“Wherein a body lies alone on the moor.”
Charity was not a fanciful girl. Legends abounded on this part of Dartmoor, full of ghosts, fairies, and spirits, but none of them had ever stirred her imagination. She’d been too busy trying to keep her family fed and the farm running to have time for a fit of the vapours or indulge in flights of fantasy. As she walked the moor now, however, looking for a possibly dead body as the mists rose in the early morning sunlight, her flesh prickled with foreboding. There was some sixth sense tugging at her conscience, warning her that what happened today would have consequences beyond anything she could imagine.
She shivered, though it wasn’t cold, and clutched her coat around her. As John gave a shout, Charity turned and gestured to Kit who was following behind with the cart. Her twin ought not be out in the damp of the morning, his health was too frail, but there was nothing to be done. If there was a body she’d not get it in the cart with just Mr Baxter their handyman to help.
To her dismay, as she hurried towards her little brother, she discovered his words were not those of a hysterical boy, frightened by the dark and an overactive imagination.
He was a big man, handsome too, despite the blood and his dishevelled appearance. His hair was black, his skin a rather olive complexion that was striking despite his current pallor. With relief, Charity found his heart beating strong and regular beneath his broad chest.
“He’s far from dead, John,” she said, casting her brother a reassuring smile.
John sat down on the damp ground with a thud and put his head in his hands. Charity ruffled his hair but said nothing, giving the young man a moment to gather himself.
“Knocked out cold, eh?” Kit said, observing the body as he strode nearer.
Charity nodded as Kit and Mr Baxter got closer. Ralph Baxter and his wife Beryl had been at Brasted Farm since before Charity was born and had worked for both her grandparents and parents. The farm was all they knew. Mr Baxter was as skinny and spare as his wife was round, and the dark cloud to her sunshine. They were an odd couple but as much a part of Charity’s life and the farm as the ancient stones of the building itself. She wondered what would happen to them now but shook the maudlin thoughts away and returned her attention to the problem at hand.
“Mr Baxter, you take his shoulders, Kit and I will take a leg.”
Baxter glowered at the body. “Fellow will cause trouble, mark my words,” he said, his voice heavy with foreboding as he spat on the ground at his feet. “There was a dead crow in the courtyard last night. ‘Tis an ill omen.”
Charity held back the desire to roll her eyes and curse with difficulty She looked up to see Kit’s lips twitch with amusement. Her brother knew of her scepticism for anything she couldn’t see with her own eyes. “Jolly good,” she said briskly. “Now, let’s get him home and see if we can’t patch him up.”
They had the devil’s own job getting him into the cart they used to go to market. The fellow weighed a ton and between Charity, Baxter’s skinny frame, and Kit’s poor health. they made a wretched mess of it. With chagrin, Charity observed that if the man hadn’t had a concussion before they’d got him in the cart, he damn well would have after.
“Charity,” Kit said, staring at the stranger at their feet as they jolted back to the farm, “look at his clothes.”
Charity nodded. The fine silk waistcoat and beautifully tailored coat the man wore hadn’t escaped her. She’d noted his hands, too: softer than hers despite the bulk of him. Not a man who laboured for a living. He was a fine gent, whoever he was. She hoped he wasn’t the vindictive kind, hell bent on causing trouble.
“What on earth was he doing out here at this hour of the morning?” she wondered.
An isolated place, Brasted Farm was the only dwelling in the area and on the road to nowhere, the nearest village being an hour away. They’d had neighbours a scant half hour’s ride away until two years ago, when the old couple had given up and moved to be closer to their children and civilisation. Life on Dartmoor was harsh and unforgiving, and the winters were cruel. You had to be tough to survive here. Tough, stubborn, and stupid, Kit would say with his crooked smile.
“Lost more than likely,” Kit said, his expression thoughtful. “Did you catch a whiff of his breath? The fellow was drunk as a wheelbarrow, likely why he couldn’t control that flashy mount of his.” He cast a rather covetous look at the huge black horse tied to the back of the old cart. It was no wonder it had startled John, appearing out of the mists like an ebony monster. “Prettiest piece of horseflesh I’ve ever seen,” Kit added with a sigh. “Must have cost an arm and a leg.”
