“I wish you well, Mrs. Henley. Goodbye.” She hesitates, then says quickly, “If at any time you’re in need of aid or protection, remember…” She waves her hand at the river.
“The Sea Bucca?” She says it without irony.It may be just a story or it may be something more. It doesn’t matter now. She needs all the help she can get—even that of mythical creatures. Maybe especially that. “I shall,” she says, already walking down the path, back to theroad, one hand lifted in farewell, holding Richard’s cap, the other clutching the shawl. She’s walking fast, going through the steps of her plan in her mind. The ship and the horse—they’ll be ready. The ship’s papers—she’s not sure what to do about those. It seems a minor thing. Harry said they could sail without them.
The main thing is getting Jack off the frigate. The horse will be perfect, she thinks. Rosie-May. An elegant name for a ponderous-looking horse. But strong; she looks like the strongest horse on the coast.
She’s still thinking about the horse when she jogs down the gravel path, which is why she’s all the more startled to see a horse standing in front of the cottage. This horse is the opposite of Rosie-May: a gleaming Arabian stallion, looking unhappy tied to the young oak by the door.Buttons. She calls, “Harriet?”
Chapter Seventeen
The river swishes against the stone wall; other than that everything is quiet. Even the horse seems to be holding its breath. “Harriet?” she calls again, and now there are footsteps on the narrow path along the side of the house and Harriet emerges looking sun-kissed and smiling. “I was enjoying your wondrous little garden, Isabel,” she says, as if nothing is amiss, as if Isabel has dreamed their encounter at Weatherston six weeks ago.
She’s staring at Harriet and finds herself saying, “It’s particularly lovely in the summertime, don’t you think?”
“Why, yes, the flowers are all in bloom. Should you…should you like some of our roses? I’d be glad to have Campbell bring you some to plant here. Perhaps around your well. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
She’s still staring. Why are they standing here, pretending all is well and talking about gardens? Quietly, she says, “Harriet, why are you here?”
Harriet looks down at her feet, then, as if to seek support, she goes to the horse and pats his neck. “I heard the news. I came to tell you how sorry I am. If he truly is your fiancé…well. No woman should have to experience the loss of the one they love, let alone twice. Even if your character isn’t what I hoped it was and Mr. Carlyon committed the crime of which he stands accused.” Fixing her eyes on Isabel she says, “I understand there won’t be a trial.”
“He’ll be tried for murder on board the frigate,” Isabel says. She wants to scream. “Captain Hamer guarantees a guilty verdict.”
“Just so,” Harriet says, her hand fluttering across her forehead. “But he did kill poor Lieutenant Sowerby, did he not? I couldn’t stop weeping when I heard.”
Her hands turn to fists, partly hidden by the wool of Mrs. Dowling’s wedding shawl. “PoorLieutenant Sowerby tried to shoot me.”
Harriet blanches. “I beg your pardon?”
“Your poor Lieutenant Sowerby was going to shoot Jack in the back. He was going to claim he killed him while Jack tried to escape arrest.”
“But how could you know this, Isabel?”
“I was there. And when I stepped in front of Jack, Lieutenant Sowerby shot at me. He missed, by about this much.” She shows Harriet with her thumb and forefinger—three inches, no more. “That’s when Jack shot him. He killed Sowerby to protect me. The only other crime he committed was smuggling contraband. For that he should be tried by his peers, but that’s not what Lieutenant Sowerby liked to do, nor Captain Hamer.” She sighs, her hand on the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”
Harriet’s fingers trail down her left cheek, smoothing away something Isabel cannot detect. “Of course. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I…if it hadn’t been for that news from London…we could’ve been good friends, could we not?”
“What friend lets a friend stand accused without trial?” she spits. “I ask you, Harriet! What friend does that?”
“You mean Mr. Carlyon? But—”
“I meant myself. Whoever gave you the supposed news from London was wrong. Yes, there were rumors about me. Yes, it’s why I left, in part. I couldn’t stand being talked about like that. But the only thing I did wrong was befriend a man below my station. Should I not have done it?” She shrugs, not caring anymore, at least not about Harriet’s opinion. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have. It was outside the bounds ofpropriety, certainly, and not worth all the trouble it caused. But all I ever did was talk with him and…and go on walks, for God’s sake! There was never any intimacy beyond that of mere friendship. You’ve no idea how lonely I felt after I lost George.”
“I think perhaps I do,” Harriet says softly.
She ignores this; her indignance is too hot. “Yet you chose to believe the first letter you received. You never asked me, you never let me explain. Our friendship was finished for you before it began. Yet here you stand, saying we could’ve been good friends. What stuff! Friendship is more than chatting about gardens over a cup of tea. I’ve made some true friends since I came to Cornwall and I regret to say you aren’t one of them.”
Harriet turns to the horse, patting it again. In a clipped voice, she says, “I had better go. Sir Hugh will be expecting me.”
“Goodbye.” She doesn’t wait for Harriet to leave. Going into the house, she throws the door shut behind her. She places Mrs. Dowling’s shawl in a heap of finely spun wool onto the table along with Richard’s far coarser wool cap and stomps up the stairs to the bedroom. She feels foolish for taking the shawl. Even if everything goes according to plan, there is no chance she’ll be able to bring it with her. She can’t take it on board theHornetand she won’t return to the cottage before theRapidesails. She’ll have to leave the shawl here for Mrs. Dowling to find. It was such a kind gift; she hopes Mrs. Dowling will understand.
The carriage clock in the bedroom points to a quarter past two. She has forty-eight hours and forty-five minutes left. The sight of the bed leaves her momentarily reeling. She bends over, hands on the mattress, taking deep breaths to steady herself, the room. This is where she first saw him. This is where he said,I think I’m in good hands,with that smile. Despite the pain he was in he smiled at her like that.
Slowly, the floor stops swaying. She wipes her forehead and kneels down in the narrow space between the wall and the bed. Jack’s breeches, neckerchief, and shirt are where she left them, folded in asmall stack. The clothes smell like her, but Jack wore them. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the tears come rushing into her throat again. She swallows them down—she has no time for crying.
Back in the kitchen she takes the largest of the two knives left in the wooden box on the counter—the one she uses to cut meat—and puts her finger to the blade. She hopes it’s sharp enough. She has never had to cut her hair before.
Taking a fistful, she holds the knife, ready to cut through the bunch where it hits her shoulder. No, she thinks—she’ll go shorter, she’ll cut it to chin-length. Turning the sharp of the blade away from her face, she pushes it into the bunch of hair, but it won’t give, slipping from her hand instead. Gripping the strands again, she slowly saws through them. The result is uneven, but it’s short. Very, very short. There’s an awful lot of hair on the floor. It looks a bit like seaweed. Fine, sand-colored seaweed.
She takes a second fistful and begins to saw at it when a knock on the door almost makes her drop the knife. Rooted to the floor, she barely dares to breathe. Has the Revenue Service finally come to question her? But why would they, when they’ve already captured Jack?
