Chapter 19
Annabelle lifted her face to the wind, even as she hugged her cloak more tightly around herself to ward off the chill. She had to admit the sea-scented air far rivaled the pervasive smells of London, where chimney smoke, soot, horse dung, and other malevolent odors prevailed.
The way her brother had spoken of the island when Lady Caroline had informed him of Sterling—Lord Randall’s—penchant for visiting the place had painted an image of a desolate wasteland filled with cretinous mutants.
She’d arrived predisposed to agree with him.
Then she’d witnessed her first shooting stars in a smog-less sky.
Now, strolling the quiet, graveled path, breathing the clean air, glimpsing the majestic ocean in the far distance—where she liked it—she had to admit she found Holy Island wholly beautiful.
Not that she intended to tell Lord Randall.
Lord Randall, who not only hadn’t leapt at the opportunity to rid himself of her, had argued for her to stay. Lord Randall, who’d shown her the stars. Lord Randall, who’d kissed her.
Who she’d kissed, in reality. But he had kissed her back.
Only to make it plain there would be no second kiss.
But now he didn’t want her to leave. Why?
Perhaps, his reasoning owed to nothing more than the man’s innate gallantry. No way to know. She mustn’t keep dwelling on the man and what he liked or didn’t like or wanted or didn’t want.
She should—she would—leave on the ‘morrow. This way, she would certainly arrive home before her parents. They need never know of her adventure, whereby she uncovered nothing whatsoever about Gaston’s death.
She’d had such high hopes.
In retrospect, she could admit that solving Gaston’s murder might not have changed anything for Annabelle, personally. Her mother had always adored Gaston, and Annabelle had always managed to annoy her. Mayhap it was time for her to accept reality.
Nearing the hill’s peak, from which the land sloped downward in a steep decline, she paused to catch her breath and to study the building she’d come upon, fashioned of brick, and which appeared to sprout from the earth itself. The castle’s defunct lime kilns, she realized.
On closer inspection, the flat area actually boasted several large holes. Leaving the pathway, she picked her way across the uneven ground to peer down the first such hole.
It was a tunnel—an access point—through which coal and lime could be dropped into the kiln pot chambers. A clever design.
She made her way back to the path and descended the hill.
At the bottom, she rounded the brick building and noted an adjacent and heretofore unseen wooden work shed that likely doubled as a stable and tool storage facility for kiln workers.
On the building’s front, several large arches, some round, some conical, seemed to provide the only access, both for incoming workers and outgoing product. Sacks of refuse and piles of brick blocked the openings, save for one unimpeded archway. She’d take a quick gander and start back.
***
“We didna’ ken what else to do wit’ her, milord, after we foun’ her washed ashore this morn’,” Old Jed, speaking for the men, told Sterling.
“You did exactly the right thing, men,” Sterling murmured.
Inwardly, he bemoaned his mounting complications.
With Annabelle’s arrival, he had enough to deal with without the fishermen delivering a dead body nobody recognized on his doorstep.
He’d be hard-pressed to keep the body out of Annabelle’s sights, knowing her penchant for poking around where she wasn’t invited.
Already she’d been eyeing the small crowd.
He’d glimpsed her at the window before she ducked out of sight.
He’d have to bar the stable door.
Better still would be to move the hapless victim, and store her elsewhere until the coroner came to collect her.
The kilns would do nicely, for a multitude of reasons. Already, the body emitted a foul stench. Using lime might help mask the odor. Too, the unheated, cave-like building would slow decomposition somewhat.
“You’re sure she’s not local? No one’s reported anyone missing?”
“No, milord,” Jed answered. “And it’s for certain she be not one o’ ours. Take a look at the miss’s frock. It be far too fine for any o’ our women to be prancin’ about in, lest they had a wedding or feast to attend, and even then.” He gestured to the girl with a vague sweep of his gnarled hand.
Sterling eyed the woman lying in his cart.
Old Jed made a fair point. Household workers, shop clerks, and fisher families comprised the bulk of the local town folk.
They would have neither the desire nor the access to the fine silk fabric and stylish gown—a travel dress, he thought, based upon his limited understanding of women’s fashions.
Along the lines of what Annabelle might purchase.
“Where did you say you discovered her?” he asked, scrutinizing her, unpleasant as it was, for further clues. Something that might tell him her name, where she’d come from.
Her boots gave him pause. They were not high-quality. More the sort housemaids wore. Plain, inexpensive, durable.
“The shore at the shallows, below the village and the harbor. A few men spotted her when they went to check the traps,” Jed replied.
He gave that some thought. “So, considering the tidal flow, it’s likely someone took a boat out in the channel between Beal and the island and dumped her there, thinking she’d wash out to sea.” If so, that person hadn’t thought his dump site through.
Either that, or he didn’t care if her body was discovered.
“Aye, someone from the mainland,” Jed answered, stressing the word mainland. “Some fiend choked the life out of the wee miss wi’ her poor gib-face, and dumped her in the soup.”
Sterling hadn’t paid much attention to the woman’s looks or lack thereof, but at Jed’s mention, he peered at her lifeless visage.
