ST. AGNES HEAD, CORNWALL
AUGUST 1814

FREDERIC NORTH NIGHTINGALE looked down at the huddled woman at his feet. She was bowed in on herself, her knees drawn nearly to her chest, her arms over her head, as if she'd tried to protect herself as she fell from the cliff above. Her once stylish pale blue muslin gown was ripped violently beneath her arms, the bodice and skirt stained and filthy. One blue slipper dangled by twisted and torn ribbons from her right foot.

He came down to his knees beside her and gently pulled her stiff arms away from her head. She'd been dead for some time, at least eighteen hours, for her muscles were beginning to slacken again, the rigor lessening. He lightly pressed his fingers to her dirty neck, where the collar of her gown was ripped away. He didn't know why he was feeling for a pulse, perhaps he was hoping for a miracle, but of course, there was no beat, just cold flesh and death.

Her pale blue eyes stared up at him, not calm with acceptance, but bulging with the terror, with the knowledge that death was here and this was her last instant of life. Even though he'd seen too many men die in battle or after battle from infection, this touched him differently. She wasn't a soldier wielding a sword or a musket. She was a woman, thus frail by a man's standards, helpless in the face of a fall as violent as this one. He closed her eyes then pressed against her jaw to close her mouth, open wide on a last scream. It wouldn't close, and her terror was there to see if not to hear. It would remain there until she was no more than stripped white bone.

He rose slowly and stepped back, not too far back or else he'd go careening off the narrow ledge into the Irish Sea some forty feet below. The smell of the salt water was strong, the sound of the waves striking against the ageless tumbled black rocks was loud, but the rhythmic tumult was still curiously soothing to him. It had been since he'd been a boy, bent on escape.

She was no stranger to him. It had taken him a moment to recognize her, but he'd soon realized it was Eleanor Penrose, the widow of the now long-dead Squire Josiah Penrose of Scrilady Hall, just three miles or so north, very near the Trevaunance Cove. He'd known her since she'd arrived in the area from somewhere in Dorset and married the squire when North had been a boy of ten years or so. He remembered her as a laughing young woman with big breasts and a bigger smile, her soft brown hair falling in ringlets around her face that bounced about when she jested and poked the staid squire in his ribs, drawing a tortured smile even from that pinched mouth. And now she was dead, drawn in like a baby on a narrow ledge. He told himself she must have fallen. It was a tragic accident, surely that was all that it was, but he knew in his belly that it wasn't possible. Eleanor Penrose knew this land as well as he did. She wouldn't have been strolling out here by herself, far from home, and simply slip and fall over the cliff. How had it happened?

He made his way slowly back up the cliff, some thirty feet to the top, his fingers fitting into the familiar handholds, his feet slipping only twice. He pulled himself over the top onto the barren jagged edge of St. Agnes Head, rose and looked down as he dusted off his breeches. From this height she again became the patch of bright blue that had caught his attention and drawn him down in the first place.

Suddenly a clod of loose earth crumbled beneath his booted feet. He jerked back, arms flailing. His heart thudded madly until he was back a good three feet from the cliff edge. Perhaps that was what had happened to Eleanor Penrose. She'd walked too close to the edge and the ground had simply given beneath her and she'd not fallen all the way to the spuming waves below but onto that protruding ledge instead. And it had been enough to kill her. He dropped to his knees and examined the ground. Only the chunk he'd just dislodged seemed to have broken off. He just looked at the ground, then down at the ledge, barely visible from his vantage point. He rose and dusted off his hands.

North strode to his bay gelding, Treetop, a horse that stood over seventeen hands high and thus his name, who was standing motionless, watching his master's approach. Treetop didn't even look up at the flock of lapwings that wheeled low over them. A dragonfly lighted on his rump and he gently waved his tail. North would have to ride to see the magistrate. Then he realized he was the magistrate. This wasn't the army, no sergeants to do what he told them to do, no rules or protocols. "Well," he said as he swung easily onto Tree's broad back, "let's ride to get Dr. Treath. He should look at her before we move her. Do you think she fell?"

Tree didn't snort but he did fling his mighty head from side to side.

North said slowly as he looked back at the cliff where she'd gone over, shading the brilliant noontime sun from his eyes with his hand, "I don't think she did either. I think some son of a bitch killed her."

•  •  •

"Lord Chilton! Good God, my boy, when did you return? It's been over a year since you've come home. Just here for your father's funeral, then back again to the interminable war that's finally over, thank God. Now all our fine English lads can come home again. Come in, come in. You always did knock at my surgery entrance, eh?"

