Amanda Scott (27 page)

“We must arrange our own entertainment then,” Miranda said archly. “We’ll begin by inviting Mr. Braverstoke and his cherubic papa to dine with us. That will annoy Lady Adelaide, but I think we must encourage Lady Hetta’s romance with his lordship, do not you? I say, Dree,” she added with an arrested look, “do you think Mr. Petticrow suspects Mr. Braverstoke or Chalford of being in league with the free traders?”

“Of course not.” Adriana laughed. “He may have noticed something about the ship that took him to France that put him in mind of their yachts, but you will remember that he mentioned a second mast, and neither the
Golden Fleece
nor the
Sea Dragon
has one. Moreover, I believe that if either yacht was used, it was used without their knowledge, just as the
Sea Dragon
—”

“Goodness, smugglers dared to use the
Sea Dragon?”

Nodding, Adriana proceeded to describe that occasion, and Miranda’s reaction was all that she might have hoped it would be.

“Good gracious,” she said, “Chalford must have been livid!”

“No,” said Adriana, “Joshua never becomes heated.”

“Tell that to your Mr. Dawlish,” recommended Miranda.

Adriana smiled. “Even then his anger was the icy sort. Joshua never shouts like Alston or Papa. Indeed, I didn’t think he was angry at all about the
Sea Dragon
being used, but his people said the captain feared for his place. If I recognized his displeasure at the time, I thought it had to do with the sprats and the awful smell, not with their having used the boat.”

“Well, then, I believe we must encourage Mr. Braverstoke and his father to call as often as they like,” Miranda said, grinning. “I find them perfectly charming.”

Adriana agreed, but she discovered that it was not necessary for them to do anything to encourage Randall Braverstoke. He had already learned of their return to Thunderhill and that very afternoon found him a guest in the great hall, having come to pay his respects and to discover the news of Brighton.

“For you must know by now,” he confided, taking his seat and acknowledging that he would welcome a glass of wine, “that my father does not follow the fashionable crowd about anymore. He was used to enjoy gaming in London or supper parties in Brighton as much as the next man, but he has become more sedentary these past years and does not like to be cooped up in a carriage for extended periods of time. And my time, of course, is taken up by the business of running the manor. He has never paid particular attention to everyday details, so the burden falls to me.

“But you still find time to enjoy your yacht, sir,” Miranda said, smiling at him, “and surely, if you have time to sail to France, you have time occasionally to sail to Brighton.”

“The distance is much greater to Brighton, my lady,” he reminded her, chuckling.

“Adriana and I once thought it to be a mere hop and skip from Thunderhill to Brighton,” she said, adding with a confiding twinkle, “Sir, I must tell you, we have heard how, on your last voyage, you rescued Mr. Petticrow. That was very brave of you.”

“Not at all,” he said. “Not much to it. He had got a French fisherman to take him out into the Channel in hopes of running across an English ship. We merely took him aboard.”

“Why, we got the impression that you had sailed right into a French harbor,” Adriana said, surprised.

He winked at her. “That sort of behavior is frowned upon by our ships of the line, ma’am, being as how England is at war with France. I’d as lief you didn’t mention such notions in company.”

She thought she understood him very well, but she found herself unable to respond to his wink as she would have done only weeks before. Although he was as charming as he had ever been, it was not so much fun to flirt with him as it had been, and she was content to leave him to Miranda. At first she thought her attitude was due to Miranda’s expressed liking for him and a wish to leave her sister a clear field, but after less than a week at home, she discovered that she had no desire to flirt with any of their gentlemen callers.

The number of these was greater than one might have expected, for not only were those young gentlemen who lived in the vicinity motivated to pay calls, but an astonishing number of young men found it convenient to pass by Thunderhill on their return to London from Brighton.

“You have developed quite a following, my dear,” said Adriana to her sister a week after their return, when they had seen three of these young men on their way. “I am quite cast in the shade, for they certainly do not come to see me, although my husband does not believe as much, I fear. He was moved to suggest only last night that I ought to wear a sign, pointing out the fact that I am no longer a prize on the Marriage Mart.”

“That is only because he chanced to enter the hall yesterday afternoon just as that absurd Mr. Fancourt offered to fight a duel with Mr. Braverstoke to determine who would sit beside you on the green sofa.”

