CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

There was one thing I could say for our journey. I now intimately understood what Gage and so many others had been trying to convey about the treacherous nature of the moors. Traveling through the swirling, eddying mist over such boggy, rocky terrain disoriented and terrified me. Not only could I not see beyond a few feet in front of me, but I also started to doubt if anything outside of myself was even real. It was like wandering through the fog of your dreams—or, more accurately, nightmares—uncertain where reality ended and illusion began. If not for Lorna’s solid presence at my back, I was quite sure I would have panicked.

It was no wonder so many people had died on the moors, swallowed up eternally by the mist. If not for the river and Lorna’s keen sense of direction, we could have roamed forever until either bog, or dehydration, or mysterious beast claimed us. It was also clear where the idea of being pixie-led had derived from, for if I’d been a slightly less logical person I could well have believed there was some supernatural force at work.

I had to blink my eyes several times when the few buildings that populated the village of Merrivale emerged out of the mist, just to be certain I wasn’t hallucinating. Much as I wanted to knock on one of those doors and demand sanctuary, we pressed on. At some point, the rain had slackened, but that only made the mist intensify. And now we had to contend with the falling darkness. Though we couldn’t see the sun, we could still sense its setting, taking what little light it had afforded us with it.

We clung to the course of the ever-meandering river like a limpet until about a mile south of the village. Then the most dangerous part of our trek began. At the river’s junction with a trickling spring we struck out to the southwest along a little-used trail. Here and there, there were signs of recent usage, which was both encouraging and alarming. As such, we didn’t dare light the lantern Lorna had enough foresight to bring out of fear that if Rory was at Vixen Tor, he might see us coming. Fortunately, the horse was a hearty soul and kept to the trail almost by instinct, avoiding the blanket bog that edged the path to the north. In this way, we inched our way onward, peering intently into the dim fog for any sign of the towering Vixen Tor.

Making the matter all the more difficult was the fact that Vixen Tor was not situated as many of the other tors at the top of a stark hill. It was nestled on the upward slopes of a woodland area studded with trees and bracken. So there was no telltale rise in elevation, especially as we were approaching it crossways. In fact, we might have blundered right up to it if not for the sharp thuds emanating from the mist before us.

I pulled Eyebright to a stop so that we could listen more carefully. The mare tossed her head, not liking the sound, and I reached forward to run my hand over her neck, to soothe her.

“What do you think it is?” I whispered to Lorna over my shoulder.

“It sounds like . . . stone hitting stone.”

I paused to listen. “I think you’re right. But what does it mean?” Was Rory building something?

“I don’t know.”

We sat listening for a moment longer before I spoke again. “The ground here looks less boggy, yes? Perhaps it’s time we approach on foot.”

“I think you’re right.”

She slid off Eyebright’s back and I followed suit, gripping her reins to draw her off the path toward the right where I spied a stand of trees peeking out of the mist. Leading her to the farthest rowan tree, I tethered her to a branch and rubbed her flank before rejoining Lorna on the path.

We slowly edged our way toward the sound, straining to see anything ahead of us. At first there was nothing but trees and the occasional rock. Somewhere off to the left, I could hear the jangle of a horse’s harness. Then the craggy stones turned into boulders, growing in size, until suddenly the massive tor loomed up before us. We turned sharply to the right, drawing closer to the granite outcropping. From this position, I could tell the sound was coming from the other side of the tor.

“Let’s see if we can climb up onto the rocks to get a better view from above without being seen,” I suggested.

She nodded, following my example as I reached between my legs and drew the now-sodden hem of my skirts through my legs and tucked them into the belt of my redingote at the front. Then I carefully began to pick my way up onto the tor toward the direction of the thuds.

The climb was not as difficult as I’d anticipated, what with all the ice-shattered grooves and ridges to place my hands and feet into, but it was by no means easy. At one point, a wrong step sent a cascade of tiny pebbles down the face of the tor. I dropped down against the rock, fearing discovery. But the sounds on the opposite side of the tor never abated, I supposed drowning out the softer noise of the shingle.

