by Abigail Agar
After the kiss Phin and Charlotte shared, their relationship was different. When they were together, they felt the push and pull of a magnet. Charlotte pushed Phin out of his shell while Phin pulled Charlotte in. They were both happiest in the middle.
Phin, with his reputation for being stoic, smiled and laughed around Charlotte. For her part, Charlotte watched Phin to make sure he was comfortable but also having fun.
Silas and Mercy gave each other signals – they rolled their eyes, they shook their heads – to make fun of them, but they were happy for Phin and Charlotte, and so they mostly laughed. Who would have thought these two would get together? An unlikely pair.
Genevieve did what she always did. She sat, she nodded, and she smiled. If Charlotte needed any encouragement, she was there. But she and Silas exchanged a look with one another. A look that said, ‘you and I are doing a good job.’ They worked together well. Another unlikely pair.
Chapter 12
The last evening of the house party featured a ball with local musicians and villagers. The village seamstress, Margie Wells, had spent the better part of three weeks preparing dresses for the village ladies.
Earlier in the month, Silas and Mercy were beginning the plans for the house party. “Silas,” Mercy said, “why don’t we send some bolts of silk to the village. They can sew each other dresses for the ball.”
“Great idea. We’ll raid Phin’s warehouse this afternoon and send a couple of footman to Collinswood. Let’s not bother Phin with details he would not have interest in hearing, shall we?” Silas said.
Definitely not,” Mercy agreed.
The musicians usually performed at the Collinswood Christmas party. Christmas was the usual time the Collins got together with villagers. They knew many Christmas tunes, but not nearly as many general dancing tunes. Silas met with them and heard their concerns.
“Play anything you like. Play the same tune over and over and sprinkle in a few Christmas tunes. No one will care. Don’t give it another thought,” he said, waving his hand through the air dismissing the problem.
Silas told the guests that they were responsible for decorating and the staff was under strict instructions not to do anything except answer questions. By this time in the party, the guests did everything Silas said without question.
Silas coordinated the guests in decorating the ballroom. The gentlemen got on ladders and nailed fabric from the middle of the room to all four corners plus in between for good measure.
The ladies gathered flowers in a beautiful field next door that sported six different kinds of wildflowers. Queen Anne’s lace, black-eyed Susan’s, heather, ferns, and lavender.
They carried the flowers in baskets and brought them to the kitchen. The servants couldn’t carry the vases for them, but they pointed to where they were kept.
The ladies were sure at least one of these girls knew how to make beautiful flower arrangements. They were laughing with the ladies about the ladies commenting on how difficult the job was that Silas gave them.
“Tell us the truth girls, are we pathetic or what?” Charlotte asked. None of the girls in the kitchen answered Charlotte’s question.
In the end, the room looked pretty darn good.
The ball began slowly. The villagers didn’t want to make a wrong move, and the guests were sure what they should do. Phin, Silas, and Mercy went to the villagers – all on one side of the room – and asked for a dance. Mercy was tickled she got to ask a man to dance, and she told him so.
They started with the country tune everyone knew. It took no time at all for the dance floor to fill with smiling guests and villagers. Silas had devised yet another contest where a dance couple consisting of one villager and one guest could win King and Queen of the ball. A panel of judges, both villagers and guests voted on the contestants to choose a winner. Rather lovely crowns were made by Silas and Mercy, from parchment and ribbons.
After watching them dance, it wasn’t surprising that Charlotte and George, the village baker, won. They proudly wore their crowns for the rest of the evening.
Phin watched Charlotte bend a little to show her new friends her crown. She turned in a circle to show them the back. She was beaming. Phin thought she wouldn’t be happier if the crown on her head were gold embedded with precious stones.
This house party was a success. The guests were thrilled with Silas’s games and fun. Phin didn’t feel the need to hide, except for the night the guests played charades. He likened it to standing in front of his guests wearing a jester costume making jokes no one would laugh at.
But tonight as he watched Charlotte show off her crown with delight, he came back to his thoughts. Two fun weeks of non-stop parties. Fifty weeks with nothing fun to offer. Would he be forever plagued with the idea that a life with him would be boring and restless? He realized her life wouldn’t be boring with him, but he still worried. Fortunately, he worried less than before.
Charlotte was in her element. He was sure if he asked her, she would say there were days in the past two weeks that were some of the best of her life. They were fun, weren’t they? He may have underestimated her need for constant London activities to make her happy. She hadn’t that need. Dancing with a villager and winning a paper hat showed him that she didn’t need sophisticated London parties to have fun.
Everett saw it all. Maybe he could help Phin with this struggle. Maybe he could help Phin when it was time to say goodbye.
Both Silas and Mercy were aware of what Elizabeth had done when she came to the party. She wanted revenge on Phin taking everything she thought was hers back to his townhouse. The damage she did in the short period of time she was there was significant. If she wanted to ruin Phin’s reputation, she did.
