His brother’s already shuttered face hardened a little more, and Clay looked down, regretting his words. “You should have come with us,” he resumed a moment later, lightly. “Afterward we went to the Hornet’s Nest.” Devon steepled his fingers under his chin and grunted without interest. “There’s a new girl there, Dev, she’s really something to see. I think she weighs more than I do. Her name’s Eulalia. I’m not joking!” He laughed delightedly when Devon finally begrudged a ghost of a smile. “Come with us the next time, why don’t you? John and Simon always ask about you. You’d enjoy yourself, I swear you would.”
Lord Sandown got up from behind the paper-strewn library table and walked to a pair of French doors set between shelves of books in the rear wall. He threw the doors open, and immediately the muted sound of the sea filled the room. A cloud of sandpipers piped derisively over a glassy-calm Channel. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, standing stiff and straight against the bright glitter of the day.
The girl came in with Clay’s coffee. Devon waited for her to go, and for Clay to stretch out full length on the sofa with a cup and saucer propped on his stomach. “Have you given any more thought to what we were discussing earlier?” Clay’s wary expression prompted Devon to lift a sardonic brow. “I see you haven’t.”
“I’ve been busy.”
The brow arched higher.
“Damn it, Dev, I’m too young to bury myself in a mine!”
“I haven’t asked you to go down and work in it. Just to manage it.”
“I’m too young for that, too.”
“But not too young to risk your stupid neck ferrying contraband brandy.”
Clay pulled his knees up and crossed his arms over his chest. “For God’s sake, let’s not start this again. This is a fight neither of us ever wins.”
Devon let his breath out slowly. “No, I don’t want to quarrel, either.” Because if he did, if he pushed his brother too far, Clay would simply leave and conduct his idiotic free-trading enterprise from some other hidden port along the coast. At least having Clay here allowed him to exert a small amount of influence. But not much.
Clay tried to sound reasonable. “What I do isn’t a bit dangerous, I promise you. My men are skilled and loyal, and my sloop’s the fastest in the Channel.” He grinned his charming, boyish grin. “And, God, Dev, I’m having such a damned good time.”
“I wonder how good a time you’ll have when they hang you.”
“Ah, but they’ll never catch me.”
“You’re a fool, Clay. You’re waiting right now for the bloody moon to wane, aren’t you?”
“No,” he denied, but guiltily. “I’ve come to visit you, my only brother.”
Devon snorted. “If you needed the money, it might make some kind of sense.”
“Perhaps I don’t need it, but there are plenty of people hereabouts who do,” Clay said with dignity.
“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten—you do it for charity.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Partly, anyway. Oh, hell,” he admitted, laughing, “I do it for the excitement.”
“And the glory.”
“Well, now, it’s true, women do tell me I’m a hell of a fellow these days.”
Devon’s patience snapped. “God damn it, you’re twenty-three years old! This is a childish, stupid business, and someday soon they’re going to catch you—it’s just a question of time.”
“No, they won’t. The Revenue cutters move like old cows in the water, you ought to see them. They’ll never outrun the Spider. And I’ve got her hidden where—”
“For God’s sake, don’t tell me,” Devon broke in. “I don’t want to know.” He shook his head in slow disgust. “They’ll catch you on land, then, where you’re weakest. The Excise men are everywhere these days, and so are their paid informers. You can’t trust anyone. How do you convert the contraband into money for the pockets of the poor? That’s where they’ll catch you,” he warned, stabbing a stiff, angry finger in Clay’s direction, “in the midst of that process. Half the countryside knows about you already; all the Revenue officers are waiting for is proof.”
“They won’t get it on land, either,” Clay returned confidently. “I’ve got a man who handles that end of things for me.”
“Who? No—don’t tell me.” He smiled in spite of himself when Clay broke into a laugh. After a pause he asked reluctantly, “Can you trust him, this… middleman?”
“Yes, of course. Absolutely. Listen, don’t worry about me, Dev, it’s a waste of time.”
Devon leaned against the doorpost. “I wish you would give it up. Come and work for me. I’ll give you the damn mine if you want it.”
Clay made a face. “Tell that to Francis Morgan.”
“He works for me. He could work for you.”
“Not bloody likely. We can’t stand each other.”
“Yes, I know. What I’ve never understood is why.”
“He’s a prissy-arsed fop.”
“Not really. But what would it matter if he were? There’s more to it than that.”
“This is a pointless conversation. Besides, you said you were going to sell him a partnership.”
“That’s only in the talking stage. If you would run the mine I’d give it to you tomorrow, all of it.”
Clay stood and stretched. “But as you just pointed out, I don’t need the money.”
His brother’s face went stony. “A man needs to work.”
“You work too hard,” Clay shot back, weary of being on the defensive. “You carry it to the other extreme. You never go anywhere, never leave Darkstone. When was the last time you went up to the house in London? You haven’t visited Mother in Devonshire since last Christmas. It’s not as if the place would fall to ruin without you—Cobb could run things perfectly well if you went away for a while.” He stuck his hands in his pockets when Devon made no answer. “I know why you stay here,” he said stubbornly. “You’re just like Father.”
“Am I?” Devon said without inflection. “In what way?”
“You stay here because of the sea. Mother says he needed it to steady him. It’s what kept him sane.”
Devon turned his head slowly, staring out across the terraced garden toward the jagged cliff’s edge and the flat brightness of water and sky beyond. He did need the sea. A modest goal, sanity. Not a great deal to ask out of life.
“Speaking of Mother,” Clay said too brightly, a little too quickly, “she’s threatening to descend on you soon. And this time she’s bringing Alice.”
