Page 26 of A Brush With Love at Brookview Hall (Noble Hearts)

There, something else. Very faint, an orange glow lit the side of a pile of jagged rocks that she knew lay on the shore.

Yes, there was a small inlet there, obscured by such rocks, and backed by a deep cave.

She searched her memory for more details, but only the roughest sketches remained.

A bit of sand, large rocks, a cave… And a path.

There was a path, steep and narrow, leading down from the cliff edge to the water.

That must be what Cornelius had taken, although how he managed without light, she could not imagine.

She lay there at the brink of the precipice for quite some time, watching for any movement on the beach below.

The birds did not come swooping, nor were there any cries she could discern.

He must be alive… please, let him still be alive.

No matter that she could never see him again, she needed him to be well.

She had to go and see, to discover for certain.

Her actions were decided. If he had managed that treacherous path, so could she, no matter how much the prospect terrified her. She had to learn what he was about, to ensure his safety for her own sake. This was the only way.

Far too many heart-stopping minutes and even more near-slips later, Julia found the top of the trail down the cliffs, and finally achieved the bottom of the steep path.

Thank heavens for the crash of the waves that masked the sounds of her descent, and more than one stifled gasp, otherwise whoever was present to cast that orange light would certainly have heard her.

She thanked the stars once more for her cloak, which let her melt into the shadows.

Even so, she pressed her back to the cliff face and slid along, until she had made her way to a clutch of soaring jagged rocks near a black maw in the cliff that must hide the mouth of the cave.

The orange light was stronger here, emanating from the cave, and growing stronger.

She held her breath and tried to slide between two of the teeth of rock where she huddled.

Three shapes emerged from the gloom, one of them holding the glowing lamp.

She peered from beneath furrowed brows, trying to determine which was Cornelius, but they all looked wrong.

None had his confident carriage, his easy gait, the flick of his head.

She tugged the hood further over her face and strove to listen to their conversation over the rush of the waves.

He must be inside still, perhaps guarding their ill-gotten goods or pouring the celebratory sherry.

It was all but impossible to make out any words between the sounds of the sea and the brisk breeze that blew in off the cold water and whistled through the jagged rocks.

But the men shifted about on their feet, looking worried or agitated, and the tones of their voices, even devoid of intelligible syllables, reinforced that impression.

After a few minutes, they retreated into the cave, and Julia used the opportunity to slither along the rock wall towards another cluster of jagged boulders, these ones closer to the cave entrance. She hid herself behind the widest one just as the three emerged onto the stony beach once more.

Again, she heard little, but the men seemed more inclined to some activity than to stand around.

They set about some task which she could not identify, before returning to the cave.

This pattern continued for a great deal of time.

In and out they went, sometimes working, other times whispering, and then disappearing into the depths of the cavern for what seemed like hours.

Not once did Julia see Cornelius.

In the icy bite of midnight, anger and a need for knowledge began to turn into fear.

Not fear of Cornelius, but fear for him.

Where was he? Could he be hiding somewhere down here on this rocky beach as well?

Was he, like her, crouched behind a large boulder, waiting and watching?

But surely not, for these were his comrades… were they not?

They had not seemed all too friendly, from what she had heard so far.

She ducked down again as the orange glow brightened and the three men reappeared on the beach.

“… can’t let this delay matters… need to speak to…” one of the men said. The wind blew some of his words out into the darkness, but some were clear enough.

“…didn’t need this. Can we be… the plans?”

Where was Cornelius?

“We shall proceed as we discussed.” That was the man Julia had presumed was their leader the other night, the one with the educated vowels and the tone of authority.

“But what about…”

“…will have to keep. We need to… clear… ship tomorrow night, with the new moon. We cannot wait…”

“…can’t just leave ‘im,” the first one retorted.

Him? What was happening? Something started to feel very wrong. Julia strained to hear more, but the words kept vanishing into the wind.

