Revenge of the Barbary Ghost (17 page)

Ten

Anne quickly recovered and pointed out where the captain’s body was, indicated by a piece of fluttering cloth behind a rocky outcropping. She then went directly to her friend, murmuring to Darkefell that she must break the tragic news to the dead captain’s sister. He watched the pantomime of horror; Pamela shrieked in dismay, putting out her hands as if to push away the truth, then dissolved in tears, covering her face, her sobs carried away on the ocean breeze.

Hugging her friend in a close embrace, Anne rocked Miss St. James and patted her back while the young lad, Robbie, stood silently watching. As tender as Anne’s sensibilities clearly were, Darkefell reflected, her strength was asserted by her immediate recovery, after her brief illness, and her determination to offer her friend the comfort and support she needed in this awful moment. Though some would call Anne’s strength unwomanly, he saw it differently. No matter what life threw at her, she could accept it or overcome it. It seemed to him that women often had that role, of forbearance and fortitude. To call such inner fortitude unfeminine was to dismiss what ladies had to bear their whole lives long in childbirth, marriage and mourning.

But a grim task awaited him. Darkefell turned away from the scene of such sorrow, and bent down to examine St. James’s body. The captain had been murdered, certainly, as Anne had said, for his throat was slit with great precision and expertise, the flaps of waterlogged skin pallid and horrible. Whomever had killed him had murdered before in the same way, for the cut was appallingly precise, one deadly slash with a saber or cutlass. St. James had certainly died
before
he was in the water, judging by how the wound was scoured clean, and from the amount of ocean sand imbedded in it. If not for the tangle of rocks at the base of the cliff, his body may have been swept out to sea. Perhaps that’s what his murderer expected to happen.

The captain was dressed in just breeches and a shirt, pink-stained from blood, but it was impossible to tell if that was what he had been wearing when he died. Crouching by the body, the marquess glanced up and around, over to Anne, who held the weeping Pamela in her arms, still anxiously watched by young Robbie.

What should he do about the body and the ladies? He was grateful that he was there, and able to spare Miss Pamela some grief, perhaps, though there would be no assuaging ultimately the terrible anguish she must still suffer. As he tried to decide how to convey St. James’s body up to Cliff House, he reflected that he must remember to thank Anne’s clever maid, Mary, who had paused at the inn on her way into the village, to ask that he go to her mistress. Her Scottish blood was sure something was wrong, she said, and how right she was. He would not have wanted Anne to have to handle this on her own, even though he was sure she could have.

His glance slewed up to the cut in time to see Sanderson, Anne’s bulky driver, striding toward the frozen tableau. Darkefell motioned for him to come over, and the man obeyed instantly. “There has been a tragedy here,” the marquess said, standing, “and I wish to avoid upsetting the ladies by confronting them with the corpse of Captain St. James. Carry him up to Cliff House, concealing his state from Miss Pamela St. James as much as possible.”

He paused and looked down at the wide, staring eyes, then bent over and closed them as much as he could. “I don’t want her to see the wound, if it can be avoided,” he muttered. “Explain to the housekeeper, or whoever is there, and do not let them deter you from taking the body up to a spare room, or his own chamber, if you can establish which it is.”

Sanderson grunted his assent, bending to his somber task, and Darkefell clambered over the rocky outcropping and slid across the wet sand to the pair of women, shielding their view of the driver’s occupation as much as he could, but he was impressed, as always, by Anne’s stoic resolve. She held her friend’s head against her shoulder and spoke soothing words, but the despair in her eyes as she looked up at Darkefell made him wish he could be
her
comforter.

He put one hand on her shoulder, and spoke quietly, being as matter-of-fact as he could. “Sanderson is taking Captain St. James up to the house. Who is the magistrate for this parish?”

“Magistrate?” Miss St. James asked, wiping her tears with the back of one trembling hand. She looked up at Darkefell. “Why do you want the magistrate?”

Darkefell darted a look at Anne; did the other woman not know the state of her brother, and how he died? Anne shook her head, as if reading his thoughts. “Never mind, for now,” he said. Sanderson had strode ahead with his tragic burden. “Let us go back up to your house, Miss St. James. Are you all right to walk, or do you require assistance?”

