Rob sagged. “Then we’ll never stop the smugglers in time.”
Hester raised her head. “Yes, we will. The magistrate and the Men’s Militia aren’t the only valiant fighters in this area. Grace-by-the-Sea has a Women’s Militia, and I know who leads it. We must find Abigail Bennett.”
~~~
Rob had left the Lodge with Hester at his side, but he returned with a veritable army at his back. Hester had located Abigail Bennett in the center of the village, directing the work of repairing some of the shops that had had windows blown in.
“We’ll call out the Women’s Militia,” the painter promised after Hester had told her what had happened at the Lodge. “Some are securing their homes, but I’m sure we can find enough to rout these brigands. Still, we might want to ensure we have something to fall back on in case they reach the ship and set sail.” She nodded to a woman who had been helping her. “Maisy—find Captain St. Claire and tell him we have need of the Siren’s Call off the west headland.”
In the end, Abigail; Mrs. Catchpole, the employment agency owner; the Misses Pierce of the linens and trimmings shop; Mrs. Ellison, the wife of the baker; Mrs. Mance, Hester’s assistant teacher; three other ladies of the village; Jesslyn Denby; and Mrs. Tully followed them up the headland. The women were armed with staves for the most part, though Abigail had a sword at her hip. Hester had explained that Jesslyn’s father, Dr. Chance, had taught Abigail to handle a sword when she was a girl, in part so she could protect herself from an abusive father.
And the irony was not lost on him that he was being saved by a group of women, led by the one lady he’d left behind but never forgotten.
She marched beside him as they threaded their way up the headland. The sea breeze tugged free a strand of her honey-colored hair. Rob reached out to tuck it behind her ear. She blushed.
“Keep low and behind trees as much as you can when we come out at the top,” Abigail advised from ahead of them. Tall, slender, and dressed in a long coat and breeches, he might have mistaken her for a lad except for that cap of red hair styled in a bun at the back of her neck.
Hester passed Abigail’s advice back down the column.
“We should have waited for the trolls,” Mrs. Tully lamented.
The trees were bare enough, the bushes torn by the storm, that it wasn’t easy to sneak up on the Lodge. Still, all activity appeared to be at the back, for they managed to reach the northeast corner near the kitchen addition without seeing anyone.
The storm, however, had left its mark on his property. More than one tree was down or canted to one side, branches hanging. As he, Abigail, and Hester peered around the corner into the rear yard, he spotted more branches spread across the grass, slowing the movements of those who were working to unload the ship.
Much as he decried the practice, he had to admire their ingenuity. As each item of contraband reached the headland, men stood ready to accept it. Chalder stood in the middle of it all, directing a man here, ordering another there. Some carried the crates and boxes to waiting wagons, where they were secreted in false bottoms or tucked behind duty-paid goods. Others strapped tubs front and back, like ungainly mules, and took off at a trot out around the crooked wing. Those items must be for closer deliveries, and he could only wonder who else in the area was profiting from the work of the Lord of the Smugglers.
“We should check the kitchen,” Hester whispered. “See what happened.”
Rob motioned the ladies to keep down, then edged back to the kitchen door and eased himself higher to peer through the window in it. Bascom, Monsieur Antoine, Eckman, Kinsey, and a number of maids were clustered around the worktable in the center, Elizabeth, Lord Featherstone, and Mrs. Denby with them. He opened the door and stepped inside.
They all tensed, then beamed as he came into the room, Hester, Abigail, and the Women’s Militia right behind.
“Well met, my lord,” Lord Featherstone said, coming to clasp his hand. He and Elizabeth had armed themselves with swords. They looked suspiciously like the ones that had hung on the wall in the formal withdrawing room. And he could not quite accustom himself to seeing Mrs. Denby clutching a mace.
She hurried to hug her daughter now, careful to keep the spiked ball away from her.
“What’s the news?” Rob asked. “Were you able to hand them poison food?”
“Poison!” From the way the chef yelped the word, Rob might have thought he’d suggested that the fellow serve himself on a platter. “My food is not bad.”
Bascom pushed forward. “He means the laudanum, sir. And yes, they were eager to lap up whatever we could give them. But we haven’t noticed it slowing them down just yet.”
“It’s almost as if they were taking their time, waiting,” Elizabeth agreed.
“For the information they want to take back to France,” Rob realized. Then he frowned, glancing around. “Where is Donner?”
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “Outside somewhere. Spying.”
“I believe he called it evaluation,” Lord Featherstone put in diplomatically.
“Then we have one more ally,” Abigail said. “What do you advise, my lord?”
Rob looked back at her, and a shadow crossed the window, a smuggler, shoving another man in front of him.
Rob groaned. “Stand ready. I need to rescue someone.”
He darted out the door before any of them could stop him.
The smuggler had just reached the corner of the house. Rob threw himself at the fellow, knocking him off his feet and plummeting after him.
Mercer clutched his portfolio to his scrawny chest, staring down at them. “See here! What is the meaning of this?”
“Run!” Rob ordered, wrestling with the smuggler. “You’re in danger.”
