Smugglers' Summer (21 page)

Octavia dressed quickly and hurried down to the Great Hall. By the light of a single candle, Sir Tristram was pacing impatiently up and down. He came to meet her and took her hands in his.

“I was sure you would come. Did Ada explain? I
must
go to Jack and those damned dragoons are everywhere. I hope that if you are with me they will think we have a lovers’ rendezvous. It is a great deal to ask of you, I know, though if you keep the cloak close about you they cannot be sure who you are. But they will guess, after seeing the four of us today, and there may be talk.” He searched her face.

“I hardly think soldiers’ gossip is likely to reach my aunt,” she said calmly, “still less my parents in London!”

“I knew you were game! It is bright moonlight, which lends colour to our story. Leave all the talking to me.”

“You take care of her, sir!” ordered Ada, who had followed Octavia in and was listening, arms akimbo, a disapproving look on her face. “Why Miss Gray should risk herself for a smuggler she don’t know from Adam beats me, related to the earl or no, but if go you must, miss, take these here flasks of hot soup for the poor man. They’ll fit nicely in the pockets of your cloak.”

Laughing, Octavia took the flasks and stowed them away. “Why, Ada,” she said, “until I came here I never had an adventure in my life, so I am making up for lost time.”

“That’s my girl!” approved Sir Tristram. “Let’s be off.”

The moon was shining brightly, though hidden now and then behind racing clouds driven by a brisk wind from the west. Octavia was glad of her muffling cloak even before they came upon the first sentry, at the corner of the house.

“Halt, who goes there?”

“Hush, man, it is I, Sir Tristram Deanbridge. Do you want to rouse the whole house?”

Octavia clung to his hand, pulling back as if afraid. Having heard the sentry’s challenge, the corporal strode up with a lantern and she turned away.

“‘Tis Sir Tristram, right enough,” he said. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but what are you a-doin’ up and about at this . . . Ah, I didn’t see the young . . . Very good, Private Jones, all’s well. Good night, sir."

“And a fine moonlit night it is,” agreed Sir Tristram breezily. “Come, my love, shall we go down to the garden?”

Octavia’s hand tightened involuntarily at his words. Suddenly she wished they were not acting, that their only purpose was in truth a lover’s tryst. He put his arm about her waist and she shivered.

“Are you cold, sweetheart?” he asked, deliberately loud enough for the dragoons to hear.

She shook her head, not trusting her voice. Tears rose in her eyes and she blinked them back. If only he meant it when he called her sweetheart! If only he loved her, not Julia! If only . . .

“I think there is another dragoon by the dovecote,” he whispered. “We shall go through the passage under the lane, then down the path past his post, so that he knows we are about and does not challenge us at the wrong moment. Then back up to the cave. The lower sentry will think we are going back through the passage, and Private Jones, that we are still in the garden.”

Forcing herself to concentrate on their mission, Octavia followed him down the stone steps into the passage to the valley garden.

The second sentry ventured a remark about all women being hussies at heart. Octavia felt her face burning as Sir Tristram delivered a blistering reproof. When they passed the man again a few minutes later, on their way back, he saluted smartly, his eyes fixed on a point above their heads.

“He won’t trouble us,” Sir Tristram murmured as soon as the solid stone of the dovecote was between them. “I’ll wager he’d not investigate any noise now unless you called him by name. Look, here is the hamper. I hope it is not full of ants. This way.”

Octavia looked around carefully as she followed his broad back. She wanted to be able to find the cave herself in case it was ever necessary. Leaves fluttered and branches swayed in the wind, creating a confusion of moving shadows; rustling foliage and the gurgling rill masked the sounds of their footsteps on the gravel path. An owl hooted close by, making her jump, and a cloud covered the moon. She bumped into Sir Tristram.

“This is it.”

“I shall never be able to find it,” she whispered back.

“I’ll show you tomorrow in daylight. Come on, I’ll go first to open the door. Under the branches here. Careful.”

She heard him knocking very softly, then a darker patch appeared in the blackness. A thud and a clink as he put down the picnic basket, a muffled oath, and he reached back to take her arm and guide her in.

The door closed behind them and Mrs Pengarth uncovered a lighted oil lamp.

