Isabel was astonished at what she saw inside the one-roomed cottage. She stood and stared by the door as the rain pounded down outside. Nick moved into the room and banged his head on a rafter. He cursed it soundly. He turned on Isabel to challenge her to remonstrate with him but she seemed not to have heard. She seemed frozen for a few moments, then she moved inside, scrutinizing everything closely. She was in a fully furnished room with ornaments on the mantelshelf, kindling wood laid in the hearth, cheap cloth for curtains pulled back at the two shuttered windows and bedding rolled up on a wide bench that served as a bed. The small square table was laid ready for two people.
The cottage had obviously been empty for years. Everything in it was shrouded in layers of dust and cobwebs. It seemed sacrilege to disturb anything. In every crack and crevice of the walls, rags were stuffed to keep out the draughts. The thick walls kept out the worst of the cold and muffled the sound of the wind which was now howling like a demented wild animal.
‘How long has it been empty like this?’ she asked, many more questions poised on her lips.
‘Three or four years.’
‘I would have thought the common people would have taken everything out of here long ago,’ Isabel stated wonderingly, gingerly pulling a dish towel from the string washing line tied across the hearth. It brought down a confusion of dust and made her cough. When the dust had settled, she used the towel to wipe thick dust off a stool and sat down on it. ‘Some of the furniture looks well made and there seem to be some other nice pieces in the room.’ She looked up at Nick and her heart froze. There was a tempest forming outside and from the expression on his face there was one raging inside him. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘Clear up the rest of this mess,’ he growled. ‘You’re a woman so there ought to be some sort of house cleaning instinct in you. I’ll light a fire and we’ll eat.’
‘Won’t people be curious to see smoke coming out of the chimney?’
‘Not many folk come past this way and if someone does I’m counting on them being too scared of the ghosts to investigate. They won’t come in without knocking and you earn hide behind the door while I send them on their way. Now get on with some work!’
Isabel shot him a look of sheer loathing. His rudeness appalled her. She got up and rubbed her icy hands together to get her circulation flowing and tried to recall what her housemaids did while cleaning a room. Deciding they would probably first ensure there was a usable table, she denied herself the warmth of her cloak to work more efficiently and began wiping the table down. She cast uncertain glances at Nick as he used terse movements and swore in even worse language until he got a small blaze under way. He stood up and bumped his head again which resulted in him angrily kicking a tin jug out of his way. Its clattering jarred on Isabel’s nerves.
‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ she snapped.
Nick grabbed a broom and thrust it at her. ‘Sweep the floor,’ was his moody reply.
‘Nick.’ Her tone was softer, coaxing, as she left the table and accepted the broom. She was suddenly weary and did not want to quarrel with him. ‘Have I done something to upset you?’
‘Said,’ he rapped back.
‘Said? Then pray tell me what it was I said.’ She tried a small friendly smile but he wasn’t interested.
‘If you want to eat, woman, get this place clean, and quit jawing on me.’
Isabel flinched under the icy sting of his words. Shaking her head she set about sweeping the floor. The dust rose and made her choke and she could feel Nick sniggering. It took a real effort to ignore him. She went back over every word she had spoken since they’d plunged through the cottage door. She had not said much before he’d become silent and angry, only a remark about the ordinary people not taking things from the cottage. But she had not used the word ordinary, it had been common. Was that what had upset him? She had not meant to sound patronizing, or superior, or to make a reference to their different stations that was offensive. He was such a prickly man. How was one to take him?
When the room was a little less dusty he suddenly pushed the canvas bag into her arms. ‘Mundy put some food in there, put it on the table,’ he ordered her.
Isabel gritted her teeth. She dearly wanted to put the broom about his back or strangle him with the neckerchief Mundy had bought for him.
When they were sitting, she on the stool, he on the only chair, warmed by the crackling furze fire, eating pilchard pies off the wrappings Mundy had put the food in, Isabel broke the stony silence.
‘I did not mean to cause offence when I made the remark about the “common people” to you, if that is the reason why you are angry with me again.’
‘Your sort never miss a chance to show how much better you are than us more ordinary mortals. Better houses, better clothes, better manners,’ Nick snarled, breaking off a crust of pastry and pointedly ramming it into his mouth.
