The Hazard of Secrets / First 23 pages / Prologue, Chapters 1 & 2

 Meet Vic and his two friends Elise and Hank, 

Clarey, and Jem in these first pages from The Hazard of Secrets.

Links at the End

Prologue

Thursday, 9 June

Scared `im, Elise did, when she got all cold and hard and mean. Like she did when they spotted the two women walking, one with a bandbox, and a man behind the women, trundling a small trunk in a pushcart.

“Look, Vic. Good cloaks. And see how the right side of the young one’s skirt is dragging. She’s bound to have a purse full of money.”

“Snatch and grab.” Standing behind his sister, Hank wiped his runny nose then wiped his hand on the trousers that had grown too short.

“An’ the world all `round `em,” Vic retorted, “with that man ready to help. Nyah. For a snatch an’ grab, you need someone what’s lone. Besides, we got a job for later.”

Elise scowled, but Vic didn’t budge on this. He knew more than they did about the streets. He knew what happened when a constable collared you. Worse, what happened when one of the gangs that ran down at Liverpool’s waterfront claimed you’d poached on their patch.

“Besides,” he added, “that’s Berta. Works out of the Three Fishes.”

Elise stood on tiptoe. “Which one?”

“Red frowsy hair.”

Berta was a name they knew, Vic having warned of the trouble she’d bring. He worked best lone, but Elise had hair as golden as the rare sun. When he heard her soft voice and fine talk, he knew she and her brother wouldn’t last an hour on the streets. To think of her fineness ruined by the rough men who visited Pope Joan’s revolted him. So Vic took a risk, one of his few, and brought the pair under his wing.

Then that had to extend to their ma, who he didn’t think were their ma, but he had a circle now, whether he wanted one or not. They were trying to improve him, what with reading and a steady place to sleep.

He just wanted to keep `im alive.

Elise nudged Hank. “That’s the woman we saw talking to that man in the nice suit. The one who looked like he came from London,” she added importantly, “the Royal Courts of Justice, like Father did before he—.” She stopped.

Hank gulped back a sob.

Vic didn’t look at the boy. Elise didn’t baby her little brother, so Vic didn’t. Hank liked to hide the cracks in his toughness, but things leaked through. He were only seven, though. He and his sister both leaked dozens of clues about their background. London and Courts of Justice. How did they come to run the streets of Liverpool? He only knew how they’d met and everything after.

Running `round a blind corner in the warren of alleys, Hank had plowed into Vic. Elise ran on his heels. The fresh apples clutched in each hand, the fear on their grubby faces told him all he needed to know. If they’d known the back streets, they could’ve outrun old Hicks the greengrocer. They were young, swift. But they had turned into one of the blind alleys, unseen for such because of the twisting nature of the narrow backways.

When they skidded to a stop and started back, bound to run into the man breathing loud curses, Vic waved them over and pointed to an empty barrel. The boy hopped in first. The girl climbed in, reluctant but desperate. Vic shoved the lid in place and sat on it, whistling and kicking his heels against the sides. He barely got settled before Hicks came into view.

The grocer stopped. He puffed a moment. “Vic.”

Vic nodded but kept whistling.

“Where’s the two of `em?”

“What two?”

“The boy and the girl.”

“Didn’t see `em,” he lied. He was trusting to his reputation, hard-won, years in the making. He’d run these streets a good four year, far as he counted, and before that, he’d learned pocketpick and lockpick from Liverpool’s best. When Ollie got taken up, Vic kept to what he knew. On a crowded street, a quick dip into a pocket got him what he needed. Lone that first year, he nearly starved, but he’d never stooped to the rougher snatch and grab, and the shop owners knew that. The fences knew him. The cutpurses and robbers knew him. So far, the master of Liverpool didn’t know him. He wanted to keep it that way.

“They came this way,” Hicks insisted.

“Not this far in.”

“I saw `em, Vic.”

“Must’ve found an open door. Wouldn’t know.” Vic knew Hicks didn’t like to be away from his shop. “All I know’s they didn’t go past me.”

Hicks huffed and muttered, but he re-traced his steps, jiggling a few door latches. He found one open and peered into the darkness before changing his mind about following two wild children into an unlit room. Slamming the door, he stomped off.

