Whispers of Heaven (33 page)

The wind was blowing from the northeast today, fresh and sweet with the clean scent of the open sea. But the ghosts were still there, Jessie thought, mournful and angry.

"At least you've nice weather for sailing," Philippa was saying as they strolled along the docks, waiting for the tide to turn. Beside them, in the sun-glittered bay, the waves gently swelled, rocking the whalers that lay at anchor there beside Captain Boyd's royal frigate and the ketch Harrison would be taking to Hobart Town.

"Are you certain you won't change your mind and join me in Hobart?" Harrison said, smiling down at his sister. "You could take a ketch later in the week."

Philippa peered up at him from beneath her parasol, the twirling lace casting a revolving pattern of shadow and hatched light across her pretty face and the tucked, berib- boned bodice of her yellow taffeta gown. "No, you heartless man. One of us needs to stay here and help Jessie prepare for this wedding."

Jessie laughed, but Harrison caught her hand and brought it to his lips in an unusually demonstrative gesture. "You don't think I'm abandoning you, do you?" he asked, his brows drawing together in concern.

"No, of course not," she said, her hand twisting to hold his, the familiar weight of guilt pressing heavily on her heart. For if truth were told, she was glad he was leaving, glad she would be having this time alone, to prepare for her coming marriage... and to grieve for her coming loss.

"I've been meaning to tell you," Harrison said drawing her hand through his arm as they walked along. "I was speaking to Captain Boyd this morning, and he tells me they've received information that some of the men from the castle are planning an escape. Seems they've a boat hidden away that they plan to use to join the sealers working the islands. He's sent word to Warrick, of course, but there's not much else that can be done at the moment, since they don't know where the boat is hidden, and they've only the word of some convict blacksmith as to the identity of the men involved." His thin nose quivered. "Frankly, I think they ought to go back to gibbeting absconders, the way they used to do. That would soon put a stop to this nonsense. It's coddling these scoundrels that leads to—" He broke off as Jessie stumbled and caught at his arm with both hands to steady herself. "I say, Jesmond; are you all right?"

It was a curious sensation, as if the entire world had dipped and swayed beneath her. "I'm fine," she said hastily. "Did Captain Boyd mention when this escape is supposed to take place?"

"The night of the full moon, I believe he said. But you don't need to concern yourself, my dear. The
Repulse
will be patrolling the coast from here north. If your men try anything, they'll be caught, never you fear."

Lucas was in the tack room, cleaning a saddle, when she burst in upon him.

"Miss Corbett," he said, his voice a lazy drawl, his hand continuing to rub the saddle soap in slow circles even as his heart twisted and leapt at the sight of her.

Since that day when she'd sat on the dock and he'd told her he was going away, he'd seen her only from a distance, for this time she really had kept away from him, riding seldom, and always with her brother or Harrison Tate. But now she was here, the afternoon sun behind her shining warm and honey- rich on her hair, and the pain of it was almost more than he could bear.

"I've just come from Blackhaven Bay," she said, the rich burgundy satin of her full skirts swirling around her as she skidded to a halt at the threshold some five or six feet from him, her hands coming up to brace against the door frame, her chest heaving, as if she'd been running. "Captain Boyd— the naval frigate—they know."

There was no mistaking her meaning. He set aside his cloth and stood to walk, slowly, to the dusty window overlooking the yard. But it was still a moment before he could speak through the crushing wrench of disappointment and anger and fear. "You're certain?"

She took a step into the small, low-ceilinged room, her voice dropping. "They don't know where the boat is hidden, but they know you have one. They know you plan to head north, to join the sealers, and they know when you're leaving."

He swung his head over his shoulder to look at her. "Do you have any idea who told on us?"

She shook her head. "I think Harrison said something about a blacksmith, but I'm not certain."

"John Pike," he said softly. He turned to lean his back against the room's whitewashed plaster wall, his arms crossed at his chest, his gaze fixed unseeingly on the basket-weave pattern of the brick floor at his feet. He said nothing more, but somehow, she knew the direction of his thoughts.

"Dear God," she whispered. "You can't mean to go anyway."

