Secrets in the Mist

by Anna Lee Huber

  “Well, if you won’t agree, I’ll simply have to approach another member of your crew,” I bluffed.

  His face hardened. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Why? They might be more reasonable.”

  “I wouldn’t rely on it.”

  There was something in his voice that told me he was right. Jack might not be so willing to harm me, but I wasn’t sure I could say the same for Achilles or any of the others. They could sink me in the marsh like one of the casks they hid from the revenue men and no one would ever know what happened to me. But I saw my chance to press my appeal.

  “You leave me no choice,” I declared as carelessly as I could and began to turn away.

  His hand shot out to grab my arm. “Why? Why do you want to join a lot of ruthless smugglers?” His upper lip curled derisively. “Do you think to snag yourself a bag of pretty gems, or some bolts of French silk?”

  “No,” I retorted. “Do you honestly think me so vain and senseless?”

  “Then why?” he demanded. “What on earth would impel you to do such a thing?”

  “Why do you do it?” I shot back, pulling my arm from his grasp. “Are you a younger son looking for an easy way to make money? Too skeptical to join the church, and too…too cowardly to join the military?”

  He stiffened and I knew I’d struck a nerve.

  “My motives are of no concern. I’m not the foolish chit trying to blackmail my way into a band of smugglers. Doesn’t your father give you enough pin money?”

  “My father doesn’t have any money,” I snapped before I could stop myself. “And what he does have he drinks away.”

  Jack stilled, and I could see in his eyes the moment he began to grasp my implication.

  “I haven’t had a new gown of my own in years.” I gestured toward the old frock hidden beneath my patched and worn cloak. “And the only jewelry I own is my mother’s brooch. The one you required a lock of my hair in exchange for before you would return it,” I added in accusation.

  He didn’t look at all ashamed of his actions, but he did stop looking at me as if I was a brainless twit. “So you need the money?”

  Humiliation washed over me at the realization that this man now comprehended just how desperate I was. It burned across my skin and scoured my insides. I dropped my gaze to stare at our feet. “My father was caught with a bottle of French brandy. For the second time.” There was no point in keeping anything from him now. “And we don’t have the money to pay the fine.”

  “How hefty is it?”

  I looked up as I told him the sum and I could tell from his tight expression that he understood.

  “Then you can’t ask Rockland for a loan.”

  I was gratified he hadn’t suggested I simply ask for it outright. “No.”

  He stared down at me, a frown marring his brow. I could see him running the implications through his head.

  I realized I had never seen him this closely before. When we met in the marshes, he had always hidden his face, and the few times I had encountered him elsewhere he’d been careful to keep his distance. I had been correct about the shape of his eyes. They were sly and narrowed at the corners like a cat. But they weren’t as dark as I’d expected, being more of a muted shade of brown, like the feathers of a nightingale.

  I couldn’t be certain exactly how much Jack understood, but he opened and shut his mouth several times, as if forming and then discarding questions before he could ask them. And all the while his rugged jaw clenched harder and harder.

  He inhaled deeply as if to calm himself and then finally spoke. “I assume, had you any other palatable options, you would not have come to this conclusion?”

  I nodded slowly. I supposed Robert’s proposal could be described as unpalatable. At least under these circumstances.

  Jack continued to study me through narrowed eyes, and I couldn’t tell if he didn’t believe me or if he simply didn’t know what to say.

  “This isn’t a lark,” I retorted. “I knew what I risked trapping you. If you won’t accept my offer, I’ll find someone who will.”

  “You truly would approach one of the other men, wouldn’t you?” he asked, as if believing me for the first time.

  Before, I thought I’d been lying, but now I wasn’t so sure. “Miss Rockland is acquainted with Achilles. Perhaps he would be more willing to accept my services.”

  His eyebrows arched. “Achilles?”

  I wanted to bite my tongue. “Harry,” I clarified. And then seeing the flicker of amusement in his eyes, I hastened to explain. “It’s what Miss Rockland called him.”

  “I see,” he drawled. “And how did she refer to me? As Ajax, or Hector perhaps?”

  I flushed. “Perhaps.”

  His eyes twinkled with laughter though his mouth remained firm. “Well, let’s hope my fate isn’t the same as my namesake’s when I tell Harry we have a new member of our crew.”

  I blinked in surprise. “So you…you’re going to let me join you?”

  All the humor fled from his face, and he inched a step closer, looming over me. “That is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  I was startled by this swift change in him. “I…yes.”

  “Then we will make use of you. In whatever way we deem best.” His eyes hardened. “But know this: There is no turning back. You will not recant. You will not change your mind. And should you even consider betraying us, those will be the last thoughts that ever flit through your pretty little head.”

  I tried to back up a step, but his hands came up to grasp my arms just above the elbows, holding me immobile.

  “Careful,” he murmured silkily. “We wouldn’t want you to tumble into the marsh.”

  I glanced behind me. Under the onslaught of his words I’d forgotten I was standing at the edge of the dock.

  He squeezed my arms, recalling my attention to him. “Be here waiting for me tomorrow at sundown.” His dark eyes probed mine. “Do not make me wait.” Then he pressed a firm kiss to my mouth, all but stopping my breath, before turning my shoulders in the direction of my cottage. “Now, go!”

