Chapter 28
As suspected, my father-in-law did not appreciate being summoned to his own chamber, but he remained silent long enough for me to explain my thinking to him and Gage.
My husband endorsed the idea immediately. “It’s about time we set them back on their heels,” he declared as he sank deeper into the scalloped-top sofa, turning to stare broodingly into the fireplace.
Both men’s grim countenances suggested dinner had not been an enjoyable affair.
“If it will finally bring this hellish debacle to an end, then I’m all for it,” Lord Gage agreed before taking another drink of the whiskey he’d poured into a glass from the decanters on his chamber’s sideboard.
I’d not bothered to light more than the single candle I’d used to illuminate my way down the darkened corridor to my father-in-law’s sitting room, so the fire crackling in the hearth cast long, flickering shadows across the floor and walls, sharply limning their features.
I clasped my hands in my lap, sitting taller. “Then our first step is to review what we know and agree on what it is we still need to find out. Other than the obvious,” I added, lest my father-in-law make a sarcastic remark.
“Let’s see,” Gage began readily. “We know that Bevil, Tristram, Mery, Joan, Amelia, Dr. Wolcott, and Tamsyn were all aware that Branok was still alive. Though that doesn’t preclude someone else from having found out like Tamsyn did. We also know that none of them, save Dr. Wolcott, have alibis for the entire time period in which he was murdered.”
“We know that Branok was killed sometime between four and six o’clock yesterday afternoon,” I contributed. “And that he was stabbed with a fisherman’s fillet knife, approximately nine inches in length with no hilt. A common enough blade that any of our suspects might have gotten their hands on, and just as easily could have discarded into the sea or down one of the abandoned mine shafts near Doyden Point.”
“But do any of us believe that Aunt Amelia hiked out to Kellan Head, stabbed her brother, and discarded the knife?” Lord Gage protested. “She can barely make it across the length of the drawing room without requiring assistance.”
“That’s true.” It would be quite a feat, but I’d already been fooled by an allegedly infirm older woman once before. “She might have had help.”
“From Bevil or Joan?”
“Or one of her grandchildren. Or a member of her staff, for that matter.”
Lord Gage rose to pour himself another two fingers of spirits, apparently unconcerned at the moment that the whiskey had likely been smuggled from Ireland. “But what motive could she have? Branok was her brother.”
“Maybe so, but he was also, by all reports, a difficult man. One who was not well liked by anyone.” I shifted in my seat, anxious to make my point. “He controlled everything. The farm. The home they lived in. The smuggling operation. All the family’s wealth belonged to him.” I arched my eyebrows in emphasis. “Despite the fact it sounds like Bevil and Tristram and many of the others did most of the work.”
“Amelia must know she’s nearing death,” Gage remarked not unkindly. “Yet what does she have to leave her children and grandchildren? Nothing but the same tedious life, living under the control of her imperious brother and then his rapscallion grandson.”
“But Branok himself unwittingly shows her, shows all of them, the way out. He forces them to help him fake his death, all so that he can lure his estranged nephew here to lead him to a long-lost treasure. But the ploy doesn’t work. Not only that, but they must realize that Branok doesn’t intend to stay dead, and their part of the shameful affair will be revealed with nothing to show for it,” I said.
Gage nodded, turning to me. “However, if Branok were to die, in truth, that leaves only Mery in the way of controlling their own fate.”
“And Mery is easily overpowered by the others. He’s not respected, nor has he ever shown a bit of interest in assuming leadership. He’s not likely to resist leaving the entire enterprise in their hands so long as he’s given a large enough stipend to continue doing as he pleases.” I paused, thinking back over everything I’d learned about that last living Cornish Roscarrock. “Or so they think.”
“Even if he doesn’t, now that they’ve killed once, what’s to stop them from doing so again?” The sapphire stickpin in Gage’s cravat winked in the firelight as his voice dipped forebodingly. “An accident would be easy enough to stage, particularly for a man of Mery’s sottish reputation. And while the property might then rightfully belong to Swithun or his heir, as we previously noted, an entire ocean and months if not years of legal wrangling stand in the way of that changing anything.”
“If an accident should even prove necessary,” I countered, leaning toward him. “When it’s far simpler to frame him for his grandfather’s murder.”
He swayed toward me in return. “And even if that doesn’t succeed, it still further tarnishes his credibility.”
