Revenge of the Barbary Ghost (28 page)

She stared at him, her eyes wild with fury. Baffled, he backed away from her. What had he said?

“You will
never
understand,” she cried.

“Understand what?”

“That I wish to do these things for myself.”

“Why should you?” he asked, perplexed. “I told you, I’ll take care of it all. Isn’t that what’s important here? That Miss St. James is safe, successful, and that you are safe, too?”

“Oooh!” She swiped at her hat on a nearby rock, missed it, and made another grab, successfully grasping it and clamping it on her head, ruining its shape in her agitation. She stopped and fought to regain her temper. She turned to him, and there was a frightening sadness in her eyes. “You just don’t understand, and I thought you might. You say you love me. How can you love me when you don’t even understand me?”

“Then tell me!” he said, holding out one hand to her.

“No. We’ve come too far for that. If you can say you love me when you don’t even know me, then that’s it.”

He felt a cold fear clutch his belly, but it was warmed by the flame of his anger. “Don’t say anything you’ll regret, Anne.”

“Don’t threaten me,” she said, her chin jutting pugnaciously. “Don’t you
dare
threaten me. If my friendship with Pam displeases you, if you can with a sober expression claim Pam is close to being a fallen woman because her brother has died, if you are
offended
by my remaining in this house, then I would advise you to take yourself away from here and return to Yorkshire. Go. Run. Consider yourself fortunate that I don’t hold you to your ridiculous proposal.”

“Anne, I’m warning you,” he said, the flame leaping into a searing fire of baffled fury. “Don’t threaten
me
, and if you think I’m going anywhere, then you have mistaken me. For I
will
save you from yourself. Women’s tempers were not meant for action. I will protect you from your own inexperience in matters such as this. You cannot conceive of how this could harm you, but I won’t let it.”

“Oooh!” She balled her hands into fists and shook them in the air. “Oh, to be told I’m incapable of rational thought, that I don’t understand life, by one prime example of the miscreant sex I have fought my whole life: men! Men, who insist on keeping me packed in cotton wool so I will not hurt myself.”

She glared at him, but then continued, saying, “Do you think that for my twenty-four years I have read only ladies’ magazines, the ones that tell me I am poorly formed for decision making? That claim I’m impetuous and a danger to myself, therefore I am given in subjugation to some man?” She turned and strode back down the tunnel.

But she paused, turned back, and said, her voice calm, if her expression was tight-lipped, “I know your education has taught you that women are to be guarded, for their virtue rests on the fragile knife edge between their physical strength and their moral understanding, both so much less than a man’s as to give their guardians justification for interfering in their life at every turn.” She shook her head. “But I thought you were capable of independent thought, that you had begun to take me at my word, and to trust that there was some measure of intelligence in my brain. Go find a woman who wants your interference.
Go
, damn you. Find a lady who will wish to be protected and coddled and cosseted and kept from any kind of life! That is not me!”

And she was gone.

***

Darkefell had grabbed his jacket and neckcloth and stomped away from the argument with Anne, sure that he must go home to Yorkshire or go mad. When he pulled his jacket on, he discovered her lace fichu was jammed down one sleeve, and he stopped, riveted. He lifted it to his nose and inhaled Anne’s essence. Love was madness, and if he was going mad, then he would go all the way. He stuffed the wispy triangle in his pocket.

A long walk and a few hours’ reflection brought him back to rational thought. He would never leave Cornwall while Anne was in danger, and if she intended to help Pamela St. James in the smuggling, then she was certainly in danger. Whether she liked it or not, he was going to intervene. When he got back to the Barbary Ghost Inn, he summoned Johnny Quintrell and had a long talk.

The next morning, while an increasingly ferocious wind whipped down St. Wyllow’s sloping street, Darkefell, Johnny, and Osei paid a visit to an ostentatious house far too large for the owner’s apparent income; it was the abode of Mr. Francis Puddicombe.

“Will you let us in, Harriet?” Johnny asked the pretty girl.

Her face pale, and tear trails down her cheeks, she at first shook her head, gazing in wide-eyed terror at Darkefell and Osei. But Johnny whispered some words in her ear, she blushed and finally nodded. Puddicombe was absent on business, his daughter said, and that was exactly as the men had planned it should be. They entered the grandiose abode and were led to a sitting room on the second floor, decorated lavishly in execrable fashion, oriental paper and silks, dark wood furnishings and heavy draperies.

