The Cornish Heiress

by Roberta Gellis

  Philip was silent, staring into space.

  “You mustn’t worry so,” Roger urged, clapping his son gently on the shoulder.

  “I was not thinking of that, sir, only wondering how Jean got on my trail. You cannot really believe that he was skulking outside Lord Hawkesbury’s house.”

  “By God, I know he wasn’t!” Roger exclaimed. “He came here not an hour after you left, asking about you. He said you had a dinner engagement for the previous night and you hadn’t met him—did you?”

  Philip thought back and shook his head. “I do not think so, but I cannot swear to it. But, sir, if I had not come to dinner, why did he not come in the morning to ask about me? Why wait until nearly two o’clock?”

  Roger stared at his son, going pale. “Fool that I am,” he breathed. “I could have killed you with my stupidity! It never occurred to me. I could—”

  “Now, sir, that is not kind,” Philip said, laughing. “You should not make it so clear that you think me a helpless idiot who cannot take care of himself.”

  “I think nothing of the sort,” Roger protested. “What you set out to do was dangerous enough without my stupidity complicating it. But there’s no sense in worrying about that now. I take your point. Considering our drive home and the time you took to make ready, plus the lapse of time before de Tréport called here—someone heard of what went on in Hawkesbury’s office within two hours of our leaving there. That’s too soon for Hawkesbury to have blabbed the thing… No! Actually, it’s not. I believe be went to the Foreign Office immediately after we left him and his head was full of your mission. I wonder if it will be possible to find out to whom he spoke.”

  “Good God, sir, that is nearly two months ago. No one would remember—and it is barely possible that he met someone in a corridor or in some other office so that it would not be in his appointment book.”

  “I don’t think he’s that much of a blabbermouth. I wish I could think of a—a tactful way to ask, but the government is so shaky now and there are so many attacks on Addington that any questions are regarded as implying distrust.”

  “Yes, well, I do not think it would be a mark of confidence to ask if the Minister of Foreign Affairs had just happened to confide the details of a secret mission to the nearest French agent less than an hour after—”

  “Idiot!” Roger laughed. “That was not precisely the question I was going to raise.”

  “No, I suppose not, but it is not impossible. After being shown around the installations at Boulogne by Bonaparte himself, I could believe almost anything.” Philip hesitated, then went on suddenly, “Sir, there is a simple answer that does not presuppose Lord Hawkesbury to be a fool. There was another person present beside you and myself. Could d’Ursine not be what he seems?”

  Roger bit his lip. “It crossed my mind—yes, but I cannot believe it. Really, it is unthinkable. He suffered very severely in the Revolution. I believe his father was executed and his wife and children died under brutal circumstances.”

  “He went back,” Philip remarked tentatively. “Leonie would not go back. She did not even want you to try to reclaim her estate.”

  Doubt filled Roger’s eyes. “Well, it was easy enough for her. That was so insignificant in comparison with the Stour lands. And you know she felt it would be wrong to reclaim the lands when she could not live on them. Her father gave her a horror of being an absentee landlord. I have had a devil of a time convincing her not to sell the Irish properties because she cannot be there to make sure they are fairly administered. It is a very different thing for d’Ursine, who is virtually a pauper. I don’t believe he has any income at all, except what he is paid by Hawkesbury. Naturally, he would be eager to reclaim his French property which, I believe, was extensive.”

  “I suppose you are right, sir, but there is something so—so theatrical in his hate for Bonaparte… Leonie never—I mean, she does not wish to go back, but she does not foam at the mouth when France is mentioned.”

  “You mean to imply the hatred is assumed?” Roger mused. “It’s not impossible, of course, but you mustn’t judge other people by Leonie’s moderation. She’s a woman of quite exceptional generosity—not a hater by nature—and also she… Well, Philip, you know she was always afraid to express herself for fear she would instill hatred in you and Sabrina. That wouldn’t be fair. Sooner or later this war will end and we must deal with the French in peace.”

