Smuggler's Glory (2 page)

“
Thank you.” Hugo took a sip of his watery brew, aware that
Simon was trying to change the subject. “Don’t be lulled into a
false sense of security, Simon. This village may be quiet and out
of the way, but it is a dangerous place.” His eyes met and held
Simon’s, and he watched the humour vanish from his friend’s face
regretfully. Now that he came to think about it, he didn’t see
Simon relax enough to smile very often. It was a shame to see the
almost sombre look sweep the joy away.

“
Oh? Do the biddies have a penchant for using their knitting
needles for other purposes these days?”

“
Not all old ladies are vicious, you know,” Hugo chided,
ignoring Simon’s curse.

“
The ones I’ve met are. Mean by mouth and mean by
nature.”

Sighing
deeply, Hugo huffed a disbelieving snort and shook his head. He
wanted to bang his head against the table with frustration. “If you
can get your mind off a village full of old people, and concentrate
on the operation for a moment, do you want me to tell you the
rest?”

“
If it means going to Much Hampton, no I don’t,” Simon argued.
“You seem to think that if this village has much going on, the
village gossips will know all about it. The smugglers probably
chose the blasted place because half of the population are
half-dead already, and nothing much happens. If the place is the
same as every other village in this country, gossips will rule with
an iron fist and nothing will happen without everyone knowing about
it.” The words landed like pebbles on the table between them,
accompanied by the fierce glare from brilliant blue eyes that
stared defiantly at the bearer of bad tidings.

“
So how did the French spies get a base set up then? Why risk
the villagers getting wind and gossiping about it?” Hugo
argued.

“
Because most of the old people don’t venture out at night,
especially on Bodmin Moor for God’s sakes. That is when the spies
operate, remember? At night, under the cover of darkness? I have
spent so many nights up and about over the past few months that I
am starting to get prison pallor and have the eyes of a bloody bat.
I am very aware that they operate at night when most people are in
bed.” Simon paused, considering the possibilities. His eyes rose
and met Hugo’s watchful gaze. “The villagers are involved in
it?”

Hugo
knew Simon would figure it out eventually and was slightly relieved
that his interest was piqued. “We don’t know who, or how many, but
something like this doesn’t go on without most, if not all, knowing
about it. Old people might be in bed at night, but they go to the
tavern early and see things. They also gossip about it the
following day in the village shops, around people’s houses. This is
a lucrative business, Simon. Anyone with enough money would be able
to buy these people’s silence.”

“
An entire village? I doubt it,” Simon spat, fighting the urge
to get up and leave. He leaned across the table, until his face was
inches from Hugo’s. He couldn’t believe that Hugo had nearly got
him so easily. “If you think for one second that I am going to
spend
any
time
gossiping with a bunch of old biddies, then you are seriously an
apple short of a full barrel. Go to hell,” Simon snorted, shoving
away from the table and snatching his coat up, only to pause and
lean over Hugo one last time. “Most of the villages on Bodmin Moor
are tiny, you know that. What if it is all of the villagers
involved? What then? Are you going to arrest the whole bloody
village? Even if anyone, and believe me Hugo, it certainly won’t be
me, but even if anyone can get wind of any gossip, how do you
expect them to get it back out to tell you about it? Their
movements are going to be watched so bloody closely they won’t be
able to cough in bed at night without it being noted by half the
village. How do you seriously expect anyone to successfully
infiltrate a tiny village that has so much it needs to protect?”
His eyes met and held Hugo’s. He hated to be at odds with the man.
They had spent so much time working together that it was a shame to
see their friendship damaged, but this was one job that Simon was
definitely not going to be landed with.

“
I’m not going to Much Hampton, and that’s final,” Simon
declared flatly, draining the last of his tepid brew and slamming
his tankard on the table. He did it with such force, driven by his
burning disgust, that the chatter of the other patrons stopped and
everyone turned to stare at him. Simon straightened his back and
glared at them. His towering height and broad shoulders were enough
to ensure that nobody made any protest. After several long, silent
moments the chatter resumed, leaving Simon free to stalk out of the
tavern with long, ground-eating strides.

