Secrets in the Mist

by Anna Lee Huber

  I scoffed. “Not unless I have a heretofore unknown fairy godmother.”

  “Then it sounds like it truly must be Rockland.”

  I glanced at him, confused by the hesitancy of his pronouncement. “It does, doesn’t it?”

  Jack fell behind me, allowing me to cross a narrow section of the marsh path in front of him. Then as the trail widened again, he lengthened his stride to rejoin me.

  As he did so, I exhaled a breath of pent-up frustration, making a decision. “In the end, I guess it doesn’t really matter who sent it. It will still have to be returned.”

  “Why?”

  I repaid his scowl with one of my own. “Because I’m not keeping money given to me by Robert or anyone else. I’ll not be beholden to them, especially when I don’t know whether accepting the gift will later prove to have strings attached.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Ella.”

  I stumbled to a stop, shocked by his derisive words.

  He glared down at me. “This is your chance to repay part of the loan Himself gave you, to extricate yourself from this entire sordid affair and move on with your life. Why would you pass that up?”

  I didn’t know how to reply. Part of me recognized that what he was saying made some sense. If I kept the money, I would no longer feel this gripping fear about how we would survive another year. Father’s fine would be paid and I would have a bit of money set aside to settle a few more debts and replenish our larder. Though it was still unclear at what cost.

  But another part of me only heard that he was ready to be rid of me, to wash his hands of my annoying interference and be on his way. It was silly and absurd, and yet I felt his careless words squeeze my heart like a vise.

  “It…it’s a matter of principle,” I replied, stumbling over my words.

  “Principle,” he scoffed, “will not save you from transportation—or worse, the noose—should you be caught.” He moved a step closer to loom over me. “It will not keep you safe from the smugglers you’ve chosen to associate with.”

  My fury rekindled at his blatant attempt to intimidate me. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I haven’t considered keeping the money even though I know it would place me right where I didn’t want to be—in Robert’s debt?” I turned away, incensed that he didn’t seem to understand, and disturbed that he seemed so anxious to be done with me.

  “Besides…” I whirled back to face him, cutting off whatever he was about to chide me with next. “The chances of Himself allowing me to pay back my loan and leave his crew are minuscule. You told me yourself there was no turning back.”

  “Except you’re not even going to try,” he snapped back. “He could be reasonable.”

  But I could tell from the look in Jack’s eyes that even he doubted that assertion.

  “And if I anger him?” I demanded. “Can you guarantee Himself won’t retaliate?”

  His mouth clamped into a tight line, giving me all the answer I needed.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and began to move off into the haze still surrounding us. He didn’t try to follow me, merely allowed me to disappear into the mist to face whatever was beyond it on my own. I clutched my arms tighter around me, trying to squash the hollow ache inside me.

  ~ ~ ~

  Upon returning to Penleaf Cottage, I sat down to write Mr. Fulton to tell him to return the second bank draft, just as I’d told Jack I would. Perhaps my refusing the money was the height of foolishness when we needed it so desperately, but I simply couldn’t stomach the alternative. However, I didn’t reject the money without also attempting to uncover the benefactor’s name, if our solicitor even knew it. I appreciated Mr. Fulton’s courtesy in trying to shield me from any unpleasantness that might arise from my knowing such a fact, but I needed to know the full truth, no matter how much it might wound me.

  I didn’t venture out into the marshes or to Greenlaws the next day, not yet ready to confront Jack after our argument, and too confused and frustrated to face either Kate or Robert after my behavior the day before. I still suspected Robert was the one who had sent the second bank draft, despite his denials. Which meant any interaction between us would be strained and awkward until I uncovered the truth of the matter.

  So the following morning when a servant from Greenlaws arrived with a letter, my first thought was that it might be an explanation. Robert never had been very good at making apologies, preferring to issue them by letter. However, when I turned the letter over to examine the handwriting, I could see it was written in Kate’s elegant script, not Robert’s messy scrawl. Perhaps she was writing with the answers I sought instead.