I began to climb again, slower this time, but even so, I gained the summit within a minute. The stone there was worn smooth from the wind and elements. I crawled across it before lying down to peer over the edge.

At first, the mist seemed too thick, but then the wind shifted, billowing some of the smoky haze away from the figure who stood before the gleam of a lantern. My breath caught and Lorna smothered a gasp with her hand as she crept up beside me.

“Isn’t that . . . ?” She couldn’t seem to form his name.

“That’s Mr. Hammett,” I whispered, still reeling from the revelation. “Lord Tavistock’s majordomo.”

She turned to look at me, her eyes still wide with shock. “But why?”

“I can answer that. Or we can stop him from doing what I think he’s doing.”

We peered over the rock face again to see Hammett stacking another stone on the pile before him.

“If that’s the cave we’ve heard mention of . . .” I leaned closer to her ear to murmur “. . . and he’s attempting to close it off, then there must be something inside worth hiding. Something, or rather someone, he doesn’t want found.” The butler was about seventy, and while hale and hearty, I couldn’t imagine him eagerly undertaking such backbreaking labor without very good reason.

“Alfred,” she gulped.

“And perhaps Rory. We won’t know until we can get down there.” We wouldn’t know if they were alive or dead either, but I wasn’t about to mention that.

Her eyes flashed with fear, but I could hear resolve ringing in her voice as she turned to ask, “What should we do?”

I glanced behind me and then below once again. “How do you feel about channeling your supposed ancestress?”

She blinked and then smiled with vicious glee. “Tell me what to do.”

---

•   •   •

Pressing my back against the cool outcropping, I leaned to the right to peer around it at the man who’d fooled us all. I’d believed him a steady bulwark of the family, a sympathetic figure to Gage, but if I was correct, his duplicity stretched back much further than the past few weeks. The thought of his high-handed, self-righteous deception made me want to slap his face and more.

Instead, I tamped down my anger and turned to hurl the pebble I had chosen up toward the top of the tor. I hoped my aim was true, but not too true, lest it strike Lorna where she lay in wait. Then I transferred my pistol to my right hand and pressed close to the rock, waiting to see how Hammett would react. I only hoped he would prove himself a proper Dartmoor man about superstitions so I wouldn’t have to use it.

A hair-raising shriek pierced the air, making me jump even though I’d been expecting it.

“How dare you use this place for your own purposes,” Lorna screeched, glaring down at Hammett from above.

Hammett startled, dropping the rock he hefted. He howled in pain and stumbled back a step.

“You have no right to meddle in my domain, or with my people. Begone from here!”

“I knew ye were in league with the devil. An eye-biter to tempt our young.” He fairly spat the words, though he trembled with evident terror. “I warned ’em not to have anything to do with ye. That naught good could come of it.”

The sound that issued from Lorna’s throat, a sort of hiss-shriek, made my heart rise into my throat. Had I not known any better, I would have been tempted to believe her act.

“I said begone! Or that first stone won’t be the last to strike you,” she shrieked. “I’ll hurl this entire tor down on you if I must.”

Hammett shuffled backward. “Keep ’em. There’s naught you can do now. For either o’ ’em. The Trevelyans’ honor is restored.”

My stomach dipped. Were they dead? Both Alfred and Rory?

I wanted to charge around the rock and discover for myself, but I forced myself to remain still. Revealing myself would not help. It was safer to let Hammett believe what he would and escape rather than have to confront him now. There was no telling how he would react. Or whether he would do something to precipitate Alfred’s and Rory’s demises sooner if they were not in fact dead.

I felt Lorna’s answering scream in the pit of my stomach, and I instinctively shrank away from all the fury and distress it contained. It was far too genuine.

