Mermaid of Penperro Read online

  “Are you still here?” she heard him ask, and turned to see him approaching, a silhouette against the light.

  “Yes, over here,” she said.

  “I’m half blind from the sunlight,” he said, but seemed to find her easily enough despite that. He held up one of her green slippers. “You have tiny feet.”

  “Not particularly so,” she said, uncomfortable to have him handling her clothing with such interest, but also a little flattered by the comment. It made her feel dainty, rather than like the great flopping sea lion he had mentioned earlier.

  He handed her her things. “Perhaps it’s been too long since I’ve taken notice of women’s feet. I forget they are not the same size as my own.”

  She gave a small laugh. “They would not look too attractive, sticking out beneath the hems of our gowns.” She imagined a roomful of such young misses, their long feet slapping the ground with each flat-footed step. The curled edges of carpets would be a constant trial. She laughed again.

  “I suppose not,” he agreed, and he sounded almost as if he wanted to join in whatever thoughts were amusing her so. She did not explain, and after a moment he said, “Well, then, I’ll leave you to dress. Your hairpins are in one of the slippers. I’ll be just outside to help you up the rocks.”

  She dressed quickly, her clothes feeling warm and soft and infinitely welcoming on her skin. There was little she could do with her hair, so she just twisted it into a coil and pinned it to her head. At least that would keep it from dripping on her back and soaking through the shoulders of her dress.

  As she stepped out of the cave she saw that the entrance would be impossible to see from land, as there was a wall of natural rock blocking the view. One would have to be at sea, and at just the right angle, to catch a glimpse of the dark crevice. Mr. Trewella was sitting on a rock, face turned up to the sun as she emerged.

  The inside of Mr. Trewella’s coat was damp from where it had soaked up the salt water from her body. “I’ll replace the lining in your coat for you, if the salt water stained it,” she said, handing him the garment.

  He opened his eyes and looked up at her, and she saw that he was even more striking than she had thought. His eyes were an unusual amber, rimmed in dark brown, their shape somewhat narrow and slanting slightly upward at the outer corners, like on a fox. He was not beautiful in the pretty way of a painting of a man, all pastels and round blue eyes, but had instead something raw and alive about him. Even while reclining, apparently at his ease, there was nothing lazy or lethargic in his attitude.

  “I shouldn’t stay up nights worrying about it if I were you,” he said as he took the coat, and then his eyes ran quickly over her face and dress and he grinned, his teeth straight and white. “I almost feel as if we should introduce ourselves all over again, Miss Penrose. You are quite transformed.”

  “And in this form I intend to remain until the end of our acquaintance, Mr. Trewella.”

  “Ah, well, sad news for fishermen sailing by and the Preventive crew alike.”

  He stood and drew on his coat despite its dampness. “Follow me up the rocks. I’ll help you where you need it, but otherwise you’ll keep your balance better if I leave you on your own.”

  She nodded in agreement, and holding up her skirts in one hand she followed him up the steep face of the headland.

  Chapter Four

  Kent

  John Bugg gave his hat, greatcoat, and walking stick to Deekes, the butler, and tramped up the stairs to his wife’s sitting room. “Konstanze, darling, come give me a kiss,” he said, opening the door. “Konstanze?” She wasn’t there, and there was no fire in the grate. Frowning, he went through to their bedroom. “Konstanze?”

  Something seemed a little off about the room, but he did not know what, other than that his wife was not in it. He stomped out to the gallery that looked down on the main hall. “Deekes!” he called down. “Deekes!”

  “Sir?” Deekes asked, emerging from a doorway.

  “Where’s Mrs. Bugg?”

  “You did not receive her message?”

  “What message, damn you?”

  “Your pardon, sir. She told me she had dispatched a message to you to inform you that her aunt in Scotland was ill and she must depart immediately to go to her.”

  “Scotland! Aunt! She has no aunt, in Scotland or elsewhere.”

