Brendan thought of Petra’s beautiful legs encased in leather breeches. His cousin probably had a point.
She took his hand in hers and led him forward. “Do you see the other patch of light? Another hole? This one is slightly larger but there is quite a lot of vegetation around the opening. I heard the birds and looked up.
Brendan did indeed see the sunlight dappling the far end of the cave. Something was glimmering in the shadows. “Have you found treasure?” He knew some of the caves had been used for smugglers in the past. A man in Castleton had found a cave several years ago filled with relics he thought were from the time the Vikings roamed the area.
“I suppose you could say so.”
The floor of the cave began to slope upward and the space became much tighter.
Petra stopped below the tiny bit of sunlight. “The opening isn’t much larger than the one I fell through and with the tree above, well, I don’t think anyone would ever see the hole unless you knew it was there.” She squeezed his fingers. “The ring on his finger was sparkling in the light. It’s what drew me to him. I thought maybe I’d found Blue John, but instead I found him.”
Brendan came closer, releasing her hand and falling to his knees before the skeletal remains of a man, bits of hair still clinging to his skull. The tatters of a hunting jacket hung on the bones of his shoulders and rotted bits of leather surrounded his feet. The boney fingers of one hand were stretched over his heart, as if he’d died in pain. A signet ring still encircled his pinky.
“It’s him, isn’t it? Your father?” Petra said quietly. “He’s wearing the same ring in the portrait at Somerton.”
The soft press of her fingers moved over his shoulder. “Yes.” He was finally looking into the face of his father. Reginald Lorne, former Earl of Morwick, had departed this world in the depths of a limestone cave within walking distance of Brushbriar. But how had he come to be here? Scores of men had scoured the countryside looking for Reggie, but in the opposite direction, closer to Somerton, not near Brushbriar. No one would have thought he’d be so far from Somerton on foot. He would have had to ride here and leave a horse. But if he’d done that, wouldn’t someone at Brushbriar have known?
“The fall must have killed him,” Brendan mused. “It’s not far, but maybe he hit his head?” He stood and Petra’s hand fell away. The skull was intact. He looked down at the way the left hand cradled the skeleton’s chest.
Carefully, he lifted up what was left of his father’s hand, allowing the ring to slide off into his palm. As he did so the wrist bones gave way and the entire hand fell to the floor.
Petra gasped from behind him. “Is that—”
Brendan looked at the shattered bones of the ribcage, knowing exactly what such a thing meant. “A hole in his chest? Yes.” Someone hadshothis father. The evidence was staring him in the face. What was left of Reggie’s jacket was torn and ragged around the hole. “He was shot and then left here to die.” His father, mortally wounded, had been flung into this hole, far from where anyone was looking for him. It could only mean one thing.
“Someone shot him intentionally,” Petra whispered.
He didn’t want to state such a thing, but it was obvious. Brendan could have assumed a hunting accident if Reggie had been found above ground. But tossed below, wounded in a tiny cave? His father had deliberately been placed here. Worse, the Earl of Morwick had still been alive, entombed in this cave and alone, probably in great pain. Whoever had done this had done so with malice and foresight.
Pendleton,Brendan’s mind whispered.
Petra crouched next to him. In spite of the dust and dirt, she still smelled of sugar cookies and roses, a scent Brendan thought the most intoxicating in the world. Her nose brushed against his arm as if she were nuzzling him.
“Stop distracting me.” Brendan parted what was left of the hunting jacket and ran his fingertips over the ancient fabric. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but there must be some clue as to why his father was dead of a gunshot wound and hidden in a cave.
“Ah.” A distinctive crackle sounded at the lower corner of the coat. A secret pocket. With great delicacy he extracted a small oilskin pouch.
“How did you know to look there?” He could feel Petra’s breath against his shoulder. A strand of honey-colored hair trailed along his forearm.
“My father was always picking up stones and other bits as he walked the moors. Every coat he had was layered with hidden pockets. He had his coats specially made for his excursions by a tailor in Buxton. Once, his valet lifted Reggie’s coat to shake off the dust and bits of ore, and a plover’s nest and a curious piece of limestone fell to the floor. Mother was still finding things Reggie squirreled away long after he died. He made a game of it, hiding trinkets he’d found for her. A lovely rock he’d say matched Mother’s eyes, a love note he’d written, or a fossil. He would beg to be searched and often she’d be forced to undress him in the process.” Brendan glanced at her. “A little shocking to think of my mother in such a way.”
Petra had seen Lady Cupps-Foster wander off with Baron Haddon the evening before but thought better of mentioning such a thing. “Your father was an original. He loved her very much, didn’t he?”
“He did. When I was a child, she would set Spence and I on some task to keep us occupied. Then she would sneak out into the garden and read something he’d written her. My brother and I found her behind a spray of tulips once, sobbing into the ground, a letter clutched in her hand. When you fell I—”
He looked away not wishing her to see the truth in his eyes.
Petra’s fingers snaked down his arm to take his hand. “Nothing happened to me, Brendan. Only a torn dress and a small scrape.”
Brendan stood and released her hand, hearing the small sound of frustration she made at his withdrawal. When he glanced at her, she merely raised a brow. Not put off in the least.
I don’t want her put off.He would rather live with Petra and no small amount of fear than with the emptiness of his life without her.Christ, he was even open to staying in London on a temporary basis. That had to mean something.
He opened the pouch and withdrew a square of parchment, faded with age. A moment went by before he could breathe, feeling as if he’d been hit square in the chest. The parchment was thin, the writing faded, but it was still incredibly legible.
“Did you find a love letter?” Petra asked.
“No, it’s a survey map.”
