Chapter 4

We arrived at Liftondown House during a thunderstorm. The golden days of late October had faded into a damp and dreary start to November, and after struggling onward for three days over muddy and rutted roads, we were glad of the respite. Even if our first sight of the manor was far from inspiring.

It was first revealed to us in a flash of lightning as we passed between a gap in the scraggly high hedges, which had edged the road for some miles. A stolid, two-story block of gray stone, it perched on a lonely rise on the treeless expanse of the down which gave it its name. There were no trees or landscaping to soften it. No gardens or fountains. Just mud and heath and wind-hurtled rain beating at its walls.

For a moment, I feared the carriages would become hopelessly mired in the dip in the drive before the rise, but they somehow managed to navigate it. The next day I would discover that it was because someone had taken care to spread hay, but this couldn't be seen in the dark, and so could not comfort me that at least someone had been doing their best to make the place habitable. Through the veil of rain, the house looked deserted save for the light flickering in one window. But as we drew nearer, that one light turned to two and then three, proving there was some sort of staff waiting for us.

Our carriage drew to a stop a short distance from the door, and we hustled across the hay-strewn threshold into the house. Inside, we found ourselves in a narrow rectangular entry hall where the flagstone floor had been scrubbed clean. Though it wouldn't remain that way for long. A man whom I presumed to be the butler took our outer garments and gestured us through a doorway on the right, where a lad of no more than sixteen was working to coax a fire to life.

"Everything has been made ready as you requested, my lord," the butler informed Lord Gage as he took his hat and then greatcoat. "But Jemmy will need a few minutes to make his way through the bedchambers to set light to the kindling already laid. Mrs. Pigeon is preparing a tea tray. Should I tell her to prepare a more substantial repast?"

I peeled back the blanket covering Emma's slumbering figure, relieved to discover we were in capable hands.

Lord Gage declined the offer. "We supped in Okehampton, but tea would be most welcome."

"Of course, my lord." He bowed at the waist before ushering Jemmy out before him and closing the door.

Much like the entry hall, the drawing room was neat but dreary. The furnishings were old and shabby, the pattern worn in the rug revealing that little had been moved or rearranged in decades. The hearth—constructed from the same flagstones as the entry floor—appeared original to the house, and the golden drapes were faded to a sallow yellow from the sun.

I sank down in the armchair closest to the fire. I suspected its upholstery had once been a salmon pink, though it now appeared some indeterminate shade of beige. Emma continued to slumber, her face turned toward me, so I kept her swaddled in her blankets against the chill of the room.

Gage stood behind me, gazing down at our daughter, probably glad to be able to stretch his long legs after being confined for so long in the coach. One might have assumed this was also the reason for Lord Gage's pacing before the front window, but as usual, I saw more than he would have wished. There was a restless, agitated quality to his gait. One that indicated emotional distress rather than physical.

I peered upward, curious if my husband had noticed this, and found him now observing his father guardedly. For all the inquisitiveness Gage felt about this foreign place, Lord Gage must be feeling its familiarity quite keenly. I could only imagine the memories attached to it—both happy and unwelcome—were crowding about him like ghosts, demanding his attention. What he needed was a productive way to engage them.

"I suspect this was your mother's chair," I murmured.

My father-in-law turned his head to look at me and then Emma. "Yes."

"What was she like?" I asked, careful to keep my eyes averted as I smoothed the fold of the blanket draped over my arm near Emma's head. She didn't even stir a muscle. Oh, what it must be like to sleep so deeply, placing absolute trust in the arms that swaddled you. When did we lose that unalloyed faith, that blissful confidence that our needs would be met?

He paused to consider the matter. "She was…beautiful."

When he didn't continue, I prodded. "Golden-haired, like you and Sebastian?"

"No," he huffed, turning to look up at a painting of a hunting scene so that all I could see was his profile. "No, that feature comes from my father. Just about the only feature I inherited from him other than his height. He was a dour, craggy-faced fellow. My brother was much the same." He fell silent, staring broodingly at the pack of dogs posed with the various game their owners had killed.

I opened my mouth to nudge him again when he continued of his own volition.

"No, my mother was as dark-haired as all the Roscarrocks. A lovely almost blue-black, like a chough's wing." His mouth twisted in scorn. "They'll try to tell you they've hair that color because they're descended from King Arthur as, according to local legend, he turned himself into a chough until the day when he should be needed again." He scoffed. "They'll ask you to believe all sorts of nonsensical things. But their hair color does resemble a chough's feathers."

"Was it your mother who told you that legend?" I asked, following a hunch.

His slow response was answer enough. "She was a storyteller. All of them are. A family of veritable droll tellers, the entire lot. I suppose it was one of the things that intrigued me most as a child."

