Smuggler's Moon

by Cynthia Wright

  Chapter 34

  There were no horses in sight.

  With the intelligence provided by Colvithick, Julia realized, Lynton had been able to bring his men down the long path on foot so that they could be in place before Sebastian’s ship appeared on the horizon. Lynton must have decided that the King’s men stood a better chance of converging on the smugglers on land, rather than trying again to chase them down at sea.

  The longboat had landed on the shingle. Some of its men were carrying barrels and crates up to the sandy crescent, while others moved the smuggled goods into a cave nearly concealed behind distant rocks.

  Still the Riding Officers huddled behind the cliff, weapons drawn.

  “They be waiting for the captain to come,” Colvithick whispered. “He do come on the last boat, when all the goods be on the beach.”

  Julia saw that the longboat had returned to the ship. “We can’t stay up here and just watch!”

  “That be the only way to the beach,” he replied, pointing to a path that led precipitously downward through a tunnel of granite. “Smugglers do carve it in ages past. The stone be worn with the marks of cart wheels bein’ rolled up from the beach.”

  Julia went closer and saw that he was right. The granite surface of the path was worn down in ridges, curving in toward the middle like the shape of a barrel.

  A movement on the beach drew her attention and she caught a glimpse of Sebastian in the darkness, recognizing him by the shape of his shoulders as he emerged from the longboat onto the shingle. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  “I must warn him—before they can strike!”

  “My lady, no! Let me go—”

  Julia felt Colvithick try to grab for her, but she was too quick. Her buckled shoes slipped on the stone pathway as she hurried along, oblivious to everything except her desire to save Sebastian. Emerging from the tunnel onto the beach, she collided headlong with a soldier who had apparently been standing guard.

  Before Colvithick could intervene, the Riding Officer lifted his musket and struck him over the head with the butt, sending him down flat on his back.

  “Sebastian!” Julia cried blindly. “Watch out!”

  At the same moment, Lynton began to shout hysterically, “Fire men, fire on these criminals!”

  Julia kept running as shots rang out, but she could hear the panting of the big man close behind. As he came alongside, his leg shot out in front of her, tripping her, and she sprawled facedown in the sand. He fell on top of her and for an instant she thought that he had crushed her, for she couldn’t get her breath and there was a pain in her arm.

  “Good work, Brewster!” crowed another officer as he ran by.

  As shots were fired from both sides, orange blasts of musket fire illuminated the misty night air. Julia struggled mightily to be free of her captor, trying to call, “Sebastian!” but her warnings were muffled.

  “Hold still, boy!” Brewster growled. “God’s eyes but you’re a feisty one!”

  Just then, Adolphus Lynton loomed up over them, his shadow blocking the sliver of moon that faintly illuminated the cove. “That’s no boy, you fool! It’s a woman. Get up, both of you. Now!”

  Julia was frantic as the officer hauled her roughly to her feet. Her hat had come off, her hair was spilling down around her shoulders, and her arm throbbed in Brewster’s grasp. In the distance, near the narrow opening of the cave, she could see Sebastian, Keswick, and the others crouching behind barrels and large jagged rocks. Every time she saw her husband stand to fire at the Revenue Men, her heart leaped with fear as she realized that his life could end in an instant.

  The battle intensified as Lynton’s men charged forward and some of Sebastian’s crew, brandishing pistols and daggers, emerged to rush toward the hated Excise men. One of the officers fell on the sand just a few feet away from Julia, groaning as blood oozed from his side. Lynton was apoplectic with rage. His thin, pale visage suddenly loomed up inches from hers and she smelled his foul breath.

  “Brewster, bring this wench behind the cliff and bind her wrists. Hurry! And tie up that traitor Colvithick as well!”

  Julia continued to struggle as she was dragged back behind the rocky outcropping. Lynton brought a length of rope and watched as the bigger man roughly tied her hands together in front of her waist.

  “You have always been so proud, so quick to reject me, my lady.” He brought his face back to hers while Brewster dealt with the unconscious Colvithick. “How does it feel to be completely in my power? You may watch as we shoot your husband—that is, unless he surrenders to me, in which case you shall see him swing from the gallows. I would almost prefer the latter fate, since his suffering would be prolonged.”