  I leapt over the hole in the boards where earlier Jack had fallen through, nearly stumbling on the rough planks, and fled down the dock. It was all I could do not to break into a run. My heart pounded in my ears, urging me to move faster. Yet something made me pause at the edge of the dock and look back.

  Jack stood tall and proud, a stark silhouette in the moonlight, his unruly hair lifting in the breeze. It was too dark to see his face, but I could feel his eyes on me, meeting mine across the distance.

  He had intended to frighten me, and he had succeeded. Even now, shock and fear vibrated through me. But standing here at a distance looking back at his solitary figure, so removed and self-contained, I felt an impulse as strong as my desire to escape. A desire to go to him.

  It was madness, but still the ache in my chest did not diminish, even when I turned to disappear through the reeds and up the path to Penleaf Cottage.

  Chapter 18

  T

  he next evening when I made my way down to the dock, Jack was there waiting for me. At the sight of him I hesitated, all too conscious of his warning the previous night to not make him wait, but how was I to know he would be there early? I’d had a difficult enough time escaping Mrs. Brittle, who had turned disapproving and surprisingly argumentative when I informed her I was going to Greenlaws. I was accustomed to her sharp glances, but not her challenging my actions outright. It was clear she suspected something. I just hoped it wasn’t the truth.

  I knew he was aware of my presence, but he didn’t look up as I crossed the dock toward him. He sat with his legs dangling over the edge, the tips of his boots nearly grazing the water, staring out over the marshes.

  “The sun__”

  “Hasn’t yet begun to set,” he finished for me. “I know.” He rose to his feet and turned to me.

  It was the first time I’d faced him in such proximity in the sunlight, even the drowsy ligh
t of early evening. With the setting sun at my back, I could see all of his features quite clearly, even those that had remained hidden in shadow the night before, and he did not disappoint. I thought he must be the most attractive man I’d ever seen, even with the pale pink ridge of a scar just visible at his hairline when the wind blew the curls away from his forehead. Was that why he let his hair grow so unkempt? He didn’t strike me as a vain man. Not like Reynard, anyway. But I supposed everyone must have something they felt insecure about.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, the better to hide the faded print of the bodice of my mother’s gown and the loose way it hung on my frame.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  I glanced down at the small boat floating in the water below. “Where are we going?”

  “To meet the others,” he answered vaguely.

  I searched his face, wondering if climbing into a boat with him would be the most ill-advised thing I could do. He could row me far out into the marshes and push me out of the boat. The water, the boggy vegetation, and the weight of my skirts would do the rest of the work. There was little chance I would ever be found.

  I clutched myself tighter at the thought.

  But if he meant to kill me, why hadn’t he done so last night? Why carry on this charade?

  My fear and uncertainty must have shown, for Jack lifted his arm to rest it against the dock post, exposing the white shirt beneath his loose coat. “This is your last chance,” he leaned toward me to say. “If you return home now, I’ll forget last night’s conversation ever happened. As will you,” he added with a hard glint in his eyes. “But if you step into that boat…” he gestured with his head “…there will be no turning back. Your decision will be final. And I can’t promise you will like the outcome.”

  Perhaps incongruously, his offer to let me change my mind actually quieted some of my fears and firmed my resolve. Though from the forbidding furrow between his brows, I was certain that was not his intention.

  “Yes, well, I am certain that if I don’t come, I won’t like the outcome,” I replied.

  His shoulders stiffened. “So, I suppose, there we have it.” He seemed to search my face for any sign of wavering, but I knew he would find none. “Very well,” he finally muttered before climbing down into the boat.

  I followed him down the ladder, and when I reached the next to last rung I felt his hands clasp my waist and lift me down into the small vessel. My feet landed unsteadily, but he held tight until I was able to right myself. As soon as he released me, I quickly turned around and sat down on the bench opposite him, struggling to control the catch in my breath.

  He untied the boat from the dock and pushed us off, propelling us out into the middle of the waterway with such force that I gripped the wood beneath me. Then with a skillful flick of the oars, he directed us north toward the main channels and rivers.

  I tried to ignore him, to focus on the landscape around us, but in the dying light of the sun there wasn’t much to see, just the lengthening shadows of the reeds and the murky blur of vegetation beyond. The water below us faded from a cloudy brown to an oily shade of charcoal. The chorus of insects increased and the cry of a marsh harrier echoed overhead, but beyond that the only sound that could be heard was the splash and pull of the oars through the water.

  So I spent the better part of our trip observing Jack out of the corner of my eye while pretending not to. He seemed disinclined to converse, and I hardly knew what to say under such peculiar circumstances. I couldn’t very well ask him about the weather, or compliment his clothing. The rules of social decorum utterly failed me in this situation.

  When we neared the river, Jack lifted the oars from the water, bracing them across his lap and turned to lift a lantern from the bottom of the boat behind him. I watched as he carefully lit the lamp and then snapped the panel shut. The light was muted, as if shown through a fog, and I realized the glass panels appeared to have been deliberately smoked.

