Chapter 14 In which an unsuspected passion reveals itself
In which an unsuspected passion reveals itself
Pay attention to omissions and evasions.
— from Lady Avely’s Guide to Guile and Peril
Judith narrowed her eyes. She could make out the weathered features of Cador, the fisherman from Stonesthrow Cottage. The angle of the lantern light made him look even more craggy and threatening.
He stepped into the underground hall, his brow furrowing as he took in the newly laid carpets, soft underfoot. He wore corduroy trousers and a thick brown coat. His eyes widened, as he took in the absence of the Crimson Lady’s grief.
Oddly, he smiled.
Judith frowned. Why would Cador smile? His lurking indicated that he was the smuggler, not the coastguard he pretended to be, in which case he should require the Cork of Doom to hide his presence.
Her heart in her throat, she looked on. Cador trod gingerly over the new carpets, as if afraid to dirty them with his boots, and stared hard at where the Illusory painting had once hung.
After a moment, he looked around suspiciously, as if he could feel the presence of hidden watchers.
Judith stayed frozen, but when he crossed to the upper stairs to leave, she made a decision.
She stood up, quietly twisting her hand at Robert to dispel her Illusion.
“Cador,” she said sharply. “What are you doing down here?”
The fisherman spun around. The lantern swung wild shadows across the walls. “Ma’am!” he growled. “You gave me a fright.”
“I could say the same of you. And I must enquire again: what are you doing?”
“Ah.” He lowered the lantern and assumed his most wooden expression. “I was inspecting the cellars for smugglers, ma’am. As part of my patrol.”
She raised her brows, for surprisingly he was telling the truth. “But I heard you approaching from a long way off, with your charming whistle.” She did not mention that she had been in the tunnel herself. She gestured. “Where does that passage go?”
His inscrutable look flickered. “To, uh, other storerooms, ma’am.”
This time the lie rung hollowly. She shook her head in reproof. “Don’t mislead me, Cador. Otherwise, I will have to follow the passage myself.”
He twitched slightly. “Oh no, ma’am, that won’t be necessary.
” At her hard look, he pursed his lips reluctantly.
“If you must know, the passage leads to the mainland and comes out at my cottage on t’other side of the causeway.
’Tis a secret tunnel away from the island, but not many know of it, though I suppose you have the right of it now that you are Marchioness of Lanyon.
The Cadors have long been guardians of it, and I beg that you won’t tell anyone. ”
Judith carefully did not let her eyes stray to where Robert still pressed against the wall. “I suppose you come and go from Castle Lanyon as you please, then?”
“Yes, ma’am, but not very often, I swear. I’m only concerned now that smugglers have come to know about the passage too, which goes right against the grain, I can tell ye.”
Judith remembered suddenly that Sgt Finlay had told Cador to look for smugglers on the bay on the night he died.
What if that had been a story to distract Cador?
Perhaps Sgt Finlay himself had known of the tunnel and wanted Cador out of the way so he could use it to return from the island, late at night.
She stared narrowly. “You saw something, on the night Sgt Finlay died, didn’t you? I remember when I asked you, you hesitated.” Actually, he hadn’t hesitated, he had lied to her with a straight face, but she didn’t want to reveal her Gift.
Cador seemed taken aback. “Aye, I did see something, as it happens, early the next morning.” He paused thoughtfully. “I suppose you might as well know about it now, seeing as you know about the passage.”
“Well?”
“I found the body of the soldier himself, stuffed down the drop in the tunnel.” Cador seemed to take a contrary pleasure in her shocked expression.
“It gave me a start, you can imagine, lying all awkwardly like a broken scarecrow, his red coat gleaming by my candle. But I couldn’t leave him there.
He’d start to smell for one. He’d already been dead a few hours by the time I found him, by my reckoning. ”
Judith blinked, horrified. “You took him to the shore?”
“Aye, and left him on Arloedhes Rock, all obvious-like, so the authorities could find him. But I couldn’t tell Captain Drumpellier about the passageway and betray the secret of the castle.”
“But…” Judith stuttered. “How was the captain going to discover the real cause of his death, if you moved the body?”
“At least this way, he found the body. Whoever left it in the passage probably never meant it to be found at all.”
She swallowed. “And who do you think left it there?”
There was a long silence, and she was aware of Robert listening intently, pinned to the wall. Finally, Cador said, “I don’t know, ma’am.”
