by Carola Dunn
“Good afternoon, Miss Bertrand, gentlemen. I trust I don’t intrude.”
Ragamuffin jumped up and ran to greet him.
“Of course not, Lord Malcolm,” said Mariette gaily. “There is always room for one more.” She meant to be welcoming, but even as she spoke she knew she sounded as if she were boasting of the number of her beaux.
Lord Malcolm bowed silently and took a seat.
“If you ask me,” cried Mr. Phillips, “there’s a dashed sight too much competition already. No offence, my lord, but what’s a fellow to do when he gives his heart to the prettiest girl in the county and half a dozen other fellows want a share of hers?”
“My heart is indivisible, Mr. Phillips,” Mariette said, laughing. “I cannot give it away piecemeal.”
“I should rather think not,” said Mr. Bolger indignantly. “Sounds dashed painful.”
“Give the whole thing to me, Miss Bertrand,” Mr. Browne suggested. “I’ll take deuced good care of it, I swear.”
“You can’t trust Freddy,” piped up the last of the four, a would-be dandy who had been eyeing Lord Malcolm’s waistcoat with admiring envy. “Why, I lent him my studs for the ball and I’ll be damned...dashed if the nodcock hasn’t gone and lost them. He’d only go and lose your heart if you gave it to him.”
“I don’t believe anyone but I can lose my heart,” Mariette protested.
The nonsense continued for a few more minutes. Lord Malcolm, fondling Ragamuffin’s ears, said nothing but his expression became more and more sardonic. The others grew uneasy and started muttering about not outstaying their welcome. Mariette did not try to keep them. Flirting with those four at once was all very well, but to flirt with Malcolm she wanted to be alone with him.
At last they all bowed themselves out, having begged for and received permission to call again. With a teasing smile she turned to Lord Malcolm.
“Do you, too, wish for a share in my heart?” she asked archly, although he already possessed the whole.
“No!” He sprang to his feet. “I’ll be damned if I do! And I cannot stay, since you have no chaperon. Good day to you, ma’am.”
And without another word he stalked from the room.
Mariette started to rise, holding out pleading hands, then slumped back into her chair. She bit her lip as tears rose to her eyes.
She ought to have guessed he was in no mood for joking. He had wanted to talk to her seriously, to explain his absence perhaps. Now he was offended, she would never know.
But from the moment he arrived he had looked askance at her little court. He disapproved of her receiving her admirers, although she had never been alone with any one of them. Once again anger came to her rescue. He had no right to object. If she chose to take one of those silly boys at his word and inveigle him into marriage, Lord Malcolm had nothing to say in the matter.
Unfortunately, he was still the only man she wanted to marry.
Everything was going wrong.
* * * *
Riding up the rocky path towards Bell Tor, Malcolm reined in Incognita and glanced back. A horseman and a carriage were just arriving at the manor.
The rider looked like his nephew Edward, a nice lad Mariette’s age, a cut above the four he had interrupted--and eldest son of the heir to a marquis. The vehicle was a smart phaeton of distinctive build driven by a tall, well-built gentleman. Malcolm recognized the phaeton from Town, and he had seen Lord Liscombe at the ball, though he had not known he lived in this part of the country. The earl was a distinguished bachelor in his early thirties, a worthy rival. God send he was merely paying a courtesy call.
Everything was going wrong. Malcolm urged the mare on up the hill, past the heaped boulders of the tor. It began to rain as they galloped along a faint moorland track, startling a herd of wild ponies into flight.
He had absolutely no excuse for snapping at Mariette, still less for marching out without another word. No chaperon, forsooth! Admittedly, Ragamuffin was an unreliable chaperon, but they could have called in a servant to prevent his kissing those delectable lips.
The fact was, the offer of a share in her heart was simply too painful to bear.
She was joking, of course, but the joke put him on a level with those rustic rattlepates. Not that there was anything wrong in her flirting with them--he’d seen far more forward behaviour from well-born, well-bred coquettes accepted by the Ton. It was just a shock to see her behave thus. She had been so free of any artifice.
