Bane Beresford. Ann Lethbridge
ghost?’ She glanced past her own reflection at the maid, who looked a little pale.
‘No, miss.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘And I’ve worked here for three years. But I don’t go out there at night.’
Mary coiled her hair around her fingers and reached for her pins. ‘The ruins sound fascinating. I will be sure to take a look.’ She wished she had used her time in the library the previous day looking at a map of the area instead of reading romantic poetry.
‘Would miss like me to fix her hair?’ Betsy asked, looking a little askance at the plain knot Mary favoured. ‘I can do it up fancy like Mrs Hampton’s maid does, if you like. I have been practising on the other girls.’
Mary heard a note of longing in the girl’s voice. ‘Why, Betsy, do you have ambitions to become a lady’s maid?’
Betsy coloured, but her eyes shone. ‘Yes, miss. I would like that above all. My brother works down Beresford’s tin mine. If I had a better paying job, he could go to school.’
Her mine. Or it would be if she married. ‘Is it a bad place to work?’
Betsy looked embarrassed. ‘It’s hard work, but the manager, Mr Trelawny, is a fair man. Not like some.’
‘How old is your brother?’
‘Ten, miss. Works alongside my Da, he does. Proud as a peacock.’
The thought of such a small boy working in the mine did not sit well in her stomach. But she knew families needed the income. As the mine owner, if she really was a mine owner, she could make some changes. To do that, she had to marry. And then the mine would belong to her husband and not to her. It was all such a muddle. Being a schoolteacher was one thing, but this … this was quite another. Besides, it was easy to see that if she married the earl, he would rule the roost. He was not the type of man to listen to a woman.
What she needed was some sensible counsel to see her through this mess. While Sally Ladbrook might not be the warmest of people, she had a sensible head on her shoulders. ‘Perhaps you can help me with my hair another day. That will be all for now.’
How strange it sounded, giving out orders to another person in such a manner, but Betsy seemed to take it as natural, bobbing her curtsy and leaving right away.
Oh dear, Mary hoped the girl wouldn’t be too disappointed that Mary could not offer her a position, but she really couldn’t stay. Not when Lord Beresford considered her death a plausible option.
Besides, she desperately needed to speak to Sally about the other matter the earl had raised. The money. There had to be a plausible explanation, other than misappropriation. The earl was wrong to suggest it.
She sat down and drank the chocolate and ate as many of the rolls as she could manage. The last two she wrapped in a napkin and tucked in her reticule to eat on the journey.
She counted out her small horde of coins and was relieved to discover she had enough to get her back to Wiltshire on a stagecoach. After packing her valise and bundling up in her winter cloak and bonnet, she headed for a side door she’d noticed in her wanderings. She just hoped she could find it again in the maze of passageways and stairs.
After a couple of wrong turns, she did indeed find it again. A quick survey assured her no one was around to see her departure. She twisted the black-iron ring attached to the latch and tugged. The heavy door, caught by the wind, yanked the handle out of her hands and slammed against the passage wall with a resounding bang.
Her heart raced in her chest. Had anyone heard? Would they come running? Rather than wait to see, she stepped outside and, after a moment’s struggle, closed the door behind her.
She really hadn’t expected the wind to be so fierce. She pulled up her hood and tightened the strings, staring around her at crumbling walls and stone arches overgrown with weeds. The jagged walls looked grim and ghostly against the leaden sky, though no doubt it would look charmingly antiquated on a sunny day.
Clutching her valise, she picked her way through the ruins, heading north, she hoped. A green sward opened up before her. Not the cliffs and the sea. In the distance, a rider on a magnificent black horse galloped across the park, a dog loping along behind.
The earl. It could be no one else. Hatless, his open greatcoat flapping in the wind, he looked like the apocalyptic horseman of Death. She shivered.
No, that was giving him far too much in the way of mystical power. He was simply a man who wanted his birthright. And she had somehow managed to get in the way. The thought didn’t make her feel any better.
Realising she must have turned south, she swiftly marched in the other direction, around the outside of the ruins, up hill this time, which made more sense if she was headed for cliffs.
The wind increased in strength, buffeting her ears, whipping the ribbons of her bonnet in her face and billowing her cloak around her. She gasped as it tore the very breath from her throat. It would be a vigorous walk to St Ives and no mistake.
She licked her lips and was surprised by the sharp tang of salt on her tongue. From the sea, she supposed. Interesting. She hadn’t thought of the salt being carried in the air. Head down, she forged on, looking for a path along the cliff top. The upward climb became steeper, so rocky underfoot she had to watch where she placed each step or risk a tumble. She paused to take stock of her progress.
A few feet in front of her the ground disappeared and all she could see ahead of her was grey surging waves crested with spume. It was lucky she had stopped when she did.
But where was the path mentioned by Gerald? She scanned the ground in both directions and was able to make out a very faint track meandering along the cliff top. It looked more like a track for sheep than for people.
The wind seemed intent of holding her back, but she battled into it, following the track frighteningly close to the edge.
The strings of her hood gave way against a battering gust and her bonnet blew off, bouncing against her back, pulling against her throat. Strands of hair tore free and whipped at her face, stinging her eyes. A roar like thunder rolled up from below.
She leaned out to peer through the spray into the boiling churning water. Hell’s kitchen must surely look and sound like this. As each wave drew back with a grumbling growl, she glimpsed the jagged rocks at the base of the cliff and off to her left a rocky cove with a small sandy beach.
Out in the distance, the sky and sea became one vast grey mist. The world had never felt this big in the little Wiltshire village of Sarum. She leaned into the wind and felt its pure natural strength holding her weight. She laughed. She couldn’t help it. She had never experienced such wildness.
Something nudged into her back.
She windmilled her arms to regain her balance. Her valise went flying over the cliff. And the ground fell from beneath her feet.
She screamed.
An iron band of an arm closed around her waist at the same moment her feet left the ground. She hung suspended above the raging sea for what felt like hours, but could only be seconds. That arm twisted her around and plonked her down. Not on the ground, but on a pair of hard muscled thighs gripping a saddle.
Teeth chattering, heart racing, she gazed up into the earl’s hard face. With a click of his tongue he backed the horse away from the edge. Was he mad? They could all have gone over the cliff.
Clear of the edge, he halted the horse’s backward progress and wheeled around so they were no longer facing the sea. Further along the cliff, a shepherd, crook in hand, was running towards them. The earl waved, an everything-is-fine acknowledgement, which it wasn’t, and the shepherd stopped running and waved back.
‘Put me down,’ she demanded.
A