  “Sir?”

  “Damn her! When did she leave? Who drove her?”

  “She’s been gone a week. Mr. Hanley drove her to the Shepherd, a coaching inn on the mail route to Edinburgh,” Deekes said. “Sir, was she not to have gone?”

  “Of course she was not to have gone, you fool!”

  “Dear me. That does raise a few questions.”

  Bugg did not like the sound of that. “What? What questions?”

  “She took the silver coffee service, sir. And the flatware. And the ormolu clock that belonged to your late wife.”

  “What!”

  “She said she was going to replace them with something she liked better. I thought it odd, but it was not my place to question her.”

  “Arg arg arg,” Bugg barked, incoherent. The bitch, the lying French trollop! Quarles was right about her: she was the daughter of a whore and no better than the polluted loins from which she’d sprung. But she was his trollop, his, and she would not run away from him, nor steal his silver!

  He would punish her when he caught her—oh, how he would punish her! She had cringed at the riding crop, but that was nothing to what he’d do to her when he caught her. The stupid, cold-blooded tart. She couldn’t please him in bed, and didn’t even have the sense to know what a failure she was. He’d chain her to the bedposts, he’d smack her with his own hand, he’d have her begging him for mercy.

  There was a stirring in his trousers. He reached down and felt himself. By God, it was the best erection he’d had in five years, and it was going to go to waste all because of her!

  The injustice of it infuriated him further, and he felt the blood pounding in his head, his face going hot He could almost feel his eyes bulging from the pressure, vessels on the verge of bursting.

  Pain clamped his chest, and he couldn’t breathe. The world started going dark.

  “Konstanze!” he cried on a wisp of air, and then he collapsed on the floor, unconscious.

  John Bugg II sat on the hard wooden chair beside his father’s bed. Why couldn’t the old man hurry up and die?

  His father took a rasping breath, exhaled, and then there was no sound or movement of his chest. Bugg II straightened and stretched his neck forward, examining his sire for signs of life. Was he finally gone? He lifted the candle and held it up to where it would shed better light on the pale figure, unconscious now for two days.

  There was a hitching sound, then slowly his father sucked in another weak breath.

  Bugg II slapped the candlestick back onto the bedside stand and leaned back, his arms crossed petulantly over his chest. It was just like the old man to take his time about it. Bugg II’s eyes went to the pillows on the bed. It would take only a moment to snuff out the miserable little flame of life still in the codger. No more than a minute, surely.

  That would be when Deekes would walk in, or the doctor, just when he had his hands pressing the pillow over his father’s face. He’d be hauled off to prison and then either hanged or, if he was lucky, transported to Botany Bay. No, he’d have to be patient and let the old fool kick the bucket in his own sweet time.

  And then…

  He’s send a private thank-you to his lovely young stepmother, Konstanze. Not only had her departure brought about this present happy state of affairs, but as she in all likelihood had no intention of coming back, he needn’t worry about actually paying her whatever widow’s portion his father had set aside for her in his will.

  Konstanze. He would have liked to have taken her to his own bed, but the haughty bitch had the insulting habit of looking right through him, as if she couldn’t even bother to take notice of his
existence.

  He touched his protruding front teeth in a self-conscious gesture. He did not have much luck with the ladies. When he was only fourteen a young girl he had admired had told him quite bluntly that his face looked like someone very strong had squeezed his head from the sides when he was a baby. He rubbed his large nose, and blinked his deep-set eyes against the memory.

  All women really cared about was money. He’d have that soon, and then he could have his pick of the lot of them.

  Chapter Five

  Penperro

  “Tell us again about the mermaid,” Mrs. Popple said, pulling another beer for Foweather. She was behind the bar at the Fishing Moon, and the tavern was full of locals and Preventive crew alike. Tom and Matt Jobson sat at a table against the wall, their chairs tilted back on two legs, Tom with one foot braced against the edge of the table as he observed the scene.

