Amanda Scott (28 page)

“Oh, yes,” agreed Miranda quickly. “One would not wish to be behindhand in one’s obligations, Dree, but you cannot want to rush off so precipitately. Certainly not today!” The look she cast her sister was a speaking one, and as soon as they were alone, Adriana took her to task for it.

“You will have us both in the basket if you make such improper remarks, Randy. I didn’t know where to look and I was certain Lady Adelaide, if not Joshua himself, must have asked you what was so special about today.”

“Oh, nonsense, they will have thought nothing about it other than that I was trying to keep you from rushing off.”

“Well, you would not want me to desert Sally at such a time, either. And do not tell me that she will have George’s sister Charlotte to assist her, for if Charlotte gives a thought to anyone but herself and her megrims upon losing her papa, it must be for the first time in her life.”

The argument might well have continued indefinitely had not an express arrived from Sally that same afternoon, warning Adriana not to set out in haste. “She knows I will have had the news by now,” Adriana told her husband as she scanned Sally’s elegant copperplate, “and as she is well-acquainted with my generous and impulsive nature—”

“Particularly impulsive,” Joshua interjected dulcetly.

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Odious man. In any event,
as
I was telling you before you interrupted me, George’s papa having expressed a wish to be buried at Middleton Stony, they leave … No, they have already departed this morning. ‘An imposing cortege,’ Sally calls their cavalcade.”

Joshua smiled at her. “You cannot convince me that Sally will need either of us in Oxfordshire.”

“No, for her stepmama will meet her there. Indeed, she will have a houseful, for Middleton Stony is much more centrally located than the lodge, I shall write to her, of course.”

“Say everything from me that is proper, if you will.”

“Of course.”

Joshua looked at her rather more closely than before. “Are you feeling quite the thing, sweetheart? You’ve seemed a trifle out of sorts these past few days.”

Adriana flushed but forced herself to return his look. “I am fine, Joshua, truly. A little tired after all my dissipation in Brighton, perhaps, but that will pass. She smiled at him.

Though he returned the smile, he continued to regard her searchingly. “I hope you would tell me if something were wrong,” he said gently.

“Of course I would,” she replied. “Why would I not?”

He did not press her, but the exchange did nothing to salve her conscience. Since their return, she had felt closer to him than ever before. She missed him when he was attending to his duties, and she looked forward to their private moments together. She wanted nothing to happen that might weaken the growing bond between them. But when she attempted to explain the situation to her sister, that young lady nodded casually and said she quite understood and would make no further demands upon her.

“But I warn you, Dree, I mean to see this run. I have not turned fainthearted. Moreover, one of us must certainly keep the rendezvous with Mr. Braverstoke. We can scarcely entrust one of Chalford’s footmen with a message to him at this late hour.”

Adriana didn’t agree with this last statement. To leave Mr. Braverstoke waiting in vain at the bottom of the cliff path would have cost her no loss of sleep. But since she knew Miranda would go with only her maid for protection, and since she had protected her sister from the consequences of such folly for as long as she could remember, there was nothing for it now but to go with her.

She had made up her mind long before bedtime that she could not sleep with Joshua without betraying her guilty conscience, so it was with relief rather than disappointment that she accepted his suggestion that she retire early and to her own bed.

“A night’s rest will do you good,” he said gently as he took her into his arms and kissed her good night. “Let your Nancy tuck you up with a hot posset or a warm brick or whatever will bring the color back into your cheeks, and sleep the night away.”

“Yes, sir,” she murmured, snuggling against him with thought for little else other than the gentle caresses of his hands on her body.

“So obedient,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, if I hadn’t seen for myself that you are beginning to be content in this dull place, I might suspect you were up to something.”

“I am content, Joshua,” she said quickly. “Thunderhill is beginning to feel like my home, too. Truly, sir, it is.”

He smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “I know. The place grows on a person, does it not, sweetheart? I thought it would if you would but give it half a chance.”

