Where Seagulls Soar (17 page)

Seth placed some money on the bar then carried his meal of a large, crusty pork pie and a glass of beer outside. There he seated himself on a rickety rustic bench, which allowed him a view over
the sea. He attacked the pie with some gusto, for he hadn’t eaten that morning, and was hungry.

When his appetite was satisfied, he looked beyond the pitted and scarred immediacy of his surrounds to the delightful vista that was spread out below him. A beach of pebbles scimitared towards
the haze that surrounded Weymouth. A train chugged along a breakwater, still under construction and slicing into the sea after several years of toil. Behind the steam engine, trucks piled high with
stone were dragged, their destination the next section of the breakwater. There were sightseers walking along the line – marvelling at this fine feat of engineering, no doubt.

Beyond, sailing boats and steamers plied busily back and forth on a sea of shifting blue glass. A steam yacht with side paddles patrolled the length of the breakwater. He could just make out the
figures on her deck.

Soon, Seth was surrounded by an arc of seagulls, who’d sailed in on the breeze to salvage the crumbs from his feet. Around him the island was a constant hive of industry, making his own
profession seem insignificant by comparison.

Although Seth had always like to pit his mind against a puzzle, there was something grubby about the contemplation of aiding a powerful man to part a mother from her child. Listening to his
conscience was something Joanna had forcibly reminded him of today.

Joanna Rushmore’s pa had been a quarryman who, by all accounts, had been a decent and hardworking man. He’d built the cottage Joanna and her son lived in with his own two hands, a
monument to his skill that would withstand centuries of storms.

Seth had no such practical skills himself. He lived on his wits, and he craved adventure. The arrival of Kate had kept him grounded, something he’d regretted at first, although he
wouldn’t be without her now.

What if it were Kate?
she’d said, and he knew he’d kill to defend his niece, if he had to. Thus, Joanna Morcant would defend her own to her last breath. She deserved more
than consideration. She demanded it.

A little while later Seth set off down the hill, hoping Joanna’s anger had abated enough for her to accept his apology.

He went in through the back way. On her washing line several undergarments danced in the breeze. A petticoat flicked a miniature rainstorm over him from a frilly hem.

The back door was open to the sunshine. Joanna was in the kitchen, up to her elbows in washing. Strands of dark hair lay damply against her face as she expended her energy on a garment applied
to the washboard. She didn’t look up as his body blocked the sunshine in the doorway.

He knocked gently on the door jamb. ‘Joanna, it’s me. Seth.’

‘I saw you coming down the hill.’ The anguish he’d caused her was an accusation in her voice. Lifting the skirt of her apron, she dabbed her face before gazing at him through
eyes the colour of crushed bluebells.

Guilt filled him to the brim. ‘You’ve been crying.’

‘A soapsud went in my eye.’

‘Liar!’ he said softly.

The corner of her mouth quirked. ‘Say what you have to, Seth Adams. I’m busy.’

‘I’m sorry, and yes, I do have a conscience, which is why I’d decided not to work for Lord Durrington. It was a decision I made before I came here today. Rest assured,
I’ve told him nothing he didn’t already know.’

Head slanted to one side, her eyes sharpened as she regarded him. ‘What’s the nothing you didn’t tell him?’

He was beyond being surprised by her. ‘Conjecture.’

‘Such as?’

‘Why there’s no birth recorded for Joanna Rose Rushmore.’

She shrugged and her eyes momentarily flickered away from him. ‘Perhaps my ma and pa forgot.’

Her ma? Instinct told Seth something didn’t ring true here, and Seth always went with his instincts. He sifted through the information and conversations he’d stored in his brain,
remembering when Joanna had tried to sell him some jewellery. She’d said it had belonged to her mother. But not the mother of this humble home she’d been raised in, surely.

The old man at the cemetery had said she’d washed ashore in a cradle. The graves from the wreck told their own tale. There was only one conclusion he could reach, the same one he’d
examined, then discarded as too improbable. Her mother was Honor Darsham and her father Tobias Darsham. He wondered if she knew that.

‘Not many parents would forget to register the birth of an only child when it was born. What about your marriage to Tobias Darsham?’

