“Geoffrey Chaucer was a customs agent,” said Lady Hetta, “and he was certainly an educated man.”
“But not,” said Lady Adelaide acidly, “a man whose works a lady of quality ought to read, Hetta.”
Lady Hetta squared her thin shoulders. “I daresay Mr. Petticrow speaks as he was taught to speak, you know. His papa is a squire in Berkshire, and he told me once that he was expected to go into the Church—for he is the younger son, as anyone can tell merely by looking at him. I cannot think why younger sons are always so much better-looking than their more eligible elder brothers, but such is always the case.” She blinked myopically. “What was I saying?”
“He was supposed to enter the Church,” Adriana prompted, avoiding Miranda’s eye and stealing a glance at Lady Adelaide, whose attention was now riveted on the needlework in her lap.
“Oh, well,” Lady Hetta said, following her glance self-consciously, “he thought he would prefer to do something more adventuresome, you know, though not the military, because there was nothing much doing to interest him when he was of an age to join. And since he disapproves of smuggling—although to do him credit, he blames the government quite as much as he blames the smugglers for its existence—he became a riding officer.”
Adriana repeated this information to Chalford that night after they had gone to bed, certain he would enjoy hearing about Geoffrey Chaucer in particular. She lay with her head upon his shoulder, anticipating his amusement, but instead of chuckling, he sighed. It was a long sigh, even a long-suffering sigh. She turned her head, trying to read the expression on his face.
“You disapprove, sir?”
“There is nothing of which to disapprove. I was just wondering if, having learned what an eligible parti old Petticrow is, you will now wish to add him to your list of conquests.”
“Detestable man,” she said, applying her elbow to his ribs, “and I do not speak of Mr. Petticrow. You know, though,” she added musingly as another thought struck her, “I shouldn’t be at all surprised if your Aunt Hetta has an interest there.”
He snorted. “Don’t be nonsensical. Aunt Adelaide would forbid him the castle if she suspected a thing like that.”
“Well, I shan’t suggest it to her, then. Would you mind?”
“The question won’t arise. Aunt Adelaide, I can tell you for a fact, is much more concerned about Lord Braverstoke. Seems he’s been haunting the place. But neither he nor Petticrow will win the day. Aunt Hetta has had numerous offers since her come-out, but she told me once she’d never met a man who could offer her more than she has here. Very proper sentiments, I thought.”
“You would,” said Adriana.
“By the bye,” he said then on a more somber note, “Petticrow informs me that the disturbances between the Sandgaters and our local people have escalated in number and degree of violence. A Burmarsh man was beaten nearly to death in a scuffle last week, and the batmen carry more than lumber now to protect their runs.”
“Batmen?”
“The landsmen consist of tubmen and batmen,” he said. “The tubmen collect the goods from the ship, and the batmen stand guard over the whole business, start to finish. Generally, they are armed with clubs, but of late they have not worried so much about noise as about losing goods to the Sandgaters. There have been, Petticrow says, a number of skirmishes. Several men have been threatened, pressed to join the Sandgate gang.”
“Joshua, are you trying to suggest more subtly than usual that your restrictions will stand with regard to our going outside the castle walls?”
“Nothing to be subtle about,” he said. “I’ve already given the orders, and I expect you to relay them to your sister. And, Adriana, please, for once in your life, don’t attempt to circumvent my commands. Just obey them.”
“Yes, my lord,” she replied submissively.
Joshua raised himself onto his elbow, looking down at her, and though the room was too dark to read the expression in his eyes, Adriana could feel its intensity. “I mistrust you most when you sound like that, sweetheart,” he murmured gently, “but you would be well advised to obey me in this. You have had but a single taste of my temper, and you didn’t like it. I can promise you, you will like the outcome even less if you cause me to lose it again. You are to take outriders with you if you go out in daylight, and you are not to go out at all after dark. Agreed?”
