‘Then he wanted it all to end.’ Freddy’s face screwed up like a small child deprived of a treat.
‘I wasn’t going to let him go that easily, so Fanny and I came to live at Brantstone.’ He smirked. ‘Anthony was not pleased but he came to accept the situation.’
‘You were blackmailing him with the letters?’
Freddy smiled. ‘They would have hanged him. He was very explicit.’
‘Were you and he,’ Isabel swallowed, ‘lovers under my roof?’
Freddy’s lips twitched.
‘No. Believe me when I say it was not my natural inclination and now I was free of the house I could pursue my own interests. It all went wrong when he found where I had hidden theletters and destroyed them. He was going to throw Fan and me out onto the street, and when I threatened to tell you, he said he’d already confessed everything. He said there’d been too many lies. He wanted to start all over again but it was too late.’
Her blood ran cold and she forced the next words out through tight lips.
‘Is that why you killed him?’
‘I didn’t intend for him to die. It was supposed to be a warning.’ Freddy sighed. ‘And then that upstart Alder came along. He was never going to cooperate, so he had to die.’ Freddie yawned and stretched. ‘Move over. I think I will rest for a short while.’
Freddy rose to his feet and, grabbing Isabel’s wrists, bound them together in front of her, tying the end of the rope to his own wrist. If she moved he would know.
He lay down on the narrow pallet beside her. His close proximity, the stink of his body, and the smell of long dead fish that clung to the shack began to overwhelm her. Her stomach heaved and the bile rose in her throat. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to breathe through the nausea.
‘We’ve wasted enough time, Isabel. There’ll be plenty of time to talk when we are on a ship for the continent. A whole lifetime to get to know each other properly. Where do you want to go first? I’ve always wanted to see Italy,’ Freddy mused with his eyes shut.
Isabel lay rigid beside him. She held her breath. If she let him sleep, he might miss the tide. She screwed her eyes tight shut and prayed.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Sebastian shivered as another blast of cold rain slewed off the marsh, penetrating his saturated cloak and sending cold, watery fingers down his back. He dismounted and waited for Harry to catch up with him. Harry’s horse had begun to favour a leg over the last mile, so he had dismounted and had to lead it on foot.
Pharaoh, as cold and weary as his master, threw his head up and whinnied. Sebastian leaned forward and patted the horse’s sodden neck.
‘It’s all right, old boy. This is it.’
Through the rain and driving wind he could see the dark, squat shapes of buildings rising out of the bleak, miserable landscape.
‘I can see the village. Not far now,’ he said as Harry joined him.
Harry nodded and Sebastian spared his old friend a second glance. Harry looked exhausted. The events of the last twenty-four hours had tested both of them. Without needing to speak, the two men led their horses into the village of Lidiford. Although the ragged collection of rough dwellings hardly deserved so grand a title as ‘village’.
A quick glance at the water showed them the tide was nearly in and the fishermen were aboard their craft readying the little boats to sail.
From the shoreline, Harry hailed the nearest boat. A scraggly bearded man leaned over the rail, his hand to his ear as Harry shouted through the wind and rain, ‘We’re looking for a man and a woman that may have come this way.’
The man scratched his beard and looked up at the leaden sky.
‘Strangers?’
‘Aye,’ Sebastian said.
‘We don’t get many strangers down here.’ The man rubbed his nose. ‘Don’t know about no woman, but I did see a man talking to Tom Parkins.’
He indicated a boat that had begun to set its sail.
Harry thanked the man and they set off on foot down the bank.
‘Hey, you!’ Sebastian shouted across the water.
