The Key to Secrets / First Chapter

 

Chapter 1 of The Key to Secrets

Cold had settled into Bee’s heart the way the snow had settled over the land, covering the fertile soil and sending the living plants into their wintry sleep. The blank whiteness stretched over the fields and pastures, a glory of ice crystals packed together, sealing the good earth under a vacant layer both lovely and deadly.

Her internal snow had fallen so quickly and so completely that she hadn’t even noticed its danger. It settled first into the empty crevices of her heart and of her hopes. From there it spread to cover her life. Now she was trapped. She’d said “no” to her barren life and “yes” to a life with potential only to realize how iced over that life would also be.

Bee watched Mad Aunt Beth use her cane to knock snow off the frozen rosebushes. White clumps fell to the ground. A repeated whack, suss filled the air. No sound came from the garden or the air. The birds and little animals kept to their warm cover. No sounds came from the manor or the carriage house and stables. Sane people hovered beside their hearths. Only she and Mad Aunt Beth had ventured out, she reluctantly and the old woman with the defiance that became all the more obstinate when faced with reason. Bee had given up argument, bundled them both into wool shawls and cloaks, and followed into the garden.

Shivering, mittened hands held to her face, she watched Aunt Beth mutilate the bushes. The wintry sun hadn’t strength enough to melt the new snow. She had lost her own strength to stand up for the life she wanted. Like a coward, she accepted the life chosen for her. A life she should never have agreed to. It had seemed an escape then. Now she knew it would be a prison.

Aunt Beth gave a hard whack to the largest rosebush. Bee stepped forward to stop her. The gardeners would complain about the damage once they ventured away from their cozy quarters. She faltered before interrupting Aunt Beth. The older woman could be vicious with her cane. Her usual nurse hid the cane that her charge didn’t need but always wanted. Yet Nurse Gregg had catarrh, and Aunt Beth wanted sunshine after days of clouds. Bee was the family retainer who did the miserable tasks that no one else in the Chalmsley family would do. Her dogsbody existence had driven her to say “yes”.

She should have said “no”.

A rider emerged from the trees, following the drive that led to the main road and then Chalmsley Village. He came at a canter, the dark horse moving easily over the snow-covered gravel. The capes of his greatcoat lifted and fell, lifted and fell, like black wings. The wide-brimmed hat hiding his face added to the impression of a great black bird.

“Ha! One for sorrow.”

Bee jumped. Mad Aunt Beth had quietly come to her side. She held the cane over her shoulder, like a cricket bat, and pointed at the rider.

“Carrion crow, out of the oaks, come to catch a murderer. ‘Fol de riddle, lol de riddle, hiding do’.” Her singsong of the nursery rhyme sounded as creaky as rusty hinges. “Come too late for you, that one. Come too soon for her.” She sang that as well then grinned at Bee, revealing missing front teeth.

“Aunt Beth, what are you talking about? Too late for me? Too soon for her? Who are you talking about?” Then, she remembered the sordid murder discovered this morning. The old woman should have known nothing about the crime, for she would have been in the nursery with Nurse Gregg. “What do you know about the murder, Aunt Beth?”

The shrewdness of the deranged had the old woman looking around before she patted Bee’s arm. “Poor little Bee. Buzz here, buzz there, never quite know where to go, never quite know what’s to know, never quite know what to do with the truth. You know he didn’t just die in the night, little Bee. You know she killed him.”

He. William Kennington had died last night. The hullaballoo over finding his bloodied corpse had filled the house this morning. The chambermaid who found him had fetched Bee. Bee had alerted the butler and the housekeeper to the crime. Then Bee took on the unenviable task of waking her great-uncle to inform him of the murder of an important guest.

The hullaballoo eventually had abated to sobs from his fiancée Moira Fraser and whispers from the other guests. The Chalmsleys maintained a stoic front. After being the center of the maelstrom, Bee discovered that she now circled the outer edge. With Nurse Gregg pleading sickness, Bee was relegated through the noon hour and half the afternoon to the nursery with Aunt Beth. At the top of the house, the nursery was intended to offer quiet solitude to the old woman.

Yet how did Aunt Beth, cooped-up in the old nursery, know more than Bee did about the murder?

“Carrion crow you’ll know, though,” Aunt Beth said now. “Unless the snow has frozen your heart. I’m cold.” The cane came down to help her cross the snowy paths back to the house.

Bee trailed her. “Who is he? Who is this carrion crow?”

“Most wanted. Least expected.”

How was she to interpret that? Then she realized. Her heart thumped madly. “Hector? Is it Hector Evans? He’s in London.”

“Where are your ears, girl? He came back last Spring, appointed constable by my nephew-in-law. He straightened out that mess over at Helmesford.”

“He came here to Chalmsley Court? I didn’t see him.”

“No, they were careful about that. He stayed over in Meadowbrook except for a couple of visits here. Lord Chalmsley’s niece mustn’t marry a lowly constable. A Seddars mustn’t marry a clerk’s son.”

“Aunt Beth, Hector and I never—we were too young to expect—he left. I forgot him because he never wrote.”

“Wrote and wrote, never answered.”

She gaped at the old woman. She had written to Hector, several letters, awkward little outpourings of her heart. When he never responded, she had abandoned them. Had he written her, and those letters were confiscated? That last summer had seemed idyllic—until Lord Chalmsley decreed Hector would remove to London. Had more driven that decision than Bee realized?

Should she believe Aunt Beth? The old woman didn’t sound deranged, even though her earlier comments seemed crazed. Aunt Beth’s insanity had its own sense, skewed and riddling. She had a knack for prophetic announcements that most of the Chalmsley family ignored—until they were suddenly true. As her pronouncement that Sampson and his son would soon be traveling far had come true two years before.

Not an hour ago she claimed the two servants would soon return. Since Sampson and Daniel had escorted the son and heir to Vienna, was George also soon to return?

Aunt Beth did know things that others at Chalmsley Court did not. Especially Bee. Like Hector Evans now served as constable for Lord Chalmsley, the district magistrate.

She glanced again at the rider. Carrion Crow. He had reached the forecourt. A groom ran from the stables to take his horse. The black-brimmed hat still hid his features.

From her frozen stance in the side garden, she couldn’t see enough to trust Aunt Beth was right. Bee vividly remembered the blood on the bed, the blood on her hands after she bent closer to examine the wound, the blood she had scrubbed and scrubbed to remove. She said the only thing that fit with the morning’s uproar and the appearance of a carrion-crow rider. “William Kennington was murdered.”

“Murdered. Stabbed with a steely pick. I’m cold. I want my tea.” And Aunt Beth headed into the house.

Bee followed. She wondered how Aunt Beth knew that someone used a steely pick to murder William Kennington.

She wondered if she would have a chance to see Hector, to talk with him.

Was it too late to re-kindle the spark between them?

 . ~ . ~ . ~ .

 Cold as the chapel was, Hector Evans turned colder when he pulled back the sheet covering the corpse and saw the blood on the man’s neck. The lantern wavered in the footman’s hand. Shadows danced wildly. “Steady up, man,” he said as he bent for a closer look at the wound.