Nor was he was jealous of the four youths. Mariette could not possibly care for such callow, corkbrained gabies. She was an intelligent woman, a woman who required more of a man than admiration of her beauty.
God, she was beautiful. As he pictured her laughing face, her slender, supple body, the muscles in his legs clenched and Incognita’s stride faltered.
He slowed the confused mare to a canter, leaning forward to stroke her wet neck in apology. Mariette deserved an apology, too. Should he turn back to Bell-Tor Manor and beg her forgiveness for his churlish behaviour?
Edward and Liscombe were there. Besides, he’d have to explain that he wanted all of her heart, not a share, and the time for an avowal was not yet come. Not until he had dealt with her triple-damned cousin.
Des would be waiting for him, to make their plans. He rode back to Corycombe.
Three days passed while one of the captain’s trusted men ingratiated himself with Madame Duhamel’s maidservant. The girl was the only person to spend the night at the shop, for Madame was no common shopkeeper to sleep over her business.
Three days--on the second Mariette called at Corycombe. She treated Malcolm with a wariness he acknowledged to be deserved. It was no less hurtful for that.
Three days--on the third Malcolm received from the Cornish magistrate, William Penhallow, another sphinx-sealed letter. This one mentioned a possible invasion of Portugal.
The spilling of secrets must not be allowed to continue. Ralph Riddlesworth had to be stopped. All too soon, Malcolm would discover whether Mariette could forgive him for a far worse injury than marching out of her drawing room in a totally unreasonable huff.
On the fourth evening, as church clocks all over Plymouth struck ten, Petty Officer Clark led Malcolm and Des along a dark alley. “The seamstresses allus works till six,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “and often enough till eight. Not later acos Madam says they make too many mistakes next day. Leastwise, ‘lessn there’s a vallyble order to be got out in a hurry, which there ain’t tonight, “
“A kind mistress,” Des murmured sarcastically.
“There’s worse, cap’n, sir, accordin’ of Sukey, what’s the cook-maid. She’s left the alley door unlocked. I’ll keep her snug in the kitchen while you’re about your business, cap’n.”
“Not too snug, Tom! You’re on the King’s business.”
“Now would I, sir?” The sailor sounded injured. “She’ll have a bite o’ supper for me, and I’ll play me fife. Likes a bit o’ music, does Sukey, and it’ll stop her hearing owt o’ your doings. Keep mum, now. Here we be.”
They slipped through the door in the wall into a small, cobblestoned courtyard. To their right was the wall of the next house, ahead the three-story main part of the shop, to the left a two-story wing with a light shining in a ground-floor window at the alley end. “The kitchen,” breathed Tom Clark.
Des and Malcolm flattened themselves against the wall while the sailor knocked on a door in the centre of the wing. Sukey came to let him in, candle in hand. Giggling, she closed the door and a moment later the light reappeared in the kitchen window.
Malcolm tried the latch. The door swung open and he and Des slipped through. They turned right in a narrow passage.
Clark had explained the plan of the house, which the maid had shown him over. On their left was a storeroom where all the valuable bales of materials were locked up at night. Above was the long workshop where most of the sewing was done. This was also locked at night as it contained work in progress.
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In the main house, the topmost floor held a dining parlour for the seamstresses, who had a hot dinner deducted from their wages, and storage space for odds and ends. The first floor was divided into several small fitting-rooms. Most of the ground floor was devoted to the showroom, with one fitting-room for elderly or stout ladies unable to tackle stairs, and Madame’s office.
“The which she don’t lock,” Tom Clark had reported, “being as she goes to the bank every day and takes the rest home, so there ain’t no blunt about.”
It was too easy. Malcolm did not expect to find anything.
His outstretched hand met the door to the showroom. He felt for the latch. A hinge creaked, but no louder than the groan of old timbers settling. Des closed the door silently behind them and Malcolm opened a panel of their dark lantern.
The beam gleamed on silk and satin draperies, gilt chairs, pier-glasses, windowpanes backed by outside shutters. In one corner it lit on a female figure and Malcolm stopped breathing--momentarily. A manikin, elegantly dressed!
Des nudged him. “Over there,” he whispered.