  Unfolding the paper, I crossed the drawing room to sit at the writing desk. Sunshine streamed through the windows to spill across the floor, making the room feel a little less stark.

  But rather than an explanation, I discovered the letter was an invitation to dine that evening, several hours later than usual. It seemed an odd departure for Robert to make from his normal schedule, but perhaps this was Reynard’s influence at work. He did perpetually complain about Robert’s insistence on keeping country hours.

  However, that wasn’t the only thing that seemed peculiar about the note. Its wording was also rather adamant. In fact, it read more like a summons than a request. After reading through the short note a second time, I realized why it sounded so jarring. These weren’t Kate’s words—her lyrical, exuberant commentary. The contents had clearly been dictated to her by someone. Robert, no doubt.

  A disquieting feeling settled over me. Why hadn’t Robert penned this invitation himself? Or why hadn’t he trusted his sister to invite me in her own way, as was usually done? It didn’t make sense.

  My gaze fell on the bare spot across the room where my mother’s pianoforte had once stood. Maybe Robert was as cross with me as I was him, tired of waiting for my answer to his marriage proposal. After all, I had fled without giving him an answer. Though how I was supposed to give him one when I presumed he wasn’t being truthful about that second bank draft, I didn’t know. Perhaps this was my chance to broach the matter again, more gently this time. Maybe then he would admit his part.

  I read through the letter one last time and nodded. Yes, that seemed sensible. Regardless of whether I was satisfied with his response to my questions or not, I recognized that Robert deserved to have my answer. He had waited long enough. But that did not mean I knew exactly what I was going to say.

  I was preparing to set out across the marsh in my lavender sprig gown with my mother’s brooch affixed firmly to the bodice when the Rockland carriage suddenly appeared at our door. Having not expected such a courtesy, the sight of the conveyance gave me pause. But then I realized how silly I was being. The hour was growing late. It was only right that Robert should send his carriage for me. I climbed inside and settled back against the plush squabs.

  The ride was blessedly short, and I breathed deep of the cooler evening air as the footman assisted me down from the carriage, trying to settle the nerves that had suddenly begun to flutter in my stomach. The summer sun now hung low in the west. It had been a day of piercing blue skies, the type that heralded a brilliant twilight to come. There would be no drowsy fade from day into night, not in this part of Norfolk, but a swift bleed of light and color into crisp darkness, as if a knife had been sliced across the sky to drain the heavens. I had witnessed many such sunsets here among the Broads, and they were rarely a portent of anything good.

  The butler nodded his head in greeting. “Good evening, Miss Winterton.”

  I replied in kind as I preceded him through the door where I then paused, glancing toward the drawing room. After the formality of being procured in the carriage it seemed wrong somehow to proceed without being announced, or at the least directed to. In any case, it appeared my hosts had different plans.

  “Mr. Rockland asked that I show you into the billiard room,” the butler informed me. “If you would please follow me.”

  I hesitated, somewhat unset
tled by this second departure from routine. Clearly sensing it, the butler smiled encouragingly, as he’d done when at age seventeen I had arrived at Greenlaws for my first dinner party with nerves fluttering in my stomach. I returned his smile with a grateful one of my own and forced my feet into motion. If Robert’s design for this evening was to press his suit and ask for my answer—and the billiard room was as private a place to do it as any—then the staff must have suspected something of his intentions. Whether this pleased them or not I didn’t know, but after the unhappy uproar Olivia’s presence had wrought, I guessed they would welcome someone familiar. Someone who was not likely to ask them to change their ways, or threaten to replace half the staff with outsiders from London, of all places.

  We crossed the hall toward Robert’s study, passing beneath the large glass chandelier, its crystals tinkling lightly together in a stray cross breeze. My eyes lifted toward the merry sound, only to catch sight of Kate standing in the shadows at the top of the wide staircase. Her expression was pensive as she watched me, and it stirred up all the anxieties I’d only recently quieted. She did not call out a greeting, so I remained silent as well, wondering why she did not approach.

