“Or the nearest passage to a madhouse.” Gold lights danced in Ashmoor’s eyes.
“These books are going to be ruined.” Miss Morrow stooped, managing to do so without clashing heads with anyone, and picked up the nearest tome. “I have never read Mr. Latham’s work.” She flipped the cover back and stared at the front page so hard, Honore leaned over to see what was so fascinating.
And so did Ashmoor. Their heads clunked together again.
The three of them sat on the floor laughing hard enough to press their hands to their middles. Tears dripped down Honore’s cheeks. Wiping them away, she started at the sight of Mavis standing in the doorway, mouth agape.
“If-if I didn’t know better,” she stammered, “I’d say you all have been at the wine.”
“Considering there is none in the house,” Honore managed to respond in a somewhat sober tone, “that is not possible.”
“But there is, miss, begging your pardon for contradicting you. There’s a half dozen casks—”
The three of them were on their feet in unison like marionettes shot up by their strings.
“Where?” Honore reached the door first, the swiftness of her movement sending Mavis scurrying backward into the corridor.
“The-the cellar. I were looking for more candles and maybe more coal. We’re frightfully low and—”
Honore led the group down the narrow passageway to the cellar steps. She paused only long enough to snatch a candle from a stand on the entryway table. Slowly, hand gripping the rope serving as a railing, she descended the steep steps to the packed dirt floor of the cellar. Her nose wrinkled and twitched. The sourness of old, spilled wine permeated the air, tickled her nose.
She paused, turning her head in search of the scent’s source. “I know my grandmother did not drink spirits of any kind.”
“It isn’t wine.” Ashmoor paused beside her. “It’s brandy.”
“But how?” Honore stared up at him too, too close to her.
“Someone’s been using the dower house for storing contraband, apparently.” His face was taut.
Mavis gasped. “But that means smugglers been in this house.” She began to back toward the steps. “I don’t want nothing to do with smugglers. They-they kill people who interferes with them.”
“Yes, they do.” The chill of the cellar penetrated to Honore’s bones. “But I thought when they cleaned to remove any traces of who they might be, they would have taken away everything leading back to them. So why would they leave casks of brandy that is so obviously contraband?”
“And how did they get it here?” Ashmoor, who had also procured a candle, strode forward. “Where are these casks, Mavis?”
“In-in that room.” Mavis’s teeth chattered.
“Go upstairs,” Honore told her. “You’re freezing.”
“No, miss, I’m scared. I don’t want to go alone.”
“Miss Morrow, will you go with her?” Honore tossed the suggestion over her shoulder as she followed Ashmoor.
“And leave you down here alone with his lordship?” Miss Morrow laughed. “I would be remiss in my chaperoning duties.”
“There is nothing to chaperone.” Honore’s tone was sharp.
Miss Morrow just laughed again and stood her ground.
With a sigh of exasperation, Honore entered the side room after Ashmoor. Not until she stood in the opening surveying the half dozen casks, one of which was obviously leaking onto the floor, did she realize that she had been there once before and hadn’t realized what the sour stench had been.
“Lord Ashmoor.” She swallowed, for her teeth had begun to chatter as well. “These are new here. I mean, I smelled this on Thursday, but not on Wednesday.”
He faced her. “Are you saying someone brought these in Wednesday night?”
“They must have, the same night they cleaned. But that’s absurd.” She pressed her hand to her lips.
Ashmoor drew it away and curled his fingers around it. “Don’t look so scared . . . or so sweet. The temptation to kiss you is powerful.”
Honore gulped. “Then do not touch me.”
“Or look at you.”
“Or be in the same room as I am.”
“Not possible if I’m to get any answers.”
“My lord.” She stepped back, though he still held her hand. “I want to prove your innocence for my own sake. For if you are guilty, I am afraid—afraid—”
“I’d never hurt you under any circumstances.”
