The Mysteries of Pendowar Hall (The Audacious Sisterhood of Smoke & Fire #1)

Chapter Twenty-Six

T here was a break in the storm.

A pale afternoon sun filtered through the rain-streaked windows of Diana’s chamber, illuminating Miss Fallbrook’s sketchbook, which lay open on her lap.

Diana turned a page in the sketchbook. It was a portrait of Mrs. Gwynn. The excellent rendering captured the stern but even-keeled expression of the housekeeper Diana had thought she’d known. Now, she questioned the veracity of that image.

Mrs. Gwynn’s resentment over everything that had happened with Sir Thomas appeared to have simmered for years. His refusal to marry her, despite their decades-long affair, was reason enough to be hurt. When he’d first wed and had his daughter, not long after Mrs. Gwynn had secretly given birth herself, it must have compounded the injury. But when he’d fallen in love and married a second time—to a mere governess, an employee not much more elevated than herself—it seemed to have been the last straw.

“Every time she gave me an order, I wanted to scratch her eyes out.”

“I wanted to slap Thomas’s face and wring that little boy’s neck.”

Diana pressed her fist to her mouth, a dreadful notion shocking her to the core. Did Mrs. Gwynn’s efficient exterior hide the soul of a woman gone mad?

The lovers’ secret meeting place had been the woodshop where the drills were stored. Had Mrs. Gwynn sabotaged the boat that had sent the second Lady Fallbrook and her son to their deaths? Had she killed them hoping that Sir Thomas would marry her at last? It wouldn’t have been an unreasonable expectation. After all, his excuse about not marrying a servant no longer held water.

When the years had passed, and Sir Thomas had not married her—but had wallowed in grief instead—had Mrs. Gwynn finally lost all reason?

Had she given in to her rage and murdered him as well?

If Mrs. Gwynn was behind all of those deaths… had she tried to kill Diana as well? The housekeeper, Diana realized, could easily have moved that sign on the cliff path and added extra polish to the library ladder. But what of the footbridge incident?

Diana suddenly remembered: the morning she had gone to post the captain’s letters, she’d asked Mrs. Gwynn to send up her breakfast early. Mrs. Gwynn had known Diana would be crossing the footbridge in the fog.

This could be the answer to the mystery! Diana’s heart thudded as she turned a page in the sketchbook, grappling with these ideas.

Another portrait met her gaze. Diana paused. The artistry of the sketch revealed something that she had never noticed before. She gasped aloud. All at once, it was as if a cloud had been lifted from Diana’s mind. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

I know , Diana thought, her heart thundering. I know who murdered Sir Thomas.

And she could guess why.

If only she could tell the captain! But he was away. Even if he were here, why should he believe her? After this morning, he probably despised her. Diana must find a way to inform the parish constable. Mr. Beardsley might be equally dubious, but she had new information now and these sketches to accompany her theory.

Diana glanced out the window. Clouds were regathering. It might rain again at any minute. Every route to Portwithys was no doubt swimming in mire, but she would have to chance it. The footbridge was out of the question. The cliff path could be dangerous in the rain, but it was either that or the road.

She was about to grab her jacket when there was a faint tap at her door. Diana opened it to find the hall boy, a shy lad of eleven, holding a note.

“If ye please, miss. I’m to give ye this.” Without ceremony, he thrust the note into Diana’s hand and raced away.

Diana unfolded the note. She recognized the block letters and shaky writing style at once as her pupil’s. Filled with a sudden sense of dread, she read it through.

MISS TAYLOR,

I AM LAEVNIG WITH MR. LATIMER. WE AR TO MARY. WE SHALL GO BY BOAT FORM SMUGLERS CAVE. THN BY CARIGE AND TRAYN TO SCOTLND.

DONT WURRY. WISH ME WELL.

EMMA

Diana was aghast. She thought she had talked Miss Fallbrook out of this! Panic seized her. When had this note been written? Had Miss Fallbrook and Mr. Latimer already made their escape? There was no time to lose. She must try to prevent this calamity.

Diana raced down the servants’ stairs. Fetching a lantern from the storage closet, she lit the candle and dashed to the hidden door to the tunnel to Smuggler’s Cave. The new lock had been left unbolted. Had the would-be lovers escaped this way? Diana heaved open the door.

The stairs were as steep and narrow as she remembered, the passage just as musty and dank. Diana plunged down into the twisting darkness, grateful for the lantern that lit her way. The sound of dripping water grew louder as she descended. At several spots, the steps were crumbling, and she had to press a hand against the wall to steady herself as she slipped by. The tunnel’s rocky surface was dry to the touch at first but grew increasingly damp .

