Spyfall

by Carter, Elizabeth Ellen

  The stables and paddock were large enough to agist another four horses. Across the way from the stable was enough room for a chicken coop. Then there were the boathouse and the little jetty. It was as dilapidated as the rest of the place, but not in serious disrepair. She had yet to consider how the boathouse might provide further income.

  There were so many possibilities here. All she had to do was hang on until the money started coming in.

  Now there was a dilemma.

  How could she have miscalculated so badly? Her solicitor told her that taking on the liquor license from the late owner would cost no more than fifty pounds per year – which was a princely enough sum.

  Yet when Susannah applied to the local justice of the peace, a landholder by the name of Martin Doyle, he told her that, because she was new to the community and there was no one to stand surety for her, she would have to pay one hundred and seventy-five pounds as recognizance.

  A hundred and seventy-five pounds!

  The amount was almost all of her reserves. It left nothing to make repairs to the inn, let alone the improvements she wanted.

  Susannah knew as well as Mr. Doyle did that the true value of The Queen’s Head was in its license to serve alcohol. Who in their right mind would stay at an inn without at least beer or cider served with meals?

  Being allowed to run The Queen’s Head only as a boarding house would cut its income potential by three-quarters.

  So, she had paid. There was nothing for it but to work harder still.

  She climbed up on the back of the wagon. She tilted, turned, and rocked one of the heavy barrels until it sat on the back edge of the tray.

  She clambered down and tugged at it, imagining to lift it down. Instead, it fell in a more or less controlled drop onto the ground. Crockery cushioned by straw inside the barrel rattled. She listened as she rolled it onto the trolley and felt confident nothing had broken.

  The damned thing was heavy!

  She leaned all of her weight on the trolley handles until it tilted, then shoved and willed the heavy cast iron wheels into motion. She was sweating by the time she had navigated her way along the half-overgrown path to the back door of the kitchen.

  “Well at least there are brushes, brooms, buckets and mops here,” said Peggy. Her back was to the door, her attention on setting a fire. “Not that you’d suspect they’d ever been used.”

  “One barrel down, three to go,” Susannah puffed.

  Peggy turned and gave her a look. “I wish you’d let me fetch one of the boys from the village to do the heavy lifting.”

  “No. I must learn to do these things for myself.”

  “Well don’t blame me if you’re abed all day tomorrow because you’re too sore to move,” said Peggy. “You’re a lady. You weren’t brought up to do a day’s work like I was.”

  Susannah heaved the barrel off the trolley and rolled it edge-on to just inside the kitchen.

  “If I didn’t work, then I’d truly earn the name Duchess, wouldn’t I? No, this is the new life for me – ‘in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’.”

  Peggy did not look impressed. “Well, I still say you’ll ruin your hands. You’re still a young woman. You could marry a nice gentleman if you had a mind to.”

  “No, thank you. I thought I’d married a nice gentleman the first time.”

  The edge to her voice blunted any comeback Peggy might have offered.

  Susannah dragged the trolley out and returned to the stable.

  She wasn’t afraid of physical work, but Peggy was right – it was hardly the life she had been used to. As the daughter of a rector, she had been raised to manage a little household with a servant or two. When she wed Jack Moorcroft, she thought she was marrying a successful merchant with a big household.

  Oh, the many, many lies that man told… to her, to her father. To everyone.

  Susannah wrestled another barrel down and onto the trolley, then stopped to catch her breath. She looked across the quiet road that cut through the valley, the tree-studded Arthyn Hill on one side and the wind-shaped grassy Trethowan on the other, like arms embracing her, drawing her closer to the sea that she loved.

  There was no threat here, she told herself, not even from the officious Mr. Doyle. Perhaps Peggy was right. Perhaps almost a year and a half was long enough to stop looking over her shoulder.

  She had moved across to the other side of the country for a new life, far away from the reminders of the seven years of hell she endured during her marriage to Jack. Anything she did that was different was good. It made her less frightened. It made her forget about her past.

  By the time Susannah brought the last of the chests inside, there was something smelling absolutely delicious bubbling away on the stove. Peggy had lit the lamps in the kitchen, making it feel like home already.

  She lowered herself wearily into a chair at the old and scarred kitchen table just as Peggy returned through the dining room doors.

  “Most of the kitchen is unpacked,” she pronounced. “And fresh linens are on your bed. That’s the thing to help a body feel at home.”

  Without missing a beat, Peggy picked up a bottle of cider from one of the work benches and brought it to the table, along with two glasses and two spoons.

  Susannah opened the bottle and poured two glasses before taking a long draught of her own. She set down the glass with a satisfied sigh then pronounced, “You’re a miracle worker!”

  Peggy ladled two bowls of vegetable and barley broth into bowls and joined her at the table.

  When the worst of her hunger was assuaged, Susannah outlined her plans.

  “We should go into St. Sennen tomorrow after we’ve taken inventory of anything we need for the inn. I think it would be useful to get to know the shopkeepers of the village. There’s no quicker way to be accepted than being a regular customer. And I want to pay a call on the vicar of St. Catherine’s Church, too.”

  Peggy lowered her spoon and gave her a considered look.

