Ripples in the Sand (The Sea Witch Voyages) (22 page)

Jesamiah raised an eyebrow, impressed. “That is quite a promise. Not one that he will deliver though, I suspect.”

Benson patted Jesamiah’s shoulder. “Probably not, I agree, but it is a far better offer than the kraut and his cronies have made.”

Rue was closing the shutters against the chill dark of the descending night, while Sir Ailie brought the brandy decanter around to replenish empty glasses. Carter took up the explanation.

“We are Tory supports, not Whigs. Our politics have nothing to do with the Catholic or Protestant faith. The Whigs are for Parliament, the Tories are for the King. The real King, the one across the water who, by divine right, should rule. This German bloater was brought here by the Whigs so they may seize the balance of power. They defend foreign and unpopular monarchs, and have no care for opinion that Queen Anne’s throne should have passed to the grandson of Charles, first of that name, not the kindred of daughters married to foreign blood.”

“Forgive me for saying so,” Jesamiah answered, scratching at his ear lobe, “but don’t George of Hanover and your James Francis Edward Stuart share the same grandfather? Don’t that make ‘em both Stuarts? And weren’t William of Orange, a foreigner, married to a Stuart daughter? You accepted him.”

“Ah, the politics of who begat whom,” Benson said, “but it is not about which child sprung from which woman, set there by which seed. It is about the land, our land. We are the old landowners, the old gentry. Our grandfathers fought with Charles I, and suffered for their loyalty during the years of Cromwell. Now, despite that ultimate loyalty, the Tory gentry cannot provide for our younger sons as we once could. Positions in the church and civil service are denied us. Tory army officers have lost commissions, often without compensation. A Tory lawyer cannot aspire to become a judge. Tory merchants – myself included – cannot acquire a legal government contract. We cannot hold public office. The Tory lower clergy cannot rise to any Episcopal office nor can many of us afford to stand for Parliament. The Whigs have it all, and so, by denying us our rights, they drive us into the service of the Stuarts.”

“Bankruptcy, Captain Acorne,” Cleve Hartley said, “is as strong a motive for Jacobitism as are a myriad of saints, incense, and a hundred Hail Mary’s. We,” he indicated the group of men with the hand which held his glass of brandy, slopping some over the side, “we cannot afford to not do all we can to bring King James to his throne.”

“Speak for yourself,” Nicholas muttered. “If we were to give up this nonsense and join the Whigs our difficulties would no longer be difficulties.”

“Will you help us Jesamiah?” Carter said, suddenly, his hand eagerly outstretched in friendship. “Will you take me on your ship to Spain to complete the task that was, literally, wrecked? And will you help me get my brother, and the other men, out of gaol?”

Jesamiah ignored the offered hand.

“My Spanish friends will give a good price – more than a good price, for your tobacco.” Sir Ailie smiled. He added, “A legitimate trade to conceal the purpose of our actual venture will be of great benefit to us.”

Jesamiah looked from one expectant face to another. Bloody Jennings had done it to him again. He was up to his neck in a conspiracy that could easily get him hanged. He set his glass down on the mantelshelf, and said, “I would ask what your scheme is, but I ain’t goin’ to because I don’t want to know. As far as I’m concerned if I can’t find a buyer for my tobacco it can go over the side. I won’t be part of any Jacobite rebellion or jailbreak. I value my head staying put on my shoulders. I hear a traitor’s death ain’t a pleasant one. Rue? Would you send word for our carriage, and be telling m’wife we are ready to leave.”

Relieved to hear that Jesamiah wanted no part in rebellion, Rue gave a slight salute, touching his right forefinger to his forehead as he left the room.

The rest of the men looked one to the other. Benson was disappointed, Cleve Hartley almost relieved, while his son sat, head bowed, contemptuous, and very drunk. Sir Ailie and Winnard were talking together quietly, but Carter stared with animosity at his brother-in-law. “I thought you were a man of brave adventure?”

“Nope,” Jesamiah answered, ambling towards the door. “I am a man who intends to stay alive as long as Lady Jennet. Farting in the face of the government ain’t one of the ways to be doin’ it.”

“There is nothing we can do to persuade you to change your mind?” Benson asked as a last hope.

“There ain’t.” Jesamiah offered a small bow, opened the door and went out into the hallway beyond. Carter followed him, his stride long and fast, his expression angry. Hearing his footsteps, Jesamiah half turned, his hand going to his cutlass hilt, but he hesitated, not especially willing to run his own brother-in-law through. How would he explain that to Tiola? Carter’s hand was on Jesamiah’s chest, shoving him, none too gently, up against the far wall.

“Will my sister, your wife, not be grieved that you refuse to aid our brother?”

Elbowing his assailant aside, tempted to use the stronger force of his fist on Carter’s cheek, Jesamiah glowered at the man. “For now I would prefer Tiola not to know anything about it. She has been unwell and this will not aid her recovery. Ordinarily I would be glad to help, but what can I do? I don’t know this area. I know nothing of where he is, how to get there or what to do if I did. You are a local man who knows other men who can assist you. I don’t.”

“Fine excuses spoken with the conviction of a milksop.” Carter’s response was contemptuous.

