The Dragon's Bride

by Jo Beverley

  She prayed that the run had been successful. Then she could quickly find a new housekeeper and be out of Con’s orbit before she did something to destroy him, or herself. It would break her heart to separate herself from him again, but she knew she must.

  Destroy, she thought, glancing back at the gloomy house. So strong a word, and yet she felt that kind of power swirling in the house between them.

  He was so dark, so unlike the Con she remembered, even though her sweet, magical Con was there, too. Trapped, perhaps? If he was trapped inside that dark shell, she didn’t know how to free him. Even if it was all her fault, if she’d started the encrustation all those years ago in Irish Cove, she didn’t know how to break him free now.

  But she could avoid making things worse.

  Going down the hill, the pretty village was spread before her, with cottages clustered around the church spire. She saw Diddy’s mother hanging out the wash in her back garden, little children running around her. Grandchildren, probably, though Diddy’s youngest brother was still an infant. One little girl was solemnly handing Mrs. Howlock the pegs, and Susan thought wistfully of such simple pleasures. A home, children, daily tasks that didn’t require much thought or anxiety.

  She knew it was nonsense, that worry lived in the cottages as well as in the manor and at the Crag, but most people didn’t deliberately entangle themselves with madness and hanging crimes.

  Could she get David to forget about all of this? They could move far from the coast and live ordinary lives. . . .

  She shook her head. The blood of a wanton and a smuggling master mingled in them both. David had been reluctant to become Captain Drake, but he’d taken to it like a cat to mousing, and she knew he wouldn’t give it up now.

  Anyway, it was his duty, and he knew that. The people here needed smuggling, and needed an orderly leadership. He couldn’t walk away from his inherited responsibility any more than Con could.

  She could go anywhere, however.

  But where?

  She was completely unsuited to be a governess or a companion, and her birth made her unattractive for that or as a bride to a gentleman. She wasn’t sure she had the temperament to make a good wife anyway, and of course, she wasn’t a virgin.

  Where could she go?

  What could she do?

  She had enjoyed being the earl’s secretary, but such a position normally belonged to a man. And she didn’t want to leave here, the one place on earth where she belonged.

  Jack Croker was working in his garden, ready to plant his beans by the looks of the long stakes he was setting, as he had for thirty years or more. A tumble of very young piglets was all over a sow in Fumleigh’s farmyard. Apple blossom carpeted the manor’s orchard, promising autumn fruit.

  There was no way to belong to a village like this without being born to it. Everyone else, no matter how pleasant, was an outsider. She belonged, but she was and would always be the daughter of Mel Clyst and Lady Belle, a couple who hadn’t even bothered to put the gloss of marriage on the scandal of their union.

  If she’d been willing, or able, to live like a young lady of the manor, she would have been accepted better. But no, she’d had to spend all the time she could outdoors, exploring, questioning, learning to swim and sail, so that soon people had begun to whisper that she was as wild as her mother and would come to the same end.

  Which perhaps she had, though less happily.

  She turned into the lane that circled around the village, noting the faint cart tracks in the soft earth. Last night’s drizzle had softened the ground enough to leave the trace, but no more than a trace. The Dragon’s Horde was skillful, and men always followed the cart with a roller, smoothing out the tracks a bit to make them look older, then superimposing footprints, even those of children. Everyone hereabouts was involved in the smuggling trade.

  There were hoofprints too. The manor’s horses would have been borrowed for the run, and returned around dawn. Farmers grumbled sometimes about tired beasts and men, but most accepted the payment in kegs and bales found among the straw.

  She’d never been sure what Uncle Nathaniel and Aunt Miriam thought about smuggling. It was rarely mentioned at the manor, and only then as something that went on elsewhere. From being the earl’s secretary and now helping David with the Horde’s accounts, she knew they didn’t invest.

  Probably like most of the gentry along the coast, they were neutral, not noticing when their horses were borrowed, nor looking too closely at things hidden on their land, and not asking questions about kegs of spirits, packages of tea, or twists of lace that appeared—

  “Mistress Kerslake!”

