Fire at Midnight (30 page)

You will have a difficult time proving him responsible for what happened to James. Jacques’s head came up
sharply as he remembered Rachael’s words. He recalled a similar comment made by Sebastién. He had implied that Jacques would have an easier time proving that he killed his housekeeper.

Had the words been a confession? Jacques remembered, too, that one of the last things Sebastién had said had been “perhaps she is already dead.” He roared in outrage and swept the ledger to the floor with a shaking hand.

His cry brought a wild-eyed aide into the room with his sword drawn. Jacques was perched at the edge of the small secretary, face ashen.

“I wish to undertake a search for a former servant of this household, a housekeeper known as Mrs. Faraday.”

“A woman’s things still occupy a servant’s chamber just off the kitchen,” the aide dutifully informed him. “It could be that the lady plans to return.” He paused. “Or, it could be that she no longer has need of her belongings.”

The aide flinched when Jacques cursed and kicked at the desk. His foot caught the ledger and he nearly tripped; only the quick reflexes of his aide kept him from falling. He snatched up the ledger and handed it to the man.

“Sir, what shall I do with it?” he inquired, turning the volume over in his hands.

Jacques eyed the ledger with distaste. “Burn it.”

N
o one knew with greater certainty than Jacques that James Penrose was alive, but he did not plan to initiate a search for him until Sebastién had been executed. James Penrose was in Phillip Morgan’s care, probably somewhere in or around London, and there he would remain for the time being.

There was no risk that the female infant would resurface. The foundling had been placed on the steps of an orphanage after he had extracted a confession from Simon and sent Simon and his strange sidekick as far away as his authority would allow.

He was certain Sebastién was a wrecker; he had Adrienne’s pendant to prove it. The necklace had been evidence enough for him, but not enough for the Court of the Exchequer. His attempts to have Sebastién tried as a wrecker had repeatedly failed, and now it no longer mattered to him that his brother would die for a crime he had not committed. Sebastién was guilty of a heinous, personal crime against the woman Jacques had loved.

The only detail that pricked his conscience was how to break the news of Sebastién’s death to their mother. Eleanor had spent her life pining for the son she had been forced to abandon.

Jacques remembered many attempts to retrieve Sebastién during his childhood, all thwarted by Hugh, who finally resorted to threats against Eleanor and her “Englishman son” if she did not end her attempts to contact Sebastién.

Eleanor had disappeared following Phillip Morgan’s proposal of marriage. After years of unsuccessful appeals to Hugh to be reunited with her son, Jacques thought it likely that his mother had returned to France with the intention of demanding her right to know her son.

Jacques had sent Tarry Morgan north to Phillip Morgan’s London residence, with Rachael as his companion. Rachael had agreed to the journey out of concern for Tarry’s health, but when she recognized it was a forced departure under heavy escort, she had seemed to guess his plan to have her out of the way and had coldly informed him she intended to return in time for Sebastién’s trial.

From the moment she had discovered that the Eddystone Lighthouse had, in fact, been washed away, Jacques had suspected she might side against him on behalf of his brother. The decision to send her north had been followed by his decision to move Sebastién to a location from where news would not flow as speedily.

At his brother’s order, Sebastién had been bound, blindfolded, and taken to another village in the southwest of England near Lizard Point, where he was not as well known. As a secondary strategy to weaken the bond between them, Jacques had arranged for Rachael to leave for London without being told that Sebastién had made several requests to see her. If she did by chance reappear before the conclusion of the assize, she would be told that he refused to see her.

A trial was imminent. Assizes were staged twice a year; only the very influential had the power to request that one be held off schedule. He had called in several favors in order to bring about a special commission. By moving Sebastién during Rachael’s absence, it was unlikely that she would be able to discover the new location of the trial before he was tried and executed.

His plan fell just short of outright murder, and he was anxious to have it done.

Sebastién squinted against the light when he was brought out of the tiny cell into the barred waiting area. The dirt-floored cage that contained him had been damp and dark, with barely enough room to contain a human being. Jacques noticed that his gait was stiff when he moved, as if walking upright had become difficult.

“For all the attention you’ve been given,” Jacques said, “you look no better for it.”

Several days’ growth of beard shadowed his brother’s face. The unkempt black hair that fell across his brow was matted with dirt and dried blood from a deep gash the physician had resutured. His eyes were lackluster, flat and distrustful. His clothing hung torn and filthy on his lean frame, and his cheekbones were ruddy from a fever. Jacques had sent for a physician to ensure that his prisoner remained alive long enough to try and execute him, and the irony did not escape either of them.

“I am touched by your concern,” Sebastién replied in a hoarse growl. His lips had cracked and bled, and his face was marked by new bruises.

“It will not suit my purpose to have you die before you have been judged. I have no desire to make a folk hero of a criminal.” There was no mistaking the blazing defiance in the eyes staring back at him. Jacques fidgeted in his chair.

Sebastién narrowed his eyes against the light, a twisted smirk on his lips.

“If you think my death will end smuggling and stop the fairtraders, you are stupid. A man in your position must know by now that if a gallows was constructed every quarter of a mile along the coast, the trade would still go on briskly.”

“This coast will finally be free of the man who led the bloodiest band of wreckers Cornwall has ever seen. Cornwall will be a much safer place after you have been committed to the ground.”

