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of raspberries within.
    ‘Oh, Phoebe, well done,’ he said and picked out the largest and juiciest berry and slipped it into his mouth. ‘So, tell me all about Blackloch Hall and the moor … and Hunter.’
    ‘Oh, I have rarely seen Mr Hunter.’ It was not a lie. ‘But he seems to be a gentleman of honour, if a little cold in manner perhaps.’ She thought of how Hunter had rescued her from the highwaymen and his discretion over the same matter.
    ‘Do not be fooled, Phoebe. From all accounts the words honour and Sebastian Hunter do not go together in the same sentence. Why do you think his mother has disowned him?’
    ‘I did not realise there was such …’ she hesitated ‘… bad feeling between them,’ she finished as she thought of the one interaction she had witnessed between Hunter and his mother. ‘What is the cause of it, I wonder?’
    ‘Who can know for sure?’ Her father gave a shrug, but there was something in his manner that suggested that he knew more of the matter.
    ‘But you must have heard something?’
    ‘Nothing to be repeated to such innocent ears, child.’ She saw the slight wince before he could disguise it. He eased himself to a more comfortable position upon the wooden stool and she saw the strain and pain that he was trying to hide.
    She pressed him no further on the matter, but tried to distract him with descriptions of the Gothic style of the house and the expansive ruggedness of the moor. And all the while she was conscious of the raw soreness of her father’s injuries. By the time she kissed her father’sundamaged cheek and made her way down the narrow staircase, her heart was thudding hard with the coldness of her purpose and there was a fury in her eyes.
    The man was leaning against the outside of the gaol, waiting for her.
    He pulled off his hat again as he came towards her. ‘Miss Allar—’ he started to say, but she cut him off, her voice hard as she hid the emotion beneath it. She looked at him and would have run the villain through with a sword had she one to hand.
    ‘I will do it, on the proviso that no further harm comes to my father.’
    There was a fleeting surprise in those narrow shifty eyes as if he had not thought her to agree so quickly.
    ‘What is it that you want me to steal?’
    And he leaned his face closer and whispered the words softly into her ear.
    She nodded.
    ‘We have been told Hunter keeps it in his study—in his desk. Bring it here with you when you visit next Tuesday. And keep your lips sealed over this, Miss Allardyce. One word to Mrs Hunter or her son and your old pa gets it.’ He drew his finger across his throat like a knife blade to emphasise his point. ‘Do you understand?’
    ‘I understand perfectly,’ she said and as the crowd hurried past, someone jostled her and when she looked round at the man again he was gone.
    Her heart was aching for the hurts her father had suffered and her blood was surging with fury at the men who had hurt him. She knew she must not weaken, must not weep, not here, not now. She straightened hershoulders, held her head up and walked with purpose the small distance to the Tontine Hotel to wait for the mail coach that would deliver her to the moor.

Chapter Three
    T he moor was bathed golden and hazy in the late evening light. Behind the house, out over the Firth of Clyde, the sun would soon sink down behind the islands, a red ball of fire in a pink streaked sky. There was no sound, nothing save the steady slow tick of the clock and the whisper of the breeze through the grass and the heather.
    Hunter remembered the last day of his father’s life. When he closed his eyes he could see his father’s face ruddy with choler, etched with disgust, and hear their final shouted exchange echoing in his head, each and every angry word of it … and what had followed. Thereafter, there had been such remorse, such anger, such guilt. He ached with it. And all the brandy in Britain and France did not change a damned