The door
banged closed behind him with a reassuring thump. Even this small
tavern was in a tiny, nondescript village in the middle of nowhere.
Simon suddenly had the urge to visit London, with its bright lights
and high populace. He needed people, lights, music, good food and
fine wine. He would also have incorporated a visit to his mistress,
but he had already set her free months ago. Having been unable to
visit her for months at a time, it seemed a ridiculous expense for
very little reward. Still, there were other women in London. Women
he had no doubt would be able to meet his needs, even for a short
time.

One
thing was for certain, he was sick of being out in the dark, in the
middle of the night, in the bloody freezing sea breezes. He was
thoroughly fed up with small stone cottages, and suspicious
villagers, French spies and practically everything else.

Although
he hadn’t heard the door open behind him, he knew Hugo was standing
in the doorway, watching him.

“
I could pull rank you know, and order you to go.”

“
I’m not a soldier in the bloody army now, and you know
it.”

“
But I am still your commanding officer,” Hugo sighed, not
wanting to go down that route, especially with one of his closest
friends. “We have got a job to do, and we all have to play our
part. I really want to be at home, sitting in front of a roaring
fire with my wife, rather than drinking that dishwater in a
smoke-filled tavern, but we all have to make
sacrifices.”

“
This is one sacrifice too far,” Simon sighed, glaring
balefully at Hugo. He knew Hugo could pull rank and order him to
go, and Simon would either have to go or face military arrest for
failing to carry out his orders. Defeat weighed heavily on him. He
was tired. He was hungry. He was so sick of being in the dark, and
was so cold that he doubted he would ever be warm again.

For one
brief moment, he wondered if he would ever have a life of his own,
or whether this was as good as it was going to get. He felt as
though he had spent much of his life fighting; and wondered if he
would draw his last breath still fighting.

From
early childhood he seemed to have been fighting. He had never
forgotten going with his mother into the village to collect some
fripperies from the haberdashery. At five years old he had stood
beside the door watching two old ladies beside the counter
whispering and chattering. Nobody within the shop had missed the
questioning glances they had thrown his way before they had turned
their spiteful looks and murmurings on his mother. Although he had
been too young to understand what was going on at the time, he had
never forgotten the look on his mother’s face when she had left the
shop far too quickly without purchasing anything, tears shimmering
on her lashes. He had paused in the doorway, and taken one last
look back into the shop, wondering what it had been all about, and
had overheard the doubt the old biddies had cast on Simon’s
ancestry. As a young child he had never thought to consider why his
hair was jet black rather than the dark blond of his father’s, or
why he was tall and well built rather than slender like both of his
parents, but the disparities were enough to trigger the interest of
the gossips who ran rife with possibilities as frequently and as
loudly as they could.

He had
been eight years old when the vicious gossips had finally succeeded
in driving his mother to such despair that she had ended her life
by her own hand. He had never forgiven them. As he had grown into a
young man, the bitter hatred became deeper until, by his early
teens, he had refused to show any interest in running the ancestral
home and estates, and had instead insisted his father buy him a
commission in the army. He had never returned home, not even when
his father had passed away and, as far as he was concerned, he
would never go back.

Sighing deeply, he walked into the stable yard and collected
his horse. He didn’t need to look to know that Hugo was mounting
his own horse. Hugo, who had a beautiful wife to go home to.
He
had
a home to
go to. Simon, on the other hand, had a run-down mausoleum that he
hadn’t visited in years. He didn’t even know if it was still
standing, it had been that long since he had been there. To go back
there meant resurrecting old ghosts, and that was something he
simply wasn’t going to do.

