Page 8 of Once Upon a Haunted Cave

R uarke was not certain how it had come to this. Marriage. Nor did he know how he would feel or how he should feel now that the matter was resolved.

He was a betrothed man.

He waited for the moment of dread to hit, the realization he had made a mistake. But it never came. The decision to marry Heather Alwyn turned out to be an easy one for him, as he sensed it would be the moment he had set eyes on her.

There was a softness to the girl, a vulnerability he could so easily have used for his own selfish ends. Instead, all he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms and protect her. Make a life with her. Perhaps find the happiness that had always eluded him.

But first, they had to get rid of the ghost.

He strode downstairs after changing his clothes, and went to wait by the entry hall to meet her. She was already there, staring at the portrait of a former Duke of Arran, his granduncle, James. He watched as she drew out her locket and held it up to his portrait. “What do you see, Heather?”

“Look at the lockets, mine and the one in this painting.”

Ruarke drew in a breath. “This is why it drew your attention. I never noticed what he was holding in his hand. I thought it was a watch fob, but it is her locket.”

“Not Bella’s locket, but one to match it. Bella’s had a portrait of him inside. The one he is holding is open to reveal a portrait of a girl. No doubt it is Bella. But look at my locket. It is the same girl. It is his locket.”

She turned to Ruarke in dismay. “I have been wearing it, thinking it held a portrait of my mother. But this is James’s Bella. He is the boy she loved… Well, before he inherited the dukedom. She knew him simply as a young man and heir. I have been wearing Bella close to my heart all this time. But what of my mother? And how did I come to possess his locket?”

Ruarke placed an arm around her shoulders. “Perhaps we’ll find the answers at the parish church.”

He walked her to the stable and helped her into the curricle standing in wait beside it. They rode in silence, each of them lost in their thoughts. It was not long before the spire of St. Augustine’s Church came into view.

“We’re almost there, Heather.” Ruarke flicked the reins to urge the matched grays forward. Within moments, he would be arranging for the banns to be read, and next they would review the parish records.

Heather cast him a hesitant smile when they arrived, and he held out his arms to help her down.

“I am of a mind to obtain the license and simply be done with it,” he said. “I mean, be done with the agony of waiting. I have no second thoughts about marrying you.”

She shook her head. “I do not understand why you are so sure of me.”

“Do you prefer to wait?”

“No, I would marry you today if I could. It is your haste that troubles me.”

“Stop trying to talk me out of marrying you.”

“I’m not. You are my dream come true. Almost too good to be real. Have you considered that our ghost may have cast a spell over you? Think hard before you say anything about posting the banns, Your Grace.”

“Ruarke. Call me Ruarke. And no, that thing has not cast any love spell over me.”

“How can you be certain? Oh, I suppose it is because you are not in love with me. Perhaps a little lustful and overly protective?”

He laughed. “Is this how I appear to you?”

“Your eyes smolder when you look at me, and then there is your rakish smile.” She sighed. “Let’s see what the church records turn up.”

The vicar, an older gentleman by the name of Felix Orman, met them at the door of the church. “Do come in, Your Grace. Ah, and you have a lovely companion with you. Welcome, my dear. To what do we owe the honor?”

“A wedding,” Ruarke said, placing Heather’s arm in his. “Miss Alwyn and I are officially betrothed and would like to have the banns read starting this Sunday.”

“What joyous news! Come into my study and we shall make the arrangements.” Orman waved them on, gesturing for them to follow him through the church. It was a typical house of worship for these parts, not too big, but well maintained, and had beautiful stained-glass windows that cast light of many colors onto the pews. “So, you have decided to marry here?”

Ruarke nodded. “Yes.”

“You do us a great honor. Goodness, how did you manage to keep your courtship quiet? News spreads through our village like wildfire. The gossips certainly got it wrong this time, did they not? We thought your house party was held for the purpose of finding yourself a bride. But you must have had Miss Alwyn in mind all along.” Orman motioned them past the pews and beyond the altar toward a door at the rear. “How else would the betrothal contracts be so quickly put in order? Solicitors are a solemn lot and know how to keep secrets. Well, I suppose it was all taken care of in London.”

“Quite in order. Nothing to be done but marry Miss Alwyn.” Ruarke ignored Heather’s light pinch to his arm. She was irritated with him for making their betrothal seem official when no contract had been drawn up for her to sign. She would howl when he took her to the bank and opened an account for her.

