Contraband Hearts

by Alex Beecroft

  “And have the town think you were now ashamed of the name of Quick? I think not.” Damaris’s eyes flashed like light from steel. “I have spent all my life trying to make this family respectable. But the admiral was a hellion, and the blood carries the taint, sure enough. Keep the name, and may God have mercy on us all.”

  Tomas left the house with Perry’s hand nestled in the small of his back, on the excuse of guiding him. And indeed he was in something of a daze, buffeted by thoughts that changed direction and strength like a summer squall. Had he won? Had he defeated and deposed the Quicks and emerged triumphant over all? Lazarus would certainly not be magistrate for much longer. No more would they be able to lord it over Porthkennack in the appearance of moral rather than financial superiority. Was that the prize he had been chasing all these years?

  “Well, Mr. Dean.” Gwynn paused outside the Quick’s porch to mop his shaved head again and regard Perry with a complaisant look. “I ’ope you’ve understood now how delicate matters stand in this county. ’Ow what’s needed in a customs man is a sense of balance, of justice, and not just an aptitude for counting crates. When you do send that report back, I ’ope it will reflect the subtlety of the job, young man. The humanity.”

  Perry caught Tomas’s eye and tipped up the ends of his glorious mouth in a smile that felt too intimate to be shared. “I have been well taught, sir,” he agreed. “I will strive to do you proud.”

  When Gwynn nodded in satisfaction and stomped away, Perry linked his arm with Tomas’s, and squeezed Tomas’s elbow into the dip of his waist. “Thank you,” he whispered. “You had the chance and every justification for your revenge, and you gave it up. Was that for me?”

  Of course he’d noticed. He was as observant as he was kind. I had my eyes on a greater prize, Tomas thought. But that was not quite right, for Perry was no object to be attained. Tomas squeezed back. “I, too, have had a very wise teacher,” he said. “Now let’s go home.”

  To my esteemed patron Lord Petersfield, Perry wrote some weeks later, sitting at a folding desk battered from many years at sea. Through the window, the last flaming brands of an apricot-gold sunset gilded his papers almost as much as the single candle lantern he had already lit and set by the bed. The tide was in, and in the harbour all the small craft nodded brightly, the pooling amber radiance picking up their many colours and smoothing over their dirt and defects. It looked like the idyll he currently felt it was.

  I must thank you again for your great condescension in choosing me for this task of investigating the alleged corruption in the customs service in Porthkennack.

  He dipped his pen and brushed the triangle of remaining feather on its end against his lips, deep in thought. The drag and tickle on his mouth made him smile, anticipating his plans for the evening. But the letter must be finished first.

  You may wish to make inquiries among your staff to uncover those who cannot meet a decent standard of discretion, for when I arrived here, my purpose was already known to everyone involved. My chance to establish myself as a run-of-the-mill colleague to whom hearts might be opened in confidence was therefore lost before I even began.

  Notwithstanding this disadvantage, I pursued my inquiries diligently. I found a small degree of laxity amongst the officers with whom I served—a jug or two of spirits might be consumed, if the keg was broken, rather than transferred to a new container and returned to the warehouse. One or two men are old and somewhat inclined to skimp on their daily rounds etc. etc., all very much in the common way of backwater departments in sleepy towns.

  I did not find any evidence of large-scale corruption among the customs officers of the town, but—as you will see from the pages of the local newspaper I enclose—I did flush out a wrecker, a human trafficker, and a major player in the local network of smugglers. This enterprising young woman ran a gang comprised of strangers to the town, who might be paid off after a couple of jobs before they became recognizable. To enable these strangers to identify each other, they would each wear a cormorant feather somewhere about their person, either singly in their hats, as a cockade, or perhaps dangling from an earring.

  Going in men’s raiment, Constance was mistaken for her brother Clement by those with whom she dealt face-to-face, and thereby she was always provided with an alibi at the best or a scapegoat if it should come to it. Meanwhile, the knowledge that the head of this new smuggling ring was the child of the local magistrate meant that the local people—even if they knew her name—were in despair of their knowledge being believed or acted upon, should they say anything. And, indeed, I believe Sir Lazarus would have gone to any lengths to keep the matter quiet if he had not been so taken by surprise himself.

  I see now why you warned me of the dangers of pride and the corrupting influence of high station, for once the wrecker’s name came to light, so too did a number of incidences of favouritism and corruption in the legal practice and the business ventures of her father, the magistrate. Give you joy, sir, that your instincts that something was very wrong in this small town were exact and correct.

  He dipped his pen again. A scent of soused mackerel and samphire drifted to him up the stairs. They had eaten dinner hours ago, but the smell lingered. The sound of Iskander and Zuliy playing trictrac by the fire downstairs was a homely babble of words he couldn’t understand and comfortable ceramic clicks.

