Chapter Fifteen
It was a funny thing about friends, even the best ones. Not seeing Harold for a week had restored Adam’s humor exceedingly well.
He had spent five days in Plymouth and intended to return there Monday morning following a trip into Truro to report to Ridgeway. And, before he left, he had extracted a promise from Olivia that she would be attending next Saturday’s dance at Ponsnowyth.
So when a certain young lieutenant arrived to the Angler’s Arms that afternoon in a single-horse drawn tilbury wearing the civilian clothes of a young buck, Adam had no animosity. He simply shook his head and laughed.
“Ready?” Harold called “You didn’t think I’d forget about going house hunting, did you?”
Adam swung up beside his friend and sat on the padded leather seat. Harold snapped the reins and the handsome black horse took off at a brisk trot.
“I can’t believe you still want to do this.”
“Why not?” asked Harold, “You told me Miss Olivia thought the idea amusing. We can amuse her in person and see if the young lady might be persuaded to join us for a turn about the countryside.”
“Sitting where? There’s barely enough room for the two of us in this thing.”
“Your lap, perhaps?”
“Don’t be crude.”
Harold gave him a sideways glance; Adam glared back. There were times he forgot how much younger and less mature his once commanding officer was.
“I had no idea it was like that, old man.”
Adam grunted a noncommittal reply and the teasing stopped.
“I had the cook from the tavern at Falmouth prepare a picnic repast,” Harold offered. “If every stick of furniture is gone out of the old place, we can dine on the lawn.”
The horse made short work of the trip to Kenstec House.
Harold brought the tilbury to a stop and stood up at the reins. He gave a low whistle. “Nice view from here. I imagine it’s better from the third story.”
Adam said nothing. He scanned the windows, looking for the one that was Olivia’s bedroom.
The front door opened and Olivia swept down the half a dozen stone steps as though she was lady of the manor.
“Gentlemen, so good of you to call. You’ll have to forgive the informality but I’m the only one in residence.”
She shared a quick glance at Adam, but it was Harold who was first to jump down, take her hand, and offer a sweeping bow.
“Miss Olivia, you look more radiant than the morn,” he said.
“I suspect you are so profligate with your compliments, Lieutenant, it would be wise not to believe a word of them.”
Adam climbed down feeling smug, the initial prick of jealousy soothed by Olivia’s words. He glanced back to Harold. “Why don’t you go see to the horse? The stables are around the side. There’s a good chap.”
Harold moved off with nod of his head and a look in his eye that suggested Adam should be prepared for some kind of good-natured retaliation.
He went one better than his friend. He lifted Olivia’s hand to his lips and kissed it – slowly. He was close enough to see her eyes widen a moment.
Harold was right. He was staking a claim of sorts. So what of it? Why shouldn’t he? He and Olivia shared a bond that only the two of them knew about – the knowledge of Constance. For now, he preferred to keep it that way.
How strange that after twenty years, Constance should be the one to bring them together. He wanted to be alone with Olivia again, to know her thoroughly, to uncover every secret, to know why she blushed as she did now.
Adam felt a low level of arousal grow. Perhaps having Harold as a chaperone was no bad thing.
“Thank you for the flowers.”
His memory of the night of the storm and the morning after felt as fresh as yesterday. Now, he cursed Harold as a chaperone.
“I’m sorry I had to leave, but you looked as though you were sleeping peacefully.”
His spirits lifted along with her smile.
“You’re a considerate man in every way, Adam.”
“You haven’t gotten to know me yet.”
Olivia laughed and he found himself grinning along with her.
She accepted his arm and they moved toward the house.
“How was your visit to Plymouth?”
“Very productive.”
Half a truth is often a great lie.
Adam wasn’t sure where he’d heard the aphorism but it served now. He’d made no secret of his trip to Plymouth, but the story he had told was his desire to see if his skills and experience would make him suitable to find work alongside a naval architect. That had been Ridgeway’s recommendation, and it was ideal for his clandestine work.
To Wilkinson and his men, Adam felt no pang of conscience to spin the most outrageous fabrications – as long as they served the purpose and the untruths did not tell on his face. He’d prepared himself for it, practiced telling the lies in the mirror until he was convinced by the face he saw before him. That was easy.
With Olivia, however – and the Trellows, too, for that matter – he walked a narrower line. He offered them the truth of what he was doing, but not the why.
They waited at the front door for Harold to return from stabling the horse. He arrived struggling with a large wicker basket.
“Miss Olivia, I think the first stop of our tour should be the kitchen!”
