“But that’s just it, Father,” she said urgently, coming to rest her hand on his arm. Her father had already unwittingly blundered tonight with disastrous results, and she would do her best to keep him and his temper away from the beach tomorrow night when Markham’s boat landed. “Nothing can be the same as it was, even from last summer. Times are different now. Markham demands a hundred crowns for each delivery, and—”
“A hundred crowns!” Her father jerked around to face her. “Why, Markham is worse than a highwayman, to charge that! I’ll make him see what’s right, I will, else he’ll see the wrong end of my pistol for his troubles.”
“It is the same with the other companies, Father,” she said, taking his corded, callused hand the way she had as a little girl. “All the captains who cross the Channel are charging more, and squeezing our customers’ poor pockets until it’s scarcely worth it. And now these Frenchmen—”
“Since when have you been a coward, Fan Winslow, afraid to stand up for yourself?”
“Since I realized I was a coward, Father,” she said, linking her fingers more tightly into his. She was struck by how different it was to hold George’s hand, how just the touch of his fingers reassured her and made her feel safe and protected and loved, while holding her father’s seemed more as if she were holding him back, restraining him from yet another rash act.
“I want to live my life like everyone else,” she continued softly, “sleeping when it’s night and rising when it’s dawn. I don’t want to worry over keeping secrets, or watching my back, or who I can trust or not. I don’t want to die on the gallows or alone on a dark beach, and I don’t want you dying like that, either.”
“I told you, Fanny, the devil’s not ready to claim me just yet,” said her father bitterly. “It’s the new master, isn’t it? He’s made you see things different, hasn’t he, all honorable and right-and-wrong?”
She flushed. “Is that so very bad?”
“What, that your master’s stolen your maidenhead, and given you a missy-miss conscience that turns you against me?” He muttered another halfhearted oath, and pointedly freed his hand from hers. “You wish me to be happy over that?”
“Captain Lord Claremont is a good, honorable man,” she insisted, “and I won’t hear you say otherwise.”
“A captain?” asked her father suspiciously. “A shipmaster, then? But what’s this lordly nonsense?”
“Yes, he is a ship’s captain,” she said, carefully omitting that it was Navy ships he captained. “And he is the youngest son of the Duke of Strachen. But none of that matters as much as that he loves me, Father. He loves me.”
“Oh, aye, he loves you, he loves you not, but I see no wedding ring upon your finger to prove it, or give your bastards his name.” Unimpressed, he fumbled a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and loudly blew his nose. “Now go fetch me supper, daughter, before I perish from all your bad news.”
“It’s the truth, Father, not bad news,” said Fan. A year ago, she would have meekly obeyed and let herself be dismissed, but not now, not even when her heart was crumbling along with her dream of what she’d hoped this reunion would be. “I’ll bring you your supper. You’ll find I’ve kept your rooms down the hall exactly as you left them.”
“I know,” he said with a final belligerent sniff. “I looked. Though you took away the bottle of rum I’d kept beside the bed.”
“I’ll bring you a new one,” she bargained, “but only if you’ll promise you’ll stay up here, and won’t go causing mischief with the others here in the house.”
He scowled, his white brows bristling fiercely. “Why shouldn’t I, considering all the mischief and sorrow you’ve caused me? I’ve been gone for months, daughter. I’ve matters to attend to in Tunford.”
“Father, please,” she said. “Please. Only for a day or two, until I can learn exactly what happened with the Frenchmen on the beach. The last thing I’d wish is to lose you again to the magistrate so soon after you’d returned. Here I know you’ll be safe.”
“They’d have to catch me first, wouldn’t they?” He grunted, the weariness finally catching up to him, and making him look old and tired and, to Fan’s worry, eminently catchable. “But maybe you’re right, daughter. Maybe I should squirrel myself away here for a bit, to build up my old strength.”
“That would be the wisest course, Father,” she said, hoping he meant to keep such a sensible resolution. “You can rest all you want, and I can look after you the way I used to.”
Cautiously she opened the door, checking to make sure there was no one else in the hall before she beckoned for him to join her.
“Aye,” he said, following her to his old room. “Besides, I’ve a deal of planning to do before I settle with the bastards that forced your hand. Oh, I know you did your best, Fanny, and I’m grateful for it, but now that I’m back, things will be different.”
Yet Fan knew that a great many things already were, and not likely to change back. She kissed her father good-night on his stubbled cheek, and with both heart and conscience heavy as lead, she hurried down the stairs to find George.
“My uncle’ll be here any moment with his dogs, Cap’n M’Lord,” promised the footman as he bowed to George. “If anything can find Mistress Winslow, they can.”
George nodded curtly. His horse was saddled and waiting, the other men already mounted, and, at his orders, also armed. After what had happened earlier this night, it was best to be prepared for the worst as they searched the countryside for Fan. He squinted out over their heads, to where the horizon was just beginning to pale with dawn. Daylight would make their hunt easier, but hell, how he wished—
“What is all this, George?” asked Fan with concern, suddenly beside him on the step. “Has something else dreadful happened? Must you ride out again?”
Startled, he swept her up in his arms, not giving a damn who saw him do it. “Ah, Fan, thank God you’re safe.”