Pounding footsteps proved as much. Both Chalder and another smuggler were on him a moment later. The smuggler hauled him to his feet. The fellow he’d knocked down surged up and smashed a fist into his gut. Rob struggled not to double as pain lanced him. In the distance, he thought he heard a cry, as if someone else had felt the blow as well.
“Enough!” Mercer shrieked, scurrying up to Chalder. “You promised no one would be hurt.”
Rob stared at him, unwilling to accept what he was hearing.
“He doesn’t know when to do as he’s told,” the lander grumbled.
Mercer snorted. “That much is true. I thought I had matters well in hand, but this trip to London, my contacts informed me that he and that Donner fellow are working for the War Office. Which is why I’ll be sailing with my information this time.”
Chapter Nineteen
As Chalder ordered the other two smugglers back to work, Rob rounded on his steward. “You’re the one passing information to the French?”
“That should be apparent.” Mercer shook his head, still treating Rob as if he were an unruly youth and the steward an Eton don. “You, of course, were not supposed to know about any of it. That will be a problem.”
“Your problem, not mine,” Chalder said. “I’ve enough to worry about now that he’s seen me and several of my men. We’ll have to relocate, and that won’t be easy.”
“I must relocate as well,” Mercer informed him. “I have already cleared out my apartments in London. I have been staying in the village the last few days, waiting for the ship. I saw it coming in this morning and managed to pick my way up the headland. Now, I shall be leaving England for a nice chateau on Lake Geneva.”
Chalder crossed his arms over his chest and widened his stance. “Some of my men won’t like you turning tail.”
Mercer smirked. “You can do nothing to me. I am used to dealing with endless amounts of paper. Did you think I would leave nothing behind if something should happen to me?”
Chalder dropped his arms. “You,” he said to Rob, “I want you where I can see you.” He jerked his head around the corner of the house, and Rob started walking.
Mercer accompanied him. “Don’t do anything rash, my lord. Think of your sister. You would
not want to give her another family member to grieve.”
Rob could have overpowered him in a moment, but one shout would bring the smugglers down on him anew, and he could not chance that they might check the kitchen and find everyone else before the women and the others were ready.
“Let me go, Mercer,” he murmured, “and I promise I will plead for leniency.”
Mercer shook his head again. “We are far beyond leniency, my lord. But you won’t say a word against me, whatever happens. A shame you didn’t sign that lease for Captain Ruggins yesterday. That would have made all this far messier for you to bring to court. But I haven’t forgotten how many times your father had to pay a gambling debt or offer coin to keep someone from pressing charges with the magistrate after some ill-chosen actions following a night of drinking. That’s all in writing too, carefully saved. I could ruin you with a single article in the Times.”
“You’ve thought of everything, it seems,” Rob said as they reached the rear yard. Both wagons had gone, and the stream of goods up from the pier had become a trickle.
But Hester’s plan was working. A smuggler stumbled here, yawned there. Another sank down onto the grass and did not rise.
Beside him, Mercer preened. “A shame you finally appreciate my talents. I have a skill for enriching myself, one way or another.”
“Including selling England’s secrets to France,” Rob accused, stopping near the stables.
“They pay well,” Mercer said, as if they were discussing a counting house and not England’s greatest enemy. “And it’s not as if the French can ever beat our defenses. Why shouldn’t I make a little profit at their expense?”
“Why indeed,” Rob agreed. He edged toward the stable door. If he could just free Mr. Fitch and his men, Hester and Abigail might have enough numbers to overwhelm the smugglers.
Mercer tsked. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Mr. Chalder is concerned enough for his future that it wouldn’t take much to convince him you must go. I’ve already looked into your hereditary line. You are the last male Peverell. Should anything happen to you, your sister will keep the London house, but the estate in Wiltshire will default to the Crown with the title. Perhaps if she sells the hunting box in Scotland and this monstrosity, she might be able to eke out an existence.”
He painted a bleak picture. All Rob had done to change, all the duty he owed his sister, tenants, and staff, all could be undone if he made the wrong choice now.
Chalder stalked back to their sides. “It’s all arranged. You’ll be sailing with the tide, Mr. Mercer.”
Mercer smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Chalder. Good day, my lord.” He minced off toward the path down to the pier.
“You’re aiding France in the war,” Rob accused the lander. “How can you live with that on your conscience?”
Chalder hitched up his breeches. “I sleep well enough at night.” He glanced out at his men and frowned. “What’s wrong with you lot? Someone may come looking to see how the Peverells weathered the storm. Move!”
Smugglers stumbled and bumped into each other. Two more fell to the trampled grass.
Chalder rounded on Rob. “What have you done?”
“Me?” Rob asked. “I’m merely enjoying the farce.”
“Well, we’ll see if you enjoy it so much when I send you to France with Mr. Mercer.”
~~~
Hester paced the kitchen, until Bascom turned from the window to face the waiting group. “They’ve taken him around the back of the house,” he reported.
“What will they do with him?” Elizabeth asked, voice trembling.
“More’s to the point, what should we do that won’t endanger him?” Abigail asked.
Hester glanced around at them all, from the Women’s Militia with their staves cut from broomsticks to her mother clutching a spiked iron ball. They were so determined, so ready to act.