  “It draws less attention when we want to pass unseen,” he explained, correctly interpreting my curiosity.

  “Do you use them when you’re walking the fens?” I asked, thinking of all the times he’d seemed to appear out of nowhere.

  “Sometimes.” He dipped the oars back into the water, resuming the easy rhythm of his rowing.

  I frowned in puzzlement. “Then why pretend to be Lantern Men? Wouldn’t it be smarter not to draw attention to yourselves?”

  “Perhaps. But then without the myth of the Lantern Men, there might be more people wandering the marsh paths at night, wouldn’t there? We’re simply putting the local lore to good use.”

  “Perpetuating the myth so that when you do want to pass unseen there’s less chance of encountering anyone,” I surmised.

  His eyebrows arched. “Most of the time it works.”

  Meaning I was the exception. And all because I’d been urgent to take medicine to Kate.

  “But the locals… Some of them must know who you really are,” I argued before I stopped to consider this might not be known to him.

  Jack’s lips quirked. “Yes, we know.” He held his oars down in the water to slow us, and glanced over his shoulders. “We encounter each other from time to time when making a run. There are only so many waterways leading inland from the sea. It’s bound to happen.”

  “And you don’t try to stop them?”

  “Why should we?” he asked with a small grunt as he turned the boat into the river and began rowing upstream. “They’ll keep quiet, just as they know we will. So long as they don’t interfere in our business.”

  His voice sounded forbidding, but I didn’t know if it was from true hostility or if it was simply due to the effort it now took for him to row against the current. The river was swollen from the rain that had fallen late the night before and most of the day. Still, I couldn’t stop from questioning him further.

  “But doesn’t that make you competitors? I mean, aren’t you smuggling the same things?”

  “In principle,” he replied vaguely.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means the Thurlton gang smuggles the usual—gin, brandy, beer, tobacco, tea, sugar—while our operation is a bit more…extravagant.”

  “Extravagant?” I repeated, still not understanding.

  He answered slowly, his voice tightening and releasing with each pull of the oars. “Let’s say you’re a lady of quality and you wish for a bolt of a specific type of silk or lace. Or a gentleman with a taste for claret made at a specific distillery. Or a lord eager to gift a special woman with an exotic gem. Who would you ask to handle your request? Certainly not the likes of Mr. Ingles.”

  Now his involvement made more sense. These weren’t just common smugglers. They were brokering contraband for the nobility, perhaps even royalty. And as such, they were likely protected by them.

  I’d suspected he was more than a suspiciously well-educated wherry man, but I’d thought he was a member of the gentry, or perhaps a younger son of a minor noble. Not that he regularly socialized with members of the ton.

  “So you travel to London, then? To handle these requests?” I struggled to keep my voice even.

  “Not me.”

  This silenced me, for it was not the answer I’d been expecting. And when I spoke again it was not with as much sang-froid as I’d been affecting. “Who, then?”

  Jack’s eyes fixed on me with interest and I struggled not to squirm.

  It was dark now, with only the dim light filtering through the smoked glass of his lantern to illuminate us. It sat at his feet and cast strange shadows upward over his features, making him look rather wraithlike. If I hadn’t touched him, hadn’t felt the warmth and solidity of his form, I might have believed he was a Lantern Man in truth. That he’d lured me into his boat and was now abducting me to wherever such creatures came from. Just the thought of it sent a trickle of unease running down my spine like a drop of icy rain, and tightened the breath in my lungs.

  “Yo
u’ll find out in due time,” he finally replied, giving a hard pull on the oars.

  I openly studied his face, not caring now if he knew I was doing it, and wished I knew more members of society. The only people I’d had the opportunity to meet were friends of the Rocklands, many of whom lived nearby in Norfolk or Suffolk. But perhaps they were enough.

  After all, Jack understood the Broads, possibly better than I did. He was comfortable amongst the marshes and waterways, and that was something I doubted he could have learned in a matter of months. Though, for all I knew, these men may have been smuggling through Thurlton since before I was born, but I didn’t think so. Perhaps a year or two. Surely I would have noticed had it been going on for much longer. Which meant Jack must have grown up here, or in some other area of the fenlands.

  I searched my memory, trying to recall if we’d ever met, or if I’d met someone he resembled, but my mind couldn’t form a connection. He could be from any number of families with roots in East Anglia, and I felt fairly certain I would not have forgotten him or his kin had we chanced to meet.

  But perhaps there was a more direct way of finding out who he was.

  “I feel a bit forward calling you Jack,” I said. “But you’ve never told me your surname, Mister…” I trailed away, hoping he would respond without thinking.

  “Oh, I think we’ve far surpassed simply being forward,” he drawled.

  I was grateful that the darkness hid my fiery blush, but my embarrassment must have been communicated to him regardless for he smiled suddenly, a flash of white, even teeth in the relative gloom.

  “Jack will do,” he added gently in a voice still laced with humor.

  I turned aside, wishing I hadn’t attempted such a silly ploy. Something familiar about the shoreline caught my eye, and I realized we were nearing Greenlaws. We rounded another bend in the river and there it was, perched on a rise above us. Candlelight blazed in the windows and reflected off the white trim, a tidy outline against the black of night.