He glanced up. "It still might be possible. We could leave now, instead of waiting for the full moon. Head south instead of north."

She stared at him, the blood draining from her face. "No. It's too dangerous."

He pushed away from the wall with a shrug. "It was always a risk."

"But... you can wait a few months. Let the suspicions die down."

"No. If they know we have a boat, they're going to start looking for it. It'll only be a matter of time until they find it. If we're going to go, it's got to be now."

"Oh, God."
She swung away from him, one hand splayed across her eyes. From the yard came the sound of a man's voice, and the laughing call of a kookaburra. He was aware of the slow, painful passage of time, a silence scented with saddle soap and leather and damp brick. "I told myself it was best that you were leaving. Even though I was afraid for you, I still knew, deep in my heart, that it was best, for you, and for me. But this ... this is too dangerous. If..." She hesitated, her chest shuddering on a quick breath. "If you are going, don't tell me. I don't want to know."

He went to stand behind her, his hand hovering over her shoulder, then dropping to his side again. "I heard your wedding date's been set, for the first of December."

Her head came up, her eyes squeezing shut. "Yes."

"Don't do it."

She swung to face him, her eyes glittering, her face tight with the effort of controlling her emotions. He ached with the need to touch her, to touch her cheek and her hair and her mouth. "Don't do it," he said again, his hands curling into fists at his sides. "Tate won't make you happy. He'll only try to turn you into something you weren't meant to be, and in the end, he'll destroy you."

He watched the cords in her slim throat work as she swallowed. "This is the life I was meant to live." She took a step back from him, and then another. Her lips parted, and he thought she would say something more, but she only whirled in a swirl of burgundy satin, and was gone.

"No," he said to the empty room. "No, it's not."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

"Have you spoken to O'Leary?" asked the Fox, his attention seemingly fixed on the task of filling a big zinc watering can at the ornamental fountain that stood in the center of the rose garden.

"Aye," said Lucas, one foot propped on the edge of the fountain, the afternoon sun warm on his back. "He says we go. Tonight."

"It rubs against the grain with me to have to admit it," said the Fox, grunting as he hefted the full watering can, "but I agree with him. What about the others?"

They turned to walk together between the curving rows of roses, stopping every few feet while the Fox carefully watered each bush. "If we do this," said Lucas, "we don't tell the others. Not until we're ready to walk. One of them must have spilt to Pike. We can't risk it happening again."

The Fox's lips curled away from his teeth in an ugly snarl. "The bugger. Before we leave—"

"No. If we do this, it's going to be dangerous enough without adding any complications."

The Fox looked up, considering. "I take it you don't think we ought to go?"

"No. No, I don't."

"If we don't go now, they'll find the boat. You know they will."

Lucas shrugged, his hands on his hips as he looked off across the ornamental garden, toward the park. "So we lose the boat. We can always get another one."

"They're not that easy to come by, boats."

"Neither are lives."

The Fox jerked his head sideways and spat. "Some lives aren't worth living."

Once, Lucas would have agreed with him. But now... now he thought about the simple joy of watching Jesmond Corbett's face light up with delight when she laughed, or the way her breath hitched when he touched her cheek, or the sweet, sun-warmed scent of her hair.... And he realized that at some point over the course of the past month, his life had begun to have meaning again, to have value. To him, and to her.

"The whole point of having the boat," he said, his hands coming up together as he swung around again, "was to join the sealers and get away from this hell mouth of an island. If we simply go south and lose ourselves in the unsettled areas down the coast ..." He let his hands fall to his sides. "We might as well head for the mountains, like every other fool who tries to bolt. Because we'll probably wind up dead."

The Fox upended his can with a violent splash of water that filled the air with the scent of damp earth. "If we bolted for the mountains, the dogs would track us down in a few days. You've always said it." They turned back toward the fountain. "With the boat, they won't know where we've gone."

"For a while."

The watering can hit the side of the fountain with a clatter. "Bloody hell. You're the one who came up with the idea of going tonight."

"I know." A flash of color drew his attention to the upper veranda of the house. "It was hard, to think about giving the whole thing up, after getting this close. But..."