That was understandable, particularly if his father was as cheerless as he claimed.

"How did she come to be married to your father?" I queried, wondering at the match. A beauty from a lively storytelling family of smugglers seemed like an odd fit for a dour, craggy-faced baronet.

I glanced at Gage as he moved to sit in the chair next to mine. But then again, many would say that he and I were an even odder union—the charming golden boy and the macabre scandalous artist.

"Her fiancé was killed at sea."

My heart clenched in empathy.

He sighed. "?'Tis a way of life in Cornwall. But I believe it broke her heart. After that, she didn't want to live anywhere near the sea. So she wed my father." His mouth flattened grimly. "And lived to regret it the rest of her life."

This last statement was telling, but my attention was diverted by another thought. "She must have been frantic when you went away to sea to join the Royal Navy."

Out of the periphery of my vision I could see Gage turn his head toward me, but I was more interested in the surprise that registered in my father-in-law's eyes as he did the same. It was obvious he'd never considered such a thing before.

"Did she not tell you?"

"No." He frowned, lifting his hand to scrape it back through his gray hair. I could have sworn it was shaking. His gaze dipped to the floor. "She washed her hands of me after my hearing before the magistrate. They both did."

This begged for further comment, but there was a rap on the drawing room door preceding the entry of a woman of some indeterminate age between forty and sixty bearing a tray. "?'Ere ye are, m'lord. Ye must be chilled to the bone from this teasy weather." She set it on the low table near the center of the room, revealing not only a welcome pot of tea but also a plate of scones. Their sweet scent tickled my nose, overpowering the smell of damp and drying wool. "Especially with a little'n in tow." She smiled warmly at Emma. "I'm Mrs. Pigeon, by the by. The fires should be burnin' cheerily in yer rooms by now, and yer personal staff 'ave already made their way up to ready 'em."

"Thank you," I told the garrulous housekeeper. She and Mrs. Mackay would make a formidable pair. "These scones smell wonderful."

She beamed. "Thank ye, m'lady. My mum's own recipe. Shall I pour since yer arms are full?"

"Excuse me," Lord Gage told us absently as he slipped from the room, effectively ending our conversation for the evening. I turned to Gage, curious if he would go after him, but he remained where he was. In any case, if Lord Gage's past behavior was any indication, he would not have welcomed his son's consideration, instead preferring to muse in solitude.

I smiled at Mrs. Pigeon before belatedly responding. "Yes, please."

Iwas awakened the next morning by the rays of sunshine streaming directly in my face through a slit in the curtains. They were rather weak beams, but determined nonetheless, and that thought cheered me. For sunlight meant an end to the unremitting rain and an easier journey west into Cornwall.

I slid from beneath the covers, intending to pull the drapes more tightly closed and return to the warmth of Gage's side, but the view outside arrested me. A veil of fog hovered over everything, alternately revealing and concealing details as it shifted, filtering it all through a distorted lens. Closest and most easily recognizable was the small garden bordering the house. Much of it appeared overgrown save a small kitchen garden near the southeast corner. To the west, the stolid, gray bulk of a stable and carriage house materialized, its age evident in the worn stones and the droop of the roof. Beyond that stretched the grassy down, its stalks bent over, weighed down by the previous days' rain. But by far the most mysterious was the formation at the crest of a hill to the east.

My logical mind told me it must be a grove of tall trees, but obscured by the mist it appeared altogether strange and unworldly. There were few, if any, lower branches along the straight trunks, so that all of the twigs and greenery clustered at the very top. We hadn't been able to see it through the dark and driving rain the evening before, and to our eyes, Liftondown House had seemed the most substantial object for miles around. However, that copse of trees was significantly larger and positioned almost to loom over the manor below. I couldn't help but wonder which had sprung up first—the house or the trees?

Now too alert to return to slumber, I slipped into the adjoining chamber where our valises were being stored to don a simple walking dress. Then throwing a warm, woolen cape over my shoulders, I slipped down the back stairs to the rear entrance. I wouldn't venture far. Emma would wake soon, demanding to be nursed, and I didn't want to alarm anyone by my absence. But I also didn't want to miss my chance to stretch my legs before yet another long day confined to the carriage.

We had considered breaking our journey here longer, spending at least another day and night. Alas, too much time had already passed since Branok Roscarrock's death, and the more time we let slip by, the less chance we had of uncovering answers.

Given the early hour and the lingering fog, I expected to have the garden to myself. So the sight of my father-in-law made me stumble to a stop, allowing the door to slip from my grasp and close with a thud. He stood several steps ahead of me with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing out into the swirling mist as the hazy, orange halo of the sun struggled to burn through it. For a moment, I was uncertain what to do. His stance didn't invite company, nor did he speak, though he must have known I was there.