  “Yes. But it is not my problem anymore,” Philip said lightly.

  Roger frowned. “That’s not quite true. It’s everyone’s problem. What I said about d’Ursine I believe to be the truth, but that isn’t going to stop me from digging around to be sure. I don’t dare accuse him, Philip. As I said, what he has from Hawkesbury is all he has in the world, and an unfounded accusation could ruin him, which would be dreadfully unfair. It’s terribly hard to prove you aren’t a spy. And it isn’t as if he were at the War Office or the Admiralty. It’s the exception rather than the rule that a mission like yours goes through the Foreign Office. Still, it could do no harm for you to dig around too, from the other end.”

  “But d’Ursine does not mix with my friends.”

  Philip was horrified. His light abandonment of the subject of who had set de Tréport on his trail was preparatory to informing Roger he intended to go back to Cornwall. He had come no closer to an answer to his problem of what to do about Meg, but he knew he had to stop her from smuggling as soon as possible. This, of course, could not be accomplished from London. He had not bothered to think of any particularly good excuse for returning. If his father had asked at all, he intended to say that he had left his horse there and that he found the Moretons congenial and the area interesting. Now, obviously, such a slight purpose was not sufficient.

  “I didn’t mean that you should ask questions about d’Ursine but about d’Onival and de Tréport,” Roger said, burying even the faint hope Philip had of escaping his duty. “You can innocently ask what happened to de Tréport, since he isn’t in his usual haunts. Then you can ask who were his friends, those you didn’t know—and you can ask those for further references. You will need to think of a fairly pressing reason—you lent, him money? A horse? He cut you out with a woman? But you must seem good humored about it, not really angry.”

  “Yes.”

  Philip was doing his best to conceal his bitter disappointment. He realized that what his father was asking him to do was of importance. He was the one known associate of de Tréport whose loyalty to England could not be questioned. Since inquiries from the outside had revealed nothing, it was necessary for him at least to try. Nonetheless he could not work up the smallest enthusiasm for the task. All he wanted was to see Meg and make sure she was safe. After that he would be glad to hunt spies or do anything else required of him.

  “Sooner or later I am sure someone will mention d’Onival to you,” Roger continued blithely, completely misunderstanding Philip’s rather bleak expression. He assumed it was distasteful to his son to act a part among his own friends, some of whom might be involved in Jean’s and Henri’s treasonous activities. That was reasonable. Roger was sympathetic to Philip’s distaste but knew his son would not shirk his duty simply because it was unpleasant.

  “Yes, I am sure someone will,” Philip agreed, “but first I had better think of a good reason for disappearing myself, and secondly, I had better find out how deep I am in everyone’s black books for missing my engagements. I shall toddle along to White’s a bit later and see if anyone beside us is in Town. Will you tell Leonie I will not be in for dinner?”

  Roger agreed and left Philip to puzzle over what could have caused his disappearance. In spite of having half his mind filled with violet eyes and dark red hair, he found a solution to the easy problem. It was compounded by his desire to travel west and his father’s remark about Leonie’s Irish estates. It would be easy enough to say that Roger had sent him there, ostensibly to check on the land, but really to separate him from the dri
nking and gambling that filled the hours left empty by hunting on the country estates to which he had been invited. Naturally Philip would have been sullen under the circumstances and not in a mood to write and explain he had been sent away to sit in the corner like a naughty little boy.

  The excuse was so good that Philip was almost cheered up. However, he never got a chance to use it. There was no one at White’s with whom he was closely enough acquainted to know he had been gone, and at the gambling halls he visited after dinner—places to which de Tréport had introduced him—such questions were not asked. It was assumed that an answer to them would be embarrassing. No one had seen de Tréport, which Philip accepted as a natural thing, since he was likely to be staying in the country at this time of year. Philip collected the names of several houses at which Jean might be a guest and—since he did not need the money at all—won heavily at both places he stopped. He also drank heavily. It was impossible for him to avoid doing so and remain in character.