“Oh, very well,” she said, wishing she could sink further into the mattress, away from him, until he relaxed again. “I’ll tell Miranda, too, Joshua, so will you please stop looming over me like that?” She put out her hand to caress his bare chest, moving her fingers lightly, teasingly, until she had distracted him from anything else he might have wished to say on that uncomfortable subject. But half an hour later when they lay back, sated, against the pillows again, it was she who returned to it, saying curiously, “Why do you not simply request assistance from the dragoons if you are so concerned for our safety? Surely, they would come if you asked them.”
“They have fifty miles of coastline to patrol, sweetheart, so whether they would come at my command is not the question. They are too few in number and they are needed everywhere. We cannot keep a squadron sitting on the beach here hoping for a convenient confrontation. Moreover, there are indications that this new gang intends to unite the Gentlemen all along the south coast, so the patrols will no doubt be particularly busy now.”
“Then you ought to organize your own patrols, sir.”
“My men will protect the castle and the lands surrounding it to the best of their ability,” he said, “but I will ask no one to risk his life unnecessarily. If the trouble increases as I anticipate it will, there will be questions asked in Parliament soon, and no doubt the military patrols will be increased accordingly.”
She thought his attitude distressingly nonchalant, and found herself wishing he would exert himself to more assertive action against the intruders. Not surprisingly, she discovered the following day that her sister shared her views.
“One would expect him to fight buckle and thong to protect this place,” Miranda said when they found themselves alone in the breakfast parlor. “Lady Hetta has said he cares for nothing so much as Thunderhill. Indeed, you have said the same.”
“True,” said Adriana, adding with a sigh, “I believe his passion for this castle may exceed any other feeling he has.”
Miranda stared at her, then said suddenly, “What does one do to amuse oneself here when there are no houseguests?”
Adriana gave herself a shake and grinned. “I warned you. Pray, do not tell me you are bored already.”
“No, of course I am not, only I hope you mean to do something to entertain me.”
Adriana wrinkled her nose. “I suppose that once Prinny leaves Brighton we will have visitors again, and Joshua has said that his sister, Lydia, will come in September with her children, although, with the troubles, he may put her off for a time. Sally and George are going straight to Prospect Lodge Saturday, because Lord and Lady Jersey expect to meet them there for George’s birthday on Monday, so they won’t come at all.”
“We must arrange our own entertainment then,” Miranda said archly. “We’ll begin by inviting Mr. Braverstoke and his cherubic papa to dine with us. That will annoy Lady Adelaide, but I think we must encourage Lady Hetta’s romance with his lordship, do not you? I say, Dree,” she added with an arrested look, “do you think Mr. Petticrow suspects Mr. Braverstoke or Chalford of being in league with the free traders?”
“Of course not.” Adriana laughed. “He may have noticed something about the ship that took him to France that put him in mind of their yachts, but you will remember that he mentioned a second mast, and neither the Golden Fleece nor the Sea Dragon has one. Moreover, I believe that if either yacht was used, it was used without their knowledge, just as the Sea Dragon—”
“Goodness, smugglers dared to use the Sea Dragon?”
Nodding, Adriana proceeded to describe that occasion, and Miranda’s reaction
was all that she might have hoped it would be.
“Good gracious,” she said, “Chalford must have been livid!”
“No,” said Adriana, “Joshua never becomes heated.”
“Tell that to your Mr. Dawlish,” recommended Miranda.
Adriana smiled. “Even then his anger was the icy sort. Joshua never shouts like Alston or Papa. Indeed, I didn’t think he was angry at all about the Sea Dragon being used, but his people said the captain feared for his place. If I recognized his displeasure at the time, I thought it had to do with the sprats and the awful smell, not with their having used the boat.”
“Well, then, I believe we must encourage Mr. Braverstoke and his father to call as often as they like,” Miranda said, grinning. “I find them perfectly charming.”
Adriana agreed, but she discovered that it was not necessary for them to do anything to encourage Randall Braverstoke. He had already learned of their return to Thunderhill and that very afternoon found him a guest in the great hall, having come to pay his respects and to discover the news of Brighton.