He intended to deposit a sinful sum, for he refused to have her at anyone’s mercy ever again. She was too intelligent and had too much spirit to be chained like an ox to toil for undeserving souls such as his aunt.

“It is also possible I will simply acquire the license and marry Miss Alwyn within the week,” he said, smothering a chuckle when she pinched him again. “Will it take long to prepare the license?”

“Assuming we decide not to wait,” Heather added with a light frown up at him. “Which has not been decided upon at all.”

The vicar looked from one to the other in mild confusion. “I’ll ask my wife to serve tea and refreshments, and we shall discuss whatever arrangements you wish to make.”

Ruarke turned to Heather once the vicar had rushed off to find his wife.

“Pinch me again, my little elf,” he said with a grin, “and I will insist he marry us here and now.”

“I knew it.” She stared at him with her lovely eyes wide. “You are under a spell.”

“I am not, I assure you.”

“Then tell me, why are you convinced I am the right woman for you?”

“You have a nurturing heart.”

“And?”

“What more need I say?”

“I don’t know. Should there not be something more?”

“Not for me.” He cupped her face in his hands and gave her a soft kiss on the lips. “Everyone believes I have led a charmed life, but my early years were brutal and filled with beatings. My father was not a kind man, and my mother was at best indifferent. Lady Audley is my father’s sister and cut from the same abusive cloth. Is it any wonder she treats you as she does? I am only glad she has not beaten you.”

“I think I would have hit her back if she tried,” she said. “That would have been a step too far even for a wretched companion such as myself. But how could your parents do this to you? To hurt a child? Their own child? It is beyond cruel.”

“For whatever insane reason, my father believed he was beating strength into me. I made myself a vow never to permit anyone to raise a hand to my children. I promised myself that they would be loved as I never was. I do not need my wife to be a dazzling showpiece who has no compassion or understanding of another’s suffering. I want someone who is kind to the core, whose instincts are to help and nurture. Who cannot bring herself to be cruel. I saw those traits in you immediately.”

She shook her head and gave a shaky laugh. “You are describing the attributes of an excellent nanny.”

“I never desired a single one of my nannies.” He cast her a wry smile. “They were all hideous. But you are lovely.”

“It does not feel like enough reason to marry me.”

“Because you think I can get away with less? Is this all you want? To be my mistress.”

“No!”

“Then why are you trying to talk me out of marrying you?”

“I’m not. I am merely trying to make sense of my good fortune. Oh, I hear the vicar returning.”

Ruarke understood her hesitancy.

She needed to hear that he loved her, not a vague promise to love her in the future. But his scars cut deep, and he could not yet admit his feelings. It was enough for now. Let her believe he was marrying her out of whatever reasons satisfied her.

She would soon understand how deeply he cared for her.

Theirs would be a love match, just as a match between James and Bella would have been had circumstances not prevented it. In this regard, he was much like his granduncle, a man who loved deeply and faithfully. James had never married. Ruarke now understood the reason why.

He had only ever loved Bella.

Upon James’s death, the dukedom had passed down through the younger brother’s line, Ruarke’s grandfather first coming into the title, then his father, and finally himself.

Ruarke acceded to Heather’s request and agreed to the banns being read for three Sundays in a row. He knew she was insisting on it for his sake, to give him time to back out if something awful turned up in her family history.

Having completed the marriage arrangements, Ruarke now began asking questions about the ghost.

The vicar blanched. “You’ve seen her, Miss Alwyn?”

“Yes, on the beach. She was coming out of the Singing Caves. What can you tell us about her?”

“Me?” He mopped his brow. “I am fairly new to the area, assigned here only fifteen years ago. But my curate was born and raised not far from here in the village of St. Austell. Let me find him.”

He scurried off again.

“He looked ready to pass out when we mentioned the ghost,” Heather remarked.

Ruarke took her hand. “Because he has a healthy fear of it.”

They did not have long to wait before the vicar returned with his curate, an elderly man who looked somewhere around fifty or sixty and whose name was Simon Cornwake. The vicar’s wife rolled in the tea cart and offered each of them a cup of tea and raisin cake. “How lovely,” Heather said, and smiled at the woman.