“The man who led the wreckers drowned the day you arrested me. I witnessed his death. That is why the wreckings stopped.”

“How will you prove it?” Jacques sneered. “With a promise of gold to anyone who will lie for you? Or will you use force and send that blond, tattooed monstrosity—?”

Sebastién sprang forward with an agility that belied his condition. “The Dane,” he said with brutal clarity, “is a friend of mine. Be careful what you say; I have nothing to lose. I don’t need to bribe or threaten. All I need is to have my evidence weighed against yours before an honest judge.”

“You won’t bribe or bully your way to freedom. I will send you to the gallows this time.”

“I will live to see you fairtrading for your daily bread after Customs casts you out as inept!” Sebastién predicted in a low growl.

Jacques flushed with anger. He crossed his arms against the urge to strike out at the helpless, shackled man before him. There was a more effective means of retaliation. His jaw flexed, and his smile was a feral baring of white teeth.

“You should reconsider your case,” Jacques said. “Where is your proof? Who are your witnesses?”

Sebastién swayed, and the chains clinked in faint echo of the movement. His eyes, sharp with wit, were focused upon his brother’s face. The guard cleared his throat, and the cry of vendors on the street outside drifted to them in the silence as he waited for Jacques’s next words.

“Rachael has been aligned with Customs all along,” Jacques said. “She’s made quite a fool of you.” He saw pain and uncertainty flicker across his brother’s face before he could mask it.

“Liar,” Sebastién growled.

“Oh, but I assure you, it’s true. She fled to London immediately after your arrest. I hope you haven’t been waiting for a visit. She has no plans to return south, and no interest in your fate.”

Sebastién once again denounced him as a liar.

“If I were lying to you, would I know about the ledger?”

Sebastién’s head jerked up at the question. “If you’ve read the ledger, then you know I am innocent.”

“Innocent, no. I only know that you are resourceful,” Jacques said evenly. “You will not have enough time before the trial to commission another forgery.”

“It was not a forgery! Did you read it?” The guards reacted to the rising tone of his voice as he took a faltering step toward Jacques, his movement restricted by the chains. “Where is it?” Sebastién demanded.

“It is a mound of ash in your parlor fireplace,” Jacques informed him, with a note of triumph.

Sebastién uttered a low, guttural cry and lunged at him, but the guards were upon him in an instant. They had been tensed like tight coils, ready to spring at the first hint of trouble from their mercurial charge.

“Take me back to the cage,” Sebastién said in a hoarse voice, “before I tear him limb from limb!”

They escorted him to the outer common cell door with Jacques following closely.

“Once you return to your dark hole, you should reflect upon why Rachael gave your evidence to me. Real or not, it might have saved you, yet she gave it to
me.
She and I spent many pleasurable hours at court together, if you will recall. She’s played you for a fool,
brother
.” The last was said as if he had uttered a curse.

Sebastién could still hear the taunt hours later.

The coach carrying Rachael and Tarry rolled up the narrow drive, coasted through the sharp turn of the servants’ entrance, and stopped. Phillip Morgan’s modern London residence was a simple rectangular design, tall and narrow with a hipped roof that sloped upward on all four sides from eaves to ridge.

Rachael had never visited the London Morgan residence before. Tarry had always preferred the family estate in the south, but since Victor had reduced the Morgan ancestral home to ruins, Tarry was forced to recuperate in less familiar surroundings.

An efficient, hand-picked staff managed the London residence. Phillip Morgan’s ability to assemble order out of chaos was a skill emulated by his staff, and within minutes, the entire household was assembled. Rachael fretted over Tarry when he was removed from the coach by the butler and two footmen. A doctor was summoned posthaste, and Tarry was put to bed.

The staff bustled about, every action focused upon the health and comfort of their employer’s offspring. Rachael followed the flow of human traffic and ended up in the kitchen, where the cook pressed a steaming cup of tea into her hands with the claim that the herbal concoction was capable of banishing all manner of woe.

Her hands shook as she accepted the dainty cup and saucer, spilling the scalding liquid on her hand. Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, my dear,” Mrs. Lively said, “are you burned, miss?”

“No,” Rachael said. She lowered her head, embarrassed that a stranger should see her thus. “Heartbroken,” she confessed.

“Now don’t you worry about young Tarry. As soon as Master Phillip returns, he’ll see that all’s put to right. Your young man will be fine.”

“He isn’t my … I mean, Tarry and I have been friends since we were children. Where is Tarry’s father?” The news that Phillip was not in residence distressed her. She had counted on asking for Phillip’s intervention on Sebastién’s behalf.

“He’s as much a mystery as the Lady Eleanor herself,” Mrs. Lively confided. “Lady Eleanor turned up again just days ago, all weary and agitated after weeks of not a word, and then Master Phillip went missing. The whole household is abuzz over it.”

Rachael tried to listen, but was distracted by her own troubles. She did not have much interest in news of Eleanor. She had never met the woman. Her thoughts were centered on Tarry’s recovery, and Sebastién’s survival.

“ … tiptoeing up and down the hallway so as not to disturb her,” Mrs. Lively was saying, “so afraid she’ll disappear again before the master returns. She’s been in such a state that we’ve been tempted to lock her in the guest bedchamber to keep her here.”