  “In your power? Hardly.” In spite of her terror, she spat at Adolphus. His expression of shock and humiliation gave her a moment of satisfaction. “My spirit will never bow to you, and neither will my husband’s.”

  The battle between the Revenue Men and the smugglers continued on the beach. A man from Sebastian’s crew lay near the front of the cave, his blood staining the sand.

  “For God’s sake,” she cried to Lynton over the combatants’ shouts and the din of musket fire, “stop this madness!”

  “No, my lady, you shall stop it for us.” Turning back to Brewster, who grasped her around her waist with one arm and held a dagger to her neck with the other, Lynton ordered, “Come along, but keep her behind me!”

  The night air smelled eerily of sea mist and gunpowder. Julia went willingly with her captor, not just because of the pressure of the blade at her throat, but also because he was taking her closer to Sebastian. Her heart hurt with fear for him and remorse that her own plan had gone so far awry. Instead of warning Sebastian and saving him and his men from peril, she had added to their danger by providing Lynton with a hostage!

  “Hold your fire!” Lynton shouted to his Riding Officers. Then, staring toward the men who stood or crouched near the cave, he added loudly, “Lord Sebastian will not wish to shoot his own wife, I’ll wager!”

  With a flourish, Lynton gestured to Brewster to bring Julia into the open. As they emerged, she saw Sebastian standing in the mist, one hand raised to stop his own men from firing. He was tall against the background of the longboat and the silvery sea, his black hair wind-blown, his loose white shirt partially unbuttoned. Even at a distance, Julia could see his stricken eyes, although his expression remained impassive.

  “Throw down your weapons and step away!” Lynton ordered. “All of you!”

  Sebastian signaled compliance to his men and one by one they laid their muskets, pistols, and swords on the beach. When the entire crew had disarmed, their captain stood with hands on his lean hips and stared hard at Lynton. It was almost as if Julia were not there.

  “Lieutenant, I have always thought you were a fool,” he called in a cold, angry voice, “but I didn’t guess that you were also a coward who would hide behind a woman to avoid a fair fight.”

  “A fool? A coward?” Adolphus cried indignantly. “You have sadly misjudged your enemy, sir! I’ll show you who is the fool. Open those barrels. Let us display the evidence before I arrest you, your crew of criminals, and perhaps your conspiring wife as well!”

  “We have laid down our arms, sir, and are defenseless. Now tell your man to remove the blade of his knife from her ladyship’s throat.”

  “You have no right to make demands of any sort, my lord,” he sneered. For good measure Adolphus pointed his own pistol at Sebastian’s broad chest. “You have been laboring under the illusion that you have power, but in truth you are nothing but a traitor to the King and I am going to see to it that you pay the ultimate price for your crimes! Open the barrels!”

  “I am not doing anything until you tell your lackey to put that cursed knife down,” Sebastian ground out.

  Julia could feel the raw tension in the air and she knew Adolphus felt it too. He waved a hand nervously at Brewster and tried to sound casual as he said, “Oh, confound it, take the k
nife from her neck. It doesn’t matter and I’m weary of hearing this villain going on about it.”

  Sebastian gave a grim smile and then gazed into her eyes. “Julia, my darling, tell me that you are all right.”

  “Yes,” she managed to say, trying to ignore the burning pain in her arm. “I am fine. But I came to—”

  “You shut up!” Lynton railed, turning on her. “Both of you! You are my prisoners and only I can give you permission to speak!”

  It came to Julia that she should be terrified, but Sebastian’s demeanor was infinitely reassuring. Was it pure bravado that allowed him to look so cool and unafraid? She tried not to think of what was in store for him: arrest, long weeks spent languishing in a foul prison, and then…quite possibly, execution.

  Adolphus swaggered toward Sebastian, gesturing for Brewster to bring Julia as well. In the distance was the cave, a long slit in the cliff, only a half dozen feet wide at its base, where an assortment of barrels and wooden crates had been stacked by the smugglers. The tide was beginning to come in, bringing the sea nearer to the cave’s entrance.

