Читать книгу Compromised Miss - Anne O'Brien - Страница 8

The English Channel—July 1813.

‘Hurry! Sky’s clearing. Time we were gone.’

A sleek little English cutter lay off the French coast, hardly more than a shadow on the swell of a sullen sea and aptly named Lydyard’s Ghost, dark sails furled. The Captain who had issued the warning stood at the helm, one hand steady on the tiller, eyes ever alert, from shore to sky to the stowing of the bales and casks. A compact young man from what could be seen, clad as the rest of his crew in heavy boots, smock and wide trousers, a thick coat pulled over all and a stocking cap well down on his brow, he watched with innate authority. A half-dozen rowing boats headed smartly back to the French shore, to Port St Martin, only one remaining to complete the unloading—a fine brandy—of its illicit cargo.

The Captain acknowledged a sense of satisfaction. It had all gone according to plan so far.

‘That’s it, Cap’n Harry. All stowed aboard.’ An elderly, stout individual named George Gadie pushed himself away from the gunwale with a raised salute.

‘Excellent! Get the sails up, George.’ The Captain strode the length of the cutter with a leather purse in his hand, leaning to address the French smugglers in the rowing boat. ‘Au revoir, Monsieur Marcel. A lucrative cargo for us and a purse of guineas for you, as agreed. A bientôt, mon ami.’

‘A minute, Captain Harry, if you will.’ To the Captain’s surprise, Monsieur Marcel swung up into the cutter. ‘Another piece of cargo for you. Will you take it?’

The Captain frowned. ‘Is it worth my while?’

‘No.’ Marcel guffawed. ‘But we don’t want it, do we, lads? Hoist it up, Pierre.’ He gestured down to the sailors in the rowing boat who stood around a dark shape. Next moment it was lifted and pushed and finally tumbled over the side to fall aboard the cutter.

The Captain crouched to inspect. ‘What’s this?’

‘Pierre found him on the quay. A brawl—and he came off worst.’ Monsieur Marcel lifted his shoulders in deliberate contempt. ‘English, and not dead yet, that’s all I know. Pockets empty—robbed, I expect.’ Marcel was already climbing back over the cutter’s side. ‘All I know is he’s in with a disreputable crowd led by a slimy ruffian named Jean-Jacques Noir whose got his fingers in all sorts of foul pies. Noir’d sell his sister—damn! He’d sell his mother if it lined his pockets. And he’d use a knife against any man who stood in his way.’

The Captain stared down at the inert body at his feet. ‘What do I do with him?’

‘Take him back to England. Or drop him overboard if you wish.’ Still seated astride, Marcel grunted with fierce amusement. ‘He’s up to no good here. Most like a English spy, passing on information or guineas, if he’s in league with Jean-Jacques Noir. He obviously failed to meet Noir’s demands. A falling out of rogues, I expect…’ Marcel dropped back down into the rowing boat.

‘Tide’s turning, Cap’n Harry,’ George Gadie at the cutter’s bow warned.

‘Right.’ Looking across at the run of the waves, the Captain decided. ‘We must go, so he must come with us.’ A quick shake of hands, leaning down to Monsieur Marcel, and the heavy leather bag was tossed down to the French smuggler. ‘Here’s the gold as agreed.’

‘Enjoy the contraband. The brandy’s the best. And the silk.’

The Captain’s smile glinted in a shaft of moonlight as the clouds shifted to bathe the dark-painted cutter in silver. Sails, fore and aft, were set with impressive speed and the cutter put out to sea with its unexpected cargo.

Safely underway, the Captain beckoned to George Gadie, who promptly turned the body over with rough hands and a careless shove of his boot.

‘Let’s see what we’ve got here, George. Less value to us than a bolt of silk cloth…’

The words dried at the sight. Blood and sea water disfigured the shoulder, breast and sleeve of a well-cut coat. A man of means then, Captain Harry recognised, although the garment was now ruined beyond repair. The Captain pulled open the lapels to show where the white shirt beneath, of finest linen beneath his fingers, was also dark with blood. Spying, then, was a lucrative business, if a dangerous one, he decided without compassion, for the dark hair was slick and matted from a ragged cut above the hairline. He was soaked to the skin, the wound still bleeding, his face and lips starkly colourless, pale as death. Deep lines of pain were engraved between well-marked brows, also bracketing his mouth. A knife wound, not dangerous but sluggishly oozing blood, angled down his cheek. He was deeply unconscious but, crouching, the Captain could feel the steady heartbeat beneath the heel of his hand.