She could walk, it seemed, but he supported her on one side, with Anne on the other, and the little boy, Robbie, just ahead; they made their way slowly back up to the house.

The next few hours were a tumult of emotion and difficult decisions. Anne sent word to St. James’s regiment, while Darkefell insisted on locating the magistrate. It wasn’t that Anne didn’t think they needed the magistrate—it was clear to her that St. James had been murdered—but having to explain it all to Pamela was heart-rending.

They were in Pamela’s room; her maid, Alice, had been sent downstairs to help Mrs. Quintrell and her daughter, for the household was in an uproar.

“Who would want to kill St. James?” Pamela cried, for the third time since Anne had explained why the magistrate was necessary. “Marcus didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

Anne returned to her friend’s side from the window, where she had been looking out to wait for Darkefell’s return with the local official. “What about this smuggling business? You knew about St. James’s part in it … is there anything else I should know? Did you know when there was to be a landing, every time?”

Pamela, tears trailing down her cheeks, covered her face with her hands. “What does any of this matter?” she said, her voice muffled. “I’d like to be alone for a while.”

“Pam, I—”

“Anne, please! Just let me be.”

So Anne left the room, pausing outside the door. It broke her heart when she heard her friend burst into anguished sobs, but perhaps Pamela needed just to cry it out. That was a woman’s prerogative, after all, and no refuge for weakness, but a path through sorrow, toward strength. Muttering a prayer out loud as she passed the room where Marcus’s poor body lay, Anne descended to find Lolly rearranging the sitting room and directing Alice where to dust.

Anne had thought Lolly would be shattered by the tragedy, but she looked up as Anne entered the room and said, “There you are, dear, just in time. If we are to have a number of gentlemen—the marquess, the magistrate and perhaps someone from Captain St. James’s regiment—I thought I would take the liberty of arranging the furniture a little better. Men dislike being crowded, in my experience, and we cannot make them sit outside, for it is increasingly damp.”

Glancing around, Anne could see the practicality of Lolly’s improvements, which was to take Pamela’s artistic furniture arrangement and push everything against the wall, leaving adequate room for booted gentlemen. She was about to comment favorably when she heard a noise outside. She glided to the window overlooking the gravel drive. Darkefell and another gentleman were dismounting their horses, and both handed the reins to Mr. Osei Boatin, who accompanied them. As they were moving toward the house, Anne recognized her own carriage pull up, and a gentleman in a regimental uniform, red cutaway coat faced in white and trimmed heavily in gold braid, stiffly got down: Colonel Sir Henry Withington.

The men greeted each other in the hale and hearty male pattern, handshakes, bows, claps on the back. No falling on each other’s necks in a time of sorrow, as women do. Anne felt a tug of humor at the picture that would make, if they but behaved as ladies would in such a circumstance, but pushed away the thought. This was no time for levity; poor, dear Marcus was dead. She straightened her stomacher, patting her full, dark skirts into place. This was a house of mourning, and the formal patterns must be observed. Soberly, she greeted the gentlemen, while Lolly, eerily calm and organized in the face of tragedy, trotted out to the kitchen to order the obligatory refreshments.

Darkefell leaned close to Anne and murmured, brief and to the point, “I’ve made free with your driver and carriage; Sanderson is going off to fetch the local vicar, a Mr. Barkley. He’ll return with him directly.” He then straightened and said, “Lady Anne Addison, may I introduce to you Mr. Alexander Rokeby Twynam, the magistrate of this parish. And you’ve already met Colonel Sir Henry Withington, an old acquaintance of mine and Captain St. James’s regimental colonel.” The men made appropriate obeisance, and sat where directed, uncomfortably filling the small, gloomy room.

Colonel Withington was the first to speak, as he removed his sword from his hip, laying it across his lap. “Lady Anne, this is a terrible occurrence. St. James, from my brief acquaintance with him, seemed charming and a credit to the uniform. Is Miss St. James going to join us? I would like to express my sympathy.”

“She is indisposed, as you can well imagine,” Anne answered, gravely. “I am acting in her stead, gentlemen, and have her permission to speak for her in matters concerning her brother.”

Mr. Twynam, a large, heavy gentleman dressed in an enormous embroidered frock coat and wearing an impeccable wig, leaned forward, the chair beneath him creaking ominously, and said, “My lady, I
will
require a few minutes with Miss St. James today. I’ve got some concerns about what has been happening with this smuggling gang, and Mr. Puddicombe, the local excise officer, has made some rather grave accusations.”