  We passed through the study to the door standing open on the opposite side of the room. This led directly into the billiard room positioned in the back corner of the house. In truth, the chamber acted as more of a masculine parlor, where the men had often gathered to smoke and drink port when they did not wish for female company. The billiard table for which the room was named only took up half of the space, while the other side boasted a rather unattractive collection of furnishings in various shades of brown. They had clearly been chosen for comfort rather than style, as had everything else. Though I couldn’t understand how the atrocious painting of a hunting scene—complete with dead geese and rifles—that graced the wall above the hearth could be termed comfortable.

  I expected to find Robert waiting for me there alone. But once again I was mistaken.

  Robert stood staring out through a pair of open French doors at the lawn and river beyond, and next to him slouched Reynard, his elbow propped negligently against the door he leaned against. Did the man never sit or stand with proper posture?

  When the butler announced me, Robert whirled around guiltily, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t, while Reynard merely glanced over his shoulder. His lack of concern was nothing new, but the avid gleam in his eyes made me wary.

  “Ella,” Robert murmured as the butler retreated. He shuffled toward me, as if he wasn’t certain whether I would welcome his approach. “You received Kate’s note.”

  “Yes,” I replied, wondering at his inane comment and his breathless tone.

  “Good, good,” Robert answered, awkwardly taking my hand and bowing over it.

  My gaze returned to Reynard, who was now smiling his smug little smirk. I narrowed my eyes in dislike even as I allowed Robert to draw me farther into the room.

  “Miss Winterton.” Reynard lowered his arm and turned to greet me with a nod of his head.

  “Mr. Reynard.” I refused to address him correctly. Not when he was so clearly relishing whatever was about to come.

  I stood between the two men, looking back and forth between Reynard’s annoying sneer and Robert’s wide-eyed fidgeting, waiting for one of them to end this dreadful anticipation.

  “I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you here,” Robert finally said.

  Stifling a huff of growing irritation, I voiced my first suspicion. “Is this about Sophie?”

  Robert’s face crinkled in momentary confusion, while Reynard chuckled softly.

  “My cousin? No, Miss Winterton.” Reynard’s voice was almost mocking, and I soon learned why. “This has nothing to do with any romantic entanglements.” His gaze flicked toward Robert. “Or at least no current ones.”

  Robert’s mouth flattened into a thin line.

  I frowned in confusion, but before I could voice any of the questions forming in my head, Reynard abruptly turned away.

  “Come,” he ordered, moving out through the French doors onto the lawn.

  I stared after him, slowly comprehending he actually expected me to follow. And from the way Robert was looking at me, he did also.

  “Truly?” I asked Robert in appalled amusement.

  The corner of his eye twitched as he nodded. “Yes.”

  Any humor I felt at the absurdity of the situation quickly fled, and my brow furrowed in affront and bewilderment. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. Robert was actually going to allow his late wife’s cousin to order me about like a lap dog, directing me out into the lengthening shadows of dusk. I opened my mouth to protest, but my words faltered upon examining the look on Robert’s face more closely.

  He was terrified, or at the very least thoroughly intimidated. But from the rounded shape of his eyes and the tightness about his mouth, it looked much more like fear to me.

  The trickles of unease I had felt running through me since receiving Kate’s dictated invitation suddenly merged into something much more malevolent. I stared at Reynard’s back, for he’d yet to turn to look at us, and wondered what power he could possibly hold over Robert that would cause such dread, such obedience. What influence could he have?

  And then I knew.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind the thoughts and impressions I had been gathering began to coalesce, forming a horrifying picture. One I should have seen sooner. One I should have guessed.

  I jumped when I felt Robert’s hand wrap around my arm, gently but insistently urging me forward. “Come.”