A thin hole. Something small and sharp and long.

He’d expected some kind of violence when the message to report to Chalmsley Court arrived. Lord Chalmsley would not send for a constable unless violence occurred, and the only violent person at the Court was George, his lordship’s only son.

He wished Lord Chalmsley hadn’t ordered the corpse moved to the chapel. He wished a dozen things. Mostly, he wished he hadn’t seen Bee Chalmsley as he rode toward the house.

The two women in the snow-covered garden could only be Bee and Mad Aunt Beth. Only Mab would ignore sense and venture outdoors. Only Bee or a servant extremely well paid would follow to ensure the crazy bat didn’t hurt herself. Aunt Beth had never hurt anyone, though. With a shawl hiding the taller woman’s pale hair and her shape enveloped by a cloak, she could be anyone—but he knew it was Bee.

Eight years away from Chalmsley Court, yet he still felt the old stirrings. She had broken his heart once. He’d heard that all the young Chalmsley ladies became engaged over Christmas. Hector had wondered if Bee was included, but he hadn’t asked. He wouldn’t. He didn’t want anyone to guess that a too tall, too thin woman-child had captured his heart one long-ago summer and never given it back.

He refused to moon about looking for her, hoping for a chance to speak with her, not when he had a murder to solve.

He straightened and yanked the sheet into place over the corpse. The footman lowered the lantern.

“Who found him?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Hector narrowed his eyes, but the footman continued to look ignorant. The man was new, not a servant that Hector remembered from his own years at Chalmsley. “You’ve been here since they brought the body to the chapel?” He didn’t say ‘corpse’. He’d learned during his London years not to use that word to people unused to murder.

“Yes, sir. Lord Chalmsley himself appointed me to this duty.”

“Did Lord Chalmsley order that the body be brought to the chapel instead of leaving it in place?” Once again, the man looked blank. “While you have stood guard, did anyone else wish to come into the chapel, perhaps to see the body?”

“No, sir. Well, sir, Miss Fraser, she came with her parents. She wanted to see him. She didn’t believe he was dead.”

“Miss Fraser was Mr. Kennington’s fiancée?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I expect that Lord Chalmsley would like a report.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

Nor did Hector. His lordship left his constable to his duties, boring enough most of the time. His only excitement had come immediately following his return from London, over in Helmesford, when an arson exposed a decade-old murder. Although he narrowed his suspect for the arson to one man, he’d lacked the evidence needed to take the case to an inquest or to the magistrate. As for the ten-year-old murder, he wound up with three suspects: one he didn’t think had done it, the second he wanted to pin the murder on but had no evidence, and the third and most likely suspect would never be considered seriously by a jury. Cat ladies never were considered for serious crimes. They reminded people too much of afternoon tea, buttered crumpets served with preserves and a cat purring away on the mantel. He would never have gotten a conviction of Aunt Sally.

If the old maid aunt had shot the man. Maybe she hadn’t.

Lord Chalmsley would frown if Hector failed a second time. Any jack with a bit of sense could see the drunks home and find stolen articles and hurry vagrants along to the next shire. Murders needed cleverness—and Hector didn’t know if he were clever enough.

He left the footman with instructions to keep everyone out of the chapel. The Kennington family would expect the body’s return soon. He needed to investigate the murder scene and start interviews, especially of the man’s fiancée.

Half hoping his lordship was elsewhere, Hector knocked on the door to Lord Chalmsley’s study. The “enter” was muffled but clear enough.

Chalmsley glanced up but continued his writing. Hector stood before the desk, remembering earlier years when he had stood in this very spot, waiting to hear either compliments for his skill in his lessons or discipline for his multiple mischiefs. He had ceased fearing the discipline long before Chalmsley sent him to work with London’s chief magistrate Sir Richard Ford.

He used the wait to study his lordship. Although his body appeared fit, dissipation showed in the pouches under his dark eyes and the slackness of his jawline. He wore a gentleman’s country attire with the nonchalance afforded by wealth that could replace expensive clothing with ease. Silver streaked his dark hair, but he showed no other signs of age.

Lord Chalmsley set his quill in the stand then leaned back in his chair. “I expected you earlier, Evans.”

“Yes, my lord. I have viewed the body. A clear case of murder.”

“I knew that.”

“Yes, my lord.” He sounded like the footman and vowed not to fall into such dumb obedience. “I’ll look for the murder weapon when I search the scene. Where was his chamber?” He wasn’t surprised when Kennington’s room was the second floor. The first floor was reserved for family and privileged guests. He himself had never rated below the second floor. For many years he’d had a room on the third, down the hall from the nursery, closer to the servants. “Another question, my lord. Can you tell me the reason his body was removed to the chapel?”

“Couldn’t leave him lying there, could I? The Fraser girl was caterwauling in the corridor ,and her parents demanded answers I didn’t have. Still don’t. You’ll need to speak with them. Lord Fraser plans to leave in the morning. Unseemly haste, I’d say, but he seems to think murder is contagious. When will you speak with them?”

“After I’ve viewed the crime scene, my lord. I understand you and Lady Chalmsley are hosting a week-long party? Did Mr. Kennington have any family members here? I would wish to question them as well.”

“Is this an example of your new methods of investigation? Ask questions? Search about for things? No, Kennington has no family, not here. There’s a mother living and an uncle. He’s a diplomat, assigned to Prussia, I understand. A sister, I think, married. But no one here.”

“Thank you, my lord. And the other guests? Do they have plans to leave?”

He huffed. “They’d rather stay and titter about whatever transpires. Who do you think murdered Kennington?”

“I will not say until I have completed my examination of the evidence and conducted several interviews. I apologize in advance for inconveniencing your guests—.”

Chalmsley waved aside the comment. “They inconvenienced me by coming here at my wife’s invitation. Her idea, to host a party to celebrate the engagements at Christmas. Then she has to drag in my daughters’ friends and their fiancés and parents. At least we don’t have schoolchildren running about. How long do you think you’ll need?”

“I could not say, my lord. The evidence and the interviews will determine that.”

“Learned to be cagey, have you?” Chalmsley gave a decided nod. “You’ll be staying here. Taking your meals with us. After all, I raised you with my own boy.” He picked up the quill and reached for another parchment. “You’ll be wanting to start your investigation.”

“Yes, my lord.” Feeling as if he should have questioned Chalmsley—how did a constable interrogate a magistrate?—Hector bowed then retreated from the study.

Without thinking, he turned left, heading for the front hall and the main stairs. Fitting back into the house would not be difficult. Chalmsley Court never changed.

Fitting back with the family? He knew George was off on a reduced Grand Tour, abbreviated to avoid Napoleon’s army. Lord Chalmsley’s daughters Cordelia and Portia had never cared for Hector and had stayed out of his way. His presence at dinner would not please them. As for Lady Chalmsley—Hector had never managed to get a read on that woman. For many years of his time here, she’d taken laudanum so much that he suspected an addiction. Yet in his fifteenth year, when he’d returned from school, she’d been brighter and happier than he’d ever known her, with no signs of laudanum anywhere around.

