Chapter 7

"Branok always knew his death would be unnatural," Great-Aunt Amelia declared the next morning, seated at the end of the long table in the dining room. Her gnarled fingers gripped the mug before her, steam still rising from the tea as she stared into its depths, almost as if she felt it held all the answers. "Even as a young man," she elaborated before lifting her gaze to meet Gage's and then mine. "He dreamed of it, ye see. Dreamed of 'is murder. 'Twas a shadow that followed 'im all his life."

Lord Gage scoffed in his chair across the table, his arms crossed over his chest. "If he did, I would suggest that says more about his conscience than the means of his demise."

Amelia turned to glare at him until Gage prodded her to continue. "Branok dreamed he would be pushed off a cliff?"

She shook her head. "Not the exact method, ye mind. Or rather, it changed from dream to dream. But the result 'twas the same." She turned her head to look out the window at the gardens. A vine still bursting with purple clematis flowers trailed along its edge, the petals fluttering softly in the breeze. "Death unnatural," she pronounced solemnly just as a cloud scuttled across the sun, casting the house and gardens in shade.

"And that's why you believe your brother was murdered?" Gage asked, seeking clarification. Though his demeanor was polite and his manner confiding, I could sense the barely restrained impatience humming beneath his skin and tightening his brow.

"Partly," Great-Aunt Amelia conceded as the sun emerged from the clouds again, bathing the floor beneath the windows in light. Its wood, like the length of the table, was worn and scarred in places, marred with the patina of time. "But I also know Branok was murdered because it's impossible that he could 'ave fallen. He knew those cliffs." She stabbed the table with her finger in emphasis. "Knew 'em like the backs of his 'ands. And respected 'em! He knew where 'e could step close to the edge and where 'e couldn't. When the wind were too blustery and when it weren't. There's no way 'twas an accident."

Gage looked toward the other family members present, but they seemed content to let Amelia do the telling. If Dolly had been there, she might have revealed more than the others' pensive expressions implied, but she had been called away to settle a dispute between her children.

"There wasn't any evidence of a rockslide in the place he went over," Bevil supplied gruffly, perhaps feeling compelled to contribute something to the conversation.

Then the cliff hadn't suddenly given way beneath him, but that wasn't the only natural cause that might have precipitated his fall.

"What of his heart?" I queried, watching as Amelia pressed her hand over her chest. "You told us you suffer from a weak heart. Might Branok have suffered from the same?"

"Nay," she refuted. "He was fit as a fiddle 'til the day he died."

"Yes, but issues of the heart are not so easily diagnosed. He might not have experienced any symptoms—or no alarming ones, at any rate—until the attack occurred."

Amelia shook her head. "Nay. I'll not believe it."

But just because she didn't want to believe it didn't make it untrue. I looked at the others again, but their expressions still remained unmoved, revealing nothing of their thoughts on the matter.

"What of his state of mind?" Gage ventured delicately. "Was he agitated or perturbed in any way?"

A deep frown scored Bevil's features even as Great-Aunt Amelia began to shake her head in protest. "He weren't mad, if that's what you're implying." Her gaze cut sourly toward Lord Gage, as if his son's question was his fault.

"I'm not trying to imply anything," Gage replied. "Merely attempting to understand whether his thoughts might have been disordered enough that he turned careless. Had he fought with anyone recently, for instance?" His gaze shifted to appeal to Tristram. "His grandson Meryasek, for instance." Who had still not appeared at the main house to be introduced to us.

Tristram turned to his father, who answered for them. "Not that any of us recall." Bevil's scowl deepened. "?‘Least, no more than usual. He was always after Mery to take more of an interest."

"Who found the body?" Lord Gage asked almost dispassionately. This might have been a welcome change from his perpetual air of restrained hostility, if not for the fact he was speaking of his uncle's human remains. In this instance, some emotion—even antagonism—would have been preferable to none.

A muscle ticked in Bevil's jaw. "I did." He shrugged toward his son. "And Tristram and Mery came up a few minutes later." He dipped his gaze to glower at the remnants of his breakfast. "We all went searchin' after he didn't show up for supper."

"Why did you go searching for him?" Gage had sat forward incrementally as he asked this question, so I knew he'd caught the scent of something. And when Bevil didn't answer immediately, I began to believe he was right.

"Because Branok never missed supper," Amelia interjected. "Not if he could 'elp it."

Whether this was true or not, I couldn't say, but it was clear they were hiding something. Or, at the very least, they weren't sharing all. Joan had even begun to fidget with the trim on her sleeve, bunching and rolling the lace between her fingers.

But Gage didn't press, perhaps realizing, as I did, that we would get nothing from them now. It was best to let them believe their behavior had gone unnoticed until we had more information.

If Lord Gage had also noted this, he seemed to be of a similar mind, for he began to push to his feet. "Then you can show us precisely where his death occurred?"

Bevil remained seated for a moment longer before agreeing. "Aye."