“For you must know by now,” he confided, taking his seat and acknowledging that he would welcome a glass of wine, “that my father does not follow the fashionable crowd about anymore. He was used to enjoy gaming in London or supper parties in Brighton as much as the next man, but he has become more sedentary these past years and does not like to be cooped up in a carriage for extended periods of time. And my time, of course, is taken up by the business of running the manor. He has never paid particular attention to everyday details, so the burden falls to me.
“But you still find time to enjoy your yacht, sir,” Miranda said, smiling at him, “and surely, if you have time to sail to France, you have time occasionally to sail to Brighton.”
“The distance is much greater to Brighton, my lady,” he reminded her, chuckling.
“Adriana and I once thought it to be a mere hop and skip from Thunderhill to Brighton,” she said, adding with a confiding twinkle, “Sir, I must tell you, we have heard how, on your last voyage, you rescued Mr. Petticrow. That was very brave of you.”
“Not at all,” he said. “Not much to it. He had got a French fisherman to take him out into the Channel in hopes of running across an English ship. We merely took him aboard.”
“Why, we got the impression that you had sailed right into a French harbor,” Adriana said, surprised.
He winked at her. “That sort of behavior is frowned upon by our ships of the line, ma’am, being as how England is at war with France. I’d as lief you didn’t mention such notions in company.”
She thought she understood him very well, but she found herself unable to respond to his wink as she would have done only weeks before. Although he was as charming as he had ever been, it was not so much fun to flirt with him as it had been, and she was content to leave him to Miranda. At first she thought her attitude was due to Miranda’s expressed liking for him and a wish to leave her sister a clear field, but after less than a week at home, she discovered that she had no desire to flirt with any of their gentlemen callers.
The number of these was greater than one might have expected, for not only were those young gentlemen who lived in the vicinity motivated to pay calls, but an astonishing number of young men found it convenient to pass by Thunderhill on their return to London from Brighton.
“You have developed quite a following, my dear,” said Adriana to her sister a week after their return, when they had seen three of these young men on their way. “I am quite cast in the shade, for they certainly do not come to see me, although my husband does not believe as much, I fear. He was moved to suggest only last night that I ought to wear a sign, pointing out the fact that I am no longer a prize on the Marriage Mart.”
“That is only because he chanced to enter the hall yesterday afternoon just as that absurd Mr. Fancourt offered to fight a duel with Mr. Braverstoke to determine who would sit beside you on the green sofa.”
“I have the most lowering suspicion that it was the loser who was meant to sit next to me, however,” Adriana said with a melancholy sigh. “Can you deny it? They both of them sat nearer to you than to me, when all was said and done.”
“On account of Chalford looking daggers at them.”
“Pooh,” retorted Adriana. “It was no such thing. Mr. Braverstoke, at least, has not been visiting nearly every afternoon for the purpose of staring into my eyes, minx.”
Miranda grinned at her. “No, he accompanies his papa, who comes to visit Lady Hetta, and he passes the time by very kindly instructing me in the ways of the Kentish smugglers.”
“Miranda, you never asked him if he thought his boat might have been used by the Gentlemen!”
“Well, no, not precisely, though I did say I’d heard that they sometimes use whatever boat is handy. Just hinting, you know. And, Dree, he pokered up like anything. I think it would be as much as a man’s life is worth to take the Golden Fleece out in such a way. Mr. Braverstoke does not approve of smuggling, and he dreads the violence, which is why he is so careful to accompany Lord Braverstoke when he visits here.”
“Fustian,” said Adriana, laughing. “He comes to flirt with you, my dear. And do tell me, please, just when did you discover this fascination for smuggling? You never sympathized in the least with my interest in such activities.”
“Well, I wasn’t interested, if you must know,” admitted her sister, “but I have never seen a free trader, Dree, and you have. You have even sailed on one of their ships without coming to grief. But you have never seen them in real action, and Mr. Braverstoke says he has. And,” she added with a wicked little smile, “this Saturday night is when the darks will begin, Dree. There will be no moon at all. And Mr. Braverstoke has heard a rumor that there is to be a large run right here at Thunderhill.”