And Bee—. He finally allowed himself to dwell on her. How would Bee react to his presence here at Chalmsley Court? Would she welcome him? Would she be happy to see him? Or had she forgotten him, a singular mark on the map of her life, a mark that had long ago lost any meaning for her?

He didn’t know, but he desperately wanted those answers.

He had yet to see Richardson, the butler. Two footmen stood in the entrance hall, statues paired, with nothing to do until a Chalmsley gave an order. They didn’t blink when he passed them and started up the stairs.

“My goodness! Cordelia, look! I do believe that’s Hector Evans. Hector! Do stop, Hector.”

 LINKS

View the trailer on YouTube https://youtu.be/1Sj7NfvxzXg

Worldwide Outlets, ebook only https://books2read.com/u/mZj0Ke

Amazon, ebook and paperback https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0795F86YW

The Dangers to Hearts / First Chapter

 

 Introducing protagonists ~ former smuggler Jess Carter and farm owner Agatha Helmes

Chapter 1 ~ Ipswich

“Stay here.” Jess handed the reins to his mother and hopped down from the wagon.

Mrs. Carter eyed the building. The back façade had boarded-up windows and dingy paint, far different from the street-facing front. “Jess, what is this place?”

The evening gloom lent a criminal darkness to the building. The back lane they were on hadn’t pleased her when he turned the wagon onto it. Were she to know the place warehoused smuggled goods, she would be all for leaving and starting from scratch somewhere far away. “Just a building, Ma. I know the man who owns it. He might direct me to a job.”

She nodded. Since they’d packed the cottage and left it as the sunrise lightened the sky, she hadn’t asked many questions. A week past, and she still hadn’t asked him the reason they had packed up and abandoned their home, not after he told her Palmer was dead. She had never asked about the smuggling he did with Palmer and Jem Webb. She had never asked about the freight he hauled regular to Ipswich, even though the Naze had never generated enough product to fill his wagon on such a regular basis.

She wrapped her heavy cloak closer. “I’ll stay.”

He entered the building without knocking.

The warehouse had never hived with activity. Today, though, it seemed empty of folk. A single light gave him the direction to the front. His bootsteps echoed as he wove between crates and barrels.

The lantern that guided Jess to the front swung from a hook in the center of the anteroom. More shutters covered the two windows. Off to one side of the narrow room was the man who fenced for the smugglers. He sat behind a big desk, positioned off to one side rather than directly across from the front door. A bottle of whiskey sat to his left. An inkwell with its quill sat before him. The room was barren of other furniture except for a handful of chairs, as nicked and scarred as the desk. When Jess emerged from the door to the warehouse, the man growled, “Far enough. State your business.”

“It’s Jess Carter, Mr. Helmes.”

“Carter, is it?” The man lifted his hand from his lap. A gunmetal pistol remained pointed at Jess’ gut. “Who else?”

The pistol confirmed everything he had ever thought about Dick Helmes. “Nobody,” and he had the wits to add, “I got somebody waiting for me outside, in my wagon.” He didn’t name the person as his mother. Better not to tell the fence that he’d brought someone bone-honest to his warehouse.

“Ah. Another one of you who escaped the soldiers?”

“Yes.” Who else had escaped? He had heard that the soldiers had arrested everyone at the Hawthorn Inn. He had slipped through the net because he hadn’t returned to the inn. Nor had he waited around to hear the gossip before he got himself and his mother rolling with the dawn.

The pistol lifted. The lever released back into place with a click. “Come forward then. Let’s see how you’ve survived the past weeks.”

Jess dragged off his slouch-brimmed hat as he stepped forward. He dodged the lantern by cocking his head over. Helmes peered at him then nodded. He placed the pistol on papers scattered over the desk then rested his hand beside the grip.

“So, you escaped. Anyone else you know about?”

“Palmer died. Far as I know, everyone else was arrested, including Marthy Gilson.”

“Ol’ Marthy.” Helmes grinned, revealing his gold-capped right eyetooth. He picked up the whiskey and drank from the bottle. Then he set it back down with a thud. “They’ll be hanging the men and transporting Marthy and the boy, so I would think. Why are you here?”

“I need work.”

“I’ll not hire you. No one here in Ipswich knows my connection to Palmer and the rest of you. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“So would I. I got out by the slimmest chance.” He didn’t add that the slimmest chance had amounted to saving Captain Farraday after Palmer had fallen to his death. No sense letting Helmes know that Jess had worked a deal to save his own skin. “I ain’t looking to toss that chance away. I got nothing to tie me back to the inn, and the others will keep their mouths shut. I’m out of work since the arrests.”

“And?”

The man wanted him to spell it out. Well, Jess had learned to read earlier than most. “You got a warehouse. I’ve got my freight wagon. I can haul for you, wherever you need, legit work, however you want it. Right now, I ain’t even got a roof over my head.”

“My need for haulage is greatly reduced, due to certain arrests.”

“Fair enough,” Jess allowed. He started to back out of the office. “We’ll try farther north.”

“Wait.”

He stopped, hopeful. “You thought of something?”

“Maybe. I need to think on it.” He picked up the bottle, eyed the amber liquid, then swirled it. Without looking directly at Jess, he asked, “What are you willing to do? You willing to work hard? Like on a farm?”

“I’m willing.”

“I need to think on it,” Helmes repeated. “Come back early tomorrow.”

“I can do that. I can stable the horses where I always do.”

“Do that. Bright and early in the morning.” He saluted Jess with the bottle. “To new ventures,” and he drank again.

 . ~ . ~ . ~ .

 Helmesford

Agatha wrapped her cloak tighter.

When she came in after sunset, Aunt Sally would cluck about the cold and the dark. Agatha, though, knew the farm to her bones. She would never get lost on her own land.

The sinking sun had painted brilliant colors, gold and pink, coral and orange. Not for the first time she wished she could capture the radiance on a canvas. She had neither the talent nor the skill. Her mother, may she rest in well-earned peace, had had both talent and skill, even though she’d been raised to a life of leisure. Her watercolors still graced the house. Agatha could only paint with the seeds she sowed and the harvests she reaped.

When there was a harvest.

The farm had struggled this year. When she had finally admitted that the workers wouldn’t take orders from a woman—orders they hadn’t hesitated to take from her as long as her bed-ridden stepfather was alive—she had hired a steward. And then another. And then a third. The first was a drunk. The second wasn’t work-brickle. And the third—.

What could she say about O’Malley? She had yet to find a local lass who would claim the Irishman had forced her. Four had just giggled. The fifth had rolled her eyes and returned to her work. Agatha feared a crop of babies would fill the village next spring, and O’Malley would continue spreading his seed far and wide.

He’d tried nothing with her, but his obedience to orders was just a tad too ingratiating. He had a look that said he would plot to overthrow her authority, although he never challenged her directly. His mobile mouth often smirked with a hidden joke.