She had not been an attractive woman by anyone’s standards. In point of fact, her flat features and thin mouth marked her as downright homely. Homely. An odd prickling at his nape had him brushing his hand over the fine hairs there.
The business concluded, Sterling walked them out. After seeing them off, he went back into the stable to eye the shrouded woman with the unfortunate face, sturdy boots, and fine gown.
Something else had occurred to him. Though he disliked the notion of doing so, he peeled back the tarp, picked up one of the woman’s hands, and worked off one kidskin glove.
As he’d suspected, her hands did not speak of the moneyed class. Calluses marred the pads of her fingers, and her nails, though neat and cut short, had not seen the benefit of a manicure in recent days, if ever.
The woman had certainly been of the laboring class. Why, then, the expensive garb?
“More importantly, why did someone feel the need to kill you, madam?” he murmured, gently lowering her hand and replacing the tarp.
He didn’t like this. Not one damned bit. An unknown woman, a visitor to these parts, had been killed—brutally strangled—and her body dumped near the tidal flats.
Meanwhile, Annabelle, herself a stranger to town, had faced her own harrowing, potentially lethal experience mere days ago. Mayhap the very day this unfortunate woman had been killed.
Two dastardly incidents, at roughly the same location, at the same approximate time. Coincidence? Or something more sinister?
He glanced toward the castle as if he could see through the stable walls and fought a burgeoning compulsion to march inside, find Annabelle, and assure himself she was fine. Of course, she was fine.
A far better use of his time was to move the body to prevent his nosy houseguest from making an unwelcome discovery.
He stalked toward the tackle hanging on the wall and set about hitching the cart.
***
The space was quite dark once Annabelle left the vicinity of the sole, unbarred archway. A musty odor of dirt and old perspiration permeated the air, as well. She glanced behind her, toward the opening, contemplating turning back.
Then, she heard Lord Randall in her head again. There’s nothing to discuss.
She wondered if he’d noticed her absence from the castle yet. She wondered if he’d notice her absence when she departed the castle for good…
On second thought, multiple pockets of light glowed ahead. Of course. The above-ground openings she’d spotted would provide ample daylight to the individual kiln pot chambers. As it was barely past morning, the sun would provide light for hours yet.
She ventured forth, her boots crunching into the gravel and dirt floor, and tried to banish a niggling sense of unease. Her imagination wasn’t helping matters, that could as easily signify a rodent scrabbling behind one of the dark mounds ahead, as a man, lying in wait, hidden from sight.
Ridiculous. The kiln was not in use, and no one was about. It was silly to think some random villain might hole up in this dank and dark and dust-filled abandoned mill. As for vermin, she’d always heard they were far too frightened of humans to risk showing themselves on purpose.
Lengthening her stride, she marched on and soon found herself nearing the kiln pot chambers.
Extremely low arches appeared to be the only access to each individual chamber, and diffuse light spilled from each opening, though wheelbarrows, sacks of what she took to be ash, and tall stacks of stone and brick littered the area, blocking much of the light.
Her hair pricking at her nape for no good reason, she crouched before one opening in order to peek inside.
She deduced the reasoning for such a tight entrance was designed to accommodate a wheelbarrow and a stooped person while discouraging the smoke from the kiln pot from traveling out into the larger workspace.
It would have been murder on whoever manned the pot, however.
She'd started to rise, when something sparkly on the ground caught her eye. Its glimmer shone like one of the stars Sterling showed her from the rooftop. On impulse, she ducked through the low opening and slipped inside.
Straightening, awkwardly, she approached the iron pot and ran her hand through the ray of sunlight pouring through the hole above. Then, she went in search of the source of the small, glimmering object.
Behind her, a strange scraping sound had her spinning on her heel.
In the next instant, a deafening Whomp! reverberated through the stone walls.
Annabelle shrieked and flinched and crouched all at once while a shuddering vibration that rattled her very bones warned her of the walls imminent collapse.
And then, all was still and silent.
Heart thumping a staccato in her chest, body violently trembling, she peeled open her eyes. Dust motes swirled around her, but the walls stood. She turned to the opening to dive through and run for her life—and froze.
The entrance was…blocked? But that couldn’t be.
She hastened over to it, crouched, and reached out her gloved hands. Something solid and quite heavy filled the opening. One of the rough sacks she’d seen?
A faint noise from outside the small chamber reached her ears.
“Hello?” she called, her voice echoing off the close walls. “Is someone there? I’m trapped. Please help.”
She waited. No reply came.
She would simply have to push whatever had fallen out of the way. As distasteful as she found it, she squatted and pushed. She pushed with all her might, straining every muscle.
Whatever blocked the opening did not budge. Not an inch. Not a fingernail’s clipping. She dropped to the ground, imagining the soot that would mar the bottom half of her borrowed gown when she rose, and pressed her booted feet against the mound. She pushed for all she was worth. Nothing happened.
She was truly trapped.
Good Lord. What if no one came?
“Help,” she shouted. “Help, I’m in here. Please.”
She yelled and pleaded and screamed for help ’til her throat felt raw and her mouth had gone dry. She pushed and kicked and strained against the obstacle to her freedom. But the sack seemed fused in place.
Trapped. No one knew she was here, and no one was coming.
Except for the water, it was that day on the boat, all over again.