“Yes, yes, I see your point,” Lord Gage interjected, dashing a bit of cold water on our enthusiasm, an act that was perhaps needed. We were discussing murder, after all. He gestured with his glass as he settled again in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “And Mery’s motive is obvious. But what of Tamsyn? She didn’t have a reason to kill Branok.”
The disbelieving looks Gage and I both fastened on his father must have spoken for themselves, for his lips pursed and his brow furrowed with displeasure. “Yes, I know there was no love lost between them. Between all the Grenvilles and the Roscarrocks,” Lord Gage said. “But why would she murder him now?”
“For the treasure,” I stated succinctly. After all, he’d heard her allegations against Swithun. It seemed the Grenvilles had just as much claim to the treasure as the Roscarrocks did. It had to have crossed his mind that Tamsyn might try to charm the information about its location out of him, though I could read in his iron stare that he was about to protest. But I wasn’t finished. “And…control of his smuggling operation.”
This startled and then angered him. “Tamsyn isn’t involved with smuggling.”
“Morgan told me that the Grenvilles are a large part of the smuggling crews,” I said. “That they’ve been angling to take over. And now that Branok is gone and Mery is so unpopular, they may have their chance.”
“But not Tamsyn,” Lord Gage argued. “She despises smuggling.”
“Or she wants you to believe she does.”
He didn’t like hearing that. His face flushed red, and his jaw hardened into granite.
“But isn’t her brother Gil the head of the Grenville family?” Gage asked, keeping his eyes on his father.
“Ostensibly. But with his wounded leg…” I knew I didn’t need to explain.
“I imagine he places great trust in his sister,” Gage replied as we both looked to his father for confirmation.
“Implicitly,” he bit out.
Neither Gage nor I spoke, giving his father time to acclimate to this information. His expression as he stared down into the amber dregs of his glass was rigid, but I could tell by the way he’d not brushed aside the twist of gray curls that had fallen over his forehead—the same twist Gage sported on his golden head—that he would not continue to deny the truth. He tossed the glass back, swallowing the last finger of whiskey before setting it aside with a sharp clink on the table next to his elbow. “So be it. Tamsyn is a suspect.” He glowered at me. “Which means we haven’t ruled anyone out other than Dr. Wolcott.”
“We also haven’t determined the truth about the treasure or who betrayed whom on that long-ago night.”
Lord Gage opened his mouth to argue, but Gage cut him off.
“Surely you can see Tamsyn has as much of a reason to lie as your relatives?”
He grunted begrudgingly, his shoulders stiff.
I was about to make them even more tense.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it,” I began, waiting until his gaze swung to meet mine, “but I also know that you recognize how necessary it is that you do.” I hoped reasoning with him would work, even though his steely countenance was far from encouraging. “We need to know everything that happened, everything you remember. Otherwise, we might never be able to untangle this mess.”
I glanced at my husband, finding him observing his father with the same intensity he might any suspect. Which meant that contradictorily, he appeared entirely relaxed and indifferent. For the more interest he had in a subject, the less he appeared to care. I’d identified this tactic early in our partnership, but only recently realized he’d learned it from his father.
However, Lord Gage’s normal blasé manner and reserve had deserted him in this instance. So I decided to tread carefully. “Do you remember if there were any disagreements between the Roscarrocks and Grenvilles at that time?”
“There were always disagreements,” he muttered. “So there was likely some sort of dispute, though I can’t recall it.” He rubbed his forehead. “Jago and I largely ignored them.” As good friends do.
“What of Branok and Swithun?” Gage queried. “Did they argue?”
“They were brothers,” Lord Gage retorted with an incredulous look. “Of course.”
Ignoring this display of hostility, I slid toward the edge of my seat. “Talk us through that night. You said Branok ordered you and Jago to move some contraband.”
He exhaled a long breath. “Yes. I remember that much. I also remember Jago and I thought it was a great honor. It was the first time we’d been asked to undertake such a thing on our own.”
My heart squeezed for the innocence of those boys and how soon it would be lost.
“We strapped two of the casks to a pony, and loaded the others into the cart it would pull…” He broke off, frowning.
“About eight chests and barrels in total, you said,” I prompted.
