that. He knew they would, because he had promised them a very generous additional payment if they did as he requested.
Instead, he charged along the pier to where a plank granted access to the ship the men had pointed out to him. As he thought of what they had witnessed, he raced up the plank. Shouts came from behind him, and he saw the coachee stepping out of the box as the dock rats blocked the carriage’s departure.
A burly sailor stepped from the shadows as soon as Arthur reached the top of the plank.
Arthur did not give him a chance to speak. Instead, he demanded, “Where is your captain?”
“He is busy.”
Again borrowing the self-important tone he despised in other aristocrats, he said, “Tell him that Lord Trelawney is busy, too. Get him now.”
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