Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 02]

by Dangerous Angels

  Wondering where he had gone, she remembered that he intended to find a way to protect Wellington from the men who wanted to capture or kill him. The thought brought her upright, for she wanted to know what he would do. More than that, she wanted him to include her in whatever he planned.

  Slipping from the high bed, she hurried to her room where Kerra had opened the curtains to reveal a sky presently clear of both storm clouds and fog. She rang the bell, and when the maid arrived, bringing hot water, Charley said, “Fetch my riding habit while I wash, please, Kerra. Is Sir Antony still downstairs?”

  “He was in the breakfast room when I come up, ma’am. He don’t dawdle about, but the papers came, so happen he’ll be looking at one or another of ’em yet.”

  He was reading the Times when Charley entered the breakfast room, but he lowered it and gave her a long, thoughtful look.

  “Good morning,” she said cheerfully.

  His smile was crooked and did not reach his eyes. “No regrets?”

  “Not one.” She looked more closely at him. “You look as if you’ve got a few, however. Vexed, sir?”

  “With myself, not with you. We played with fire last night, angel. Fire burns.”

  “We are not children, Antony. I am four-and-twenty, and you’re—”

  “Older than that, but the stakes are high, and since this marriage is a sham, it behooves us to take care.”

  “Does that mean you won’t give me any more lessons? You said you would, you know.”

  “It means that we must beware of the consequences. You don’t want a husband, and I don’t need the responsibility of a wife and perhaps a child. We both have put more faith than we should in your determination never to marry again.”

  Before she could reassure him that she never would, the footman looked in to see if she required anything that he had not already set out. “I’ll have tea, John,” she said, peeking under the nearest lid. “Oatmeal porridge! Don’t you ever eat anything else for breakfast, Antony?”

  “Toast and coffee,” he said. “One thing I missed during my years on the Continent was good oatmeal porridge, and to have it swimming in rich Cornish cream is an added pleasure. Don’t you like oatmeal?”

  “I’d rather have ham and toast with a boiled egg, or just toast and honey.” Taking the honey pot with her to the table, she sat down opposite him. “Do go on reading your paper if you like. Has anything of interest occurred in London?”

  “The Metropolitan Police Bill will get a third reading today in the House of Lords,” he said, “and Wellington will lead the discussion on Friday. Now his enemies oppose the bill because it does not include the City of London.”

  She chuckled, spreading honey on her toast. When he folded the paper and put it down she said, “Where is Letty?”

  “Riding with Jeb, Sebastian, and Jeremiah. Did you sleep well?”

  “I did. Have you devised a plan yet?”

  His eyes twinkled. “I have not, and I’ll thank you not to discuss that particular subject where anyone else might overhear you.”

  “But I want to know what you mean to do. Moreover, I want to help.”

  “Very well.” The footman returned with her tea, and Antony shot her a mocking look as he said, “That will be all, John. You may shut the door.” When the man had gone, Antony said, “We must first think of a way to divert any vessel that might try to waylay the Duke’s ship. Have you any notion how we can do that?”

  “Wellington means to land at Fowey, does he not?”

  “Yes. If I could have got word to him to land elsewhere, like Falmouth, that might have done the trick, but I knew of no way to tell him in time, or of knowing afterward whether he had taken my advice.”

  “Falmouth would have been more sensible,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s only thirteen miles from Truro. Why is he landing at Fowey?”

  “Because that was his original plan. Not only did your grandfather invite him to dine at Tuscombe Park the evening after the consecration, but Wellington wants the people of Cornwall to see him. He means to travel in style from Fowey to Truro, then take a roundabout way back to Fowey by way of Lostwithiel and Tuscombe Park. Since Alfred renewed St. Merryn’s invitation, he had no need to alter those plans. I’d intended for us to meet him in Fowey and travel with his party to Truro, but now …” He paused.

