Stephanie Laurens - B 6 Beyond Seduction

by Stephanie Laurens

  “Nah.” Abel hefted the foaming pint pot Gervase set before him and took a deep draft. Lowering the pot, he wiped foam from his upper lip, then settled to chat. “Ain’t been no action—not for us, nor for them. That squall was a bad one, right enough, but it didn’t sit right for them. Far as we’ve been able to make out from the whispers and the remains of false beacons on the cliffs, they’ve only been using the reefs to the west, mostly laying in for the coves from Kynance to Mullion.”

  “Not to the east?”

  Abel shook his head. “There’s just the Manacles that side, and while they might be right jagged teeth lying there ready to rip out a ship’s hull, they’re difficult for the wreckers, leastways with the currents ’round that way.” Abel studied his beer. “Besides, with the wind as it was in that squall, it’d only be a ship beating north for the Helford estuary that’d be at risk, and no captain on this coast would do that in a blow.”

  Gervase nodded. “True enough.”

  Reassured that there was—still—nothing for Madeline’s brothers to find in the caves that dotted the western coves, he chatted with Abel about this and that, after his reminiscences of the morning reliving and recounting certain shared adventures from decades before.

  He left Abel in the tavern on the old docks that had always been his “office” and headed back to Coinagehall Street and the Scales & Anchor where he’d left Crusader. He turned in under the arch of the inn’s stableyard—to find Madeline striding toward him.

  She checked at the sight of him, but then she smiled and came on, joining him where he’d halted under the arch. “I’m glad I found you.”

  He smiled back. “Good afternoon to you, too.”

  She pulled a face at him. “Indeed—good afternoon, and I hope it will be one. I’m on my way to the Stannary Court.”

  He raised his brows. “Do tell.”

  Her lips quirked, but she immediately sobered. “I had a visit this morning from one of our tenant farmers. He and his brother were approached with an offer to buy their tin mining leases by the same agent as before. Both Kendrick and his brother have heard rumors—fresh rumors—that the mines are in financial trouble, but Kendrick had the nous to come and see me before they accepted.”

  Eyes narrowing, she shook her head. “This can’t go on. Some farmers will sell simply because they’ve been frightened into thinking they should.”

  “But why hie to the Stannary Court?”

  Madeline met his eyes. “Because it occurred to me that whoever’s behind this might have succeeded in buying a few leases—ones from holders we don’t know or who haven’t asked around. If that’s so, then the clerk of the court would know of it, for he would have had to register the transfer of ownership.”

  Gervase stared at her for a long moment, then he took her arm. “Brilliant.” Turning, he started along the pavement toward the court building beyond the inn; she fell into step beside him. “You’re absolutely right—excellent deduction.”

  They walked a little way, then he looked ahead to where stone steps led up to the double doors of the Stannary Court. “Of course, the clerk isn’t supposed to happily volunteer information regarding a new owner.”

  “No, he isn’t.” Glancing at him, she met his amber eyes. “That’s why I was so glad I found you.”

  His lips curved. “You think, between us, that we’ll be able to convince the clerk of where his true loyalties lie?”

  Reaching the steps, she drew her arm free to raise her skirts. “I’d be very much surprised if, between us, we couldn’t.”

  She climbed the steps and marched into the foyer, entirely confident with him at her back.

  On the other side of the road, Malcolm Sinclair remained facing the bow window of the apothecary’s shop. Via the reflection in the glass, he followed the progress of the couple into the building opposite—the Stannary Court.

  He was rarely shocked by anything, but seeing that particular gentleman there—that, very definitely, wasn’t something he’d expected. He didn’t appreciate the sudden clenching in his chest, but innate caution warned against not paying attention, not properly assessing this unlooked-for, and undesirable, development.

  He didn’t know the lady, but she was unimportant. It was the man…the last time he’d seen him had been in London, and under circumstances that might well prove inimical to his current plans. But before he acted—reacted—he needed to know more.