She hugged him quickly, then pushed away from his chest. “Of course I am safe. George, listen to me. I have so much to tell you, and it cannot wait!”
He frowned. “I have much to say, too, Fan, the first being that you shouldn’t have gone off alone to Tunford like that. How in blazes was I to know what had become of you, especially tonight? What else was I to do when there was no sign of either you or Pie?”
“What were you to do?” she repeated, perplexed. “Why, is that what all this is? Because I tied my pony in the old stable, away from the crowds? Because of that, you thought me lost, and were taking all these others to go hunt for me?”
“That’s the gist of it, yes,” he admitted gruffly. He was now acutely aware of the unnecessary search party listening openmouthed to every word he and Fan said, as if standing here on these steps was the stage at Drury Lane. “I do love you, you know. Why, I’d even sent for hunting dogs to track you, and if that isn’t love, I don’t know what the hell is. Though discovering you were already here makes me feel like a damned ass.”
“Oh, but you shouldn’t,” she said softly, her gray eyes becoming misty in a way that could turn his own insides to a most unmanly mush. He thought again of the little box in his waistcoat; perhaps this would be the time after all. “No one else would do such a thing, not for me. That you would care so much for me that you would want to rescue me from the Frenchmen—”
Instantly the mush vanished. He grabbed her arm and hustled her inside the house before she could say more before the others. The nearest room was one of the few at Feversham that he had yet to refurbish, the small parlor where Mr. Trelawney had displayed his collection of stuffed gamebirds. Their dusty glass eyes peered down from the shelves as soon as George lit a candle, mute, molting witnesses to their conversation.
“What do you know of Frenchmen, Fan?” he asked, latching the door for more privacy. “What did you hear in Tunford?”
“Nothing,” she answered quickly, pacing back and forth with her hands clasped before her. “That is, no one in the village was say
ing anything about any Frenchmen. They blamed what happened on—on the customs men.”
He didn’t miss the little hiccup of apprehension. Clearly more had happened in Tunford than she was saying; he only prayed she’d confide in him.
“But you heard of them somewhere,” he coaxed. “Tell me, love. I need to know.”
“That’s why I’ve come to you.” She stopped her pacing for a moment, and raised her chin with determination, and by the candle’s light he could see how her gray eyes were ringed with shadows of exhaustion and strain.
“You must trust me that what I say is true, for I can’t tell you who told me,” she began, her voice taut with urgency as she began her restless pacing again. “The men in the boat tonight weren’t smugglers, but Frenchmen bent on mischief, who hired an English pilot to bring them exactly to Waverly Point. The Tunford men they killed had only come offering to help, and the Frenchmen shot them dead, without a thought, and who knows what they would have done next if the soldiers hadn’t bumbled upon them.”
She paused, searching his face anxiously for his reaction. “It’s bad, George, isn’t it? Those Frenchmen, and guns, and all?”
“Yes,” he said heavily, thinking of the courier he’d already sent racing to London with his letters to the Lord of the Admiralty, and how, after this, he’d soon be sending a second rider with more. “It’s very bad indeed. You are certain all of this is the truth?”
She nodded. “Neither had spoken to the other, yet both had nearly the same tales.”
And every word of both, thought George grimly, gave credence to his own suspicions. “Is there any chance I could speak to these men myself?”
She shook her head. “I swore to keep their secret, George. But I could take you to Waverly Point myself, and show you exactly where the boat came ashore.”
“Perhaps later,” he said, gently drawing her into his arms. “After you’ve rested. You’re so weary now you can scarce stand upright.”
“We’ll go now,” she declared, the red garnets in her earrings swinging against her cheeks as she looked up at him. “I have had the exact same hours of sleep as you, George. If we can do anything to help, then we should. If you had seen the poor men who’d been killed—”
“I did,” he said quietly. “Because of my experience, there was certain…certain evidence that I needed to observe for Sir Henry before the bodies were given over to the families. Not that Sir Henry was happy about that, but it was the proper thing to do.”
“It’s not always easy to do what is right,” she said with a wistfulness he couldn’t miss. “If we go to the Point now—”
“Fan, to be honest, there would be precious little to be gained by doing so,” he said, smoothing her hair back from her forehead. “Not after the soldiers and the tide and likely half the town as well have crossed it by now.”
“Too late,” she said, thumping her hand against his chest with frustration. “Oh, George, if only I’d come to you sooner!”
“It would have made no difference,” he said firmly. “No, what would serve us best would be to know when the next smuggling run will come in from France. To be able to ask such men what they’d seen and heard across the Channel, if they’d been approached as your pilot was, to learn if the French were, in fact, considering some sort of invasion as a prelude to war—now that would be invaluable, Fan, without price.”
“And a French war would take you from me and Feversham,” she said, almost a whisper. “But what you ask, George, what you want! You’re a Navy officer, sworn to serve the king. What smuggling folk would put their heads through the noose to confide their trade to you?”
“I’ve sworn to serve the king, true enough,” he admitted carefully, “but I’ve also sworn to protect Britain and her people. In such grave circumstances as these, I would have to consider even the most blatant rascal first as an Englishman to be protected, and cast a blind eye towards the untariffed goods. Any other time, I’d call them the worst sort of thieves. But now—no.”