“Oh, sir, thank heaven you’ve come! Jack’s in a bad way. He’s come over feverish and don’t hardly know me. What am I to do?”

Captain Day’s eyes were glazed, his face red and sweating. He kept shifting restlessly, muttered under his breath. Octavia stepped to his side, lifted his huge hand and felt for a pulse in the thick wrist. When she found it, it was rapid and fluttering.

“Have you ever done any nursing?” she asked Mrs Pengarth.

“No, miss. It’s nursery maids and abigails do such, and I went from chambermaid to housekeeper. What shall I do?”

“I have never done any either, being the youngest in the family. Sir Tristram, his pulse feels bad to me. We ought to bring Mr Wynn to see him.”

“Through a garden full of dragoons!” groaned the baronet. “How do you propose we manage that?”

Octavia looked about the cave in search of an answer. It looked more like a room now, with cushions and rugs on the ground, a pitcher of water in one corner, Martha Pengarth’s grey cloak hanging from a nail, partly concealing her carpetbag.

“Mrs Pengarth, have you a light-coloured scarf here? Something white, even a petticoat would do!”

“There’s an old woollen shawl, miss. It’s warm yet but a bit tattered.”

“That does not matter, it is dark outside. Sir Tristram, I shall need your neckcloth for a sash, too.” She scrambled out of her cloak. “No, I have not run mad. Take it off.”

“Here, miss.” A puzzled look on her face, the housekeeper offered her well-worn shawl and helped Octavia drape it over her head and shoulders.

Sir Tristram handed her his cravat, shaking his head. “If I could think of any other way!” he said in frustration.

“How quick you are!” marvelled Octavia, tying the long white cloth about her waist like a sash. “There! He did not see my face, only the dark cloak. He will think I am Julia, or at least a different female, going to meet a different lover. What a shocking opinion of our morals he will have! Well, it cannot be helped. Pray open the door for me."

He shook his head again, racking his brains for an alternative, then glanced at Red Jack and moved to obey. “Bring him to the bower by the pond,” he said. “I will come to show you the way. Be careful, Octavia.”

Mrs Pengarth doused the light. She heard the door open and slipped out, pushing through the ivy, ducking barely visible branches, emerging into moonlight that seemed to make her white garments glow.

She tiptoed quickly away from the cave entrance.

The sentry gaped as she hurried past him, but said not a word.

How dark it was in the woods! On every side, tree trunks menaced her with the threat of concealed dragoons. A dog howled in the distance. Down by the river something whistled, paused as if to listen for an answer, and whistled again. Man or beast?

A fox bounded onto the path. Her breath caught in her throat as it eyed her warily before trotting off about its business.

She picked up her skirts and ran.

At last the chapel loomed black before her. She beat on the door with all her strength, her bare hands making little noise on the solid oak.

“Who?” came a voice behind her.

She whirled, pressing her back against the door. An owl floated by on silent wings.

“Who?” it asked again.

"Wha'?"

This time the question came from the chapel.

“Mr Wynn!” Octavia’s voice emerged as a compromise between a shout and a whisper.

“Who’s ‘at? Wossamarrer?”

“Mr Wynn, it is Octavia Gray. Captain Day is ill and the garden is full of soldiers. Oh, please, open the door!”

“Miss Gray! Come in, it is not locked. Just a minute, it is confounded dark in here. Where is my candle?”

She found the door handle and opened the door. James Wynn was standing by the altar, lighting a candle. He was in his shirtsleeves, excessively rumpled, his hair more than ever like an untrimmed bush.

Her terror forgotten, she looked at him with a new curiosity. Julia loved this man, had been thrown into despair when parted from him. What had drawn her to him? His brilliant intellect, his dedication to a cause, his fiery nature, these seemed such unlikely qualities to have attracted a spoiled beauty who had refused the most eligible bachelors without a second thought.

He turned to her. “The smuggler is ill? Feverish?”

“Yes, he is hot and restless and his pulse is fast and weak.”

“Let me put my coat on and I shall come at once.”

And he loved Julia. That was more understandable: everyone loved Julia. Yet it had taken him weeks to discover where she was, when all he had to do was ask Mr Gray, who would surely not have withheld the information. He had been writing his article; love was not all-important in his life. And Sir Tristram, who also loved Julia, had left her to attend to business on his estate.