  Glancing sideways, he saw two old men, retired sailors by the look of them, sitting at one of the rough tables outside the tavern two doors along the street. Summoning his most amiable expression—he could charm birds from trees if he wished—he strolled along the pavement, pausing before the men’s table to tip his head, smile and exchange comments on the fine day. They were a gregarious pair, making it easy for him to ask, “That building over there.” He nodded across the street to the court. “What is it?”

  They grinned and happily told him.

  He raised his brows. “I see. I have to admit I know little about tin mining.”

  “Well,” said one old tar, an evil grin creasing his face, “after smuggling, it’s the main source of employment around here.”

  Malcolm looked suitably impressed. “I hadn’t realized.” He glanced at the court building. “Actually, there was a gentleman who just went in with a lady. I thought I recognized him, but I can’t recall his name. Do you know if he’s a local?”

  The pair glanced at the steps. “His lordship, the earl, you mean?”

  It required no effort to appear surprised. “Tall, well set up, well dressed. The lady was tall, too.”

  The second sailor nodded. “Aye, that was Miss Gascoigne—her as holds the reins for her young brother, Harry, him being Viscount Gascoigne of Treleaver Park. That’s to the east on the peninsula.”

  “And the earl?”

  “Tregarth, Earl of Crowhurst. He was a major in the guards, they say.” The sailors exchanged a knowing glance. “Course, that’s not all he was, as those hereabouts have good cause to know. One of our own, and in the thick of things with old Boney, he was. But now he’s home, and with his uncle and cousin passed on, he’s lord of Crowhurst Castle—that’s down on the peninsula, too.”

  Malcolm smiled and thanked them. “He wasn’t who I thought he was—just as well I asked.”

  “Aye, well, you do hail from London, and no doubt there’s gentleman upon gentleman there—easy enough to get confused.”

  With a nod and a smiling salute, Malcolm moved on.

  Inwardly cursing. His eyes hadn’t lied; Tregarth was the gentleman Christian Allardyce, Marquess of Dearne, had joined after informing Malcolm of his guardian’s suicide. Malcolm had seen the pair speak; they were, had been, colleagues, of that there was no doubt whatever in his mind.

  So Tregarth was now Crowhurst, a major landowner, consorting with another major landowner, or the equivalent in the tall Miss Gascoigne, both almost certainly controlling multiple mining leases as was the general case in the area, and they’d been going into the Stannary Court…possibly to make inquiries over who had recently acquired mining leases, poaching on their turf.

  Malcolm didn’t like that notion, not at all, but most worrying was that Tregarth knew him as Malcolm Sinclair—while everyone else in the area, with the sole exception of Jennings, knew him as Thomas Glendower.

  Dinner that evening at Crowhurst Castle was a relaxed and entertaining affair. Sybil, Muriel, Gervase and Madeline were outnumbered by the younger crew, who, after their initial wary reticence had been broken by Edmond asking Annabel how they’d managed to break the mill, proceeded to get along famously.

  Regardless, Madeline was pleased to note that as the evening progressed her brothers remained on their best behavior, treating the three girls with a deference the girls seemed to take as their due. When the company rose from the dinner table, the boys leapt up, each drawing back one of the girls’ chairs, then attentively falling into step beside them as they followed Sybil and Muriel fro
m the room.

  The sight made her smile.

  “I apologize in advance should my dear sisters lead your brothers astray.”

  She turned as Gervase came up beside her. “What a strange thing to say.” She placed her hand on his proffered arm. “And here I was thinking what a civilizing influence they seem to be exerting over my barbarians.”

  “Oh, they’re civil enough at the moment.” Together they ambled in their siblings’ wake. “But when they don’t get their way, they transform into hoydenish harridans.”

  She laughed. “Hoydenish I might believe, given the recent incidents, but I sincerely doubt they have it in them to be harridans.”

  “Trust me, they do.”

  They’d reached the drawing room; entering, they discovered their juniors had decided on a game of loo. Belinda was directing Harry and Edmond in fetching and setting up the table, while Annabel, Ben and Jane were on their knees fishing in the sideboard for the cards and counters.