A salty tang invaded the air now as well as the roaring sound of the distant ebb and flow of the sea. At last, the stairs ended, opening onto a wider, sloping space—the first of several connecting caverns. Diana raced through one cavity into the next. Turning a bend, she found herself at the rear entrance to Smuggler’s Cave.

A dim light filtered in from the unseen mouth of the cave, illuminating the craggy, dark walls and the sandy floor strewn with rocks and pebbles. The tide was higher than it had been on Diana’s previous visits and rushing in fast. The cave was already more than half filled with seawater.

The Fallbrooks’ sailboat, she saw with relief, was still there, chained to its mooring beside the boat’s storage cupboard. She had arrived in time. Miss Fallbrook and Mr. Latimer hadn’t left yet!

Another thought came on the heels of that one: what if this sailboat had not been their object? What if Mr. Latimer had come for Miss Fallbrook in his own boat? They could be long gone by now.

As Diana wrestled with the awful implications of this, she felt a sudden, sharp blow to the back of her head and fell in a faint.

*

The shock of freezing water brought Diana back to consciousness with a start.

She opened her eyes to find an ocean wave receding and then surging up again around her prone body. The cavern’s ceiling towered high above. Her skull throbbed as if it might split in two, keeping pace with the thrum of the water that lapped over her thighs.

Grimacing in pain, Diana maneuvered to a stand. The tide had risen further and now almost filled the cave. Across the away, the tethered sailboat bobbed on the roiling sea.

What on Earth had happened?

She was in a different place, she realized to her dismay, than she’d been when she’d passed out. She was now trapped on a tiny, shrinking, rocky outcropping backed up against the cavern wall on one side and surrounded by sea on all the others. The ledge dropped off sharply into water that looked deep and perilous. Violent waves crashed in and out. She dared not cross that watery void.

Someone must have dragged her here after hitting her on the head. Who?

A tremor of fear crept up Diana’s spine. She had the strangest sensation, as though she were being watched.

She turned.

Ivy stood on an embankment, safe from the rising water. She was smiling.

Diana stared at Ivy as understanding dawned. “Miss Fallbrook did not write that note, did she?” Her voice echoed across the cavernous space.

Ivy’s grin became a smirk. “Her handwriting weren’t hard to imitate. She writes so bad.”

For the second time that day, Diana felt like a fool. There had never been any elopement. She should have known Miss Fallbrook would never have left like that. It had been a ruse on Ivy’s part, to get Diana down to this lonely, dangerous place.

How ironic , Diana thought. She had deduced who the murderer was, just in time to fall into her malevolent hands.

“Ivy, help me,” Diana pleaded. “There’s a rope in the storage cupboard. Throw it to me.”

“Not on your life.” Ivy chuckled, a low, wicked sound.

“Don’t do this, Ivy. What would your mother think if she knew?”

“My mother?” Ivy glowered. “What do ye know about my mother?”

“I know you are Mrs. Gwynn’s daughter. I know that Sir Thomas was your father.”

Ivy hesitated. “How do ye figure that? ”

“I saw your portraits in Miss Fallbrook’s sketchbook.” For the first time, Diana had observed that Ivy’s and the housekeeper’s noses were similar, and that they had similar expressions—when they smiled, their left eye crinkled. There was something about the shape of Ivy’s face, as well, that had reminded Diana of Sir Thomas. Why had she never perceived these things before? “I guessed who you were,” she added. And she’d guessed what Ivy had probably done.

“You’re a clever one, miss. No one else has ever noticed a resemblance. But then, who looks twice at a chambermaid?”

Diana’s heart pounded with trepidation. She had to keep Ivy talking, get on her good side while trying to figure out an escape plan. “How long have you known about your parentage?”

“Since I were thirteen. My mother sent for me when I were old enough to earn my keep. She said how sorry she was that she had to give me up. Made me promise to keep it a secret from my father, as she had.”

The water had risen above Diana’s ankles. “It must have been hard, to keep that secret all this time.”

“It weren’t fair. I were his child, and he didn’t even know! Miss Fallbrook is so stupid, he didn’t like her. But to see him simper over that boy and his wife, a governess ! If only those two were out of the way , I thought, he could marry my mother. ”

“Sir Thomas could have married your mother long before he met Miss Corbett, but he didn’t,” Diana pointed out. “What made you think this time would be different?”

“I weren’t working here then . He didn’t know anything about me. But after I came to Pendowar Hall, I were sweeping the workshop one day when he came in. He were nice to me. He showed me how to use some of his tools. I thought, if Mama told him who I am, he would love me. And when he were free and single again, we could be a family.”

“I see.” Diana swallowed hard. “And you knew the captain planned to take them sailing?”