  “My men and I were searching the coastline just east of here for caves,” Foweather said eagerly, taking a sip of his fresh beer. He was happily oblivious to the glint of derisive amusement in the eyes of the locals, who were enjoying themselves thoroughly at his expense. He had told the mermaid story over half the town already, but no story was truly told until it was told in the Fishing Moon. His men, sitting in a sad huddle at the long table in the center of the tavern, had begun to sulk at the jolly reception their commander was getting. They seemed to sense that it was not as sincere as it appeared.

  “We had spread out, and I came down to a small cove, thinking perhaps there might be signs of smuggling near such a smooth landing place,” Foweather explained, gesturing with his free hand. “And then I heard the most magical song—like something from another world! I cannot explain it, except to say that it was in a voice such as the angels might have, pure and light and thoroughly unlike any you will ever hear coming from a human throat. She sang in some strange mermaid tongue, unknown to me and unknown, likely, to any living man.” Foweather’s gesturing hand froze in a raised position, and tears glistened in his eyes as he silently relived the unearthly music.

  “And then I saw her sitting on the rocks below, her tail dangling in the water. She had long brown hair, still wet from the sea, and when in my startlement I called out, she turned and saw me. Such a face! Plump and youthful as a girl’s, her skin pale but tinged with pink, and her breasts were high and full.” He set down his beer and cupped his hands in the air.

  “That’s the part we want to hear!” someone in the room shouted.

  “No, you do not gawk at something so beautiful, so precious!” Foweather scolded, dropping his hands. “She saw me, and, frightened, she slid into the sea and swam away. I understood then, though, why it is said that such sirens can lure men to their watery graves, for I would gladly have leaped into the sea to pursue her.”

  “It’s not a likely story,” a local scoffed. “Mermaids!”

  “I saw her; I would swear it on the Bible! I saw her and heard her sing!”

  A bit more scoffing, and then Foweather was persuaded to recite the tale yet again. Tom lowered his chair to all four legs and narrowed his eyes, the idea that had been forming in his brain suddenly coming into clear and perfect focus. “Matt,” he said to the vicar, “I have a most devious plan.”

  Matt’s chair came down to the floor as well, and he leaned across the small sticky table. “By the look on your face it’s more amusing than devious.”

  “You’ll like this, I promise you.” He outlined his thoughts to his friend, and before he was halfway done Matt was choking with laughter. “Do you think it will work?” Tom asked when he finally got the vicar to listen to the rest.

  “It won’t hurt anyone to try,” Matt said.

  Tom tilted his chair back again as Matt got up to fetch a fresh beer. He watched his friend wend his way through the locals, pausing here and there to whisper a few words into likely ears.

  He knew of course that it was Konstanze that Foweather had seen sitting on the rocks. The only part he hadn’t known was that she was singing at the time, and apparently with some skill. Mogridge had waxed on about her voice, but Tom had put the comments down to the man’s fondness for telling a story. Perhaps he had been mistaken to do so. Since Foweather had begun his talk of a mermaid with an angel’s unearthly voice, he had recalled that Konstanze’s mother—the original heir named in the will—was an opera singer. He doubted anyone else knew that. Robert Penrose had not been particularly proud to claim such a relation, and had only told Tom because such information would be necessary in finding her in the event of his demise.

  How much talent for performance had mother passed on to daughter? Tom wondered. He hoped a great deal, for what he had in mind. Certainly the young woman had the other requisites for his plan: she could swim; she apparently lacked some degree of modesty; and she had a sense of adventure, if coming alone to Cornwall and hiding in caves were any indication. She had shown remarkable self-possession for being naked with a stranger.

  She had also scared the wits out of him, creeping out of the water in the dark as she had. His mind had gone blank when he first heard those distinctive splashing noises of something large coming out of the water, breathing heavily in the confines of the cave. Her cold wet hand had then come down over his own, and thoughts of drowned sailors coming back to pull the living into the depths of the sea had overwhelmed his imagination.