Vic kept whistling long after Hicks disappeared. He kicked the barrel a few more times, especially when a knocking came on the lid. Then he hopped down, lifted the lid, hissed “sh-h”, and went to ensure the grocer had truly returned to his shop.

The two were still in the barrel when he returned. He helped them out.

Even though it was a fool thing, Vic kept helping them out. He learned their names. He watched the streets grime up their clothes until it took a hard look to see Elise’s lace trimming and Hank’s double-pleated shirt cuffs. Vic learned the woman they called ‘Ma’ weren’t their ma, and they learned the back streets and alleys and the best hiding places. Now they could run as fast as Vic did and never get lost.

But sometimes Elise got impatient with his caution.

“We could have had that nice cloak. Be warm for once. Phin—Ma could cut it down to a cape for her and a cloak for me and a vest for Hank.”

“Sell it and fill our bellies,” Hank said woefully. His growth spurt meant wrists and ankles showing, but his clothes still fit because he’d lost the silken layer that had rounded them.

“You don’t mess with Berta,” Vic warned. “She’s got her side jobs, but she works with the press gang, and the press gang works direct for the master. We don’t cross her, not if we can help it. Besides, we got a job.”

Elise stared at her boots, the blue now hidden by the scuffs and scum from the cobbles. “What’s today then?”

“Not today. Tuesday. Lock job.”

They perked up, for they usually scoured around whatever house he opened for the robbers. The men took the money items while they took food and candles and books and paper, ink and quills. Vic didn’t question why they wanted those things. The robbers didn’t care. Lock jobs brought in coins that kept them fed for the next days, off the streets and away from trouble.

“But I’m hungry.”

“I got a few coins saved back.” Vic jingled the little purse tucked under his waistband. Knowing that none of them had eaten yesterday and little enough the day before, he’d taken a handful of coins from his little hoard this morning. Just in case, he told himself. After seeing Berta, hearing Elise’s plan, and Hank’s woeful addition, he knew he’d have to spend those coins.

“Come on. We’re to the baker. See what he’s got from yesterday.”

 

Chapter 1

Sunday, 12 June

“Ya hear that?”

At the harsh question, Clarey Parton pressed a hand to her mouth and shrank deeper into the shadows behind the tall cabinet.

The flash of metal held by the bearded man had driven her to hide before they saw her. For three nights at the Three Fishes on One Hook, she’d asked for additional candles from the innkeeper Attley. He promised them every evening but never delivered. Every time she fumbled her key in her door’s lock, she silently cursed the man’s economy. Tonight, though, with two men peering down the corridor, she thanked Attley’s stinginess with the candles and oil. The shadows helped her hide.

“I heerd sommat.”

Clarey caught her breath. Her cloak matched the shadows. Wanting its warmth while she ventured to the maid’s room by the back stairs, she had thrown on the heavy wool. Now she tucked her hands and the neatly ironed cottons under the dark wool cloak and prayed for a miracle.

Without that flashing knife, she might have sailed past these men with the same cheery greetings she’d given all her fellows guests. She knew Rev. and Mrs. Hodnett. She’d met and secretly admired the tall man in the room across from hers. She had managed once, only once, to get a smile out of the scrawny clerk who finicked with his clothes. She had chatted with the maid and the char and the scrawny boy who ran errands for a ha’penny. These men, though—.

They stood in the circle of illumination cast by the sconce at the stair landing. She hadn’t spied such men in rough coats and knitted stocking caps on any of her ventures to the common room or the entrance hall. They likely kept to the taproom whenever they came in. What had brought them to the third floor?

“Can’t hear nothin’,” the other growled, his accent different. Yet they didn’t resume their conversation.

Clarey crowded into the wall, wishing to sink through the wood. She didn’t peek and strained to hear movement. What exactly had she seen?

Backs to the lamp, two men had looked down the stairs. She could identify them only by their build. Flabby’s coat didn’t meet over his protruding belly. Short and stocky had a thick black beard. Their dock worker accents reminded her of disembarking the Agnes Grace, when she was eager to be on unrocking cobbles rather than the schooner that had rolled and wallowed its way across the Atlantic Ocean. Innkeeper Attley had a diluted version of the dock accent. Nothing more distinguished these two men from any others that she’d seen walking the Liverpool streets close to the waterfront. Except that thick-bladed knife.

“I hear nothin’,” the second man repeated. “Rat, probably.”