From the doorway, Sir Ailie coughed to announce his presence, Winnard close behind. “Captain Acorne is right, he does not know this area, but I do. Leave it with me, Trevithick. I have a grandson who is in as much danger as your brother. I assure you, I will make every effort to engineer their safe release.”

Proud and defiant, Carter tipped his chin upward. “You expect me to stand idle while others carry out my duty? He is my brother; I will get him out.”

“You ought not have let him be involved in the first place,” Winnard snapped impatiently. “Nor should my son have been aboard your boat. I trust it was not you who enticed him? If you had taken more care…”

Carter bridled into anger. “Ascham joined us of his own accord, I am not his nursemaid.”

“I had forbidden him.”

“Maybe that was why he came!”

“Gentlemen, let us not squabble between ourselves.” Sir Ailie spread his hands, soothing the rising heat. “What happened was unfortunate. It is even more unfortunate, Carter, that your brother and my grandson are taken prisoner, but let us thank God they are at least alive.” He patted Carter’s shoulder sympathetically. “You are already large in the suspicion of the militia. Who will they first look to when your brother is discovered freed from gaol? Hmm?”

“They will suspect Winnard as much as myself!”

“That they will, but they will not have any success pursuing him onto Exmoor. Do you wish for your inn to be ransacked, your wife molested? Would it not make more sense were you able to tell, and prove, the truth when they question you? As they surely will.”

Carter glared from one man to another, then reluctantly accepted the sense of Doone’s words. “I still call you coward, Acorne.” He stalked out of the front door, slamming it behind him.

“That man is a fool,” Winnard said. “He has already caused us difficulties because of his incompetence.”

“I thought it was established that the ship was wrecked through betrayal, not poor judgement. And Trevithick has concerns for his brother,” Jesamiah snapped in retort. “As have I, but I can do nothing about it.”

Sir Ailie offered a broad smile and his hand in friendship. “All this is none of your business, is it, Acorne? Many another would agree to help in order to get us off his back, then simply vanish into the night. I thank you for your honesty. I take it I can trust in your silence?”

Jesamiah hesitated before shaking the extended hand. “Of course.”

“Good. Please, allow Winnard and myself to walk with you to your carriage. We would hear of your father, if you are willing to talk of him.”

Shrugging, Jesamiah agreed. “Certainly, although there is a limited amount to tell.”

Forty Nine

With only Benson and Sir Cleve and his son in the room, it suddenly seemed empty and haunted by the past. Some of the candles were smoking; the wicks needing trimming. Nicholas was asleep, the drink, the warmth of the fire and the residue of last night finally overcoming him. Benson sighed loudly. “I’d had hopes of that young man. Jennings spoke highly of him.”

“Hah!” Cleve barked, “how do we know we can trust Jennings, or that fellow? I still say we should have kept our mouths shut. Someone has been passing tales to the militia. Someone is spying for the government and spreading rumour about this damned list of names. What names? Whose names? That’s what I want to know.”

“No, Cleve,” Benson said quietly, “what you, what we all, want to know is, are we on this list? If the Whig spies obtain proof of our involvement with James Stuart we will be meeting a most unpleasant death. Someone has paid the scum who attacked your son and his household last night to find that list. They also attacked Captain Acorne the other day. I suspect because he was near the Bideford warehouse.”

Cleve looked up quickly, brows furrowing. “What was he doing there? Snooping I wager!”

“Nay, nay, man, he was looking for me.”

“We don’t want him finding out about the extra stock we keep there.”

John Benson smiled at Hartley, amused. “My dear friend, I very much doubt that Captain Acorne will turn a hair at discovering our stockpile of smuggled contraband and illegally imported goods. That brandy you have been generously quaffing was provided by him. And if it is legal, then I am an attested Whig!”

“Jennings then. Can we trust him?” Cleve Hartley asked.

Benson snuffed out the smoking candles by licking his thumb and finger and extinguishing the flame. “He told us of this list, but I have a growing suspicion that he did so for a reason. He wants to know who is on it as badly as we do.” He raised a finger, a warning to emphasise his point. “And why, I wonder, does he want to know? It could be for the same reason as us. Or it could be for the exact opposite.”

Cleve Hartley massaged his jaw, fresh sweat beading his brow. “You think he is spying against us?”

“Someone is, Cleve. Someone is.”

Fifty

“I did not know Charles Mereno well,” Ailie Doone said as the three men sauntered across the courtyard towards a large, ornamental fishpond. “We shared a mutual interest in trade, nothing more.”

Lanterns had been lit and set around its central statue of a Greek goddess bearing a cornucopia of spilling fruit and a rusty trickle of water. Lichen covered her exposed breasts and her one remaining arm, the other had been broken off at the elbow, and her nose was missing. The pond itself was clogged with weed and dead leaves; the fish had died many years past. Like the rest of Marley Court, here was a sad reminder that there had been better, more resplendent, days.

“You knew him because of Jennings?” Jesamiah asked, peering towards the archway that led to the stables, hoping to see whether the horses were being harnessed into the hired carriage.