  I have always been and will continue to be indebted to you for your interest in my career,

  Here came the words that he dreaded—that he had to pull out as one had to pull out an arrowhead. He thought back to Tomas, the struggle to be merciful, to settle for anything less than absolute victory, written plainly on his vivid face as he faced and forgave the woman who had disinherited him. That must have cost Tomas a great deal. So Perry could not do less.

  but this example of corruption in high places has given me a revulsion for the ambitions I once cherished.

  “But see how oft ambition’s aims are cross’d, and chiefs contend till all the prize is lost!” as Mr. Pope puts it.

  I have seen this for myself, and now my desire is only to stay here and do what good I may in Porthkennack. Perhaps ere long, through hard work and dedication, you will see me rise to the place of supervisor here, but I can no longer see my future anywhere other than in this place.

  For delivering me here and for so many other things, I remain, sir, your most humble servant.

  Peregrine Dean, Esq.

  He shook sand over the ink to dry it, and read it back, waiting for the sense of defeat that would surely come, but the sun slipped a fingernail lower and the first star made a pinprick in the sky, and he understood gradually that what he felt was relief. Thankfulness.

  Smoothing down a fresh sheet of paper, he smiled at the bead of ink on the end of his quill.

  My dear mama,

  You will be glad to hear that I am out of that poky little room of which I spoke last time. I have taken lodgings in the house of Mr. Tomas Quick, whom I also mentioned in my last. The points of contention between us having now been settled, I am happy to say he is an excellent young gentleman and we have become fast friends.

  I am now established in my position and understand better the internal tensions and stresses both of my department and of the town, into which I, as usual, walked as though handing down judgement from above. They tolerated me nevertheless and have quite won my good opinion one and all.

  I know it is a sudden change in me to have given up my political ambitions and thrown myself into small-town life so cheerfully, but my aim in pursuing personal power was always to do good with it, and I believe I can do good here, in prosecuting those who deserve to be punished and in showing mercy to those who do not.

  Since my pay has finally come through, I have kept back a portion for lodging and food and am sending the remainder, in the hopes it will bring you all cheer.

  I hope to hear from you soon,

  All my love,

  Perry

  Even as he was folding and sea
ling this letter, the door between his room and Tomas’s swung silently open. He looked over his shoulder to see Tomas beneath the lintel, clad in nothing but a long shirt, his feet bare and his ruddy hair outshining the sunset in the light of the candle in his hand.

  Perry’s mouth and prick flushed, tingling. The hem of the shirt rose on either side, exposing Tomas’s endless slender legs and just a hint of buttock. Throwing himself to his feet, Perry closed the shutters over his window with a snap, then darted to lock the bedroom door.

  That done, they were safe. Iskander had the next room along, but spoke no English and was already deep in plans to return to his own country. Zuliy—who slept across the corridor—would do nothing to hurt Tomas, and still retained a Turkish attitude to the question of sex. Perry had never imagined being in such a situation—a place where he could rise and kiss his lover with the expectation of bed and not of disgrace. Who would have thought this luxury was available to the honest working man as much as to the rich?

  “Done with the letter writing?” Tomas asked, padding over to raise a golden eyebrow at the name of Lord Petersfield on the direction. “Is that it? The ‘I want to stay here forever’ letter?”

  In white linen as Tomas was, svelte and sudden in his movements, topped with fire, he was as intense a presence as he had been when the sight of his face had changed Perry’s life that first day. Some elemental thing of lightning and flame. “I would have given up much more for you if I could,” he vowed, sliding a hand up one tantalizing leg, lust and adoration mingling into something he could only think of as amazed gratitude. How had he been found worthy to be given this?

  “Oh”—Tomas grinned, mockingly—“don’t try to pretend I haven’t made the larger sacrifice here.” He pushed the banyan down Perry’s shoulders until it tangled at his elbows, all but imprisoning him, and walked him backward until his calves hit the bed. “You’ll find I love you very much more than you love me.”

  Perry half sat, half fell onto the bed, still struggling to free his arms so he could touch as Tomas climbed into his lap. “That’s not true,” he protested. “I can beat you in any contest, even one of adoration.”

  Tomas leaned down and caught Perry’s lips between his own, biting down on the lower, the combination of pleasure and pain racking Perry’s body with desire. “Is that so?” Tomas laughed, blue eyes ablaze. “Prove it.”

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  Alex Beecroft was born in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and grew up in the wild countryside of the English Peak District. She studied English and philosophy before accepting employment with the Crown Court, where she worked for a number of years. Now a full-time author, Alex lives with her husband and two children in a little village near Cambridge and tries to avoid being mistaken for a tourist.

  Alex is only intermittently present in the real world. She has spent many years as an Anglo-Saxon and eighteenth-century reenactor. She has led a Saxon shield wall into battle, and toiled as a Georgian kitchen maid. For the past nine years she has been taken up with the serious business of morris dancing, which has been going on in the UK for at least five hundred years. But she still hasn’t learned to operate a mobile phone.

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