Despite her casual voice, her face closed up and her eyes were wary. ‘What about it?’

‘You’ve never once talked about him.’

‘Tobias Darsham was a good man. We were wed for only a couple of weeks when he drowned. His body was washed ashore many months later, and is buried at Southampton.’

Seth already knew that, and also that Alex Morcant and a lawyer called James Stark, who’d once handled the legal business for the Darsham and Morcant Shipping Company, had identified his
body. ‘You called your child after Tobias. Didn’t Alex mind?’

Her head slanted to one side. ‘Toby bears both their names. Tobias had always been a father figure to Alex while he was growing up. Alex was pleased I’d named him after Tobias. It
was like a tribute to the man who had loved and mentored him.’

‘Alex would have regarded Tobias as a grandfather to your son, then.’

Joanna shifted from one foot to the other and tried to make light of the suggestion, though it clearly disturbed her. ‘You’re quite ruthless in your interrogation, Seth. Are you sure
you’re not still working for Lord Durrington?’

She was clever in shifting the focus of the conversation, but he intended to shift it back. ‘Durrington is not the type to let the matter rest, or to allow any stone to remain unturned. If
he can gain control of your son by discrediting you, he will – and he’ll hire someone more ruthless and less discreet than me. Did you love Tobias Darsham?’

‘Not when we first married, though we were drawn to each other. He helped me when I was attacked. Tobias was looking for a wife and I had nowhere to go, so he offered me his protection and
a home.’ Her smile came then and her face was transformed from sadness to joy. ‘I grew to love him later.’

A strange statement when she’d only been married to the man for two weeks. Oddments such as this, when pieced together with other oddments, often made sense out of nonsense. Envy stabbed
at him that a dead man could evoke such a smile in her, though, father or not.

Anxiety came to the fore. ‘Why does Lord Durrington want to investigate my first marriage?’

She knew why, but he wanted her to tell him. The anxiety in her eyes was replaced with awareness, then resignation. Her shoulders drooped a little as she sought for a convincing lie, so he felt
sorry for her and helped her out. ‘You needn’t say anything, Joanna, I’ve already worked things out.’

The anguished little cry she gave touched his heart. When he took her in his arms she laid her head against his chest and whispered, ‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘Nothing. There’s one thing I’d like to know, though. It’s a rather delicate matter and I risk—’

‘My first marriage was in name only if that’s what you’re asking me, Seth,’ she said.

Seth admitted to himself he was relieved beyond measure. ‘Only an honourable man would take his own life in such a situation.’

She started, then gazed up at him and smiled. ‘Yes, you’re right . . . Tobias Darsham was honourable.’

Her breasts were soft against his chest, her mouth a delicious curve. In the position they were in it was natural for him to incline his head and take advantage of what those soft lips had to
offer, and it seemed natural for her to respond to his overture. The intimate and entirely distracting embrace was quickly terminated when there came the sound of voices and laughter, of footsteps
running down the path.

Guiltily, they sprang apart.

‘Joanna, Mrs Abernathy said we had a visitor. Has Oliver arrived home?’ They bustled into the kitchen, two young women who looked delightfully alike. The laughter in their faces
faded to disappointment as they gazed from Seth to Joanna. A few seconds later the expression was replaced by curiosity.

‘May I present my sisters-in-law, Lydia and Irene Morcant,’ she said. ‘They are living here until their brother returns from America.’

So this was the pair Lord Durrington had intended to debauch, the two girls whom the peer had evicted from their home without a moment’s remorse when his desire had been thwarted. Seth
stifled a grin. No wonder there were so many petticoats drying on the line! He wondered how Joanna would explain him.

The glance she gave him was slightly flustered, but when he grinned encouragingly at her, she recovered quickly. ‘This is Mr Seth Adams, a friend of mine from London. He had business in
Weymouth and dropped in to see how I was getting on.’

‘Then you must stay for tea, Mr Adams. Oh look, Irene. Fruit cake. How absolutely wonderful. I haven’t seen anything so delicious for months. You look flushed, Joanna. Allow me to
take over your task while you tidy yourself up. If Mr Adams has come all this way to see you, you can’t entertain him in the kitchen, can she, Irene?’