“No, I do not mean afraid like that.” She tugged, and he released her fingers. She wished he had not. “I am afraid I will never trust anyone again. I had already asked Papa to find me a husband because of Frobisher and Crawford. But now you . . .”
Ashmoor stared at her, his eyes dark in the flickering candlelight. “Are you saying you think I might be guilty of treason against England because of your other suitors turning out to be scoundrels?”
Honore jutted out her chin. “Yes.”
“Or because of my father?” His voice could have cut the iron bands on the contraband casks.
“I have little knowledge of your father’s crime.” The instant she spoke, she sucked in her breath as though she could draw the words back.
He turned away from her. “So, like father, like son?”
“I know not. No one talks about your father much anymore. It was a lifetime ago. It was—”
“Yes, his lifetime.” He glared over his shoulder. “If he hadn’t been hounded out of England like a mad dog, he would never have drowned beneath the ice while trying to feed his family. He was the best of men, yet here he’s been tried and convicted without a trial, and by association of my blood, so have I.” He turned away. “If it wasn’t for the money I can smuggle back to America for my family, this wouldn’t be worth the trouble.” He strode from the room. A moment later, the steps creaked beneath the thuds of his boot heels.
Honore ran after him, ignoring Miss Morrow’s and Mavis’s cries to know what was happening.
“My lord.” Honore’s candle extinguished and she tripped over her hem, tearing loose the stitching and falling to her knees on the top step with an “ooph” as the air was driven from her lungs.
“Honore Bainbridge.” The hardness had gone, the tenderness had returned as he retraced his steps and held his hand down to her. “Am I forever going to have to pick you up?”
She smiled. “My father thought you good enough to elevate me.”
“Yet I seem to be your downfall.”
They laughed, and the strain between them broke. She felt it slip away like a knotted sash finally coming loose. She took his hand, scrambled to her feet, and let him lead her back to the book room. He set her in a chair and removed the candle from her fingers, then built up the waning fire.
“Let me tell you the story about my father that he told me.” He seated himself across from her. “My mother verifies it, for what that’s worth. They were wed. Had been for about a year. And they were living in the Clovelly house.”
“Is that why you are living there?” Honore asked.
“Because it was theirs? No. It’s nicer than the hall on Ashmoor. Not as drafty.”
“Wish I could say the same of this place.” Honore shivered. The clouds of earlier had begun to fulfill their promise of colder temperatures and rain. “I will have Mavis make us some tea.”
“I expect they are already at it. Shall I wait?”
“Please.” She leaned forward, holding her hands out to the blaze. “Why do you think the brandy casks are down in my cellar?”
“For the same reason the smugglers ensured you’d know they had been here by cleaning the house.” He grinned. “I have no idea.”
“It makes me angry. Someone is invading my property to do this. I know not how they are managing it. To get here, they would have to cross the lawn and the garden in plain sight of the house.”
“No secret passages into the caves?”
“We’re two hundred feet above the sea her
e. It seems unlikely.”
Ashmoor started to speak, then stopped and rose at the entrance of Miss Morrow with a tray.
“Tea,” she said. “And I hope you did not walk, my lord.”
“I did.” He took the tray from her and set it on a low table. “After nearly going off the cliff the other day, I am disinclined to get in a carriage again.”
“You can ride.” Honore gave him a sidelong glance through her lashes.
He grimaced. “Eventually. My brother is the one taking to riding like a centaur. I’m ordering a curricle so I can drive myself.”
Honore’s insides softened like a stale cake dropped into a cup of tea. Liking, sympathy . . . love for the man across from her? Dangerous, whatever the emotion. She must simply prove his innocence so she would know she had not gone and kissed another villain. That was all. She must not forget that. She could not care and get hurt again.
Yet his admission of apprehension regarding being inside a carriage, of not riding well—in short, of feeling helpless if he was not good at something—plucked at her heartstrings until they sang. All too well she recognized the tune.