“Yes. I…don’t know where they’d come from, but they’d obviously been buried somewhere near Pentire Point. They were crusted with dirt and sand.” He rested one hand along the arm of the chair, opening and closing his fingers. “We were to transport it along the coast to Doyden Point. From there, I thought they meant to lower it into one of the mine shafts along Reedy Cliff or secure it in one of the cottages at Port Quin. They’d built false walls in a few of the cellars.”
“But you never made it to Doyden Point.”
He shook his head slowly, and the look in his eyes told me he was far away in the past on a narrow track along the wild Cornish coast. “We…we were just beyond Carnweather Point when we realized we were being followed. We thought it was our fault because we’d been singing.”
I turned to meet Gage’s eye, seeing he was just as affected as me by this detail. By this reminder of how young and artless they’d been.
“We tried to urge Lutey to move faster, but he was towing such a heavy load. We should have realized sooner that we could never outrun them, but we’d never been given such a task before.” His voice was taut with remembered anxiety. “All we knew was that we couldn’t let the barrels fall into the preventives’ hands. We were coming up on Lundy Hole. It’s a collapsed sea cave,” he explained, his eyes as wide as saucers. “So we unhooked the cart and pushed it over the edge.” He seemed slightly horrified by this admission, but I could understand the logic of their thinking, given the impossible situation they’d been facing.
“There wasn’t time to remove the casks from Lutey’s flanks. So we jumped on her back and set off around the bay. But we didn’t get far before they started shooting. Lutey reared and we both fell. It wasn’t until the riding officers were already on us that I realized Jago had been shot…”
His voice trailed away, and I knew he was reliving that moment. It was scored across his features in stark lines made all the harsher by the flickering firelight.
I gripped the cushion beneath me as a few silent tears tracked down my cheek, restraining the urge to sob. But I must have made some sort of sound anyway, for Gage reached over to rest his hand on mine.
“I don’t remember anything after that,” Lord Gage murmured.
Because he’d been beaten unconscious.
“Do you think the treasure is still there?” Gage asked, allowing me a few moments to collect myself.
“No. It’s long gone by now,” Lord Gage answered. “Swept out to sea. But even if not, it’s impossible to get to.”
We would have to take his word on this.
“Do you intend to tell them where it is?”
His father’s face slowly hardened. “No.” And then he added, “None of them,” in case there was any confusion.
This decision was his alone to make, and I would have supported him no matter his choice, but I couldn’t help but think this was the wisest course. For all.
I wiped my hands over my face, brushing away the last of the tears gathered at the corners of my eyes, and lowered my gaze to a shadowed corner of the rug, attempting to refocus my thoughts. “I still don’t understand why they didn’t tell you and Jago what you were transporting. Or why they asked the two of you, of all people, to move the cargo in the first place. Two people transporting a bunch of barrels by cart along the coast in the middle of the night was bound to raise suspicions, no matter your age.”
“Perhaps,” my father-in-law conceded wearily. “But if Branok had learned of Swithun’s betrayal…”
“No, she’s right,” Gage interrupted. “It doesn’t make sense.” His dark evening coat strained across his broad shoulders as he leaned forward. “If Branok had believed that Swithun had set a trap for him, then he would never have sent the treasure with you and Jago.”
I turned to him sharply, grasping the implication. “He would have switched the barrels and sent some sort of decoy with you instead rather than risk the treasure falling into the preventive officers’ hands.”
Gage’s mouth curled derisively. “Yet he’s been searching for it obsessively these last fifty years and feigned his own death to lure you here so he could finally locate it?”
We both turned to look at Lord Gage.
His whole face puckered as if he didn’t know how to feel. “Then Tamsyn’s insinuations that Branok might have known can’t be true. And it calls into question Swithun’s alleged involvement, too.”
I shook my head.
“Though that doesn’t mean Joan’s claims about the Grenvilles are true either.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed. “It might all have just been a terrible misfortune.” One that they’d been blaming each other for for decades.
Yet one they risked happening again and again with their continued smuggling. How many more lives had to be lost before it stopped?
As if in answer to this silent query, someone began pounding frantically on the sitting room door. We all turned to each other in alarm before Gage rose to answer it.
Lembus stood panting on the other side. “You must come. It’s Mr. Anderley.”
I sprang to my feet as Gage questioned him. “Where is he? What’s happened?”
“He’s been carried to his chamber.” Lembus’s face turned pale. “He’s been badly beaten.”