“What kind of accusations?” Anne said, her tone shrill, her stomach churning. Puddicombe … that was the fellow Anne had seen Pamela with in the alley the day before, the one with whom she was arguing.

“I should perhaps not call them ‘accusations,’ my lady; more like questions he has raised. Nothing with which to concern yourself, but I will need to speak with Miss St. James just to clear things up. And my lord,” he said, turning to the marquess. “I was told by my son, who is a lieutenant in the Light Dragoons, that you and Captain St. James had a rather vicious bout of fisticuffs at the regimental assembly a few nights past. The captain sustained the worst of the scrap, I hear. What was the quarrel about?”

Darkefell turned crimson, the telltale vein pulsing in his temple. Anne watched him, wondering if he would confess what St. James had said to make him so angry.

“I think if you wish to know what it concerned,” he said, his jaw square and his teeth clenched, “some of St. James’s intimates in the regiment will be able to tell you. Many of them were standing about and heard the captain.”

“Would it not be simpler if you just told me?”

“No,” Darkefell said, and did not elaborate.

The magistrate eyed him, his brow furrowed in thought, but said nothing further.

Lolly flitted in just then and was introduced. The magistrate bowed deeply over her hand and she twittered a greeting, her pale eyes wide as she curtseyed. But the older woman swiftly excused herself and gestured to Anne to follow her. When they got out to the hall at the bottom of the staircase, Lolly breathlessly said, “Miss St. James is distraught … almost hysterical. I cannot calm her, Anne.”

“I’ll go up, then,” Anne said, casting her gaze up the stairs. She could hear Pamela’s voice, becoming louder and more shrill. She was not going to let her friend be subjected to any kind of male browbeating, so she swiftly went back into the sitting room and said, as the men all stood, “You will have to excuse me, gentlemen. Poor Miss St. James is suffering acutely, as you can imagine, and I must go to her.”

“Of course, my lady,” the magistrate said, bowing, a ponderous action in one so large. “I
will
need to speak with her, though.”

“Mr. Twynam,” Colonel Withington said, irritation in his tone, “I’m sure you can excuse Miss St. James for a couple of days.”

“No, I cannot. If the lady wishes us to find out who killed her brother, she alone can provide information about his most intimate conversations and thoughts. I
will
see her.”

Anne understood his insistence, and felt it best to placate him. “If you’ll just allow her to speak with the vicar first, about services for her brother, I think it will make her calmer and give her time to compose her thoughts. The vicar is on his way even now, I believe.”

He bowed again. “That is eminently sensible, Lady Anne. You are doubtlessly a most valuable friend for Miss St. James to have in this tragic circumstance.”

Anne excused herself and rushed up the stairs. Pamela turned to her as she entered the room while Alice, the maid, escaped, and said, “It’s my fault! It’s my fault St. James was murdered. I have been thinking of it for hours and cannot escape the conclusion. It’s
all
my fault.”

“Calm yourself, Pam,” Anne said, glancing back to the door. “There is no time for hysterics. We must talk about what you will tell those men about St. James’s activities last night.”

***

Darkefell took the two men to see St. James’s body, where it had been laid, in his room. He described the body’s position on the rocks, and how it appeared likely that the high tide had swept it there, leading to the inescapable conclusion that the captain had been killed the night before. Twynam frowned down at St. James, and expressed his determination to search the beach where the captain had been found.

Looking down at the pale dead body of Marcus St. James, Darkefell experienced an odd moment of self-knowledge; he was not particularly sorry that the captain was dead, except in the sense that the fellow was far too young to return to his Maker. He didn’t know him well enough to be sorry, perhaps, but he hadn’t liked him. The fellow was intolerably rude about Anne, an unforgivable slight, particularly as he was a serious competitor for Anne’s hand. Darkefell acknowledged a deep, dark part of himself that was glad to have his competition swept aside. St. James would not have made Anne happy. He had concluded that only
he
could do that, and though perhaps that was an overinflated opinion of his worth, he believed it firmly. Anne deserved better than Captain Marcus St. James, wastrel and roué; she deserved the Marquess of Darkefell.