Hammett recoiled and turned to hobble off toward his horse, whose harness we’d heard jangling. His body moved in an awkward shamble, his shoulders hunched in discomfort. The foot he’d dropped the rock on visibly pained him, but the other leg also appeared to do so. I realized then the other leg must have been injured during his scuffle with Gage in the middle of the night. He had been our intruder.

Once Hammett moved out of sight, I dared to skirt around the rock and pick my way around the face of the tor to the place where Hammett had been at work. At first, I didn’t understand what he’d been endeavoring to conceal. The tor was riddled with cracks and crevices. But then I saw it. Just below the base of one of the outcroppings was a hole. If I hadn’t known something was there, I would have assumed it was merely another ice-shattered fissure in the granite. However, when I placed my hands inside, I could pull back the stones below it.

Working quickly, I wrenched as many rocks from their places as I could. I started at the sound of a horse’s whinny somewhere in the distance, but when I turned about I could see nothing but the swirling mist. It must have been Hammett, setting back off across the moor. I resumed my frantic work, and moments later Lorna arrived to help.

We scrambled to remove the stones, panting from the exertion. All the while we called out to both Alfred and Rory, praying one of them would answer. Regrettably, the lower in the pile we progressed, the heavier the rocks became, until neither of us could budge them, even working in concert.

I sat back, gasping for breath. “They’re too big.” I touched her arm when she continued to strain. “Lorna, stop. You’ll only hurt yourself. They’re simply too big.”

She leaned against the side of the outcropping. “We can’t stop. Alfred could be in there.”

“Then let’s see if he is.” I stood to examine the opening we’d created. “I think I can squeeze through here. But I’ll need the lantern to see. Do you think—”

Before I could even finish the question, she hurried off into the mist, presumably to draw our horse and the lantern she carried closer. I pried at some of the other stones, but while a few shifted, they were too unwieldy to dislodge. That Hammett had managed such physically demanding labor, and at his age, amazed me. Clearly I’d underestimated him in more ways than one. Or had he purposely been misleading us all with his shambling walk and creaky voice?

I heard the clack of the horse’s hooves before I saw the light of the lantern Lorna had lit. She held it before her as they emerged from the fog, its light refracting the water droplets to form a sort of fuzzy halo around them. We lifted the lantern up to the small entrance to the cavity under the tor, but the light couldn’t penetrate deep enough to illuminate anything.

Reaching up to remove my hat, I glanced up at Lorna and paused. “Perhaps you should be the one to climb inside. The space might only be large enough to fit one of us, and if the men require medical attention, you might be more skilled at giving it to them.”

Her eyes were stricken. “I only know how to use herbs. I don’t know how to stitch up wounds and . . . and such.” She swallowed, gazing up at me hopefully. “Surely you would know better than I.”

A strange feeling gripped me, for this was the first time I found myself wishing my late husband had actually taught me more about practicing medicine. Chiefly, the skills that pertained to his work as a surgeon rather than an anatomist.

I passed her my hat, breathing deeply to settle the nerves roiling around in my stomach. “I’ll do my best. But remember, my first husband more often diagnosed ailments after the fact rather than treating and saving people’s lives before it was too late.” I could only pray the former skills would not be called upon.

I stared into the darkness of the tiny crevice, refusing to let myself contemplate what other creatures might be dwelling inside. Then I squared my shoulders and crawled inside.

The gap was narrow and difficult to navigate, particularly in my skirts, but I wasn’t about to remove any layers of clothing unless necessary. Not when my cheeks and nose already stung from the cool mist. The space smelled of dirt and stagnant air, making me suspect this was the only opening. Once inside, I reached my hand up to ask for the lantern. Together, Lorna and I were able to manipulate it through the opening without dousing the light.

“What do you see?” Her voice was shrill with desperation as I turned to survey my surroundings.

The cave sloped downward, opening up into a space about eight feet wide by four feet high. Not tall enough for me to stand up in, but at least high enough for me to sit or kneel comfortably. It was impossible to tell how deep the cave went, nor did I truly care. For immediately before me, at the base of the slope, lay the sight we were looking for.

