“Do you know what you’ll do now?” I finally ventured to inquire, speaking into the darkness. Kate hadn’t moved for some time, but I knew she was awake. I could feel her worrying.
She sighed. “No.”
“Will you go to India with Robert?” I murmured, pushing the real question I wanted to ask past my lips.
“I don’t know.” Her voice was tentative. “I don’t think I want to.”
I could understand that. India was half a world away. The journey alone would require weeks if not months of travel, and unless she married a man who planned to return to Britain, she might never set foot on English soil ever again.
I found it difficult enough to accept that Robert was essentially banished, even though I knew he deserved such a punishment, or worse. But the thought of Kate being forced to join him in exile made my chest ache. If she went, I might never see her again.
“Do you have any relatives who might welcome you?”
“Welcome might be too strong a word,” she replied with a sardonic twist to her voice. “But yes. An aunt and uncle in Bedfordshire with four exasperating children and approximately twenty dogs, and a widowed aunt in Westmorland who constantly writes to tell us how lonely she is.”
“I think I would choose the lonely aunt.”
Kate’s hair rustled against her pillow as she turned her head. “She does seem like the obvious choice, doesn’t she? She may only require companionship, while my Bedfordshire relatives are constantly in want of a proper governess.” She scrunched up her nose in distaste and I smiled as I tried and failed to imagine Kate caring for four small children.
“Although Mother did always say my widowed aunt was a bit balmy. But then again she claimed the same thing of about half of her acquaintances. So either my mother made a habit of visiting Bedlam or she declared that about anyone who didn’t meet her impossible standards.”
“What happened to your aunt’s husband?”
Kate began to play with the ends of her braid. “I don’t know. She was wed and widowed very young. Before they were able to have children, I guess.”
“So maybe she is just lonely.” Then another thought occurred to me. “Westmorland is awfully far away.”
“It is,” she conceded. “But not nearly as far as India.”
“True.”
We fell silent, each of our minds busy with our own thoughts. Kate’s hand slid under the covers to grip mine where it laid by my side, and I could feel her misery and uncertainty.
“I’m sorry, Kate,” I said, wishing there was something I could do.
She tightened her grasp. “There’s no need to apologize. This is a better outcome than I could have ever hoped for. If you hadn’t been so brave, if Jack didn’t care for you so, I suspect I would be facing destitution and the scandal of the century, if not my own trial for treason.” Her voice hardened. “Robert is lucky to be granted exile and a hefty fine. He could have been made to forfeit everything, including his life.”
“I know. But I still hate the fact that you now have to choose whether to join him in that exile or go live with some distant relative you barely know. If only you could live on your own at Greenlaws.” I huffed. “It’s ridiculous. If you were a widow like your aunt no one would think anything of it.”
Kate surprised me by laughing. “Don’t worry about me, Ella. This is probably more than I deserve. And in all likelihood, I would probably get into serious trouble if I lived on my own. Scandalize the village.”
A reluctant grin escaped my lips. “I would keep you from disgrace.”
“You’d try,” she scoffed. “But you never have been good at saying no to me.”
She was right. I was abominable at it. When he was alive, my brother had forever been berating me for it. He’d sworn that someday Kate was going to drag me into some sort of trouble I couldn’t extricate us from. Not entirely, at least.
And he’d been right.
“You must promise to write,” I told her, knowing just how abysmal she was at keeping up with her correspondence.
“I’ll try,” she answered honestly.
“You’d better. Or I’ll hunt you down just to scold you.”
Her voice softened. “I’ll hold you to that.”
I felt a lump forming in my throat, but somehow I was able to push my voice past it. “Good.”
She released my hand then and we both closed our eyes, but it was a long time before either of us slept.
~ ~ ~
Two days later, Robert was released. I heard from Kate that he had been given one week to put his affairs in order and book passage on a ship to India. Even though he tried to convince his sister to accompany him, Kate had made up her mind to stay in England, a decision I knew had not been easy for her. Despite all of his flaws and mistakes, he was still her brother. I could see how much it broke her heart to say goodbye knowing she might very well never see him again.
I shed no small amount of tears as we said our farewells and she climbed into the carriage that would whisk her off to the north. Robert was conspicuously absent, and though Kate tried not to show how much this bothered her, I could tell from the tightness around her mouth and the way she continued to glance at the house that it did.
“He just can’t face us,” she murmured when I asked where he was. “All this time, I think he still wanted to believe he was being noble, wanted us to believe it. That he had wed Olivia with good intentions, even though it hurt us. That he hadn’t stopped the smuggling the moment he found out about it because he was protecting his wife and then me and his servants from destitution. That he’d been cruelly used and forced into all of this.” Her brow furrowed. “But now that it’s all come out, now that he’s realized that you were able to do in a matter of weeks what he couldn’t do in four years—free us from Reynard—he simply can’t face us.” Her gaze shifted to meet mine. “Especially knowing it was your influence that saved him from the noose.”