“We can, and we shall. He will not be happy there, but happier than when the Master gets his hands on him. And should he not survive… Trewley, get the boat. …tide going out… set off if we are to arrive on time.”

“Aye, sir.”

One of the men stomped out of the halo of light and seemed to do something by the water’s edge.

Poking her head around the boulder, the hood as low over her face as she could manage and still see, Julia watched as he dragged what looked like a large rowboat from behind another cluster of rocks. Her heart pounded within her.

One of the other men raised the lantern he held and opened a shutter of some sort on one side. A bright light flashed out, to be immediately obscured again. The man repeated this flash twice, paused, and flashed the light three times again.

Out in the inky sea, an answering light flashed its own pattern, similar to what she had seen from the loft in the cottage, and the smuggler on the beach repeated his cryptic message.

This was the signal she had seen. These were certainly the men she had heard while hiding up in that loft.

“To the ship, then,” the leader pronounced.

“Back at dawn, if fortune favours us.” He shuttered the lantern again and slipped back into the cave for a moment, before emerging in darkness.

There were rumbles of voices and a light splash, before the low shadow of the rowboat slid across the undulating surface of the tide.

She scarcely heard the dip of oars in the waves, and in moments their muffled and intermittent voices had vanished into the wind.

Was she alone? Were they the only three?

She had heard only three voices last night, and only three tonight, but not all men were apt to speak all the time.

She stared for a very long time at the chasm of darkness in the black cliff wall.

Not a glimmer of light shone, not the first blush of a lantern’s glow.

There was no sign of another soul.

But… but where was Cornelius?

Still, Julia waited. The winds swirled her skirts about her ankles and whipped her grey cloak about her, but she remained, silent as she could be, behind the rocks.

The minutes turned into hours, but no noises or flickers of light appeared.

She began to believe she was truly alone on this small rocky beach.

The long vigil had given her ample time to consider what she had seen here, and to try to force it into a semblance of sense.

There were three men, the two fishermen, if their accents were any indication, and the educated man who seemed to be in charge.

They had spoken of another still, the Master, and there must be several more on the ship that they had set out to meet on their rowboat.

There might be others as well, managing a different part of this scheme of theirs.

But they had spoken of one more. Someone whom they could not just leave, but whom they had left, someone who would not be happy, but who would suffer worse once the Master got hold of him.

Cornelius had come this way, and she had not seen him since. Could it be…?

All her words of rejection crumbled into dust. Her intentions never to set eyes on him again vanished into the winds. He was in trouble, and she had to save him. If she cared this much about the man that she was here in this perilous circumstance, how could she abandon him? He needed her.

She had to look for him, and waste no more time, for the men had said they would return at dawn.

By now, time enough had elapsed that the sky was just beginning to lighten to the east, down along the slip of beach that she could see.

It was no longer as completely black as it had been, and the mouth of the cave was becoming visible, even against the shadow of the cliffs.

The tide had encroached upon the entrance to the cave, but there was still a sliver of damp sand between the maw and the lapping waves.

Keeping her cloak tight about her, in case somebody was there, Julia crept along the wall of the rock face to the cave, and, despite the dread that filled her every vein, took a first, tentative step inside.

It was quite black, fully as dark as midnight.

If only she had brought a lantern… but wait!

The man with the lantern had flashed his signal and then had come inside for a moment, only to leave in darkness.

Had he left the light in this cave? She groped about, high and low, aimlessly searching.

The sky gradually lightened until the sea shimmered its grey dance beyond the beach and colour began to touch the rim of the sky.

There! On a rocky ledge, her eyes caught something. She felt her way over and her fingers traced the lamp, now dowsed, but also something small and flat. A tinderbox!

She carried both to the mouth of the cave and set to work, first striking the flint and steel to set the spark which caught on the char cloth, and then using one of the sulphur-tipped matches to transfer the flame to the lamp. In a moment, the oil-soaked wick caught and the lantern burst to life.

Now her task began in earnest. For she had to find Cornelius!