Still, she was made of sterner stuff and after several moments of expectant silence, she straightened her shoulders and stared blankly up at him.
“I am just tired that’s all. I will be alright. I just have a headache and need an early night, that’s all.”
Jonathan sighed. He had read her hesitation and knew that she had, however briefly, wanted to confide in him, and was fairly certain that she hadn’t intended him to be able to read her so well. She had wavered with the need to confide in him only, at the last minute, something made her draw back and close him out. He bit back a curse of frustration and eased his hold on her. He couldn’t exactly call her a liar because he couldn’t prove whether she had a headache or not. If she did, then she had a very considerate boss in Harry. He couldn’t think of any other tavern he had been to where bar maids would be allowed to leave early because of a headache. It led him to wonder whether Harry had wanted Kat, or himself, out of the tavern for some reason.
He wondered if the tavern had received more than kegs of ale to fill the cellars, and made a mental note to check at the earliest opportunity. His thoughts turned to Harrison, and he knew that the tavern cellars would be the first place the Excise man would look, but that didn’t mean that Jonathan couldn’t check it out for himself.
He escorted her home in silence. At the door he paused, but didn’t make any attempt to follow her inside. The room was brightly lit and he could hear the low murmur of voices through the door.
“Are you going to read to uncle tomorrow?”
“I can’t tomorrow. I have things to do here, but I can come the day after.” With the cargo due in tonight, Kat would be out until the early hours. Once it was safely home she would spend her morning with her mother and Billy. Together they would divide the goods up and store them away. It would be morning before she had the opportunity to catch up on her much needed sleep. She could only hope that Harrison wouldn’t be on the doorstep at dawn.
“Bring Billy with you. I will give him another riding lesson,” Jonathan offered.
“I don’t think that is a good idea,” Kat sighed and turned to stare at him. “Thank you for your kind offer, but I really do think it would be better if you do not encourage him in that regard.”
“What regard? Riding? What’s wrong with it?” Jonathan turned to her with a scowl. Her face was closed to him and, for the first time ever, he couldn’t read any sign of emotion on her beautiful features, and he hated it.
“There is nothing wrong with riding. It is just that I don’t think it would be advisable for you to encourage Billy to do it,” Kat snapped. She tried to keep her anger and frustration at bay. While a part of her was glad he was still around in the village, another part of her wished he would head back to London. Life had never seemed as complicated as it had been since he had re-appeared, and she didn’t like it one bit. If he didn’t head back to his ‘responsibilities’ soon, she would be ready for the asylum, she was sure of it.
“It is a very valuable skill for anyone to have,” Jonathan countered. There was nothing wrong with his offer to teach the boy to ride, and felt that something else was behind her objection to such a mundane activity. Everyone he knew could ride a horse. It was the primary moved of transport apart from walking, or having to lumber along in a large cart. What could be wrong with teaching the boy something he could use throughout his adult life?
“I know but we are different to you,” Kat sighed. She hated to point out the social differences to him.
“How? We all need to get about? At least if he can ride, he can use the skill as he gets older. What on earth is wrong with that?”
“Because we cannot afford a horse,” Kat snapped. “We have Molly but she is a cart horse. She allows us to ride her to and from her field but doesn’t accept a saddle. If you teach Billy how to ride, he will want a horse to ride properly, and that isn’t possible.” She mentally winced at just how rude and ungracious she sounded but she couldn’t grab the words back, even if she wanted to.
The familiarity with which they had ambled up the hill together toward Kat’s house was not lost on her. It had felt far too comfortable to her to have him by her side and she knew it was folly to rely on him to stay around for too much longer. She sensed his objection and sought to find a way to stem the argument that loomed.
“Please just respect our position in the village and don’t encourage him. I won’t bring him to Dentham Hall again and, because of the gossips, who have now gotten wind of the fact that you are escorting me home, I think it would be best if you go about your own way and forget about us.” Kat felt tears sting her eyes but sucked in a deep breath to hold them at bay for now. “I thank you for your kind generosity so far, but you really need to go back to Dentham Hall, and stay there.”
“Kat,” Jonathan sighed. He took a step toward her and reached out to grab her shoulders to stop her only for her to pre-empt him. He watched as she spun around and disappeared into the warmth of the house without a backward glance.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kat closed the door behind her and paused to listen for several moments. She was aware of the steady trickle of tears on her cheeks, but made no attempt to wipe them away. Only when she heard his footsteps fade into the distance did she slowly push away from the door and open her eyes.
“What is it, Kat dear?” Agnes asked softly. She pushed Billy toward the stairs and turned moved across the room to stand before her daughter. She had not seen Kat cry since they had buried Frank. Something must have gone horribly wrong to distress her so.
“Oh, mother, I have made such a mess of things,” Kat gasped. One look at her mother’s face was all it took and she burst into uncontrollable sobs. She was only vaguely aware of being urged to sit down on the chair beside the fire, and felt her mother move to sit beside her. Agnes allowed Kat a few minutes to gather herself and patted the back of her hand while she wept. Billy arrived with a glass of brandy, but she didn’t attempt to take it off him, merely sniffed and continued to cry.
