The beam did more than give. It tumbled down, worn through with salt and damp. Stone, flint, and dirt fell with it. I grabbed Denis and hauled him out of the way, landing with him against the wall as half the floor poured down.
I shielded him, feeling rock batter my back, while I pressed my forehead to the wall so my face would not be cut. Dust filled the air, and we coughed.
With the dust came light, not much, but enough for me to see the pile of rubble that had fallen. I also saw, when he raised his head, the pale smudge of Denis's face, splotched black with blood.
He pushed me away, his arm over his mouth, and shuffled back to the fallen ceiling. The debris made a scattered pile, and the hole above was small. Denis reached up with his knife and broke the stone and floorboards that hemmed it in.
"I'll boost you out first," he said. "You're not steady enough to hold me, but you're big enough to pull me out."
"Are you not worried I'll run and leave you here?" I asked. Not that I'd run far on my weak and aching leg.
"No," he said without inflection. "I've come to know you well, Captain."
He had, damn him. "Better make the hole larger, then," I said. "Or I'll stick like a cork in a bottle."
Denis did not smile. I supposed he reserved his laughter for the pitch dark when no one could see him.
Together we widened the hole, pulling down rock until our fingers bled. Denis put his hands around my right boot and heaved me upward.
I landed facedown, scrabbling on the floor to get purchase. Denis shoved some more, and I crawled out.
The light came from the cottage's back windows, the afternoon bright outside. The wind blew, bringing chill sea air through the broken panes. I heard the water on all sides of the house and knew we were cut off.
But alive. The windmill keeper had food and water, and we could rest inside and either wait for the tide to turn, or take one of his rowboats and make for shore.
I turned around on my stomach and reached down for Denis. He lifted his arms to me, clasping mine, and I started hauling him upward. I'd gotten him halfway through the hole when I heard a step.
I looked up-and let go of Denis. Denis fell back into the cellar, but he didn't ask why I'd dropped him, didn't say a word.
Cooper stood above me, blood caking his face and body. He had Denis's pistol, cocked and pointed at me. Where he'd gotten more powder and a bullet, I did not know, but I had no doubt the thing was loaded.
"You did not make it away before the tide," I said, stating the obvious, so Denis would hear and understand.
"I was coming back for ye," Cooper said. "You didn't have to work so hard. You are going to row me out of here, Captain, and he will die."
"Leave the paintings," I said. "And him. I'll take you somewhere safe. I know all the hidden places on this coast. You can go and never see him again."
Below me I saw Denis stop short of rolling his eyes.
"And what would that get me?" Cooper asked.
"Your life."
"You will row me anyway, Captain. With the paintings, after I shoot him."
"And then you'll kill me," I said. "I'll not do it."
"You will. This pistol is loaded and primed for him, but I have a long knife to take care of you if you give me trouble. Or I could do it the other way around. I haven't decided. Bring him out of there. Or I'll shoot you first."
In the cellar, Denis nodded. I reached down for him. He let me pull him out by the arms again, but he used only one hand to assist me. The other was tucked against his chest.
As soon as he got himself onto solid floor, Denis rolled hard away from me and flung a large handful of gunpowder up into Cooper's face. Cooper jerked back, but the powder clung to his face and chest, sticking in the blood all over the right side of his body.
Cooper swung the gun around, but I shouted. "The spark could ignite you, man. Stop!"
As Cooper hesitated in rage and confusion, Denis launched himself up like a cat. He grabbed the pistol from Cooper and slammed the butt of it into Cooper's forehead. Cooper, spent from bleeding and pain, went down.
Cooper groaned, and Denis hit him again. This time Cooper's big body went limp. Denis lifted the man's head, opened his eye, and let the head fall again.
I got myself to Denis and took the pistol from him. I unlocked the hammer and gently closed it before it could spark. "You have gunpowder all over you too," I said.
Denis ignored me. "What the devil did he do with my paintings?"
I had thought Denis would take out his knife and stab Cooper to death then and there, but he left the man on the floor while he went outside into the wind.
I limped across the wrecked floor and found the sword and sheath of my walking stick on opposite sides of room. I retrieved the pieces and slid the blade into the cane, happy that the thing had survived intact. I breathed a sigh of relief as I leaned my weight on it.
Cooper was alive, I knew from his loud breathing. Morgan, on the other hand, was dead.
I walked out of the miller's house to see Denis pull a canvas bag from one of the saddles and take a quick look inside it. The windmill keeper was nowhere about, but I saw that one of the rowboats had gone. Had Waller rushed to the nearest village to bring back a constable? Or fled entirely?