I recognized the truth in what she said, but nevertheless I was irritated by his absence, as much for Kate’s sake as my own.
With a coachman, a footman, and her eminently capable lady’s maid in tow, I knew Kate was as protected as she could be as I watched her carriage roll down the drive to the road, but I still fretted. It would be a long time before I stopped doing so. Kate was lovely, spirited, and loyal, but she was also rash, overly-romantic, and possessed of a quick temper. There was no telling what sort of trouble she would encounter.
As for Robert, I wasn’t sure words could adequately express how angry and disappointed I was in him. Not only had he refused to see his sister off—the sister he had failed to protect—but he also could not be bothered to tender me an apology in person. He took the coward’s way out, sending me a short, almost terse note along with my mother’s pianoforte. While I was grateful to have the instrument back, I was incredibly hurt he hadn’t cared enough to see me one last time before he sailed for India. No matter how upset I was with him, I still would have liked to say a proper goodbye.
Several weeks passed and there still had been no word of Reynard’s capture or any sign that Jack had returned. I began to wonder if I’d made a foolish promise agreeing to wait for him. He’d warned me it could take some time, but I supposed I expected the matter to be concluded rather swiftly. After all, how far could Reynard have run? Was he truly that elusive or had he been apprehended in secret and Jack had merely forgotten about me?
It had taken many days, but my temper had finally cooled enough that I could view things more objectively. I was still hurt that he had lied to me for so long, especially after I’d given him my tentative trust, but I also recognized he’d been placed in a difficult situation. He’d made promises to his brother and to his country, and he could not have easily broken them. I still believed he should have confided in me the truth, but I better appreciated his predicament.
Had I been in his shoes I’m not sure I wouldn’t have made the very same choices he had. And he did clear my and my father�
��s names, and spare my friends from a worse fate for their crimes. In truth, beyond that Jack owed me nothing, not even an explanation, no matter how I longed to hear it. No matter how much I wanted to believe there was more to our association than expedience.
At least one good thing came of my weeks of waiting: I was able to spend time with my father while he was sober, more time than we’d spent together in years. He truly was trying his best this time. His haggard appearance began to improve with each passing day, helped along by our long walks in the countryside and Mrs. Brittle’s cooking.
The money Lord Waveney had given us—which he’d refused to have returned, stating it was payment for services to the Crown—had allowed us to pay off the remainder of our debts and restock our larder, with a tidy sum still left over. I even made a new agreement with Mr. Ingles. I wouldn’t reveal to the authorities just what had happened to Mr. Watkins in his establishment so long as he stopped bribing my father with brandy.
As for Watkins’s body, it had never been located. Though in truth the revenue men did not seem to be searching for it since no one had come forward to report him missing. I found it somewhat suspicious that a portion of the flooring at the White Horse had been newly replaced and the pub smelled strongly of turpentine, but I didn’t ask why. I didn’t want to know.
Crisp, on the other hand, seemed to be doing his best to make the innkeeper and the rest of Thurlton sweat over his presence at the White Horse. True to Jack’s word, Crisp had remained nearby to watch over me and Kate to be certain Reynard didn’t return to Norfolk to cause trouble. Though I was quite certain Crisp hadn’t gone so far as to introduce himself as a revenue man, the villagers seemed to have sniffed him out anyway. It was evident that Crisp didn’t mind. In fact, from the twinkle in his eye, he seemed to rather enjoy the effect he was having on the villagers, and I could only assume he knew why. However, I didn’t expect him to do anything about it. Not for the moment anyway.
I knew better than to believe Father’s craving for French brandy and the forgetfulness it could bring would ever completely end. It would always be there, beneath the surface, a sneaking thing waiting to take him away from me again. I even found him standing at the front window on some evenings, staring out at nothing, his fists clenched as if fighting against something. The urge to visit the White Horse? But he continued to resist, and I had hope he would keep doing so, because he seemed to have found a reason stronger than his desire to give in.
However, Father and I had both agreed I should visit my great-aunt. After reading the few letters she had written my mother that my father had not destroyed long ago in a fit of drunken rage, I was intensely curious about her and all of my mother’s family, even my grandfather. If all went well, I had hopes that perhaps some arrangement could be made where I split my time between Lady Bramford and her homes in London and Suffolk, and my father at Penleaf Cottage. Whether she could help me find a husband, I didn’t know, but it was simply enough to know I had someone else who cared. If Father began to drink heavily again, if he lost our cottage, I would have someone to turn to, somewhere to go. I wouldn’t be left all alone, as I’d so desperately feared.
And so all there was left for me to do was wait.
Until one morning when Mrs. Brittle returned from the village to tell us how Thurlton was humming with the news that Waveney Hall was being opened up across the marsh. Orders had been given to augment the skeleton staff who maintained the property in the viscount’s absence with people from the local villages.
“Sounds like it’s to be more than temporary,” Mrs. Brittle explained. “And ’twill do the folks here a lot o’ good. ’Specially those who lost their positions at Greenlaws when the house was closed up.”
