Chapter Twenty-Nine

A loud crack of thunder woke Ysella. The house trembled around her and rain hammered on the windowpanes like bullets. Lightning shot across the sky, illuminating the night, and its fiery fingers lanced between the heavy curtains. Thunder rolled again. Where had this come from so suddenly? Had she slept through some of it?

Throwing back the covers in total disregard for the chill of the room, Ysella jumped out of bed and ran on bare feet to the window. Throwing the curtains wide, she pressed her nose to the glass to peer into the night. And what a night to be out in. The wind screamed through the eaves of the old house as though a coven of banshees were racing around the rooftops on their brooms, and draughts scuttered across the floor from every corner of the room, chilling her bare feet.

Somewhere inside the house a door banged, and the night sky rent in two as jagged lightning forked towards the Earth. For an instant, it illuminated the silhouettes of the trees around the garden, their branches bent and twisted by the force of the wind. She counted in her head. One, two, three, four, five, six… crash. Thunder rolled, reverberating around the old house and shaking it to its foundations. The storm must be only a mile away, maybe out to sea where Sam had seen the clouds gathering.

More lightning blasted its jagged way across the sky and another crash sounded, far too close at hand for comfort. Had the house been struck? More thunder. Mama had once told her thunder was just God moving his furniture about. Well, if it was, then he was not at all good at it. He must keep dropping it.

The bedroom door flew open, and Martha bolted in, a flannel robe clutched about her nightgown and her feet bare. "Ooh, Miss Ysella, I came to see if you were all right on your own."

This was so patently not true that Ysella laughed out loud. Martha had a morbid fear of storms and had played this trick before at Ormonde.

"Get in my bed then, Martha. You'll be all right if you stay here with me."

Martha needed no further encouragement. She jumped into the large bed and snuggled down, drawing the covers up to her chin. "Aren't you getting back in, Miss?"

Ysella shook her head. "No, I'm not. I love to watch a storm, as you well know, and this one feels different. Wilder, more out of control." She turned back to Martha as excitement bubbled up within her. "I should very much like to go down to the beach and see what the sea looks like in this storm."

"Ooh, Miss Ysella, come away from the window in case a bolt of lightning sees you and strikes you dead."

Another crash of thunder and Martha's head vanished under the bedclothes. "I don't like thunder," she squeaked, her voice muffled.

"Rubbish. Lightning can't see you any more than… than a tree can." Ysella turned back to the window and the almost terrifying display going on in the sky, as more bolts of lightning seared down towards the Earth. Might they be striking the sea, and if they did, what did that mean for a ship out on the water?

"Is anyone else awake?" Ysella asked, although how anyone could sleep through this racket was beyond her. Maybe deaf old Doryty might, but surely not any of the others. Not up there in the servants' quarters nearer the storm than she was down here.

Martha's head didn't reappear. "Everyone, I think," she replied from under the covers. "Those three girls what the master hired are down in the kitchens making hot drinks for themselves and anyone as wants one. No one wanted to stay upstairs. Lest the house gets hit."

So Sam might be up too. Was the house safe with the wind tugging at it in vicious snatches? Might the roof blow off? Another crash from outside. Could that be roof tiles loosening and falling? Would Sam be outside looking at the house, or upstairs checking from inside for leaks? Suppose he went outside and a roof tile hit him on the head? Her heart did a little lurch of fear as she realized she wouldn't like that at all.

More thunder rumbled directly overhead now, and the skeleton of the old house creaked as though in pain. But it had stood here for centuries and not been blown into the sea yet, so surely even in this howling storm it wouldn't suffer damage. Or not too much, at any rate.

The gale howled around the house, rattling the windows, pulling at the heavy curtains, whistling a wild, exciting tune. What would the sea, so calm and glassy flat the other day, look like now? How high would the waves have risen? Ysella longed to see it for herself.

She turned away from the window to fetch her peignoir from the end of her bed. "I'm going to see if my husband is up." No need to say that she wanted Sam to take her to where she could see the storm better. Martha would be horrified and might even try to stop her.

The floor was cold under her feet, but it was too dark to find her slippers. She pulled the peignoir on over her nightgown and did up the ties. Taking the candle from beside her bed, she tried to light it with a spill stuck into the embers of her bedroom fire. After a moment, the spill caught and she set it to the candle's wick, sheltering it from the draught with her hand. It caught, and the candle flared, throwing great shadows around the room. "You stay here, Martha, where you're safe. You'll be fine in my bed."

She let herself out into the corridor. The sound of someone sobbing hysterically carried to her from downstairs. One of those silly new girls, no doubt. Best to try Sam's room first, and see if he was still in bed.

She knocked on his door.

No answer. She knocked again.

Still no answer. Taking her courage in both hands, an action very much needed as she'd never been inside his bedroom before, not even when it had been being cleaned in preparation for his occupation of it, she turned the handle.

The room before her was a smaller version of her own, but a lot less feminine in its decoration. The bed against the far wall lay empty, the covers thrown back as though he'd jumped out of it in a hurry. Ysella took a moment to study her husband's room in curiosity. There was the broadcloth coat he'd worn to dinner, there his discarded white shirt. On an impulse, she picked up the shirt and held it to her face. The faint smell of the soap he used and a hint of sweat clung to it. She breathed it in, savoring the moment.

But this wasn't getting her anywhere, and if she wanted him to take her where she could see the sea, then she would need to find him.

