Read Online Revenge of the Barbary Ghost by Donna Lea Simpson - Free Book Online

time they had been together, she had almost tumbled off a cliff of similar height. Perhaps that explained his unease. “But there is a reason for being here,” she insisted. “Look out … what do you see?”
    He relaxed as she stopped edging toward oblivion, and turned his gaze to sea. “Water. Sky. The sun. Clouds.”
    “And?” she asked.
    The bluff was high and had a grand view of the shoreline for miles. To the west the property sloped gradually, trailing downward for about a half mile toward a scythe-shaped slice of beach in the distance. Directly below the bluff upon which they stood was a sand beach that was broad at low tide, but that virtually disappeared at high tide. To the east was a jagged cut, a deep V that sloped up, with high-walled sides of rock and a floor of sand disrupted with rocky outcroppings, like broken black teeth jutting through the sandy slope.
    The marquess held his hand up to shade his eyes and surveyed it all, then turned back toward Anne. “Am I missing something?” Darkefell asked. “What the devil else is there to see?”
    “No, you’re absolutely correct,” she said, returning to stand in front of him. “There is nothing else to see. Except,” she said, coming closer to him, “I saw, night before last, a Mussulman pirate hovering just beyond the cliff edge in the middle of the air!”
    He stared into her eyes, then burst into laughter. Sobering, he said, “Really, Anne, you had me believing you were serious for a moment.”
    “But I did see it!” she insisted, feeling the irritation he always seemed to inspire within her. “I saw the famous local specter, the Barbary Ghost!”
    “And this was in the middle of the night? What were you doing out here at that time? And alone? Anne,” he said, taking both her shoulders in his big hands, “promise me you won’t venture out in the night again. Promise me!” He shook her slightly.
    “Don’t be ridiculous, Darkefell,” she said, twisting her shoulders out of his hands. Of course he had missed her point, or was ignoring it, which amounted to the same thing. “There’s more … listen!” She leaned into him, excited even at the memory of the spectacle. “Before I saw the Barbary Ghost, I saw smugglers gathering on the beach, welcoming a rowboat, and transferring smuggled goods to a dray on the beach!”
    “This is too much!” he growled. “You’re no fool, or at least I didn’t judge you to be one. If there are smugglers involved, then this is even more dangerous than some tomfoolery with a ghost. You must never come out at night, Anne, for those who witness smuggling often pay with their lives. They’re a cutthroat tribe, and would not hesitate even though you’re a woman.”
    “I’m no fool, Darkefell,” she said, coldly, disappointed in his prosaic reaction. She had thought him adventurous.
    “Exactly what I said. But you have proven to be reckless in the past.”
    She watched his eyes. He was genuinely concerned for her safety, and she understood that, but still, he could not expect to tell her what to do. “Darkefell, I don’t suppose you really understand a woman’s life.” She examined his face, and saw the quick frown of incomprehension, but she would get to her point soon enough. “I have been watched and guarded my whole life. While the young men I knew in my youth went to sea, traveled to Italy and beyond, studied at Oxford, and spent their years gambling, drinking, and roaming the world, I took dancing lessons, learned to play the pianoforte, and spent my hours netting purses, learning the fine art of directing a household of servants, and entertaining the vicar and his wife.”
    He sighed. “I understand your wish for excitement, Anne, but engaging in hazardous … no, worse than hazardous, thoughtless activities will only end in an early death and heartbreak for those who care for you.”
    “By your judgment, but why should I substitute your judgment of unsuitability for my