He had come to Helmesford with a recommendation from her cousin Richard in Ipswich. She suspected more than a recommendation between Richard and O’Malley. She had hesitated to hire the man—but she needed a steward the workers would listen to. The early fields were coming to harvest. More fields than she liked had never made it to sowing because the field men had refused to listen to her for the first time in years. Without her stepfather to back up her words, they just laughed and returned to their cider. She had pleaded. She pointed out their need for pay. She was ignored by the majority.

Oh, a few had come to work, or she would have no early fields at all. Her first steward Mr. Hurst stayed sober long enough to get many of the other fields plowed. The second steward Mr. Garner gradually saw to the planting of the plowed fields. And the third steward Mr. O’Malley steered them from first to last harvest. Yet Agatha had had to correct him several times on the order of the harvest. Surely the man could see when fields were ripened? Old Denny had shaken his head every time she had to repeat her orders to O’Malley.

She had pleaded several times this year for Denny to be her steward. The elderly man, however, wouldn’t take the job that his knowledge deserved. He wouldn’t give orders to his fellows.

The sunset colors faded. She needed to get off this hill and around the woods before the pitchblack night descended. But what am I going to do?

She took a last look over the farm then turned her back and headed down. Helmes House stood beyond the wood, its ground-floor windows lit against the deepening twilight. Aunt Sally would scold. Mrs. Cabot would threaten to quit again because she had to keep dinner waiting. If she could avoid Mr. O’Malley, then one thing might go right this evening.

Twilight turned to night as she skirted the woods. The path showed a lighter color, and she sped along, stirring up the masses of leaves. She stumbled a few times. She had stumbled so many times this past year, but not as much and not as seriously as in the year after her mother’s death.

Full dark had descended when she left the wood’s edge and ventured toward the farm buildings nearer the house. Old Denny’s new pup barked as she passed his cottage. The fowls squawked and fluttered before settling back on their roosts. A cow lowed in the distant pasture.

She reached the kitchen garden. A dark shape separated from the bricked wall, and Agatha stumbled to a halt.

“Out past dark, Miss Helmes?”

“Mr. O’Malley. You startled me. Did Mrs. Cabot not send over your dinner?”

“I’ve had it. I’m looking for dessert.”

“Dessert? Do you need to speak with me this evening, or can it wait till morning?”

He chuckled. “Always dodging back to the farm, aren’t you?”

She had her feet under her again. “Well, Mr. O’Malley, you are the farm’s steward.”

“I’m surprised you managed a love affair at all, then, unless his talk of plowing got you excited. Was that it? You like your men to talk of plowing your furrows?”

She blushed and was fiercely glad the darkness hid it. “Have you been drinking?”

“Just cider. Not the fine stuff you keep in the house. I’m sure you shared that one or two times. At least once. Had to be, from what I’ve heard. Got your field seeded, then off he went, leaving you to face it all.”

“What are you talking about?” Then she knew he’d heard about her two heartaches, lost love and lost child, and wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “How many fields are left to harvest, Mr. O’Malley?”

“You should know. You were up there counting them.”

“If the weather holds fine—.”

“If the weather holds, we got no problems.”

“We should talk about the fields that lay fallow this year. We’ve never tried over-wintering here. My stepfather was intrigued by the idea—.”

“We get the last feed in, I’m off to see your cousin in Ipswich.”

She had successfully diverted his innuendoes and insinuations. She only needed confirmation that Cousin Richard had sent him for more than a single job. “And for what reason do you need to see him, Mr. O’Malley? You do not report to him, do you?”

He backed up a step. “Evening, Miss Helmes.” And he walked away.

Agatha felt glee at the confirmation that his avoided answer meant ... only to be dumped into gloom. She couldn’t fire him. Not yet. Not until the last field was harvested.

What am I going to do?

 . ~ . ~ . ~ .

 16 November 1811 ~ Ipswich

Jess pulled the wagon up in the same spot as yesterday. The early morning had not given any freshness to the back lane with its dingy buildings.

“Jess, I do not like this place.”

“Nobody’ll bother you, Ma, not this early.”

“This man—he was part of the smuggling, wasn’t he? It’s the reason you don’t go in the front door.”

“That’s over, Ma. You know that.”

“I don’t want you ruining the chance that Miss Katie gave you.”

“It’ll be Mrs. Farraday by now, Ma. Mrs. Farraday of Melton Hall.”

“She gave you a chance, a good one. She kept you from rotting in gaol.”

“I’m taking that chance, ain’t I? But the world’s a little closed when you don’t know where to go.”

“Melton Hall—.”

“No,” he said flatly and jumped down.

The warehouse’s back door opened. Dick Helmes appeared. He hadn’t shaved. His shirt-front under his jacket looked as stained as last night’s. The smuggler’s fence stared up at Mrs. Carter while Jess tried to crowd him back into the warehouse.

“Who’s that?”

“No one you need to worry about.”

“Wife? Girl you’re plowing? She looks old for you.”

“My ma,” Jess said tightly, “and you’ll treat her with respect. Even Jem Webb did.”

Helmes laughed. “Mrs. Carter,” he called and swept her a bow that conveyed mockery through its deepness.

Jess wanted to plant the man a facer, but he controlled it. “I’m here, early like you said. Did you come up with other work?”

He grinned, that gold tooth shining, and Jess wanted to hit him again. Whatever the scheme was, it would only benefit Helmes. “You said you’ll work on a farm.”

“Anything that’s honest work.”

“Now you’re qualifying it.”

“I don’t do murder. I don’t steal.”

“Just smuggling.”

He gave a clipped nod and didn’t argue that those days were over. His ma had the right of it. Hard as it had been to find any work all the way to London and back, it was better than giving this man a hold over him.

“Happens that I know of a farm. Helmes House at Helmesford. Not much, just a manor and the acreage around it. Several fields, some pastures. A pretty situation that I want to keep an eye on. My cousin runs it.”

“Harvest is nearly over.”

“She’ll take you on.”

A woman in charge? He remembered the tight ship that Martha Gilson had kept at Hawthorn Inn. He reckoned Helmes’ age and figured an old spinster in her fifties would be particular about the people she hired and the jobs they did. But he was out of options. Winter was coming on. His mother needed a stable place, warm and safe. “She’ll hire me at your word?”

“At my word.” He produced a sealed letter and a loose sheet. Jess glanced down and saw a list of directions. “I got a man there,” Helmes added. “The steward. Reece O’Malley. Make yourself known to him as my man. He’ll set you and—your mother into a good place.”

He reckoned he shouldn’t bloody the nose of the man offering him a job. “My thanks.”

“Oh, it’s a tit for tat. I’ll get what I need from you soon enough. For now, O’Malley’s a womanizer. My cousin’s a hard-headed woman. He’ll have kept his paws to himself for a time. She’s no looker. But with winter coming on, he’ll be thinking of sticking it closer to home. You see that don’t happen. You keep his hands off my cousin.”

Jess winced at the crudity. “O’Malley ain’t going to like my interference.”

“Then he can go jump. It’s my farm, soon as I marry Agatha and get rid of that trustee of hers. I don’t plan to do that for another few years. You just get there, get connected to him, and settle in. I’ll likely come for Christmas. It’s traditional. And you’ll be there making sure things fall my way, not his. You might even give them a push to help them fall my way.”

