On a Lee Shore (41 page)

“You look ill,” he said. “So, I read your report. What did you leave out?”

“Fever,” Kit said. “It was a mild dose, but on top of some slight infection in my wounds it made for an interesting autumn. Then I had to wait for a ship that could take me.”

“I’d say you are lucky to be here at all. Can you hear on your right?”

Kit nodded. “A flesh wound only. It aches in the cold.”

“So—my godson the pirate.” Sir William drew a quill through his fingers. “You were exonerated on all charges. I’ve seen the letters from Montserrat. And you brought back some interesting intelligence about the Spanish.”

“I’d like to know how Griffin knew about the new assembly point for the treasure fleet before we did,” Kit said. “He said he had contacts. But whether they were in the Leeward Isles or closer to home I couldn’t discover. It occurs to me that since he had put Probert ashore in the Cape Verdes ready to get aboard Hypatia, he may well have got his information on this side of the Atlantic.”

Sir William sniffed. “Intelligence is a dirty business, Kit. But something all governments need. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know, but they have been celebrating in the admirals’ mess over the Santiago. I am—um—sorry about the prize money. I’ve done what I can for you, but it’s not your proper share. Enough to live on for a while.”

Kit nodded. “I’d hoped to get a berth,” he said. “If there’s war…”

“I’ll do what I can,” Sir William promised. “But for now I suggest you look about you for something else. Where will you go?”

There was a finality in Sir William’s voice that Kit couldn’t ignore. He smiled, trying not to show how crushed he felt. “Home, of course. It will be good to see Cornwall again. The house is under lease, but the harbor cottage is still empty. I joked once that I might settle down there and buy a crabber. There’s more than one way of making a living from the sea.”

“Then I will visit in the spring,” Sir William promised. “You do know that you will always be welcome in my home, Kit? Never doubt that.”

Kit stood, sensing the interview was over. He offered his hand, and Sir William took it in both of his wrinkled, hairy knuckled paws.

“I’ll be honored to visit,” Kit said. “I’ll bring you a crab.”

* * *

When all was said and done, Kit wasn’t too badly off. The prize money from Santiago and Garnet was in no way commensurate to his rank. It had been explained to him that as he had been traveling as a private citizen rather than in any naval capacity so the payment was merely an honorarium. But it was still a tidy sum, and Kit had savings put aside. Taken along with his cut of the rent of the land and the family home, he could live quietly and comfortably in the little house he had once mentioned to Davy.

He reached Helston on a chilly afternoon in late January having taken two weeks to travel the long weary miles from London. His goods and chattels, such as they were, were deposited outside the Corn Exchange, and Kit paid a child a farthing to mind them while he negotiated the hire of a farm cart for the last two miles of his journey. He was tempted to pay for a night’s accommodation in one of the inns and enjoy some hot food and comfort, but Kit knew that it would be worse if he put off his arrival at his new home any longer.

Built from the local stone and still snugly thatched, the little two-roomed dwelling stood at the top of a slipway on the narrow cove that had once served the Penrose family. A stone quay streaked with red from the rusting iron rings cemented into its surface offered a secure dock for larger boats. There had been a mine of some kind, Kit had been told, long abandoned, and the cottage had once served as an office for the master of the tiny harbor as well as his home. Behind it there was a patch of ground, now thick with dried out nettle stalks, with the ruins of hen coops and pigs’ cots. Isolated but sheltered, it suited Kit’s mood.

That first afternoon he set to work to make it habitable—raking out a crow’s nest from the chimney, lighting a fire on the hearth, finding a place to hang his hammock. He had bought bread and cheese in Helston, and there was clean water in the brook that ran down fifty paces from the house. He would manage. The Navy trained its young officers well, trained them to face what came and to make the best of every situation. But as the sun sank, leaving the cottage lit only by the embers of Kit’s fire, it was hard to be cheerful. For lack of other occupation—he had stupidly forgotten to buy candles—Kit put himself to bed with the intention of making a list of all the things he needed to turn the bare shell into a proper home. Instead, he lay listening to the sea on the rocks and the wind rattling the shutters and tried not to wish, instead, for the creak of rigging and the voices of the men on watch.