She went back to the corridor and headed down the stairs. Perhaps he was in the kitchen having one of the maids prepare him a hot drink. A good idea. She'd look there.

Since she'd arrived at Carlyon Court she'd only once ventured into the kitchens, only to have Rosie, who now saw herself as cook and housekeeper combined, send her packing with a hard stare. The domain of the cook, the mistress of the house was rarely welcome there. But at least she knew where it was.

At the foot of the stairs, she heard footsteps hurrying from where the kitchens lay, and Sam appeared, carrying an oil lamp, still in his nightshirt and a thick woolen dressing gown. Two men she didn't recognize, in common, homespun clothing, were with him.

He stopped the moment he saw her. "Ysella. What are you doing up? Aren't you frightened? Go back to bed. You'll catch your death. This house is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese."

Ysella shook her head. "It's only a storm. I'm not scared." She peered at the newcomers. Was one of them Uncle Jago's man Jowan? A disreputable rogue at the best of times, now, by the light of the lamp, he resembled a denizen of hell's deepest depths. His long, wet hair hung down his face revealing a sizeable bald spot, and his eyes appeared to be starting from his face. A face twisted into the most remarkable grimace. "What are these two men doing here?"

Sam glanced sideways at them. "There's a ship being washed onshore down in Nanpean Cove. Jowan and Kenal came to tell me. I've sent Jem to the village to fetch some men with ropes. I'm going down there to see what I can do."

Suddenly, the idea of seeing the sea in stormy weather no longer seemed anywhere near so attractive. The thought of a shipload of people in trouble on it banished all feelings of excitement. " You're going? Can you not send our men?" He mustn't go into danger. He mustn't.

Sam shook his head in impatience. "What sort of a gentleman would send his workers but not go himself when lives are at stake?"

"A sensible one. This ship's not your responsibility and nor are the men onboard it."

He scowled at her. " It may not be, but the people in the local villages are , and they are going down there to try to save the souls of the people on the ship. I owe it to them to go too."

Why was she so frightened for him? Was it more than the fear for a dear friend? She descended the last few steps and caught his arm. "You don't need to go, Sam. I need you here. Stay with me."

Just for a moment she thought he would. His gray eyes, glowing a little in the light of the oil lamp, held her gaze for a long moment, indecision writ large in them. Then he shook her off. "No, Ysella. Kit sent me down here to act as master of his estate, and as such I have a duty to do so in his place. He would go if he were here. I'm going to find some clothes. Get out of my way." And he pushed past her and ran up the stairs two at a time.

Ysella looked back at Jowan and Kenal, caps in hand, hair plastered to their pale faces. "Keep him safe for me."

Outside the thunder rumbled again, and the wind rattled at the heavy front door as though eager to get in. Jowan tugged his sparse forelock. "I will that, Missus."

*

Sam tugged on the trousers he kept for working outside with the men, tucking an old shirt into the waistband and slipping his braces over his shoulders. He pulled on his top boots and snatched up the simple fisherman's gansey he'd taken to wearing for work. Pushing thoughts out of his head of Ysella's stricken face when he'd told her he was going out to help, he picked up the lantern.

It swung in his hand as he strode back along the gallery, casting leaping shadows up the walls. At the top of the stairs, he nearly collided with Ysella who'd come racing along the gallery from her room. She was dressed much as he was, in the boys' clothes she and Morvoren had a disturbing penchant for wanting to ride out in.

He held the lantern up to illuminate her face, the golden light making her eyes glow like coals. "What the hell are you doing?"

She glared back at him, pulling her coat on. Kit's old coat, that was. "If you're going, then I'm coming too."

He shook his head. "No, you're not. Get back to your room. I'll send Martha to keep you company if you're frightened."

"No need," she snapped back at him. "Martha's already there, and I'm not scared. If you're going out in it, then so am I. It's only a storm, and you said you'd show me what the sea looked like in bad weather. And besides which, I want to help."

"Not in a hurricane." Sam had to raise his voice to almost a shout above the increasing howl of the wind and the accompanying creaks and groans of the old house. His only hope, much as Ysella had concluded, was that it had stood the rigors of previous storms and remained intact, so this one would leave it standing.

"What d'you think I'm going to do?" Ysella shouted back. "Blow away?"

He shook his head again. "You might. It's no place for a girl."

She reached out and took hold of his hand, hers small and chilly in his. "I'm not just any woman, Sam. I'm your wife."

Words deserted him. All he could feel or think of was her hand in his, somehow persuasive and comforting, and the electric current fizzing through his body.

"I won't do anything silly," Ysella shouted into his face. "You have my word."

What on earth did she want to come with him for? Being his wife wasn't a good reason for her to put herself in danger. Unless… He stared into her pleading eyes. Was that worry he saw in them? Not for the first time he wished with fervor that he understood women a bit better. Their ways remained a mystery to him, particularly Ysella's. "Very well. If you insist, and you swear you're not going to turn vaporish on me, then you can come. But you stand where I put you, and you don't move. You don't get in anyone's way. If I see danger, you go back. Do I have your word on that?"

She nodded, eyes shining in the lamplight, a decidedly unholy expression of glee on her face as though she thought this some big adventure and not an expedition setting out to try to save lives that might well already be lost. "You have my word."

"Then let's find you a gansey and a better coat," Sam said. "Something that'll keep the rain off you a bit better than that one. Hurry up."