She would love him even if he were a villain.
Such a fool for men. Three hundred years ago, her father could have done her a favor and locked her in a nunnery. Now she must face down life with the knowledge that she never chose right in heart matters.
Suddenly the isolated farmhouse in Somerset looked rather good. Right now, stranded in the Devonshire dower house, she set about pouring tea, then sat back with her cup cradled between her hands. “You were going to tell us about your father, my lord?”
“Yes, my father.” He too cradled the delicate teacup. It disappeared inside the curve of his palms. “He was a bit on the lawless side. If he hadn’t been, no one would have believed what happened that night. He told me he’d been going on runs with the smugglers for years. He wanted to get enough money together so he and my mother could marry and purchase a small estate. I believe your father was considering selling them some property he owned in Somerset.”
“It’s a dairy farm,” Honore confirmed. “The house is a hovel, but the land is excellent.”
Ashmoor nodded. “It wasn’t so much of a ruin thirty years ago. Apparently my uncle was more than happy to have them go. They were living in the Clovelly house and my uncle wanted the rent from it. Father said he intended only one more year of runs to France, but then Mother became . . . that is . . .” His ears turned pink and he lifted his cup to his lips.
Honore smiled. “Your father changed his mind with a family to consider?”
Ashmoor nodded. “So Father decided to just work on this side of the channel instead of crossing. He would take his boat out and collect goods the smugglers had dropped into the sea.”
Miss Morrow looked blank. “I’m from the Midlands. I do not understand what you are saying.”
“The smugglers carry the cargoes over here from France on bigger vessels like sloops, then they drop it into the sea with weights when they get close to the coast, so the revenue cutters cannot catch them with goods aboard. Then men pretending to be fishermen lift them out and bring them ashore in smaller batches that are harder to detect.”
“Smaller boats.” Honore’s eyes widened with the recollection of a craft tossing and turning and swamping on too high a sea for anyone to be out upon. “That’s what those men—”
She stopped, realizing she could not say anything in front of Miss Morrow. The other two stared at her.
“Never you mind. Go ahead, my lord.”
He flinched. “Do you really have to keep calling me that? It seems . . . wrong.”
Honore shook her head. “I can scarcely call you by your Christian name, and calling you by just your title is too . . . friendly.”
“I’d . . . rather we were friendly,” he said with touching uncertainty.
“Ashmoor.” She tasted the name on her tongue. It slid off the tip like anything but something burned and dry, more a touch, a whisper caressing and gentle. “All right.”
Their gazes clung.
Miss Morrow cleared her throat. “So your father was pretending to be a fisherman?”
“Yes, a fisherman.” Ashmoor swallowed more tea and set his cup aside. “It was all well until the riding officers got wind of a run one night and were there on the top of the cliff to meet the men. There was a pitched battle, with the smugglers only armed with knives and the revenue men with pistols and muskets.”
“Hardly fair.” Honore’s hands had turned her tea cold, and she set her cup on the table. “But if it was a battle, how could your father have been accused of murder?”
“There was a witness . . .” Ashmoor rubbed his hands over his face. “It was no battle. More like a massacre. The men looked to my father as their leader, so he got behind the riding officer’s captain and held a knife to his throat, threatening to slit it if the others didn’t lay down their arms.”
Miss Morrow breathed a quiet prayer.
Honore sat so still a breath seemed like too much activity.
“It worked.” Ashmoor closed his eyes as though he saw the fight for himself. “The revenue men laid down their weapons and the surviving smugglers ran.”
Honore opened her mouth, but the inevitable question did not emerge.
Ashmoor smiled at her. “I know. Everyone says my father tossed the officer off the cliff and everyone heard his screams for a mile around.”
“A gross exaggeration,” Miss Morrow murmured.
“A flat-out lie.” Ashmoor picked up his cup, set it down again without tasting the dregs of tea in the bottom. “That is, the man went off the cliff, but Father didn’t do it. He pushed the man in the other direction so he could run before he was caught too.”