It was the truth, but Judith doubted it, nonetheless. “Mrs Ulrich?” she asked sharply. “I have it on good authority that my housekeeper assists the smugglers by guiding in their boats. You must know something about that.”
Cador looked down. “It wouldn’t have been Mrs Ulrich, ma’am.”
“Oh, really? How can you be sure?”
He hesitated. “I saw her light in her window,” he muttered, “when I was out keeping watch on the bay. It was shining late into the night.”
“So? Mrs Ulrich might have left it there as a decoy.”
Cador shook his head. “Mrs Ulrich would never have left a candle unattended in her room, for fear of fire. And she wouldn’t have liked the tallow smoke permeating her quarters if there were no need for it. Besides,” he paused reluctantly. “I saw her profile at the window, looking over the sea.”
Judith tipped her head to the side, remembering Cador’s smile when he realised that the Crimson Lady’s grief had abated.
Was it possible that the fisherman had a spot of tenderness for her housekeeper?
She contemplated the image of him in his boat, floating on the waves, wistfully looking up at Mrs Ulrich’s patrician profile like a lovelorn Romeo.
She was also aware of sensation of relief. Mrs Ulrich had an alibi for the night Sgt Finlay died. Judith’s instincts had been correct: her housekeeper was not a killer, despite her entanglement with smugglers. And Cador’s testimony was the proof.
It might be interesting to press the coastguard a little more. “Hmm,” Judith murmured. “I would like to believe you, Cador, but the fact remains that the Crimson Lady has been casting quite the pall over this cellar. That must be Mrs Ulrich’s doing, at least.”
Cador shuffled and looked at his feet. “That rigamarole only started a year ago, ma’am.
She said it was to keep people away from the passageway, so I allowed it.
I thought it might soothe her tumult, if you take my meaning, to put her feelings into such a task.
But I confess it’s a relief she’s undone it today.
” He looked around the hall, admiring the new carpets.
“What on earth is she doing to the cellars now? It looks as if she is expecting royalty. Are you moving down here, ma’am? ”
Judith contemplated him silently and did not tell him about the bats.
His voice sounded as if he were speaking the truth—as he knew it.
But she couldn’t help feeling that there was a piece missing.
She twisted to stare down the dark passage.
She rather liked having a secret escape from the island, one she could use even when the tide was up.
Best not to board it up then. But she didn’t like the idea that anyone could come and go as they pleased, unseen, despite Cador’s protestations at its secrecy.
Perhaps that was another reason why Mrs Ulrich had instated her Cork of Doom.
“I think it is time to put a lock on that low door beyond,” she announced.
Cador tipped his head. “You’ve seen that door, have you, ma’am?”
She did not deign to answer. “I want you to put a lock on it and deliver one of the keys to me. It is my duty to secure this castle, Cador, especially when a soldier was found dead in it last week. There has clearly been a breach of secrecy.”
He bowed in silent acquiescence, his face closing into its usual inscrutability. Judith thrust out her candle, to be lit from his lantern, and he obliged.
“Right,” she said. “As you see, there are no smugglers here tonight. You may return to your cottage, while I retire to bed.” She did not want to reveal Robert, or his Gift, nor leave him alone here with Cador.
But Cador shook his head. “No, ma’am, I must finish my patrol. I’ll walk around the castle now, while it is dark.”
She nodded in acquiescence, and when Cador turned his back to her, she discreetly gestured a staying hand at the wall, then followed the fisherman up the cellar stairs.
She parted ways with Cador outside the kitchen, trusting that Robert would be able to manage his own way back.
As she watched Cador’s burly figure recede, she wondered if he would stare wistfully across to Mrs Ulrich’s room from the ramparts.
She made her way up to her room, thinking of Dacian. He would receive her letter soon and, she dared to hope, read it with gladness.
It was still dark when Marigold woke her.
Judith had left the window open, so the room was chilly. Marigold was sitting on the bed next to her, poking her side with sharp jabs.
Blinking, Judith sat up. The waning moon had long vanished, and she could barely make out Marigold’s face.
“What is it?” She groped for a tinderbox blearily and lit a candle.
“I delivered your letter.” Marigold hunched a corner of the quilt over herself, huddling glumly. She seemed tired after her long flight. “I handed it to Yvette.”
“Why?” Judith’s hand quivered a little with the flame, as fear swept through her. “Where was Wooten?”
Grimly, Marigold told her what had happened. “And now he’s barely conscious, by the sounds of it.”
Judith was aghast. “Wooten is lucky to be alive.”