One particular voice—calm or raging, slurred with drink or rough with passion—he refused to remember. Remembering made the constant ache of loss flare up in a consuming blaze of grief.

The following morning he was better able to take stock of his new home. Hoofprints frozen into the mud near the brook and signs of a boat having been drawn up the slipway seemed recent. Kit scowled at them and made a mental note to obtain some kind of weapons.

He paid a trip to the Penrose house, presenting himself at the backdoor and asking to speak to the housekeeper.

“Mrs. Nancarrow,” he said when she came to the door. “As I live and breathe—you get prettier every time I see you!” Actually she had gotten older and grayer, and it seemed all wrong that he was now so much taller than she was, but he hoped none of those considerations showed in his smile.

She stared at him, the recognition in her eyes tempered with concern at how he had changed. “Why, Master Kit!” She gathered him into a crushing hug. “Home again, and for a longer stay this time I hope. Come in and sit down. Let me fetch you some ale.”

The house may have been rented out, but the attic space and an outbuilding held plenty of treasures. Serviceable if shabby furniture included a table, joint stools, even a rickety tester bed with a ticking mattress and straw to stuff it. Bed linen, pots and pans, and cutlery made Kit’s life more comfortable while an old cutlass and hanger and box containing a massive pistol and all the necessary bits and pieces made him feel far more confident about defending himself should anyone unfriendly come calling.

That this was a possibility was confirmed by the man who helped him cart his household goods home. “Quiet cove like that,” he murmured as he helped Kit unload the parts of the bed. “God’s gift to the Gentlemen.”

So, the cove was used by the local smuggling community. Kit spent the rest of the day working on his home and that night made sure his pistol was loaded and the cutlass gleamed before he went to bed. The straw mattress rustled as he tossed and turned, but the hard day’s work paid off in deep and dreamless sleep.

The next day he walked to Gweek and negotiated a good price for a nice little crabber and a full set of sails. Kit sailed her home a week later, his heart in his mouth when the wind got up suddenly, but was delighted to find that she handled well. He beached her next to his house, christened her “Puffin,” and was well content.

He settled to his work, fishing if he felt like it, setting crab pots or ferrying people along the coast if the weather would allow. He worked hard and retired early. As February chill eased into March gales that howled outside his little home, driving sea spray against the shutters, he pulled his blankets up over his ears and tried not to think of the wind in the palms and the sun on his skin. He also tried not to think of Griffin, but with less success.

The last shot leveled at Miranda had been the stroke of a master. Surely a man who was dying—a man gut shot and in agony—could not have laid the gun who fired the chain to such horrendous effect? Surely Griffin must still be alive.

Kit took comfort from that thought, told himself that he was happy just knowing that Griffin was, most probably, still making hell hotter somewhere, and pretended that he didn’t miss him with every bone in his body.

The tenant of his old home, Arundel, made Kit welcome in every way he could, which was pleasant in one way but alarming in others. A man with four hopeful daughters could do far worse than to marry one of them off to the part owner of the house he was renting, especially one who had a reputation for courting danger and the scars to prove it. Invitations to eat under his own roof were plentiful, and Kit tried to come up with excuses to turn at least some of them down. Other than the Arundels, company was hard to come by. Some folk seemed annoyed that he was squatting on a very useful secluded landing point. Others avoided him as being one of the gentry. Kit knew that he was poor company so couldn’t blame them but missed the companionship of the Africa so much that by the end of March he was contemplating buying a dog just to have someone to talk to.

On April the second, he returned at the end of the day to find half a dozen men waiting for him.

“Penrose?” the one with the fanciest coat asked. “Ezekiel Plowright, Excise. Get out of the boat.”

They had already searched the house—the door being half off its hinges warned Kit of what he might find inside—and they searched his boat with just as little care.

“Nothing, sir,” one of Plowright’s henchmen said, and the officer nodded and gave Kit a warning glower.

“All right,” he said. “But don’t think we won’t be keeping an eye on you.”

“Thank you,” Kit said. “I’ll take comfort from knowing that such reliable officers have my welfare at heart.”