Since the vicar’s wife appeared to have no intention of leaving them to their privacy, Ruarke decided to let her remain. In fact, she could be helpful to the discussion. Women always knew more about family histories than men did. “When did the ghost first come into being, Mr. Cornwake? Do you know who the girl is exactly? It is common knowledge her name is Bella Evans. But who was her family? Were they of importance in the area? Were any questions raised regarding the manner of her death?”

The curate took a sip of his tea and then set down his cup. “I shall do my best to answer all your questions, Your Grace. Just keep in mind that most of my knowledge is gossip handed down from my grandparents to my parents, and now to me.”

Heather squeezed Ruarke’s hand. He covered it with his own as the curate began to relate his story.

“My grandmother was only a girl when it happened, but she knew Bella. They were neighbors and schoolmates. According to her, Bella was a lovely child. She never put on airs, even though her father was the local magistrate and quite prominent in the area.”

“Bella is also my mother’s name,” Heather said. “Bella Evans was her maiden name. I think she might have been born here.”

“And possibly died here,” Ruarke added, putting an arm around her. “We hope your records will tell us all we wish to know. Miss Alwyn’s mother might have been named after this very ghost.”

“But our ghost also had a sister,” Heather added. “Do you know what happened to her?”

“Millicent? She was a half-sister to Bella,” Cornwake said. “The magistrate’s first wife died several years after giving birth to Millicent. She was their only child. He married Bella’s mother about a year later. Several years after that, Bella was born. They were the magistrate’s only children, two girls about six years apart in age.”

“What happened to the elder daughter, Mr. Cornwake?” Heather asked.

“Oh, Millicent went on to marry a Barclay. You must know the current Miss Barclay, Your Grace.”

Ruarke nodded. “She is attending my house party.”

“A most unpleasant young lady,” the vicar’s wife muttered.

The vicar cast her a warning glance. “My dear! You must not speak unkindly of our parishioners.”

“I am only saying what is true.”

Ruarke was curious. “Tell me, Mrs. Orman. I expect we hold the same opinion of her, but what has she done to make you think this of her?”

“She is a sneaky thing. Always jealous of others and not above accusing someone of misdeeds if she considers them a rival. I think this trait must run in her family. Her mother is the same way. Just last week she made a fuss about her gloves being stolen when—”

“Please, my dear,” the vicar said. “She found them and all is well.”

“Millicent was also a sneak, according to my grandmother,” Cornwake interjected. “She claimed Millicent was terribly jealous of Bella. After the younger sister died, Millicent was the only child, and her father doted on her. Miss Alwyn, I see you are frowning.”

“Is it possible Millicent was with Bella when she drowned? What did your grandmother tell you of that day?”

He shook his head. “She always thought it odd that Bella lost her life in those caves. Bella was an adventurous girl, but understood the tides. Everyone in these parts did, for anyone raised near the sea learns early to respect its power. That’s what always troubled my grandmother. Bella would never have gone to the Singing Caves at high tide. No, Your Grace. My grandmother was adamant about that.”

“Was there an investigation conducted?” Ruarke asked.

“Yes, but nothing ever came of it. An inquest was held, led by the Duke of Arran, your very own great-grandfather, but he determined her death to be accidental. The girl slipped and hit her head, that was the ruling. My grandmother never believed it. She had seen Millicent walking to the beach with Bella that afternoon.”

“Did she report this to the duke?” Heather asked.

“Yes, but Millicent insisted she had returned home and not gone down to the beach or the caves with her sister. There were no witnesses to contradict her statement. It was a sad day for the village. Bella was a beautiful girl with golden curls and sunshine in her smile. She had eyes as green as an Irish meadow. Those are my grandmother’s exact words.” Cornwake paused a moment to stare at Heather. “Miss Alwyn, I could be describing you. Well, there is nothing more to tell.”

“What of the other Bella Evans, Miss Alwyn’s mother?” Ruarke asked.

The curate shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about her. She could have lived here, but I was sent off to school as a boy, and then continued my studies at Oxford. There are gaps in my knowledge of our little corner of Cornwall.”

“May we look at the registers now?” Heather asked.

The vicar rose. “Yes, of course. Let me bring them in here for you.”

He and the curate piled four massive books upon the vicar’s desk, then left Ruarke and Heather to their reading. It did not take Ruarke long to find the birth record of Heather’s mother, and to his surprise, the record of her marriage to one Sir George Alwyn, baronet. “Heather, here it is. All of it, including the names of your maternal grandparents, Joseph and Sarah Evans. See, it is right here.”