*
Olivia felt like a girl again enjoying a carefree summer with her two mischievous brothers. She was at ease in Adam and Harold’s company in a way she had never felt with Mr. Fitzgerald. Harold’s flirtatiousness was amusing and not to be taken seriously. Adam was becoming dear to her in a way she had never dreamed possible.
And since they both knew it could only last until the end of summer, her heart was safe.
The lieutenant insisted on exploring every corner of the house as though he were, indeed, inspecting it thoroughly for purchase. He admired the study and its French doors opening onto the garden. Then, he waxed lyrical about the proportions of the dining room with its white-painted timber wainscoting and the red and gold damask wallpaper that reached up to the ceiling. Only the faintest marks betrayed the prior location of various paintings and furniture pieces.
Adam said little but remained at her side as Harold dictated the pace of their exploration. Eventually, it took them to the top floor. A landing featured a butler’s pantry at one end and servants’ rooms to the north end of the building. Access to the other end of the floor was blocked by a wall in which was set a single locked door.
“What’s behind here, Miss Olivia?” Harold asked. “If there are three servants’ rooms on this side, then there must be equivalent space on the other side. Wouldn’t you agree, Adam?”
“It makes sense to me. It also brings us close to an addition to Kenstec that I’m curious about.”
“Ah, you mean Squire Denton’s folly,” said Olivia. She smiled at having both men’s attention.
“’Tis a sad story of how soon the marriage of the squire and his second bride soured.”
On arriving at Kenstec House, the housekeeper and the butler had taken Olivia aside privately and enumerated all the things she should not ask about, nor question, if she wished to retain her new appointment.
One of them was to never, ever ask about the folly. The second, to never, ever ask about the first Mistress of Kenstec. The third, stay out of the way of the squire when his temper was up.
What lay behind their warnings was pieced together over the years from the occasional unguarded comment from one of the older servants or from the raised voices of the master and mistress behind the closed doors of the drawing room or bedroom.
“The squire’s second marriage was quick and unexpected,” Olivia explained. “Caroline Denton was many years her husband’s junior but, by all accounts, was pleased with her match. They honeymooned in Italy where they saw cupolas on the roofs of villas that offered the most outstanding views.”
In the telling, Olivia found herself drawn to Adam’s hazel eyes.
“In a fit of generosity to his new wife, the squire promised to create her such a thing. He hired workmen to raise up a tower, but the project only lasted as long as the passion, and not long at that,” she explained.
“He cancelled the order for the cupola roof and ordered the builders to make the work waterproof – then told them their services were no longer needed. Their last task was to wall off this section leaving just a door. That was fifteen years ago. I have to confess, in my ten years at Kenstec, I’ve never been beyond this locked door.”
“Then,” announced Harold Bickmore, looking as impish as a school boy, “we must rectify the situation immediately, Miss Collins!”
Adam turned the knob and leaned on the door. Indeed, it was locked. “Is there a key?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then we’ll break the door down or pick the lock,” said Harold. He saw the look of alarm on Olivia’s face. “I jest, of course. Perhaps the master key – surely that would work?”
“Well, I suppose we could try,” Olivia answered. “I don’t know if this lock is the same as the rest in the house.”
She fished out the key from the pocket inside her skirts. The key would not turn.
“Are there any other keys in the house?” Adam asked.
“Mr. Fitzgerald took the full set of household keys with him, but I found one in the bottom of a vase I was packing away. I didn’t think anything of it, since it didn’t work on the other locks. I will have to go back downstairs for it.”
She retrieved the key from a small decorative casket that sat on the mantel over the fireplace in her room. She handed it to Adam on her return.
To her surprise, the key worked. The mortise lock’s deadbolt retracted with a sluggish clack.
“This is rather exciting,” offered Harold in an exaggerated stage whisper. “Who knows what skeletons will be revealed.”
“Then I’d better go in first,” Adam said, matching the tone, “because I know how frightened you are of such things.” Olivia put a hand to her lips to smother the giggles.
Adam turned the handle and the door opened on stiff hinges. He stepped into the room and she and Harold followed.
Sunlight from the southwest made the space bright and stuffy. The front corner of what was obviously two knocked-together rooms bowed into a curve, the outward expression of which was the tower.
In the center of the circle scribed by the tower was an iron spiral staircase in aged yellowed-white that disappeared into a hole in the ceiling. The walls of the large combined room may have been painted once, but one and a half decades of sunlight from the unfurnished windows had bleached any color out.
Adam ventured in a few steps but slowed as one of the floorboards creaked.