‘You are very touchy about the subject.’ Isabel looked at him squarely. ‘Are you ashamed of your station in life? Perhaps you secretly hold the desire to be rich or a gentleman yourself.’
Nick remained completely unruffled which put Isabel on the defensive. ‘No, you just remind me of all that’s bad about your class.’
‘Oh? And what is that?’
‘Let’s begin with injustice. Not paying a labourer or servant his worth. Enclosing the common pasture land so folk can no longer rightfully graze their livestock. Sending a child to prison for taking a rabbit to save his family from starving—’
‘We’re not all like that I’ll have you know,’ Isabel broke in.
Nick guffawed and his scathing expression told her he singled her out particularly in his accusations.
‘It would help if people didn’t spend so much of their earnings on liquor,’ she said quietly, trying not to show how upset he was making her.
‘It would help more if some of the landowners who grumble about that didn’t insist on paying part of a labourer’s wages with cider.’
‘It would help if the public-house keepers did not allow men to become credited with an ale account they cannot afford to pay.’
‘It would help more if those who are better off really cared about the working folk having a better standard of living and provided more educational places where they could learn how to better their lot.’
‘You’re impossible,’ she countered, resisting the impulse to hurl the pilchard pie wrappings at him. ‘You try my patience, Nick Nancarrow. You know as well as I do that the Bassets have provided scholastic facilities.’ Then her tone softened, ‘I don’t have to bother with you but if I have to endure your company I would rather it was on congenial terms.’
Nick was staring at her lips and she couldn’t contain the colour that was creeping up her face. She found it disconcerting, his habit of only briefly holding eye contact while they conversed then dropping his dazzling eyes to her lips. Why did he do it? Because he wanted her to stop talking or – and this was what was causing the blush – because he wanted to kiss her?
‘I… what I had meant to say was that with so many ordinary people being so poor and in need, I was surprised they had not taken some of the things left in the cottage. They need them so badly. A wrecked sailing ship is rapidly stripped of its assets so why not an abandoned cottage? I wasn’t criticizing the people.’ She waited hopefully for a positive reaction from Nick.
He opened a bottle of ale he had bought at the Basset’s Cove Inn and took a mouthful, wiping his mouth on his shirt sleeve. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes, it’s the truth… Why don’t you like me?’ she asked, looking at her food then at him.
‘Why should I?’ he asked levelly.
Isabel shrugged her graceful shoulders. You liked my uncle…’
‘Why should that mean I should like you?’
‘It doesn’t!’
It was nearly dark in the cottage, with only the firelight illuminating Isabel’s face. She had turned angrily from him. The flames gave the side of her taut face a creamy-golden sheen to add to the roses put there by their recent exertions. Nick couldn’t believe now that he had once thought her sharp-faced. She had a delicately shaped but proud chin which combined with her straight nose and smooth brow to give her a fine aristocratic profile. She turned to pick up the water flask.
Nick watched her lips as she drank demurely. He wondered how many men had pressed their lips to hers, had felt their softness. Something inside him stirred and caught him unawares. He had kept control of his baser instincts in this young woman’s company, telling himself he could never desire such a creature, but he was suddenly caught with his guard down. Damn the firelight! He was not a romantic man. No woman had had that effect on him before. Certainly not a haughty madam like this one. She was angry with him. He had upset her. It made her grey eyes darker, almost black in the shadows of her face. Nick got up and moved away from her.
Isabel finished her food and stood up to shake the crumbs from her lap. She pushed the stubborn ones down off her dress and Nick, whose eye had caught her movements, was reminded that all there was beneath it was a pair of gloriously long legs. He winced and finished off his ale. Damn the woman! Didn’t he have enough to put up with without her arousing his carnal feelings?
‘I see Mundy has put some muffins in the bag. Do you want some?’ she asked him, keeping her voice mild.
‘No, thank you,’ he replied shortly. ‘That long black fork standing in the hearth is the toasting fork,’ he informed her, a trifle grudgingly.