Skirting the small tables, they crossed the long room and entered Madame’s office. Here all was businesslike: shelves of account-books, a drawing table with sketches of gowns pinned to it, and a large walnut bureau.
In the keyhole of the fold-down front of the bureau was a small brass key. Carelessness? Design? Or was there simply nothing in the desk of interest to anyone but its owner?
Malcolm turned the key and frowned as the desk failed to open to his tug.
“I expect you locked it,” Des said, grinning.
He had. Letting down the flap disclosed pigeon-holes and little drawers galore, innocently filled with pencils, pens, unmade quills, a penknife, ink, paper, sealing wafers, all the predictable paraphernalia.
Des reached past Malcolm. From beneath a neat stack of blotting-paper he abstracted a folded sheet of letter-paper.
It bore no direction, but a slight grubbiness at the creases suggested it had been delivered, not just written. He turned it over. The seal, already slit, was stamped with a clear image of an Egyptian sphinx.
“Too easy,” he grunted. “It was sticking out a good half inch.”
“Much too easy,” Malcolm agreed, taking it and unfolding it.
Dated yesterday. No salutation, no signature. “We must meet,” he read. The hand was the same as that of the treasonous letters. “Not the club. There’s an untenanted house on the River Plym, near Crabtree.” Detailed directions followed, then: “Thursday at eight thirty. Do not fail.”
“Thursday,” Des muttered. “Tide’s high at nine or thereabouts. Down the river by rowboat, meet the smugglers’ lugger in the Cattewater, and off to France?”
“That’s what we’re supposed to think. It may be true, too. If they try to use the same smuggler I daresay we’ll be hearing about it from Justice Penwarren. Here, memorize these directions; it’s best if we both know the way. Then I’ll put it back.”
“Just as it was?”
“No, just enough difference so they can be certain we found it.”
Malcolm’s guess as to the purpose of the letter was virtually confirmed when Tom Waite joined them in the back room of a nearby tavern an hour later. The sailor’s round, weather-tanned face was disgruntled.
“What, Tom, didn’t your Sukey let you have your way with her?” Des mocked him.
“King’s business, cap’n!” he said indignantly. “I di’n’t try for more’n a kiss and a bit of a squeeze. No, ‘tain’t that, sir, ‘tis much worser. I’m afeard the rig’s blown.”
“Blown?” Malcolm said. Clark looked at him with curiosity. He hadn’t been told who his captain’s companion was. Dressed in nondescript, ill-fitted clothes, Malcolm didn’t look in the least like a marquis’s son, still less a bit of a dandy. Few would note him now, fewer still recognize him if they saw him tomorrow figged out in his best. “Who blew it?” he asked.
“Sukey. Quite innocent-like, sir, I don’t want to get her in trouble. Not that sort nor any,” he added, frowning at the captain. “Seems Madam don’t mind her having a fellow calling, long as he’s respectable. Sukey told her ‘bout me, and ‘bout me coming tonight, and worstest, ‘bout me being a petty officer in the Navy.”
“So they know we’re after them,” Des said, looking at Malcolm.
Malcolm grinned. “As I supposed, the letter was left for us. How fortunate that I put it back crooked to show we had read it, or they might not bother to set the trap!”
* * * *
Lord Malcolm was always out when Mariette called at Corycombe. Though Emily complained that he was never in, Mariette felt sure he was avoiding her.
She did not blame him. Mistaking his sentiments, she had been so dreadfully forward as to ask whether he wanted a share of her heart. She had driven him away, ruined their friendship just when she most needed a friend’s advice.
An unshockable, worldly-wise friend--she could not consult Lilian about Ralph’s desperate predicament.
Ralph refused to talk to her about his troubles. He was in over his head, he said. Every penny she possessed could not save him. She offered to give back her rose pendant. With scorn he rejected the trumpery trifle.
“Your sphinx ring?” she asked. He had taken it out of her workbox once or twice but always put it back. “The Tudor signet?”
“Even that. Keep it. One day you may want it to remember me by.”
Terrified, she begged him to go to Uncle George.
