“Don’t you think I would have told you if he had?”
Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
Laura sighed. “He’d left when I saw the ship. It came from the same direction as he did, sailing quite close to shore. Do you think Mallory might have been—?”
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing of note.” She was not about to repeat Mallory’s nasty accusation, and sought to distract him. “We spoke for a moment and then he left, and I rode back to Wolfram with Hugh. After I watched a seal…I haven’t told you about the seal! But that is for later. I want to hear more about the ship.”
He smiled. Our fishing boat reached the ship as it began to break up on the rocks.”
“You went out in the storm?” Laura cried,horrified.
“Hush. We found the crew loading boxes into a rowing boat. The rest of the cargo floated on the waves, some of which washed up on shore. We were lucky to get the men safely on board the boat with few casualties. When we later examined their cargo, it matched that we found stored in an empty cottage. With a bit of persuasion, the men talked. The under groom from Wolfram, Throsby, and two men who helped bring the contraband in from across the Channel have been jailed.”
“Is the ship still on the rocks?”
Nathaniel shook his head. “It sank to the bottom minutes afterward.”
She eyed him. He was not telling her the entire story. She shivered and held his hand to her cheek. Unnerved, she remembered Dora’s Tarot reading. “I’m glad I didn’t know about it.”
“I told you, sweetheart,” Nathaniel laughed. “I know those waters.”
She shook her head. “The poets put it perfectly: man is weak against the might of nature.”
He kissed her cheek. “Perhaps your mother is right about you reading too much. It was a storm. And as you see, I’m here to tell the tale.”
“You would use my mother’s words against me?” She tried not to smile. She was determined to hear it all and not be distracted by hischarm.
“I wouldn’t dare.” Nathaniel’s eyes flared, and his teasing smile made himirresistible.
She giggled. “Please continue.”
“The inquest into Theo Mallory’s death is to be held in a few days, and there will be those who will not want the truth to come to light. Those whose relatives are involved in the smuggling will remain tight-lipped.”
A shiver ran down Laura’s spine when she thought of Mallory, his face disfigured and bloodied, floating in the waves at the bottom of the cliff. She nestled against her husband as the carriage clattered along the avenue toward her parents’house.
“There’s more isn’t there, Nathaniel?”
He put his arm around her. “I’ve always believed Amanda was murdered. Perhaps she saw something she shouldn’t, and the villains pushed her off the cliff. I just don’t know. Two years after she died and with Mallory and the smugglers gone, I considered it safe to marry again. The very day after I brought you home to Wolfram, I saw that ship and realized it wasn’t over; that cutthroats and smugglers were still using this coast for their nefarious purposes. And then Mallory returned.”
Suppressing a shudder, Laura gazed up at him. “And that is why you went out every night?”
“It’s not a lie that I’m a poor sleeper. I took the boat out sometimes. I sailed close to the shore seeing if I could spot any activity either in the grounds or in the caves, but I never saw anything untoward.” He sighed. “But now that Mallory’s dead, and the smugglers’ ship gone to the bottom of the sea, it’s safe to bring you home.” He lifted her chin with the heel of his hand. “Youdowant to come home to Wolfram?”
Some unexpressed thought lurked in his eyes; something he wasn’t prepared to tell her, but he’d revealed so much, it would wait for a better time. “Yes, my love.”
She still didn’t know how big a piece of his heart Amanda still laid claim to, but Laura pushed the thought away with the knowledge that he wantedher.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Laura collected Agnes and said goodbye to her parents. Five days after they departed London, they arrived back in Wolfram, having stayed at inns along the way, enjoying being together, discussing their future and engaging in nights filled with passion.
The sun set earlier now. To Laura, under a golden moon, the village appeared almost magical. Whitewashed cottages climbed the hill, milky-white windows aglow with candlelight; lamplight threw flickering shadows over the waterfront, with the arc of sky above a deep indigo tumbled with stars. Across the water, the solid granite walls of the abbey rose from the darkgardens.
Laura was already metaphorically rolling up her sleeves, keen to resume her visits to the church, the school, the neediest villagers and the tenantfarmers.
“A hunter’s moon,” Nathaniel observed. “They’ll have a good catch.”
