The Rose Garden (32 page)

I’d felt this before, while Katrina had battled her illness. I hadn’t been able to stop that from happening either. I hadn’t been able to save her. I would have paid any price then to be able to
do
something, anything, not just stand helplessly by. And I would have paid any price now. But the truth was that, once again, I could do nothing.

I couldn’t warn Daniel. I couldn’t save Jack. I was trapped here in my own time and I couldn’t simply leap back into theirs by force of will alone, however much I wanted to. I had to wait. And worry.

I was grateful when the day of Susan’s opening arrived because it kept me moving constantly, with no real time for thinking about anything except the task at hand. Things went splendidly well—the first coach load of tourists arrived spot on time and the weather held fair, and Trelowarth looked beautiful, and the photographer sent down by
House & Garden
got the whole thing very brilliantly recorded for her magazine. The interviews with Mark and Susan went off like a dream, and when the visitors all crowded into the Cloutie Tree to sample their Cornish cream teas before leaving, their chatter was glowingly positive.

By the day’s end even Mark was admitting that Susan had proved him wrong.

‘Say it again,’ Susan challenged him, mischievous.

Crossing the carpeted floor of the big front room, Mark sank with visible weariness into the big armchair by the piano and leaned his head back. ‘You were right,’ he repeated, with slow perfect diction. ‘And I was…’

‘Yes?’

‘Less right.’

I looked up from my magazine. ‘That’s all you’re going to get,’ I said to Susan. ‘And be happy with it, because it’s more than
I
got.’

Mark partly opened his eyes. ‘When were you right?’

I sent him a calmly superior look. ‘Falmouth.’

‘Oh.’ His eyes closed again. ‘Well, yes, all right. I was wrong about that, I’ll admit it.’

Amazed, Susan said to me, ‘Sorry, am I delirious, or did I just hear my brother say that he’d been wrong?’ Her gaze swung, curious, to Mark. ‘What have I missed?’

He said, ‘None of your business.’

I knew that he’d gone out a few times since then with Felicity, and though they weren’t yet what I’d call a couple, they were at least making a start on it. Susan, who knew and approved of their changing relationship, wasn’t aware that I’d argued with Mark. We had kept that a private affair, between us, and we’d settled it in the same way that we’d made peace when I had been little—the day after going to Falmouth, Mark had set up the badminton net on the side lawn and brought me a racquet, and though I was rusty at playing, he’d graciously let me win two of the games. That, I knew, was the way he said sorry.

We traded glances now as Susan sighed and said, ‘Fine, be like that. You can’t dampen my mood, I’m too happy.’

I told her, ‘You ought to be. Today was perfect.’

‘Can’t rest on my laurels,’ she said. ‘We’ve still got the coach tour from Cardiff tomorrow.’ She turned again to look at Mark. ‘By the way, you don’t know what’s become of Dad’s display stand, do you? The one we unearthed when we cleared out the greenhouse? I thought we might salvage the sign from it if nothing else.’

‘Sorry,’ Mark said. ‘I’m painting it.’

‘Painting it? What on earth for?’

‘Well, I’ll need it for Southport,’ he said.

Susan stared at him as though she didn’t know him. ‘What?’

‘The Southport Flower Show. You want to read my blog more often. I announced last week that we’d be going.’

‘But you never go to shows. Not anymore.’

‘A man can change.’ A glance at me. ‘Besides, like Eva said, we need to raise our profile.’

For a moment Susan looked at him in silence, then she said, ‘Right. Now I
know
I’m delirious. Eva?’

‘I’ll get us drinks, shall I?’ Setting my magazine down as I stood, I asked, ‘Is there wine in the fridge, still?’

Mark thought that there was. ‘Need some help?’

‘Susan’s delirious, and you’re knackered. I’ll manage.’

I wasn’t sure where Claire had got to, but the house was quiet when I crossed the hall. The kitchen door stood slightly open. Pushing it, I felt it thud on something that not only stopped its inward swing but bounced it back towards me. Damn, I thought. One of the dogs must have decided to stretch out behind the door to take a nap and now I’d clouted him, poor thing.

I heard a scuffle and a thump and then the door was yanked back open from the inside, all the way this time, and I could see the thing that had been blocking it was not a dog at all. It was the body of a man stretched out face down across the flagstone floor, his black hair wetly matted where a dark red trickle had begun to stain his collar. It was Fergal.