‘I know how to toast muffins,’ she said, piercing a muffin and holding it out to the hot embers. ‘The king and the queen toast muffins in their own chamber.’
‘Then you are in good company even in a tin-miner’s cottage,’ Nick said dryly, keeping to the other side of the table.
After finishing her muffin, which she found delicious despite not having any butter to lavish on it, Isabel spotted a wide-toothed comb on the mantelshelf. She took it down and scrutinized the wooden object for signs of lice. After wiping it furiously with the dish towel, she began to ease the comb through the tangle of her hair.
‘That probably belonged to the bal-maiden murdered by Billy Noone on that very spot. That’s her bloodstains you’re standing on.’ The tone of Nick’s voice chilled Isabel as much as his remarks did. She backed away hastily and stared at the floor but could see no marks or discoloration on the stone slab floor.
‘What are you talking about?’ she demanded.
Nick returned to the chair and settled back to enjoy himself. ‘Billy Noone was a tinner. Bit daft in the head, he was, daft enough, too, to fall in love like any other man. But the girl he’d set his heart on, Annie Visick, a pretty little thing who worked at the same mine, had a mind to marry another, a hostler from St Agnes. Anyway, the story goes that Billy lured her here to his home. He was proud of his little cottage. As you can see, he done it up all nice and believed any maid would feel honoured to be his wife and live in it. But when Billy Noone told Annie Visick of his love, she laughed at him and,’ Nick paused for greater effect, ‘and he went berserk. Turned her into a right bloody mess with his mining pick, right where you were standing. He was so distraught at what he’d done he picked up her body, carried it along to St Agnes Head, and plunged them both over the cliff’
He got up and moved to Isabel who was rooted to the spot, and in a lower, huskier voice, went on, ‘She haunts this place, does poor Annie Visick. ’Tis reckoned she don’t realize Billy Noone is dead too and she comes back regularly to get her revenge on him for cutting off her life so young and in its prime. You can hear her wail in fury when the wind blows and her spirit whips up the sea to such a din like you never heard before. She rattles on the door and bangs on the window to get in and take her venom out on Billy Noone. But Billy is never to be found here. If anyone else is, well, heaven help ’em, because no living soul will.’
He said the last words straight into her ear. Isabel was trembling. He had more to say. ‘Some folk are said to have mysteriously disappeared after coming up this way, never to be seen again, and no beast nor bird will come within spitting distance of this place. That’s why everything in the cottage is just the same as it was when Billy carried Annie Visick out. Not even the most ardent looter will take a single thing for fear of Annie’s revenge.’
‘Not even that dreadful man we saw up on the cliff? You said he lives not far from here,’ Isabel breathed.
‘Not even Gyver Pengelly.’
A gust of wind tore up a handful of stones and hurled them against the door outside. Isabel gasped loudly and put a hand to her thumping heart. ‘Do… do you believe it? This terrible story?’
‘Aye. Billy Noone was really mazed. He killed the girl all right.’
‘Then why is it you are not afraid to stay in his cottage?’
‘I knew Billy well. We used to get roaring drunk together, used to wrestle and seek the favours of women together. There was nothing wrong with the man, not until he fell in love. I reckon if I only seek shelter in his home and take nothing out of it, his ghost nor anyone else’s will hurt me.’
‘You don’t believe the girl haunts this place?’
‘No, but she wouldn’t hurt me anyway. Annie was a comely wench and very obliging where I was concerned.’
Isabel hated it when he spoke coarsely. ‘Billy Noone would not have liked that!’ she said accusingly. ‘You, with the girl he loved.’ She flung back her head and her hair turned to deep golden in the firelight as it rippled over her shoulders.
Nick turned away. The firelight did dangerous things to this woman. Angry thoughts were racing through his mind. I could have you too. Crush, bruise your lips and mark your precious white skin with my rough hands. I bet you’ve never had hard calloused hands running over your body before. It’d make a change from the smooth fingers of a naval rake and any others who might have had the pleasure.
Isabel leaned sideways so she could see his face. His thoughts were written clearly on his harsh features, living thoughts of sensual lust. His breathing had quickened, his hands trembled. He met her gaze and his eyes flashed naked desire. She knew his feelings were held on a razor’s edge.