“No! A fine figure I should cut involving an old dodderer in my downfall. I’d as soon let you mix yourself up in it. Swear you won’t tell Uncle George or I’ll leave now and you’ll never see me again.”
Mariette was forced to promise. He rode off anyway, but came back later paler and more subdued than ever.
She recalled all too clearly the hints of deep play at Madame Duhamel’s hell, of Lord Wareham running so deep into debt he tried to force Lilian to marry him. Had Ralph been threatened with violence as an example to others unable to pay? Or was he contemplating doing away with himself?
Sometimes his words seemed to her to indicate one dreadful alternative, sometimes the other. Sometimes she almost managed to convince herself he was just being melodramatic. Such shocking things could not happen in quiet Devon!
Yet Ralph grew more and more wretched.
At last, late one afternoon, Mariette decided she had to beg Lord Malcolm to advise her, whatever his opinion of her. He was far too kind, too generous-spirited to reject a plea for help. If Jim Groom took a note over to Corycombe first thing in the morning, asking Lord Malcolm to call at the manor at his earliest convenience, surely he would come tomorrow.
She sat down at her little writing table, rarely used, for whom had she to write to? The right words refused to come. Her first attempt sounded presumptuous, the second servile, the third too vague to be taken seriously. She was starting on the fourth when Ralph came into the sitting room, waving a sheet of paper.
“My last chance,” he announced with a sort of feverish despair mingled with insouciant optimism. “Tonight will make or break me!”
“What is it?” she demanded. “What’s happening tonight?”
“I’ll be going out after dinner.”
“Where to? What for? Ralph, you must tell me!”
“Don’t fuss, Mariette. There’s nothing you can do to help this time and if there was I’d be damned if I’d let you after the mull you made of the highwayman business.”
“I got your ring back.”
“True, and I’ll wear it tonight.” Stuffing the paper into his pocket, he rummaged in her work-box, retrieved the signet, and put it on. “I’ll need all the luck I can get. I shan’t pledge it, don’t fret. It’s too late for that.”
“But Ralph, what--”
“I wish I hadn’t told you anything,” he said sulkily, and strode out.
Mariette glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Nearly dinner-time and far too l
ate to send for Lord Malcolm. She would have to follow Ralph herself.
No side-saddle tonight. She still had the highwayman costume, neatly packed up by Jenny when she left Corycombe, all except the shot-riddled breeches. Those she had replaced with a more recently outgrown pair of Ralph’s. They were too long in the leg and too wide in the waist, as she had discovered on her only moorland gallop since then, but they would serve.
The pistol had been lost on the moor, but its pair was in the gunroom. This time she loaded it. If someone threatened Ralph she would not have to rely upon bluff.
Dinner was a strained meal, though Uncle George appeared to notice nothing amiss. Afterwards, Ralph gave her such an affectionate kiss on the cheek she thought she would cry.
“Don’t fret,” he said again. “I shall come about.”
He went off towards the stables and she raced upstairs to change her clothes. No abigail to ask questions, thank heaven, and by now Jim Groom was in the kitchen eating his supper. Ralph would not risk riding over the moor in the dark, nor even going too fast along the potholed lane. There was only one way out of the Bell Brook valley so she should be able to catch up easily.
He would try to send her home but she’d refuse to go. With so much at stake he could not afford to turn back to escort her.
She turned from the looking-glass after tucking up her hair under the chapeau-bras. Ragamuffin! He sat there grinning, tail swishing on the floor, obviously certain of a good run.
He had almost ruined everything last time. “Stay!” she said firmly. Ignoring his hurt look, she hurried to the door and slipped through. As it clicked shut, she heard the scrabble of claws, followed by a salvo of barks. She prayed no one would hear and let him out until she was well away.
Down to the stables. Ralph had left a lantern burning. By its light, as Sparrow whickered a welcome, she saw a crumpled paper on the floor. She picked it up and smoothed it.
“If you wish to recoup your fortunes, you may wager on tick--one more time only--at a house near Crabtree.” Crabtree! Mariette knew the village, on the way to Plymouth. She perused the detailed directions to the house. “Be there by half past eight o’clock tonight,” the letter concluded.