“What’s happened? Why are you back so soon?” It was only ten o’clock. Kat usually worked until midnight, later if there was cargo to bring in.
“Jonathan knows about the smuggling.”
Agnes’ gasp was the only thing that broke the stunned silence that fell over the room.
“How?”
“I don’t know, but he was asking me about it tonight. He knows mother. He knows.” Kat felt vaguely sick. Was the heavy guilt because she knew she was heavily involved in the smuggling, or because she had lied to Jonathan? She wasn’t sure, but she wished she was anywhere else but here.
“Why don’t you let me go out for you tonight? You get some rest,” Agnes offered. She had never been onto the beach before to bring cargo in. That had been something Kat had volunteered for given that she was already down in the tavern with the locals. It was easier for her to get to the beach with the men who all helped each other bring the cargo ashore and deliver it to people’s houses. Agnes had no idea how the operation worked, or what would be required of her, but she had never seen Kat so shaken before. Her thoughts turned to Jonathan and she wondered if there was more going on than she had realised.
“Jonathan is not going to be here for long,” she reminded her daughter. She knew her suspicions were correct when a look of pure misery darkened Kat’s eyes. “You know that he doesn’t stick around for long. He has been here far longer than ever before, so it is time for him to leave soon. There are rumours that he has a wife stashed away somewhere in London.”
Kat gasped and stared at the sympathy in her mother’s eyes. She couldn’t speak. Her heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces as disappointment that swept through her.
“Oh, mother,” she whispered. She made no objection when her mother gathered her into a maternal embrace and began to rock her the same way she used to do when she was a child.
“Sometimes it is better to cut the ties early and lose a little piece of your heart than allow things to c
ontinue that have no hope of ever lasting,” Agnes sighed sadly. She had always known that Kat had held a soft spot for the young lord from the big house. Most of the women in the village swooned over him, but Kat had always been one who had tried to ignore the attraction and get on with her own life. Both she and Frank had been most concerned when Kat had reached adolescence but, luckily, Jonathan had been sent away to boarding school and had only returned home for a few weeks at a time each year. It had set a precedent that had continued throughout his adult life. He still appeared out of the blue, stayed a few days and then vanished again for weeks, if not months at a time. Still, she ached for her daughter’s heartbreak and wished that there was something, anything she could do to ease the pain.
“He has been very kind and generous to help us the way he has. He will make a very fine husband for someone one day.”
“But not for me,” Kat whispered. Her voice quivered with unshed tears and she drew back to smile sadly at her mother.
“People like us don’t marry people like him,” Agnes sighed. “You know that Kat.”
“I do. I don’t know why I am crying really. I have known all along that he is irresponsible and not likely to be here for long. It just shook me tonight when he asked me outright about the smuggling that was going on in the village. He helped us in Tattersnell, and we lied to him.”
“We have to keep ourselves out of jail,” Agnes argued. “We didn’t ask him to get himself involved so it wasn’t as though we duped him into it.”
“I know, but it just doesn’t seem right.”
“You know what I think?” Agnes included Billy in her forthright glance. “I think that it is about time that we left this village and started again. We have the market stall, but we are paying more and more for the goods we buy to re-sell. We would be much better off if we bought a small farm of our own where we could grown our own stock to sell at market.”
Kat stared at her mother in surprise. It was the first time she had ever heard Agnes mention leaving the village. Quitting smuggling, yes, but the village? She stared blankly at Billy who slumped into the chair beside her. Avid curiosity was evident on his face. He wasn’t going to object to the possibility.
“But we don’t have the funds,” Kat whispered. She thought of the years of smuggling ahead of her that they would need to rely on if they had any hope of even being able to raise part payment for something the size of a farm, and shivered in horror.
Agnes smiled secretively and moved to the fireplace. Despite the flames that glowed in the fire, she began to rummage around up the chimney and emerged, sooty and sweaty moments later with a box clutched in her hands. She carefully placed it on the carpet and lifted the lid.
Kat gasped at the notes and coins stuffed into the wooden box. There were piles of it. Her gaze moved from the box to her mother and then back to the box as she tried to absorb what she saw. She watched Billy kneel almost reverently beside the box and poke one small finger at the pile of gold coins.
“How on earth?” Kat whispered.
“Your father and I began to squirrel away money for a long time before he passed. He always said it would help us in our old age. You know, when we couldn’t work anymore. When he passed he made me promise that we would use it wisely. I have continued to add some of our profits from the smuggling to the pile.” She allowed the children to absorb her surprise and felt inordinately pleased with herself, not only for having saved so much, but for the fact that her surprise had stopped Kat’s tears.
“But why have we been involved in smuggling then?” Kat tried to bank down her anger. She thought of all of the sleepless nights when she had been cold, exhausted and hungry. She had fought death and danger to bring ashore a hoard of goods that could send them to jail. All the time her mother had astonishing wealth secreted away, that rendered the money she had earned through smuggling a mere pittance.
“Because we need every penny we can get. These funds are to help all of us. At some point you are going to head out on your own way in life. You will have your share to help you along that way. But, meantime, we have the option of spending some of this to purchase a small fruit farm for ourselves so we can grow our own stock. The smuggling money has filled the coffers greatly because what your father and I managed to save was only a small portion of this.”