  I knew I had no choice. Should I choose to resist, Reynard would force me, and Robert would stand by and do nothing. I glanced around us at the fading daylight. If I tried to run, I had no doubt I would be stopped, perhaps by some of the other smugglers, maybe even Jack, probably now hiding just out of sight. Disillusionment and dismay flooded my mouth with their bitter taste.

  Falling into begrudging step with the two men, I allowed them to lead me through the gardens and down to the river. It was evident now that Reynard had been the one to force Kate to write that invitation. He was the one truly in charge at Greenlaws, not Robert. But for how long? And why hadn’t I noticed it before?

  For most of our trek, Reynard ignored me, but once the watchmen’s shelter came into view, I felt his eyes settle on my face, prodding me with his sharp delight. I refused to give him the reaction I knew he was looking for. I would not squirm for him like a worm on a hook. He would just have to search for his malicious gratification elsewhere.

  It wasn’t until Robert opened the door to the shelter and Reynard ushered me inside with a swift shove to my back that I realized inciting him had perhaps not been the wisest thing to do.

  The other smugglers were all gathered there around the firelight in the hearth much as they had been the first time I’d met them, save that Harry perched on the edge of a table while Jack leaned against the wall beside him. Their rough voices fell silent as they took in the sight of first me, and then Reynard and Robert following close behind.

  Jack’s gaze met mine, and he slowly straightened to his full height. There was a question in his eyes, one that could not be so easily answered with a simple shake of the head. I didn’t move toward him as I wished to, sensing that to do so would only show a fatal weakness. Instead, I shuffled through the dust and dirt scattered across the wooden floor toward the opposite side of the room, as far away from Reynard as I could manage, while the other smugglers muttered to one another in curious speculation.

  “It appears Miss Winterton has a mysterious benefactor,” Reynard began, his voice ringing with disdain. “One who desires to pay her father’s fine.”

  I stiffened, wishing I had kept my suspicions about the second bank draft to myself. Wishing I had not charged into the Greenlaws drawing room two days ago and flung my accusations at Robert, especially in front of Reynard. If only I’d known, if only I’d had the foresight to
see this knowledge would be used against me.

  As a weapon, it proved quite effective. Reynard’s words dropped into the silence of the room like a pebble pitched into a well, and I could see their effect rippling across the smugglers’ faces, first in shock, then in suspicion. One by one their features turned to stone.

  Reynard’s eyes sparkled with malice. “And have you uncovered who this benefactor is? Has he bought your loyalty…” his gaze drifted insultingly down my body “…as perhaps he’s bought the rest of you?”

  Lifting my chin, I stared at him defiantly, even though inside I was quaking, desperate not to reveal my fear. For I’d fully grasped just how much danger I was in. And just how little chance I had of escaping. “No. I don’t know who it is,” I replied, doubtful that any of them would believe me. “I still thought it was Robert.”

  My eyes flicked to Robert, who would not meet my gaze, and then to Jack, in challenge. How much more hostile would Reynard be if I’d listened to Jack and written to “Himself” asking to repay my loan?

  As if reading my thoughts, Reynard began to stalk toward me. “Let me guess. Did you think to use this…unexpected windfall to your benefit? Did you think to repay my loan and end our association?” His face hardened with anger. “You do recognize who I am?”

  I scowled at his implication that I might be an idiot. “You’re the man they call Himself,” I bit out. My accusatory gaze slid beyond his shoulder to the figure still cowering in the shadows behind him.

  “Very good,” Reynard jeered, casting a glance back over his shoulder at Robert. “Though I am a bit dismayed you might have thought Himself could actually be Rockland.” He smiled as if such an idea was preposterous.

  I didn’t correct him. I refused to. For though I had never seriously believed Robert capable of orchestrating such a thing, I had questioned how all of this could be happening on his property without his knowing. He was already wealthy. He had no need to indulge in such illegal activity. And yet here he was, smuggling with the French, the same nation who had killed his best friend, my brother.