  Charley was still thinking, listening with half an ear, but when he fell silent she looked up and said, “If he leaves Portsmouth Saturday morning and arrives at Fowey in the middle of the night, as most likely he will unless the wind blows directly from the east—” She broke off, adding, “He will sail from Portsmouth, will he not?”

  “Yes, it’s the quickest route from London, but although we know it takes about eleven hours by road from London to Portsmouth, the winds, the weather, and the tides will dictate how soon he will arrive in Fowey.”

  She frowned. “Won’t they keep watch for him off St. Merryn’s Bay? If you could somehow manage to intercept his ship between here and Plymouth …”

  “We could never be certain of doing so. He won’t be flying the Royal Standard, after all, and there is a lot of water between here and France.”

  “But won’t he sail along the coast?”

  “Not likely. Sailing too near the coast can be dangerous, and with capricious winds, it’s not unusual for ships to sail nearly to France to reach Cornwall. Locating one ship in particular, at night, would be nearly impossible.”

  “Then how will the assassins find him?”

  “I don’t know. The strangest thing about this is that, in all this time, I have not heard a word about any plot against Wellington. No matter how careful they’ve been, or how secret their plan, I should have heard at least a whisper. I know they expect to land goods of some sort within the next sennight, but if any lad I’ve talked with knows Wellington is a target, or that the main action is to take place at sea, I’ve seen no sign.”

  “You said they don’t really trust you,” she pointed out.

  “True, but most of the lads anticipating work are spotsmen, lookouts, and tubmen, not sailors. They expect their prize to come to them. In any event, as I said, there is no way for them to be certain of waylaying the Duke’s ship in the Channel. That is precisely why, if I’d had my way, he would have sailed from London to Falmouth, done the road between Falmouth and Truro in a well-guarded coach, and then we’d have gone straight back to London after the ceremony.”

  It was the first time Charley had considered the possibility that Antony might leave Cornwall with the Duke. “Must you go back with him?” she asked with an unexpected lump in her throat.

  “No,” he said evenly. “I have matters to attend to here first.”

  She caught his gaze and held it. “What matters?”

  “Did you think I would simply abandon you, then attend to the annulment and set up your independence after I returned to London?”

  His tone challenged her, but she said calmly, “Since it only just now occurred to me that you might return with the Duke, I hadn’t thought about the rest of it at all. Won’t some of that business have to be looked after in London?”

  “Certainly, but there will be papers to sign here, too,” he said, getting up.

  “Don’t go yet,” she said, adding quickly, “You haven’t said what you mean to do—a-about Wellington, I mean.”

  He paused, gazing solemnly at her. The silence lengthened before he said, “I want to think more about that.”

  “You don’t intend to tell me!”

  “Yes, I will, if only because I don’t trust you not to go haring off on your own.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  He smiled then. “Will you give me your word of honor that you won’t?”

  She hesitated, but when his smile twisted sardonically, she said, “I’d give it in an instant if I thought I could trust you to confide your plans to me.”

  “Touché,” he said. “I deserved that, I expect. I’ve told you before, I don’t trust easily,
angel, even though I know you would not harm me intentionally. By the same token, however, I need to know where you will be, so your actions don’t inadvertently compromise mine. We must also consider Letty. I don’t know what I’ll be doing during the next two days, and I don’t want either of you to miss that ceremony.”

  “No, I must be there to take my part, and Letty is quite looking forward to it.”

  “I know, but I can hardly take the pair of you into Fowey and leave you at an inn alone until the Duke arrives. Folks would wonder where Sir Antony had got to, and if he appeared with you, they’d watch us too closely for me to accomplish anything.”

  “Letty and I could meet you in Fowey early Sunday morning,” she suggested.

  “You could, but in truth, I’d feel less concerned about your safety, and hers, if you would agree to spend Saturday night at Tuscombe Park and travel to Truro with Alfred’s party. If you will do that, then I need only look after Wellington.” When she hesitated, he said, “You could suggest to them that I had important business with the Duke, although that might make Alfred squirm if he thinks I am pleading my case for the St. Merryn estates. Perhaps you’d better tell them I’m meeting an old friend, Harry Livingston, whom I’ve not seen in years, and I feared you would be bored. Harry is on the Duke’s staff, and will dine at Tuscombe Park with us after the ceremony.”

