The America Ground (The Forensic Genealogist Series Book 4)

and easily the most attractive of the Lovekin girls, as she entered feminine maturity and began to shed the uncomfortable cloak of youth. Her doleful almond eyes had drawn admiration since the day she had been born and she had inherited her mother’s mousey hair, which hung in natural curls from a central parting. With the sharp grimace of anticipation imprinted on her face, she hurriedly pulled open the door. Cold air, into which was sewn the cacophonous muddle of intoxicated laughter, conversation and brawling, surged past her. She winced, quickly stepped from the house and closed the door, hoping to goodness that the sound had not disturbed her two younger sisters, whom she had left asleep upstairs in the bed that she shared with them. Harriet had waited discreetly by the parlour window for what had seemed like an eternity until the right moment had presented itself. Being the eldest of the Lovekin girls, Harriet was each night entrusted with the care of her two younger siblings. Most evenings Harriet would stay home, obediently feeding her sisters and then putting them to bed before sitting beside the fire diligently performing a suitable task such as sewing. Lately, however, as resentment of her confinement began to swell and mix with an increasing self-confidence, she had taken to sneaking out of the house once Keziah and Ann were asleep. Those first occasions had been swift giddy snatches of freedom that had set her heart racing. Gradually, they extended in time until they became the very thing that she longed for as she passed long days as her mother’s helper. ‘Certain sure—you ain’t be going out of an evening, my girl,’ her father had once warned her. ‘Ain’t no place for a young ’un to be around folk concerned in liquor.’ The reason the folk were concerned in liquor being solely down to her father, was not an argument that Harriet could raise with any success.

She pulled her shawl up over her head and stole from the house purposely. She hoped that an air of sureness and certitude would mask the fears instilled by her mother and father of the dark lawlessness of the Priory Ground. With a fleeting glance up to her bedroom window, she made her way in the shadows of her neighbour’s weather-boarded cottages, down the dirt and shingle track to where the properties eventually gave way to the beach. Before turning to walk along the shoreline, Harriet twisted and took in the view; despite the apparent unruliness of the place, she found the site of the amber rush lights faintly flickering amongst the humble Priory Ground dwellings to be a pleasing sight. Had she not known the kinds of immoral goings-on there, she might have found it to be an almost romantic view. She carefully made her way along the stony beach edge, as the clamour from the Black Horse abated, replaced by the sound of the sea washing up noisily just yards away.

The path continued up Cuckoo Hill—a large rocky outcrop that denoted the westerly boundary of the Priory Ground—and as she neared the top, Harriet slowed her pace, seeking her destination from the shadows; somewhere here was half of the rotting carcass of the brig Polymina. The boat had once been the dwelling of Widow Murdock until her demise, at which time it was stripped bare and hauled to the edge of the Priory Ground and left to decay slowly. She turned at the top and admired the view of hundreds of twinkling lights peeping out through the window shutters of the Priory Ground houses.

‘I didn’t think you was a-coming,’ a familiar voice echoed from inside the hulk.

Harriet smiled. The voice came from her friend, Christopher Elphick. He was a sweet boy of seventeen, the son of one of Harriet’s mother’s friends, who had arrived on the Priory Ground just days after the Lovekins. ‘So sorry, Christopher—I be having a terrible time getting the girls to sleep. Anything out there tonight?’ she asked, tucking herself in beside him on a wooden bench that he had fashioned last summer from pieces of driftwood. From the darkness she could just make out his wild nest of brown hair, silhouetted against what little moonlight was cast over the sea. Although she couldn’t see it, she knew the features of his face just as she knew those of her own sisters. His plump cheeks, like those of a young baby, made him seem more boyish than others of his age. His piercing blue eyes were dark tonight, as he turned to face her.

‘Not so far. Awful light and bleat weather out there, though,’ he replied, tossing a woollen blanket over Harriet’s shoulders.

Harriet shuffled up until she felt his warmth begin to creep through her clothing. Knowing that he had taken a special liking to her in recent weeks, she knew that she shouldn’t mislead him—but what harm did it do just to snuggle up and keep warm like this? It was how they had always behaved ever since they had first taken unofficial ownership of the hulk. The pair of them enjoyed gazing out to sea, watching passing sailing vessels battling against the unpredictable Sussex waters.

‘I were right about that vessel we watched two week ago—she went down off Birling Gap. Abeona, she were called.’

‘And the crew?’ Harriet asked, recalling the terrible night when they had sat huddled together, fearing their shelter was about to be torn apart, all the while unable to take their eyes from the poor boat fighting against the most tremendous winds and high seas that she had ever likely seen.

‘They fared well, the cargo not so. One hundred and four hogsheads of claret and one hundred and fifty-five butts of ale lost.’

Harriet laughed. ‘My old Pa would been chasing those barrels a few year ago, then selling them cheap to local public houses.’

‘Don’t suppose you be missing those old days, Hattie?’ Christopher asked.

‘Heavens,