  Sybil and Muriel were already ensconced on one chaise, heads together chatting. With Gervase, Madeline repaired to its mate, from where they could observe the card table and, if necessary, intervene in the activities around it, but could otherwise converse in reasonable privacy.

  “I think we should pay a visit to Mr. Glendower tomorrow morning—before he has a chance to ride out.” She glanced at Gervase, brows rising.

  He nodded. “It seems too coincidental that he recently bought the manor at Breage, with two mining leases, and then also bought two more.”

  They’d discovered that a Mr. Thomas Glendower was the only person to recently purchase any mining leases in the area. Further investigation had yielded the information that he’d also bought the small manor near Breage, and was now living there. It had been late afternoon before they’d learned his direction; they’d decided not to try for an interview so late, but wait for tomorrow to approach him.

  “He must be our man,” Madeline said, her tone determined. “The one behind the agent and the rumors.”

  “You’ve found him?”

  Madeline turned. Gervase looked up to find that Harry had slipped away from the action about the card table; he stood at the end of the chaise beside Madeline. With their attention on him, he colored faintly, but persisted, “The man behind all these rumors? If you’re going to see him, can I come?”

  Gervase noted the clenching of Harry’s fists at his sides, and hoped Madeline understood.

  She turned to him, brows arching.

  He returned her look, not quite impassively.

  Her eyes searched his, then she turned to Harry. “If you want to.”

  Harry smiled; his hands unclenched. His eyes shone as he answered the question he’d correctly divined in Madeline’s tone. “If he’s the one creating all these problems in the district, well…”—he glanced at Gervase as if seeking the correct way to explain, then he looked again at Madeline—“it’s the sort of thing Viscount Gascoigne should help with, and I’m old enough to start learning the ropes.”

  Madeline smiled, openly approving; reaching out, she grasped his hand and lightly squeezed. “Indeed. We’ll be only too happy to have you along.”

  Gervase nodded his own, rather more masculine approval. “As your sister suggests, we should catch him before he has a chance to ride out for the day. If it is him, we don’t want him luring more unsuspecting leaseholders into his net, so we’ll need to make an early start.” He glanced at Madeline. “Best if I meet you two at the junction at Tregoose—let’s say at nine. We can ride on together from there.”

  Madeline and Harry agreed. Then Harry was imperiously summoned to the card table. He quickly went to take his place.

  Madeline turned to Gervase. She searched his eyes, then arched a brow. “Was that your doing, or truly his own initiative?”

  “Mostly his own initiative—I just nudged him into acting on it.”

  She tilted her head. “How?”

  He smiled and sat back, his gaze going to the game; their conversation was drowned out by the already eager exclamations of their siblings. “By explaining how the smugglers’ days are, if not quite over, then numbered, and that for adventures they—their generation—will need to look elsewhere.”

  Madeline studied him; his more relaxed demeanor in this company made him easier to read. Then she laid a hand on his sleeve, lightly gripped. “Thank you.” She, too, turned to watch the game. “They’ll accept that from you.”

  He didn’t say anything for some minutes, then murmured, “I checked again to make sure the wreckers hadn’t taken advantage of that bad blow a week ago. Apparently the wind was in the wrong quarter, and so regardless of your brothers’ devotion to searching, they’re not going to find anything that will bring them into contact with the wreckers.”

  “Thank you again.” She touched his hand lightly.

  They both grew absorbed with the card game, although not for the same reasons that held their siblings engrossed. Again and again they shared a look, a private laugh at the interaction, the antics, and all they revealed. Belinda might be sixteen, and Harry fifteen, but under the influence of excitement both shed their superiority and became the children they’d only recently left behind, happily and noisily engaging with the others in what degenerated into an uproarious engagement.

  Madeline watched, and appreciated the moment, appreciated that Gervase saw it, understood it, too. Earlier in the evening, she and Sybil had drawn him into a discussion of various aspects of the festival; she had to admit she could now see Sybil and his sisters’ point. He was so accustomed to command that he tended to ride over any but the most trenchant opposition—or, in her case, an opposing view put by someone of equally strong character unwilling to simply get out of his way.