“Yes, Mr. Helmes.”

“Any questions?”

He had dozens, but none that this man wanted to hear. “No, sir.”

“Directions clear?” When Jess nodded, Helmes said, “I’m surprised you can read.”

“Ma taught me. I’ll be on my way, sir, if there’s nothing else.”

“There isn’t, Carter. You do what I said, and you got a place for life.”

Jess turned away. The warehouse door slammed behind him.

As he climbed up to the wagon seat, he reckoned that Helmes offered the same thing that Jess had thought to have with the smugglers on the Naze—a place for life. But smuggling had led only to death.

What would this venture lead to?

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The Hazard with Hearts / First Chapter

The Hazard with Hearts

Chapter 1 

Mid-September 1814 

 Standing at the base of a ruined tower at Sheldrake Castle, Vivienne shuddered as she remembered last evening’s conversation about ghosts who haunted the ruins. 

Large quarried stones lay tumbled in tall grass. They looked like a child’s building block tower if one didn’t remember the cause of the tower’s fall. 

“Ghosts, my dear. On the darkest night when no moon lights the velvet sky.” Julius Cavell swirled the brandy in his glass. “She drifts along these halls. When you see her, your blood will freeze. When she touches you, you will scream.” 

“I do not believe in ghosts,” Vivienne lied. 

Vivienne would never hand anyone in that conversation a weapon against her.A fear of ghosts could be a weapon as sharp as a knife, bloodless yet incapacitating. She would never share her fear of dark places. 

She remembered how the authoress Miss Beale seized on the topic. Her lips had parted, and her eyes gleamed in the candlelight of the drawing room. “Who is this ghostly lady?” 

“Lady Georgina, Viscountess Herrick. Killed when Cromwell attacked Sheldrake Castle and destroyed its towers.” 

“Since she died at the castle, wouldn’t Lady Georgina haunt the castle ruins rather than the hall?” 

Vivienne’s practical comment earned a scowl from the artist Julius Cavell. Had he hoped his dramatic pronouncement would elicit a scream? 

“She’s right.” Lord Davitton Hurst rushed to agree. When Cavell’s scowl turned his way, Hurst shrank in his chair. Apprenticed to the artist, though, he didn’t hesitate in filling in the logic missing from Cavell’s comment. “This hall was built decades later, wasn’t it?” 

Miss Beale chuckled and leaned against the upholstered back of her chair. “You are throwing logic at a ghost story, the two of you, and quite ruining Mr. Cavell’s attempt to scare us on this moonless night. Or did you not notice that it is the new moon tonight?” 

Cavell set aside the snifter. “Logic means nothing to the supernatural. The supernatural forces do not follow the natural world’s physics. Do they, Vicar?” The man startled. “That’s her, they say,” he had offered, nodding at the painting over the mantel. 

A young beauty in pink satin stood beneath a rose-covered arbor. Pink cheeks and pinker lips, eyes bluer than a lake, she looked as if she would step from the painting and greet them all with a smile. Ribbons of pink and blue enhanced her powdered tresses. 

Vivienne glanced away from the painting above them and around the room. She didn’t see her husband of a few weeks. Only three weeks at Sheldrake Hall, she felt quite alone here, not lost but not fitting in. 

The ghost stories had begun with Miss Beale’s account of the gruesome end of a medieval monk, walled into a crypt beneath the church. His fingernails had scratched the bricks before he succumbed to suffocation. His body was discovered only months ago, when the mortar supporting the masonry caved in. Now she shook her head decidedly, hoping Cavell and Miss Beale and Vicar Rampling would decide the ghost stories wouldn’t affect her. “I shall not purchase this bag of moonshine. The poor monk was enough of a tale, but—.” 

“I assure you, that did occur. Didn’t it, Vicar?” 

“Oh, indeed. Before I received the living here, though. I came only a few weeks before your arrival, Lady Sheldrake.” 

Her husband hadn’t explained his reason for replacing the former vicar. He’d only stated that a new man held the position. Vivienne, feeling her blind way with fingers and toes as she assumed management of the great house, had not pursued the comment. Maxwell Herrick, ninth Earl of Sheldrake, had shared little about the neighbors she would encounter. “The ghost story is moonshine,” she declared. “That portrait cannot be of the Lady Georgina killed in Cromwell’s attack. This lady wears the clothing of last century, not of two centuries ago. And ghosts haunt a place important to them. Sheldrake said this hall was once a large pasture. If Lady Georgina died at the castle, she would have a half-hour’s ride on ghostly clouds to reach the Hall.” 

Cavell sipped his brandy then balanced the glass on one knee. “Have you explored the castle ruins?” 

“Not yet. We have not had time. This celebration for Lady Forness required my attention.” 

“Your pardon,” the vicar said, “but I do not understand the reason Lady Forness’ celebration is here rather than at Forness Manor.” 

“She is the late earl’s only daughter,” Miss Beale said, as if those words explained anything. 

The talk turned after that, straying far from ghosts. 

Yet ghosts plagued Vivienne’s dreams. A nightmare woke her before dawn. Refusing to dwell on that horrifying dream, she struggled into her snug-fitting habit. She was so far advanced with her dressing that she surprised her maid when she came with the morning tea. She surprised the stables by walking down to them only minutes after the head grooms received word that she wanted to ride. And she surprised her young groom assigned to her by riding straight for the castle ruins. 

Julius Cavell would have relished the discovery that his ghost preyed on her mind. Thin trees struggled to grow among the tumbled quarry stones while brambles and tall grasses softened the hard edges. She swished her riding crop through the grass, taking off the heavy heads of seeds. Vivienne gathered up the long skirt of her habit and prepared to clamber over the blocks to reach a tower. 

“Yer laidyship,” the groom yelled, “`tis not safe. `Twill rain soon. We gotta get back.” 

A hawk’s piercing cry caught her attention. She watched its wheel against the slaty sky. A flash of movement caught her eye, high and to her left. It came from the still-standing tower. Yet she saw nothing in the double-arched window at the top of the tower. Lady Georgina? 

She turned back to the groom. “Why is it not safe?” she called. “I do not intend to enter.” He looked off to her right. None of the servants on the estate would look directly at her. The chief house servants now did, especially when she sought their gaze. 

The wind rippled through the tall grasses, tugging at the groom’s coat. The sweet mare assigned to Vivienne tossed her head, not liking the rush of wind. The gelding remained stolid, nipping at the grass. 

Far off, above Sheldrake Hall, the sky had purpled. The wind snared her scarf, bleeding it off to her left, teasing her hat. 

“`Tis not safe,” Greggs insisted. 

“I thank you for the warning. I will not enter the castle.” Then she turned back to the castle and picked her way around the tumbled blocks. She flushed a rabbit from the tall grass. White tail shining, it bounded away from the ruins. With chittering cries, birds lifted from the burnt-out building, flying up and away. Raindrops spattered as she reached the remains of a corner tower. She glanced back. 

The reins of both horses in one hand, the groom watched her progress. 