Clarey wished again that she hadn’t let Miss Tompkins convince her to stay at the Three Fishes. “I will hear from my brother in a matter of days,” the woman had coaxed.

After weeks and weeks at sea and anticipating more days cooped up in a coach to reach her grandfather’s manor, Clarey had gladly delayed her upcoming travel. Now, though, she wished that she hadn’t listened to Miss Tompkins.

She’d hired Miss Roberta Tompkins as a traveling companion for the journey, and she had wanted to be an amenable employer. She had thought Miss Tompkins a lucky find, for she’d overheard the woman tell someone in the downstairs back hall that she knew a man at Parton March. Remembering that comment now, an alarum rang, loud as a fire bell. Why hadn’t Miss Tompkins mentioned that acquaintance during her interview?

“I heerd a sound, I tell ya. Summat, at least.”

“We got better things to do than chase a rat.”

“Ya made up yer mind `bout that man Axminster?”

Creeping like an inchworm, Clarey lifted the cloak’s hood over her head, adding its shadow to hide her pale face.

“Keep yer voice down.”

“Why? Past midnight. Nobody’s awake this late.”

Except for Clarey, needing to dry her hand-washed undergarments quickly and remembering the maid had a flat iron to do it.

Mr. Axminster’s room was across from hers. He’d helped the puffing porter carry her trunk up the flights of stairs. Then, while the porter claimed to be out of breath, Mr. Axminster had hauled the sea trunk into her chamber. A tall man, broad of shoulder and thickly muscled, his face was battered like a pugilist’s. Even though he never returned her greetings, his willingness to help had impressed her. She ignored his bashed nose and continued to smile at him. Just this morning he had touched his hat as they passed in the hall. The clerk could scarcely be bothered with such niceties.

What did two men, one armed with a knife, have to do with Mr. Axminster?

“I don’t like standin’ out here like this,” Flabby complained.

“Like I said, nobody’s out an’ awake this late, `cept the likes of us.”

“We could sit in that little room Berta pointed out to us.”

“We’ll miss the signal.”

“Then what ya think`bout that Axminster? Ya think we’ll get good coin?”

“Big man like him? Aye.”

“He’ll fight us, Cribbs. Ya seen the size of his fists? Like a great club they are.”

“Berta’ll give `im that special rum. That’ll put `im out, guaranteed. Then we git `im down the back stairs, haul him to the ship, an’ git good coin. He’ll wake up far out to sea. He’ll work then, or he’ll feed the sharks.”

The other man hissed a warning. While they peered down the stairs, looking for a signal, Clarey goggled at the flickering shadows cast by the candlelight.

Impressment. That’s what they were talking about.

She’d heard of press gangs, taking men for the Royal Navy, even off American ships. The Navy was desperate for sailors as the war with Napoleon dragged on. Only yesterday, as she sipped her soup in the common room and wished she had the table near the hearth, she overheard two men complaining about how few sailors were available to work on the merchant ships. One had lowered his voice and hissed, “We press them like the Navy does.”

“—split the money fer the pretty lady, with never a mention to the boss. Won’t have to turn over a cut fer her.”

The words had snatched back her attention. Talons of fear raked down her spine as the men chuckled.

“What the boss don’t know won’t hurt him. All to the good fer us.”

“We can have a little play with her `fore we turn her over to the madam. Those big eyes, blue as can be—ya should’ve seen her tryin’ hard not to look when I bumped her on the street.”

Me! They’re talking about me!

She remembered the bulky man who had jogged into her as she returned from the apothecary with a tisane for Miss Tompkins. Above his unshaved whiskers were a flattened nose and piggy eyes. When she sidestepped him with an excuse, he had grinned, gap-toothed. He gave an up-and-down sweep of his eyes then showed her his tongue. Appalled, she swept past. His guffaw had followed her.

The grime of the world, of place and people, hadn’t shocked her. Pa had educated his daughters in letters and ciphers as well as the world’s nefarious deeds. He hadn’t wanted them taken advantage of while he traveled on his long expeditions for the government. One of his chief lessons for Clarey and her half-sister Rissa was to load, prime, and shoot the dead center of a target with a variety of weapons.

Pa had taught defenses against physical harm. Clarey knew no defenses for the emotional harm when he disappeared and Rissa died.