“I have the most lowering suspicion that it was the loser who was meant to sit next to me, however,” Adriana said with a melancholy sigh. “Can you deny it? They both of them sat nearer to you than to me, when all was said and done.”

“On account of Chalford looking daggers at them.”

“Pooh,” retorted Adriana. “It was no such thing. Mr. Braverstoke, at least, has not been visiting nearly every afternoon for the purpose of staring into
my
eyes, minx.”

Miranda grinned at her. “No, he accompanies his papa, who comes to visit Lady Hetta, and he passes the time by very kindly instructing me in the ways of the Kentish smugglers.”

“Miranda, you never asked him if he thought his boat might have been used by the Gentlemen!”

“Well, no, not precisely, though I did say I’d heard that they sometimes use whatever boat is handy. Just hinting, you know. And, Dree, he pokered up like anything. I think it would be as much as a man’s life is worth to take the
Golden Fleece
out in such a way. Mr. Braverstoke does not approve of smuggling, and he dreads the violence, which is why he is so careful to accompany Lord Braverstoke when he visits here.”

“Fustian,” said Adriana, laughing. “He comes to flirt with you, my dear. And do tell me, please, just when did you discover this fascination for smuggling? You never sympathized in the least with my interest in such activities.”

“Well, I wasn’t interested, if you must know,” admitted her sister, “but I have never seen a free trader, Dree, and you have. You have even sailed on one of their ships without coming to grief. But you have never seen them in real action, and Mr. Braverstoke says he has. And,” she added with a wicked little smile, “this Saturday night is when the darks will begin, Dree. There will be no moon at all. And Mr. Braverstoke has heard a rumor that there is to be a large run right here at Thunderhill.”

A
DRIANA STARED AT HER SISTER
. “Miranda, you cannot think for one moment that you are going to watch a smuggler’s run in progress. Good God, Alston would kill us both if I allowed such a thing. Not only would it be foolish beyond permission but extremely dangerous as well. We might be caught, even killed.”

“Alston will never know the least little thing about it, and we won’t be killed if we have a gentleman to protect us,” Miranda said persuasively, before adding quickly, “I have not asked Mr. Braverstoke yet, of course, but I mean to do so, Dree, and I believe he wishes to impress me, so I am certain he will agree to escort us. Unless,” she suggested with a twinkle, “you would prefer to ask Chalford to lend us
his
escort.”

“He wouldn’t,” Adriana said flatly. “If he heard so much as a whisper of what you suggest, he would lock us both in that tower you mentioned weeks ago and throw away the key. It will not do, Miranda. Put the thought straight out of your head.”

“Oh, very well, if you are afraid. I did think that, interested as you have always claimed to be, you would snap at an opportunity to discover precisely what happens when the goods are brought ashore, but I shall be the last person to castigate you for a coward, Dree, if marriage has made you too cautious for such adventures. I quite understand why you might be afraid of Chalford after what happened at the Castle Inn.”

“I am certainly not afraid of Joshua,” Adriana said indignantly. “I merely think it would be wise to obey him in this instance. Does Mr. Braverstoke even know which gang of smugglers is involved in this particular run? What if it is the Sandgate gang? And how does he come to know of such things, anyway? Answer me that.”

“Oh, he says one hears whatever one wishes to hear when one keeps an ear to the ground. No one expects any of the local inhabitants to betray the Gentlemen, after all, so if one is interested … Well, you know yourself how much you discovered through merely asking a few questions.”

“And through a little discreet blackmail,” Adriana reminded her. “Still, I suppose you are right, and if a large run is to be landed here on the beach, it must be the local people who will be involved. Even Joshua says there is no need for us to fear them. But I did promise we would both obey him this time, Randy, and I’ve no wish to vex him. He has given strict orders that we are not to go outside the castle at all after dark.”

“Well, for goodness’ sake, it is not as though we are proposing to follow the goods into Romney Marsh. I have looked about and I am persuaded we can see all we might wish to see from a vantage point at the foot of the cliff path. There are large boulders there, you know, and some tall scrub as well. I daresay that if we dress sensibly in dark clothing, we can hide behind the boulders and see without being seen.”