14
ADRIANA STARED AT HER SISTER. “Miranda, you cannot think for one moment that you are going to watch a smuggler’s run in progress. Good God, Alston would kill us both if I allowed such a thing. Not only would it be foolish beyond permission but extremely dangerous as well. We might be caught, even killed.”
“Alston will never know the least little thing about it, and we won’t be killed if we have a gentleman to protect us,” Miranda said persuasively, before adding quickly, “I have not asked Mr. Braverstoke yet, of course, but I mean to do so, Dree, and I believe he wishes to impress me, so I am certain he will agree to escort us. Unless,” she suggested with a twinkle, “you would prefer to ask Chalford to lend us his escort.”
“He wouldn’t,” Adriana said flatly. “If he heard so much as a whisper of what you suggest, he would lock us both in that tower you mentioned weeks ago and throw away the key. It will not do, Miranda. Put the thought straight out of your head.”
“Oh, very well, if you are afraid. I did think that, interested as you have always claimed to be, you would snap at an opportunity to discover precisely what happens when the goods are brought ashore, but I shall be the last person to castigate you for a coward, Dree, if marriage has made you too cautious for such adventures. I quite understand why you might be afraid of Chalford after what happened at the Castle Inn.”
“I am certainly not afraid of Joshua,” Adriana said indignantly. “I merely think it would be wise to obey him in this instance. Does Mr. Braverstoke even know which gang of smugglers is involved in this particular run? What if it is the Sandgate gang? And how does he come to know of such things, anyway? Answer me that.”
“Oh, he says one hears whatever one wishes to hear when one keeps an ear to the ground. No one expects any of the local inhabitants to betray the Gentlemen, after all, so if one is interested … Well, you know yourself how much you discovered through merely asking a few questions.”
“And through a little discreet blackmail,” Adriana reminded her. “Still, I suppose you are right, and if a large run is to be landed here on the beach, it must be the local people who will be involved. Even Joshua says there is no need for us to fear
them. But I did promise we would both obey him this time, Randy, and I’ve no wish to vex him. He has given strict orders that we are not to go outside the castle at all after dark.”
“Well, for goodness’ sake, it is not as though we are proposing to follow the goods into Romney Marsh. I have looked about and I am persuaded we can see all we might wish to see from a vantage point at the foot of the cliff path. There are large boulders there, you know, and some tall scrub as well. I daresay that if we dress sensibly in dark clothing, we can hide behind the boulders and see without being seen.”
“How will we see anything if there is no moon?” Adriana demanded. “The smugglers will scarcely be dancing about with torches or candles, particularly since they once frightened Lady Hetta by showing lights and must know of that incident by now.”
Miranda shrugged. “We will see nothing if we make no attempt, that is certain. If there is starlight, we will see a great deal, for the sand and shingle are light in color and the men will be moving about. And we will see the outline of a ship, at least. And there will be sounds of movement, and the knowing of what is going forth, and … Oh, Dree, you will not turn spoilsport at such an exciting opportunity. Say you will not.”
Adriana said nothing of the kind, telling herself as well as her sister that she was determined to show Joshua that she would obey him when his command was a reasonable one. Her curiosity was overwhelming, however, and the more she thought about the smugglers going about their business just below the castle, as they had been doing her first night there, the harder it was not to give in to Miranda’s continued persuasions. Her resistance, over the next few days, grew weaker, and when Miranda, informing her triumphantly that Mr. Braverstoke had agreed to provide armed escort for the expedition, added the casual rider that Adriana’s refusal to go would not by any means put an end to the matter, Adriana demanded to know what she meant.
“Why, only that I shall take my maid with me if you are so disobliging as to refuse to go.”
“You shall not. I’ll tell Joshua what you plan to do. I’ll forbid Maisie to accompany you.”
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