She lifted her gaze to the distant hill with its pale grey marble palladium-style Hall. Terraced gardens worked down to the greystone buildings and cottages. A grassy expanse of lawn dropped to the river. The uncut grass rippled like the waves of a lake, agitated before a storm. The wind tossed the upper branches of the old-growth trees in the parkland. Farther east, a downburst of rain greyed the farmlands of the valley. 

Vivienne turned back to the old castle and picked her way around more blocks, scattered by cannonfire from Oliver Cromwell’s battle against Royalists. Lady Forness said the Lord Protector had wanted to destroy a stronghold loyal to the Stuart king. 

She had glimpsed the castle ruins as the carriage rolled along the river road. High above the road, the castle dominated the valley. Leaning out the carriage window, Vivienne queried her new husband about the ruins. She learned that a Norman baron had erected the blocky center. The four towers were erected during the Wars of the Roses. 

Only one tower remained whole. The others stood broken, their jagged tops washed by rain. The family had lived in the central block until fire destroyed it during the Restoration. Then they moved to the remaining tower until the fourth earl and his son Viscount Herrick built the Hall as a replacement for the ruined castle. 

By then the carriage entered the parkland surrounding the Hall. Old oaks and chestnuts lifted leafy heads to the sky, admitting only flashes of the Midsummer sun. The trees obscured any view of the ruins or Sheldrake Hall, her new home. After nodding through the long day’s journey, Lady Forness had roused to describe her favorite rooms at the Hall, the Pink Salon that the dowager countess had redecorated, the Blue Chamber, and the Conservatory off the Receiving Room. 

Max added nothing to his aunt’s commentary. Vivienne could not decipher if he were pleased to return home or wished to return to London. Her new husband’s thoughts or moods often defeated her interpretation. 

Sheldrake Hall had the rigidly symmetrical lines of the palladium from Queen Anne’s reign. All stone and glass panes, the formal style begged Vivienne for disruption. Broken, charred and shadowed, the castle ruins offered mystery. Lady Georgina would not haunt the coldly formal ruins of Sheldrake Hall. 

Fire had gutted the Norman square centering the ruins. Through the few openings for doors and windows Vivienne glimpsed a chaotic maze of stout timbers. Fallen beams leaned at dangerous angles, ends braced on the old walls and buried in the blackened rubble. 

Lady Forness’ dry voice echoed. “A man and his army started the destruction. Nature finished it. Yet a Sheldrake bows neither to man nor nature. We rebuilt.” 

After that comment of arrogance daring fate, Vivienne had glanced at her husband, but Max didn’t respond to the pride in his aunt’s voice. She had few clues of how to present herself. The life of the countess of Sheldrake must be vastly different from her rackety life with younger siblings and a capricious father. 

In London, Lady Forness had given only a few gentle hints on the position a countess would inhabit. Her own aunt, an unmarried spinster, had seemed appalled when Vivienne asked about her wifely requirements. “Think of England, my dear,” she eventually sputtered. That had been useless advice. 

When she shared Aunt Elfreda’s advice with Max, he sputtered with surprised laughter. He could be so human then as stiff and emotionless as a marble statue. When he acted as coldly formal as the Hall, he seemed a stranger. His rare occasions of warmth were not the time to ask about the greatest mystery, the unusual deaths of his first two wives. Both had fallen to their deaths, one here at the tower, the other at the Hall. Were they ghosts? 

Vivienne walked along the front of the Norman square. She peered through empty windows. A wooden palisade must have protected the whole structure in the early days of the castle, gone now as stone was not. A stairway climbed to nothingness. Missing steps warned of the folly of exploration. 

She reached the base of the standing tower. In one spot the grass appeared trampled. She peered through an arrow slit. Shadows. Dust motes drifted through a shaft of light. The fiery destruction hadn’t reached this tower. A rectangle in the opposing wall opened to the hall. A stone perron mounted the interior wall, disappearing into a planked floor. The heavy beams looked sturdy after hundreds of years. 

Vivienne leaned closer, trying to see more. A bird startled its alarm and flew from the arrow slit. It fluttered before her face. The wings beat her head, knocking away her hat. Vivienne recoiled and fell backward over a grass-hidden stone. A dark shadow flashed past her startled gaze and thudded heavily to the ground. It hit the block that had tripped her. Chips struck her face. She gasped. 

At her feet rested a greystone block, large enough to crush her skull. It had crushed her hat, that jaunty Bond Street confection, a reminder of her sole ride with Max in Hyde Park on the morning he proposed. He had laughed and brushed the feather grazing her cheek. The hat and its dashing feather were crushed beneath the block.

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The Key for Spies / First Chapter / 10th Anniversary Celebration of Starting My Publishing Journey

 

Chapter 1 ~ Ridgetop

15 April, Thursday

Simon Pargeter crouched in the long narrow shade of the blasted pine as he waited to meet the partisans.

Lightning had streaked a serpentine line down the pine’s trunk. Needles clung tenaciously to a few outer limbs. The others were dead, pointy branches denuded of green needles, cones scattered on the rocky ground, and the bark peeled from the dead softwood. Rooted on the crest, the pine stood like a solitary sentinel for anyone traversing the ridge’s long saddle. A barren branch pointed to the north slope. Far below, following the winding trail, a river snaked, glinting quicksilver.

Beyond the southern slope stood Brittesca, the dolostone walls faded grey to ocher with glittering specks of quartz catching the Iberian sun. Terra cotta tiles covered most of the city roofs. A few had weathered boards, and a very few were painted in colors, redder than the baked clay or green as pines or a startling blue. One domed roof gleamed bright gold, like a beacon to guide the lost. On the city’s south stood the ruined walls of an old castle. The tower had collapsed long ago. The outer bailey, sharing walls with the city, held newer buildings with planked roofs. Between the ridge and the city were rolling hills of grapes and olive trees interspersed with patchworks of tilled soil or pastures.

Simon threw another pebble, aiming where the lightning had bored into the ground, leaving dirt clods churned and exposed roots charred. He had already waited past noon, the agreed time. His commander had assured Simon that he would be met. Major Stively had also given him the name of the leader of the partisans in the area.

“Esperanza. Some kind of noble.” Stively had said. “Name means hope in Spanish. They need hope, poor sods, with the French army tightening its grip.”

Even though they were only in mid-April, the heat of late afternoon shimmered on the rocks. A coronella stretched its ropy length on a razor-edged slab of dolostone. Its forked tongue tasted the heat. A fawn-colored crested bird with black and white markings hooted at Simon. When it realized he was not going to move, it flew under a scrubby bush and scratched about.

With a clear sky and the warm day, he should have been basking on his own rock. He threw another pebble across the track along the ridge crest. The rock bounced then rolled to a stop. He hadn’t picked the site for this meeting. That was Stively, swearing this ridge between Brittesca and the river was a common meeting point.

Yesterday Simon shook off the French patrol that had dogged him. He was tired of those blue-coated French, tired of Spanish citizens who refused aid to the British, and tired of guerrillas who would cut his throat rather than risk his betrayal of them to the occupying French. He had a notebook stuffed with drawings, calculations of the distances between towns, rivers marked with their fords or bridges, notations about wide plains for an army encampment, and descriptions of higher grounds from which to fight the French.