She bowed her head, the misery of her conflict as stark as the pale parting in her dark hair.
“More Tunford men could be killed if we don’t learn what we can from them,” she said, clearly striving to convince herself. “Times have been bad enough without another war. Surely they—the smugglers—must understand that.”
“They would be safe, Fan,” he said gently. “I’d make sure they were not taken or charged. You have my word.”
He’d long suspected she’d ties to Tunford’s smuggling brotherhood. He’d only to recall the mysterious boy who’d come to the house last evening, the way she’d raced off tonight, even the rumors he’d heard about her wicked old father. Now he was hoping she’d choose to convince these same people to trust him instead; a large order indeed.
True, he’d stopped short of asking her outright, but he also knew her well enough to realize it wouldn’t be necessary. With so much at stake, she wouldn’t hesitate. She was, quite simply, too honorable a woman not to.
“My own brave lass,” he said gently, turning her face up towards his. “Is there any wonder I love you so much?”
Yet instead of the smile he’d expected, she looked away from him, towards the window and the sky pink with dawn, enough to light the tears tangled in the lashes.
“And because I love you, George, I cannot refuse to join you in this,” she whispered miserably. “Because I could not bear to lose you to another war, because you are wise and noble and honest in ways I never can be, because others need me to be strong when all I want is to be weak. But this time—this time—I will do what is right.”
“Don’t say such harsh things of yourself, Fan,” he said gruffly. He hated to see her cry, especially over something like this. “Not another word, mind? I love you as you are, and I always will. Nothing is decided about what we’ll do next with these damned French, nor will it be, at least until I’ve had my chocolate and breakfast.”
“But it is decided,” she insisted sadly, not bothering to wipe away the tears that now trickled down her cheeks. “Didn’t I tell you I’ve made up my mind? I will do what is right.”
“You are certain of this, Fan?” he asked, his uneasiness growing. “You are telling me everything?”
“Of course I am certain,” she said, slipping apart from him to stand by the door, hugging her arms around her sides. “Come with me tonight, and I’ll take you to the beach to meet all the smuggling-folk you could wish.”
“That could be dangerous, sweetheart,” he said, acknowledging the fear he saw in her eyes. How could he blame her for being otherwise? Unlike his own life, hers as Feversham’s housekeeper could hardly have prepared her for this kind of risk. “I’ll bring my men with us, to help keep things honest.”
“No!” she exclaimed, then paused with a gulp, visibly struggling to compose herself. “That is, you are right, George. It will be dangerous, not just for me, but you as well. I won’t pretend differently. But bringing the others will only unsettle my people, and make them trust you even less.”
“No more than I’ll likely mistrust them.” He held his handkerchief out to her, and to his relief she took it, accepting at least that small comfort from him. “Am I at least permitted to arm myself?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, dabbing at her nose and eyes. “You’d be rather a fool not to. But mind you dress yourself plain, in dark clothes.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” he said softly, holding his hand out to her and hoping she’d return. “Sackcloth and ashes it shall be.”
She looked at his hand, but didn’t come, instead crumpling the handkerchief into a tight ball in her palm. “It’s important, George. There’s nothing to be gained by reminding them how you answer to the king and Admiralty.”
He let his hand drop back to his side. “I haven’t exactly hidden which side I favor, sweetheart.”
“Oh, love,” she cried sadly, and to his surprise she now rushed back to him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. “Can’t it just b
e us together, with no talk of sides, or who is right or wrong? For today, tonight, can’t that be enough?”
He held her tight, the way he knew she wanted, and the way he wanted, too. “It’s enough for me for always. Or is this another of your tests for me, Fan?”
“No test,” she said. “Only—only you’ve said you would love me forever, and now that we will be together for always, and—and I hope that that is true.”
“Damnation, Fan, so there is more you’re not telling me, isn’t there?” Gently he turned her face up towards his, searching for the truth. After all they’d shared together, he suddenly felt as if he were losing her, letting her drift away as surely as if she were being carried off by waves beyond his reach. “No tests, but no riddles, either. Tell me how I can help you, sweetheart. Tell me what I must do.”
But all she did was shake her head, lowering her eyes to escape his scrutiny. “Tonight you’ll have your answers, George. And whatever you learn, remember that I’ll—I’ll always love you.”
“Then I’ve one last question for you, Fan.” He dug his fingers into his pocket for the little leather box, urgency making him clumsy as he unfastened the tiny brass hook on the lid. He’d played the words out a thousand times in his head and before the looking-glass, but now that he had to say them aloud to her, he was infinitely more nervous than he’d ever been facing an enemy broadside in battle.
“Fan, Fan, my dearest lass,” he said, clearing his throat as he held the box out to her. “You’ve become the one certainty in my life, the one I cannot do without. Will you honor me, Fan Winslow, and be my wife?”
With more of a fumble than a flourish, he opened the box to offer her the ring. The large oval emerald sparkled as green as the grass in the spray-fed lawn, the smaller diamonds around it as bright as the morning dew on those same blades.
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