“You’d best stay there, Miss Olivia, until we can ensure the floorboards are still solid,” Harold advised.
She watched the two men circle the outside of the room and then work their way in to the staircase. They glanced at one another as if silently debating who would climb first. It was Adam. The structure groaned as it took his weight.
Harold sobered. “Careful, Adam, the stairs aren’t bolted to the floor. They’re only fixed up top I think.”
Olivia stepped further into the room and watched Adam take each step with caution. He disappeared into the hole above. A moment later, a shaft of light filled the room and fresh air breezed in for the first time in who knew how long, bringing with it the smell of the sea and swirling the dust from the floor.
The staircase shifted slightly, suggesting Adam had stepped up onto the roof of the Kenstec House tower.
After a moment, Harold hollered, “Ahoy up there!”
There was no immediate reply. He and Olivia exchanged glances before Harold took one step upwards, then another.
The staircase rattled with additional weight. Adam reappeared and descended part way down.
“The view is majestic up here!”
“Is it safe for Miss Olivia to climb up?” Harold asked.
“It is.” Adam ducked down so he could see her. “Just come up slowly. The stairs are well fixed at the top. But stay away from the edge when you come out. All that’s guarding it is a decorative iron railing and it’s only shin high. If you stay in the middle, you’ll be fine. You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
Olivia shook her head.
Harold backed down to the bottom of the stairs and held his hand out to Olivia. “After you,” he said. “You’ll be quite safe between the two of us.”
Olivia lifted the hem of her skirt and placed a foot on the step and tested her weight. It was solid enough. She glanced up and smiled at Adam who peered down through the three foot by three foot opening. When she drew near, he reached down to take her hand and aided her final step up onto the roof.
The wind hit her as she emerged and threatened to tug her hair from her chignon. She drew close to Adam, staying in the lee of his body. Harold joined them. He whistled. “You’re right about the view.”
The hatchway emerged at the very center of the tower roof, a circular space about eighteen feet in diameter encompassed by the low railing Adam had mentioned. The roof itself, which would have become the floor of an enclosed structure if a cupola had ever been installed, was covered against the weather with thickly tarred canvas.
Olivia felt a strange exhilaration at being at such a height with the open air all around. Adam lightly rested a hand on her shoulder and pointed to the southwest at a cluster of buildings near the edge of the estuary. “There’s Falmouth.”
The beauty of it was breathtaking. It was almost like she was on an island, what with the river Fal to her right and the Carrick Roads to her left, spilling into the Channel which met the horizon. Beyond that, close – perhaps too close – was France and all of Napoleon’s forces ready to strike. She shivered.
“Cold?” Adam asked. She shook her head, not wanting to tear her eyes away from the splendor of the scenery before her.
“Look at this – a perfect view of the semaphore stations at Falmouth and Feock,” said Harold, stepping confidently closer to the edge. “It’s a pity we don’t have a telescope. We could find out the latest news from London.”
“Providing we knew what it meant. The messages are coded.”
The thought of codes and signals meant little to Olivia who was more than content to take in the view. As she watched, one of the twin-masted ships broke away from the cluster of vessels by the mouth of the river and pushed its way further up the Fal. She imagined its voyage at the end of another successful run, bringing news and goods from the New World – and avoiding the French Fleet, which was not averse to taking civilian ships as well as military ones.
“Such a pity the cupola was never built. It was meant for a view such as this,” she said. “I’m glad I got to see it before I leave.”
“So soon?” asked Harold.
She glanced at Adam’s suntanned face. Was that a frown?
“Not yet,” she replied to Harold, “but I hope I’ll be offered a post after the summer.”
“Well, perhaps we can come back again for a sunset viewing if the lawyer doesn’t mind us making use of the place,” he said. “What’s his name – Fitzsimon? Fitzgibbon? Fitzgerald?”
Olivia nodded on the last and raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.
“I shall ask when I next see him, but I can’t imagine he’d have any objection.”
“Why don’t we head back downstairs?” Adam suggested. “I’d wager it’s about noon and Harold here promised us a quality picnic in the garden. It looks much less windy down there.”
Harold and Olivia descended the iron spiral staircase once more, its foot creaking against the floorboards. Adam closed the rooftop door and came down. Olivia shook her head, getting used to the silence again instead of the noise of the wind rushing above.
They locked the room once more and headed downstairs. The hall clock ticked the minutes while the pops and groans from the house settling gave the impression of being inside a living thing.
“You’re a braver soul than me, living here on your own Miss Olivia,” said Harold. “In a place like this, I can entertain the thought of restless spirits.”