“Could he—?” Honore gulped. “Could he have been mistaken in the direction in which he threw the officer?”
Ashmoor gave his head an emphatic shake. “He said one of the other revenue men did it. I know that’s just his word, but he was not the murderous sort. And your father believed him. They had been friends all their lives.”
“But the riding officers would never betray one of their own, even over the life of a captain.” Honore felt sick, partly with the notion that men sworn to uphold the king’s laws would break it and let another take the blame, and partly because she was uncertain as to the truth of it. And if Ashmoor’s father had committed murder—
She jerked herself upright and away from that line of thought. “So they arrested your father?”
“Yes. They arrested him to wait for the assizes. He would have been hanged. Few people believed he spoke the truth except my uncle and your father.”
“Two people one would think would know him best.” Honore nodded.
“Except they were not witnesses.” Miss Morrow’s voice sounded as dry as newspaper.
“He would have been hanged,” Ashmoor repeated. “But he escaped from prison, and he and Mother ended up on a ship bound for New York.”
Honore arched her brows. “Somehow they escaped?”
“I expect my uncle, maybe even your father helped.”
“I suppose none of your father’s old smuggling gang would testify for him for fear of prosecution.” Honore leaned her head against the curved back of the chair and closed her eyes.
She saw the white-capped waves, the fishing smack tossed about like a cork, the two men Ashmoor drew to safety. Two men with a mission important enough to go out in such weather. A mission like rescuing kegs of contraband from the bottom of the sea.
“Could we find any of these men?” She leaned forward, her tone excited. “It is too late for them to testify, but they may know something of that night they would tell his son.”
“They might. But I can’t do it on my own. I don’t know the people here.”
Which was why he was there. His presence had nothing to do with her, with regretting kissing her, with changing his mind about courting her despite her reputation and his need of a wif
e above reproach. No, he was there for help from the only person he knew who would be willing to give it.
She would weep about that later in private. For now, she offered him a smile that might have been a little too bright. “Of course I will help you. I already planned to start finding out who has been invading my property, especially now that we have a half dozen kegs of contraband in the cellar and no way of knowing how it got there.”
“Thank you. If we can clear this up, my entire family will be better off for it. They can—”
The door knocker sounded for the second time that day.
Honore jumped to her feet. “Who would come calling in this weather?”
“And at this hour?” Miss Morrow glanced at the clock.
Ashmoor rose and glanced about as though seeking a bolt-hole. “I shouldn’t be seen here.”
“Oh no, of course not.” Honore made no attempt to disguise her sarcasm.
In the entryway, Mavis was greeting and exclaiming over the wetness of someone’s garments. The responding voice was unfamiliar but female.
“I am afraid, my lord,” Honore said with a chill to her tone, “you are caught.”
“By whom?” Miss Morrow asked.
Mavis scratched on the door, then popped her head around the edge of the panel. “Miss Bainbridge, Miss Dunbar is here to see you.”
Ashmoor looked blank. “Who is Miss Dunbar, if that’s not rude of me to ask?”
“Send her in and bring more tea.” Honore addressed the maid, then turned to Ashmoor. “Miss Deborah Dunbar, my future sister-in-law.”
21
Miss Deborah Dunbar entered the room like a will-o’-the-wisp gliding across a nighttime field—as pale and filmy as mist. Her hair, a silvery blonde, sprang from its pins in fluttery curls. Her eyes were a silvery gray, her complexion pale. Even her gown, a smoky silver gauze, drifted around her delicate frame as though it were created of vapor, not fabric.
“I apologize for the intrusion, Miss Bainbridge.” She spoke in a thin little voice. “I have been anxious to make your acquaintance for simply ages, and Mama will never allow it.”
“Apparently not.” Honore’s tone was dry. “So how did you manage this?”
A Reluctant Courtship Page 20