  “Open the barrels!” Lynton shouted again, clearly enjoying the sound of his own orders.

  They went nearer. Julia saw Sebastian’s eyes drop to her bound wrists and for a moment she feared he might physically attack Lynton and Brewster. But then his expression hardened again and he even gave a faintly contemptuous smile.

  “I am at your command, Lieutenant,” he murmured. “Perhaps, since we have no weapons, you would care to do the honors and pry them open?”

  “Yes, yes.” Lynton glanced over at Brewster. “Put her over there and bring your dagger.”

  Julia was feeling rather faint and she gladly sank down on a wooden crate near Sebastian. She wanted nothing so much as to reach toward him, to feel him lift her into his strong arms, but instead he was staring into the barrel of Lynton’s pistol.

  “Hurry up, man,” Adolphus was urging as Brewster worked to pry open the nearest half-anker-sized cask. “No doubt it is French brandy, which warrants a fine tax for the King!”

  When the lid came free, the two Riding Officers peered expectantly inside. They both put their hands in, brought them up wet, and tasted expectantly.

  “It’s—it’s only water, Lieutenant!” Brewster stammered in surprise. “Plain water!”

  Lynton gave a cry of frustration and pushed the barrel over, sending a spill of water across the sand. “Another! Open another, you fool!”

  The bigger man complied while Sebastian looked on with both brows lifted in mock surprise. Soon there were five barrels and casks of various sizes open and lying on their sides on the beach. All had been filled with water, except for one that held several coils of rope.

  Finally, Lynton turned on Sebastian in a rage. “Where is it? What have you done with it?”

  “It?” he echoed innocently. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to. You have attacked my law-abiding crew when we were in the midst of storing some barrels of surplus drinking water, in addition to a few extra supplies from our ship.”

  “Law-abiding? Ha! You are a smuggler!” Lynton was screaming now and all the men assembled on the beach stared at him. “You’re all smugglers! Criminals who mock the Crown by bringing in goods and evading the tax laws!”

  “I’m afraid you’ve got that all wrong,” came Sebastian’s cool, taunting reply. “And as you can see, there is no proof. You’ve made a big mistake.”

  “Mistake? Hardly! Your own crew member, Colvithick, told me that you are all smugglers—”

  “That boy would do anything for the kind of money you offered as a bribe. His family is destitute; they can’t continue fishing since the tax on salt has risen so high.” With that, Sebastian boldly walked past Lynton and reached for his wife. “Now then, if you are quite finished, I will tend to my wounded crewmember and return my wife to the safety of our home.”

  Julia looked up at him, awash with love, relief, and a strange, burning pain near her shoulder. When he lifted her into his arms, she thought she might faint.

  “Sebastian—”

  Above her, his eyes darkened with concern, and then he withdrew his hand from her side and she saw that it was covered with her own blood.

  “Good God,” he said hoarsely, glancing toward Lynton. “You’ve shot her!”

  As Julia tried to speak, Sebastian’s face swam dizzily before her. She attempted to reach toward him, but was beset by an overpowering wave of weakness.

  From a distance, she heard him say in agonized tones, “My darling, I cannot lose you,” just before a hazy white tide carried her away into a sea of blackness.

  Chapter 35

  Sebastian stood in a pool of warm sunlight near the four-poster bed where he had lain naked with Julia just five nights ago, before the last smuggling run. The gauzy batiste curtains she had hung for summer were tied against the carved posts and they fluttered slightly in the breeze.

  His mind returned to that night when he had taken her in the copper bathtub, then had gone on to make love to her for most of the night in that very bed. How vital and alive she had been, wrapping herself around him, playfully pushing him back against the pillows and laughing as she had kissed her way down his chest and tasted all of him. They had both been starved for one another and it had been so much more than lust. When he was inside her, Sebastian had felt as if their hearts were fitted together as well.

