The Deepwater Trilogy. Claire McKenna
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HarperVoyager
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Copyright © Claire McKenna 2020
Cover design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Cover illustrations © Shutterstock.com
Claire McKenna asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008337124
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2020 ISBN: 9780008337148
Version: 2021-02-22
For Mum
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Book One: Vigil
1: It was only when the Coastmaster
2: A whore clothed herself
3: Oh dear
4: As was the custom
5: Her uncle had left her a boat
6: The tides had a certain
7: The Vernon Justinian who went to Garfish Point
8: Mr Quill was dreadfully curious
9: When she’d first met
10: Mr Harrow
11: Mr Quill’s car
12: She swam with the surge
13: Something in the quality of her life
14: Wake up!
15: A delicate pattern of daylight fell
Book Two: The Lion
16: The invitation came
17: The night took on a different feeling
18: Half an hour I waited in this freezing cold
19: Vigil in the morning
20: Arden had expected that she would break
21: I just wish you didn’t have to kill them
22: I saw him passing
Book Three: Blood
23: Sing to me
24: Do they know
25: No
26: I have come
27: A hull, upside down
28: … and stopped.
29: Was the dumping that woke her
30: So it’s true
31: The Harbourmistress’ boy yelped at her
32: Mr Riven made a sound
33: When he didn’t immediately reply
34: A whump of hot flame
35: Where are they taking us
36: Are you awake
37: Mr Justinian had the last word
38: She could not bear to stay
39: So, to the testmoot
Acknowledgements
About the Publisher
It was only when the Coastmaster
It was only when the Coastmaster turned to remonstrate the old man struggling to load the Siegfried’s voluminous trunk that Arden Beacon seized the moment and made her escape.
She sidled behind the wheels of the automobile — a thing callously ostentatious in this wild country — and walked off with such a laboured pretence of a casual stroll that it could not be seen as anything but. With each step she feared Coastmaster Justinian’s realization that she was not waiting patiently for him, but had instead slipped his leash.
A sharp turn at a bluestone wall, and then Arden was free.
Out of his sight she felt overcome with relief, and had to lean against the salt-scored stones and gulp chilly air before she felt remotely whole again.
Had it been so long since she wasn’t confined like a criminal under house arrest that she didn’t know quite what to do with herself? This was the first time since she’d arrived in Vigil that Mr Justinian had allowed her out of the Manse, his huge family estate that overlooked the small, coarse coastal town. The instinct to make a sudden getaway had come with such an awful slug of panic she’d almost been inclined not to move at all.
Hadn’t he told her it was dangerous, hadn’t he told her …?
But he’d spent a month telling her these things about Vigil,