Shocked, I raised my gaze to find a pistol leveled steady at my chest.

I couldn’t focus on the man who held it, because I’d already looked beyond him to the hard eyes of another man who stood close by the fireplace.

‘Mistress O’Cleary,’ the constable said, ‘do come in.’

I couldn’t move, at first.

Not that I wanted to, really. The last thing I wanted to do was step over the threshold into that unwelcoming room. But the man with the pistol had lowered it and now reached forwards to take a rough grip on my arm with his other hand, hauling me in.

‘Shut the door,’ said the constable. For all his calmness, he sounded displeased. ‘Mr. Hewitt?’

Someone else moved in the shadows behind him. ‘Yes?’

God, I thought, how many of them were there? Trying to shake myself out of my nightmare paralysis, I took a wild look round the room and counted two more faces, making five of them in total. Small wonder Fergal hadn’t stood a chance.

He lay now almost at my feet, and with relief I saw his ribs move slightly.

‘Did you not,’ the constable was saying, ‘tell me you had searched the house?’

‘I did,’ the man named Hewitt protested. ‘I swear I saw no one. She must have been hiding.’

The constable acknowledged this. ‘’Tis why they call it “searching”. Would you be so kind as to go try again? With Mr. Leach’s help.’

The man who’d been holding my arm turned his head, gave a nod, and let go of me, slipping from the kitchen in the wake of the disgruntled Hewitt. Left there standing by the door, I tried to show the bravest face I could, my shoulders straightening a little as the constable regarded me with shuttered eyes that took no notice of the injured man who lay between us.

Almost casually, he asked me, ‘Were you hiding?’

I remembered not to talk in time and shook my head. My hands had started trembling and I curled them into fists so they would not betray my weakness.

But he seemed to see it anyway. His mouth curved into something that could not be called a smile. ‘In bed then.’ Spoken with a certainty supported by the way his gaze raked over my appearance, and I realized for the first time that the summer frock I’d worn all day, a loosely fitting peasant-styled frock of plain cream cotton, would to him and all the other men look like a chemise. Dressed as I was with my hair loose, I could understand why he had assumed I’d been in bed.

His sneer was more apparent when he asked, ‘Were you alone?’

For an answer I lifted my chin a half inch to imply such a question was not worth my answering.

One of the men near the window-wall said, ‘Mr. Creed,’ and the constable’s stare sliced the dark air between them.

‘Yes, Mr. Pascoe? You’ve something to say?’

An older man moved to the edge of the firelight, his features familiar. ‘I’ll ask you to mind how you speak, sir. The girl’s done naught to warrant such insult.’

I recognized him then. I’d seen that same mix of defiance and shame on his face when he’d ridden as one of the constable’s deputies on the day Jack was arrested at St Non’s, and the same unvoiced apology in his quick glance the next day when he’d stopped off in the stable yard to bring the conger eel for Fergal. Fergal hadn’t called him Mr. Pascoe, though. He’d called him Peter. That implied the two of them were friends, of sorts, and meant I might have one man in this group who would defend me.

The constable had brushed aside the protest. ‘It can be no insult, surely, to request the facts.’ He followed my quick downward glance towards Fergal. ‘You fear for your brother? A touching display, but I’ll warrant he’ll live long enough for his hanging.’

I wasn’t so sure. He appeared to be breathing more shallowly now, and defying the constable’s presence I knelt on the flagstones and stroked Fergal’s hair lightly, trying to find where the injury was.

When the man Peter took a step forwards, the constable stopped him. ‘No, leave her,’ he warned. ‘Keep your watch.’

My fingers touched the broad gash at the base of Fergal’s skull and I put pressure on it, hoping that would help to slow the bleeding. They had hit him from behind, a ruthless blow with something sharp enough to leave a cut and with the weight to bring him down—a jug, it looked like, from the jagged shards of earthenware that seemed to have been kicked into the corner by the door behind me.

One shard the size of my hand pricked my knee as I shifted position to check Fergal’s pulse at his throat. It was there, faint but steady.

The constable’s men, Leach and Hewitt, had finished their search of the upper floors. Coming back into the kitchen, Leach said, ‘No one.’

‘Then we wait.’ The constable relaxed in his position by the fireplace. ‘I have waited long enough for this already. I can wait a little longer.’