“How will we see anything if there is no moon?” Adriana demanded. “The smugglers will scarcely be dancing about with torches or candles, particularly since they once frightened Lady Hetta by showing lights and must know of that incident by now.”

Miranda shrugged. “We will see nothing if we make no attempt, that is certain. If there is starlight, we will see a great deal, for the sand and shingle are light in color and the men will be moving about. And we will see the outline of a ship, at least. And there will be sounds of movement, and the knowing of what is going forth, and … Oh, Dree, you will not turn spoilsport at such an exciting opportunity. Say you will not.”

Adriana said nothing of the kind, telling herself as well as her sister that she was determined to show Joshua that she would obey him when his command was a reasonable one. Her curiosity was overwhelming, however, and the more she thought about the smugglers going about their business just below the castle, as they had been doing her first night there, the harder it was not to give in to Miranda’s continued persuasions. Her resistance, over the next few days, grew weaker, and when Miranda, informing her triumphantly that Mr. Braverstoke had agreed to provide armed escort for the expedition, added the casual rider that Adriana’s refusal to go would not by any means put an end to the matter, Adriana demanded to know what she meant.

“Why, only that I shall take my maid with me if you are so disobliging as to refuse to go.”

“You shall not. I’ll tell Joshua what you plan to do. I’ll forbid Maisie to accompany you.”

“Pooh, you would never betray me to Chalford, and Maisie would only promise to obey you and then do precisely as I tell her to do, for she loves adventure as much as we do.”

“Then I shall tell Mr. Braverstoke that he is not to encourage you in this madness.”

Miranda shook her head. “It will not do, Dree. You have had every opportunity this week past to tell him not to heed my entreaties, and you have done nothing of the kind. Confess now, you have been wanting to see the smugglers in action ever since you arrived at Thunderhill. Can you deny it?”

Adriana stared at her younger sister in acute dislike, but Miranda only grinned at her. “Don’t look so smug,” Adriana said at last in a resigned tone. “It doesn’t become you.”

“Never mind that. You cannot have changed so much that you will not revel in an adventure of this sort. Do say you will come, Dree. No one else need ever know the least thing about it. Surely, you don’t think Chalford will discover us.”

“No, he did not stir the night I crept out to meet Jacob and the smugglers,” Adriana admitted. “Indeed, he sleeps as one dead, once he sleeps. But if he should ever find out—”

“He won’t,” Miranda said quickly when Adriana’s unwelcome reflections expressed themselves vividly in her countenance.

Adriana still had second thoughts, and when an announcement in the Friday
Times,
delivered on Saturday, threatened to put a stop to the plan, she could not be sorry for it.

The paper was delivered to Chalford’s place at the breakfast table, and it was he who read the notice and exclaimed over it.

“The Earl of Jersey has died!”

“Good gracious!” Adriana said. “How? What happened?”

Obligingly, Chalford read the account. “‘On a visit to Viscount and Viscountess Villiers, Lord Jersey, upon returning to Prospect Lodge from drinking the waters at Tunbridge Wells, fell down in a fit whilst walking with his son, and expired at once.’”

“Oh, dear,” murmured Lady Hetta in distress, “as if the poor man had not had troubles enough to plague him these past years what with his disputes with the king and Frances’s naughtiness.”

“Jersey was never bad in himself,” pronounced Lady Adelaide austerely. “He was merely weak and overindulgent to that little bewitching wife of his. Her unbecoming behavior with the prince and Jersey’s inability to control her are what made him appear to a good many persons to be sadly wanting in sense.”

“We must go to Prospect Lodge at once, Joshua,” said Adriana. “There will be any number of things we can do to make things easier for poor Sally. She has Lady Jersey—Good gracious,
Sally
is now Lady Jersey! How odd to think of her so. But her mama-in-law will be driving her to distraction, and there will be guests, and all the details to look after—”

“Frances will not like being a dowager countess,” observed Lady Hetta thoughtfully.

Chalford’s lips twitched, but he said with his usual calm, “We will do as you think best, sweetheart, but it would be as well to write first to discover what Sally means to do. This is yesterday’s paper, after all, and his lordship died on Thursday, so certain matters must already be in train. If you write immediately and send your letter by messenger, you can have your reply tomorrow or by Monday at the latest.”