It took the rest of the evening to put his home to rights. Nothing had been smashed, but everything had been turned out and pawed over. The following morning he was gnashing his teeth over the mess they had made on the Puffin when he heard hooves on the path down to his house.

“Not again.” He sighed and got out of the boat, ready to meet bad manners with bad manners if necessary.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Why so black faced, Kit?” The rider smiled and doffed his hat.

A pretty gray mare, high boots without so much as a speck of mud, lavender silks, and a curling blond wig looked so completely out of place against the granite and sea holly of Kit’s cove that he was surprised into a laugh. “Tristan,” he shouted, his voice echoing against the rocks. “What are you doing here?”

Tristan waved a languid hand. “Brother James has produced the first of the new generation. So I am down to wet the baby’s head and be suitably impressed at the power of the family loins.”

Kit grimaced. “You paint a pretty picture.” He wiped his hands on his breeches before he took the mare’s bridle, scared of transferring tar to her pale hide. “Are you going to sit up there all day or…”

Tristan laughed and jumped down. “Is there somewhere she can stand out of the wind?” he asked. “And maybe some water? She doesn’t need food. We haven’t come far.”

Once the mare was tethered in the sheltered spot behind the house with a bucket of water to occupy her, Tristan entered Kit’s home and looked about him in alarm that Kit suspected wasn’t entirely feigned.

“Well, I always knew that you were of a Spartan persuasion.” Tristan put his hat on the table after inspecting it for cleanliness. “But don’t you think this is taking it a bit too far? Why didn’t you insist upon your old rooms in the house? Your tenants would have jumped at the chance, one suspects.”

“They have daughters of marriageable age,” Kit said with a grin. He poured two tots of rum. “Papa is uneasy at the thought of having a young buck in the house, and I’m uneasy at the glances Mama has been giving me. I don’t think I’m that good a bargain, but I suppose there’s little choice hereabouts. I can introduce you to them. They would be most impressed.”

Tristan dusted a chair and seated himself. “I think not,” he said. “Especially not when I am so far from London and have come especially to see my dear friend Kit.”

He looked Kit in the eye as he said it, but Kit could see the effort it took. With a breath of laughter he turned his head to show the marks left by La Griffe. “I’m surprised you recognized me.”

Tristan grunted and put down his cup then reached out to touch Kit’s chin. He studied the wound for a moment then gave Kit’s cheek a gentle pat. “It’s healing well and adds to your dashing good looks. But honestly,” he waved to their surroundings, “they are wasted here. I assumed you were on holiday, but it seems to me that you are putting down roots. That will never do.”

“I have a living to make,” Kit said. “I don’t suppose you know anyone with a ship who would take me on?”

“What as? A deck hand?” Tristan shook his head. “That’s no place for you and you know it. And neither is this.” He scowled at the fireplace, currently scattered with cold ashes. “You need proper employment, Kit. Not as a crabber, either.”

Since this was Tristan, Kit felt he could be honest. “I spend more time dreaming than catching crabs,” he admitted. “Oh, the sailing is fine. I know every inlet, but the good spots are taken. I catch enough for my own table and that’s about it. I wondered about seeing if John Company would take me on. Charles says they will hire the most colorful character as long as his experience is good.”

“Can’t fault you on that at least,” Tristan said with a smile. “It just seems a pity to see all that talent and loyalty go to waste. I wonder—if the Navy doesn’t want you, more fool them, how about another service?”

“I don’t think I’m qualified to follow the drum no matter what rumor might suggest.”

“Temper!” Tristan sighed. “I can see I’ll get no sense out of you on an empty stomach. Go and look in my saddlebag. There are two packages. Bring both.”

“And what is wrong with your legs?” Kit asked as he got up.

Tristan stretched out a smile, crossing his booted feet at the ankle. “Nothing,” he said. “But I’m about to do you a considerable favor, and the least you can do is cooperate.”

The bag was found and the packages obtained. Tristan opened one to reveal a loaf, a round of cheese, and two heavily crusted pasties. “Plates,” he ordered, “and more rum.”

The other package was flatter and about the size of the folders normally to be seen in the Navy Office. Kit eyed it with misgiving while he ate. Tristan smiled at him but insisted they dine before they talked business.