“Miss Puddicombe,” Darkefell said, trying to get comfortable on the lumpy, ill-made sofa, “please, do not be alarmed by our incursion into your home. We wish you no harm, as Johnny can attest.”

She still had not met his eyes, but Darkefell was accustomed to that, for his elevated station commanded abashment in some, fear in others.

“He’s our friend, Hattie,” Johnny said, taking her small, soft hands in his. He sat beside her, his knees touching hers, his broad, plain face clearly showing his adoration of the pretty girl. He squeezed her hands, and said, “Tell them, Hattie; tell the gentlemen what you’ve told me.”

With his gentle encouragement, Harriet Puddicombe tremblingly admitted that she had overheard her father on many occasions speak with men about night landings. She hesitated, though, in connecting her father to more in the way of criminal activities.

Osei finally spoke up. “Miss Puddicombe,” he said, “these are dangerous men your father is dealing with. Are you not concerned that he will meet his end at their hands if he is unwise enough as to trust them? Is it not your duty as a daughter to preserve his life if you can, be it even through what may seem betrayal of your daughterly duty?”

She hesitated, but then, her lower lip trembling, asked, “But if he is discovered to have taken part in the smugglers’ trade, will his life not be forfeit on the gallows?”

“Punishment for such an infidelity to his public office would not be death, miss,” Osei replied. “He may be incarcerated for a time, and be levied a fine, but it seems to me that would depend upon the decision rendered by the local magistrate, Mr. Twynam. If his case were pled by so illustrious a personage as my lord, the Marquess of Darkefell, I think that his verdict will rather err on the side of mercy.”

“Would you take his part, sir, if it should appear that Mr. Twynam will be harsh?” she said, turning her gaze to Darkefell.

The marquess shifted, uncomfortably, but knew he must tell the truth. “It depends upon what your father may have done. If his sole participation in this scheme is as a smuggler, then I can promise you my support. My concern is mostly with finding the perpetrator of Captain St. James’s murder, and keeping others involved in the smuggling, including your young man, here, safe from harm.”

She sighed, looking relieved, but Darkefell was not done.

“However,” he said, his tone serious, “if your father has done more, if his deeds include such a foul one as murder, then I cannot, nor would I ever, help him escape his just reward.” He watched her face, the tears clouding her blue eyes, the trembling lip, the nose clogged and dripping as she applied a handkerchief delicately.

Johnny spoke up then. “Harriet, your pa hurt you bad. How many times ’ave I seen the bruises on your arms with me own eyes?” He paused, but then, his expression set with resolve, went on: “Hattie, my girl, do you not want t’marry me? Me da has promised his help, an’ you know ’e’s a man o’ his word. We can be married right off, and be happy. You deserve that, after the life you’ve been pushed into.”

She met his look and capitulated. Sobbing, she said, “Do what you must, gentlemen. Johnny is right; my father can be cruel, and I can no longer live like this. I want to m-marry Johnny! If … if my father had any part in the death of poor Captain St. James, then … then …” She broke off, weeping, and collapsed against her fiancé’s shoulder.

That was all the encouragement and permission Darkefell needed. He and Osei left Harriet and Johnny to plan her escape, while they searched the house from top—the excise man’s office—to the bottom, the locked cellar. What they found was well worth the risk, and Darkefell, amused at his part in this escapade, now knew he would proceed with his own plans for the final smuggling run. He would not allow Anne to be hurt, nor would he let her stand alone with her friend. If reputations were to be damaged, his would suffer along with hers.

That evening, Darkefell sat in his room at the Barbary Ghost Inn writing a letter to his land agent concerning his still-pending purchase of Hiram Grover’s estate. Since the man’s body had not yet been recovered, the sale was stalled, the manor servants on half pay, and the ongoing costs of feeding the remaining livestock and caring for the house and attached acres fell on Theophilus Grover. As a vicar, the young man, newly married, was not deep-pocketed enough to pay.

