I could only assume I still held my position because the earl believed my ability to help his daughter outweighed my danger to his heir or because he found it convenient to have a spy in his household. One who dared not refuse his questions lest she find herself and all her worldly possessions on the road to nowhere. And yet, for all my independence, I could not rail against his power over me. Men of superior authority, from Papa to General Wellington, had loomed over me all my life. I actually liked the earl and had hoped he liked me. In him I saw his son a quarter century from now. Though hopefully Robert would never suffer from such a great loss and humiliation as Hycliffe had endured. No wonder the poor man—
But for today’s words I could not forgive him. He had frightened me badly—so badly, in fact, that I felt the shadow of dismissal hanging over my every move. The comfortable, almost halcyon, days I had known before the arrival of our visitors were a thing of the past. I vowed to work diligently with Vanessa to improve both her physical well-being and her attitude, speak only when spoken to at dinner, and eschew the company of all three young gentlemen, leaving them to solely masculine pursuits.
I moved through several days surrounded by a self-righteous glow so strong even quizzical glances failed to penetrate my determination, until David took me aside one morning, dark brows raised over knowing eyes. “And who has read the Riot Act to our dear Miss Ballantyne?” he asked. “Hycliffe or Exmere?”
I firmed my lips and looked him directly in the eye—or as close as I could come to someone who topped me by at least six inches. “Don’t be absurd. I am merely settling back into our normal routine after so many days of gaiety.”
“Something has frightened you, and you are not one who frightens easily.” David’s sympathy, as well as his perception, penetrated my armor with ease. David understood impossible love. He was the closest of my few remaining friends since Hycliffe had made it all too clear the family was out of bounds. Even to Vanessa I could be nothing more than an upper servant.
My gaze fixed on the shining tips of David’s boots, I murmured, “I have attracted too much attention.”
“And Rothbury and family have gone away in a huff.” I nodded, still looking down. “Yet you are too useful to be turned out on your ear.”
“Something like that, I’m not sure.”
“Just mind you p’s and q’s and don’t look up,” David advised. Once again, I nodded. A slight pause and then he added, “Hycliffe has been a bit strange since his wife ran off, casting doom and gloom over us all. And though you must heed his wishes, here in these apartments you are allowed to bring the sunshine back. Vanessa needs it. I need it. Even poor Maud, who was never known to crack a smile until you came. So come back to us, Penny. Don’t shut yourself away.”
I gulped, fought back a rush of tears. “It’s hard to bear two faces,” I whispered.
“Yet you must. For yourself, as well as for Vanessa. This house has known too much sadness. As much as I want to keep her to myself, I know she needs your smile, your songs, your courage. Be careful with the others, if you must, but here, be yourself. You bring hope of better times.”
I put my hand over my mouth and simply stood there, contemplating what David had said. In front of me was the backbone of England, the yeoman whose ancestors had farmed barren moorland for generation after generation. A man with an instinctive gift for understanding people as well as the land and the birds and animals on it. And here I was, one more wounded creature, a product of foreign climes, yet since I was on Moorhead land, I was eligible to be taken into the fold, tucked under the guardian’s wing, or whatever metaphor one might choose. Like Vanessa, I was hurt, and David was rushing to the rescue.
I looked up, managing little more than a wry twist of the lips, and said, “Thank you, David. I will do my best to smile again.”
He patted me on the shoulder, as I had often seen him pat Vanessa, and then he was back at his post, pushing his charge to her favorite window, arranging her easel, bringing her sketchpad. I slipped into a seat in the far corner of the sitting room and made an effort to summon the courageous girl I once had been. Not an easy task. I had been confident to the point of arrogance, certain of what must be done next, even in the face of tragedy. When I set off for Moorhead Manor, I was confident I was doing the right thing. Now . . . I had never had so many doubts about myself. My thoughts were all at sea, with no firm ground in sight. Unless I counted David.
