you wish it, I will, of course, be glad to argue that you’re young, beautiful and much needed on this estate. I will even, if you like, add that the world is precious, that despair is a sin and that taking your own life is a worse one.’ Another clump of moss arched through the air. ‘I’ve always wondered what fool decreed that suicide was a crime to be punished by death.’
She finally turned to look at him. ‘Why come up?’
‘To advise you the best way to do it.’
‘You’ve come to help me kill myself?’
‘You sound outraged.’
She shrugged, then shook her head.
‘Don’t mistake me. Nothing would please me more than to talk you out of dying.’
‘Hah!’ she said with grim triumph.
‘Is there no other way? At seventeen you haven’t begun.’
‘I knew you were lying.’
‘I need to be certain,’ he said quickly. ‘And don’t be a fool! This roof is not high enough for a clean death.’
She leaned. Closed her eyes.
‘Oh, go to the devil, then!’ he said sharply. ‘But I tell you, you will survive! Most likely crippled and helpless as a babe, depending on others to eat, to dress…even to change your soiled clout. I know, I’ve seen it.’
She opened her eyes and looked down. ‘What else do you suggest, then? Must I drown myself in one of the fish ponds? Or impale myself on a hook?’
‘There are other ways.’
‘Believe me, I’ve considered them all.’
‘I very much doubt that.’
‘What can you know, living here…? Forgive me, I’m too desperate to be civil.’
‘I’m not in the least offended.’ He stared at his hands while he opened and closed them five times. ‘I understand, madam, that this is difficult for you. But it is not altogether easy for me.’
‘All it will cost you is words of advice.’
‘But my advice involves confession, you see.’ He fell silent and stared moodily across the valley to the slopes of Hawk Ridge.
She studied him sideways with a surge of curiosity. He had come with the estate, like its fields and trees. A rent-paying, gentleman sojourner, already in residence when she had arrived as a fourteen-year-old bride.
‘I can’t,’ he said suddenly, with decision. ‘Forgive me. But I had sworn never to reveal myself to anyone here.’ He prepared to rise.
‘Even when it concerns her life?’
‘Even then.’
‘But if I am dead, I will have to keep your secret. Your confession will cost you nothing while it will oblige me.’
He sighed and looked at her at last. She saw a profound uneasiness in his eyes. ‘Very well. You prevail.’ He levered himself to his feet.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘With your permission, I would like to continue this discussion at a lower altitude.’
‘If you are toying with me, I shall jump right now.’
Giving her a cool look that made her heart jump against her ribs, he slapped at the back of his long black coat. ‘Don’t threaten me, mistress. I said I’d tell and so I shall.’
He held out a hand to help her rise. ‘I’ll hold the ladder for you to go down. And I’d be grateful if you’ll do the same for me. Will you come fishing?’
Zeal followed Wentworth to retrieve his pole and sack from where he had dropped them by the lowest pond. In silence, they crossed the sluice bridge, then followed the muddy track downstream towards the mill.
How did I come to be here? she thought.
‘You don’t want my advice,’ he said at last. ‘You want the advice of my former self.’
She looked sideways at his strong nose and pugnacious chin. Though he was not as tall as John, and was a little stiffened by age, she had to walk fast to keep up with his purposeful strides.
‘And what was that?’ she asked.
‘An adventurer, you might say.’
‘I thought you were going to say you had been an executioner, or a footpad, or a murderer.’
‘Who told you that an adventurer is not all those things?’
‘Do you have a gun?’
He gave her an amused look. ‘Can’t shake you loose from the main point, can I? Yes, I have a gun. Most likely rusted solid among my nightshirts and stockings. I also have a dagger, a Spanish rapier, a dented buckler, an old-fashioned broad sword, and a poison ring bought in Italy. You can take your pick of ’em.’
He plunged off the track down a narrow, nettle-lined path along the very edge of the bank. They passed a hectic narrow rush where the river first stretched over hidden rocks like pulled sugar candy, then crashed into turmoil.
He is toying with me, she thought as she slipped on the mud and yanked her skirts free of the bushes.
Around a smooth elbow of a bend, the Shir widened into a polished pool rimmed with rushes and weed.
She stopped to untangle her hair from an overhanging branch. ‘What is a dangerous adventurer doing here at Hawkridge pretending to be a fisherman?’
‘I take exception to your saying that I pretend to be a fisherman…here we are.’ He stopped and peered down into the water.
Though he lived in her house, as many solitary people lodged in houses not their own, she had never before had opportunity to observe him. When not out fishing, he kept to his own two small rooms. He ate alone and refused all invitations to join the house family in the hall. He never came to prayers in the chapel. From time to time, he had shared a pipe in the gardens after supper with John and Doctor Bowler, the estate parson. Infrequently, he visited their neighbour Sir Richard Balhatchet at High House, where Zeal and some of her house family had been lodging since the fire. But Zeal had never met him there. She had had to feed her curiosity with distant glimpses of his still figure by the edge of one piece of water or another.
He was at least sixty years old. Still a large man. Thick through the chest, but the shins beneath his stockings were pared down to sinew and bone. The rest of him between neck and knee was hidden under his bulky old-fashioned coat. The coat itself was tailored from fine wool and silk but had worn as smooth and green as a horsefly’s tail on the collars and cuffs.
A dangerous old man, she thought with interest. He must not think that I trust him or his promises. He won’t outwit me, whatever he might intend. I can’t let him.
She rubbed at the welts of nettle stings that had sprung up on the backs of her hands. ‘How must I die, then?’
Wentworth leaned his pole against a waterside oak and studied the undulating scales of light on the greenish surface. He gave a small grunt of satisfaction. Then he threw a handful of maggots into the water and returned to sit on the exposed roots of the oak. ‘We must wait till they recover from our arrival and start to feed again. Please sit down. You’ll frighten the fish.’
She continued to stand. ‘Were you also a hangman? And a highway man?’
‘I was a plain soldier,’ he said, with an edge of irritation in his voice. ‘Will that satisfy you? And my first concern is pain…’ He held up a warning hand and jerked his chin towards the water. ‘Expostulate if you must, but sotto voce… Those bent on dying imagine only the end of suffering but ignore the anguish of the road to oblivion. Believe me, the soul