She tried to stay her ground and beat him down. But this was no ordinary challenge. This man, with his primitive sexuality, wanted to use her. Not from a mutual attraction or simply because he had taken a fancy to her. He hated her. He hated her because she had been born in superiority over him. He wanted to exert his authority over her, stamp her down, degrade her. He was too overpowering. The terrible feelings, the longing he exuded filled the room. She dropped the comb and moved out of his reach.
Nick picked up the comb. He stepped behind her and spoke in a grazed voice, his breath warming her hair. ‘Shall I comb it for you?’
Isabel gulped and panicked. He had once more reduced her to a quivering ninny. She was terrified she would not be able to speak and he would take her silence to mean acquiescence. And if he touched her…
Painfully she cleared her throat. ‘N-no… thank you. I can do it.’ She felt the comb pushed into her hand, then he went to the window and opened the shutters a little and stared outside into the gathering storm.
Isabel retreated to the makeshift bed and sat on it with her legs curled under her body. It was colder away from the fire, but darker, which she welcomed. She combed her hair while keeping a watch on Nick’s back, ready to stop the instant he moved. Somehow this once ordinary everyday action, one she usually had someone do for her, had taken on a deeply intimate tone.
When the tangles were gone and her hair was flowing free, she returned the comb to the mantelshelf, using the pattern left in the dust to place it exactly where she had found it. Next she carefully pulled off her shoes and massaged her feet, not daring to disturb her stockings or the bandages Mundy Cottle had wrapped round them for fear of making her blisters sore again.
With his face wet and icy cold, Nick closed the shutters tightly and came back into the body of the room. He ignored Isabel huddled by the fire in the chair. He located some dips, the tallow candles Billy Noone had worn round his neck and used lighted on his hat to see his way underground and lit them, tipping melted grease to secure them around the table and mantelshelf. Isabel welcomed the extra light but as Nick moved restlessly about, his head bent under the low rafters, he cast ominous shadows. The weather howled and threatened outside, but at least Nick kept away from her. Slowly she relaxed and before she knew it she had dropped off to sleep, where she sat.
A terrified scream woke her, bringing her rigidly to her feet with a scream from her own lips. She shot fearful looks at the door and windows, half expecting to see the vengeful spectre of Annie Visick come hurtling at her throat. Another cry and a profane oath told her it was Nick who had screamed.
‘What is it?’ she cried, rushing to him where he sat on the bed, shaking his hand furiously.
‘A rat! A rat ran over my hand!’ he gasped, horror clear on his face in the candlelight.
They heard the rat scuttle across the floor and Nick sprang back further on the bed and lifted his feet up high. Isabel saw the rat’s eyes twinkle in the firelight and dashed to the broom. She snatched it up and brought it down squarely on its pointed brown head, killing it with one blow. She was surprised, shocked and horrified.
‘It’s dead! Oh God, I’ve killed it!’ She looked at Nick. He lowered his feet and put his hands to his face.
‘Ugh, I hate the bloody things! Can you get it out of here, Isabel? Please.’
Taking a piece of rag from a crevice in the wall she marched up to the rat, lifted it nervously by its long tail and threw it, with the cloth, out of the door. With the storm shut out once more, she returned to Nick.
‘Are you all right?’
He blew out deeply, puffing his cheeks. ‘I am now. Well, Isabel Hampton, lady of gentlefolk, means and leisure, I shall see you in a different light from now on.
She was greatly pleased. In his terror of the rat, he seemed a little more human, more ordinary. She wouldn’t be quite so overawed by him. ‘Like you, the creature was not afraid of Annie Visick’s ghost,’ she said. ‘For some reason I have never been afraid of mice, but rats…’ she shuddered. ‘If you had not been frightened I’m sure I would have been the one to scream.’
Nick ran his fingers through his hair and smiled at her sincerely for the first time. Isabel had surprised him with her courage in killing and disposing of the rat. She was also kind enough to try to salvage his male ego for him. He got off the bed.
‘I need a drink. Thank goodness I bought two bottles of ale in Portreath but I wish it was brandy instead. You want some?’ he asked, pulling a bottle out of his jacket pocket.