The Fox followed his gaze to where Jesmond Corbett stood at the veranda railing. She must have been watching them, because she looked away, quickly, toward the mountains, as if suddenly becoming aware of their scrutiny.

"Are you sure this new plan is such a daft one?" asked the Fox, nodding toward the veranda. "Or is it just that you're not as anxious to leave as you once were?"

"And what good would it be doing me, then, if I stay?"

"If you stay, at least you'll still be seeing her, even if it's only from a distance. For some men, that'd be enough."

Lucas sucked in a deep breath, the heavy perfume of Beatrice Corbett's roses filling his head. "It would be an unbearable agony."

Jessie was having tea with her mother in the drawing room when she heard men shouting. She jolted to her feet, her heart pounding in her chest, her tea spilling across the table, her chair crashing to the floor behind her as she leapt for the door.

"Really, Jesmond—" her mother began, but Jessie was already across the veranda. She pelted through the shadowed garden, the flounced skirts of her gown bunched up in her fists, the evening sun warm on her hatless head. She could see a group of men, milling about the smithy, and more men running, their boots scraping across the hard-packed earth and stone of the yard.

She noticed the stableboy, Charlie, hovering at the edge of the crowd and grabbed him by the shoulder, her hand tightening hard enough to make him wince as she swung him around to face her. "What has happened?" she demanded, her breath ragged with fear.

"'Tis the smithy," he said, his gray, nearly lashless eyes narrowed and gleaming in his freckled face. "Somebody done for the bloody bugger."

"What? Let me through here." She pushed her way forward, the knot of muttering workmen giving way before her.

It was Warrick who stopped her, snagging her arm with a quick, "Don't look, Jess." He pulled her around, but not before she saw the man lying in an ungainly sprawl on the pile of horseshoes, one side of his head a sickening, bloody pulp of shattered flesh and bone.

"Oh, God ..." She brought her hand to her mouth, her stomach giving an uncomfortable lurch. "Who is he?"

"His name is John Pike," said Warrick, his lips pressing into a thin, angry line, his angel's eyes hardening. "Some half a dozen of the men have bolted. Pike must have got in their way."

And then she heard it, the loud, heart-stopping peal of the estate's alarm bell, beginning to ring.

Lucas hitched his hip on one of the dock's old, broken piers and crossed his arms at his chest, his gaze narrowing as he stared at the sun, sinking in rapid splendor toward the hills in the west. It was getting late. Dangerously late. They'd be needing the darkness, later, to slip past Blackhaven Bay. But he sure as hell didn't want to try to negotiate the rocky mouth of this cove, with inexperienced oarsmen, after sundown, and without a full moon.

The gray gelding shook itself against the flies, creaking its saddle leather and drawing Lucas's attention. He'd ridden here himself, so that he could carry the few supplies they'd been able to gather together and get the boat in the water. The others were coming on foot, over the hills, but they should have been here by now.

He went to slip the bridle from the gelding's head and loop it over the saddle. "You'll be all right, mate," he said, stroking one hand down the gray's warm neck. "Go on now. They'll be along to find you soon enough." But the horse simply snorted and butted its head against his shoulder when he would have turned away.

The horse ambling behind him, Lucas climbed the small rise to the garden and stared at the path winding around from behind the ruined black walls of the Grimes House. The chill in the air seemed more noticeable than ever, the sense of warning and foreboding ominous enough to make him shudder. He thought about the woman who had once lived in this house, and the young convict who had loved her, and died for it. Turning away, Lucas sucked in a deep breath scented with the dank air of the estuary tinged faintly with an old whisper of charred wood, and felt the tragedy of this place cut through to his very soul, leaving him bleeding and aching.

It was good he was going away, he told himself. He could imagine a future of nothing but pain and death here, on this island. Yet he couldn't get away from the notion that he was making a mistake, that this escape attempt was hopelessly, fatally doomed. If it had been up to him, he'd have abandoned it completely, but the others were bent on going and they needed his strong arms at the oars and his knowledge of the sea. He couldn't back out on them now. Especially when he couldn't trust his own motives for wanting to stay.