  It was also impossible, because he kept winning, to break away, and it was five o’clock in the morning before he was able to roll into bed. Philip, therefore, greeted with something less than enthusiasm his valet’s attempts to rouse him some four hours later. In fact he rejected the idea so violently that Sorel retreated in disorder, holding a handkerchief to his bleeding nose. The next move was thus up to Leonie, who was waiting in the corridor with a message that she would not entrust to anyone.

  Leonie was quite annoyed with Lord Hawkesbury for sending a note superscribed “The Foreign Office—Urgent” directly to Philip instead of addressing it to Roger, who had innocent reasons in plenty for receiving such notes and was better fitted to wake a powerful and furious young man with a bad hangover. Nonetheless, if it was urgent government business, it could not wait until Philip had slept off his head. Leonie had never lacked courage. Resolutely she marched into Philip’s bedchamber, picked up his evening walking stick, and prodded him with it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Although Megaera did not strike Rose when she was gently shaken at almost the same time, she was nearly as unwilling as Philip to wake up. Not that Megaera had a hangover from drink; she was sick at heart. Two nights earlier Pierre had finally made his long-delayed call into Lamorna Cove, and the previous night Megaera had ridden to The Mousehole to pay him and to arrange his next visit. Pierre had been in bubbling good humor, and the first words out of his mouth had been, “Philip is home safe.”

  Relief had made Megaera mute one moment too long. Full of his own cleverness in arranging so good a cover and Philip’s cleverness in using it so brilliantly, Pierre told the whole story, except that he disguised Philip’s purpose. Thus he did not say anything about the meeting with Bonaparte but made the main direction of Philip’s effort an attempt to find a safe way to dispose directly of luxury goods to the army officers and rich shipbuilders in and around Boulogne. Philip’s adventure made excellent sense from that point of view. It was logical that Philip should plant smuggled goods to test the numbers, honesty, and efficiency of the Customs officers. It was also reasonable for him to approach the harbor master. If he could make a deal with him, it might not be necessary to land secretly by night in a cove.

  Somehow the harbor master’s daughter got mentioned. Pierre, who had never extended his cleverness to the delicate management of women, remembered in the same instant he mentioned Désirée that something, possibly far more serious, was brewing between Meg and Philip. Because he had not cared enough in many years to lie to one woman about another, Pierre made a basic mistake. He paused, looked uncomfortable, and shifted the subject.

  Until that awkwardness Megaera had been listening with bated breath, horrified and delighted at the same time. She could not help but admire Philip’s bold deftness, but his skill at deception troubled her. It smacked too much of the cully-catcher, and the sly use of cleverness against the innocent and unsuspecting. Like Pierre, Megaera did not really believe smuggling was dishonest. It cheated no one except the government—at least, the way she and Pierre ran the business—and the government was a faraway thing Megaera had a hard time relating to herself.

  The simple mention of the harbor master’s daughter would have passed right over Megaera’s head if Pierre had not become so self-conscious about it. It had not occurred to her to doubt Philip’s sincerity, but Pierre’s obvious embarrassment coupled with the impression she had received of Philip taking advantage of the gullible officials in Boulogne brought a horrible doubt to her mind. Was she simply another cully to be “catched” for what she was worth by an artful sharper? A passion of loss shook her. Tears welled in her eyes and tightened her throat. Pride followed swiftly behind lashing her for credulity and demanding that no one—least of all Pierre—know of her foolishness and her pain.

  Thus, instead of flying into rage and demanding more information, Megaera pretended she had not noticed the halting, overquick end of the story and the shift to a safer subject. It was very dark in The Mousehole, and Pierre was talking hard and fast to cover his blunder, so Megaera was able to hide her distress. The smuggler, thinking he had gotten away with his coverup, decided to leave before he put his foot in his mouth again. He arranged the date and signals for his next trip, but Megaera understood that these were now tentative, depending on the more and more uncertain weather. She would wait for his signal for several hours two nights running. If he did not come, she would try again the same day the following week, unless a storm was raging. In that case she would wait one day after the storm was over, and begin the pattern again.