‘I have never tried it,’ she said doubtfully.
‘Do you good, put some blood in you,’ he said, giving her a wide smile.
How could she resist a smile like that? The ale was bitter on her tongue but she managed to swallow two mouthfuls before giving it back to him. She felt good at last. She had won his admiration and respect. Sharing his ale meant she could perhaps gain his friendship.
‘Thank you, Nick, but I prefer mead or Madeira,’ she said, returning his smiles.
‘Ah, women’s drink,’ he laughed, and downed the remainder of the bottle. ‘That’s better. Thanks, Isabel, for getting rid of the rat. Damn thing! I’ve hated them since I was a small boy, when one nearly bit my toe off. Maybe I’ll show you the scar one day.’
Nick had kept the fire well built up and the whole room was warmed through despite the wind and rain battering the outside walls. Isabel took her cloak to the bed and curled up comfortably on it.
‘Are we going on with our journey today?’ she asked.
‘No, as long as I keep you out of sight there’s no hurry to get you to Crantock. I just have to be sure to get back in time for Laurence’s funeral.’
Isabel thought about her uncle’s body lying in his bed at Trevennor House as the county’s gentry paid their respects. She hoped that if Edmund and Deborah Kempthorne had taken over the house, they would allow the villagers inside to do the same. Her eyes filled with tears but she didn’t want to show Nick her mourning. Now that he was being friendly, she wanted things to remain that way, almost on a cheerful note, to make her grief and what might lie ahead more bearable.
‘You were obviously very fond of Uncle Laurence from your childhood,’ she said, blinking back tears.
‘He was always very good to me, treated me as an equal.’
‘I was wondering, if I may ask, what kind of a boy were you, Nick?’
He was a man a woman could take pleasure in simply looking at and she treated herself by doing just that as he considered his answer.
‘Very wild, carefree and invariably up to my neck in mud, blood and sand,’ he said, with an element of pride. ‘And you, I should imagine, always prim and proper and never once with grubby hands or a torn dress.’ He perched on the table, stretched out his long legs and folded his arms loosely, looking at Isabel with a gleam in his eyes.
Isabel was pleased that he was interested in her childhood too. ‘No, I wasn’t. Actually I liked to run free too. Uncle Laurence used to call me a tomboy and I liked to go to Gwithian because he and my aunt used to let me run about.’
‘I can hardly believe that of you,’ Nick said, ‘not from the way you looked yesterday.’
‘Yesterday seems so long ago now,’ Isabel said, thinking of how she must have looked with her powdered, rouged face and painted lips, the extravagant wig and her endless protests. ‘I suppose I did rather allow myself to come under Phoebe’s influence these last years. Uncle Laurence did not approve, he was afraid people would think me a Jezebel. But then, appearances can be deceptive, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Aye,’ Nick laughed heartily, ‘and if the news ever gets round that Nick Nancarrow was frightened of a rat and had to be rescued by a lady I’ll never be able to hold up my head on the North Cliffs again.’
Isabel laughed with him. He liked the sound, like bells tinkling in harmony, not shrill as her voice had been. He thought about that. Her voice had dropped to a new softness, had lost its irritating highly-pitched edge. It was as feminine as she looked now, bereft of unbecoming finery. Surprising what the threat of danger and a bit of rough treatment can do for you, he mused.
‘I promise I won’t tell anyone our secret,’ she said, realizing that this bound them together on a personal level. She hoped it would make things between them easier from now on.
‘I thank you for that at least.’
‘That’s good. If you don’t mind me asking you another question, how do you earn your living? I think you said you train horses. You’re not a farm worker, a miner or a fisherman to my knowledge.’
‘I’ve done a little of those three things and more besides. I like to travel around, keep on the move, I can’t bear to be tied down in one place for long. My main occupation is breaking in and training horses to pull coaches.’
‘I see. Have you thought about getting married one day, raising a family?’