“I see them,” I replied, clambering forward, anxious to check for signs of life.

“What?! Are they alive?” Lorna gulped. “Tell me what’s happening!”

“Give me a moment.”

Alfred lay closer to the entrance, and as I drew near I could hear him breathing, pained though it sounded.

“Alfred is alive,” I reported.

She sobbed in relief.

“I’m checking Rory now.”

Of the two men, he definitely looked worse. His skin was ashen, his eyes were sunken in their sockets, and his lips were dry and cracked. When I passed a hand under his nose, I could scarcely feel his breath.

“And Rory is, too. But barely.” I moved back toward the entrance. “Pass me the water.” If he’d been down here since the evening after he was last seen five days prior, he could be close to death simply from lack of water.

I tried rousing Rory, but when it became apparent he wasn’t going to wake, I parted his lips and dribbled a bit of water into his parched mouth, careful not to give him so much he might choke on it. Then I rubbed his throat, hoping I might stimulate his muscles to swallow. For a moment, it seemed futile, but then his throat worked as it should. So I poured a bit more into his mouth, repeating this process two more times.

I shifted over to Alfred. When I patted his face, he moaned.

“Alfred,” I said. “Alfred, can you hear me?”

His eyes slit open to peer up at me. “Lady Darby?” he croaked.

“Yes. Here, drink.” I lifted his head, helping him to sip the water. When he lay back, he sucked in a harsh breath, clutching his chest just below his shoulder.

I moved closer to him, urging his hand aside. “Let me see.”

He reluctantly complied as I hefted the lantern to better see his injury. Peeling back his coat, I could see the blood-encrusted shirt beneath. It was now stuck to the wound, and loosening it would be difficult and painful, but necessary to prevent infection.

“I don’t know whether to be happy to see you or not,” he grunted as I prodded at the cloth. “But I suppose if you’re offering me water and examining my injuries, you don’t intend to dice me up.”

I flicked my gaze up at him, realizing it was a jest. One made in poor taste, but a jest nonetheless. Rather than chide him, I elected to take that as a good sign.

“What’s happening? Is he drinking?” Lorna called in to me.

“Who is that?” Alfred asked.

“Lorna,” I replied, before raising my voice. “Yes. Alfred is awake.”

“Oh, thank heavens,” she gasped. “Alfred, are you well?”

“Yes,” he responded hoarsely, and then had to gather breath to speak louder. “Yes! Just a few bumps and bruises.”

This was a lie if ever I heard one, though I knew it was done with good intention.

“He shot you,” I pointed out.

“Yes.” He sucked in a harsh breath as I prodded a particularly tender spot. “But Lorna doesn’t need to know that.”

I snorted. “As if you can keep it a secret.” I sat back, turning toward the cave entrance where Lorna peered down at us, unable to see us past the low-hanging barrier of the ceiling. “He has a bullet wound, and though I haven’t examined him yet, I suspect Rory is suffering from much the same. Without proper medical supplies I can only do so much. One of us needs to go for help.” I didn’t complete my thought, though Lorna must have understood the implication. If we didn’t get help soon, one or both of them would die.

She didn’t respond immediately, and I remained silent, giving her time to absorb the information I’d just relayed.

“I should go.” Her voice was firm with resolve. “I know the way far better than you. Surely someone in Merrivale will be able to assist us.”

She was right. Much as the idea of remaining here with the two injured men frightened me, the thought of striking out across the mist-shrouded moor without Lorna to assist me was infinitely more perilous.

“Pass me down one of the saddlebags,” I told her. “Did you bring any of your herbs?”

“No. I should have thought to do so,” she fretted.

“You couldn’t have known,” I replied. “But bring back some garlic to pack the wounds with to ward off further infection.”

“I’ll grab some calendula as well.”

I accepted the saddlebag from her, reaching past it to grip her hand before she could withdraw. “I’ll do everything I can,” I promised her, hoping it would be enough. “You just focus on staying safe and finding help.”

