Moon Cutters

by Janet Woods

  ‘Allow me to introduce my guest first. Adrian Taunton Fenmore. My father.’

  Someone choked on his wine, the significance of the name obviously not lost on him. Andrew Patterson – his uncle’s lawyer!

  His father stepped out of the darkness, the cowl concealing his face.

  Most of the men pulled back and there was some nervous laughter. A couple headed for the door, to be prevented from leaving, for the drunk in the corner of the couch had miraculously sobered up and stood, his hand on the pistol under his tunic. Simon Bailey had sent an armed man to look after him!

  ‘What foolery is this? Adrian Fenmore is dead,’ James shouted, and gave the bell-pull a vigorous jerk to summon a manservant. ‘I’ll have him thrown out.’

  ‘Your threw me over the cliff over twenty years ago … That was after you’d rubbed my face in the hot ashes of a fire.’

  ‘What sort of trick is this, Fletcher? Let the imposter show me the scar.’

  When the cowl was thrown aside, everyone fell silent.

  ‘Adrian!’ James whispered. ‘It cannot be. We took your broken body out to sea and drowned you.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Silas Asher owed me a favour, and although he took your death hard, I gave him no choice. Why didn’t you come back sooner?’

  ‘Because I had no memory. Like a baby, I couldn’t feed or look after myself. I was taken in by a religious order and gradually gained bodily strength. Two years ago I regained most of my faculties and remembered that my wife had been with child. All that time I had a son I’d never met. When Silas learned I was still alive, he allowed me a roof over my head whenever I needed one. Between us, we devised a plan that would allow me to regain my title and estate.’

  Fletcher cut in. ‘Sir James kept my mother a prisoner until I was born. They passed me off as the child of Elizabeth Fenmore.’

  ‘Who was your mother?’ someone called out.

  ‘A lady called Rose Jones. She was Silas Asher’s cousin, and maid to Elizabeth Fenmore.’

  ‘Lies … all lies. You can’t prove anything. This man is an imposter,’ James shouted, and he lunged for the gun he kept in the drawer in the table. When it didn’t fire, he threw it against the wall and headed for another from his study. That one didn’t fire, either.

  ‘The pins have been removed,’ Adrian told him.

  ‘I’ll see you in hell before I give you as much as the time of day, Adrian. As for the rest of you, I know too much about you for your own good. If one word of this gets out, I’ll visit you when you sleep and cut your throat, and the throats of your wives. I’ll also feed your children to my dogs.’ He rang the bell again. ‘Where are the damned servants?’

  Nobody had an answer for him. An awkward silence descended, and the men shifted from one foot to another. ‘You’re insane, James,’ Adrian said. ‘You’ve always been insane.’

  ‘Get out … all of you, get out. You’re a pack of leeches trying to suck the blood out of me.’

  His gaze fell on the dogs, which were sniffing around Adrian’s robe, and he kicked out at them. ‘If you stay long enough, you can witness what my dogs can do.’

  But Adrian had made sure the dogs would obey him. ‘Heel,’ he said, and when the dogs sat and gazed up at him, their tails thumping on the floor, he opened his palm and allowed them to nose for a small meaty reward he had hidden there. ‘Good dogs.’

  A few of the men had left; the rest were lingering out of curiosity.

  Adrian warned his brother, ‘I’ll be back, James, and with the force of the law behind me.’

  ‘Do your worst, Adrian. Marguerite House will never be yours. As for Rosie Jones, she might have gone willingly to your bed, but she was just as exciting when she was forced. You know … I do believe she enjoyed being forced. Once a whore, always a—’

  Adrian’s fist shot out and Sir James sprawled on his back, blood spurting from his nose.

  A cheer rang out and a passage was cleared for Fletcher and his father to make their escape.

  Adrian clicked his fingers and the dogs followed after them, looking back at their master only once.

  ‘I’ll shoot you when you come back, you mangy curs,’ he muttered.