The black-barred brown coronella slithered off its rock. On the dusty ground, it lifted its head, flicked its tongue, then slithered into the shadows between boulders exposed by time.

Simon heard a low rumbling that could only be horses running.

The thunder increased, steady, stronger. He stood, stretching his legs, working the kinks out of his shoulders. As he straightened, horses rushed onto the height, following the track from the river.

Simon stepped to the center of the track. He waited, hands hanging at his sides, palms out. His pistol remained tucked in his belt. He didn’t pick up the Baker rifle leaning on his pack. His dun-colored horse waited beneath a stunted holm oak, idly switching its ashy tail even as other horses approached.

The horses galloped toward him. He stood his ground. The two lead riders parted, and the four behind followed, thundering past. The remaining riders drew up their horses before him, so close the flecks of foam from the horses’ mouths spattered the ground before him. Without looking around, he knew the first four had wheeled their mounts to complete the circle.

Major Stively claimed that Simon needed these guerrillas. He hadn’t found their compatriots to the south friendly, but in these mountains he would need help to finish his reconnaissance in time for Wellington’s approach with the army. Old Hooknose pointed his avant garde at the only major road from France, over which came supplies and more troops. Stop the influx of armament and ammunition, communications and reinforcement, and this arm of the French Grande Armée could be pinned in Spain and wiped out.

The guerrillas covered half their faces with patterned cloths. Their eyes hinted at dark calculations. Two men tossed remarks that caused laughter.

One man threw his reins forward then slung his leg over and slid down. He had the wiry leanness of a knife fighter. His clothes were loose and plain. His scuffed boots were sturdy leather, soft with age. He didn’t look like a noble don, but his crossed arms and tilted-back head mirrored the stance of an arrogant lord of the realm. For a brief moment, Simon remembered Lord Ainsley, but that proud man was a thousand miles away and more than five thousand days ago.

He waited on the guerrilla. He wouldn’t push. He had already waited over an hour; he could wait longer. The ringing horses shifted restlessly, tossing their heads, backing, surging forward before reined back. Good horseflesh. Not for the first time he wished he were in Spain buying horses, not spying for His Majesty’s Army.

The dust drifted over him, over the horses and their riders, back onto the dry ground and rocks and scrubby growth.

The wiry man glanced over his shoulder then looked again at Simon, who gave a little tilt of his head, acknowledgment of their game of patience. He used his peripheral vision to watch the other men, his hearing to listen for anything coming from behind him. How long would this test last?

“¿Usted es Señor Pargeter?”

Ah, the wiry man had broken first. Simon nodded. “Si. ¿Usted es Don Esperanza?”

Someone in that circle of riders laughed. Simon glanced around, wondering how his question had failed the test.

“Don Esperanza, se ha ido.”

Gone. Which kind of gone? Dead, left, or vanished? An absent contact didn’t bode well for his mission, but Simon hid his growing uneasiness. He didn’t smile; he didn’t frown. He just watched. He’d guessed that the name Esperanza would be an alias for the leader of partisans, not a family name. He had no means of tracking down his contract. Everything depended on these men—who weren’t welcoming him.

The wiry man once more looked behind him.

A horse pushed forward. Like the others, this rider wore a wide-brimmed hat and a heavy scarf. He’d belted a bulky jacket around his waist. He was as slim as the first man, but in that over-sized jacket he looked more like a youth mimicking his elders than the leader of partisans who fought fiercely against the French soldiers occupying their country. If this was the leader. He certainly wasn’t Don Esperanza.

The new rider walked his horse into the circle. Simon backed up a step as the rider slung a leg forward over the pommel then jumped down. Dust puffed under leather boots, but Simon wasn’t looking at boots. He saw long legs and well-shaped hips before the leader jerked down the bulky jacket. A woman. Not a youth, but a long-legged woman who barely topped his shoulder. The wide-brimmed hat hid her hair, and she kept her scarf up, covering most of her face. The shadow cast by the hat’s wide brim hid her eyes, but he caught a glint of sparkling amber, like wine.

She tossed her mount’s reins to the wiry man. He rattled off a question that Simon didn’t catch. The inflection sounded like a strong dialect, likely Basque. The only word he caught clearly was Doñabella. He seized on it, for it sounded like a name. She tossed back a short “no” and came forward. The man scowled. Without taking his eyes off Simon, he returned a hand to the knife sheathed at his belt, a clear warning not to do anything against this woman.

Simon bowed. Formality was the wisest course. His first question needed to determine if this woman had stepped into Don Esperanza’s role. His second question needed to determine if she would honor the agreement Major Stively had worked out with the don. “Señora, buenas tardes. ¿Señora Esperanza?” he queried, holding the name he’d heard in reserve.

“Esperanza, no. I regret—.” She paused then said, “My apologies, Señor Pargeter. Our delay was not avoidable. Don Esperanza himself told me of your coming.”

Even with the cloth muffling her voice, her English came clearly, with only a trace of accent and no pronunciation or grammatical errors. Whoever had tutored her had been precise. Yet women of the Spanish nobility would not ride with partisans. The most sheltered English lady had more independence than Spanish ladies. Who was she? Did she have the don’s trust? Can I trust her?

“May I inquire about Don Esperanza?”

“He advises us, but he found it necessary to step back from leadership.”

“The French?” She didn’t answer. Simon gestured to the surrounding horsemen. “You are in charge of these men, Doñabella?”

Those sherry-colored eyes widened then narrowed, and she gave a definite shake of her head. “Is anyone in charge of partisans? I have taken the don’s place. That is the best answer to your question.”

The wiry man spoke, three or four sentences, still in that dialect Simon didn’t know, but he had the feeling the man knew just enough English to dispute the woman’s denial of leadership. After his comments, two other men spoke up. Doñabella half-turned to look at the encircling riders. She said something in Basque. No one responded. She spoke again. Several gave determined responses of si and ¡dale!

Doñabella bowed her head, as if humbled. She turned back to Simon. “They tell me that I lead. They answer your question.”

Simon tackled what concerned him. “Don Esperanza gave his word to help me.”

“The don has never met you,” she retorted.

“He gave his word to Major Stively through a messenger, not a month ago. He did not hesitate. Whatever aid that I needed.”

She did not ask for specifics. She stepped closer, close enough for him to see striations of gold in her amber eyes. The wiry man followed, keeping the same distance, a hand still on his knife, a clear warning.

“My regrets, again, señor.” Her gaze flashed behind him then to her right then came back, and she lowered her voice. “These men, they claim not to speak English. I do not trust that. I cannot. We have a spy in our midst, a traitor who helps our foreign invaders. He does not know that we are aware of his betrayal. He does not know we are looking for him. He will not know until we find him.”

Her guard spat, and Simon had no doubt the spy would meet the man’s knife.

“Señor Pargeter, you should not associate with us. This man will betray you just as he betrays us.”