"Morgan is dead," I said.
Denis did not look up. "I know." He closed the bag. "Are you a good oarsman, Lacey?"
"I have not used an ocean craft in years," I said. "Though I rowed on a pond in Oxfordshire this summer and seemed to remember a bit."
Denis did not look in the mood to be amused. "You told Cooper you know all the secret ways around this coast. Were you lying?"
"No."
"Good. You row and tell me where to steer."
He handed me the bag of priceless paintings and went back into the miller's house. He came out with Cooper's body balanced over his shoulders, his slim build in no way bent by Cooper's weight.
Denis walked past me and dumped Cooper into the rowboat. He got into the rocking craft, holding it steady by the line tying it to a lone wooden post sticking out of the water.
I stood for a moment on the bank. I still held the pistol, and I had the paintings. I could shoot Denis there and then, row myself to shore, take the paintings to a magistrate I knew, and return home a virtuous man.
I got into the boat.
Denis took the bag from me, wrapped it well, and stowed it on the bottom. If we foundered, thousands upon thousands of guineas worth of valuable and historic paintings would go down with us.
"I assume you know the difference between port and starboard," I said, unlashing the oars.
"I do."
I cast off, thumped down onto the seat, and started to row. "Hard aport," I said, and we moved.
I rowed west and north, around headlands, past drained marshes, and to an area where little creeks ran everywhere, water and land blending into one. Here, the villages were far inland, and no fishing boats were in sight.
Denis did not want me to pull up in the marshes. He had me row out into deeper water, right into the sea.
I did so with some trepidation. This craft was meant for floating through creeks and rivers or along the shore, not for tossing about on waves. If we went too far, we'd not get back.
When the land was a only wide line on the horizon, Denis had me stop. I shipped the oars, and the boat bobbed heavily on the waves. The sun was sinking far to the west, over the green smudge of Lincolnshire in the distance.
Denis grabbed the unmoving form of Cooper and hauled him to the gunwale. The boat tilted alarmingly. Cooper groaned, and his eyelids fluttered.
"He's alive," I said.
"I know." Denis hooked his hand around the seat of Cooper's pants. "You might want to look to shore, Captain."
I did not think Denis meant to dunk Cooper's head in the water to revive him. I had hoped we'd brought him out here for a good talking to, but Denis's lectures tended to be final. Cooper started to struggle, regaining consciousness but still weak.
"You cannot dump a man overboard and leave him to drown," I said. "That is too cruel, even for you."
"Do you hear, Cooper?" Denis asked. "The captain has compassion."
He took up the pistol I'd left on the bench, heaved Cooper up so that his head was over the water, and stuck the pistol's barrel into the back of Cooper's neck. Cooper dragged his head around to look at me.
What I saw in Cooper's eyes was not terror but rage. He fixed me with a glare of hatred stronger than any I'd ever seen. He was still glaring at me when Denis pulled the trigger.
The gun's boom was deafening. The life abruptly died from Cooper's eyes as half his face vanished into blood.
Denis had arranged the execution so deftly that almost all Cooper's blood sprayed into the water, very little touching the boat. Denis laid down the pistol, caught Cooper's waistband again, and heaved the man into the water. Cooper sank, blood and bubbles in his wake.
Denis took a long breath and stripped off his ruined gloves. I thought he meant to say something to me, but he turned away, bowed his head, and pressed his hands over his face.
Denis sat for a long time-saying nothing, doing nothing. He remained motionless, in silence, while the waves pushed at the boat.
We started to drift too far north. I took up the oars and quietly turned us around, picking a path back to shore.
Eventually, Denis raised his head and caught the tiller. His eyes were as cool as ever, no tears, no redness to betray grief. But the sun was full in my face, doubled by its reflection on the water, and perhaps I could not see.
Denis said nothing at all as we traveled. He steered competently, and we avoided breakers to move smoothly back toward the windmill. I offered to row him closer to Blakeney or Cley, which would give him a short walk over fields to Easton's, but he declined.
"He will wash ashore sooner or later," I said after another long silence.
Denis did not ask me who I meant. "I know." His mouth was a thin line. "If you worry that any accusation will fall on you, do not. Your name will not be involved."
I had not thought that far ahead-I'd barely thought past landing the boat. I said nothing, and Denis went on.
"When there are questions, I will answer them for you. You are under my protection." He looked to shore at the windmill drawing closer, its arms turning with slow patience. "Morgan will have a proper burial and a grand funeral service."