‘Not me,’ he replied emphatically. ‘Horses are my first love. I was a post boy as a young’un, till I grew too tall, then a packman and a waggoner. I had four horses of my own at one time, old nags two of ’em were but the other two were young and sturdy. I’ve delivered goods all over Cornwall, prided myself on getting through in all weathers and on all roads when others wouldn’t travel. Now I train horses for the gentry. It pays well because it’s a skilled job. I’ve got a good reputation and can demand a high price. While you were growing up in Truro as a fine lady learning to embroider silk cushions and play the spinet, I was roaming all over the county and beyond.’
‘You make it sound romantic put like that. It certainly sounds fascinating. But where do you live, where do you go back to at the end of each of your travels?’
‘Nowhere.’
‘But surely you have somewhere to stay at Gwithian? You were born and raised there.’
‘Laurence always used to invite me to sleep in Trevennor House but I preferred the stable loft,’ he said simply, then after thought added, ‘I suppose I do make my way back to Gwithian every now and then.’
‘I can almost see you,’ Isabel said enviously, ‘a free and happy spirit, pleasing yourself, friends wherever you go, never having to bother to dress up, your hair always untidy.’
‘You are beginning to know me, Isabel,’ he grinned. ‘Is my hair untidy now?’
Yes, it is, very untidy.’
He took the comb from the mantelshelf and stood before her where she sat on the bed, saying softly, ‘Comb it for me.’ His eyes looked into hers in a warm caress as he took her hand and put the comb into it.
She was quite unable to keep looking into his eyes in case he reached down into her soul and read the attraction she felt there for him.
‘You… um… will have to sit down,’ she gulped.
He did this and she stood behind him, hoping he could not hear the wild beating of her heart. With shaking hands she gingerly pulled away the piece of cord with which he tied his hair back. She worked quickly, surprised to find few tangles in the shoulder-length sandy hair. It felt fine and silky and smelled of the fresh outdoors. Gathering it together, she retied the cord firmly then reached hastily round him and dropped the comb back into his hand. Afraid of what he would do next, she scrambled to the sanctuary of the corner of the bed.
‘Thanks,’ he said, feeling the smoothness of his hair at the back. He got up and put the comb on the table, giving his head a small shake as he did so. His hair fell naturally to its usual untidy state. Isabel watched him as he banked down the fire for the night and blew out all the dips. She could hardly see him in the darkness.
‘Might as well settle down early and get some sleep and rest,’ he said. ‘Can’t do much else with the storm raging.’
Although it wasn’t late, Isabel still said, ‘Good night.’ She lay down facing the wall, wrapping herself in her cloak. She thought the bench much better than the cave floor but she missed her canopied bed which took three steps to climb into. She put her hands together. They were tingling from touching his hair, as if he had passed on some form of energy to her.
When Nick approached the bed, she sat bolt upright. ‘You aren’t going to sleep here?’
‘As you said before, Isabel, I am no gentleman,’ and she could detect the mocking amusement in his voice. ‘Surely you don’t expect me to sleep on the cold floor?’
‘No… no, I suppose not, but…’
‘Well, there’s nowhere else for me to sleep.’
The bench was narrow, hardly big enough for two. Isabel shunted herself up as tightly as she could to the wall. Nick lay down beside her but not with his back to hers as she’d expected, hoped. She caught her breath as he moved in close, very close, on his side. He pulled Billy Noone’s rolled-back rough blanket over them both and put his arm firmly round her.
Isabel held her breath but couldn’t find the words to tell him to take his arms away.
‘What would your fiancé say about this, eh?’ he whispered through the darkness with his face close to the back of her head.
Isabel had forgotten all about Richard Grenville. With the reminder of him, the man she was due to marry in six weeks’ time, she thought she ought to be feeling disturbed to be lying in another man’s arms, but she did not. She did not answer Nick. She closed her eyes and shut out all thoughts of past and future, concentrating on the warmth and security of being so close to Nick. She breathed in his raw masculinity. It stimulated some strange unfamiliar senses, something new that was awakening in her. It was threatening yet she was not afraid. It was drawing her to the brink of another world. Should she, could she, risk entering it and leave behind, even if only for a moment of her life, all that she had been born and bred for, all that she had held dear and thought important? She had never been this close to a man before. If she turned round and stepped over the boundaries, would this new world welcome her into it?