  “The sea air here really must agree with you. You never did that back in Lydd.”

  Susannah wrinkled her nose and took another sip of cider. “Ha! Ever since I took off my widow’s weeds, you’ve been at me to go out in public instead of locking myself away, and now I do it, you tease me!”

  “Well, by all means, have tea with the vicar, Duch. But I draw the line at helping you with the church bazaar.” Peggy’s voice became proud. “I have an inn to run.”

  Susannah raised her glass.

  “To The Queen’s Head.”

  Peggy raised hers also.

  “And to women who don’t lose theirs!”

  Chapter Two

  May 1805

  Ascorn, Brittany

  He started awake from a dreamless sleep and was on his feet silently before the creeping figure got closer than three feet away.

  Nate Payne gripped a short piece of timber in his hand, its end sharpened to a point. He’d managed to keep his weapon hidden for weeks in this squalid French prison and, by God, he’d use it.

  Blackness was near total in this place. The only light was from a line of narrow slits high up on the walls – fifteen feet away Nate estimated, but tonight was moonless.

  The man before him looked like a specter, his features covered by the cowl of a cloak.

  “You’re awake then, English pig,” the man whispered. “Bon, then it’s time to release you from your sty.”

  Would he be simply hung, or would they use the guillotine? He searched the blackness for the rest of the guards to take him to the scaffold.

  There was no one save the man before him.

  “Follow me, silently. Your life depends on it,” he instructed.

  The man used a key to open the cell door. Once open, he pulled out a wire from his voluminous cloak and dug scratches around the lock before dropping the wire just inside the cell and closing th
e door.

  “Better the guards believe you picked the lock than know someone simply let you out, eh?”

  The question didn’t require an answer, so Nate didn’t give him one. In fact, it had been so long since he had uttered a word, it was debatable whether he still had a voice. Instead, he attuned his ears to the slumbering prison.

  Silence.

  Nate suspected the hour was well after midnight, although hours away from dawn. Not only was it silent, but it was also cold. At least that’s what he told himself as gooseflesh crept up his legs and across his arms. He could not give in to fear.

  The rescuer moved swiftly through the lower chambers of the Fort St. Pierre and climbed the stone steps up to the ground level. Nate kept pace, only too aware of the many aches caused by lumps and bruises from various beatings.

  Here, there were dozens of men, perhaps a hundred or more.

  Some slept on cots, others on pallets on the floor with hardly enough room to walk among them.

  This was where Nate had spent eight months, here among the English prisoners – mostly sailors from captured ships, but one or two, like himself, were smugglers, swept up in the raids against black marketeers.

  He had thought it was hell on earth. But that was before he was sent to the donjon below for knocking out a guard who had struck another prisoner.

  The fort commandant told Nate he was lucky not to be executed on the spot. But after six weeks interred in something no bigger than an oubliette, Nate begged to disagree.

  His rescuer did not linger. Behind a column lay a door Nate hadn’t known existed. It was narrow and smelled of dank dustiness that suggested it was rarely used.

  Perhaps he should find his voice and ask where he was being led.

  The man stopped before a closed door on the landing.

  “Stay there,” he instructed before he opened and slipped around the door.

  Nate had no trouble complying. Six weeks alone in that small cell seemed to have sapped him of his stamina. He breathed deep to stop his shallow panting.

  He scrubbed his thick black beard impatiently and dreamed of being freshly shaved, of a steaming hot bath and his back scrubbed by the very charming and very accommodating Yvette from Le Pomme d’Eve.

  Nate opened his eyes and started. A French solider stood before him.

  He inwardly cursed. He hadn’t heard the door open or close. How had he fallen asleep so quickly? That was careless. Exhaustion could be no excuse. Distraction was deadly.

  It took him a moment to realize the solider was the same man who liberated him. “Here, put this on.”

  His benefactor threw a hooded cloak at him. Nate donned it, grateful for its warmth as well as its disguise. He pulled the cowl as far forward as he could.

  “Keep your head down,” the man instructed in a low voice. “And when I tell you to run, goddamn, tu cours comme l’enfer.”

  Nate nodded once.

  Run like hell.

  He didn’t need to be told twice.

  They slipped through another side door close to the barracks room and into the cold night air. Staying close to the shadows, they approached a small outbuilding. Light blazed from its windows, smoke from its chimney also brought with it the aroma of freshly baking bread.

  Right now, Nate would sell his own grandmother twice over for a slice.

  His nameless escort walked right up to the door and rapped sharply three times. The door opened. A heavyset man with a white rag tied about his head peered out then glanced at him.

  The two men spoke rapidly. Nate struggled to keep up with the conversation, but it didn’t appear to be a happy one. The baker grunted, lumbered toward the closed postern gate and waved him over.

  The moon emerged from behind a cloud. From the direction of the barracks, the breeches and cross belts of an approaching patrol glowed white. Nate didn’t wait for an invitation. He moved toward the gate with alacrity. As he passed his friend, Nate heard a distinctive sound.

  It wasn’t good.

  He turned. The man who had brought him up from the cells held a musket. It was cocked. And it was pointed at him.