Ivy nodded. “I got a drill from the woodshop and bore holes in the boat beneath one of the seats. But I needed the boat to get far out to sea before it took on water. I remembered something my granny once taught me—a way to fix a damaged pail by plugging the holes with mud. It worked, but not for very long, and I thought that was perfect.” A smug gleam lit Ivy’s eyes. “Not long after the boat were put out to sea, a lucky storm blew up. And just as I hoped, Lady Fallbrook and her brat drowned.”

Diana struggled to remain calm. “I will never tell anyone, Ivy, I promise. If you will just fetch the rope and throw it to me.”

“I heard drowning is not so bad. It’ll be over quick.”

Should I take the risk? Diana wondered. Jump into the water and try to make it to the embankment where Ivy stands? But the deep pool rushed and foamed between them like an angry beast. The memory of the river water closing over her, and her clothing dragging her down, kept Diana frozen to the spot.

“Captain Fallbrook might’ve died that day as well,” Ivy was saying, “which would have served him right. He only be the baronet’s nephew. He didn’t deserve to inherit Pendowar Hall. I’m the oldest living child. By rights, the house should be mine .”

Diana knew this wasn’t true. By law, the estate could only go to the next male heir. Otherwise, Miss Fallbrook would have inherited as a legitimate daughter. Surely, Ivy must have known this? But there was no point in arguing with her—she was clearly deranged—and there was no time.

Fighting down her panic, Diana said, “If you help me, Ivy, I’ll help you. I’ll tell the captain who you are. He’ll be happy to know you’re his cousin. And he’ll do right by you.”

“No, he won’t, no more’n my father did. I waited three years after Master Robert and Lady Fallbrook passed for him to get over his grief. But he never did. Finally, I could wait no more. I told him. I said, ‘Sir Thomas, I’m yer daughter.’ I hoped he’d accept me as his flesh and blood. But no! At first, he were too shocked to speak. Then he grew angry and said, ‘Keep this idle suspicion to yerself, or I’ll sack ye and yer mother.’ Oh, how I hated him then. I was nothing to him, invisible, just the girl who lit his fires and emptied his chamber pot. While my mother suffered in silence, in love with a man who would only take her to bed in secret.”

The water splashed at Diana’s knees. Terror spiraled through her. “What did you do, Ivy?” But she knew the answer.

“The next morning, when he set off on his walk, I hid in the shrubbery at the point where he always stopped to admire the view. Then I crept up and shoved him off the cliff. Just like I shoved ye off that footbridge.”

“And you forged Sir Thomas’s suicide note, ‘I cannot go on’? Just like you forged the note from Miss Fallbrook?”

“A little bit of schooling can go a long way.” She smirked. “I should’ve taken and burned Sir Thomas’s letter after I copied from it, but I didn’t think of it ’til later. It’s not my job to clean his study. I feared it’d be suspicious if I went back looking for it.” Ivy glared at Diana across the churning waters. “And I never thought anyone would figure it out.”

“The lights in the north tower… was that you?”

“I had to keep Morwenna alive in folks’ minds so they’d blame the Mermaid’s Curse. I borrowed my mother’s ring of keys when she were sleeping and it worked like a charm. No one suspected a thing. And no one ever would have if ye hadn’t come to Pendowar Hall, poking yer nose into everything.” A wave rushed up against the embankment and Ivy stepped back, shaking her head. “Ye were too close to discovering the truth. Ye had to die.”

“You don’t need to kill me. I’ll go home tomorrow. I’ll never set foot in Pendowar Hall again. And I will never tell a soul.”

“What, and leave me looking over my shoulder for the rest of me days? Not likely. Ye’re like a dog with a bone. Ye’ll never keep quiet.”

The freezing water slapped at Diana’s waist. “That day in the library when I fell. You were so good to me, Ivy. Remember? You may have saved my life. You can save me again.”

“Do you think I wanted to save ye?” Ivy sneered. “When that sign on the cliff path didn’t work, I had to try again. I saw ye were on a mission to find some book, so I put extra polish on that ladder. Ye would have bled out for sure if that stupid Hester hadn’t come by and started shrieking. What could I do then but help ye?”

Diana shivered, both from cold and shock. “Please, Ivy,” was all she could think to say.

“Ye should have drowned in the river, but the sea is better still. When yer body washes up, everyone will know it were Morwenna who came for ye. The captain, he be next on my list.” Ivy let out a spiteful laugh. “He’ll meet with an accident one day. And once again, they’ll say it were the Mermaid’s Curse.”

Just then, a massive wave crashed in. The heaving waters grabbed hold of Diana, threw her up against the cave wall, and dragged her away again. In seconds, she was hurled the entire length of the cave and then spit out into the violent, open sea.

The wind howled. It was raining again, a heavy downpour. Diana choked and thrashed, panic-stricken, tossed about by angry whitecaps. Waves crested overhead and thrust her down, then up again. With each dunking, she struggled frantically to rise to the surface, where she gasped for air, only to be pelted by the deluge from the skies before she sank again.