  She turned with a start to see a horseman waving from a nearby rise. For a heart-jumping moment she thought it was Con. But of course not. Only one person used the old-fashioned term of address “mistress.” Lieutenant Gifford, the riding officer.

  He set his horse to a canter then jumped the low wall down the path a bit before trotting to join her.

  She tried not to show her sudden burst of panic. He didn’t suspect anything. He was new to the area and had not even realized yet that she and David were not Sir Nathaniel’s children. But the ghostly cart tracks seemed suddenly deep and obvious beneath her feet.

  He dismounted to stand beside her, such a pleasant young man with a slightly round face and soft brown curls, but also with a firmness to his mouth and chin that reminded her a bit of Con. Gifford, too, had fought at Waterloo. She liked him, and he was only trying to do his conscientious duty, and yet he was their enemy.

  “A lovely day, is it not?” he said with an unshadowed smile.

  She smiled back, and hoped it looked natural. “It is indeed, sir, and we deserve it after the dull ones we’ve had.”

  “That dashed volcano. And we’re doing better here than on the continent and in America. You are walking to the manor house, Mistress Kerslake? May I walk beside you?”

  “Of course.” What else could she say?

  The man was courting her, however, and it embarrassed her when it was so impossible. She cared nothing for him, and he would not wish to pursue it when he learned about her irregular birth. More than that, however, no riding officer could marry a smuggler’s daughter without ruining his career.

  She’d like to tell him, but could not point the way to David like that. Perhaps she could at least use this moment to find out about last night. “And how goes your business, Lieutenant Gifford?”

  He pulled a face. “Now, Mistress Kerslake, don’t play me for a fool. Everyone in the area knows when there’s been a run, and there was one last night. Two, damn them. One I was allowed to stop, whilst another went on elsewhere along the coast.”

  Such a pity he was intelligent.

  “I’ve been stuck up at Crag Wyvern all morning, Lieutenant, so I haven’t heard any gossip. The new earl has arrived.”

  “Has he?” His eyes sharpened. “A military man, I understand.”

  She knew where his thoughts were turning. “I believe he was a captain in the infantry, yes.”

  “Then perhaps I’ll have an ally in these parts.”

  She felt some sympathy for him, but had to say, “The earl doesn’t intend to live here, Lieutenant. He has a family home in Sussex and prefers it.”

  He glanced up at the dark house. “Hardly surprising, but a shame. The Earl of Wyvern can make or break smuggling in this area. I heard talk that the old earl helped bring down Melchisedeck Clyst.”

  “What?” She collected herself, hoping her shock hadn’t shown. “You must be mistaken. The earl was known to support the smugglers.”

  “A falling-out, perhaps. There’s no honor among thieves, you know, ma’am.”

  Susan’s head was spinning with the idea that the mad earl had not just failed to intervene, but had actively caused her father’s arrest and the loss of a whole cargo.

  Why on earth would he do that?

  “I’ve heard rumors that last night’s cargo came in near here,” Gifford was s
aying, “but I can find no trace of it. I don’t suppose you heard anything, Mistress Kerslake.”

  It sounded like a statement of fact rather than a question. He knew that no one around here would give him information.

  “I’m afraid not, Lieutenant.”

  “There was a battle up near Pott’s Hill with a couple of men left badly wounded. Doubtless a quarrel over the spoils, so the cargo must have been brought in near here.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “A battle?” she said, thankful that shock would seem natural. “Whatever do you mean, sir?”

  “One gang trying to steal from another. Happens all the time, my dear lady. These smugglers are not the noble adventurers some would have you think.”

  Lord above, did he really think anyone born and raised here had any illusions about smugglers? But what had happened? Had David truly been hurt? Had the cargo been stolen?

  She tried her best to put on a look of innocence—or stupidity, maybe. “But then, can you not arrest the injured men?”