George grunted. ‘A spy, d’you think, Cap’n? Don’t look too dangerous now, does ‘ee? The knife scar’ll mar his pretty looks. Let’s get him out of the way. Gabriel…!’ Summoning his son, taking hold of shoulders and booted feet between them, they began to heave the dead weight against the boat’s side planking.

‘Wait.’ The Captain put out a hand, grasping Gabriel’s arm and crouched again. A weak groan came from the ashen lips. The man’s eyes, heavy with pain and confusion, opened.

‘Where am I?’ A hoarse croak of a whisper.

‘On your way back to England,’ Captain Harry informed.

‘No…I can’t. I can’t leave yet….’

‘No choice. You’ll do as I say.’ The Captain’s clipped reply was brutal.

A hand was lifted to curl weakly into the cloth of the Captain’s sleeve. The pain-racked eyes tried to focus. ‘Take me back. I’ll pay you…’

‘What with? You’ve no money in your pockets, my friend.’

‘I don’t remember…’ The eyes blurred with incomprehension, closed and then snapped open as if searching for a memory. ‘Jean-Jacques Noir…he broke his word….’

‘I expect he did. You were robbed, it seems.’ The Captain’s lips curled in derision, a thorough distaste for what this man represented. Smuggling was one thing. Was he himself not a skilled proponent of the trade, the name of Captain Harry well known along the coast of Suffolk? Nor was he ashamed of it. But spying for the enemy was quite another matter. The Gentlemen of the Free Trade had a code of honour to live by, whereas spying, handing over delicate information to England’s enemies, was despicable by anyone’s standards. ‘You were in a common brawl—perhaps you fell out with your French contacts.’

‘What?’ The eyes struggled again, without success, to focus. The line between the brows dug deeper. ‘I don’t remember…’

‘What motivates a spy to harm his own country?’ There was hard cynicism in the Captain’s reply, at odds with his youthful features. ‘I suppose you pass information to the enemy for the money. And sometimes it all goes wrong and greed wins. Whatever information you gave to Monsieur Noir, you were not paid for it. A wasted trip all in all.’

‘Not a spy…’ The voice slurred. ‘Not a traitor…’ As the cutter lurched against a freshening wind, the man’s head came into contact with the side of the little vessel and he slid into unconsciousness again.

The Captain gave a short laugh and pushed himself to his feet. ‘They all say that when the truth’s out. And how would you know if you’re a spy or not—if you can’t remember?’

‘Do we deliver him to the authorities, Cap’n?’ George Gadie asked.

‘Not sure.’ The Captain’s stern contemplation of the body was transformed into a grin of pure mischief. ‘A prize for the Preventive men to compensate for their failure to capture our fine brandy and silks? Serve him right if we did. But I don’t know…We’ll see what he has to say for himself when we get back.’

‘We could just tip him overboard, Cap’n Harry, as Monsieur Marcel suggested. Save us a deal of trouble.’ The old fisherman, sometime smuggler, pursed his lips as if savouring the fast remedy.

‘No. I’ll not have his blood, distasteful as it is, on my hands. Enough of him, George. Let’s get this cargo home and safely delivered.’

And as Captain Harry straightened to his full height against the gunwale, he tugged at the stocking cap and pulled it off as the little vessel kicked and picked up speed. To release a luxuriant ripple of dark hair into the lively wind. Wild and untamed, it curled and drifted around a classically oval face, drawing attention to sparkling grey eyes, as sultry as the sea in the heat of mid-summer, or as coolly silver as the flash of pale sun on water at daybreak. It left no doubt in the mind of any who might have been mistaken of what they were seeing.

Despite the seaman’s garb, Captain Harry—Miss Harriette Lydyard—was a very attractive, very feminine woman.

Before she turned her mind and hands to the ropes and sails, she took the time to looked down at the still figure at her feet. He was pretty as George had so mockingly observed. Hair? Impossible to tell with the blood and the water, but not fair. Eyes—well, too dark from shock and pain to tell. She crouched again to lift one of his hands from where it lay lax and inert. Filthy as it was, yet it was elegant and fine-boned with well-pared nails. She ran her own fingers over his palm, the smooth fingers. No calluses here, so not the hands of a working man. Clearly a man of wealth, as confirmed by his ruined clothes. They were made by a London tailor if she knew anything about it. Which she didn’t—but enough to recognise the skill was beyond anything produced in Brighton or Lewes. Gently enough she replaced the hand on the man’s chest, although her sense of loyalty and justice damned him for his treacherous calling. Many would call smuggling a disgraceful operation, putting gold into the hands of the French enemy, but compared with spying—well, it did not compare, did it?

