O'Roarke's Destiny (Cornish Rogues Book 1) Page 5

  “Sooner rather than later then, seeing as there only appeared to be one. And Lydia is hardly likely to come that way."

  "Lydia? So? She does exist then? I was starting to wonder.” Why did his face freeze--for the second time --as if she was not alone in wondering? When really, if anyone’s face should freeze over, giving herself away over that solitary tree branch, it should be hers? But maybe it was at her ability to extend such a magnanimous hand of friendship in very difficult conditions? In which case she was really getting somewhere. “She might come some other way and the end result could be the same. Go on. Try me. And if you're not satisfied, I'll go now." Not going to resist that offer, was he?

  "Try you?"

  "Go on. I dares you. Bet you can't."

  "Very well then, Destiny." He drew himself up "Raven's Passage?"

  “Raven’s Passage?”

  "Raven's Passage."

  She hesitated as she fiddled with the hanger. That crock of excrement everyone said led down from Doom Bar Hall to the cave at Ryland’s Point and was stuffed with more treasure than the Orient. Well, well? Please don’t tell her he was another of these eyes-full-of-gold fools. And him rich as Croesus too? With how well that design business paid and everything?

  "You did say," he added. "And yes, I believe that's what it's called."

  She did too and if he was that fool, why not string the pony along, take him down to the kitchen and show him the entrance? The broom cupboard, for example? She edged her gaze sideways. It was an idea of course, but then again once he saw it was only a broom cupboard, maybe he wouldn’t think it was a very good one?

  “I’m ... I'm sure it is but ... well, what possible purpose would Raven’s Passage serve except to make the walk to the shore dry on a wet day, for someone as rich as you? Herland's Dell now, which I do know, know well, and if I may say--"

  “But maybe I like being dry?”

  How could he when she didn't want him to?

  “Here, and maybe you’re just not as rich as all that?" Well? Despite what lay on her hands like a cold sweat, she set the hanger back on the rail. Rising to this really well, wasn't she? "Or you'd buy an umbrella, same as any ordinary person."

  Well? He would, wouldn't he? But maybe he wasn't as rich as all that? And that was the real reason he'd gotten rid of the servants?

  He just didn't want her to know that when it would be good to know, what with her obvious talent in design and that, that, just maybe she could think about making some money, if need be, before the wife arrived, found out Destiny had flung herself in with the house and gave her her marching orders.

  Also, turning him to dust might avenge Ennis, how would it secure Doom Bar Hall, if the wife inherited what was Destiny’s by right? It would mean she'd be shooting herself in the foot to touch him. But suppose she could string him some other way? With her stunning local knowledge and renovation skills? A girl needed to think ahead here.

  “I mean … I mean, let’s face it, if you were rich why dismiss the servants when they’re this close to the cliff face of local knowledge? Gossip too? I mean … I mean, if anyone knows anything about a place and the nooks and crannies in it, it’s them.”

  And when they didn't, it would be all their faults not hers too. How clever was that?

  "But you said you did."

  "I do. I was just expressing my surprise that you would be in any way interested in Ravem’s Passage and all the gold it’s said to contain, would get rid of the servants too when you’re supposedly rich as Croesus, unless who you really want rid of here, despite what you said last night, is me?”

  "You’d have to ask Gil.”

  “What about? Whether you want rid of me, or not? Or what you do exactly? I mean let's face it, from what I remember you barely knew the difference between a snowdrop and a pansy, a piece of satin and the thread to sew it into something. Here, from what I remember you couldn't win a game of snap either. Yet here you are only going and winning Doom Bar Hall in a card game in Daindridge’s of all places, last night."

  How the sodding hell was that in terms of co-incidences when for years there hadn't been a whisper--about him, about anything-- too?

  Had he fallen off the face of the earth or something? As for that look, that cool look, that cool, unreadable look he’d given her when he spoke there just now ... That look would win every prize going in the you've stumbled on something I don't want you stumbling on competition. No wonder her heart skipped a beat. What was going on here?