  “Very well,” she said with a grimace. “That was not what I had in mind when I said I wanted to help, but I daresay Alfred won’t need much explanation as to why you don’t want to be saddled with me or Letty. He would think us very much in the way.”

  “Then you’ll do it?”

  “Yes, but now you must tell me what you mean to do about Wellington.”

  “I did say that, didn’t I?” When she nodded, he sat down again and leaned back, stretching out his legs and folding his arms across his chest. His eyes twinkled. “The best part of keeping one’s counsel is that one need never reveal slowness of mind, and can always look brilliant after the fact without ever admitting to stupid ideas or plans gone awry. Dare I confess now that I haven’t got a notion of what I intend to do?”

  His humor was contagious, and Charley felt herself responding, wanting to reach out and touch him, to tell him they would find a way together. But touching him might lead to other things, and at the moment, Wellington’s safety must come first. “Have you no ideas at all?” she asked. “How do you usually devise one?”

  “The simplest plan is always the best,” he said. “The problem lies in defining the simple plan, and all we know for certain is that Wellington will be on a ship moving from Portsmouth to Fowey sometime Saturday night.”

  “We must hope last night’s storm was not the first of a series,” she said, “but even if it is not, we may have fog, you know. Not only is it particularly common this time of year, but we frequently have thick fog within two or three days after any big storm. At the least, judging by the weather this past fortnight, the sky will be overcast or cloudy. On this coast, even smugglers like a little moonlight.”

  “I know they do,” he said, grinning, “but wreckers don’t.”

  “No, wreckers prefer strong winds and high incoming tides to sweep their victims ashore. Last night would have been excellent by their standard.”

  “I’ve experienced only the one wreck, and that was caused by weather. What do wreckers do if there’s not enough wind or a strong enough tide to provide a victim?”

  He was watching her through narrowed eyes now, and as she gazed back, a glimmer of an idea stirred. “They misdirect their prey,” she said. “There are stories, horrid ones, about wreckers in the Scilly Isles who lit fires to look like lighthouses, causing ships to wreck on the rocks. Cornishmen are even worse, they say. They don’t allow them to tend the Scilly lighthouses, out of fear of what they might do.”

  “They tend lighthouses here in Cornwall, however,” he said thoughtfully. “As I recall, the nearest principal ones are on St. Anthony’s Head near Falmouth, Gribbon Head west of Fowey Harbor, and the Eddystone Light off Plymouth. Is that right?”

  She nodded. “There is a small one at the Deadman, too, and more beyond Falmouth. I believe that ships coming into the Channel from France or the Bay of Biscay use the two at the Lizard, and the Eddystone when they can see it, to orient themselves, but surely you aren’t suggesting we darken some lights and create our own? There are other ships sailing Channel waters, after all, wholly innocent ones.”

  He grinned. “Do you think I could do that, darken the big lights?”

  “Couldn’t you?”

  “I suppose I could arrange it, at that, but we’ve less than three days now. Still, if darkness would wreak havoc for the scoundrels, what about too much light? Perhaps we could turn their own tricks against them, by adding lights hither and yon.”

  “That would also wreak havoc for innocent ships in the Channel.”

  “How did they prevent accidents before they had lighthouses? Or after the Eddystone Light was swept into the sea? You know it’s not the original one, I expect.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s not the second either. The first went down in a storm, taking its designer and a lot of others with it, and the second burned down. The present stone one ought to stand until Armageddon, however, unless the rock beneath it crumbles. As to how they guarded the coast before, they used lightships similar to our pilot boats, sailed by men who knew the coast, and watched for approaching ships to warn them off.”