It was a striking face, a haunting face, without doubt. Unable to resist, Harriette Lydyard ran her knuckles down the unblemished cheek, along the firm jawline, and felt her heart thud in her chest. No where was a face that would take any woman’s eye. A faint ripple of awareness of this man who was in her power shivered over her skin. If things were different…

Harriette hitched a shoulder as a fitful cloud covered the moon and hid the traitor from her gaze. There was nothing she could do for him. For now he would have to take his chances, but with practical roughness she unwound his crumpled cravat—once impeccably starched and superbly folded—then wadded and stuffed the pad of cloth within the shoulder of his coat to staunch any further bleeding. If fate intended him to survive, then he would.

Head tilted, her appraisal moved back, of its own volition, to his face, the straight nose, the well-sculpted cheekbones, to be thwarted once again when the moon slid behind a bank of clouds.

Harriette Lydyard rose to her feet with a huff of breath. A shame that a man so attractive should be so reprehensible as to be a trader in English secrets. Still, she found the time and inclination to throw a heavy rug over the prone body and push a small packet of priceless lace beneath his head.

Some hours later Harriette breathed out steadily, a long sigh of relief. The excitement of a run was heady, the success of it heated her blood, but the dangerous tension of the landing was always acute. There was always the chance that it would end in disaster, their cargo taken into custody by triumphant Excise men and the crew of Lydyard’s Ghost hauled before the magistrate. As all Gentlemen of the Free Trade knew, the penalty for smuggling could be the noose.

Tonight, as smooth as the bolts of silk they carried, all went without a hitch. A silent cove. No sneaky Revenue lugger lying in wait for them, no squad of Excise men with a lookout on the cliffs. Would that all landings were as sweet. Captain Rodmell, the keen-eyed Preventive Riding Officer, and his company of dragoons were no doubt all asleep in their beds in the Guard House at Lewes, dreaming of apprehending a priceless consignment of liquor and tea, lace and silk, unaware of what was unfolding on the shingle beach at Old Wincomlee.

Standing on the beach at last, Harriette rubbed her hands down the sides of her breeches in satisfaction at a job well done. It was the perfect location for such an enterprise where a natural dip in the land and the cliffs created an inlet with a gently sloping beach, a smugglers’ paradise. Harriette’s own, much-loved, house, Lydyard’s Pride, stood high above them on the cliffs that enclosed and protected. From there, an unshuttered lantern lit in the Tower Room above the east wing had sent its beams out to sea, assuring them that all was well for a landing. Now it was done. Barrels and bales had been speedily dispatched to the welcoming hands of lords and labourers alike, by pony or brawny shoulders. The cutter, her own pride and joy, the Lydyard’s Ghost, was beached and drawn up on the shingle within the bay as any fishing smack might be.

The beach emptied apart from George Gadie and his son, Gabriel, fishermen whose family had lived in Old Wincomlee for generations, smuggling in their blood. And in Harriette’s, too, as a Lydyard through and through. All Lydyards had sailed between England and France for at least two centuries to bring back illicit luxuries that were taxed beyond belief. All except for Harriette’s brother, Sir Wallace Lydyard, knight, Justice of the Peace and proud owner of Whitescar Hall. Her half-brother, not a true Lydyard, which probably explained the man’s mealymouthed disapproval of the Free Trade. So it was on Harriette’s shoulders to carry on the tradition and the responsibility of the runs, for the benefit of the whole fishing community of Old Wincomlee.

But now Harriette must deal with her unexpected cargo. He lay on the shingle where he had been dropped by two burly landsmen, more interested in disposing of barrels of liquor than in the comfort of the unknown and bloody traveller.

‘Well, Cap’n Harry? What’s it to be?’ George asked.

Well, what was it to be? Harriette looked down at the broken figure at her feet. Leave him to die on the beach, and good riddance to a traitor? Hand him over to Captain Rodmell and the Preventive men? Or…or what? He might even be dead for all she knew. His face was turned away from her, but one hand was flung out on the ground, fingers curled, as if beseeching mercy.

Against all her better judgement, that helpless gesture wrung her heart.

She looked up, tensing, eyes wide and instantly alert as she caught the scrunch of pebbles beneath booted feet. A figure strode across the beach towards them. Harriette promptly relaxed and raised a hand in greeting.