  “Not without evidence, Mistress Kerslake,” he said kindly. “They claim to have fought over a woman and will not be moved from that. Unfortunately, before we arrived, any contraband had disappeared.”

  She waited for a moment. If David was one of the injured he must surely mention it. When he didn’t, she felt she could breathe again.

  “Surely a fight over a woman is not so very unusual, Lieutenant.”

  “On the night of a run, Mistress Kerslake, even women are of lesser interest.” But then he smiled. “That is, to lowborn wretches. To a gentleman, a lady is always first in his mind.”

  She could say something scathing about duty, but she managed not to. Thank heavens the gate into the manor orchard was only yards away.

  “I see all too little of you, Mistress Kerslake. There was an assembly at Honiton last week that was blighted by your absence.”

  Susan managed not to roll her eyes. “I am employed, Lieutenant, and not free to attend such events.”

  “Come, come. Before the earl’s arrival your duties cannot have been burdensome.”

  “On the contrary, sir. The late earl’s eccentricities left the place in disorder. I have been attempting to set everything to rights.”

  “Indeed?” For some reason he seemed to disbelieve her. “But I’m sure you must be enjoying entertainment in some quarter or other. If you were to let me know, dear lady, I would make such places my special haunts.”

  This struck her as a very peculiar thing to say, as if he expected her to be spending her nights in taverns, but she had no time or patience for this now.

  “I live a very quiet, boring life, Lieutenant,” she said, opening the gate.

  “You are funning! Very well, you pose a mystery for me to solve. For the moment, I am on my way to Dragon’s Cove to solve another mystery, though I doubt there’ll be anything to learn among that secretive lot.”

  He mounted his horse. “With that scoundrel Melchisedeck Clyst gone, they’re doubtless in too much disorder to attempt a large run here, but I’ll take a close look at the new tavernkeeper, and keep my eyes open for cart tracks.”

  Susan did not look down at the tracks beneath his horse’s hooves, but she was hard-pressed not to laugh. The new tavernkeeper at the George and Dragon was Mel’s cousin Rachel Clyst, a jolly middle-aged woman as wide as she was tall. She was certainly in league with the Horde, but a less likely Captain Drake was hard to imagine. She wheezed going up a few steps, never mind up a cliff.

  Her humor faded as she watched Gifford ride away, however. He wouldn’t find anything at Dragon’s Cove, but he was clever enough and dutiful enough to find things eventually.

  She went into the orchard worrying about that battle. When it came to smuggling, battle was an accurate word. Hundreds of men could be involved, some of them carrying guns. Deaths could occur.

  What had happened?

  Was David lying bleeding somewhere?

  She cut through the kitchen garden past a sleepy-looking lad who was pretending to hoe between some cabbages. Nearly everyone along the coast would have gone short of sleep last night.

  The lad called a cheery greeting, however, and her flurry of anxiety calmed. No one would be smiling if Captain Drake had been wounded or captured. And everyone would know.

  She walked more calmly through a honeysuckle arch onto the lawn that ran up to the lovely house. It was as neatly rectangular as the Crag, but the dull stone was whitewashed. Set amid wholesome land and pleasant gardens and filled with warmhearted people, the manor was another world.

  She paused to study it, thinking that she must be mad not to feel completely at home here. Her family here were good people and she loved them dearly, but she didn’t think she’d ever truly felt she belonged, even as a young child. Once she’d learned the truth about her parents, she’d understood why. . . .

  “Susan!”

  She started, and saw her cousin Amelia running across the lawn waving. Amelia was twenty, plump, and excited, and typically her wide villager hat was sliding off her brown curls to hang down her back. “I hear the earl’s turned up!” she gasped as soon as she was close.

  “Yes, late last night.”

  “What’s he like? Is he handsome?”

  “He has been here before.”

  “Once, and I was nine years old! I do remember the father and two sons in the Wyvern pew at church, but it’s a faint memory. This one was darker and steadier, wasn’t he? I thought he was the older brother.”

  “Yes,” Susan said, walking on toward the house, “so did I.”

