The Lady’s No Angel (The Venturesome Ladies of Little Valentine #7)

Prologue

The Corpse Bell

The carriage stopped before Angel was ready.

She would never be ready, though. Her father shifted on the seat opposite, grumbling about the rain.

He muttered curses under his breath, as if Pops had deliberately died at such a time, when the weather was particularly dreadful.

Angel’s mouth lifted in a smile. The old devil would have done just that if he’d thought it would annoy her father.

She hoped he was looking down now and laughing fit to bust. Or up.

Pops had always assumed he was bound for the other place, to sit beside a blazing fire and tell wicked stories with old Harry.

“Come, sweetheart.” Her mother reached out, her black-gloved hand grasping Angel’s.

Angel nodded, her throat too tight to speak as the carriage door opened and they stepped out.

The wind snatched at them, tugging at bonnets and skirts the moment they set foot on the damp ground.

It squelched unpleasantly underfoot. The church stood a little way off, a strange, lonely building, exposed in the vast expanse of flat, open marshland.

“God above, what a place,” her father muttered in disgust.

“Oh, dear. Please don’t blaspheme on such a day,” Mama murmured

He gave her an impatient glance. “Don’t be such a damned hypocrite, my dear. Your father was a low-born criminal who ought to have been hanged long since. Now let’s get this farce over with. We’ll be lucky if we don’t all catch the ague before this day is out.”

He strode off ahead of them, greatcoat flapping like the wings of a prodigious black bird. Angel had never been close to her father, who had little time for her, but she almost hated him then.

“He never minded spending his money,” Angel said bitterly as drizzle pattered her freezing cheeks, the black ribbons of her bonnet slapping about her neck.

Her mother said nothing, just took her hand again, holding on tight as the corpse bell tolled.

Its slow, melancholy sound carried across the exposed landscape where only sheep seemed to survive.

The bell had been partly muffled—one clear strike rang out, while the other landed on a leather pad with a dull thud. Angel shivered.

Glancing ahead, she saw men from the village carrying her grandfather’s coffin.

They had been paid for their trouble. None of them knew who he was, what he’d done during his lifetime.

They knew nothing of the places he’d seen, the adventures he’d had, the hardships he’d endured.

That was the trouble with being a notorious pirate: the price on his head was high enough that even a friend might have peached on him, let alone a stranger.

He’d been a secret for so long, few knew how famous he’d been.

Lifting their skirts free of the wet grass and sodden mud, Angel and her mother picked their way towards the first dyke.

A narrow wooden bridge, crude and unsteady, was the only way over.

They walked single file, the scent of marsh water overwhelming Angel’s senses.

If only the wind would sweep that away, as it seemed intent upon doing to everything else. The stench clung to her.

Ahead, the solitary red brick church huddled against the frigid east wind. It was a small, determined structure, its wood shingled bell tower an aberration in the open landscape. As if affronted by it daring to raise itself so high, the wind battered mercilessly.

A single bright spot on the horizon was Reverend Honeywell, standing in the open door of the church, his smile warm and welcoming. The sight of him comforted Angel, reminding her she had friends, people who cared for her.

Angel’s throat tightened further as she saw Izzy standing beside him, ready to endure the day side-by-side with her, knowing how deep her loss was.

Angel put up her chin. Black Jack Baxter would have scorned her for weeping.

He’d rather have been buried at sea, sunk to the depths of Davy Jones’ Locker, but he’d said the marsh would do.

The sea would creep into his coffin and wash his old bones clean.

The hole was likely already a foot deep with water.

They’d be lucky if it didn’t collapse before the coffin was inside.

It happened. The men lowering it fell in with a slump of heavy mud. Jack would laugh himself sick.

They reached the church and stepped inside, relieved to be out of the wind and the wet, though it howled fretfully around the building, as if the spirits of the dead were trying to find a way in.

“Welcome, my dears,” Reverend Honeywell said, his voice kind and reassuring.

Izzy stood beside Angel and took her arm, squeezing it fondly. “Let’s say goodbye,” she said, and led Angel down the aisle of whitewashed box pews to take their place for the service.

Angel followed her docilely and took her place beside her parents. Silently, she remembered the promise she had given Black Jack Baxter. Her blood oath. She would find his treasure like he’d wanted her to do. Her father would never see a penny.