  Then she had yelped, and he’d thought it was a boy who had swum in to hide from Foweather, for whatever reason. He’d gotten his second shock when he pulled her from the water and felt his hand slide over a firm, full breast and the hard pebble of a nipple.

  When he’d seen her in the daylight, he’d had a moment’s wish that he hadn’t been so quick to drop her. Her Cornish heritage showed in her short stature and the dark of her hair, but there her resemblance to local women ended. She had the pale, smooth skin of a woman who spent her life indoors, and she dressed in the current high-waisted mode whereas local girls were mostly still in stays. Her face was softly square with full cheeks, and she had enormous gray eyes from which it was difficult to look away. In her movements, in the modulation of her voice, and in her words themselves it was apparent that for all that she may have been a child of Cornwall, she was a creature educated in farther places and used to finer things.

  And she was also, obviously, running away from her husband. He would have liked to have known the full story, but could hardly blame her for wishing to keep such information to herself. Perhaps he could pry it out of her at a later time. As it was, he thought it likely that a woman in her situation might be short of funds, a condition that would give him just the leverage he needed to persuade her to what he had in mind.

  The thought passed through his mind that there might be other things he would like to persuade her to, as well. He had a brief image of her naked, on her hands and knees in the sand, water glistening on her skin, her gray eyes peering back over her shoulder at him with unspoken invitation as he approached her from behind. She’d cry out when he entered her, then push back, wanting more…

  Tom shook the thought from his mind and watched as Matt, fresh beer in hand, sat down at the end of the table where the Preventive crew were sitting. Matt gazed seriously into his tankard, waiting for the right moment, the exact lull in the conversation that would serve his purpose. Tom felt, as he always did, a deep admiration for his friend’s sense of timing and ability to capture an audience. With such talent, it was little wonder that the majority of Matt’s parishioners actually remained awake during his Sunday sermons.

  A small pocket of quiet spread around Matt, as others noticed his grave absorption in thought. Matt enjoyed bawdy humor as well as—or better than—the next man, but his position as vicar and the fact that he seemed to have a true calling for God’s work tended to make others watch their behavior near him. If he seemed to disapprove of something, then it wasn’t quite so easy to enjoy it while he was around. Matt’s sense of right and wrong, however, were not always what one might expect.


  “A mermaid,” Matt said into a momentary hush. Those who still talked were hushed by neighbors. Everyone turned to look at the vicar, the man of God with his wild white hair and smile-creased eyes. “A mermaid is an intriguing puzzle. The Church has long had an interest in mermaids. You know yourselves of the ancient oaken chair in Talland Church, with the mermaid carved upon its side.” There were nods and murmurs.

  “Why was she carved there? Some say that a mermaid is a symbol of vanity and lust, sins of which man must ever be wary. Others, pointing to her human flesh paired with that of a fish—a symbol of Christ—say that she represents the union of God and man. And still others would say that she is no symbol at all, but a living creature like ourselves, only lacking in a soul.”

  “The Mermaid of Penperro,” a local said with feigned awe into the following silence. He was one of the men into whose ear Matt had whispered. “She was supposed to be a fairy story, nothing more,” he said. Tom winced at the stilted delivery of the line, but no one else seemed to notice.

  “The Mermaid of Penperro?” Foweather asked, taking the bait. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a story that parents tell their children, that once upon a time there was a mermaid who came to services in Talland Church, dressed in the finery of a noblewoman, her gait halting and awkward under her skirts, her feet newly formed for walking upon land. They say she came in hopes of earning for herself a soul. Instead she fell in love with a young man in the choir, and he with her. He followed her into the sea, and there they were said to live out their lives. She was seen only once more, when a fisherman had anchored near a headland. He says a beautiful woman appeared in the water, and asked him to please move his boat, as the anchor chain was blocking the entrance to her cave, and she could not return to her husband and child.”