These two men said “play”, but that meant torment and degradation. A solitary woman faced many dangers. Clarey had hired Miss Tompkins for that very reason. She also carried Pa’s pistol. Tonight, expecting only a quick trip down the hall and back, she’d left the weapon in her room.

Mr. Axminster press-ganged. Herself thrown into a brothel.

No.

“We get more if she’s untouched.”

“So she will be, where they want her to be. An’ never have to bring Berta’s name into it.”

Berta? Roberta? Roberta Tompkins? The woman who presented herself as a genteel lady forced by circumstance to seek employment as a companion?

Roberta Tompkins, who had begged this afternoon for Clarey to fetch a tisane from the apothecary for her migraine. “The herbs will make me very sleepy, Miss Parton. No sense knocking on my door after I drink the concoction.” She had pressed a steaming cloth to her temple. “I do promise that we will soon be able to journey to your grandfather. I know he is anxious to see all his living descendants.”

Only now did Clarey wonder how Roberta knew of the event when she was days and days from Parton March.

“My headache will ease by morning, I am certain. And once my brother’s letter reaches me here, we can leave for Parton March.”

Had Roberta delayed their leaving in order to set up Clarey’s disappearance? Had she hired these two men?

Her hennaed hair subdued in a chignon and clad in a high-collared grey gown, Miss Tompkins had claimed to be a former governess seeking employment as a paid companion. She claimed her need to wait on her brother’s letter. Then she convinced Clarey that the accommodations at the Three Fishes on One Hook would be less expensive than the coaching inn. “Only a little inconvenience will occur, Miss Parton.”

Clarey had agreed to wait for the brother’s important letter. Her grandfather, Bennett Howell Parton, had waited months to meet his descendants. Clarey was his granddaughter by his second son. The solicitor’s representative had found the sisters in Philadelphia. Many weeks had passed since then, so Clarey reassured her new employee that a slight delay would not matter.

Now, Roberta’s extreme gratitude for that simple delay loomed with troll-like trouble. The woman must have used the extra days to set a trap.

If the men would move on, Clarey would barge into Roberta’s room and confront her.

Better yet, she would feed Roberta that drugged rum that the men intended for the unsuspecting Mr. Axminster.

Can I manage that?

She knew Mr. Axminster only in passing, but to hear the plans hatched against him and do nothing—her soul revolted.

“Hsst!”

Clarey heard the click and snick of a lock, the creak of a door sounding nearby. She pressed deeply into the corner against the cabinet. She dared not look out.

“There y’are,” Black Beard said. “Time ya got here. Nigh on midnight. That him?”

“Hush you. Just a satisfied customer.”

Recognizing Roberta’s voice, Clarey fisted her carefully ironed clothes.

“We need to get moving.”

“We have time enough,” she drawled.

Clarey risked a peek.

Roberta Tompkins had joined the men at the landing. Her richly red hair flowed around her shoulders. In profile, her high brow and hooked nose could not be mistaken. Nor the little sag beneath her chin. She no longer wore the dowdy grey gown but had on a loose-necked gown of vivid blue.

“Time enough fer you,” the bearded man retorted. “We got to carry him down the backstairs and then trundle him to the docks, all before he wakes up. Then we got to come back for the girl.”

“Time enough and plenty.” Roberta patted his arm. “I’ll fetch the rum from the taproom, then we’ll be about our business. And if the lady stirs up a fuss, well—what goes down his gullet can go down hers. But—.” She wagged a finger. “I want my cut upfront, Bob Cribbs. You shorted me last time.”

“I got shorted m’self. That’s the reason we switched the plan for that pretty lady. Get more for a live one than a dead one.”

“Still, I want it now, or nothing doing, Bob.”

“Take it out of Axminster’s pocket. He won’t be needing it where he’s going. The lady, too. And what we got shorted last time, we’ll get from her.”

“Joan’s wanting her by noon tomorrow.”

Black Beard rubbed his hands. “Maybe dusk tomorrow,” and his flabby mate cackled.

“Sh-h,” Roberta warned. “There’s others on this hall. A dried-up parson and his shriveled wife. Don’t wake them.”

“What they gunna do? Go squeaking to Attley?” and another cackle joined his muffled laugh. “He’s had his cut already. Let’s get a move on.”