Settling
deep into the saddle, Simon pulled his cloak around him, tugging
the hood up. Nudging his horse into a walk, he scowled deeply as a
maid scurried out of the tavern, took one look at him and screamed
before crossing herself and running back inside.

“
Bloody idiot,” Simon growled, shaking his head.

He
hadn’t mentioned to Hugo that villages also tended to have their
own fair share of desperate spinsters who weren’t averse to using a
little subterfuge and conniving to land themselves a husband. He
had spent enough time on watch over the last few years to have seen
more than his fair share of unsuspecting men be unscrupulously
snared by a duplicitous female. Indeed, he wondered if the
spinsters of the parish shouldn’t just be unleashed on the French
spies – by now they would most probably have captured anyone who
entered the country, and had them tied to the kitchen furnace
before they could shout ‘au revoir’. He would rather face death by
a thousand knives than be trapped by some conniving witch, driven
along by her desperate mother, and forced to spend the rest of his
days living in rural misery.

Slowly
making his way down the main street of the village with no name,
Simon waited for Hugo to catch up. He watched an old man shuffle
out of a house further up the road. Simon studied the stooped
figure in the yellow shaft of light that appeared briefly. The man
closed the door to the tiny single storey house, turned and froze
at the sight of Simon standing in the middle of the road. Even in
the darkness, Simon saw the huge gape of the old man’s open mouth
before he quickly turned and scurried back inside, the door closing
behind him with a bang that resonated loudly the night
air.

“
You could have waited,” Hugo chided as he drew alongside his
friend.

“
Nothing else to say,” Simon replied obliquely. “I’m not going.
I’d rather do time in the Tower than go to Much
Whatsit.”

“
Much Hampton, and you’re going,” Hugo snapped, his own
patience wearing thin. When Simon lapsed into sullen silence and
nudged his horse forward, Hugo grabbed the reins and drew him to a
stop. “You have to go, Simon. The others are hidden, and cannot
stay where they are while I sort out someone to go in your place.
It could be weeks before I manage to get anyone else from London.
You know the dangers. Each day the men are undercover, is a day
that they risk being discovered. I can’t risk everyone just because
you have some insane aversion to villages.”

“
It’s isn’t insane.”

“
Alright then, unreasonable,” Hugo challenged.
“
Why
? What the
hell happened to you to make you so averse to curtain twitchers and
gossips? I’m not asking you to move to the bloody village
permanently, just stay there for a short while. You can leave when
the job is done, just like you have a thousand times before. What
the
hell
is so bad
about this job?”

Simon
shook his head. “I came from one of them, alright? A small village
like this one,” he sighed and glanced around them at the
higgledy-piggledy houses lining the main street. There was nothing
but a handful of houses sitting in the middle of nowhere. Although
the houses were of different sizes, they were all built the same
way and sat in a jumbled row of confusion. The people who lived in
them were undoubtedly people who had been born there; had lived
there all their lives and fully intended to die there. Everyone
knew everyone else, and lived in each other’s back pockets. Nothing
went on in the village without everyone talking about it in the
tavern.

“
Believe me, if anyone is an authority on how villages work,
then I am,” Simon sighed, shutting out the mental image of the huge
mansion sitting on the outskirts of the village he had once called
home. The manor that held more ghosts than the graveyard of the
church that sat alongside it.

“
But not all villages are the same, Much Hampton might be quite
nice.”

“
Hah! Some, if not all of them in Much Hampton are involved in
spy smuggling. Sounds a real treat,” Simon grumbled. If he was
honest, his conscience was already starting to prick him at the
consequences to the rest of the team if he didn’t face his demons
and just go. But, a deeply hidden, stubborn side refused to give in
and simply accept orders that he knew would render him even more
miserable than he already was. But in a crisis of conscience his
thoughts turned toward the rest of the team who were probably
spending sleepless nights, catching up on sleep when they could,
grabbing food on the run, and had probably not slept in a proper
bed for weeks.