A strong current seized her and propelled her onwards. Diana managed one more long breath before it pulled her down, down, down, cartwheeling head over heels into the watery depths.

Was this the end? Diana stared up at the surface far above, powerless to reach it. Oh, how desperately she needed to breathe.

Suddenly, a figure swam up and hovered before her: a beautiful young woman with long, flowing red hair. No. Not a woman. A mermaid . Her upper body was bare, her breasts wrapped in seaweed. Her glistening, greenish-blue tail undulated softly.

Morwenna.

She regarded Diana with a cunning, malicious smile. Diana knew she was hallucinating. I must be on the edge of death . Still, she couldn’t help but silently appeal to the apparition.

I must breathe, or I shall die.

The mermaid’s mocking expression seemed to say, Then die. You asked for it.

Perhaps the mermaid was right. Perhaps Diana had asked for it. She had dared to belittle the legend’s power, had loved a man despite every warning.

Captain Fallbrook’s face swam before her eyes. She had lost him. And yet it hurt to know that she would never see him again. She thought of Athena, Selena, Damon, and Mrs. Phillips… sorry that her death would cause them pain.

She hated to leave this world and all the beauty in it. But her lungs felt as if they might explode. It was as if the entire universe were about to burst its way out of her chest.

Do it. Breathe in , Morwenna taunted.

Terror ebbed, replaced by surrender. Morwenna wanted her and would just keep coming for her. Diana was ready to give in. Just as she was about to open her mouth and inhale the freezing water, a voice resounded in her mind.

No. You cannot drown. Not today . Fight. Fight!

It was the captain’s voice. She heard it loud and clear. As if he were calling to her not in her mind, but across the ocean’s depths.

Once again, Diana knew she was hallucinating. But it struck her suddenly that if she died, Captain Fallbrook and her godmother would never learn the identity of Sir Thomas’s killer. Mrs. Phillips would go to her grave full of anxiety and doubt. Captain Fallbrook would continue to blame himself for the deaths of his aunt and uncle and cousin. Miss Fallbrook would forever believe that her father had committed suicide without a thought for her. Their lives would be ruined, while that scheming vixen Ivy continued to work right under their noses. And then…

“The captain, he be next on my list. He’ll meet with an accident one day. And once again, they’ll say it were the Mermaid’s Curse.”

Diana couldn’t let that happen. Oh, Captain! I cannot die , she thought desperately. The truth would not change anything between them, but she loved him. She could not give up now. I must survive so I can tell you. So I can save you.

Diana dug down for all her strength and fought against the churning sea, kicking her legs and moving her arms. She knew no swimming strokes and made little progress, but it was just enough, for she reached a region where the current swept her up and carried her the rest of the way. Breaking the surface, Diana desperately filled her lungs with air, just as a wave caught and rushed her forward. With a painful jolt, she struck something hard and sharp. A huge, black rock. Diana spun, reached out, and clung.

She had, she realized, reached one of the tiny islets offshore. The heaving tide kept tugging and drenching her, and the rain kept pouring down. But Diana persevered, crawling forward on hands and knees over the craggy surface until she was free from the ocean’s grasp.

She had made it. She was safe. For several minutes, Diana lay in a heap, too fatigued to move or care about the rain that assaulted her. All at once, a bolt of lightning illuminated the grey skies, followed by a boom of thunder. Diana almost laughed. She was already drenched to the bone. What did thunder and lightning matter?

But they did.

Propping herself up on one wearied arm, Diana saw through the rain that the islet upon which she was perched was separated by a half mile or so of open sea from the shore. It might as well have been a hundred miles, though, since she could not swim. If someone noticed she was missing, they would never think to look for her here. Diana heaved a bitter sigh. Even if they did, they would not come for her in a thunderstorm. To attempt it would be suicidal.

An object in the ocean beyond caught her attention. It looked like a bird beating its wings against the festering swells. Then she realized it was no bird. It was a human being.

It’s Ivy.

The upsurge that had swept Diana out to sea must have claimed Ivy in its grip as well. Another immense wave erupted and carried Ivy away. Moments later, she disappeared.

Diana closed her eyes, trembling with cold. Ivy was young and strong. She might yet survive. But what chance did Diana have, stranded here in this remote spot in a thunderstorm? Had she saved herself, only to perish on these rocks? Had Morwenna won, after all?

An indistinct sound broke through the gale. Almost as though someone were calling her name.

“Diana!”

Was she hallucinating again? Diana opened her eyes. Incredibly, a boat was making its way across the storm-tossed sea, its sails straining against the fierce wind and pelting rain. A lone figure was at the helm.

The captain.

Diana burst into tears.