During the party, Silas, Mercy, and he met behind the scenes more than once to see what they could do. The three of them continued to voice their repulsion for Bennett’s gambling and his rejection of Phin, but that didn’t seem to do enough to quiet the voices raised through Elizabeth’s vengeful acts.
They didn’t want to, but they had to wait until everyone was back in London to do more. The hardest part of what they planned to do would be convincing Phin to go along with it. Or, like most things they did, they would do it without telling him.
The morning after the ball, or according to the footmen the late morning and early afternoon after the ball, guests began packing their things and saying their goodbyes. The Collins family stood in the front hall saying goodbye to one carriage of guests after another.
Silas was especially praised for his planning and attention to detail. He beamed and told them he had something special he was planning for the next event. Each guest’s eyes lit up when they heard it. ‘I can’t wait,’ was the usual response.
“Breathe deep, Phin,” Mercy whispered when she saw Phin’s face go white. She gave Silas a harsh look. He shrugged and winked.
When Charlotte and Genevieve left, both were sincere in their thanks for the lovely party. Phin was thrilled. He knew they had fun. Even though Lady Genevieve was the oldest one there, she had just as much fun. Her dancing at the ball was beautiful. Phin and Silas truly enjoyed her company. Silas told Phin he would be seriously attracted to her if she were just three or four years younger. Then he grinned.
“I will be back in London in two or three days. You will tell me what all your new friends have to say about the party? I will call on you,” he said.
Charlotte and Genevieve nodded enthusiastically and entered their carriage.
Chapter 13
Jasper Bernard, dressed in black, stood in the shadows of the Dover dock waiting for a boat. The smugglers he was waiting for made this run regularly. They chose the night of the new moon to cross the channel. They were right, Jasper thought. He couldn’t see two steps ahead.
In exchange for handing over the money and documents to the French, Bernard was off the hook on the loan he made with the mate. The loan with very stiff terms. The mate had supplied the money, four men, and a wago
n for the French brandy Bernard was smuggling into England.
The number of banned goods from France to England had only risen every year the Napoleonic War raged on. It was getting so you couldn’t get a decent bottle of brandy in all of England. Other goods were smuggled in, but liquor was by far the most profitable and the most dangerous.
Smugglers needed documents. If they were caught without legitimate proof of a sale, they were aiding the enemy, and they were hanged. No matter how profitable smuggling brandy into England was, these wizened sailors were not going to risk their lives.
While he was alive, Bennett Collins, the Duke of Exeter signed for shipments. Since his demise, Bernard, desperate to have the deal go through, forged Bennett’s signature. Why not? The old man was dead. He couldn’t object.
When the boat came ashore, Bernard looked in it to see the cargo, boxes of brandy, then handed over the money and documents required. The captain counted the money and took out a box of documents from previous runs to review what Bernard had given him. Bernard turned and left. His job was done.
He no sooner stepped off the boat than the mate’s men were filling the cart with boxes of brandy.
Bernard stumbled in the dark to his horse and left Dover at a gallop. He stopped at Elizabeth’s. His hands were sweating so much he had to constantly change the reigns to his opposite hand and wipe the sweat onto his pants.
“How did it go?”
“I held my breath from Dover to London, but all in all it went okay. Where’s Merritt?”
“He’s upstairs. He’ll be here in a minute. Want a drink?” Elizabeth asked.
“Desperately,” Bernard said.
“Hey, how does it feel to be off the hook with the mate?” Merritt asked, slapping Bernard on the back.
“Drink?”
“Thanks, Lizzie,” Merritt said.
Elizabeth got back up and walked to the sideboard. Over her shoulder, she asked, “So, was it difficult?”
“Nerve-wracking more than difficult. I stood in the shadows waiting for the boat to arrive. That seemed to take forever,” Bernard said, still taking long breaths. He looked down at his hands. They were still shaking.
“You’re lucky you get to walk away. Bennett was smart. He refused to load a wagon, so he got to walk away. But his transactions all went smoothly. Still, it’s got to be hard to do,” Merritt said.
“Let’s change the subject. It’s time to get drunk,” Bernard said.
Bernard woke midmorning on Elizabeth’s couch, his head and his back in pain. He wanted to get drunk the night before, and he accomplished his goal. He’d go home and sleep the hangover off.
When he walked up his townhouse stairs, there was a very large man, feet spread apart, arms crossed over his massive chest, blocking the door.
“The mate wants to see you,” he said. In that situation, Bernard thought there was no other option but to say ‘sure.’ They walked at a faster clip than Bernard would like, given his hangover, but he didn’t think he should protest that either.
When he and his ‘friend’ walked into the mate’s place of business – an empty warehouse devoid of anything but one stool – the mate was waiting for him, spitting nails.