No wonder Vanessa loved him. Yet another topic on which the earl and I could not agree.
I came to no conclusions other than that David was right. I must maintain good humor and good will in our closed little world and rouse Vanessa to even greater achievements while damping down her volatility. Those goals were achievable. Or within the realm of possibility. My other dreams, however, I must accept as mere fantasy.
Vanessa’s peremptory summons interrupted my musings. I gathered up the translation of The Odyssey we were currently wading through, settled myself on the sofa, and began to read. Poor Penelope. Imagine the lonely life of a woman waiting a decade for a wandering husband to return. I hoped Odysseus had been worth it. At the moment I took rather a dim view of the whole male species.
Except David, who must surely be a candidate for sainthood.
I was to have a half-day at last, and I admit, for all my fulminations about men, I suffered bitter disappointment when I saw Zeus’s stall was empty.
“Went out an hour ago,” Dobbins told me. “Lookin’ like a thundercloud, he was. But so he’s been for days now.” I knew the stablemaster was not talking about Zeus.
He cupped his hands to give me a leg up. As I arranged my skirts, I clamped my teeth over my tongue to keep from asking in which direction Exmere rode. The daughter of the regiment would not have been so circumspect, but for the sake of survival I had banished her.
“Rode toward the village, he did,” Dobbins offered. “But over the moor, not by the road. He nodded at a track leading south, roughly paralleling the road. I had explored it before and found it a charming ride.
But why had Dobbins offered the information? Had Exmere asked him to? Or was the stablemaster sympathetic to lost causes?
In that moment all my good intentions whipped away on the wind. If Exmere had ridden south, I was not about to turn Bess north. I set out, fairly confident that Dobbins would not be running to the earl with the news that I had followed Exmere onto the moor. At least I fervently hoped he would not.
As I rode, I kept the sound of the sea to my right, as the track tended to fade in and out, and getting lost on the moor could be lethal. The afternoon was crisp and clear, with no sign of the mists that rolled off the water on their own erratic schedule. I settled down to enjoying the gentle roll of the land, the barren hills and the small clusters of trees in the valleys, the lovely colors of the moorland, and the occasional rivulet wending its way to the sea, framed in green bracken waving softly in the breeze. At last my uneasiness about blatantly following Robert faded, and I realized what a perfect day it was. Ideal, in fact. I was riding cross-country in North Devon with the vast blue expanse of the sea several hundred yards to my right and all the flora and fauna of Exmoor around me. I was safe in England, Napoleon was defeated, and I was beginning a new life in a place of great peace and beauty. How very selfish of me to want more.
I reined Bess in as we topped a hill and paused to enjoy the view, which seemed to encompass every pastel color known to man. And then I saw the slow swoop of hawks circling, circling . . .
Not hawks. Bess sidled as she felt the shiver that stabbed through me. Vultures. It had been months, but circling vultures were a sight one never forgets. Only one thing interests vultures . . .
Oh dear God, Exmere was out there!
I kicked Bess to the gallop, setting a break-neck pace I knew was reckless, but vultures meant just one thing: something dead or dying. A sheep, I told myself. A pony. Maybe only a rabbit . . .
I slowed Bess as we forded a rocky stream several feet wide, and then we were off again, forging our way up yet another hill, plunging down the other side in a near skid. Fool! I slowed Bess to a walk as we carefully picked our way around an area strewn with rocks and made our way around the next rise of land, following bracken that waved above an almost invisible trickle of water. The vultures were nearly overhead now, the ragged outline of their wings silhouetted against the sky. We came out from behind the hill, and there was Zeus, tied to a bush. Exmere?
Forcing back a surge of panic, I surveyed the scene with care. There had to be some other explanation for the slow-circling carrion birds above than Robert meeting disaster. My searching eyes paused, shifted back to a standing stone as high as a man. My heartrate surged. For there, just peeping out from behind the giant rock was a glimpse of green jacket, leather breeches, and black boots. Not prone, thank God, but bent at an angle as if he were kneeling on the ground.
