Sea of Desire Read Online Free PDF Page B

like the parchment, it
slipped... often. And then she was looking into Jared Blackstone’s
sea-green eyes. For your father’s sake, and yours, I don’t
believe you want the constable to know why I came here . What
did he mean?
    “Don’t be a fool. It was nothing more than a
ploy to save his murderous neck,” Merideth said to herself. “And it
won’t work.”
    Because tomorrow he was to hang. For the
murder of Lord Alfred Banistar.
    “ ‘Tis only just,” Merideth assured herself
as she started to read the document she picked up from the desk. If
there was a good reason for him to be here that night, Mr.
Blackstone would have mentioned it during the trial.
    Oh, he had repeated his preposterous lie
about delivering gold to her father and someone stealing it. But no
one believed him. Especially when he could give no logical reason
why he would have money for Lord Alfred.
    Merideth snorted. “Because there was no
gold.”
    Jared’s entire defense was based on
half-truths and maybes. Dr. Foster couldn’t say for sure that the
wound on Mr. Blackstone’s head was from a pistol ball. But he
couldn’t say he was knocked over the head either.
    “No, I couldn’t swear the cut wasn’t caused
by the defendant being hit with a sharp object,” Dr. Mason had
said. “But there was the spent pistol clutched in Lord
Alfred’s lifeless fingers. I’d say it likely his Lordship shot
wildly, grazing the defendant’s head,” the white-haired doctor
pronounced.
    Jared Blackstone’s only response was to
vehemently insist he was hit from behind.
    “Ridiculous lies,” Merideth mumbled, pushing
herself away from the desk. “Mr. Blackstone might as well have
confessed and saved everyone the aggravation.” Merideth walked to
the window and looked out over the heath to the cove. “At least he
didn’t mention his contention that someone wearing scarlet hit
him.”
    During the trial Merideth had expected Jared
Blackstone to cast suspicion on her with his story of a
scarlet-clad assailant. But he hadn’t.
    “He probably forgot he even made that up,”
Merideth said, then shook her head. “Now I’m talking to myself. Not
just talking but holding an entire conversation.”
    In frustration she marched back to the desk
and sank into the chair. She reached for the locket hanging from
the ribbon around her neck. Her fingers closed over the smooth
gold.
    “I have to find out,” she finally whispered.
“Oh, Papa, I have to find out what he meant.”
    Her shoulders squared, Merideth stood. After
asking Mort to saddle her horse—one of the few her father hadn’t
sold off—Merideth went to her room to change into a riding
habit.

    “I ain’t sure I should be doin’ this,” Lester
Hawson scratched his grizzled head and looked around the anteroom
to the jail as if the answer might lie in the stone walls.
    “I shall take full responsibility,” Merideth
assured him. She was glad to find Lester, one of Samuals’s
deputies, on duty, rather than the constable himself.
    “Still ain’t rightly sure. ‘Course, I can’t
ask the constable, since he went to Foxworth to visit his lady
friend. Usually makes the trip on Saturday, but weren’t ‘bout to do
it on the morrow. Not with the hangin’ set for then.”
    “And by then it will be too late for me to
say what I must to your prisoner.”
    “Now that’s for sure,” Les answered, with
enough enthusiasm in his voice for Merideth to know he looked
forward to tomorrow’s “festivities.”
    “So, may I see Mr. Blackstone now?” Merideth
tried not to fidget, but Les still leaned against the door leading
to the cell, his bulky shoulders blocking the way.
    “Well, I guess it won’t harm nothin’. You
ain’t plannin’ on shootin’ him or nothin’, are you? Wouldn’t want
to cheat the hangman?”
    “No. I simply want to talk to him about
something.”
    “Good luck to you.” Les shifted his weight.
“He ain’t the talkin’ kind. Hardly said two words since we locked
him