  Outside it was the darkest of nights – a night that allowed no shadow to escape. In the small cemetery overlooking the sea, a blue flame burned steadily.

  Roadblocks had been set up. Anyone found abroad was detained and questioned by soldiers. Men were searched, goods confiscated and the carriers were handed over to revenue men, then carted off in wagons to the barracks compound, where they would be placed under armed guard.

  Out beyond the bay, the French fishing boats unloaded their cargoes, tying the rafts containing the brandy kegs in a long string to float them ashore. A number of small boats came from along the coast, and rafts containing brandy and taxable goods began to be towed towards the shore, where a small number of men began to take the various goods to their destinations. It piled up on the beach.

  Fires of driftwood were lit along the cliff top.

  The Royal Navy cutters watched the contraband boats come and go, and in the streaky yellow light of dawn they formed a barrier behind the boats, to trap them within Lady Marguerite’s Cove. Along the cliff tops, soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder with customs and revenue men. Those who tried to escape were rammed and sunk. Shots were exchanged with the French.

  It was a bloody fight – one the authorities would win.

  Come dawn, armed soldiers followed Simon Bailey into Lady Marguerite’s House, now deserted by the servants. They conducted a search for Sir James, the soldiers descending into the wine cellars and twitching at every noise, having heard the rumours of venomous wild life.

  They found neither man nor beast and went no further.

  Going back into the hall, and wondering where else to look, they gathered in the hall, unfamiliar with the layout of the house. As Simon gazed up the dark staircase to the landing, there was a draught, and a flirt of a woman’s skirt. She came down the staircase and headed towards the solid study door.

  He could see the staircase through her and chills ran down his spine.

  Sir James was seated behind his desk, enjoying a brandy. He looked up and smiled. ‘Ah … Rosie Jones, I can’t see you but I can sense you, and I know you’re there. Have you come for me? I wouldn’t have hurt Fletcher, you know. He looks like me, and I always thought he might have been my son.’

  Taking a gun from his desk, he held it to his temple, and then swore when he remembered it had no firing pin. He turned to get one from the drawer.

  When the soldiers began to batter down the study door, he stood and pushed a coal from the grate. It landed on a trail of black powder that crackled across the room and disappeared behind the panelling. Smoke rose.

  The door gave, and he pointed the gun at his brother and smiled. ‘I never could get the better of you, Adrian. I must warn you, though. I have several barrels of gunpowder scattered under the foundations, and the fuses are alight. In a few minutes, the house will be blown off the foundations and will bury us both.’

  The soldiers scattered and headed for the door.

  Adrian smiled and shook his head. ‘You’ve forgotten I grew up in this house, and so did Fletcher. We both know our way about the tunnels, and the explosives have been removed.’

  ‘Are you sure about that, brother? Believe me, you wouldn’t have found them all.’ James’s fingers closed around a firing pin and inserted it into the weapon. It was typical of his brother to carry no weapon and he smiled as he took aim. He wasn’t going into hell alone and intended to enjoy this moment of cold blood as the instrument of his brother’s death. This time he’d make sure of it.

  Stepping out from the shadows, Simon Bailey lifted his gun in one fluid motion.

  James didn’t hear the shot that killed him.

  The three men gazed at each other, then Simon said, ‘Do we intend to stand here to discover if we become dead heroes, or shall we do the cowa
rdly thing and run like hell?’

  Fletcher shrugged. ‘On this occasion, I’d be inclined to trust my uncle.’

  They were running like hell across the garden when the first explosion blew them off their feet.

  Nothing much had been left of Lady Marguerite’s House except for the stables, and they served as a place of storage. They’d removed as much of the reusable building material as they could, and already, the trees and ivy had begun to grow over the ruin and were reclaiming it, healing the gash in the landscape.

  The body of James Fenmore had been laid to rest in the family tomb overlooking the sea. He’d left his fortune to Fletcher, who’d engaged an architect to rebuild Lady Marguerite’s House, but on a smaller scale and in a different position, so as not to interfere with traffic. It would eventually house his new estate manager.