“Thank you.” Her voice shook with repressed emotion, but she smoothed it out as best she could as she called down to Alfred. “I’m going for help, Alfred.” Then almost as an afterthought she added, “Don’t die on me.”

“Is she out there alone?” Alfred asked as I heard the sounds of her moving away.

“Yes.”

He shoved my hand aside, as I reached again for his wound. “You can’t let her go alone.”

“We don’t have any other choice,” I replied. “She’s certainly not going to let me leave you and Rory here alone.”

“Well, make her.”

I arched an eyebrow at his petulant tone. “I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands. Now lie still. This is not going to be pleasant.”

There was one positive thing about his peevish behavior. It made it easier for me to do what I needed to. I trickled cold water over the wound to loosen the encrusted fabric and then peel it upward. He winced and gritted his teeth.

When I’d finished, he was breathing hard, and the sweat I’d already observed dotting his brow ran in rivulets down his face.

“Maybe I spoke too soon,” he panted. “Maybe you do mean to finish me off.”

“Hush,” I retorted, prying carefully at the skin around the wound. It was red and inflamed, but the placement and the relatively minor loss of blood suggested the bullet hadn’t hit any major organs or veins. If we could combat the infection and get him help soon, he should survive. So long as there weren’t worse injuries.

“Where are your other injuries?” I asked, sweeping my gaze over his form.

“There are none.”

I glared at him. “From the labored sound of your breathing, I know that’s not true. Did he crack your ribs?”

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly.

I leaned closer, inspecting the stain on his shirt and skin just above his shirt collar where his cravat had been removed.

“Lady Darby, I hardly think this is the time,” Alfred quipped weakly.

I looked up past his dry lips a few inches from mine to meet his eyes. “What is this?” I demanded to know, ignoring his attempt at levity. “What is smeared on your neck? It’s not blood.” I moved even nearer to smell. “I think it’s a plant of some kind.”

“I . . . I don’t know. Hammett must have done it while I was unconscious.”

I flicked a glance at Rory’s neck, seeing the same stain. Then a speck of something on his coat sleeve caught my eye. I reached across to pick it up, bringing it closer to the light. It was a cluster of leaves. Rue, if I wasn’t mistaken.

“Why would he rub rue into your skin?” I voiced out loud. “It’s not a poison I know of.”

“Perhaps because it’s supposed to ward off spells,” Alfred surprised me by replying. He attempted to shrug, which resulted in a grunt of pain. “Don’t ask me how I know that.”

I suspected Alfred knew a great deal more than he wished others to realize, but I didn’t comment on that. “I suppose that makes sense given the fact he believes Lorna is a witch.”

He blinked up at the rock ceiling. “He kept babbling something about saving us from our own sinful inclinations and restoring the family honor.”

I didn’t question him about it further, wanting to focus on what was most important here and now—keeping both men alive. I shifted across the cave again, settling next to Rory’s side. “Has he woken? Has he spoken to you?” I asked Alfred while I searched him for injuries.

“For a short time.” His voice grew rough. “Though I’m not certain he was in his right mind. He kept trying to apologize. Said he swore Lorna was behind my disappearance. Then he saw me one day on the moor. Probably the same day you did. And he made the mistake of saying something to Hammett instead of you and Gage, thinking the butler might be an ally.” He swallowed. “He was worried the two of you might not take him seriously, that you already knew he’d been hindering your investigation. I guess he initially hadn’t wanted me found. He was angry, and wanted me to stew in whatever trouble I’d gotten myself into. But then he’d changed his mind, growing worried I might truly be in some sort of danger.”

Alfred coughed, gritting his teeth in pain. I lifted a hand to halt his flow of words, but he pressed on, urgent to relay it all.

“He wanted to tell Grandfather what he’d seen, that I was alive and well, but Hammett insisted they needed proof. However, when he took it to him, Hammett attacked him instead.”