“Indeed. They came occasionally to my secluded cove around the headland.”

“Smuggling contraband?”

“Do you expect me to outright admit to that?” Doone responded with a loud guffaw.

The stars overhead were bright in the frosty night sky, the air crisp and smelling of woodsmoke and damp earth. He rested his buttocks against the low wall of the pond; folded his arms. “I will come to the point, Acorne, it is too cold out here to exchange meaningless pleasantries.”

“If you are going to try to persuade me to break those men out of gaol, you might as well forget it. I have already said no.”

“I will pay you well.”

“Got enough wealth to not need paying.”

“So I understand.” Ailie Doone nodded slowly as if he were a wise Sage. “Are you aware that a good deal of what your father owned – and now you, I assume – is stashed in John Benson’s warehouse on Bideford Quay?”

Jesamiah was not aware. All that silver and china? He snorted beneath his breath, remembering the spoons he had pocketed. His own spoons? He said, “And some of it belongs to Jennings?”

“Some of it.”

Henry’s spoons then. Jesamiah felt better about that; stealing Jennings’ stuff was quite satisfying.

“I would ask you, politely,” Ailie Doone said slowly, “to take your tobacco to a contact of mine in Cádiz. He is expecting Carter Trevithick, but I will write a letter explaining the necessity for change. The wreckage of that boat was highly unfortunate. It has caused us some great difficulty.”

“Which was why it was conveniently wrecked,” Jesamiah observed.

“Are you accusing us of something, Acorne?” Winnard challenged.

Not rising to the bait, Jesamiah answered with equanimity. “No, I merely state a fact. Someone who is probably on that list of names you are all getting so heated about wanted that boat stopped. Wanted it enough to commit a deliberate act of sabotage and murder.”

“Well it was not us!” Winnard snapped, losing his poise. “My son was aboard, and now faces the noose.”

Jesamiah was about to retort that Ascham Doone was not supposed to have been aboard, which gave a slight different flavour to the equation, but he kept the thought to himself.

With impertinence, Winnard followed with another question. “Did we hear correct? Your wife is Carter’s sister?”

As a scowl crossed Jesamiah’s face, Sir Ailie tactfully interrupted, “Forgive us, we do not intend to intrude.”

“Then don’t do so. It ain’t no business of yours.”

His palms resting on the cracked stonework, Ailie rocked backwards and forwards slightly. “But you see, Captain Acorne, it is our business. We are in desperate need for someone to go to Cádiz to finish what we started. You, in turn, convenient for us, want to dispose of a cargo of tobacco, and there are men who need to disappear after they have escaped from Barnstaple gaol. One of those men being your wife’s brother. No one will suspect that he is aboard your vessel, for no one outside of myself and Winnard here, and whosoever you have told, know of this fact of kinship. In addition, what have you by way of interest in the goings on here in North Devon to arouse suspicion? Few will even notice that the
Sea Witch
has sailed. You would be doing an inestimable favour, sir, were you to reconsider.”

“I have no desire to break men out of gaol, or go to Cádiz.”

Horses’ hooves, the sound of rumbling wheels; the carriage was being brought round. Rue and Tiola appeared at the front door, and Ailie Doone pushed away from the pond, the cold seeping through his breeches becoming too intense. “So you do not object to your wife seeing her brothers hang? If Ben is not freed, Carter will do something stupid, you can guarantee it. He is an impulsive soul, who acts before he thinks.”

There was more going on here than what was displayed on the surface. Jesamiah recognised a trap when he met one. His only problem, he could not yet see where or how it was laid.

“Why involve me?” he asked. “I understand you want the use of my ship, but what has this other issue got to do with me? I do not know this jailed brother of my wife’s, and I do not especially like the one I do know, so I have no care for either of them. Your grandson is at Barnstaple, Doone, you get him out.”

“But, you see,” Sir Ailie explained with a congenial smile, “we will be the first to be suspected, and I cannot afford to have too many government officials snooping around, not at the moment.”

“Whereas I am above suspicion.”

Again Ailie Doone smiled. “Let us just say your involvement would be highly useful for us.”

“And,” Winnard added, “it will be most unfortunate if you are not involved. I must point out, that should the excisemen discover who has the ownership of those goods in Benson’s warehouse, there will be consequences. Especially as, so Jennings told me but yesterday when I spoke to him in Exeter, the invoices are in your wife’s name.”

Jesamiah stared at both men, outraged. Jennings would have said no such thing. “That is a lie,” Jesamiah said. “An outright lie.”

Winnard Doone spread his hands, a gesture of innocence. “Is it? Nicholas Hartley is responsible for all the paperwork where that warehouse is concerned, and I think I am right in judging that he does not care for you. It will be an easy matter to create what is required to send those who do not support us to the gallows.”

There it was. A neat trap.

“Enough, Winnard,” Ailie complained, “I do not hold with threats or unnecessary violence, but I would certainly appreciate your willing cooperation, Captain, were you to give it.” He smiled, the expression misleadingly benign. “Shall I instruct your carriage to wait a moment while you discuss a few essential plans with Winnard?” He bowed his head in farewell, strode away, confident there would come no further protest of refusal.