‘Indeed not, Lydia. I despair of you, Joanna. Go and tidy your hair this minute, you cannot entertain a gentleman looking like a washerwoman.’

The pair grinned at each other and shooed them gently but firmly into the sitting room

‘You must forgive the twins,’ Joanna said laughingly. ‘They’re good girls who are trying hard to get used to their poverty and be useful. Now and again they become a
little . . .
imperious
.’

‘They’re a spirited pair. It was kind of you to take them under your roof.’

‘Oh, I love them completely. They’re such good company for me.’ Her smile came and went uncertainly, and, flustered, she fiddled with her disarrayed hair, tucking a bit in here
and there. It was a losing battle, for it freed from its style and fell gloriously about her. ‘I must look completely untidy.’

Seth took a seat on the battered old settee and chuckled. ‘You look wonderfully rumpled, as if we’d made love all night and you’d just just woken from sleep.’

She gave an involuntary and rather regretful sigh. Upstairs, Toby began to rattle the bars of his cot. The mouth Seth had just tasted rearranged into a trembling oval, making him want to kiss
her all over again. ‘You’re being much too personal.’

‘And you’re trying too hard to be prim. It’s not as if I took advantage of something you didn’t encourage. You enjoyed the experience as much as I did, even though it was
an attempt to distract me from my line of questioning. Admit it.’

Amusement struggled with annoyance in her eyes. She made a small exasperated sound in her throat, then turned and scurried up the stairs.

When she reached the top she turned, giving a soft, provocative laugh. ‘I’ll admit to no such thing.’

Seth grinned. ‘Then I’ll have to be more convincing next time.

Oliver had spent several weeks in London trying to get a berth on a ship.

The spare key to Joanna and Alex’s former home in Southwark had always been kept behind a loose brick. It was still there. As the place was boarded up, at night he sneaked in after dark
and slept there.

The personal items had been removed, but some furniture was still in place and he found a mattress to sleep on. The house had become an empty, echoing, black cavern, for hardly a chink of light
showed through the shutters, and he didn’t dare risk lighting a candle, because the place was patrolled by a night-watchman.

Oliver and the river rats were the only inhabitants of the house. Over the next month his beard grew long and his clothes ragged. He began to beg on the streets for enough money to eat. Always
slim, now he was gaunt – and he began to dislike himself.

The ring Joanna had entrusted to him was tied around his neck on a piece of string, and it was that which kept him from giving up altogether.

Use it if you have to
, she’d told him.

So far he’d avoided doing so. But returning to his hiding place one night he discovered that the remaining furniture had been removed, the doors and window frames were missing and some of
the floorboards had been prised up. Any attachment to its former owners now seemed to be gone. Durrington was probably demolishing the place to make room for warehouses.

The only course Oliver could now think of to take was his last resort. Ask for charity from the lawyer, James Stark. He spent his last night at the house, cold and draughty now, curled in a
corner. Dawn brought a foot thudding against his thigh, as a rough voice yelled, ‘Get out of here and don’t come back, else you’ll be charged with trespass.’

Oliver stumbled away, heading towards the city.

James Stark’s clerk didn’t recognize him. ‘What business would someone like you have with Mr Stark?’

‘It’s me, Mr Potter. Oliver Morcant.’

‘Good gracious, so it is!’ Potter slid his glasses to the end of his nose and peered doubtfully through them at him. ‘My, you do look down on your luck, Captain Morcant. We
thought you’d gone to America. I’ll ask Mr Stark if he can see you. He’s a very busy man, you know.’

But James wasn’t too busy to see him. After shaking hands he ordered some coffee and muffins, and watched as Oliver wolfed them down.

‘It’s obvious you’re in trouble. Christ, Oliver, why the devil didn’t you contact me sooner?’

Oliver spread his hands. ‘Looking like this? I’ve been trying to find work for months. I’ve been too ashamed even to go and see my sisters. They could be dead, for all I
know.’

‘They’re not. Joanna Morcant wrote to me. She said they’re well. The girls are working as private tutors, giving piano lessons and such. They’re still living with Joanna
and I understand they get on very well with each other. They’re worried about you, though, and asked me to make enquiries about your whereabouts.’