She agreed, glad when he did not tease her more, fearing she would somehow give herself away. The night’s intended expedition no longer felt anything like an adventure, for there was only guilt, none of the exhilaration she was accustomed to feeling when she was up to mischief. She needed to make no effort to stay awake, finding it impossible to sleep, but hoping fervently that Miranda would sleep through the night.

The room was very dark when her sister came in. “Get up, Dree,” she hissed. “I thought you would be dressed. Hurry!”

Then, for a time, with Miranda’s excitement to spur her on, it did seem like other times. She scrambled into her clothes, and the two of them slipped down the stairs to the hall and out into the quadrangle. Remembering her previous experience, Adriana pulled Miranda into the shadows, but they saw no sign of the watchman. They went quietly through the marsh gate and made their way down the path.

“Beware pebbles,” Adriana whispered, “and keep silent.”

There appeared to be no activity on the beach yet, and for that she was grateful, for she was sure their progress on the path must be noted by anyone within earshot. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could see the path. There were clouds overhead, but the stars shone brightly through the spaces between them, and as Miranda had predicted, the shingle and sand showed clearly below.

They reached the bottom of the path without mishap and moved toward the large boulders. Even though she had expected him to precede them, Adriana had been so certain the beach was deserted that when Braverstoke loomed up ahead of them, she had all she could do to stifle a scream of surprise.

“Shhh,” he whispered. “We’ll crouch down over there. You will see everything much better.”

“I don’t want to get far from the path,” she said.

“We won’t, but you’ll want to be farther over to see the marsh path, so you can watch where they take the goods.”

Knowing she couldn’t stand there arguing, Adriana agreed to let him lead the way, but the farther they moved from the cliff path, the more nervous she became. “This is far enough, sir,” she muttered finally. “With all the shrubbery at the edge of the shingle, we shan’t see much anyway, and we won’t have nearly so much cover for ourselves if anyone should show a light.”

He only grunted and moved a few steps farther, but Adriana, catching her sister by the elbow, drew her back into the shelter of the tall boulders. A moment later, where the shrubbery was darkest, they saw a flash of yellow sparks, as though from a tinderbox. The signal was answered by a tiny blue light offshore. The yellow sparks glittered twice again.

“Watch the mouth of the harbor now,” whispered Adriana.

The bulk of the two-masted ship could be seen clearly against the starlit horizon as she sailed silently in.

“Lady Hetta said the harbor was boomed,” Miranda murmured.

“The captain is a spotsman, my dear,” Braverstoke said, crouching beside them, keeping his voice low. “He can find any place along this coast, I daresay, without so much as a light to guide him. The booms do not trouble him at all.”

“Well, I am persuaded he must prefer a decent, sandy landfall,” Miranda retorted. “He wouldn’t land just anywhere.”

“Nearly anywhere,” he said quietly. “Indeed, it is essential for the success of the trade that any beach may be used at any state of the tide. Otherwise it would be relatively simple for the authorities to police a few favored spots. A good captain can land anywhere. If the beach is steep, he will run right into the shingle before he drops anchor. Here, where he can expect the tide to drop and where the beach slopes out and is sandy, he will use skiffs to run the tub lines in. Watch.”

The ship anchored well off, out of danger of grounding, and within moments her sails were down and the thud and squeak of a tub boat being lowered over the side could be heard. The sound of its oars came next, and a number of shapes separated themselves from the shadows surrounding the shingle. Men whose presence had only been suspected but moments before moved down to the beach to meet the boat. Braverstoke murmured a running commentary, explaining what was transpiring below.

“Rowboat’s got the tub line,” he said. “’Tis a stout warp, like a huge necklace, with pairs of half-ankers roped together on it every few feet. The lads from shore’ll cop hold as soon as the boat reaches the beach.”

“What’s a half-anker?” whispered Miranda.

“The tubs. Can’t cart regular brandy kegs about without a great deal of difficulty, so the French very kindly put the stuff in half-barrels that can be managed more easily. The dry goods and fine stuff will be in the boat, as it goes back and forth.”

There were flashes of starlight on steel at the tideline the minute the boat rubbed onto the sand.

“They have knives,” Adriana said, startled.