It was the note of satisfaction in his voice that made me look in his direction, and he said, ‘Ah, but perhaps you have not heard, Mistress O’Cleary, that the House of Lords has passed a law suspending those protections that did lately shield your lover. And as keeper of that law here in Polgelly I now have the right to enter any premises I choose, arrest whomever I suspect of plotting treason to the king, and see them sent to London where, I promise you, they will find no reprieve.’

My fingers slid protectively to Fergal’s shoulder as Leach crossed towards us to take up his earlier position, standing guard.

As I shifted a little bit further away from him, my knee came down full onto the piece of the broken jug. I could feel it cut right through the fabric that covered my leg, but I bit my lip hard and said nothing, not wanting to draw any more attention to myself.

The men had fallen back to an uneasy silence, waiting. Listening.

It might have been a quarter of an hour before I heard the measured tramp of footsteps coming.

Leach had brought his pistol up and cocked it with an evil click to hold it aimed directly at the door to the back corridor, so that whoever stepped inside would have no hope of—

‘Mr. Creed?’ The voice that called from outside in the yard was more a boy’s voice than a man’s and wavered from exertion. ‘Mr. Creed?’

The fifth man, who stood nearest to the door, looked to the constable, who nodded, and the boy was swiftly ushered in.

He was stocky and round-faced and in the firelight I saw nothing in his face that was familiar, but his voice struck a decided chord within my memory when he said, ‘I know where Mr. Butler’s to.’

This was, I thought, the same boy who had come aboard the
Sally
as a spy and been put off again by Daniel. The same ‘beardless lad’ Jack had argued might cause us all trouble some day. Jack had clearly been right, and just as he’d predicted, the boy was now trying to prove himself worthy to Constable Creed.

‘I did just like you said,’ said the boy, still half-breathless, ‘and kept myself close to the Spaniard, and two of the men come out talking and one of ’em said to the other that it would be best when the day was well over, for one year of King George was naught to celebrate…’ Pausing, he added, ‘I noted his name for you, seeing that’s treason and all.’

Creed’s eyes narrowed. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, the other replied that the king would have no more years after this, and their own work this night would help in sending him where he belonged, and they both laughed, and then the first asked was it midnight at the cave still, and the other told him ay, but both the Butler brothers would be at the cave before that. Both of them together, I did hear it plainly said,’ he finished proudly.

Creed was frowning. ‘And where is this cave they spoke of then?’

The man named Peter dropped his gaze and gave a faint shake of his head towards the man beside him, while the young man Hewitt shifted till he stood behind the constable and gave a careless shrug. The bully Leach appeared to miss all this and clearly didn’t know about the cave below the Cripplehorn himself, but even as my hopes began to rise the boy spoke up, ‘Why, I was thinking that you knew it for yourself, sir, or I would have shown you sooner. I can take you there.’

‘Then do it.’ Creed looked blackly at the men around him, as though he were trying to assess just how much use they’d be, but in the end he only said, ‘If there be any man who is uncertain of his duty to the law, then let him tell me now, for I stand always ready to remind him.’ Only silence met his challenge. ‘No? Then let us waste no more time. Mr. Leach, you will remain here with O’Cleary.’

‘And the girl?’ Leach asked.

‘She comes with us.’

This proved too much for Peter. ‘Mr. Creed!’

When Creed looked round as though astonished any man would speak in such a tone to him, the older man said bluntly, ‘Sir, I’ll not allow it.’

At my knee I felt a movement, very faint. I braved a quick look down and saw that Fergal’s hand had moved a fraction, and his fingers had begun to curl. I didn’t know just how aware he was of what was going on or how much he could hear, but to be safe I slipped my hand in his and lightly squeezed to warn him not to move again.

Creed’s eyes were dangerous. ‘You’ll not allow it?’

‘No, sir. First off, she’s not dressed. It isn’t decent.’

This apparently had bothered Hewitt too, for he put in, ‘There is a chest of women’s clothes upstairs, I’ll just go up and—’

‘No.’ Creed’s voice cut sharply through the offer. ‘Those clothes do not belong to her.’ To Peter, he said, ‘Offer her your coat then, Mr. Pascoe, if it troubles you, and let that be an end to it.’

But Peter, growing bolder, said, ‘And any rate, the way down to the cave would be too rough for her, too rough for any woman in the daylight, let alone the dark.’

He hadn’t realized what he’d just admitted, I felt sure, until the constable’s hard features altered subtly and his voice smoothed to the tone I found most frightening.