“You’ll be able to afford such things too, when you’re a famous poet,” Charity said, solemnly.
Kit grinned at her, his handsome face lighting up at the familiar joke, and her heart ached for him. Poets spent their lives starving in garrets and they both knew it all too well—that and dying young. That Kit was probably doomed to do exactly that was something Charity refused to contemplate, hence the jokes about him being wealthy and successful. Kit would be different. He had to be.
As Brasted Farm came into view, for once the skies showed a glorious blue. The high moor was a dramatic landscape, with far-reaching views, and the farmhouse was a large determined granite building with a grey slate roof. It huddled into the countryside, stubborn and a little grim, presiding over a cluster of outbuildings, daring the moors to do their worst. A few stunted firs clustered in the meagre shelter of the low, gnarly, grey stone wall that surrounded the farm, facing the north wind.
Charity loved it.
“Look!” John cried out from his position at the front of the cart beside Mr Baxter. “There’s someone at the farm.”
Charity angled her neck to look and gave an exclamation of joy. “Uncle Edward!”
“It never is?” Kit questioned, standing up in the back of the cart to get a better look. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Mr Baxter snorted, turning his head to give the still unconscious body in the cart a look of deep distrust. “Aye, we’ll all be damned I reckon. Whoever that fellow is… he’s got the luck of the devil.”
***
Once his patient had been seen to, Uncle Edward—who by happy circumstance was a doctor—settled down to a jovial breakfast with his nephews and nieces.
“Well, well, isn’t this a welcome sight,” he said, the white whiskers at his cheeks bristling as he beamed at the laden plate of bacon, eggs and fried bread that Mrs Baxter set before him.
“No one makes breakfast like old Batty,” Kit agreed, stuffing his mouth with bacon as the lady herself clouted him about the ear.
“Mind your tongue, you dreadful young scape grace,” she scolded, though there was amusement in her eyes and no heat behind the words.
“Sorry, Batty,” Kit mumbled through his bacon, his brown eyes glinting with mirth.
Mrs Baxter snorted and returned her attention to frying more bacon as Charity filled her uncle’s cup with tea.
“You really think he’ll be all right?” she asked, still anxious that their guest had not yet awoken.
Edward cast her a sympathetic glance before reaching for his tea. “Head wounds are tricky things,” he said, repeating his words from earlier that morning. “They can do odd things to a fellow, but he’s young and fit and strong. As I said, he badly bruised his arm and shoulder in the fall. Nothing was broken, from what I can tell, but he’ll be feeling pretty sorry for himself when he comes to. I’ve left laudanum for the pain and you’ve got the other instructions written for his care.” He set down his teacup and picked up his knife and fork again, spearing another piece of bacon. “I’m afraid you have a house guest for a good few days, though, depending on how he recovers.”
Charity nodded, biting her lip. They had been fortunate that the man had landed in their midst during one of their uncle’s visits. It was a long journey from Bristol for their closest relative, who was not as young as he once was. He was a kindly man though and he worried for Kit, placing about as much faith as they did in the local doctor.
“And how are you, Kit?” Edward asked, striving for nonchalance. “I’ll have to be off again tomorrow, but I’ll give you a once over before I go.”
There was a flash of irritation in Kit’s dark eyes before he pasted a smile to his face.
“I’m in fighting form, Uncle,” he replied, his smile stretching into a grimace. “You know the summer is always better for me.”
“Hmph,” Edward replied, his voice noncommittal. “Until it rains.”
Kit sighed and gestured to the cloudless skies beyond the window. “I have it on good authority it will be a long, hot summer,” he said, winking at Charity.
Another of Mr Baxter’s predictions, though he’d said it would be too hot and too dry, the fruit would be no more than little bullets, and their garden would die of thirst. Ever a shining light in the darkness was Ralph Baxter.
“There’s a first time for everything I suppose,” Edward said, chuckling as he returned his attention to his breakfast with gusto.
***
The sound of conversation and laughter filtering through his clouded mind was the first inkling Dev had that he wasn’t at home. Laughter and home were words that did not go together. Pain seared through his tender brain as he tried to open his eyes and an unfamiliar room swam into view: white painted, with heavy oak beams. He hissed at the sunlight that flooded through a small leaded window and shielded his eyes with his arm.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
A feminine voice made him start with surprise and he tried to focus his gaze on the blurry figure that hurried to the window. Whoever she was, she tugged the curtains across, blocking out the daylight.