  Now, however, when he thought of everything that had happened since that night, his heart clenched with pain. Not for the first time, he asked himself what he could have done differently to keep Julia out of harm’s way. If only he had known sooner that she was injured, he would never have continued to verbally spar with Adolphus Lynton, wasting precious time opening those cursed barrels…

  “You mustn’t blame yourself,” a familiar voice said from the doorway.

  He turned to see Tristan leaning against the doorframe. His face was pale, there was a large purple bruise on his left cheek, and he looked very tired, but today he was dressed and moving about, which was an excellent sign.

  “How can I not blame myself? I was more focused on toying with that rodent Lynton than on quickly freeing Julia. I think I was even performing for her benefit, showing her that I had the situation in hand all along by disposing of the cargo off-shore and then making a fool of Lynton.”

  Tristan crossed the room and touched his sleeve. “You did have matters in hand, brilliantly so. Without your quick thinking, all would have been lost.”

  Sebastian was still for a moment as he reflected on the sequence of events that night on the beach. When Tristan had not completed their agreed-upon two-part signal with the spout lantern, he’d realized something was amiss. Quickly then, he and the crew had “sowed the crop” with their valuable cargo by putting it all over the larboard rail, out of sight of the Riding Officers. If instead he had brought that cargo ashore, as Lynton expected, no doubt they would all be in prison right now.

  Turning to Tristan with a rueful smile, Sebastian said, “I appreciate your kind words, but I didn’t outwit Lynton alone. Thank God you came to me after your exchange with him at the Ship Inn. Your suspicions allowed us to construct a back-up plan.” He paused to shake his dark head. “But still, you could have died from your own injuries, and Julia—”

  “You could not have known she had been shot; even she didn’t realize it until you saw the blood!”

  “When I was carrying her up that endless path, all I could do was pray that she would open her eyes and look at me again. I would have gladly laid down my own life just to hear her scold me not to be a ‘wicked, lawless smuggler’…” His voice broke as memories cascaded back of that terrible night.

  “Sebastian, you must stop this. Look here.” Tristan took his arm and led him to the window, pointing down to the garden terrace. “What do you see?”

  He inhaled harshly at the sight of the slim, dark-haired figure resting on the wood-and-cane daybed that he had carried
outdoors himself. He had even arranged the cushions on it with painstaking care.

  “I see my once-vibrant, provoking wife now lying with a bandaged shoulder, weakened and in constant pain. She nearly died from the loss of blood.” Turning, Sebastian added, “If I had lost her, I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “But you did not lose her, and she is going to be perfectly fine. Dr. Carter has told you so repeatedly. It’s patience that you need.” Tristan started to shake a finger at him, but stopped. “Clearly, I’m not succeeding in cheering you up. What did you come upstairs for?”

  “Julia asked for her book.” Glancing around, Sebastian saw a leather-bound volume stamped Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe on the chest beside their bed. He picked it up and saw a dried yellow primrose peeking out to mark her page. “This has been a favorite of mine since I was a boy. How could I not have known that Julia was reading it? We should be talking about such things.”

  “No doubt you will, from this day forward,” Tristan reassured him. “Why not stop berating yourself over the past and start living in the moment? Your wife is alive! Let’s go down and see her, shall we? I believe I glimpsed the lovely Sarah Faircloth bringing tea into the garden…”

  * * *

  A profusion of foxgloves lined the courtyard of Trevarre Hall, their speckled pink bells quivering in the July breeze. Nearby on the sun-splashed flagstones, a willow basket lined with a soft blanket held Clover and her six napping kittens while Dick, the proud father, stood guard.

  “Who would have ever imagined that Dick could win Clover’s heart,” murmured Julia drowsily.

  Sarah, who was arranging the tea service on a low table beside Julia, blushed. “Love can be quite surprising, I have found.”

  “You’re very cryptic, my dear!”

  Before she could continue, voices came to them from the house. Shading her eyes against the sun, Julia looked up to see Sebastian and Tristan walking toward them. Her heart turned over at the sight of her husband. Since she had regained consciousness the day after the smuggling adventure on the beach, every time she saw him he appeared more handsome and heroic.