Darkness Unchained Read online

  “What is the story of this place, Tristan?” Uther asked as we took our seats at the table.

  “You have heard me speak of Arwen Jago, who, at the time of the restoration of King Charles the Second was the incumbent of the parish of St Petroc. He was the younger brother of the earl and had already earned himself a reputation for wildness. When his brother died, it was widely believed that Arwen murdered him.”

  “But it wasn’t proved?” Uther asked.

  “It seems not. Original records from the time did not survive the fire that destroyed the castle, but there does not appear to be any concrete evidence against Arwen. Rather, his subsequent notoriety and the balance of probability suggest that it was highly likely that he had a hand in his brother’s demise.”

  “So Arwen went on to inherit the title unchallenged?” Rudi asked. He looked wan, I thought, and rather uncomfortable. It was a feeling with which I had every sympathy.

  “He did. And, by all accounts, he proved to be a better earl than his brother, who was a weak man. The estate was in some turmoil following the parliamentarian period and Arwen, through strong—albeit cruel—rule, restored its fortunes and brought stability to Athal. He had a fierce pride in the family name and was ruthless in enforcing it. He believed that future generations of Jagos were destined for greatness and that it was his job to make sure that nothing could stand in their way. A gatekeeper for what was to come, if you will.”

  “Oh, Annie, are you feeling quite well?” Finty asked in some alarm as I slumped slightly in my chair. “You do look dreadfully pale.”

  “A slight headache, that’s all.” I returned the pressure of Uther’s hand as he turned to me with an expression of concern. How could I possibly describe to another the insidious feeling that, just beyond my conscious sight, something evil was taunting me? Or the persistent, crawling conviction that I had been here before? I stared at the plate of food a footman placed in front of me. Dainty sandwiches, cold meat, boiled quail’s eggs and brightly coloured salads made an attractive display. But just beneath the veneer of reality something rotten squirmed. I sensed that if I plunged my fork into Mrs Winrow’s carefully prepared feast, it would ooze forth and pour its putrid essence over my hands. My stomach lurched in violent protest, and I turned my face away.

  The picnic seemed destined to go unappreciated since Rudi pushed his food around without touching it and Uther managed only a few mouthfuls. Even Finty seemed to finally have assimilated the mood.

  “And so, on to the story of this glade,” Tristan continued. “Arwen was out hunting one day and his pack were in pursuit of a deer. The trail led them here to this clearing, where they encountered an incredibly beautiful young woman called Lucia.” The feeling of something cold and alien squirming in my stomach intensified at the mention of that name. I did not understand why. According to the legend, Lucia was a pure and good character, yet her name affected me in a way that evil Arwen’s did not. “This is where an element of fable takes over and we must suspend disbelief, because it seems that Arwen, already married and with several children—legitimate and otherwise—tried to persuade Lucia to become his mistress. She resisted, and he returned to the glade each day to renew his protestations, each time offering her greater incentives. In the end, in true fairy tale-villain style, Arwen threw her over his saddle and carried her off to Tenebris, where he kept her imprisoned and forced her to submit to his will.”

  “One wonders what his wife thought of all this,” Uther said. “Are you afraid I’ll subscribe to this particular family tradition, my sweet?” I shook my head and attempted to return his smile. How did I know, beyond any doubt, that the story Tristan was telling was wrong in some essential details?

  “Over time perhaps Arwen tired of Lucia or grew complacent. Anyway, she escaped and returned to the glade. When he caught up with her, Arwen’s anger was so great that he murdered her. He drew his crossbow and fired it straight into her eye.”

  “No!” I rose shakily to my feet, holding a serviette over my mouth and looking at the clover-strewn spot where I knew—just knew—Lucia had fallen.