“I just came up to check on you. I had no idea you were awake.”
Dev swallowed and tried to sit up, but his head swam, and pain lanced through his arm, which felt heavy and peculiar.
“Oh, don’t do that,” the woman admonished him, her voice rather stern. “Here, you must be thirsty.”
A slender but surprisingly strong arm slipped behind his neck. She supported his throbbing head and brought a glass of water to his parched lips. Dev drank deeply, grateful despite the indignity of being at some strange woman’s mercy. What the devil had happened to him?
“Forgive me,” the voice said, becoming increasingly disembodied. “I’m afraid there was a little laudanum in that. My uncle is a doctor, you see, and he said you must rest as much as possible for the moment. I’m Miss Charity Kendall, by the way,” she added. “What’s your name, sir?”
Dev blinked, confusion flooding his tired mind. Where was he?
“I’m….” He paused, feeling daunted, and shocked at the roughness of his voice. A name lingered, just out of reach on the tip of his tongue. It was an important name but….
Damn it. Who was Charity Kendall?
He found a pair of wide brown eyes watching him, filled with concern. Well, he could sleep a little if those eyes were watching over him. The perplexing question of why he of all people needed charity circled his brain with no clear answer until sleep, and the laudanum, pulled him under.
***
“Anything?”
Charity raised her head as Kit poked his head around the door.
“No. He awoke for a moment, but he seemed rather disorientated. I put a drop of laudanum in his water, so he’ll sleep awhile now.” She bit her lip, looking at the big figure with some misgiving and no little curiosity.
Kit stepped into the room and gave the fellow a dark look before putting his hands on Charity’s shoulders. Turning her around he guided her out of the room.
“He’s not a motherless lamb that needs feeding, nor the runt of the litter, nor a lame duck,” he said, as he closed the door on the sleeping figure. “So don’t go trying to fix him. Uncle Edward has done that and, as soon as he’s fit enough, he’s on his way.”
“Kit,” Charity began, folding her arms and turning to face him. “I have no intention—”
“Of course you do,” Kit said, a pitying look in his eyes. “You can’t help yourself. You’ve made it your life’s work to look after this farm, Mr and Mrs Baxter, me, John and Jane, and whatever else lands in your lap. For heaven’s sake, Charity, what about you?”
Charity glowered at him, the familiar argument poking at fears and uncertainties she did not wish to face.
“You know being thrown out of this place might be the best thing that ever happened to you,” Kit continued, relentless now. “You might actually be forced out into the real world, you might even begin to live for yourself, instead of hiding yourself away here, buried alive.”
“Oh, don’t give me your dramatics, Kit,” Charity hissed, turning in the narrow corridor to scowl at him. “I’ve neither the patience nor the stomach for it.” She tutted and shook her head. “Buried alive indeed,” she muttered, rolling her eyes at him before stomping down the stairs. Kit might have longed for London, for fame and notoriety, for the society of fellow artists but not her. She had given up on any fanciful notions of marrying and raising a family of her own. At twenty-five and with a farm and two young children to support, she had family enough and no time for day-dreaming. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” she added tartly, “I have work to do.”
She didn’t see the glimmer of concern in her brother’s eyes as she closed the door on him, but she didn’t need to see it. It was always there; the worry about how she would manage without the money he provided from his writing, meagre as it was. He seemed well enough now, and she prayed it might continue, but they were neither of them as romantic as all that. Consumption, or tuberculosis as her uncle referred to it, was a wicked hereditary disease and one that life here at Brasted Farm did nothing to hinder. It had killed their parents and Kit believed he’d not make old bones. Little they’d experienced in the past contradicted that assumption.
So, he wanted her to go out into the world, to find herself a husband who would support her and be kind to John and Jane. How in the world he supposed she could accomplish that without leaving them all to fend for themselves ...? She snorted at the idea. They wouldn’t survive till the end of the week without her. The thought was reassuring, vindicating her lack of enthusiasm to face the real world. The world here was quite real enough for her, thank you very much.
With that argument settled, in her mind at least, Charity rolled up her sleeves and headed to the kitchen.