I nodded absently, only partially listening as she prattled on. I was too busy wondering exactly what this meant. Was Lord Waveney merely attempting to make up for the loss of the surrounding villages’ main legal employer? Or was he actually taking up residence again here in the Broads? And would his brother be joining him?
Chapter 36
T
he day had been warm and damp, so when the sun set and the temperature rapidly began to drop, the fog rolled up from the marshes like storm clouds piling up on the horizon. It was an evening much like the night I had first encountered Jack masquerading as a Lantern Man while on my way to deliver that much-needed medicine to Kate.
Staring around me at the swirling fog I could almost believe it had all been a strange dream, except too much had changed. I was no longer that hesitant girl, hiding from the past, running from the pain, waiting for my life to change. Waiting for someone or something to intercede on my behalf, to save me. I had lamented that my prayers were not being answered, that I’d been abandoned, when in truth the options had already been laid before me, waiting for me to take action.
I pressed my hand to my mother’s brooch pinned to my chest and crossed toward the end of our dock. The boards I had removed to trap Jack had since been repaired—their pale, smooth finish glaringly bright next to the weathered wood of the rest of the dock. The water trickled softly beneath me, swishing about the pilings as it made its way toward the river. Its sound was the only accompaniment to my breathing, as the insects and other night creatures hid from the fog. Occasionally I would hear the burble of a fish passing by or a bubble of marsh gas escaping to the surface, but the rest of the night was still, silent, waiting.
As I was.
Perhaps it was silly to think he would appear here tonight. Perhaps I was reading too much into the news Mrs. Brittle had shared about Waveney Hall being reopened, and was deluding myself to believe it was a sign. There could be any number of reasons the viscount had decided to return to the Broads after such a long absence, and most of them had nothing to do with me, or his brother Jack, for that matter. But somehow this felt right. Even the mist seemed like a portent, though I hoped this time it was of something good.
Setting my lantern at my feet, I closed my eyes and began to hum a song my mother had sung to me as a child, something soft and sweet and soothing. I could still hear her voice in my head as she cradled me close, smell the perfume on her skin, and this time the memory brought me no pain, only peace.
As I paused to draw breath between verses, I suddenly realized I wasn’t alone. My heart quickened, but this time not in alarm, but anticipation.
I knew he was standing behind me, however I didn’t want to face him yet. I didn’t want to be drawn into his gaze, so I simply turned my head to the side so that he could better hear me. “You returned.”
His footsteps moved closer, until he was standing almost directly at my back. I could feel the warmth of him through my clothes. “Yes.” His voice was cello-deep, as it had been that first night we met on this dock and it resonated in me as it had before. “You worried I wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t know what to think,” I admitted, though his statement had not been a question. I lowered my chin, pulling a deep breath into my lungs past the tightness in my chest. My scalp and the fine hairs down my neck, back, and all along my arms had come alive, tingling at his nearness. “Did you capture Reynard?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him nod. “Just as he was boarding a ship in Romney Marsh.”
“In Sussex?”
“Apparently he thought to take his chances directing his enterprise from across the channel in France.”
I inhaled again, this time in relief. “So it is finished?”
“For now.”
I turned to look at him then, noticing he wore no hat. He never had, unless his role required it. And just like always his still too-long dark hair was carelessly tousled by the wind, as if he couldn’t be bothered with it. It was reassuring somehow. So much about the man I had known had been a charade, from his garments down to his occupation, but there were still parts of him that remained unchanged. Like his eyes the color of nightingale wings, which stared intensely into mine now.
“There are other smuggling rings. Oth
er men out to undermine the British currency and the British government for their own gain. Reynard was just one of the most cunning.”
I pulled my cloak tighter about me and swiveled to face him fully. “Tell me.” I had no way of knowing if he would confide in me or not, but I stood patiently, waiting for him to decide.
He studied me with a puckered brow. “All right. Have you heard of the guinea run?”
“No.”
“It’s what we call the smuggling of gold from Britain to France. You know it’s illegal?”
I nodded.
“The runs are mostly made along the coasts of Kent and Sussex, where the channel is narrowest. But my brother discovered that an operation was also working among the Broads of Norfolk or Suffolk, somewhere near our childhood home. This one was a better kept secret than most, with higher ranking venturers. Rockland was able to divulge some of their names, and we’re hoping Reynard will prove cooperative enough to tell us the rest.” He scowled. “But I’m not optimistic.”
“So that gold in the false bottom of the wherry boat…”
“Was not the first they’d smuggled out,” he finished for me. “Nor was Colonel Junot the first French prisoner they’d helped to escape. This was a clever, furtive, well-run operation. Hence the difficulty in catching more than the lowest rung of men—those who did all the work and shouldered most of the risk, and were consequently easiest to replace.”
He tilted his head. “Do you remember the code Harry asked you to relay to Captain Haywood? The one Reynard was so furious you might have shared?”
“How could I forget? Greybar twenty-three.”
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