  “Annie, my dear.” Tristan’s face reflected the shock that the others were evidently feeling: that tough-as-Africa Annie should be so affected by what was effectively a child’s fairy story. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Finty hurried over to me, but I backed away from her, shaking my head. “No, don’t touch me.” Her dainty features froze into an expression of shock. I saw something else in her eyes then, something I had not thought her capable of. A flash of pure fury lightened their grey depths. It was so brief I might have imagined it. Uther moved her aside and put his arms around me, drawing me close. “That’s not why he did it,” I muttered into the curve of his neck.

  He slid a finger under my chin, tilting my face up. “How do you know that?” The deep gold of his eyes was like a storm-scattered sky here in this shadowed place. There was something—someone—in their tormented depths that I didn’t want to see, and I chose not to answer his question. Instead, I rested my head against the warmth of his shoulder once more. “I’m taking Annie back to the house,” Uther told the others. “Her headache seems to be getting worse.”

  As he slid an arm about my waist and led me away, I looked back at the sleepy hollow. At Rudi and Tristan, who both watched me with concern. At Finty, who stood slightly to one side, her petulant burst of temper over now and her expression a forlorn reflection of the outcome of her expedition. It was just a harmless forest glade. Was it my imagination, or a trick of the light, that made it appear as if the clover was drenched and dark now with blood? Even though nearby Tenebris was to be my home, I made a promise to myself that I would never return here.

  Chapter Six

  “How did your parents choose your name?” I asked Uther as we strolled in the gardens in the slumbering sunset. An earlier downfall had given way to a rainbow-spattered landscape and the skies were watercolour vivid. The light was over-bright, and daylight’s final rays of gold invaded my eyes as well as my heart.

  He looked down at me in surprise. “I don’t know. I’ve never given it any thought, but since our father was Cornish, and Nicca and I have Cornish names, I expect he may have been influenced by his Jago heritage.”

  I told him Tristan’s story of his unsavoury namesake. “So your father knew nothing of this other Uther?” We stepped back into the parlour through the open French window.

  “If he did, it seems in rather bad taste to have named me after him, don’t you think? He may have chosen the name because of an entirely different Uther, of course. The legendary Uther Pendragon was King Arthur’s father. It seems more likely, however, that he dredged up a couple of names from the family tree without making any enquiries about the background of those who bore them last. It sounds like just the sort of thing he would do.” Further information from Tristan had elicited that there had also been a Nicca Jago in the family’s history who had, coincidentally, been an equally bloodthirsty, lecherous murderer. There was a distinct, recurrent theme in the Jago past, I reflected. I was not marrying into a family noted for its heroic deeds and services to mankind. “Are you going to cry off now you know the truth about my disreputable ancestors?” He caught hold of my hands and swinging me to a halt so that I was facing him.

  “Couldn’t if I wanted to,” I said, stepping closer and burrowing my face into his chest. Since that first moment of meeting, it was as if we had been as one. No, I corrected myself. Since the moment we viewed Tenebris together for the first time, we had belonged to each other. I had become convinced in that moment that nothing could ever change that fact. An apologetic cough signalled Winrow’s arrival with the tea tray.

  “It’s like living in a bloody goldfish bowl,” Uther muttered irritably. “I never get a chance to be alone with you.” He glanced around the parlour with distaste. “And I’m tired of looking at pictures of saintly dead people. Winrow, get rid of these old photographs, will you?”

&n
bsp; Winrow’s face did not betray any emotion. “Certainly, my lord. What would you have me do with them?”

  “Good God, how am I supposed to know? Chuck them in the nearest dustbin…”

  Winrow cast a slightly plaintive glance in my direction. “I will arrange to have them moved to a more suitable place,” I said soothingly, and I sensed the butler’s relief. He gave me a stiff little bow. “I expect Finty or Eleanor will want to keep them,” I explained to Uther when Winrow had left the room.

  “Finty and Eleanor can keep them in their new home,” he said. My confusion must have shown on my face because he added, “The home they will need to find so that they can leave us in peace once we are married.”

  “Oh, no, Uther! This is their home. I would not for the world expect them to leave it.”