  His brow furrowed again. Content to watch him, Charley let her thoughts drift until, with a sigh, he looked at her and said, “We have a number of problems.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “First, we don’t want to send all shipping off course for a night. Second, we don’t want to cause anyone to run aground. Third, we want Wellington to arrive safely at Fowey. Fourth, we don’t yet know who is after him, or what they plan to do. Gabriel said the villains are in league with the French, so the first thing I need to discover is what French ships are harbored nearby, and if others are expected. Oakes can help me there, I know. I’ll have a talk with him, and tell him what we’ve learned. For one thing, he can arrange to make sure we have no villains manning our lighthouses.”

  “What do you want me to do? If you need signal fires or lightboats, they will take time to prepare. I could begin if we can decide where they ought to be.”

  “I want one fire right here on the headland, visible from either side,” he said. “It won’t fool anyone accustomed to this coastline unless it’s a truly dark night, but along with a few others, it might confuse a vessel enough to make it unsure of its location, and unlikely to attack another ship. Wellington’s captain will use the Eddystone as his mark, and will expect the next light to be Gribbon Head. Our lights won’t fool him, I hope, but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems that the scoundrels must intend to draw them off course somehow. That does make me wish he were landing at Falmouth. With all the traffic in and out of that harbor, they couldn’t hope to tell which ship was his.”

  “Fowey used to be the major port,” Charley said. “When Edward II captured Calais, Fowey sent more ships with him than the rest of the kingdom combined.”

  “I’m very glad to know that,” Antony said with a teasing twinkle in his eyes.

  She stuck out her tongue at him.

  He stood up again. “After I talk with Oakes, I’m going to see what more I can find out. I don’t doubt Gabriel had information about villainy afoot, but unless they think they can board Wellington’s ship in the harbor and take him captive there, I can’t imagine how they mean to get him. As for fires, I daresay you’ll find that Corlan knows what’s wanted, because if this headland has not served the same purpose in the past, I’ll eat my boots. On a dark night, extra lights would disorient anyone who doesn’t know this coast like the back of his hand.”

  “I’m still uncomfortable about confusing innocent ships,” Charley said.

  “No ship will be in real danger,” he said. “They need
only hold off till morning to get their bearings, or signal for the aid of a pilot boat from one of the ports, but I’ll see if I can’t arrange for a few extra pilots to be on hand if that will ease your fears.”

  When he had gone, Charley went to find Sam Corlan, and to her amusement, learned that he knew as much about setting signal fires on the headland as Antony had predicted he would. Leaving him to attend to the business, with little more than a glib explanation that the master wanted some bonfires lit Saturday night as a celebration signal to incoming ships, she ordered Dancer saddled and went to find Letty, to tell her that their plans for the next couple of days had become somewhat unsettled.

  When they met on the headland path, Sebastian barked a greeting, and Letty took Jeremiah from inside her cloak and put him on her shoulder. The monkey promptly began grooming her hair. Separating strands with his nimble fingers, he peered at them as if he were examining each shaft for lice or mites. Untroubled as usual by her pet’s activities, Letty said, “Is something amiss, Cousin Charley?”

  “No, merely undecided,” Charley said, watching the monkey with affectionate amusement. “We don’t know exactly when His Grace will arrive at Fowey, you see. Sir Antony had planned for the three of us to ride from here to meet the Duke’s party Sunday morning. Now he finds that he may want to meet his ship when it arrives instead, which may be late Saturday night. He is a trifle concerned about the Duke’s safety, you see, and thinks it might be better to warn him to take special care.”

  “When will we know exactly what Sir Antony means to do?”

  “That’s the problem. He does not know that, himself. I suggested that we could ride to Fowey to meet him early Sunday morning, but he would prefer that we spend Saturday night at Tuscombe Park and go to Truro with Alfred and the others.”

  Letty frowned. “How long is the journey to Truro?”

  “About two and a half hours at this time of year, barring accidents.”

  “What about Sunday night? I know we are expected to dine at the Park after the ceremony, but will we come back here after that?”