“I need to get the rum. Got what will make it special right here.” She touched her bodice. “You two wait in that workroom I showed you, right next to the backstairs. I’ll give you the signal when he’s knocked out. Go on.”

Clarey nearly dropped her freshly ironed garments when the men started toward her.

They would pass her. She heard Roberta hurry down the stairs. Turning her face into the cabinet, she hoped the deep shadows caused by the weak lamplight hid her.

She smelled them before they reached her, rancid sweat, strong ale. They hustled past, not stopping until they reached the end of the hall. One of them tried a door—the stair well with its steep flights turning quickly upon themselves. As he shut it, the other tried the door opposite. Clarey had ironed her cottons there, hoping to pack and leave in the morning.

The men crowded inside the maid’s room.

As soon as the door shut, she flew, silent as an owl. She wanted to hide in her chamber—but when the men finished with Mr. Axminster, they’d come for her. The pistol would balance the scales, their strength against her bullets. Yet gunshots would wake the whole inn. Wasn’t the innkeeper working with this press gang?

And Roberta added another felon to the danger.

Her only hope was to alert Mr. Axminster before Roberta returned with the spiked rum.

His room was directly across from hers. Clutching her folded garments to her breast, she scratched at his door.

 

Chapter 2

Sunday, 12 June

At the first scratching on the thin paneled door, Jem Baxter opened his eyes.

Far along the street, a church bell tolled the late hour. He’d nearly fallen asleep waiting on the promised tryst with Berta. When he’d connected her with the frumpy companion to the naïve innocent across the hall, he’d been half a mind to warn Miss Blue Eyes that Miss Tompkins wasn’t as genteel as she presented herself.

He kept his mouth shut. He had recognized Berta from his London days. That cast in her eye was unmistakable. Remembering her glee whenever she got her own back against those who wronged her, Jem had decided not to interfere.

Neither he nor Berta talked of London. She flirted, and he decided to tumble her before heading on his way. She’d made him wait an extra day. She flirted well, promised all sorts of delights with her practiced tongue, but—.

Jem didn’t remember the but. He’d thought of it while he ate his supper and listened to the Reverend Hodnett talk about the mission to India. Then it had vanished like smoke while he dozed, waiting for Berta.

Fresh off ship after working a passage back from Canada, he needed to find work. He’d had enough of ships. Climbing rigging to watch the ship leave port, jumping on the mast to get the sails to drop when sea-swollen wood stuck to wood, heaving his guts out below decks as the ship rolled through storm, he didn’t want that experience ever again. He’d also had enough of the cold winter of Nova Scotia. Even though it was May when he boarded the Lady Mersey for England, snow had been falling, dusting the weathered boards of the docks and riming the gunwales and ropes on the ship.

Yesterday he planned to leave the Three Fishes and head for an inland town, but Berta stopped him. In that husky voice, she promised make the wait up to him if he’d stay just one more night.

The scratching came again, jerking him out of his doze.

He ought to make her wait.

He definitely wouldn’t let her know how eager he was.

He linked his hands behind his head and crossed his ankles. “Come in,” he offered. He had an end room and no one nearby, just the blue-eyed innocent across the hall. No need to wake her.

The door opened. In the light of his single candle, he saw a cloaked figure slip inside then press the door shut.

Why was Berta wearing a cloak?

She turned and placed folded cloths on the chest beside the door. Then she straightened and stepped forward, pushing back her hood as she did so, revealing a round face with a pert nose and chin and big eyes.

Big blue eyes.

“Hell!” Jem sprang off the bed and grabbed his trousers, turning his back while he stepped into them.

“Mr. Axminster, I must speak with you.”

Her voice shook, what he’d expect if she’d had a fright. An innocent like her, seeing a naked man, she was likely quaking in her kid boots. That didn’t kill his anticipation, not since he’d used those big blue eyes to inspire him every night since her arrival at the Three Fishes.

“Miss Parton, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Sh-h!”

“You need to get back to your room.”

“Sh-h,” she insisted. “We must be quiet.”

He grabbed a shirt. “Don’t know what you’re thinking, but my room ain’t a place for—.”

“Do, hush, Mr. Axminster.” The vehement whisper wouldn’t have silenced him, but her ear pressed against the door did. “You are in danger. From a press gang. As am I.”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking—.”