“Your traitor can’t concern me. I have a mission to complete. This is not a choice, Doñabella. Don Esperanza vowed to assist my mission. He gave his word. Te doy mi palabra. Palabra de honor. En el honor de mi familia y de Esperanza.[1] I need you to uphold his word, Doñabella. My mission depends upon it.”

At his roll of Spanish, the surrounding men murmured. Simon had spoken loudly enough for all to hear. He wanted no misunderstanding. The Spanish lived by their honor. The don had given his word. If these partisans owed him any loyalty, they would not willfully cause the breaking of that honor. And the spy would go along, trusting that no one knew of his betrayal.

He needed local help. Wellington needed maps for his assault through northern Spain. Tucked against his skin, Simon’s journal had detailed drawings and damning notes. If the journal fell into French hands, the evidence would damn him, and his lack of uniform would get him shot as a spy.

If Simon were caught, the French would know General Wellington’s plan: an attack through north Spain, ignoring the south. Barricade the border between the countries. Wipe out the French presence at the British Army’s back. Then turn into France and aim for Napoleon.

To accomplish this goal, Wellington needed the maps that his predecessor hadn’t had. He needed specific ground information that the Spanish officers attached to his command didn’t have.

And Simon needed this Doñabella to give him the support that Don Esperanza had promised.

“Señor Pargeter, do you not see? It is impossible. Your mission will fail before it begins.”

Once again he resorted to Spanish. He slowly pivoted, trying to make eye contact with every man, including the wiry man with his threat of the knife. If he couldn’t convince her, the men might ask enough questions that she would have to reconsider. If she did not reconsider, one or two of them might give help on their own. “We English will defeat Napoleon. We will help you remove that French puppet Joseph, the one who styles himself José I, from the Spanish throne. We will restore the rightful king Fernando. We will help you drive the French from your homes. We will not abandon you. With your help, we will drive the French back across the Pyrenees and all the way to Paris.”

“Fernando? Rey Fernando?” Folding her arms above the wide belt that cinched the bulky jacket around her, Doñabella also lifted her voice. “El Rey Felón o el Deseado?”

The encircling partisans shouted at her question, chosing The Desired over the criminal.

That question was clever manipulation. Simon ceded that part of the argument to her. The deposed Fernando had two contradictory names, one from the French supporters, the other from the Spanish nationalists. Napoleon had forced Fernando’s abdication then installed his brother Joseph on Spain’s throne. The upper class, especially those near Madrid who had witnessed Fernando’s incompetence, supported King Joseph. The common people, who knew only that the bloodline sitting on the throne was not Spanish, they agitated against Joseph.

Napoleon’s plan would have succeeded if his brother had either inspired the common people or charmed them. He’d tried. He’d ended the Inquisition. He’d implemented reforms. But he was French blood trying to rule Spain, and whole areas of the country revolted, calling for their independence from Napoleon’s empire.

The men called out to Doñabella. With half her face hidden by the scarf, Simon wasn’t certain she even considered his argument.

A cloud, one of the tattered remnants from last night’s spring storm, crossed the sun. For a brief moment they were all shadowed. Then the cloud passed, the sun blazed down from the deep blue sky, and Doñabella acted as if the debate among her men didn’t concern her.

The wiry man spoke. She had ignored the other comments, but she turned to speak to him. Simon wished he spoke the local dialect. As their argument flagged, he played his trump. “Wellington took Salamanca and Madrid.”

She turned and flashed, “We have seen Wellington take cities and then retreat when he could not hold them. Burgos. Valladolid. Madrid. Torquemada.”

He winced at that truth. Her anger hinted at rage associated with Wellington’s retreat. His rebuttal sounded weak even in his ears. “Circumstances are different this time.”

“How are they different? We risk our lives!”

“Just as we British risk our lives. Shall I count off the men we’ve lost in battle?”

“Badajoz,” she retorted.

Angry murmurs from the partisans backed Doñabella, turning the wavering men.

Barely one year before, the siege of Badajoz had turned into an ugly victory that even Wellington had called costly: three days of rioting, thousands of Spanish citizens massacred, and British officers who tried to enforce order killed by their own men.

Badajoz blotted all of Simon’s arguments.

“You’re right,” he admitted, still in Spanish for the benefit of all. “I can give you no defense for Badajoz. It represents the worst of war and the worst of men. I can only tell you that we British are not here for our own gain. We are here to help you.”

“Do not lie. You British are here because you hate Napoleon.”

“And do you love Napoleon? Do you know your Latin, Doñabella? Amicus meus, inimicus inimici mei?”

“My friend, the enemy of my enemy,” she translated, the words slow, and behind Simon a man translated the phrase into the local dialect. The murmurs this time restored his hope. “El Director de las Almas,” she gave the credit. “You know your Pinamonti.”

He could have lied and increased the slight connection he’d managed. He chose truth. No matter how slight, lies never paid their cost. “My source is Franz Hoeger. Die Siben Brodt[2].”

“Ay, si. You English invited a German to take your throne.”

“We chose a German from a bloodline with an English connection. We can debate history if you wish. If we have time.” He glanced around, at the men, at the track he’d ridden up. When she rolled her eyes, Simon knew she had caught his meaning that they delayed unnecessarily. He came back to his strongest argument. “Did the people of Spain have a choice in Joseph Bonaparte becoming their king?”

She unfolded her arms. “You make good arguments and bad ones, but we cannot help you, Simon Pargeter. My regrets. I have told you the reason.” She turned toward her horse.

“One last argument. Please.”

Doñabella paused. She looked over her shoulder. “Speak.”

“Marshal Soult has returned to France. King Joseph dismissed him.”

Even with the shadow cast by the wide-brimmed hat, he saw her eyebrows lift. “And the reason you believe this is your great rebuttal?”

“Marshal Jourdan replaced him.”

“Jourdan? The Jourdan of Talavera?” She turned completely around, and Simon’s hopes lifted from the dust. “This is yet more proof that Joseph is a fool.” He knew she wavered, but then she shook her head decidedly. “Yet still it is not enough incentive to risk my men. They have wives, children, bebés. Chuy will show you the track to Miranda de Ebro. We will send word for them to expect you.”

“Doñabella?”

“No,” she cut him short and strode over to the wiry man.

That man was Chuy, Simon reckoned, for he looked displeased by her offer.

A gunshot cracked.

Simon ducked then sprang for his Baker rifle.

The riders shouted. Letting their horses have their heads, they rode out in a thunder of hooves, chased by more gunshots. The dust of their going swirled up and hid Simon. His horse shied away when he ran for him. The dead tree-branch broke. With a snort and a buck, his mount joined the others racing away. The long reins trailed in the dust.

Simon stared at the dun-colored gelding. Then, the shielding dust swept away. He snatched up his rifle and pack and sprinted for the boulders jutting out of the ground, hoping the flying bullets peppering the air hadn’t spotted him as a target.

 

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·         [1] Te doy mi palabra. Palabra de honor. El honor de mi familia y de esperanza :: I give you my word. Word of honor. The honor of my family and of hope.

 

·         [2] Director de las Almas, el :: The Director of Souls, a book originally published in the early 1700s by Pinamonti, translated by Franz Hoeger into Die Siben Brodt