“You have visitors,” he told Judd. “I showed them into the sitting room. I’ll take over here.”
Judd, cheering up at the thought of Gwyneth, was only mildly disappointed to find a Sproule with her instead of her sister Pandora. At least there was only one of them.
Gwyneth was gazing with astonishment at the bedecked little room, the only place in the inn that the guests avoided.
“It looks like a ball gown,” she said to Judd. “All lace and bows. Even the mantelpiece is swagged with silk.”
“I didn’t do it,” Judd assured her.
“Oh, come, Mr. Cauley. You’re among friends. You can confess. ”
Daria picked up a conch shell trailing a pink ribbon from one of its spikes. “I think it’s sweet. Shells are quite naked, fresh out of the sea, aren’t they.” A shout, followed by a wave of laughter, rolled out of the taproom. “Gracious, Mr. Cauley, whatever is going on in there?”
“Miss Beryl’s guests are playing cards.”
“Really?” Gwyneth looked out the sitting room door, and encountered the closed taproom door, with its narrow window of crackled glass. “Can we peek in?”
“Whatever for?” Daria demanded.
“Are they playing with dice? Are they betting?”
Judd smiled at her. “A dozen men on their way to being drunk are busy trading their considerable wealth back and forth over a handful of painted paper cards.” He crossed the hall, opened the door a little, and she applied her eye to the scene.
She stepped back finally, looking oddly contented. “I thought as much. But I wasn’t certain.”
“My dear Miss Blair, what kind of tale are you writing?”
“The kind that tells you what it is as it goes along. Thank you, Mr. Cauley, that was extremely helpful.”
“Would you like to go in and try a hand?”
“Don’t tempt me. I don’t want the experience, only the details.” She hesitated, her smile fading a little. “No Mr. Dow in there.”
“No.”
“How very odd.”
“Yes.”
She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “Daria talked almost of nothing else as we rode up here. I think she’s in love.”
“I am sorry,” Judd said sincerely, as they went back into the sitting room, where the beribboned Daria, upon the sofa with bows pinned all over it, seemed to be merging with her background. “I do wish very much that I had some inkling of where Mr. Dow has gone. But I haven’t heard a word.” At least, he thought but did not say, nobody has found the body washed ashore.
“Oh,” Daria sighed, melting a little more into the sofa as she slumped. “I was so hoping ... Well.” She straightened determinedly and opened the reticule she carried. She took out an envelope, handed it to him. “We rode up here to invite you to a party at Sproule Manor in honor of Miranda Beryl. Music, dancing, supper. Please come. All of Miss Beryl’s guests and half of Sealey Head will be there. And,” she added wistfully, “I very much hope Mr. Dow as well.”
Judd looked at Gwyneth. “Will you be there?”
“Of course.”
“Then so will I.”
“Of course she’s coming,” Daria said a trifle moodily. “She’s practically family. My brother wrote her down first on his invitation list. Well, first after Miranda Beryl, of course.”
“And who was first on your list?” Gwyneth teased. Daria blushed a little and got to her feet restively.
“Tea?” Judd offered, but nothing, he saw, would have kept Miss Sproule except the prospect of Mr. Dow.
“Thank you. We have other invitations to deliver, and we promised Gwyneth’s aunt . . . My brother should be there, by then. He rode to Aislinn House to give the invitation to Miss Beryl. I hope,” she added to Gwyneth, her eyes widening, “she does not keep him. He seems a bit distracted these days, with the party.”
“Indeed,” Gwyneth murmured.
“Oh, my dear,” Daria said quickly, her hand closing solicitously upon Gwyneth’s elbow. “You mustn’t take it seriously.”
Gwyneth drew breath, held it for a moment; Judd watched her, brows crooked, wondering. She loosed it finally. “Yes,” she said decidedly. “I think I must.”
“But it’s not as if—”
“Your brother seems infatuated with Miss Beryl, and I for one could not be happier.”
Daria blinked at her. “But—he—she couldn’t—”
“How do we really know what another’s heart will do? Until they do it? I think it’s a lovely idea.”
“But—Well, of course it is, but—”
“And as you say, he does regard me as part of the family. A dear sister. I’m quite content with that. Mr. Cauley, we will see you soon, then, at Sproule Manor.”
“But, Gwyneth,” Daria protested, following her out the door. She glanced pleadingly at Judd as she passed him. “If you hear anything at all of Mr. Dow—”
“I’ll send word, I promise. Thank you for the invitation. I look forward to it.”
She nodded glumly, cast an appalled glance at the taproom door as laughter exploded out of it, then a more grateful one at the innkeeper as he escorted her out the front door.
The sun set, but if the bell rang, Judd didn’t hear it over the ringing of the inn bell, as more and more of Miranda Beryl’s guests left the dreary silence of Aislinn House for the boisterous, convivial company in the taproom. Judd left Mr. Quinn behind the bar and helped Mr. Pilchard, who was alone in the kitchen by then. He took orders from the guests, for whom drinking and cards were a hungry business, conveyed them to the cook, and brought the dishes up from the kitchen. Finally, around midnight, he began snuffing out candles. Miranda Beryl’s guests rattled away in their carriages. His own finished their hands, gave final orders to Mr. Quinn and Mr. Pilchard, and took their cards and trays upstairs. Judd helped Mr. Quinn clean the taproom, then stuck his head back down the kitchen stairs. All was dark and quiet there.
On impulse, he said to Mr. Quinn, who had locked the taproom and was checking the doors, “I’m going for a breath of air. Don’t lock me out.”
He hadn’t seen the waves under his nose for days, it seemed. Months. The breath of air was more a blast of wind, misty with spindrift, for the tide was frothing up the side of the cliff, trying to shake the inn into the sea. A little coracle moon drifted serenely among the briskly scudding cloud. Dimly, within the wind, Judd could hear the laughter of the gamers, or the memory of it, anyway, for most of the windows were dark. A couple, his own among them—Mrs. Quinn must have kindly lit his lamp—cast little pools of light into the dark.
Within one of them, he saw someone standing.
He started, then stepped eagerly forward, calling softly, “Ridley?”
“No,” Mr. Pilchard said, his bulky figure turning. “Only your cook, Mr. Cauley. I came out to hear the tide. Haven’t stopped listening for it yet.”
Judd joined him at the cliff ’s edge. “I know,” he sighed. “I’ve missed it, too. It’s been years since we’ve had such a full house. I forgot how much work it is.”
Mr. Pilchard chuckled. “You’re doing well.” He held something, Judd saw; a bowl that smelled vaguely like supper.
“Thanks to you. I could have gone back to my books if Mrs. Quinn were still in the kitchen.”
“Ah, it’s almost too easy, cooking in all that room, on a floor that doesn’t throw you off your feet and toss all the plate out of your cupboards.”
They watched a top-heavy wave welter drunkenly up to the cliff, lose its balance, and careen into it, sending spray up over the top. Judd wiped his face and nodded at the bowl in the cook’s hands.
“Your supper? At long last?”
The cook glanced down at it. “No. Only scraps. I got into the habit of feeding them to the birds. Hungry buggers, always. Any news of your Mr. Ridley?”