And every one of them looked to her for leadership.
“We will rescue Lord Peverell,” she vowed.
Elizabeth and Abigail nodded, but Hester could only blink as her vehement words echoed in the room. Where had they come from? Who was she to say what might happen? Everything in her life had been happenstance.
Even Rob’s return to her life.
Yet, Rob didn’t expect her to be helpless. He had been quite willing to have her call the tune, to follow where she’d led. He clearly saw something she hadn’t realized she possessed.
Fortitude.
Everything that had happened to her, everything she’d learned, had built into a solid strength inside her. She wasn’t helpless. She could do this, for herself and for the man she loved.
Abigail, Elizabeth, and the others were waiting expectantly. Hester drew in a breath.
“How close are they to leaving, Ike?” she asked.
“They’re about done unloading, as far as I can tell,” he replied. “It shouldn’t be long now, but I wouldn’t want to wait. I’m not sure what they plan to do to his lordship.”
That was her fear as well. “And what about the two smugglers we captured?” she asked. “Won’t someone come looking for them?”
“Taken care of,” one of the maids said. “We dosed them with laudanum too, and Mr. Eckman managed to slip them down closer to the pier.”
Another maid swished her skirts back and forth. “And I put a bottle of wine in each hand. With any luck, the others will think they were overcome and bring them aboard to sleep it off, no one the wiser.”
“Well done,” Hester said, and the maid beamed. “The others should become groggy too, thanks to Monsieur Antoine.”
The chef inclined his head. “They will never know what happened. You are an exceptional woman to recognize that I have the blood of warriors in my veins. This is my finest hour!”
“The men on the ship are another story,” Abigail predicted. “They’ll be eager to sail before a revenue cutter shows up. We can only hope Maisy found Captain St. Claire, and the Siren’s Call is on its way.”
At the mention of the captain, many of the women exchanged glances, grinning.
“Make yourselves ready, then,” Hester said. “We’ll go through the dining room and out the doors there. That should put us in the middle of them, where Abigail and the Women’s Militia can attack more easily. I will find Lord Peverell.”
As her mother turned to point the Women’s Militia in the right direction, Elizabeth gave Hester a quick hug.
“You better marry my brother,” she ordered. “I already consider you a sister.”
On the way out the kitchen door for the house, her mother gave Hester a look as if to say I told you so.
Marry Rob. Well, that was a choice Hester would have to make, if it were offered.
~~~
“Think, Chalder,” Rob urged as the lander shoved him toward the path to the ship. “If your captain kidnaps a peer of the realm, none of you will ever escape. You’ll be hunted down and hung.”
“I’ll take my chances,” the smuggler said. “The others may have seen me, but it’s your word that would have me convicted. If you’re not around to tell anyone, all the better for me.”
Rob was wracking his brain for a way to escape when the glass-paned doors of the dining room burst open, and Hester rushed out into the yard.
Rob’s heart leaped to his throat, and he jerked away from the lander. The other smugglers rallied, heading toward her. He’d never reach her before they surrounded her.
He didn’t have to. Behind her streamed the members of the Women’s Militia, staves up and voices raised in challenge. With them came Bascom, armed with a rolling pin; Lord Featherstone and Elizabeth with their swords; and Eckman and Monsieur Antoine with cleavers in their grips. As if emboldened by the sight of them, his coachman and grooms came pouring out of the stables to join them, and Donner popped out of a bush at a run.
The remaining smugglers took one look at them all and fled.
Chalder grabbed Rob by the scruff of the neck with one hand, pistol in the other
, and stood his ground. “Go back to the house,” he told Hester’s army, “or his lordship dies.”
“Leave him alone!” Hester ordered, and his staff converged on the lander. Around them, he spotted others chasing the smugglers down the hill.
Chalder aimed the pistol at Bascom, switched to Eckman, then dropped the gun entirely as Monsieur Antoine, face florid and mustache flourishing, raised his clever at the fellow. Eckman grabbed the lander and marched him off to be secured in the stables until the magistrate could be called.
Hester threw herself into Rob’s arms. “Are you all right?”
With her held close, the world seemed right at last. “Never better.” He leaned back to smile at her. “Did you and your friends just subdue a vicious smuggling ring that has evaded even the authorities?”
She glanced around to where the women were rounding up the smugglers on the lawn. “I suppose we did. Who would have guessed?”
“I would,” Rob assured her. “You are one of the most capable women I know, Hester. You give children knowledge for a better future. You help your family, your friends. You point me in the right direction, guide me on the best path.”
Her sweet lips trembled. “If I have done all that, I am glad.”
He tucked her close once more, relishing the feel of her against him. “So, when this is over, what shall we do next? Ride for Weymouth and berate the Excise Office for its shocking lack of foresight to allow smugglers to roam unimpeded?”
Hester shook her head, hair tickling his chin. “You forget, sir. My brother is employed by the Excise Office. I assure you he works tirelessly to stop smugglers.”
“Then, in deference to your brother, I will do no more than write a scathing letter to the king about the matter,” Rob told her. “That’s what viscounts do, apparently. Write letters. Sign papers.”
The Lady's Second-Chance Suitor Page 18