‘It went well, Harry.’ Her cousin, Alexander Ellerdine, his face full of wild energy, joined them. ‘A good run, in a quick time.’

‘Zan! Excellent.’ A brief clasp of hands. ‘And an equally good landing, all due to you. Monsieur Marcel is willing for another run within the month.’

‘We can do that.’ Alexander’s confidence was as bright as the lantern in the Tower Room window. ‘I’ll pass the word.’ He turned to go. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked, appraising the body.

Harriette’s lips parted to tell him. Then, uncertain as to why, she changed her mind. She wasn’t used to keeping secrets from Alexander, but she would keep her knowledge of this man with the haunting face and wicked crime tucked away. Just until she know more of him—and had made up her mind what to do with him.

‘An Englishman who fell on bad times,’ she announced. ‘We don’t know anything more, other than that his clothes suggest he’s got deep pockets. Marcel delivered him with the barrels and we brought him home.’ She ignored George Gadie’s angled glance, even as she felt quick colour rise in her face. Lies did not come easily to her.

‘Shall I take him?’ Zan offered with barely a glance and less interest. ‘I’ll hand him over to Sam Babbercombe at the Silver Boat.’

‘No.’ It came out sharper than she had intended. ‘I’ll take him.’

‘Why would you want to do that?’

‘No reason.’ She tightened her lips as she considered the helpless figure. Hand him over to the rough care of the innkeeper in Old Wincomlee, who would kill him with neglect before he put himself out for a penniless, injured man? Never. And besides…Harriette felt an uncomfortable response touch her spine as the man groaned, little more than a sigh, and turned his head. The wound was stark and ugly on his cheek. For some inexplicable reason she did not want to abandon him into Alexander’s care. ‘He’s halfdead already. It’s closer to take him to Lydyard’s Pride than the inn.’ When she saw Zan’s brows rise, she hurried on. ‘He might have information of use to us.’ Harriette cast about for logical reasons. ‘It might be in our interests to restore him to health.’ She chuckled to hide her discomfort. ‘We can always extort money from him for saving his life! Sam at the Silver Boat won’t care whether he lives or dies.’

‘I don’t see how he can know anything to our advantage…’ Harriette watched, all the tension returning to her tired muscles as Alexander knelt to turn the man’s face, to make what he could of the features. Harriette thought his frown deepened and caught his sharp, rather sly, glance. ‘Going to save his life, Harriette? Play the guardian angel to soothe his brow?’

‘Nothing of the sort. How foolish you are!’ She did not like the smooth teasing, nor the hint of malice, but summoned a smile. ‘We can’t stand here arguing the case, Zan,’ she responded lightly enough. ‘Have all the goods gone?’

Alexander stood, his face alight. ‘Yes. I kept some particularly fine lace for the fashionable ladies of Brighton. They’ll pay handsomely.’ To her inexplicable relief his interest in the man had died. ‘Do you need help?’ He wound a warm arm around her waist and pressed a quick kiss to her temple.

Momentarily Harriette leaned her head against her cousin’s shoulder in gratitude, then straightened. ‘No. George and Gabriel will take care of him. You can do one thing for me, Zan. Best if my brother doesn’t get wind of this, or my whereabouts tonight. You can head Wallace off if he wants to know where I am. Tell him I’ll stay the night at the Pride and return to Whitescar Hall tomorrow. It might save my skin from a rare tongue lashing. And then send Meggie to me, would you? She’ll know what to bring. And tell her—bring some linen and one of Wallace’s dressing gowns. I think we’ll need it.’

‘I’ll do that.’ Alexander again searched her face with a quizzical gleam and ran his hand down Harriette’s arm, an intimate little gesture that surprised her and impelled her to take a step away. Alexander had never treated her with anything but cousinly affection, not even a casual flirtation, certainly no attempt to engage her interest. Then the moment was gone, so fast that she thought she must have been mistaken. ‘Don’t waste too much energy on your bloody catch,’ he now added, nudging the man’s foot with the toe of his boot. ‘Probably not worth anything. I’d throw it back in the sea and have done with it.’

A salute to her cheek, and Alexander strode off to where his horse waited on the shingle. The bloody catch, as he had put it with singular lack of compassion, was pushed ignominiously by Gabriel Gadie across the back of a pony, before George set off to lead the animal up the steep but well-worn track between the beach and Lydyard’s Pride, the house on the cliff where the lantern still beamed its welcome. And Harriette, walking at the side of the inert figure, resisted a temptation to smooth her fingers over the dark hair.