  How she faced him without a flicker of what she was thinking was down to one thing. He'd also been out there last night. With a lantern too.

  As for how he faced her? He shrugged, his face expressionless as a piece of blank paper. But then he was hardly going to write guilty as charged on it. Let a single

  carefully combed hair stand up either. “About how it all pays. He’s the curmudgeon about these things.”

  And yet, did it pay to face him without that flicker either? Especially if he was up to something he shouldn’t be? Like smuggling. She wanted to stay here, didn't she?

  "Right."

  “But I suppose, while it might be nice for you to think I’m poor, I’ll probably have to disappoint you. I just like to balance my books, not live above my means. Have you any idea of the trouble that—"

  “Oh, plenty, I should say, the way my father ran this place into the ground, loans for this, loans for that, and Orwell's doing his best to finish the job, so now a big, fat nothing is what there's loans for. That's why, putting everything aside, it would oblige me no end for you to let me check over the estate, see it’s not going to cost you any more after last night’s storm. I mean, if nothing else, we wouldn’t like to be held accountable, because, I don't know about you, being rich and all that, but that is money I don’t have. And while you might be good enough to overlook that fact--" he wouldn't but it did no harm to appeal to his vanity--"I wouldn't sleep easy. Given these past associations you spoke to that Gil about, it wouldn't be proper."

  No, my God, not when some would say it was written in large letters, from one handsome cheekbone to the other, that she’d stumbled on something here.

  As for asking Gil? Would she hell. Gil wouldn’t answer her questions.

  But there was one man who might. Hadn’t she left him a message last night with regard to what was in her summerhouse too? Maybe Divers O'Roarke didn't want rid of the servants to drive her out at all?

  Yes. Talking crypts, pits, of fool’s gold and tunnels, the time had surely come to do a little digging.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  This hadn’t exactly gone as he’d intended. Some people might even add, as the door clicked shut that his attempts at starting tomorrow to deal with Destiny Rhodes, hadn’t just failed, they’d failed so catastrophically, the success rates for landing a cat on the Moon by throwing it up in the sky, were probably greater. It was ‘tomorrow,’ wasn’t it?

  “Wait.”

  Ignoring the smell of moth balls, he tore a scarlet ball gown from its hanger. The scarlet dress, the emerald one, hell’s teeth with bells on, the crimson one, danced from the hangers as if they were bloody alive. The burgundy one. Why the hell did she have to have a dress that shade? The shades he remembered her in. Of course pink, or pastel, or cream, were too boring for her.

  Forget exotic siren written all over her, lips of beckoning sin, eyes like stars and all that stupid stuff. At sixteen, she'd been brash, beautiful and more knowing than King Solomon in a very different way from other girls. Earthy. Outspoken. Provocative. Dripping honey one minute and tight-faced sarcasm the next. And dangerous. Dangerous as a sea of sharks.

  She'd been casually, not that different from what she was now in some ways. Or she'd never have gotten one up on him.

  "Destiny."

  What was he doing even thinking about her at sixteen when she’d turned tables on him? Firstly by sprawling on the floor like a helpless giraffe. So he'd touched her, for God's sake. Secondly with all that other stuf
f. He wasn't going to think about thirdly. But so long as he got her out of here before there was a fourthly, this was fine.

  He bent down, gathered up the scarlet dress. Not the one to go after her carrying. Christ, weren’t there any rags like that dress she was wearing? She was getting away from him, burning like Rome while he fiddled like some befuddled Irish ploughboy. He rummaged, yanked some silken effort from its hanger--black, beadless. She went. And she did it now.

  Did he reach the door handle quicker because his boot caught in the skirt, or because he needed to catch her? Whichever it was, he whacked his nose off the panelling. He cursed, ran the back of his hand across his face. It wouldn’t do to face her with blood dribbling down his chin. Physicality was everything in this job. Especially now he almost found her brass-neck entertaining, himself rising to it in ways it didn’t pay him to. He tugged the door open.

  “Miss Rhodes.”