Whereas Cooper, the man he'd trusted for twenty years, would be food for the fishes.
We landed and tied up the boat. Waller hadn't returned, and I decided he must have run off for good.
Denis entered the windmill with the paintings, then came out with a blanket and went into the ruined miller's house. I unsaddled and unbridled the horses to let them again share the cow's manger, which I replenished with hay from stacks on the leeward side of the house.
When I looked into the miller's house, Denis had turned Morgan over and laid him out, hands on his chest. Denis covered Morgan with a blanket and came out of the house without a word.
The day was darkening, and we sought shelter from the night in the windmill. I lit lamps and stoked the fire against the cold.
Denis looked horrible. His finely tailored suit was shredded and blood-spattered, his face smeared with blood and gunpowder. I imagined I did not look much better, which was confirmed when I bent over the washbasin in the bedroom upstairs. I caught a glimpse of my parchment-white face in the mirror, my dark eyes burning with a strange, feverish light.
I found bread, cheese, and ale downstairs in the kitchen, and I fell hungrily to my repast. Denis declined my offer to share the meal with him. He sat on a straight-backed chair, his hands on his lap, staring out the window through which he could see nothing.
"Grieving for him is only natural," I said around bites of thick bread. "He was a part of your life."
Denis turned his head to look at me. "Please do not speak of it."
"The man who gave me the life I needed betrayed me too."
"You mean Colonel Brandon, punishing you for loving his wife." When I did not answer, Denis looked back at the window. "You do not like to speak of that either."
"No," I said. "But Brandon and what he did to me made me realize that men are who they are. We try to make them into something they are not, and then are astonished when they turn out not to be what we wanted. We betray ourselves."
Denis got up from the chair. "Pardon me, Lacey, but I have had enough of your philosophy for one day." He walked steadily across the kitchen and opened the door. "You have fulfilled this commission for me. Pack your bags when we reach Easton's and go."
He went out into the night, closing the door behind him-not slamming it. I resumed my supper and my own troubled thoughts.
The tide turned, and the road south was dry in the morning. Waller did return, with a constable from the nearest village and the magistrate for the area: a well-fed squire on a well-fed horse.
Waller had witnessed Cooper attack us and kill Morgan, plus Cooper had held Waller hostage. The constable and magistrate were satisfied with the tale that Cooper locked Denis and me into the cellar and then ran off, fascinated by my explanation of how we'd managed to climb out through the floor. Denis said nothing, only stood looking out to sea, his back to us.
I had cleaned the boat before I'd fallen into heavy sleep the night before and had checked this morning to make sure I'd missed no smear of blood. I hadn't, but no one even looked at the boat. The magistrate went off home and the constable sent for a carter to deliver Morgan's body back to the Easton estate. They considered Cooper to be a fugitive, and the magistrate said he'd put out the hue and cry.
I knew they'd find nothing for a very long time. Denis had known exactly where to drop the body. When Cooper did eventually wash to shore, he would be too disintegrated for any but an expert to tell how he died, and then they might believe he'd fallen in with ruffians or was attacked by them. Cooper was a killer-no one would care very much how he met his end.
Denis and I spoke not at all as we rode back. Bartholomew, who'd spent an uneasy night waiting for me, had plenty of questions when I reached Easton's, especially when he saw my blood-spattered clothes. I put him off with short answers and bade him draw me a bath.
As I soaked in the hot water, I told Bartholomew to pack my things. We'd be moving into the pub at Blakeney. I did not want to go to the Parson's Point pub, because Buckley would be there, and I still did not have the fortitude to face him.
Denis summoned me before I could leave, and I went to the study.
Everything was as before-Denis sitting behind the desk, one of his lackeys at the window, looking on. The desk was bare.
Before Denis could speak, I said, "One final thing puzzles me. Cooper says he did not kill Ferguson. If he did not, then who did?"
"Cooper lied," Denis said.
"He seemed genuinely surprised that Ferguson was dead. Your surgeon told you that Ferguson had been well beaten, but before his death. The wounds on his face were made by Cooper, who was good with a cudgel. But the death blow could have been made afterward."
Denis shrugged. "Cooper delivered the final blow, Ferguson died slowly of the wound, and Cooper did not realize."
I was not so satisfied. "A second person might have come upon Ferguson later, when he was too weak to fight."
Denis rose, not caring. As far as he was concerned, the matter was at an end.
"Come with me," he said, and walked out of the room without waiting to see whether I followed.