“Roberta Tompkins is part of the gang. She wanted her cut first.”

He dropped the shirt back on the chair. “How you do know that?”

She faced him, her blue eyes unwavering. “Pure luck. We haven’t much time, sir. They planned—they were talking in the hall, just now, and I overheard them.”

He hadn’t heard anyone talking. With her room directly across, how could she have heard? Yet in their few encounters, not once had she struck him as a needy miss desperate for dramatics to fill the tedium of her days. He peeked out the window, careful to keep to one side. Memory served up a trundle cart rumbling over the cobbles, coming from the twisting alley to the inn’s back entrance. A bearded man had pushed the empty cart while a fat-bellied man carried the lantern.

“How many?” he shot over his shoulder.

“Only two, I think.”

Two tallied with his memory.

“And Miss Tompkins. They said something about the master getting his cut, but the master didn’t need to know about the deal they worked with a local brothel for me.”

The bitterness of her last words didn’t belong to an innocent. Her use of “the master” for the man who controlled Liverpool’s underground tallied with his memory, more proof if he needed it. Jem dropped the curtain and stepped away from the window. A shadow on the curtains would alert any watcher. “A brothel?”

“Virginity fetches more money, although they know other ways to play with me.” Her words dropped like stones.

That brief description sickened Jem. “That’s not going to happen,” he assured her. “No brothel will get you. They won’t get their filthy paws on you.”

“Joan is the name Roberta said to them.”

Pope Joan’s brothel near the wharf was known for its open doors and occasional promise of something special. Jem stared at those wide blue eyes and trim figure and knew Miss Parton would be the sacrificial special lamb.

He needed a good plan. He had his fists, not enough against two braw men intent on evil.

A single knock fell on his door.

Miss Parton jumped.

“James,” came the husky voice he’d waited for, “time for play.”

Miss Parton dove between the bed and the wall, landing with a thud he hoped Berta thought was his feet hitting the floor.

“James.” She rattled the door latch. He was shocked Berta hadn’t opened the door. He had no idea what to do.

Miss Parton’s head popped up. “Don’t drink the rum,” she hissed then dropped back down. Her rump stuck up, clearly visible.

Jem opened the door and planted himself where Berta couldn’t see the bed.

And regretted she was working with a press gang.

Her ginger hair was fluffed around her shoulders. She smiled and wet her lips and drew fingers down her neck, drawing his attention to her bosom. The loose bodice revealed her deep cleavage. She’d untied her chemise ribbons. She waggled a dark liquor bottle, already uncorked. “Oh, Jamesy,” she purred and stepped against him. Her hand planted over his heart, sliding a little so her thumb could brush his nipple. He didn’t try to stop his body’s reaction, but he wished he hadn’t groaned.

Berta pressed her full breasts against his chest and tiptoed to give his chin a wet kiss, promising more with a husky laugh. Then she drifted past him into the room.

He turned, watching her go to the table with its plate and mug left from his supper. With her shoulders thrown back, those breasts were tempting. He knew their plushness because he’d weighed them in his hands when Berta kissed him this morning. Her wet mouth promised salacious delights. He wanted to tumble her on the bed and drive out the need that had hounded him since he’d seen the last of Halifax from the rigging of the merchant ship.

If he did that, Miss Parton would lose more of her precious innocence.

Berta returned, offering the rum in the pewter mug. He looped his arm around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss.

Her tongue almost convinced him to forget Miss Parton. Then her nails scratched his neck. He didn’t mind bites and scratches in the tumble of sex. This was calculated pain, designed to test rather than arouse. Some men got off on pain, giving it, receiving it, needing it for arousal. Men like the ones who threatened Miss Parton. Berta’s pricking nails told him more than Miss Parton’s claim that Berta had called the local madam “Joan”.

Jem pushed her away and took the mug. “Is this whiskey?”

She touched the bottom of the mug, pushing it upward. “Rum,” another proof for Miss Parton. He didn’t need any more. Berta licked the blood she’d scratched from his neck off her nails. Jem didn’t like her smile.

And he kept picturing wide blue eyes peering at them over the mattress.

He backed up. Berta followed. When she reached for him again, he caught her hand and spun her toward the table. Then he quickly shut the door and latched it. “No interruptions.” He hoped his grin looked like a leer.