  She was also someone he had reason to wish to please, but, when she’d noted the way his sisters had been avidly watching them and had arched a brow at him, he’d reassured her with a murmur that neither the girls nor Sybil had any inkling whatever of their affair.

  Which was a relief in one sense, yet it left open the question of why his sisters, and Sybil, too, were viewing her in quite such a way. Viewing her success in influencing him with something akin to smugness.

  More, of approval.

  She couldn’t put her finger on what it was she sensed from them. In the end, she inwardly shook her head and told herself they were simply the four people most likely to applaud any lady who could deal with Gervase.

  Late that night, with the rising wind howling about the eaves of the manor, Malcolm Sinclair was quickly and efficiently packing the last of his belongings when a tap at the library French doors had him glancing sharply that way.

  Recognizing the shadowy figure beyond the doors, he strode over and unlocked them, leaving Jennings to enter and follow him back to the desk.

  The implication of the box into which Malcolm was loading papers was transparent.

  “You’re leaving?” In the light of the lamp, Jennings’s eyes grew round.

  “Yes. And so are you.” Grim-faced, Malcolm dropped in the last file, then reached for a piece of string. “Here—help me secure this.”

  Jennings obediently held the box closed; while he wrapped the string around and tied it tight, Malcolm explained, briefly and succinctly, whom he had seen in Helston that afternoon, where they’d been going, and what that meant. “While everything we’ve been doing here is perfectly legal, I have absolutely no wish to meet Tregarth and be asked to explain.”

  More specifically he didn’t want to explain why everyone locally knew him as Thomas Glendower, rather than Malcolm Sinclair. He definitely didn’t need Tregarth thinking back, and deciding to check for a connection between Thomas Glendower and Malcolm’s late guardian’s nefarious scheme. The connection couldn’t easily be proved, but to a man with the resources Malcolm feared Tregarth might possess, his secret might yield.

  The authorities had been lenient over Malcolm’s role in his guardian’s illegal and immoral scheme, but i
f they knew of Thomas Glendower and his investment accounts, they might not be inclined to be quite so forgiving.

  That was a chance Malcolm wasn’t prepared to take. Aside from all else, he’d come to enjoy being Thomas, being the owner of this place. He resented having to leave so abruptly, to decamp and flee, but he was barely twenty-one; there would be time, eventually, for him to return to Cornwall, the manor and Thomas Glendower.

  But he shared none of that with Jennings, who had no idea his alter ego existed. He cared not a whit if Jennings thought he was running like a scared rabbit; ego, he’d learned, was a weakness, a failing.

  “We’re going tonight.” He met Jennings’s gaze. “I’m leaving most of my things here. I’ll be packed, saddled and ready to ride in an hour. How long will it take you to get ready?”

  Jennings was staying at a tiny cottage in the hamlet of Carleen, a mile or so north. He narrowed his eyes in thought. “Shouldn’t take more than an hour to get back to the cottage, pack and clear up, then get back here.”

  Curtly, Malcolm nodded. “Good. I’ll meet you on the London road.”

  Chapter 10

  Midnight arrived; Madeline stood at her open bedroom window and listened as clocks throughout the house whirred, chimed and bonged. Everyone else was sound asleep; they’d got back from the castle more than an hour ago. Happy and tired, her brothers had trailed up to their rooms without her even having to hint; she and Muriel had exchanged fond glances and followed.

  The household had settled. Unfortunately, she couldn’t.

  Restless, as unsettled as the weather, she’d drifted to the window to stare out at the clouds scudding over the sky, concealing, then revealing the waning moon as they streamed past, driven by a strong offshore wind.

  Her room faced inland, overlooking the gardens at the front of the house. From their earliest years, her brothers had claimed the rooms facing the sea; as when younger they’d been noisy and clamoring, she’d moved to this room at the far end of the opposite wing.