  He straightened his shoulders, hurried past two moldering suits of armour and the grandfather clock, gained the wooden stairs.

  Gained the wooden stairs and clattered down three of them before righting his fall.

  "Mr. O’Roarke?" She paused halfway across the hall.

  Rose.

  Oh, Jesus Christ, rustling leaves on the staircase, when there was nothing, just his shadow on the bare boards.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the dress sprung to life like a snake, the kind charmers coaxed from baskets.

  “Something wrong, is there?” she asked.

  “No.” He shoved the dress, rolled up behind his back. “Not that I know of.”

  "So?"

  But maybe she’d froze given the house ball was in his court? And it was. She hadn’t stumbled on anything. “I was just …” Because if she had stumbled? And she compromised this? After that business with Eirwin? Or she thought she had a bargaining counter ..? “…looking for Gil.”

  “I see.”

  So did he. That the door was there and he needed to put her out of it. But now he'd been stupid enough to dismiss the servants because to know him was death, he also knew Lyon would want her here for the time being, if she could shed a light on Raven’s Passage, the thing that would give him the in.

  Lyon certainly wouldn’t want her wandering the wilds of Cornwall, blabbing what she knew, until Divers had established whether that was all or nothing.

  "I’ll just be getting on my way then?” she added. “Check the estate for damage, that is? So your lovely wife--Lydia--doesn't come in to a mess. Because I wouldn’t like to be the cause of any trouble between you.”

  So help him to whatever God there was, if she said that word wife again though, she'd be wandering Cornwall a lot quicker than she thought.

  “I hope you think you’d get to. Now, if you don’t mind I’ve work to do.”

  He certainly did now.

  And it didn’t involve cooling his sweating brow, calming his pounding heartbeat, either.

  Lyon would want her here. But not if Divers found that damned in for himself. He would now. If he’d to turn up every stone in this place, dismantle it piece by piece, he would.

  She hadn't undermined him. He'd undermined himself. Now he knew this, he'd dig his grave with a thimble before it happened again.

  ***

  Destiny leaned harder against her bedroom door, letting the beadless black silk fall from her grasp as the breath--rather a lot of it, in fact she probably sounded like a charging rhinoceros--rushed down her nose. After Tom Berryman had been as much help as a sodding Christmas pudding to an overweight donkey--who the hell was the Cleanser exactly?--and the smack in her soaring wings with the shovel, her attempts at digging had been, Divers O’Roarke still meant to throw her out.

  Well, why the hell else would her gowns be in heaps on the floor, at the door, the black silk on the staircase? Unless Gil Wryson had come in here and sodding slavered all over them? About as imaginable as her waving a fairy wand and transporting Doom Bar Hall lock stock and barrel, to the Moon. Some might say he was the kind but she had her doubts.

  That lying son of her aunt’s husband was though. A stepson. For God’s sake that was how tenuous the connection was. One even she struggled to remember. How could her aunt’s husband do that to them all? Win the prize for falling off his horse and getting his head stoved in by a boulder? His first wife too, although she hadn't had her head stoved in exactly? But there was a connection with horses in that she'd had galloping consumption. As for her aunt marrying the grieving widower? Couldn't she have got someone else, who was footloose and fancy free for example? Who didn't ride horses either? Or at least took a bit more care when they did?

  As for the world and its aunt for bringing Divers and Rose O’Roarke here? Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. Why could she not have put them in a place for orphans like any decent, self-respecting aunt?

  No wonder she'd sunk down against the door and slammed her heels off the floor. As for sounding like a screaming banshee? Well, the last thing she could afford to do was sink to the floor and lie here as useless as her gowns, a thread for the unpicking, could she? But she had sunk, so she might as well make a noise about it. Tom Berryman’s point blank refusal to move that stash, and the fact that Divers O'Roarke saw her out there last night, were her undoing. To come back to find her dresses had all been hauled from their hangers, was the final straw. Why fight what she couldn’t change?