Maybe retreating would be best, but that reminded me of the way our relationship had begun. Before the events in Yorkshire in August, I'd done all I could to avoid the man and his barbarous tongue and cutting glares. I didn't want to return to such a fractious relationship. Especially not when we were heading into territory where he was going to need our support more than ever, whether he wished to admit it or not.

So instead, I strode forward to join him, wrapping my green cloak tighter around me against the damp chill. The mist condensed against my skin, both refreshing and slightly cloying. Neither of us spoke as we stood side by side, observing the scrub and overgrown grass. Up close, it was evident the garden was in an even sorrier state than I'd first presumed. I might have remarked upon it, but I wanted him to speak first, to reveal what he was thinking. I knew prodding him would do little good. He would share what he wished to. Or what he was lulled into admitting in an unguarded moment.

My patience was rewarded.

"When my mother was alive, this garden was bursting with blooms, even late into the autumn and sometimes into winter. She wouldn't let anyone else tend her plants." Lord Gage's voice turned dry. "Which was good, because my father could barely afford the staff we had, let alone a full-time gardener for such a small plot of land. Of course, my brother Arthur was no better off, but I was still surprised to see it so sadly neglected when I came back for his funeral." I could hear the consternation in his tone. "I suppose I'd expected it to remain as it had always been, even without Mother to mind it."

I understood what he meant. "I remember returning to Blakelaw House for the first time after my father died and my brother had taken over the estate. Some months had passed." Nearly a year actually, for Sir Anthony had not allowed me to travel, not even for my father's funeral. I had only seen my family when they came to London, and even then our contact was limited. "But I still expected my father's study to be the same as he'd left it—neat and orderly and smelling of old leather and his pipe smoke." A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. "My brother never could keep a room tidy, and no servant worth their salt would dare touch the papers on their employer's desk."

I sobered as the longing to see my father again suddenly welled up within me. "I think it's easier for our hearts to go on believing they're simply carrying on somewhere else, even if we know better."

We stood companionably in silence, listening to the distinctive call of a stonechat—a loud cheep followed by what sounded like two stones being clacked together. However, my thoughts were not on heath birds.

"What did you mean when you said your mother lived to regret marrying your father?" I ventured to ask, knowing full well he wouldn't like it. Though I felt there was a chance he might answer me without thinking.

Unfortunately, he wasn't so lost to the past that he didn't realize what I was doing. True to form, he turned to pin me with his stare, though this one was more muted with long suffering and grief than pure scorn. "Do you never tire of being impertinent?"

I turned away, unwilling to admit I didn't always understand where that line was. "Not when there's a question to be asked. Not when there's an answer that needs to be given," I replied instead.

A bird flew through the scattering haze, drawing our attention, and I thought for a moment that Lord Gage didn't intend to respond. Then he exhaled a small huff. "Merely that my father was not an easy man to live with." We watched as the same bird and another arched overhead. "And…despite her safety and security, the caged bird does not always sing."

Deep sorrow tugged at my heart at this imagery. Sorrow not only for Margaret Roscarrock Gage, but also for Lord Gage himself, for he could just as easily have been speaking of himself. He'd admitted that as a boy he'd spent so much time with his mother's family in Cornwall in order to escape his father—who'd had little use for his second son—and because the Roscarrocks were so much more adventurous and interesting.

Yes, it was those adventures, initially viewed as great larks, which had eventually gotten him into so much trouble. Yet for all of his disparagement of them now, it was the skills and traits he'd developed during his time with the Roscarrocks that had served him so well in the Royal Navy. Everyone said that the Cornish made the best seamen. Probably because they couldn't escape the sea. They lived it and breathed it from the cradle. And deny it or not, he was half-Cornish.

He arched his chin, almost as if scenting something. "We should be on our way. Before the weather shifts again." Then he turned with a swirl of his many-caped greatcoat, not waiting to see if I would follow.

I remained a moment longer, breathing in the morning mist. It was but thirty miles to Roscarrock House, but we'd been warned that each mile we traveled deeper into Cornwall, the less well maintained the roads became. There was no doubt it would be a jarring and uncomfortable ride. Emma was already out of sorts from the previous three days' travel, and I didn't expect she would be eager to find herself back in the confines of the carriage again, being jostled about.

Inhaling deeply, I braced myself for what was to come, both along the way and once we arrived. For it was clear, I was going to have to maintain a level head. If I'd learned anything over the course of our investigations, it was that even the most stoic of individuals could be overwhelmed and blinded by emotion. And stoic was not how I would describe my husband or his father.