  “You might not, my sweet, but I bloody well will.”

  The next morning, Finty’s shoulders drooped as she carefully placed the photographs into a cardboard box. “I knew that Uther would want to change things,” she explained sadly. “It’s only natural that he would. But…” She sighed, regarding the photograph of Cad and Bouche. “Oh, Annie. I loved them so much and these pictures are so much a part of what they meant to me. It’s going to be very hard not seeing them here every day.”

  It did seem harsh, but Uther had made his thoughts on the matter very clear. “You can put the pictures in your room or Eleanor’s,” I said.

  “Yes, of course I can.” She attempted a smile. “Don’t mind me and my silly sentimentality!”

  Uther and Nicca had gone into Wadebridge to meet with a solicitor about some legal matters. I felt suddenly cold at the thought that Uther wasn’t there within the walls of Tenebris. This was followed by a feeling of intense foolishness. My own neediness terrified me. Was I destined to spend the rest of my life feeling this extreme loneliness whenever he was not at my side? This wasn’t who I was! I was made of sterner stuff. Yet at the same time, in his absence, a niggling sense of annoyance at Uther’s behaviour crept in that I did not feel when I was with him. What harm did it do to have the photographs here? And if they had to be moved, why must I be the one to deal with the sadness in Finty’s eyes and the censure in Tristan’s?

  “But this is fascinating! Your mother actually knew Lady Sarah Wilson?” Tristan asked, and I nodded in confirmation. He flicked through the pages of my mother’s diary, exclaiming over some of the points and muttering in frustration at the missing pages. “My dear Annie, do you know who Lady Sarah is?”

  “I know that she was a war correspondent who sent dispatches back to the English newspapers giving details of conditions in Maheking during the siege. From my mother’s diary, I also know that they became good friends during that time,” I explained.

  “Lady Sarah was the youngest daughter of the Duke of Marlborough,” Tristan told me. “She was born a Churchill, and later married Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon Wilson, who was second in command to Colonel Baden-Powell at Maheking. My dear Annie, your mother must have been a very important lady if she could count Winston Churchill’s favourite aunt as her best friend!”

  I started to laugh at the very idea. “No, indeed she wasn’t! She was a boer’s daughter on a visit to her aunt, whose husband owned a baker’s shop. My grandmother is a wealthy woman now, but most of her fortune was made after the Boer War. In those days, my mother’s family was a humble one.”

  Uther appeared in the study doorway. He caught my eye and jerked his head toward the door, indicating that he thought I had heard quite enough family history for one day. I suspected that he had plans for me that did not involve paperwork, and a tiny shiver of anticipation ran down my spine. I offered a sympathetic expression in return and watched him shrug, then depart. The invisible bond that held us together tugged at me, willing me to go with him. Convention and my liking for Tristan kept me where I was.

  “But this is most intriguing,” Tristan exclaimed. “I am at a loss to understand how your mother came to move in the same circles as Lady Sarah, let alone grew to be on such good terms with her. Did you say your mother met your father during the siege of Maheking? Could he have known her ladyship?”

  “I think that was highly unlikely. He was an artillery man under Lord Baden-Powell’s command, a common soldier with no rank or fortune.”

  “What was his name?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied bluntly. Sensing his embarrassment at my response, I continued, “We believe, from a letter I found in my mother’s belongings, that his first name was Austell, and it seems likely that he came from Port Isaac. That is one of the main reasons that Rudi and I chose to holiday here.”

  “You parents didn’t marry?” His blue eyes held a world of sympathy as they scanned my face. And, of course, if anyone could sympathise with how I felt about my illegitimacy, Tristan could.

  “No. Van der Merwe is our mother’s name. We have no idea what our father’s family name was.” I smiled in an attempt to show him that he had not upset me with his questions. “We hoped to discover, while we were here, something more about him. But with only a first name to go on, it was always going to be a difficult task, wasn’t it?”