Bernard snapped out of his fog from a good-sized hangover. He just jogged to a warehouse, and the mate wasn’t happy. It took him a minute, his brain trying to catch up with the situation, but there seemed to be some trouble.
The mate offered Bernard a seat. He had mixed feelings. He really wanted to rest his aching body by sitting down, but he knew sitting down was not a good idea. He sat.
The mate started in what Bernard would call a reasonable voice, but he had just seen him spitting nails. Bernard wasn’t quite sure it was a reasonable voice. “Tell me about last night.”
Bernard was relieved. He could tell him all about last night. For him, it went off without a hitch. So he told him.
“Tell me about the documents.” Bernard detected a change in his voice. It wasn’t a good change. The mate leaned his arms so his hands fit over his knees. In that position, the mate could look Bernard straight in the eyes.
The documents story wasn’t as neat and tidy as the first question. Instead of saying something damning, Bernard opted for clarification. “What about the documents?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Tell me everything about the documents.” Well, every time he talked, his voice became a little more intimidating, and Bernard got a little more nervous. Bernard was sitting on a stool in a large warehouse surrounded by four very large men. He had no option but to tell them the truth.
“I went to Dover with the same documents used on earlier drops – the signed and sealed list of the inventory.”
“Tell me more about the signed and sealed part.”
“Well, like I said, they were the same documents used in earlier drops.” Bernard shrugged.
“The documents were forged, and the seal didn’t match the House. The documents came from the House of Exeter and the seal from the House of Warwick. Since he died, Bennett Collins’ signature doesn’t look the same. The smugglers still have the old documents with Bennett’s signature and seal from two years ago. No match.
“The guys last night? They left with my money and my brandy. I have no money and no brandy. That’s on you.” The mate poked him in the chest. “I’m adding it to your loan balance. You had better find a way to pay off your loan, and fast, or you are going to be one dead Lord.
“Leave, now,” the mate said.
Bernard popped up off the stool and left the building in record time.
Bernard ran to Elizabeth’s townhouse. He pounded on the door. Elizabeth and Merritt had been relaxing on the couch drinking wine, eating bread and cheese. He knew he looked like a crazy man, but he didn’t know how not to look like that at the moment. His clothes were in disarray – he was out of breath – his hair was not combed, and he hadn’t shaved. His face was gray, and his eyes darted around as if someone was going to sneak up and kill him.
Elizabeth took one look at him and jumped up. She ran to him and walked him to a chair. She looked over at Merritt, but he was as shocked as she was by Bernard’s condition. She left him and quickly returned with a whisky. He drank it and handed back the glass. Refilling the glass, she handed it to him. “What’s wrong, Bernard. You’re scaring me.”
Bernard turned to her. “I’m going to make a will and leave it with you and with my solicitor. I may not be alive much longer.”
Bernard told Elizabeth and Merritt his tale. They exchanged looks at particular places in the story but, otherwise, were thankfully silent. When he finished, the three sat quietly. The clock ticked, the fire popped, the wind banged against the windows to be let in.
Elizabeth adjusted herself in her chair. “So we need a plan. Can you talk Charlotte into going to Gretna Green with you? How much time do you think you have?”
Merritt began to pace. Elizabeth, Merritt, and Bernard thought for a long time and throughout different scenarios on how they could make this work, but none of the scenarios was workable. It all came down to Charlotte and her dowry.
“I’m going to get a special licence and carry it around in my pocket. If she agrees to marry me, I’ll make her go through with it right away.”
Bernard was in a hurry. He didn’t know when the mate would come for him; he just knew he would, and it would be soon. He didn’t have time for long, drawn out plans, and he couldn’t gamble his way out of this. He needed Charlotte, and he needed her now.
As soon as she returned home from that party, he would sweep her off her feet. He would have a special licence and carry it around with him for when he wore her down.
Now that is was real, that he would ask her, and she and he would be married, Charlotte would make a fine wife. She was so very beautiful but even more important, she was young and naïve. She would not know any better than to trust him. She would be easy to manipulate. And, if she ever found out the truth of their marriage, it would be too late for her t
o do anything about it. Yes, she would make a fine wife.
Chapter 14
Everett’s and Josie’s trunks were put away, and the carriage was brought out back to rest next to the stables. Josie turned to her brother. “Everett, I will not be down until dinner,” she said. Josie and her maid slowly climbed the stairs to her bedchamber.
Everett wished he could do the same. Instead, he went to his office, sat down, and rested his head against the back of his chair.
The party was nice; Silas did his usual great job. He and Mercy were able to sneak away now and then. However, the negative rumours persisted.
Everett lifted his head and faced his correspondence. Two weeks. From the look of the stack, he had a lot to do.
He opened each seal and put the missive in a pile by its subject. Not many from the House of Lords, several from the East India Company, one from the mill up north and one very, very important letter. He read it twice, then yelled for his butler.