“And a good many other weapons,” Braverstoke muttered. “But the knives are to cut the tubs loose from the line. They’ll pick up every piece of rope and yarn, too, so as not to leave a clear message they were here.”

Speed was essential, and the men on the beach moved in a line with rapid, well-practiced motions, slinging tubs onto their shoulders and moving from the shore back to the shadows as others moved forward to take their places.

“I keep expecting to hear a horse whicker,” Miranda said.

“They don’t use horses here in Romney Marsh,” Braverstoke said. “Easier to use humans, because of the narrow, twisting paths. On good roads, they use ponies, but here where the easiest way to elude the authorities is by throwing a plank across a dyke and picking it up on the other side, they don’t want horses. There are, moreover, lots of nearby storage places the authorities will never find. Takes a lot of men for a run of this sort, though,” he added thoughtfully.

Just then the breeze, which had been drifting idly through the cove with barely enough force to stir the leaves in the shrubbery, began to blow harder, and Adriana became aware of a high-pitched sound from the water, a near screeching wail. As it increased, the sound became irritating to her nerves. A memory stirred but would not take form in her mind.

The skiff had returned to the ship and was being rowed back to shore again, and she could see the shadow of its prow against the night sky as the men strained to bring it over the crest of the last in-rolling wave. Just then there was the sound of a heavy thud from the direction of the ship. She looked up in time to see light from a temporarily unhooded lantern glinting on a large, familiar gilded oval medallion. She heard Braverstoke gasp beside her, then utter a curse. The lantern still gleamed strongly long enough for her to realize that men were lifting something, a heavy cover of some sort, back into place.

“That’s the
Golden Fleece!”
she exclaimed, leaping up and forgetting to keep her voice down. “They simply covered up the medallions with carved wooden panels.”

“Nonsense,” Braverstoke snapped. “She’s a two-master.”

“But I’ve seen how rigging can be changed to make one style of boat look like another,” Adriana said. “Perhaps that mast squeaks so because it is not a permanent fixture. I know that’s your boat, sir. Surely, you know her lines, even in the dark. Why, Chalford says that any man can recognize his own boat.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Braverstoke said angrily. “Any sloop looks like any other sloop, and that is not a sloop, moreover.”

“There is something in a Shakespeare play about protesting too much, sir,” Adriana said then, quietly. “I can think of only one reason for you to refuse to recognize your own ship, and that explains your knowing so much about what was planned—”

“Enough!” he snapped. There was a flurry of movement, and she saw the glint of metal in his right hand at the same moment that Miranda cried out sharply in pain.

“Let go of me!”

“Stay where you are, Adriana,” he ordered roughly. “I’ve a pistol in my hand and I won’t hesitate to use it.”

But Adriana, at the first gleam of metal, had leapt to her feet and stepped back, feeling with her hand for the boulder behind her. She backed against it now and moved carefully around, hoping that in the darkness he couldn’t see her clearly.

She could hear Miranda struggle, cursing him in words that would have brought either a smile or a reprimand to Adriana’s lips at any other time, but for the moment she was only glad that her sister distracted him.

Braverstoke shouted, “Where are you, damn you? I’ll kill her, I swear I will, if you so much as mention my name to anyone. Do you hear me, girl? You keep mum, or she’s dead!”

“He’ll kill us both if he can, Dree. His secret’s out if he doesn’t. Run! Get help!”

Moving as silently as she could and as quickly as she dared, Adriana made her way back toward the cliff path. She was heading for the foot of it when she heard him shout orders to his men.

“Find the bleeding wench! Don’t let her escape. And get the goods away, whatever happens.”

Changing her route, certain that anyone who searched for her would also make for the path, Adriana began climbing, hoisting her skirts out of her way and grasping at rocks and scrub to haul herself up the hillside beneath the marsh gate. Turning once to look over her shoulder, she saw Braverstoke outlined against the shingle, dragging Miranda from the boulders toward the tideline. There didn’t seem to be anyone immediately behind her, but there were many shadows moving on the beach, and she could hear men shouting to one another as they tried to find her. Someone lit a torch, but a gruff voice shouted at him to snuff it out again.