She put a hand over her heart. “Is there a chance my grandparents are still alive?”

He glanced at the book of death records. “We could spend time searching through that tome, but I think Mrs. Orman is the one to ask.”

He took a moment to step out of the room to call for her. “Mrs. Orman, can you tell us anything about Miss Alwyn’s grandparents, Joseph and Sarah Evans?”

“Oh, indeed. Yes, I can. I had no idea they were related to you. How dense of me not to make the connection. But I never heard either of them speak of a daughter or a granddaughter. I thought they had no children. How odd… Well, they passed on quite a few years ago. It was not too long after we arrived.”

Ruarke took hold of Heather’s hand, knowing how deeply she must be feeling their loss. “It should not be too difficult to learn more of your mother’s ancestry now that we know who her parents were.”

“Why did my father never tell me about them? And why would my grandparents never mention me or my mother to Mrs. Orman?” She furrowed her brow as she continued to look at him. “It feels as though they wanted to hide all connection to me.”

“To protect you, Heather. I’m sure they loved you. But what if you came here as a child and saw the ghost? Or were somehow drawn into the Singing Caves and almost lost your life? It would have frightened them. Look, here…in this entry. Bella and Millicent Evans’ father had a brother. And that brother had a son, who must have been your grandfather, Joseph Evans.”

She looked over his shoulder as he traced through the Evans family history.

“Here’s more, Heather. Your grandfather then had a daughter he named Bella, no doubt in honor of his drowned cousin. Then Bella married the baronet.” He looked up at her, trying to make sense of it all. “But she must have died in Yorkshire, because her death is not recorded here. Let’s see if we can find anything about you.”

“Was I born here? Does it say?”

“No, you are not in here,” he replied. “Since your father’s estate was in Yorkshire, you were likely born there, just as your mother likely passed there. But it is also possible your mother brought you down here one summer before her death to visit her parents. We’ll have to talk to their neighbors or village elders for confirmation. But I’m sure she must have done so.”

“I would like to see where my grandparents lived. I wonder if it will also appear familiar to me.”

“It might. We will get there soon, I promise. Hopefully, the neighbors will have answers to our questions. We need to find out how old you were at the time, and what did you see that scared your family so badly, they resolved to keep you away from here forever?”

Heather’s lips began to tremble, and Ruarke knew she would soon be in tears. “They took this drastic measure to protect you,” he said. “How deeply they must have loved you. Why else would your grandparents never try to get in touch with you? Why else would your father never speak of them? He was not a cruel man. In fact, you described him as kind.”

She nodded.

“He would not have cut off his own wife’s family without good reason.”

She drew out her locket and stared at it. “How did it come down to me?”

“We may never know, but it is possible my ancestor gave it to your mother because she shared Bella’s name. A token, perhaps as he lay dying.”

“Ruarke, I think I know how to break the haunting,” Heather said. “There are two lockets. One your ancestor kept close to his heart and felt so strongly about that he included it in the painting hanging in your entry hall. That is the locket I now wear, and mistook the girl in it to be my mother. But Bella described another locket to me, the one he had given her that held his portrait.”

“We don’t have that one.”

“Millicent stole it after she struck down Bella.”

“Then it is likely lost to us forever. Who knows what she did with it?” Ruarke mused. “She could have tossed it into the sea, for all we know.”

Heather began to nibble her lip. “What if we need both to free poor Bella? Do you think this is what keeps her bound to the caves? This is where the two of them secretly met. I’ll wager James used to sneak out of the house through that secret tunnel you recently sealed up, so he would not be seen. But Bella now needs to reclaim the locket that contains his portrait. We must discover what happened to it.”

“How? It is an impossible task. We wouldn’t know where to start looking, assuming it hasn’t been discarded or destroyed long since. But those lockets may not be the only way to free Bella. You are an Evans, Heather. I am a MacArran. I think it is significant that an Evans loves a MacArran.”

“Just as those two loved each other in the past? Oh, of course! Do you think our marriage will be enough?”

Ruarke raked a hand through his hair. “It is possible.”

Heather regarded him with loving eyes. “Is this not the most romantic thing ever to happen? We were fated to meet and fall in love, thereby closing the circle.” She inhaled sharply and her eyes grew wide. “Does this mean you are in love with me?”

He smiled. “Seems so, doesn’t it?”