  “Perhaps not,” he said. He drew the book containing the family tree forward and opened it, running his finger up the page. He tapped a name for emphasis. Born in 1765, Tynan Jago’s grandfather—the man who was the first Uther Jago’s father—had been named Austell. “Far too long ago, of course, and Austell is quite a common Cornish name,” Tristan pointed out. “But we do have another string to our bow.” He gave me a cheeky grin that made him look suddenly younger. “Sarah Wilson just happens to be a neighbour of mine in Mayfair. She can be a cantankerous old snob at times, but she loves a gossip over a glass of port. It doesn’t take much to get her onto the subject of ‘the good old days’—those halcyon times of starvation, typhus and dysentery—in Maheking. I’ll sound her out about your mother, see what I can discover.”

  “I am going to take Eleanor back to London with me,” Tristan explained to Finty and me. “She is old and change is difficult for her to accept. It is only natural for Uther to want to make Tenebris his own, but it is distressing for her to see so much that is familiar disappear.” He kept his voice neutral, and I knew that was for my sake. He was far too diplomatic to malign Uther in my presence. “Do you care to join us, Finty? You are very welcome.”

  “Oh!” A shy smile crossed Finty’s delicate features. “Ordinarily, Uncle Tristan, you know I would love to do so. But, do you know, I find I would quite like to stay at Tenebris just at the present time.”

  “Yes, I thought you might.” They both looked out of the window at where Rudi stood poring over his sketchbook.

  When it was time for them to leave, I helped Eleanor into the car and placed a blanket over her knees. She turned her sad blue eyes to me and gripped my wrist with surprising strength. In a voice that was rusty from decades of neglect, she said softly, “Be very careful, child.”

  I glanced around to see if anyone else had heard this remarkable phenomenon. It appeared they had not. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Look into your own heart and into those around you,” she whispered, sitting back in the seat with a tired smile. “You will find that all is not what it seems.”

  For some reason that I could not quite fathom, I didn’t mention to anyone else the strange circumstance of the woman who had been mute for over half a century suddenly finding her voice. When I looked back and examined my motives, I knew it was because I did not want to have to explain what she had said to me. Instead, I stood with Finty and dutifully waved until Tristan’s elegant Bentley disappeared along the track.

  I returned to the parlour where Uther and Nicca were yawning over the newspapers. Rudi and Finty followed me. Their hands were clasped, and identical smiles adorned their faces. Something about them—a glow, a shimmering happiness—dragged at my heart in a way that was alien to me.

  “We are going to be married,” Rudi said proudly, and Fin
ty snuggled shyly into his side, her eyes bright with love as she gazed up at him. “Tristan gave us his blessing before he left.”

  Nicca jumped up, clasping Rudi’s hand and clapping him so hard on the back that he staggered a little. Then he swept Finty up into a bear hug, swinging her round in a circle until she squealed for mercy.

  “I couldn’t be happier for you both,” he told them. The words irked me, like a bit of food stuck between my teeth. Why couldn’t he have said the same to Uther and me, even if he didn’t mean it?

  After that display, my own hugs and congratulations seemed oddly muted, and I was aware of Rudi watching my face with disappointment darkening the golden depths of his eyes. Finty was so overexcited that she appeared not to notice.

  Uther sent for champagne. “The plan to rid the place of the hangers-on seems to be going well,” he murmured to me over the rim of his glass as we drank a toast.

  Later, as I changed for dinner, Rudi came to my room. His face was serious as he sat on the edge of my bed.

  “This isn’t like you, Annie.”

  “What isn’t?” I could hear the dangerous note in my own voice. He knew me well enough to recognise it, too, but this was obviously going to be one of the rare occasions when he didn’t back down in the face of my stronger personality.

  “My sister Annie wouldn’t be jealous of my happiness.”

  I ignored the suggestion that somehow I was no longer his sister Annie. “Jealous?” I swung round on the dressing table stool. “You really think that?”