  Just before they left the inn, Pierre asked about Black Bart. Megaera merely said that she had neither seen nor heard any sign of him—and that was the truth, but not all of it. At any other time she would have confided to Pierre that Tom Helston, who gathered the men and brought them from the Treen area, had remarked to her that he had had to drop four men because they were constantly grumbling and causing dissatisfaction. They did not like the long walk, to Lamorna Cove; they did not like being cut out of the distribution end with the perquisites of a little robbery and perhaps a rape of a servant girl if they could catch one.

  The older men, those with families, preferred Megaera’s system. The dangers of distributing nearly the entire shipment on the one night, which was Black Bart’s method because he had no really safe storage place—were far greater. They were less interested in pilfering and rape than in getting home safely to their wives and children. The younger men however, had been inclined to listen to the agitators. They were less afraid of being caught because they had no responsibilities and also because youth was adventurous. To them a stolen piglet or hen had the lure of something for nothing, and a soft servant girl, even if she wasn’t willing, was exciting.

  Megaera was worried. She knew perfectly well that cutting the men out was not sufficient. It was absolutely necessary to punish them also. If they were not lessoned sharply, and soon, her authority over them would be shaken. She had intended to ask Pierre’s advice—actually she had a faint hope that he would offer to use his crewmen to take care of the matter for her. However, the shock and grief of hearing of Philip’s “unfaithfulness” had overwhelmed her. She could think of nothing except his “betrayal” and even when Pierre’s question about Black Bart brought the problem of the disaffected men to mind, Megaera could not bear to discuss anything. All she wanted was to get home to her bed where she could cry in peace and privacy.

  She had taken full advantage of her bed for that purpose, only the more she wept over Philip’s falseness in the big, empty bed, the more she wanted him. She realized he had not meant to abandon her completely. After all, he had told Pierre to assure her he would come as soon as he could. She found herself making a million excuses for him. In fact before she knew what she was about, she found she was angrier with Pierre for telling her than with Philip for having betrayed her.

  From there it was an easy step to begin wondering whether Pierre had told her on purpose. Could he
object to his son’s relationship with her? Could he fear that Philip would wish to settle down in Cornwall and no longer be willing to play his father’s game? Perhaps there was no harbor master’s daughter, and Pierre had made up the whole thing just to separate her from Philip.

  At this point Megaera checked her overactive imagination. She knew she was twisting the facts to ease her sore heart. If Pierre wished to keep Philip and her apart, surely he must have more effective means at his disposal than the casual mention of a girl and an awkward and embarrassing shifting of the subject. Rage and shame returned all the more intense for her desire to excuse her lover at any cost. She was just another doxy in Philip’s stable. No wonder he was so charming, so thoughtful, always doing and saying the right thing—he had plenty of practice.

  Exhaustion finally sent Megaera asleep despite her disordered and wavering mind and heart, but it was nearly dawn by then and she roused most unwillingly when her maid came to wake her. Rose examined her mistress with distress. Her lady had been worried and nervous for over a month now, but this was the worst of all. Rose had no doubt that her lady’s lover had betrayed her. Perhaps he had said he would be away for a week or two; perhaps yesterday was the day he had fixed to return, and he had not done so; perhaps her lady had heard yesterday that he had taken a new love—or been killed in a duel.

  Rose thrilled to the romantic tragedy, but it so became clear that it was betrayal, not death, her lady was suffering. Her eyes might be heavy and swollen with tears and lack of sleep, but they flashed with controlled rage under their long lashes. What was more, grief for a dead lover did not send one to examining all the invitations in the last week’s post or ordering that all one’s dresses be laid out for refurbishment.