  If she had some dirt on Divers O’Roarke, perhaps, but there wasn’t even half a trowel-load. As for the idea that her dresses were all over the floor because Divers O’Roarke meant to put them out only; had maybe even taken them out the wardrobe and put them on the floor because he wanted to see her in them?

  Well, pigs would fly through her window, without cutting their wings. Maybe if she’d stayed in her room, put on one of those dresses and been enticing instead of battling out in the storm to leave that lantern all for nothing? Maybe Divers O’Roarke had come here for that matter? Then what he’d come was out to see what she was up to?

  She hugged her cloak tight, tighter than her stomach had drawn these last two hours as she’d battled along the headland and back.

  At least look on the bright side. The fact the dresses had been thoughtfully laid out saved her the trouble.

  And truly? She was tired. More tired than if she was a hundred. Certainly too tired to go down these stairs and engage in another battle to no good end with Divers O’Sodding Roarke.

  How much easier just to lie here and dream of Ennis.

  There was sod all point to anything else.

  ***

  "Miss Rhodes."

  “Well, it's certainly not them sodding parrots."

  And no end of sodding wonder too. A fat lot of dreaming of Ennis she’d got done this afternoon with the sodding great racket that started up ten minutes after she sank down onto the floor. And went on. And on. Bang. Pause. Wallop. Pause. Bang. Pause. The thud of metal on stone and such an amount of plaster showering behind the walls--even if it was lucky there were any walls for it to shower behind--she'd thought she'd need to find that proverbial umbrella.

  As for the inconsideration of those responsible for nearly taking the house off its foundations? Those responsible, for that matter, standing there in their shirt sleeves? Their breeches too, it was true. Sweating as they swung great pickaxes in clouds of dust. In what was the Doom Bar Hall library? When all she wanted was to lie there and dream of Ennis--what kind of widow was she for not doing it since this morning? Well, there would be no prizes at the local fair for guessing who they were.

  "What do you want?" Divers O’Roarke added, landing another blow on the brickwork.

  "Want? How about some peace and quiet for starters?"

  Never let it be said she didn't know how to get it too. Not when, if there was one thing Divers O'Roarke hated more than her, it was being caught red-handed. Clasping the scarlet dress tighter, the one she’d scooped up off the floor, she swept forward.

 
“Gil, get her out of here, thank you.”

  When all she wanted was the peace to sleep?

  "Gil, out now."

  "Goodness." The sight of what was spread over the library table stopped her in her tracks. "You know, I haven’t seen that--"

  Well she hadn't. She hadn't seen this for ages. As for what it was? Grandfather Austell’s map was what it was. His one of the house and grounds. Not that she should let that distract her or anything.

  She held up a hand. Peace was the priority but even if it killed her, surely the only way she should be leaving here was in a box? Well? A pity she’d come in here raging when it was probably what he wanted and was probably taking that wall down to make sure he got what he wanted too. But she could sort that to her satisfaction surely, with what she’d come in here to sort it to her satisfaction with? That was the priority. She dragged her gaze from the map.

  “When I have simply come to discuss the business of my things? Yes. And how worried I am that while I was out there today looking over the estate for you, there was an intruder in—”

  “Things? What things?” Gil Wryson’s black eyes gleamed with amusement. “You don’t have any things.”

  “Really?” She cocked an eyebrow. “But I thought I did. Excuse me, but are you saying that—"

  “Do you mind me asking what the hell you’re talking about?” Divers O’Roarke wiped his hand across his nose. “Well?”

  “My clothes, Divers.”

  “What clothes?”

  “What ones do you think? The ones on me back. What else? And not just those. No. If it was those I wouldn’t trouble you when you’re obviously so very busy. My other ones.”

  He raised the pickaxe. "What other ones?"

  “This dress here for example. And the others up the stairs, lying on the floor of what was my room. I mean I accept now that technically speaking, what with you winning the place and all, that these dresses which someone plainly pulled from the hangers--"

  “What about them?”

  She fought not to drop her jaw. What did he think when he'd put them there? Didn’t he give a proverbial that she knew it, that his friend here knew it?