Tristram seemed of a mind to come, too, for he joined the rest of us in departing the long southern-facing chamber, leaving Joan and Amelia at the table scattered with breakfast dishes the staff had yet to clear away. After ascertaining the place was best approached on foot, I donned my freshly cleaned and polished kid leather half-boots and pulled on a warm forest green woolen pelisse over my cornflower blue morning dress.

"?'Tis a bit of a nip and a scramble," Bevil warned me when I met the men in the entry hall.

"I shall manage," I assured him.

He eyed me doubtfully, but then shrugged. "Suit yourself."

With that, he led us out the door and across the main drive to a smaller lane between a number of the barns and outbuildings. We passed a few grooms and farmhands about their tasks. Most ignored us, though one younger lad leading a horse was so curious he only narrowly avoided stepping in a large pile of horse droppings.

At the far edge of the farm buildings, a line of small cottages hugged the lane. I suspected they were abodes for the farmworkers and perhaps even their families. The sight of laundry fluttering on a line stretched between the houses seemed to confirm this.

At the end of the lane, we struck out across the fields, skirting the edge of one bordered by rowan trees. These trees led us to a narrow strip of wilder, uncultivated land which gradually widened into a bell as we neared the coast. Though I couldn't yet see it, I could hear the rumble of the waves as they rolled up onto the shore and crashed against the rocks. The air was pungent with the scent of brine and the lushness of sunbaked gorse and wild fennel. I had to lift my skirts, lest they become tangled in the scrub.

Then the vegetation began to thin, and I spied a deep scar in the rock face leading into a little cove. The tide foamed against the rocks as it rushed in and then retreated. But rather than enter it, Bevil abruptly led us away to the left and up toward the cliffs overlooking the tiny inlet. The climb to the top was steep and bordered by a thicket of brush and brambles, but once I reached the top, panting, I could see for what seemed like miles down the coast in either direction.

"To the west is Varley Head," Bevil informed us, I supposed to give us a sense of our location. He turned to nod behind us. "To the east, Lobber Point, and beyond that, Port Isaac." I noticed his breathing wasn't labored, nor had he broken a sweat.

Lord Gage, on the other hand, was definitely favoring the leg in which he'd been shot some months earlier. Something Bevil's bushy eyebrows eloquently communicated his derision of without saying a word when his cousin was the last to reach the summit.

"Uncle Branok 'ad to have fallen from here," he told them, pointing toward a spot far below. "We found 'im there."

One by one, we inched closer to peer over the side of the cliff, the wind snatching at our hats. The drop was substantial. Certainly far enough to kill a person. Especially as the sand and shingle beach was punctuated with craggy rocks lapped by the tide. It was on its way out, but at high tide the water probably came all the way up to the cliff face.

"It's fortunate the body wasn't swept out to sea," Gage remarked.

"Aye," Bevil agreed. "Another few hours and we might not 'ave found him."

Tristram stood with his hands locked at his sides, a troubled look on his face, possibly reliving the memory. It would not have been a pleasant one.

Branok's body would have been battered and broken, with numerous fractures and contusions. The incoming tide might have washed away some of the blood and evidence, but not all. Not if it hadn't yet carried away the body. It would have been a horrific death, but hopefully a swift one. I found myself praying he'd not suffered long. That he'd struck his head so hard on the way down that he died instantaneously. Anything else was too terrible to contemplate, but the question needed to be asked.

"He was…expired?" I choked out.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bevil turn to look at me. "Aye."

I nodded, swallowing. "No sign he regained consciousness after…" I broke off, leaving the question unfinished, though I trusted he knew what I meant.

It took him a bit longer to respond this time. "Nay."

I nodded again. "Good."

His delay in answering might have meant he was lying, sparing my sensibilities, but I chose to believe him, nonetheless.

Gage had been pacing left and right, attempting to examine everything from slightly different angles. "How on earth did you retrieve his body?"

"When the tide is low enough, you can make your way 'round to it from that little cove we passed, but ye 'ave to be wary." He glanced at his son, who continued to stand immobile. "We 'ad a devil of a time gettin' to him and carryin' him back as the tide was rushin' back in."

Tristram's gaze lifted to his father, and the wariness I'd expected to see stamped there had been replaced by flushed cheeks and snapping eyes I could only surmise was anger. But at what exactly? Having been forced to risk his own life to retrieve his great-uncle's corpse? Depending on how harrowing the experience had been, I supposed it was possible, but I couldn't help but wonder if there was something more.

"Is the tide far enough out for us to go there now?" Gage asked, weighing his father's fitness out of the corner of his eye.

Bevil scrutinized the wash of the waves and the movement of the water farther out to sea. "Aye. Should be safe enough."

Knowing well how my father-in-law's stubbornness might drive him to push himself beyond his physical ability and injure himself, I reached out to grasp Lord Gage's arm. "Lend me your assistance descending this hill, will you?"

He didn't respond, but he also didn't push me away, allowing the others to go ahead of us. My husband's gaze met mine briefly, letting me know he was aware of exactly what I was doing. I only hoped his father hadn't seen the gleam of gratitude in his son's eye.