“Where did I put that flask of brandy Deanbridge left me? Ah, here it is. Let us go, Miss Gray.”

Octavia stumbled after him, trying to keep up with his long strides. It had not dawned on him to offer her his arm, any more than it had dawned on him to refuse to go out on this cold, windy night to help a man he knew nothing of except that he was a hunted outlaw and injured. What a strange creature he was!

The whistling came from the river again. Pushing her tired legs to the limit, she caught up with him and tugged at his sleeve.

“Did you hear the whistles?”

“Otters. I expect the river is full of them.”

“How do you know it is otters?” she asked. “There are surely none in London!”

“I was brought up in the country, Miss Gray,” he said patiently.

“Oh!” She was surprised, having thought him as much a Londoner as herself. She really knew very little of him, except that he had long legs. “Pray do not go so fast, I cannot keep up."

He slowed his pace, and she held on to his sleeve. Even his unsatisfactory company held at bay the terrors of the night, and she resumed her thoughts.

She was sure it was not from kindness that James Wynn was doctoring Red Jack. It was simply something that needed doing and that he could do. His championship of the poor and oppressed rose from an abstract sense of injustice, not because he cared about his fellow man in any more personal way.

In that he was the opposite of Sir Tristram, who was the kindest man, no, the kindest person she knew. How could she help but love him?

She ought to have been more sympathetic to her cousin. Now she understood the aching misery of unrequited love. Though at least Julia had had hope, whereas she had none. Sir Tristram had already given his heart.

With a shiver she pushed the knowledge away. They were going uphill now and it was time to think of practical matters.

“Mr Wynn, stop a moment,” she whispered. He obediently came to a halt and she arranged Mrs Pengarth’s shawl more securely over her head. “There is a sentry by the dovecote. We must make him think we are sweethearts.” To her annoyance she felt herself blushing, and wished he would realise what he had to do without her spelling it out. “Put your arm around me and do try to walk more slowly. He is certain to be suspicious if we race by him like hounds after a fox.”

He settled his arm uncomfortably about her waist. As they stepped out of the woods and into the moonlight, Octavia was suddenly acutely aware of the impropriety of what she was doing. To wander about the garden at midnight with a gentleman’s arm embracing her was bad enough. To permit two gentlemen the same familiarity— and on the same night!—was nothing short of disgraceful.

She was no noble heiress to be forgiven an occasional lapse from the highest standards, so the least hint of such behaviour could ruin her reputation forever. She shrugged.

There was only one person whose opinion she cared for, and he knew exactly what she was doing and why.

James Wynn’s arm tightened in warning as the sentry, lounging against the dovecote, caught sight of them and straightened to attention. His eyes fixed stonily on a point some six inches above their heads, he let them pass without challenge. Octavia wanted to giggle, wishing she could recall the exact words of Sir Tristram’s reproof. With luck, it might also stop the man gossiping about the havey-cavey goings-on in the gardens of Cotehele.

The baronet was waiting for them by the arbour.

“You can let go of her now!” he growled at Mr Wynn in an undertone.

The awkward arm was hurriedly removed, and they followed him to the cave.

Octavia saw at once that Red Jack was worse. Martha Pengarth was cradling his head, wiping his face with a wet cloth and trying to soothe his restless tossing. She looked up at James Wynn with a frightened face.

“Probably an infected wound,” he grunted, pulling back the blanket that covered the big man. “Let me see if I can find any swelling without taking off all the bandages. Deanbridge, the lamp.”

Octavia sank tiredly down onto a cushion and leaned back against the wall.

“You are burning the candle at both ends,” said Sir Tristram, looking at her in concern. “Perhaps I should take you back to the house now."

“No!” said James Wynn sharply. “I may need all the help I can get. Yes, here it is, just above the elbow.” He unwrapped the bandage. “Scarcely a scratch, but see how red and swollen it is. It is too far gone for brandy to disinfect it. I shall have to cauterise. I need a sharp knife, and a fire.” He took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.

“Jack’s knife is with his clothes,” said Mrs Pengarth. “I’ll get it.” Very gently she moved his head from her lap and went to a corner, returning with a sailor’s all-purpose knife in a leather scabbard.