Cornwall, England March 1813

The storm left more than missing roof tiles and downed tree branches in its wake. A mast, splintered like a twig in the hands of a giant's child and tossed upon the beach, a handful of spars, and masses of tangled rigging bellowed a tale of destruction. That not a box, barrel, or chest floated on the returning tide amidst the skeleton of the wrecked ship testified to destruction well beyond the ravages of the sea.

"Wreckers." Morwenna, Lady Penvenan, spat the single word as she surveyed the wreckage from the top of the cliff, her arms wrapped across her body to stave off the icy blast of wind from the sea and the chill of fear from her heart. For the second time in as many months, the local inhabitants of Penmara village had resurrected the ancient practice of luring ships to their doom upon the rocky shore below her home. She had watched the light bobbing on the cliff top, signaling safe harbor where no safety lay, knowing she couldn't stop the wreckers in the middle of their work without risking her own life and leaving her son unprotected, unable to save the ship and its passengers and crew. But now, if she didn't find out who was leading the men into lawlessness, the whispers of her involvement from the previous wreck would like as not blossom into full-blown accusations. The heaviness of her heart dragging her down as though the skirt of her woolen gown and cloak were soaked with seawater, Morwenna called to the deerhounds, who had been her constant companions since her husband's murder, and descended the cliff path to the beach. By her reckoning, she had another hour to hunt for clues before the tide turned and began to claim what the wreckers had left behind.

The dogs raced ahead, eager for a gallop on the sand after a day's confinement in the house. "Oggy, Pastie, come." She commanded the dogs back to her side.

Their noses deep in a pile of flotsam, they ignored her.

"Do not eat anything rotten."

They emerged with what appeared to be a hunk of salt beef from beneath the stays of a stove-in barrel. Nothing Morwenna would want and apparently nothing the looters had wanted either, but harmless enough to the canine palate and digestion.

Leaving them to their prize and friendly tussle over who got to gnaw on it first, Morwenna set to her formidable task. She pulled aside sheets of sodden canvas to peer beneath, rolled half-crushed kegs, and lifted one end of what had once been a handsome sea chest to which someone had taken an axe. Not so much as a button remained in the chest. The stench of rum suggested what the keg had once held. Now the barrel lay empty of even seawater. Beneath the canvas, she discovered nothing more significant than wave-pounded sand.

And so the hunt progressed. As though repentant of the damage they wrought during the night, the waves rose and fell with no more force than a lady's blue skirt in a dance, its usual roar more a rumbling hiss. Overhead, the sky glowed ice blue and clear.

Morwenna paused on the edge of the surf. As she feared, nothing of value remained on the shore. Every cask, barrel, and chest lay split open, their contents hauled away. Not even the axes and clubs used to split those containers remained to hint at the owner of the hand that wielded the implement of destruction. Wet sand had captured dozens of footprints, the deep indentation of hobnailed boots.

Every man in the village owned a pair of hobnailed boots. The footprints told no tales. Still Morwenna hunted, occasionally pausing to call to the dogs and keep them close at hand for comfort more than protection. More splintered wood or fragments of fabric, a dislodged button, even strands of hair held the potential for identification of someone.

The flotsam remained void of identifying objects save for lingering odors of rum, salted fish, the stinging stench of tar. Everything with even remote value had been picked clean. Later, men, women, and children would arrive on the beach to haul away whatever was useful to use as firewood or bits of canvas to patch a hole in thatched roofs. When the mines closed as those on Penmara had, families went hungry and cold. If she could find a way to reopen the mines, the villagers wouldn't resort to crime to survive.

She lifted her gaze from the tideline, to the remains of the vessel, one of its two masts sticking out like an accusing finger. No doubt some enterprising souls had waded or taken a boat out to the shattered hull to ensure nothing—nothing and no one—remained aboard. For those sailors who had not drowned ...

Dead men told no tales.

Morwenna said a prayer for the families of the men who had died by either the hand of nature or the hand of men. She knew all too well the anguish of being left behind.

She trudged the last hundred feet of the beach. Waves swooped in, one or two high enough to dampen her cloak and gown. With each step, her heart grew heavier until it felt like a lump of cold lead in her middle. She reached the end of Penmara land where an outcropping of rock separated the Penmara beach from Halfmoon Cove below Bastion Point, her grandparents' home. The incoming tide nearly blocked the strip of sand that allowed one to enter the cove from the beach and the entrance to a maze of caves beneath. Some of those caves ran beneath Penmara. If anyone grew suspicious about the coincidence of yet one more ship wrecked on her beach, they would likely find goods from the vessel stored in those caves, just enough to ensure she took the blame.

She kicked at a bundle of rags at the edge of the surf and turned away from the sea, calling the dogs to her side. They galloped to her like ponies. Their tongues lolled out of happy puppy grins, and Morwenna braced herself for the impact of a dozen stone worth of dog love.

But they didn't throw themselves at her. At the last moment, they swerved toward the tideline and began to snuffle at the bundle of rags, once-fine wool now waterlogged, possibly considered too damaged from salt water to be useful to anyone.

Truly? When men and women stuffed newspapers beneath their shirts for warmth, even water-stiffened wool useless?

Her heart began to thrum like war drums in her chest. "Come away from there, you two."

She clapped her hands at the dogs to get their attention above the rising surf.

A wave foamed over the bundle. The dogs backed up, snorting from snouts full of seawater, then, when the surf receded, they darted right back to poke and sniff at the bundle with muzzles and massive paws.

Suddenly certain of what the bundle of rags contained, Morwenna lunged toward the dogs. "Oggy, Pastie, enough."

Oggy, the male hound, grasped a mouthful of woolen cloak and began to pull.

"Oggy, no. Drop—" The last word choked in her throat.

The body had just moved without assistance from the dogs.

"Dogs, sit." Morwenna grasped the hounds' leather collars and hauled them away from the body. "I said sit. Now stay."

They obeyed her this time, perhaps sensing an urgency in her tone. Their bodies quivered, but they remained at the head of the tideline while Morwenna returned to the lump of sodden wool and dropped to her knees. Sand and rising seawater soaked through her gown in icy tendrils. She shivered, but ignored the discomfort. She would suffer more if she didn't inspect whether or not the incoming tide had caused the illusion, or if she really had seen a hand emerge from the folds of a cloak.

"Madam?"...