“The patrols I set in place—in light of your arrival”—Charles looked at Jack and Gervase—“I’m calling them off. Normal enough seeing we’ve gone two days without incident. If he’s scouting about, he’ll doubtless wait another day or so for all alarm to subside before making his move.”
“Regardless,” Jack declared, working his way through a plate of sausages, “we’ll be here.”
“I need to go into Fowey and check what my sources there have unearthed,” Charles said. “It might not be anything, but we can’t afford to miss whatever scraps fate deigns to throw us.”
Gervase and Jack nodded. Nicholas looked resigned. “Perhaps I should show these two the priest hole?”
Jack brightened. “Good idea.”
Penny set down her teacup and pushed back her chair. “I’ll come with you, Charles—I want to speak with Mother Gibbs.” She rose with a smile for the others, but didn’t catch Charles’s eye. Turning to the door, she spoke over her shoulder, “I’ll change into my habit and meet you in the stables.”
She could feel his gaze narrowing, arrowing on her back; blithely ignoring it, she glided out of the dining room.
He was waiting when she reached the stables; from the look in his eyes, he was less than impressed. She held up a hand before he could speak. “If I stay here, I’ll be forced to go for a walk—I’ll be safer with you.”
The comment gave him pause, then, with a grimace, he surrendered and lifted her to her saddle.
Neither they nor their mounts had been out for two days; they took to the fields and galloped, eager for the exercise. When the outskirts of Fowey lay ahead, they reined in to a sensible pace.
In perfect empathy, they trotted toward the town. That empathy was deeper than before; from the moment she’d agreed to marry him, regardless of her qualification, she’d sensed the change in him. The absolute, unshakable confidence that she would be his come what may. Initially, she’d been suspicious, but there was no denying he knew her and her stubbornness well; after last night, his rock-solid confidence in their ultimate outcome had infected her. It could only mean that he was sure he could meet her condition, was committed to meeting it, confident he would. Which meant…
A frisson of expectation, of shining hope, surged through her; she glanced his way, let her gaze slide over him, then looked ahead. Perhaps, at last, their time had come…but first they had to catch the murderer.
They left their horses at the Pelican, took the downhill lanes to the quay, then wended up the familiar alleys to Mother Gibbs’s door.
Even though it was midmorning, Charles had to knock three times before a towheaded lad opened it. Recognizing the youngest Gibbs, Charles asked for his mother, only to be informed in an uncertain tone, “Ma’s in the kitchen givin’ the others merry ’ell.”
Charles blinked; sounds of a shrill altercation drifted up from the depths of the house. “Dennis and your brothers?”
The boy had recognized him; he nodded.
“We’ll go in.” Charles grasped Penny’s hand and towed her past the lad, who blinked in surprise.
“Close the door,” Charles reminded him.
Shaking free of his stunned stupor, the boy jumped to obey.
The kitchen lay at the end of the corridor that ran the length of the house. Penny ignored the closed doors they passed; the nearer they got, the louder and shriller the argument became. Charles ducked his head and they stepped down into the kitchen.
Mother Gibbs stood before the stove, in full flight, punctuating her statements with a heavy ladle that she banged on a chopping board on the table before her. Ranged on the other side of the table were her three eldest sons, all hulking, brawny sailors who towered over her, yet all three appeared to be trying to make themselves small, an impossible feat.
Glimpsing movement behind the wall of her sons, Mother Gibbs shifted, saw Charles, and broke off in midharangue.
The three brothers followed her gaze to Charles and Penny; Penny could almost hear their sighs of relief fall into the sudden silence.
Charles took in the situation in one glance; he held up a placating hand. “My apologies for interrupting, but I need to speak with you all, and time is short.” When no one responded, just stared at him, he shifted his gaze from Mother Gibbs’s florid countenance to Dennis’s studiously blank face. Charles paused, tasting the silence. “Has anything happened?”
“I’ll tell you what’s happened!” Mother Gibbs thumped the ladle down. “These numbskulls sent my sister’s boy off to keep watch somewhere and he’s not been home and his mother’s been here whining all morning.”
She brandished the ladle at Dennis. “You know what I’ve told you ’bout getting your cousins involved—they’re younger’n you lot. And now here we’ve had spies this and spies that for the last week ’til Sid’s up and told Bertha he was out to keep watch last night, and he’s not been back since.”
Leveling the ladle at Dennis, she narrowed her eyes. “So you just get on out there to wherever you’ve sent him and tell him to get along home sharpish, or I’ll have Bertha here whining over our teatime, and that I won’t have, do y’hear?”
“Yes, Ma.” The words were uttered in unison by all three brothers.
Dennis slid a harrassed look at Charles, then looked, somewhat sheepishly, at his mother. “Did Aunt Bertha say where he’d gone?”
“’Course not!” Lowering the ladle, Mother Gibbs opened her mouth—then registered the import of the question. She stared at her eldest son. “You know, don’t you? You sent ’im—”