  There was no stain on the family name. Indeed, to those who knew Sir James – as he was still referred to – he became a legend in the district, the gentleman smuggler who helped the poor and had died fighting the authorities that sought to oppress private enterprise. The tales of the dangerous animals he kept became more fanciful each time they were mentioned.

  Lucy had written a novel about it. As had her first book, her second, The Gentleman Smuggler, was published under her pen name, Lucian Jarvis.

  Arms about each other’s waists, Fletcher and Miranda gazed out over the sea. They smiled at each other when the Lady Miranda came into view. They’d been on board when she’d sailed on her maiden voyage to Boston almost a year since. It had been a highly sensuous and delightful introduction to married life.

  Much to Lucy’s disgust, she had been left behind on that occasion, well chaperoned by Mrs Swift, whose offer of her services had been taken up by Sir Adrian with a sigh of gratitude.

  Freed from the tyranny of her husband’s weakness, the widow became more relaxed and pleasant, and a delightful sense of humour had emerged. Her honesty and her lack of guile seemed to intrigue Sir Adrian.

  Though her task had come to an end, Mrs Swift hadn’t bothered to move out of Monksfoot Abbey and nobody had thought to tell her to … including Lucy.

  ‘Your father and Mrs Swift seem to enjoy each other’s company. Do you think they might wed?’ Miranda asked her husband.

  ‘They might. Mrs Swift doesn’t seem to mind his scars, and she’s well read and can supply him with intellectual debate, which he seems to thrive on. To be honest, he’s not half the farmer his brother was.’ He gazed down at her. ‘Did you know Simon Bailey has designs on your sister? He wants to call on her.’

  Miranda smiled. ‘He already calls on her.’

  ‘With our blessing, I mean.’

  ‘Lucy is nearly eighteen and can decide for herself. After all, I did, and look what a bargain I got.’

  ‘Did you? I thought it was me who got the bargain.’

  ‘Let’s agree to disagree on that. Tell me about Simon; is that why you offered him the management of the shipping company?’

  ‘Could be … and could be I’ll offer him a partnership if he proves to be as capable of running it as I think he is.’

  ‘What if a marriage between them doesn’t come about?’

  ‘It won’t make any difference. If a man’s good at his job, he gets the reward he deserves – and the issue of Lucy will have no bearing on the matter.’

  ‘Simon’s a determined man, and Lucy has always liked him, you know. But what of Sarah, his sister? Lucy doesn’t get on with her.’

  ‘I understand that Sarah is being courted by a widowed professor with a couple of children who need mothering. You’re not giving your sister enough credit; she has a sensible head on her shoulders when it’s needed. Now, enough of others, I’m more interested in us, Miranda.’

  ‘What about us?’ she teased.

  ‘I wondered if … I’ve noticed … damn it all, Miranda, we’ve been married for a whole year and there’s something different about you. You haven’t stopped loving me, have you?’

  ‘How could you think that when I’ve adored you for every second we’ve spent together?’ She chuckled, then reached up to caress his cheek. ‘Spring,’ she said.

  He looked puzzled. ‘What about spring?’

  ‘That’s when the daffodils bloom and the ducklings hatch and the lambs gambol in the meadow. That’s when the mist absorbs the scent of bluebells, the cuckoo spits, and the showers shiver with pleasure of being born on the wind. That’s the season we’ll welcome a new love and life into our hearts.’

  He stared at her, and then his eyes filled with tears. ‘You mean …?’

  ‘I mean our infant will be born halfway through April; is that plain enough, Fletcher, my love? Now tell me you love me.’

  The grin that had appeared on his face grew wider and he gently pulled her into a hug. ‘I love you,’ he said, and the kiss they exchanged seemed to last for ever.

  Around them in the stirring of summer air, pollens drifted in the perfume of roses. The earth was turning, going about its business of renewal. The poppies were blood-red splashes, dancing with the harebells and mayweed to celebrate the new life to come.