“What proof?”

“He wasn’t very coherent, but I gathered it was a drawing of Lorna. She was wearing a necklace with a piece of amber strung on a chain. The piece of amber I’d found one day on the moors when we were boys. He knew I always kept it in my pocket.”

The sketch of Lorna at Great Mis Tor. That’s why Rory had taken my sketchbook. He’d noticed the distinctive amber necklace when my book fell open to that image that second day we met on the moor. It was something that, as an outsider, I’d had no chance of discerning.

I frowned, unable to find the source of Rory’s injury. “Did he tell you how he was attacked?”

“Shot. Just like me.”

“Where?” Frustration tightened my voice, and I pressed my hand into the ground beside his arm in order to reach up by his head. It sunk into wet earth and I nearly recoiled. I must have made a sound, for Alfred’s eyes snapped to mine in the darkness. I didn’t spare time for an explanation, sliding my knee between the two men where they lay side by side in order to try to gain enough leverage to roll Rory onto his side. There I found the hole near the center of his back, and from the scent emanating from it, it had already begun to fester.

My heart rose into my throat. I laid him back as gently as I could and turned to meet Alfred’s gaze. I could see the same horror and pain I was feeling glimmering in his eyes in the lantern light.

Placing my hand around his wrist, I felt for Rory’s pulse. It was faint. I counted its beats, recalling something I’d overheard my late anatomist husband telling his assistant about the time he’d served as a surgeon during the Napoleonic Wars. He’d said that one of a field surgeon’s most important skills was his ability to distinguish between those injuries which were survivable and those which were not. Not only could he save more lives by focusing his time and attention on those he could mend, but by staying his hand he also prevented further suffering for those who couldn’t survive by not forcing them to endure an unnecessarily long and painful death when they could already be at peace.

No matter how much I wanted to balk at the truth, somewhere inside me I recognized reality. This wound was not survivable. Even had the best surgeon in all of England swooped in at that very moment to attend to him, the chances of his recovering from such a wound while in such an advanced state of dehydration were infinitesimal. If the bullet had damaged an organ, the odds could be even smaller than that. He would lie in bed, slowly waiting to die. Perhaps even praying for it.

It was far kinder not to do anything, but infinitely more difficult.

I could see the moment Alfred recognized the same thing I had, though from the way his mouth worked, he seemed to want to fight it.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, not knowing what else to say. After all, the men were brothers. Regardless of everything else, there was still that bond between them.

His throat worked as he swallowed, and then he nodded in acceptance. I glanced at Rory one last time, blinking through a sheen of tears. I hated that I’d allowed myself to think the worst of him when the truth was he’d been trying to protect me. Those letters he purportedly wrote telling his valet to poison me and threatening Lorna almost certainly had come from Hammett, not him. If only he’d trusted us with his suspicions and not Hammett. All of this could have turned out differently.

Tamping down my emotions, I returned to Alfred’s side to try to clean his wound the best I could. If I couldn’t save Rory, then I was going to do everything I could to save his brother.

Sometime later, I looked up as Rory suddenly inhaled a deeper breath than those before. I tensed, as did Alfred, who lifted his head, hoping against hope that he was not as far gone as we’d feared. But then Rory exhaled one last, long sigh, and I sensed the change in him. His supine body went completely slack, and as the moments ticked by his chest never rose again.

Cold crept over me, gripping my heart and making me want to curl into a tiny ball, but I forced myself to continue my ministrations on Alfred. I noticed then how he was holding Rory’s hand, and I couldn’t stop the tears I’d been fighting from overflowing my eyes and trailing down my cheeks.

I recovered Alfred’s wound as best I could with a strip of fabric torn from my shift. Then I settled onto the cold earth beside him, leaning against the stone wall. When I reached for his other hand, he quickly gave it to me, I supposed as anxious as I was to feel another person’s warmth. To know that yours wasn’t the only heart still beating.

That was how Gage found us hours later.