  “You have friends, Nathaniel Payne,” he said. “You also have to the count of five.”

  “Allez, allez, allez!” the baker called hoarsely.

  “Un…” Nate shucked off the cloak and sprinted toward the open gate. “Deux…”

  Before him were twelve feet of tunnel between the battlements. He prayed the gate on the other side was unlocked.

  The count continued in his head.

  Troi… quatre… cinq…

  The musket fired just as he made it past the door the baker had unlocked. The ball chipped the wall, a splinter of masonry cut his face.

  Nate shoved open the second gate and didn’t slow. He headed for the cliffs some twenty yards ahead.

  The rocky coastline, a perfect location for a defensive fortification, now served his escape.

  Nate scrambled over boulders, working his way down through the crevices that hid him from his pursuers.

  Despite the cold, he sweated with exertion now.

  The sky lightened, going from inky black to a steel grey. He could see a little further ahead so he concentrated on making the descent, ignoring the sound of the pounding waves below and the yells of the search party on the cliff above.

  Ahead, about three hundred yards away, pinpricks of light from the township beckoned him. One hundred yards down and across would bring him to the rocks at the shore.

  You have friends, Nathaniel Payne.

  Who was his mysterious savior? The only man he could think of was Michel Piaget, the owner of Le Pomme d’Eve. He must be desperate to get his goods to England if he had gone to all this trouble.

  On the other hand, the reason why he’d spent the past eight months in prison could be laid at Piaget’s feet as well.

  Nate’s legs felt like rubber, hardly able to take his weight. How he was able to remain upright was a mystery to solve another day. The morning sky tinted the world around it a rose hue.

  The first glimmer of sun started to peek over the hills by the time he’d reached the kitchen door of the tavern.

  He stumbled through it and collapsed just as the cockerels marked the dawn.

  If this was a dream, it was a very pleasant one.

  Nate was on the softest bed he could ever recall laying on. The vision through half-open eyes was that of a woman, her curvaceous silhouette revealed beneath her thin chemise backlit by the daylight which now streamed through the window.

  The woman raised one leg and rolled a stocking over a slender ankle, a perfectly formed calf, over the knee, before smoothing it across her thigh.

  He couldn’t help himself, he let out a sigh.

  The woman turned, her curly blonde hair shone like a halo. An angel, although Nate wasn’t sure heavenly hosts were supposed to look like that.

  “I was wondering when you would awake, mon cher,” a husky voice greeted him.

  Nate felt his body start to respond, to a degree, until his more awake brain reminded him there was another need that had to be satisfied before he could contemplate anything else.

  He forced himself to ignore his full bladder for the moment, not to mention his nakedness, and struggled up to a half-seated position, resting his elbows on the mattress.

  “How long have I been here, Yvette?”

  Yvette pulled the shift over her head, now nude but for her stockinged feet, and strolled to the wash bowl and ewer, heedless of the man in her bed.

  “You have slept for a full day.”

  The sound of water trickling back into the bowl was too much. He forced protesting muscles to pull him upright and made his way to the chamber pot behind a painted Chinoiserie screen.

  Nate tried to remember whether he’d undressed himself or whether Yvette had done it for him.

  “And the soldiers?” he called.

  “They did not look hard and did not stay long,” she said. “There was a fire at th
e fort, the entire barracks building is gone.”

  Nate thought of his mysterious benefactor.

  “Arson?”

  “They say not,” Yvette answered. “Apparently a workman repairing the leading on the roof knocked over a brazier. There’s talk of the garrison being relocated to a chateau ten miles from here but who’s to say?”

  Blessed relief at last!

  Having finished his business, Nate emerged from behind the screen.

  Yvette now wore a fresh shift and was brushing her hair. She eyed his naked form appreciatively. Ordinarily, he would have allowed her to persuade him into her bed. Instead, he wanted a wash and food more than he wanted a woman.

  He kissed her on the cheek in passing. Yvette wrinkled her nose.

  “I do not like the beard. Use Michel’s razor, it’s on the coiffeuse.”

  Nate spotted it and a pair of scissors next to the soap.

  “I will bring you some coffee when I am dressed.”

  He picked up Yvette’s sponge and plunged it into the bowl from which she had washed.

  “And food,” he added.

  “Ah, there you ask too much, mon cher. We never eat before noon, you know that.”

  He turned to see the twinkle of a tease in her eyes as she slipped a dress over her head and worked the stays at the front.

  “I’ll need clothes, too.”

  “Such a pity.”

  “I’m sure your husband doesn’t share your view.”

  “He’s not standing where I am.”

  Nate angled the mirror on the dressing table so he could see her and the bedroom door, and watched both while he trimmed the dark black beard and shaved it away.

  Even with a straight razor in his hand, he was vulnerable in more ways than one.

  “Where is Michel? I presume it is to him I owe my escape?”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Yvette shrugged, “just as I know nothing at all about his business. He told me to make sure you were fit enough to sail out on the high tide this evening.”

  Bloody hell, that was so typical of Michel – all business, all the time. No wonder Yvette sought consolation elsewhere.

  “What’s the cargo?”

  “I do not know. I suspect not even Michel will know the inventory before tonight.”