Darkefell authorized Mr. Posthumous Jones, his agent, to pay all associated costs until such a time as Grover could be declared dead, or was discovered. It would not benefit the estate to let it fall into ruin, nor would he allow livestock to starve, nor should the human serving staff who still cared for the house, grounds and stables suffer. The estate was intended to be a gift to his brother, John, and Lydia. She had been complaining for some time about living with their mother, the indubitably strong-willed dowager marchioness, and this would at least remove them a quarter mile. But none of it could be solved until the legal tangle of Hiram Grover’s death or disappearance was settled.

Osei was busying himself with the multiple duties he had assumed as factotum while they traveled: secretary, valet, oddsbody, and coconspirator. He readily answered the hesitant tap at the door, and opened it to Johnny, who stood in the narrow hallways shifting back and forth on his feet, appearing uneasy. Darkefell observed him from the desk by the window. The dark circles under his eyes and his pallid complexion did not seem natural in such a hardy young man.

“You don’t look at all well, Johnny,” Darkefell said, folding his letter and setting it aside. “What is going on?”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, milord, Mr. Boatin,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb, but looking over his shoulder down the dim hall. He leaned into the room and whispered, “Micklethwaite ’as called a meetin’ fer tonight. I suspect we’ll get our marchin’ orders, as to the big landing. ’E’s on ’is way now, to th’ pub down’t th’ dock.”

“Pub?” Darkefell asked.

“Aye, the Dirty Dog. Only seamen goes there, milord.”

“And so shall we,” Darkefell said.

Johnny looked at him askance, dressed as he was in a richly patterned banyan of purple and red, and a tasseled cap.

“Not dressed in this,” Darkefell said with a grin. He shrugged it off and tossed it aside, to show himself dressed in just his smallclothes. “Nor can Mr. Boatin show his face without being recognized, for I have seen no one else of his particular dusky complexion here. No, we must find someplace to conceal ourselves at this ‘Dirty Dog.’”

Johnny thought for a long moment, then snapped his fingers. “I knows where y’both can hide.”

Thus it was that an hour later, dressed in disreputable clothing donated by Johnny, articles raggedy enough they had been consigned to a rag bag, Darkefell and Osei huddled in the darkest corner of the low cellar under the Dirty Dog, a pub that lived up to its name in filth and smell. And probably in being flea-infested, for Darkefell had an uneasy sensation that he would be covered in bites by the time he crawled from his hiding place.

The things to which he would subject himself, and all for the love of a woman, he reflected in the dark silence. How many times had he made sport of love poems detailing male heroics to win the love of a woman? And yet he had willingly crept under a filthy cellar with the stench of fresh urine and decaying fish all around him, and all hoping to aid Anne.

Above was a small private room at the back of the Dirty Dog. Through the crevices in the floorboards a little light leaked, and as Darkefell’s eyes grew accustomed, he could at least see his surroundings as a collection of shadows. Soon he heard the tramp of booted feet, the obscured murmurs of several men, and many rumbling belches and the unmistakable sound of spitting.

“How far will a man descend, Osei, to win fair maid?” he murmured, bemused.

“He will descend at least to the cellar, sir,” the secretary swiftly, though softly, replied. “Do you intend, then, to relate to Lady Anne all about this particular adventure, including the eruptions from above, as evidence of your devotion?”

Darkefell stifled a laugh as a flatulent explosion from someone above reverberated through the tight space. “What do those men eat, I wonder, to produce such odious noises? And how do their ladies put up with them?”

But he became serious as the strident voice of command, belonging to none other than Captain Samuel Micklethwaite—a little muffled, but still heard easily enough, and clearly the ship captain’s hearty tone and accent—called them all to order, or, in other words, told them to “shut their gobs and listen.”

As soon as the weather broke, the lads and Lord Brag would be landing a great haul on the beach below Cliff House, Darkefell translated from Micklethwaite’s rough accent. All hands would be needed, and there would be no fear from the excise officer, the captain confidently stated, for silver had crossed palms.

At length, after a great deal more drinking and shouting, the sound died and Darkefell, his legs cramped from the tight quarters, crept along the passage and through a cellar door into the black night, followed closely by Osei. Darkefell breathed in deeply the relatively clean scent of seaside air. The odors of the dock were as nothing compared to urine and rotting fish.