Kat felt slightly mollified, if a little put out that her mother hadn’t confided in her before now.
“Why now?” She demanded and watched her mother begin to count the notes.
“Because I strongly believe that it is time that we got out of the smuggling game once and for all. Harrison is becoming more and more persistent. It is only a matter of time before he finds something on one of the villagers that brings us all under suspicion. Look at how close we came the other day to getting caught. If it wasn’t for Molly’s manure pile, we would be behind bars right now. Now that Jonathan suspects the truth, we cannot afford to risk him being forced to tell his friend Hamilton-Smythe. We need to get out of this Kat, preferably before the Redcoats turn up in support of the Excise men and we are all carted off to serve a sentence.”
Kat closed her eyes on that and couldn’t find any objection to her mother’s logic. She glanced at Billy who had yet to take his eyes of the box of money.
“Alright. I will tell Harry tonight if we are all in agreement?”
Agnes and Billy nodded. Kat felt as though a huge weight had been removed from her shoulders and she visibly lightened at the thought of being free from some of her burden of responsibility.
“Now, let us count this and then we can work out how much we should look at spending on our farm,” Agnes suggested. She smiled at Billy as he began to reverently stroke the gold coins.
Later that night, as she closed the kitchen door behind her and made her way down the back alley toward the harbour, Kat felt considerably lighter and more carefree. The wind was fierce, and she ducked her head to protect her ears from the chill. Luckily she had dressed for the occasion and now wore an old pair of her father’s trousers, a work shirt and a heavy fisherman’s jumper beneath her jacket. The clothes were far too big for her but allowed her to put layer upon layer. It went some way toward protecting her from the worst of the stiff winds and kept her from freezing to death while she was knee deep in the sea. It also helped her to disguise her identity. That, and the flat cap she wore tugged as low on her brow as possible hid her body and her hair. Her heavy boots made it impossible to walk softly but at least they kept her feet warm.
Luckily, her father had been a fisherman and had been suitably attired for a life at sea. It was part of the reason why she had adopted his wardrobe. The clothing had been designed to keep a man warm, even when they were wet and suited her purposes perfectly.
Half way down the alley, she looked up and saw the faint twinkle of lights out at sea. She knew the cutter was out there, and the men in the rowing boats were already on their way to shore. She lengthened her stride she caught sight of the group of men at the back of the tavern and hurried in their direction.
Nobody spoke as they made their way down to the beach. Up on the cliffs she saw several of the look outs as they patrolled around. The horses were already harnessed up and waited with their carts at the ready. The white caps on the waves made her wrinkle her nose and she knew that tonight would not to be easy.
Tense nervousness hung in the air. It wasn’t lost on any of them that they would be at their most vulnerable while they dragged the cargo ashore. They had to concentrate or someone could die. Because of that, they had to rely heavily on the look-out stationed up top, and hope to God that the Excise men or Redcoats wouldn’t turn up.
They waited for several moments under the shelter of the ragged cliffs until the faint shadows of several boats appeared out of the darkness. The white caps dipped and swayed. The huge swell would knock a man off his feet and drag him out to sea. None of them made any attempt to go into the water and watched with baited breath while the rowers battled the huge waves a
s they pounded the shore.
The huge surge of the tide threw them rapidly toward shore only for a large wave to loom menacingly above them. Terrified cries came from the crew of one boat that was overwhelmed by the relentless force of the waves, and Kat watched in frozen horror as one boat disappeared from view altogether. There was nothing any of them could do. To wade into the water would mean death.
“Have they all gone?” Someone whispered.
“Aye.”
They all watched solemnly as the debris and assorted cargo began to wash up in the swell. Three other boats continued to battle the tide until, eventually, nearly an hour later they slammed into the sandy shore. No sooner had the boats landed than everyone converged around them and began to offload the cargo while the boats were kept steady. The rowers remained on board and didn’t speak to anyone, while the smugglers carried out their allotted tasks.
The carts were loaded and trundled off across the beach while the smaller cargo was ferried toward the small cove close to the village. It wouldn’t be protected if it rained but it could be moved to safety relatively swiftly if the promised storm released its deluge.
Kat grabbed two bolts of cloth and hurried across the beach. There were eight bolts in all, three on two boats and one on the other. She tried hard not to look at the gnarled faces of the sailors as they waited for their cargo to be removed, but curiosity drove her to give them one cursory look. She knew in the space of one look that they would cut her throat rather than acknowledge her presence and, with a shiver, she grabbed the next two bolts and hurried off.
Jonathan cursed fluidly and watched the spectacle before him with a sense of acute disappointment. He recognised at least four faces, not least of which was Harry from the tavern. Anger warred with disgust but he remained still and watchful as the smugglers emptied the vessels of cargo and pushed the boats back out to sea.
Shaking his head, he watched the so called ‘patrol’ amble slowly past. Why the hell they bothered heaven only knew. Jonathan had eased into place without a murmur and had watched the oaf amble past at least four times without even so much as a flicker of a look in Jonathan’s direction.
My Lord Deceived Page 16