Dr. Treath, tall and straight as a sapling under a bright sun, and slender as a boy of eighteen, and as smart a man as North had ever known, pumped his hand and ushered him through his small surgery replete with its shining metal instruments and cabinets filled with carefully labeled bottles. There was a mortar and pestle on the scrubbed table just beneath the cabinets. He led North into the drawing room of Perth Cottage, a cozy, warm room with a fireplace at one end, too much furniture throughout and messy with strewn newspapers and journals and now-empty cups on every surface that, North remembered, had held tea liberally laced with smuggled French brandy.

North smiled, remembering that when he was a boy Dr. Treath had seemed a giant of a man. The doctor was very tall, but now that North was a man full grown, Treath's height no longer seemed so extraordinary. Of course, North was bred from a line of tall men, of a height to intimidate if they were of a mind to do so.

Dr. Treath's smile was warm and welcoming.

"It has been a long time, sir. But now I'm home again, to stay this time."

"Sit down, North. Tea? A brandy?"

"No, sir. Actually I'm here as the magistrate to tell you that I just found Eleanor Penrose on that outcropping ledge beneath St. Agnes Head. She's dead, and has been for some time, at least a day, for her limbs were still rigid but were relaxing again."

Dr. Benjamin Treath became rigid as Lot's wife, becoming pale and paler still until his face was as white as his modest white cravat. He suddenly looked immeasurably older, all the vitality sucked out of him in that single instant, then, just as quickly, he was shaking his head. "No," he said, "no, that can't be right. You've forgotten what Eleanor looked like. No, not Eleanor. It's some other woman who resembles her. I'm sorry for the other woman but it isn't Eleanor, it can't be Eleanor. Tell me you've made a mistake, North."

"I'm sorry, sir, but it was Eleanor Penrose."

But Dr. Treath was still shaking his head, violently now, his eyes darkening, his pallor more marked. "Dead, you say? No, North, you're mistaken. I just dined with her two evenings ago. She was in fine fettle, laughing as she always does, you remember that, don't you? We ate oysters at Scrilady Hall and the candlelight was very soft and she laughed at my stories about the Navy, particularly the one about how we stole that bag of lemons from a Dutch ship in the Caribbean near St. Thomas because our men had scurvy. No, no, North, you're wrong, you must be wrong. I can't let Eleanor be dead."

Damnation, North thought. "I'm sorry, sir, truly. Yes, she's dead."

Benjamin Treath turned away and walked slowly to the French doors at the back of the sitting room that gave onto a small enclosed garden, flowering wildly now in middle August, roses interlaced with bougainvillea and hydrangeas, the colors vivid reds and pinks and yellows. One old sessile oak tree was so thick, its heavy leafed branches covered one entire corner of the garden, and its trunk was wrapped round and round with ivy. Blue agrion damselflies hovered over the ivy, making it appear to shimmer and shift in the lazy sunlight. North heard the croak of a bush cricket.

Dr. Treath just stood there, his shoulders rising and falling quickly, and North realized he was fighting down tears. "I'm very sorry, sir. I didn't know you and Mrs. Penrose were close. You must come with me, sir. Also, there's something more you must know."

Dr. Treath turned slowly to face him. "She's dead, you say. What else is there? Come, North, what is it?"

"I don't think she just fell from the cliff. I think someone pushed her. I didn't examine her or touch her except to feel for her pulse. You should do that."

"Yes," Dr. Treath said at last. "Yes, I'll come. Wait, what did you say? Someone pushed her? No, that's not possible. Everyone liked Eleanor, everyone. Oh Jesus. Yes, I'll come." He called out, "Bess! Come down, please. I must go out. Jack Marley is coming soon. Bess? Hurry, woman."

Bess Treath appeared suddenly in the doorway of the sitting room, out of breath, her hand clutched to her chest. She was a tall woman, slender, with hair darker even than North's. There was a great resemblance between brother and sister. She saw North, quickly curtsied, and said with pleasure, "My lord, you're home. How like your papa you look, but then all Nightingale men resemble each other from father to son and so it's always been, at least that's what Mrs. Freely says and what her mother before her said. Oh dear, something's wrong, isn't it? Why are you going out, Benjie? What has happened? Someone at Mount Hawke is ill?"

Dr. Treath just looked at her, actually beyond her, gone from Perth Cottage, from his sister and North, who stood at his side. He shook his head, as if to give himself direction. "Jack Marley has a boil on his neck. See to it if you want to, if not, then tell him to come back. Be sure to use the carbolic liberally to clean him up first. He never washes his neck, you know."

"Yes, I know, Benjie. I'll deal with him."

North said only, "There's been an accident, Miss Treath. We must go now."

"An accident? What happened? What's wrong, Benjie?"

Dr. Treath just kept shaking his head. He pushed past his sister, head down, North following.

Copyright © 1994 by Catherine Coulter