We started out slowly, stepping with care through the steepest part of the rise. Only after the angle decreased to one more manageable did Lord Gage speak. "So this is what I am now? An invalid forced to remain back with the ladies." His voice was brittle and bitter, and I knew he was thinking of the look his cousin Bevil had directed at him when he'd been the last to reach the summit.

"Another lady might take offense at that," I replied. "She might feel slighted that you haven't professed yourself flattered and delighted to be chosen for such an honor."

He arched a single eyebrow mockingly. "Yet you are no such lady."

"True," I agreed blithely. "I know you too well."

"I feel there's an insult in there somewhere," he ventured after a moment of silence.

I laughed. "Only if you rank consequence over affection." I twinkled at him. "But then I've seen you crawling around on the floor making silly faces at your granddaughter."

A grin hovered at the edges of his mouth. "I refuse to be impugned for such a thing."

"As you shouldn't," I assured him. "Emma adores you."

"Yes, well, you know the sentiment is mutual."

We skirted to the right of a sharp bramble patch, by this point having lost sight of the others.

"Don't think I don't know what you're about," Lord Gage scolded. "You've completely taken the wind out of my sails. And a justifiable wind it was, too."

"How so?"

"Bevil thinks me soft," he growled.

"I should like to see how fast he climbs a hill after taking a gunshot to his rectus femoris," I protested. "Not very quickly, I wager. But tell me, what did you think of the place Bevil estimates your uncle fell from? Do you think he's accurate?"

"If he's being truthful about where they found his body…" He appeared to ponder the possibility that he hadn't, but then shook his head. "And I don't see why he wouldn't be. Then yes, that seems the most feasible spot that he tumbled from."

I gnawed on my lower lip, ruminating on what this meant.

"What?" Lord Gage jostled me when I didn't answer fast enough. "What is it?"

"It's only…" I hesitated, wondering if I should wait for Gage to join us before sharing my thoughts, but then I decided he'd undoubtedly already come to the same conclusion. "I don't see how Branok could have accidentally fallen from that cliff. Even if he'd been suffering from a heart attack or an apoplexy or…or a sudden attack of gastric fever, he would merely fall to the edge of the path and the brambles would catch him."

Lord Gage's brow furrowed as he considered this. "He would have had to jump or be thrown from the cliff to land where he did." The lines scoring his brow deepened. "Then his death couldn't have been an accident. It was deliberate on his part, or someone else's."

I waited a moment for this to sink in before continuing. My father-in-law might have his problems with the Roscarrocks. He might have avoided them for almost fifty years. But that didn't mean discovering that his once-beloved uncle had either been murdered or committed suicide was easy.

"Yet the physician and local constable both ruled his death an accident, and so the coroner's inquest followed suit. Why?"

"I suppose that's a question we'll have to put to them," Lord Gage answered as we reached the entrance to the cove.

But Gage, Bevil, and Tristram had apparently already gone ahead, having disappeared from our view around the nearest rocky outcropping. I frowned, not liking the idea that Gage was wading into a precarious position with just the aid of Bevil and Tristram. After all, those two men were both suspects in Branok's death.

Regrettably, there was no way either Lord Gage or I could catch up to them now. Not after seeing how uneven the rugged shoreline was. It would be far too easy to twist an ankle or fall and bruise a hip. So we kept close to the opening, where a small waterfall cascaded down to the cove below. I ventured a bit farther out as the sea retreated with the tide, exploring the rock pools and inspecting the limpets and anemones clinging to the sides of the rocks, my gaze ever going back to the cliff face around which Gage and the others must return, but I didn't go far.

A caw drew my gaze upward as the distinctive blue-black body of a chough circled overhead twice before flying inland. I had opened my mouth to jest to Lord Gage that King Arthur had come to examine our worthiness when a young man appeared over the hill. His hair was windblown and the same blue-black shade as the chough's feathers. If I had believed in such things, I might have thought he was the chough turned into man, but I knew better. This was a Roscarrock. And there was only one left in Cornwall we'd yet to meet.

Mery stopped to stare down at me, and though there was nothing hostile in his demeanor, there was nothing welcoming either. Meanwhile, my father-in-law had followed my gaze to the figure in question and risen from the rock where he'd perched to come stand next to me. Mery's posture stiffened slightly at the sight of him, and then he approached, padding down the incline to the shingled sand.

"An' 'ere I thought ye were a mermaid," he drawled, revealing a West Country accent thicker than we'd heard from his other relatives. I suspected it was done on purpose.

"Surely, not," I replied uncertainly. There was something in his gaze that wasn't quite respectful.

He turned his head toward the sea and shrugged carelessly. In fact, everything about his appearance was rather careless: from his shaggy, windblown hair to the dark stubble shadowing his jaw to his loose, wrinkled clothing. Had I not known better, I might have believed him a vagabond.

"You're Stephen," he proclaimed, turning to glare at my father-in-law, who arched his eyebrows disdainfully at being addressed as such. But rather than be chagrined, Mery only evinced amusement at having ruffled his consequential cousin's feathers. "Lord Gage," he corrected as if even this was a joke.

The look he fastened on me bordered on insolent. "And you must be the witch."