“You alright?” Edward asked, eying Peter’s bloodied face with concern before he flipped Scraggan over and tied his wrists behind his back with the same ties Scraggan had used on him.
Peter stood upright, every part of him aching. He watched as Eliza and Harriett rushed toward them. Eliza threw herself at Edward, who swept her into his arms and murmured reassurances into her hair. Harriett held the remaining strap and handed it to Peter who took some small comfort from gagging Scraggan. He had heard enough from the smuggler to last him a lifetime.
It wasn’t lost on anyone that Jemima hadn’t approached, but had remained alone staring out to sea.
Peter was soaking wet from lying on the wet stones, frozen from the cold mist, and was bruised from head to foot, but none of that mattered as much as the desolate vision Jemima made standing by herself on the windswept cliff-top, her cloak billowing out behind her as she stared blankly out at the vast expanse of ocean.
Peter slowly walked toward her, knowing he had a lot of explaining to do. He knew from the way she held herself, that she was deeply distressed. Her arms were folded across her waist, as though helping to hold her upright. Although she wasn’t crying, there was a desolation in her eyes that was deeper than anything he had seen before.
He looked for the right words but came up empty.
The importance of getting her to understand, to believe him, was simply too much for his battered mind to deal with.
With a sigh of frustration at his own inadequacies, Peter stalked the last few paces to stand before her, unsurprised when she didn’t acknowledge him. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t speak past the fear in his throat.
The silence lengthened between them for several moments, until Peter couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Jemima,” he whispered, trying to find the right words. “I love you,” he whispered.
He mentally cursed at the solemn look she gave him. He could cope with her shouting and ranting at him, but the silent hurt was harder to bear.
She didn’t return the declaration, just looked at him, doubt clearly written in her eyes.
“We had better go,” she whispered, moving back up the path to the others.
“Jemima, please? Listen to me,” Peter asked, cursing when she ignored him and walked away.
“What will we do with him?” Jemima asked, glaring down at a now conscious, if dazed Scraggan when she drew close. It helped her to focus on something other than the feelings churning inside her.
“We need to take him to Padstow and hand him over to the Redcoats. You ladies can go to Tintagel and wait in the carriage while Peter and I take him. There is no sense in you traipsing back to Padstow unnecessarily.” Edward didn’t add that Jemima didn’t look as though she could make it across the cliff path, let alone cover the several miles to Tintagel.
“I’m going back to Padstow. Given all the misery and suffering he has caused, I want to see him behind bars. If that’s on the back of a prisoners’ cart on his way to Bodmin, then so be it.” Her voice was flat and emotionless as she stared down at Scraggan before dismissing him with an indelicate snort of contempt.
At that moment she couldn’t really think of anything. Her mind just wouldn’t form thoughts. Eliza’s cautionary words that she needed to listen to Peter’s explanation before she judged him, came flooding back to her, and she accepted the wisdom behind them. But they were mingled with Peter’s cruel confirmation of the real reason why he had chased after her when she had left Devon all those months ago. Every word he had spoken had fitted so many boxes for her, that she couldn’t really see any other explanation. She longed to cry out in denial, to beat his chest, and bruise him some more but something held her back. Some inner part of her simply refused to accept what she had heard with her own ears. Surely she couldn’t have been that wrong about him. She wasn’t sure what to believe.
She needed some time to think and, if walking to Padstow meant people would leave her alone with her thoughts, then she would walk to Padstow.
She didn’t wait to see Edward haul Scraggan to his feet by his shirt and push him roughly in front of him. Jemima was already walking some distance away, head down, clearly lost in thought and not wanting to talk to anyone.
Eliza glanced sympathetically at Peter and offered him a small smile. “Don’t worry, she’ll listen to you, just give her some time.” Although she tried to be positive, she had never seen this side of her sister before, and it scared her.
Had her ordeal
in Derby Gaol changed her so much? Eliza had also been near-death in much the same way as Jemima had; being rescued at the very last moment before death snatched her into its ruthless grasp. But Jemima’s ordeal had been tainted by her hellish experience in the condemned cell, and thinking she was going to be hanged. The cruelty of it wasn’t lost on her, and she was worried about the long-term damage it had done to Jemima, who was usually so gentle and kind-hearted.
“I lied,” Peter assured her, his eyes meeting Eliza’s. “I followed her from Devon for no other reason than I loved her from the second I laid eyes on her in the dining room.”
“Then you need to tell her, but would you take a word of advice?” She lifted a brow at him in query, her eyes telling him that he would be a fool not to listen. “Let her have some time to herself, then speak to her later when we are safely tucked up in a tavern, with no threat from Scraggan. Get him out of your lives once and for all, and then explain everything. Leave no stone unturned, no truth hidden.” She threw him a cautionary look. “If you don’t, you will most certainly lose her.” With that, she quickened her pace to catch up with Edward, who was shoving Scraggan ahead of him with a little too much enthusiasm.
Peter watched her go, and caught the sympathetic smile Harriett gave him as she too increased her pace to walk beside Edward and Eliza.
Briefly Peter wondered where Harold was, before the feline stalked haughtily past, his tail flicking angrily before he ran to catch up with his mistress. Clearly the moggy wanted to go home too.
With a deep sigh, Peter wearily followed. He too had a lot of thinking to do, mainly about how to keep the woman he loved from leaving him and taking his heart with her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Peter’s last sight of Scraggan was of the older man curled up in the corner of the prisoners’ cart, his wrists and ankles still tightly bound, the gag preventing any final words.