With a whoosh of relief I set Bess forward. Robert, hearing my approach, unfolded from the ground and stood looking at me, hands on his hips. “Go home, Penny,” he said coldly. “This is not sight you wish to see.”
I continued to ride forward.
“Devil it, Penny. Go home!”
I dismounted, leading Bess as I walked toward him. “I have seen death before, Exmere.” Putting Bess between us so he could not seize my arm, I continued forward and took a look.
And instantly regretted it. “Good God,” I whispered.
“Just so.” Exmere’s lips curled into a grim I-warned-you. “It’s Sal,” he added. “From The Cat and Sole.”
I closed my eyes, put my knuckles to my lips, and leaned my head against Bess. Sal, covered in blood from head to toe, her face smeared with it, her blouse and skirt dark red among a few patches of their original white and blue. “How long?” I asked, knowing Robert must be as knowledgeable about bodies as was I.
“Since last night, I would guess.”
I forced myself to another look and had to agree. Blood had congealed, turning dark, the body was stiff. The murder had not happened this morning. Exmere had not killed her just before I rode up.
And how could I even think such a thought? Not Robert, my Robert. Although who knew what anger rang through him if Hycliffe had warned him off as thoroughly as he had warned me.
No! He would never attack Sal, the friendly barmaid.
Yet someone had. Very likely the same madman who had killed Mary Perkins and shoved Nell Ridgeway into the sea. For a madman it had to be. There was no other explanation.
“Penny,” Robert said, “I need you to go home and tell the others what has happened. “Have Hunt bring Thomas Ridgeway, who is magistrate here. He’ll need to see this before we move the body.”
“Of course.”
He leaped forward to give me a leg up. Horribly embarrassed that my blood surged at his touch in spite of the horrifying circumstances, I turned Bess’s head away rather abruptly.
“Penny,” Robert called after me. “Do you carry a pistol?”
“Always.”
“Loaded?”
I reined Bess in and gave him a look. “I spent the last five years with an army at war. Do you suppose I ever travel with an empty pistol?”
He sketched a salute and waved me on my way.
I had a long ride to contemplate just how thoroughly I had ignored my resolution to avoid Exmere at all costs. How my eager anticipation of a few private moments on the moor had turned to horror. And for my part, justifiably so. I was an incurable hoyden to think for even one moment of myself when Sal lay dead from what appeared to be a merciless beating. And, yes, I had seen beatings before. Both of soldiers on each other and of soldiers on their wives or lemans.
My thoughts also kept flitting over to the other men of my acquaintance, wondering which one might love too strongly, or conversely, which might indulge in overweening hate. What soul-shattering event had driven someone to madness? Surely there had to be a reason for such heinous crimes.
I did not care for the whispers insinuating themselves through my mind. Everywhere my thoughts turned. I found moments of darkness, past events that might have set a man off. Hycliffe, Robert, Kenrick, David, Thomas Ridgeway, senior and junior. I could see motives for any or all. Hycliffe had suffered the ignominy of losing his wife to another man. Robert had seen the atrocities of war practiced by the Spanish guerrilleros against the French and by the French in return, atrocities that had driven more than one man mad. David suffered frustration on a daily basis. Kenrick? Though raised in the lap of luxury, he might possibly resent that he was not the heir. Or that Robert and Huntley were so carelessly handsome and charming, while he had to rely on his sharp tongue to be noticed. The Ridgeways? They suffered the enmity of their nearest neighbor and the stigma of being related to the man who caused the rift between the families. But to kill a child or sister . . .?
Then again, the madman could be someone I had never met, some wild hermit of the moor, a lost soul not truly responsible for his actions.
But my suspicions remained, a darkness I could not shake off. Someone I knew—someone I had met since coming to Moorhead Manor—was guilty of three murders. Possibly with more to come.