  “I knew Fred Somerford, of course,” Amelia chattered, falling into step. “Since Mother was always encouraging him to treat the manor as his home.” She giggled. “Do you remember Father muttering about mad Somerfords, and Mother arguing that he was a perfectly sane young man? She had such hopes that one of us would snare him. I wonder what she’ll do about the new one.”

  Susan could have groaned at the thought of Aunt Miriam matchmaking again.

  “Shame he drowned,” Amelia said. “Fred, I mean. But it’s not really surprising. I always thought of him as Fred the Unready, like Ethelred the Unready.”

  Susan laughed, then stopped it with a hand. “Oh, dear. That isn’t very kind.”

  “I suppose not. But is the new one more ready?”

  Ready for what? Susan suddenly remembered Diddy describing him as “ready to go,” and blushed at the vivid image that sprung to mind.

  “I couldn’t say,” she said.

  “I remember him as dark. Is he still dark? I like dark men.”

  “He could hardly be paler, unless he’d turned gray.”

  “Well, some people do, don’t they? With stress, or fright. And Michael Paulet came back from the Peninsula with his light brown hair turned blond by the sun.”

  “I don’t think dark brown hair does that.” She wished Amelia would stop asking all these questions.

  “There was that miniature Fred Somerford brought,” Amelia said as they stepped onto the stone path that led to the back door. “I quite lost my heart to that dashing captain. Is he as handsome now?”

  Susan fought not to react. Amelia and Con? She couldn’t bear it.

  “Are you going to toss your cap at him?” she asked as lightly as she could.

  Amelia grinned, showing deep dimples. “It can’t hurt to try.”

  “Even if he’s not to your taste?”

  “I won’t know without trying, will I? And an earl to my taste would be very nice indeed.”

  “Even if you had to live at Crag Wyvern?”

  Amelia glanced back at the house with a grimace. “A hit, I confess. But it could be changed. Windows on the outside, for a start. And white paint. Or stucco.”

  It astonished Susan that her cousin could be so lighthearted about all this, as if life presented only sunny options. This was the Kerslake way, though, and why she always felt like an outsider. An envious outsider.

  “The earl has a very
pretty secretary,” she offered, knowing she was trying to deflect Amelia’s interest. “A Mr. Racecombe de Vere, who has all the air of a fine gentleman despite his lowly status. In fact, I doubt his status is particularly low. You should look him up in one of Uncle Nathaniel’s books.”

  Amelia’s dimples deepened. “Two handsome strangers! It’s about time something interesting happened here.”

  Susan glanced at her cousin. Surely Amelia knew.

  “What’s the matter?” her cousin asked. “Is it the new earl? Is he truly mad?”

  “No. No, of course not. But he’ll bring changes, and it’s hard to tell what they might be.”

  “It has to be better than what’s gone on before. He’s young, he’s eligible, he’s handsome with a handsome friend. Will he be giving balls?”

  Susan laughed. “At Crag Wyvern?”

  “Why not? From what you say, it would be wonderful for a masquerade.”

  It was as if Amelia had turned everything to show a new aspect. “You’re right, it would. And it might chase away some of the shadows. For the good of the area the place needs to become somewhere normal people might live and entertain their neighbors.”

  Not one of the crazy earl’s crazy friends. Solid, normal tenants. She wondered how much it would cost to cover the walls with fashionable stucco. Perhaps those faux stone corridors could be painted cheerful colors, too. And windows cut . . .

  Astonishing possibilities.

  Chapter Ten

  They entered the manor, finding Aunt Miriam working in the steamy kitchen alongside the cook and maid baking bread. Her round face tended to red anyway, and in the steam was puce, but her eyes lit. “Susan, love, how nice to see you. Give me a moment, and we’ll have a cup of tea.”

  “I need to speak to David first, aunt.”

  The warmth of her aunt’s smile was easing her, and stirring guilt. She knew Aunt Miriam thought of her as a daughter, and loved her like a daughter, and yet she could never be quite the daughter her aunt wanted her to be.