She had picked up the bottle again and used it to motion at his pants. “Those have to go.”

“I’m ahead,” he retorted. “You catch up.”

She lifted the bottle to her mouth. He didn’t see her swallow. She pointed at the mug. “I’m ahead. You catch up.”

He lifted the mug to his mouth. As she unbuttoned her bodice, he stared at the clear liquid shimmering in the pewter. Whatever she’d spiked the rum with, he couldn’t see it. He let the alcohol wet his lips and pretended to swallow. Her smile increased.

She brushed past him to perch on the side of the bed. He pretended to drink again and once again. She finished unbuttoning her bodice but didn’t offer to push the sleeves down her arms. She swung her feet and lifted the bottle, pretending to swallow twice. So Jem lifted the mug while his mind raced.

He doubted he could muffle her and tie her up without a fight. She would be eager to use her nails. She wouldn’t hesitate to scream—which would bring her partners. Worse odds when they burst in. And the parson down the hall would believe the men justified in hauling Jem off because he’d attacked a defenseless woman.

Any bleats Miss Parton made would be ignored.

He pretended to drink again.

“Jamesy,” Berta pouted, “I’m waiting.”

“And you’re still behind.” He gestured to his bare chest then to her. “I’ve been wanting an eyeful since the first time I saw you.”

She huffed then began pushing the gown off one shoulder. He watched and pretended to drink. And saw Miss Parton peeking.

He waited until one gown sleeve reached Berta’s elbow. She hadn’t undone her cuffs. She reached for the other shoulder. Jem set the cup on the bed table, then he lunged for her. He bore her back to the bed and jerked down the gown sleeve till it trapped her other arm. For a confused second Berta mistook his intent. Then her eyes narrowed. He clamped a hand over her mouth and muffled her scream.

“Miss Parton.” The calm of his voice amazed him. Berta thrashed and kicked. “Would you hold the rum before it empties all over the bed?”

She popped up. Wide eyes took in the woman struggling under Jem. Then she scrambled onto the bed and searched for the bottle. She snatched it up and shoved it at him.

“You’ll have to hold it.”

“Oh.”

Berta heaved and writhed, but she couldn’t dislodge his hand from her mouth or his body straddling hers.

Miss Parton divined his purpose and planted herself at Berta’s head.

“Ready?”

Those wide eyes lifted from the woman. The blue reflected his own grim determination. A fleeting thought wondered where innocent Miss Parton had learned the lesson of “needs must”. “She’ll scream,” was her only comment.

He shook his head. “She’ll be too busy trying to breathe.” He shifted his hand to cover her nose as well.

The woman tried to throw off his hold, tried to buck off his bigger body. Then the need to breathe took control. Jem held his hand in place until her body convulsed, held longer until her lashes flickered.

“Now,” he warned and lifted his hand.

Berta sucked in a galeful of breath then choked as Miss Parton poured the spiked rum. The woman sputtered and coughed. Jem clamped his hand over her mouth, letting her breathe until her throat worked to swallow. Once again he covered her airways.

After the third dose, Miss Parton sat back on her heels, watching Berta writhe under him. “It’s cruel,” she whispered.

Jem looked up. Her determination had slipped. She was still innocent, wise to the world but not yet confronted by the brutality that required ruthlessness in order to survive. Without her action, he would have wound up trapped on another ship, sailing God knew where, and herself enduring cruelty no woman should. He’d taken to crime to win his mother out of that very life, and all the stains on his soul came from that attempt. He never thought it wasted, though his ma lived only a couple of months after he got her out of London. Then he had to pay his own debt to the boss with nearly two decades of crimes. The evil hadn’t started, though, until the boss hooked them up with French spies. Those last three years had tarred Jem’s soul.

“Nothing to what those two men planned to do to you,” he reminded her. “Nothing to the life ahead of you in Pope Joan’s brothel.”

Berta heaved.

Those blue eyes lowered before his steady gaze. She stared at her former paid companion. “She seemed so—nice. She chatted like we were friends. I thought—.” Miss Parton shook her head and lifted the rum. “I’m ready.”

After the fifth dose, Berta’s struggles lessened. Jem expected a trick and didn’t relent.

She lost consciousness after she swallowed the ninth dose of the spiked rum.

He lifted off carefully, ready to cover her mouth, but all Berta emitted was a snore.

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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

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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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