‘So, you know it, then? The way down to the Butlers’ cave.’

The older man’s jaw set, but he didn’t answer either way. And in that silence I felt sure the constable would win; that I’d be taken with them down to wait in ambush in the cave below the Cripplehorn, and Fergal would be left here helpless on his own with Leach. And Leach’s pistol.

In a panic I tried thinking. Then I felt the ragged sharpness of the broken wedge of earthenware still lodged beneath my knee, and very slowly and with care I inched it forwards till it rested underneath the hand I’d linked with Fergal’s. No one noticed. Still more carefully, I guided it up into Fergal’s palm and closed his fingers round it, pushing at his arm until his hand was tucked beneath the out flung edge of his dark coat, against his side.

Leach wouldn’t see it there. But now when Fergal woke, I thought, at least he’d have a weapon. If he did wake.

He’d gone still again.

Creed said, in that same elegantly soulless voice I’d learned to fear, ‘I do confess that I have never understood the loyalty these Butler men command, and yet I truly cannot help but be impressed by it.’ He looked from Peter back to Hewitt and then to the silent man who stood between the window and the door. ‘It is a pity there’ll be no one from Polgelly on the jury to defend them when they’re brought to trial, for Londoners will surely be less sympathetic to the Butlers’ charms.’ He turned to Leach. ‘I know you’ll be occupied watching O’Cleary, but were I to leave you his sister as well could you manage it?’

Leach looked me up and down, leering. ‘Oh, ay, I could manage her fine, Mr. Creed.’

Peter moved again sharply in protest, and Creed’s gaze swung round.

‘You object to that also, Mr. Pascoe? Perhaps you’d prefer, then, to stay behind with them.’

‘I would, ay.’ The older man’s face was distrustful, but Creed only told him, ‘So be it,’ and took a step backwards to clear the way.

Peter, still clearly disturbed by my state of undress, began shrugging his coat from his shoulders as he crossed the floor, and the constable reached to take hold of the back of the coat’s heavy collar, as though to assist him.

And then his hold tightened, and swiftly his free arm swung forwards and drove hard at Peter’s chest.

It happened so fast that at first I was not really sure what I’d seen. With a cough and a look of astonishment Peter collapsed to his knees, arms pinned back by the constable’s grip on the coat.

‘You may stay, as you wish,’ Creed said lightly, and as he drew his arm back I could see the knife blade brightly red, a deadly thing. Peter coughed again, and Creed yanked back once with his other arm to wrench the coat completely clear, then watched without expression as the older man fell face-first to the floor and lay unmoving.

‘Now, then.’ In the small, shocked silence Creed, uncaring, wiped the bloodied knife blade on the coat’s dark sleeve. ‘Does anybody else prefer to stay behind?’

The men, including Leach, stayed silent.

‘No?’ The constable glanced round for confirmation. ‘Then let us go.’ He waved the knife from Leach to me and told him, ‘Get her up.’

‘You said—’

‘I lied.’ Creed’s eyebrows rose as if to show surprise that anyone would have thought otherwise. ‘If Butler has his men around him, he may need persuading to submit to his arrest. Besides,’ he added, ‘if I left her here with you she might distract you from your duties, Mr. Leach.’

Leach didn’t answer him out loud, but he was grumbling something underneath his breath as he reached down to roughly grab my arm and haul me to my feet.

Creed gave his knife a final close inspection. Satisfied, he tossed the coat across to me and turned away before I caught it.

‘Cover yourself,’ he said.

The boy who still stood just inside the door was staring dumbly at the body on the floor. If he had ever seen a murder done at all, I thought, he’d never been this close to one, because the stunned uncertainty was written plainly on his face.

The constable stopped walking just in front of him and waited. ‘Well?’

The boy, misunderstanding, seemed to think that Creed was asking his advice, and answered, ‘Shouldn’t we… that is, sir, should we not attempt to move…?’

Creed frowned. ‘Move what?’ He turned his head, his own gaze following the boy’s. ‘Oh, that. No, leave him there. It was unfortunate that in our efforts to arrest O’Cleary he attacked and killed poor Mr. Pascoe, but we can at least console ourselves in knowing that a charge of murder added to his treason will ensure the judge assigns him an unpleasant end.’ He looked back at the boy, impatient. ‘Now, this cave.’