Devon heaved a sigh and folded his arms.
“Why don’t you just marry the girl and put them both out of their misery?”
“Why don’t you marry her?”
“Me?” Clay looked horrified. “You have to marry first, you’re older.” Then, remembering, he colored and looked down.
Devon’s jaw tightened, but he kept his tone light and even. “Sorry, but I’ve already had a wife. If you’re waiting for me to take another, you’ll die an old man before you get one for yourself.”
“Then we’ll die together, two rickety old bachelors. We could do worse.”
“I expect we could.” A fleeting warmth kindled in his wintry eyes, and Clay returned it with a quick, affectionate smile.
A movement in the doorway caught their attention. “Come in, Cobb,” Devon called to the tall, black-bearded man who hesitated in the threshold.
“Didn’t want t’ disturb you.”
“Not at all, Clay and I were finished anyway.”
“How are you, Cobb?” asked Clay, nodding a welcome to his brother’s lanky steward.
“Brave and well, sir, I thank you.”
“Can you ride over to Luxulyan with me today?” Devon asked. “I’d like you to look at Audie Trevithick’s fold. He’s selling off half his rams.”
“I can.” Cobb shifted his feet, massaging his broad-brimmed hat between the fingers of his only hand. “Thur’s trouble at Ross Menethorp’s,” he said.
“What sort of trouble?”
“His sheep broke through his north hedge last night. Two dozen went over the cliff; his dog saved the rest.”
“Was he drunk?”
“I can’t be sure o’ that.”
“I see. I’ll speak to him this morning.”
“That’s as you please. The oast house is in need o’ repairs, Fletcher says. In the rain last week, the roof tiles—”
“Good morning, Devon.”
Devon turned. “Francis—I thought we weren’t going to meet until dinnertime. Is something wrong at the mine?”
Francis Morgan moved into the room, his ebony walking stick tilted over one shoulder. “No, no. In fact, the pump engine in the new seam is working perfectly now, if I say so myself. It was the bearings, exactly as I told you. No, I wanted to speak to you about the ticketing tonight in Truro. Oh—hello, Clay, didn’t see you there.”
Clay made no effort to rise. “Francis,” he drawled, staring up at the tall, elegant figure of his brother’s mine agent. He took in the man’s polished boots, foam-white cravat, and powdered periwig; then, with a faintly disdainful lowering of the eyes, he went back to his newspaper.
“Is there a problem?” asked Devon, coming toward Francis.
“I hope not, but I’d like to talk to you about a strategy I’ve got in mind once the bidding starts.”
“Wait a moment. Cobb, are we through for now?”
“Ais, I suppose. I’ll go wi’ you to Menethorp’s if you want. Would ten o’clock suit you?”
“That’s fine, yes. I’ll meet you at the gate.”
“Wait, Cobb, I’ll go with you.” Clay got up from the sofa. “See you later, Dev.” To Francis Morgan he gave a curt nod, and the mine agent returned it in kind.
Clay and Cobb strolled toward the stables together in a comfortable silence. They separated there, and Cobb walked on toward the oast house. Clay went inside the barn and called out for the groom. “MacLeaf! Are you in here? Galen, my boy, are you at home?” At a noise in the wide stable doors behind him, he turned.
It was Lily.
She flushed when she made out who he was in the sudden dimness, and his knowing grin did nothing to lessen her embarrassment. Remembering her foolishness in his bedroom this morning made her cheeks burn. She was relieved when MacLeaf came out of his tiny cubbyhole beside the harness room and greeted Clay, drawing the young master’s attention away from herself. She longed to leave, but the message she’d been entrusted by Lowdy to deliver to the stableman was of great moment—at least to Lowdy. It was also one that must be delivered in private. So she backed up against the nearest stall and tried to make herself invisible while young Mr. Darkwell told MacLeaf to fetch Tamar, his horse.
While she waited, she studied him covertly. Although they shared certain features, the Darkwell brothers were not really at all alike, she decided. It wasn’t only that the young master was shorter and slighter, his soft hair a lighter shade of brown; the chief difference was one of demeanor. Clayton’s face was open and uncomplicated, his bearing casual, even indolent. Devon Darkwell, on the other hand, was stiff and controlled, moody, humorless, anything but indolent. His face was the opposite of open. Something as bitter as acid had etched the deep lines on either side of his mouth, and behind his beautiful eyes she had once glimpsed desolation.
When Clay sauntered over and smiled at her, she realized she’d been staring. “Morning,” he said pleasantly. “Again.”
“Good morning, sar.” She dropped a belated curtsey.
“I see you’ve recovered from the shock.”
She knew she was blushing again, and it annoyed her. “It’s bearin’ up I am,” she answered crisply.
That made him grin. “What’s your name?”
“Lily Troublefield.”
Clay laughed, and was enchanted when she smiled back at him, as if to share the joke. “Where do you come from, Lily Troublefield?”
“From Lyme Regis. That is, from Kildare originally, but not in a great many years.”
“Kildare, you say?”
“Yes, sar.” He looked as if he had something to say about that—or worse, ask—and she spoke up hurriedly to divert him. “Is that your horse? He’s a right beauty, isn’t he?”
It worked; Clay turned away from her to watch MacLeaf saddle his proud gray three-year-old. “He is that. I mean to run him at Epsom next month.”
“In the one-and-a-quarter?”
“Probably. Either that or the mile-and-a-half.”
“He’ll want to watch out for the turn at Tattenham Corner, won’t he? And the descent after it can be a trial for a young horse. But he looks like a goer to me.” She remembered herself. “Sure and he’s a foine animal, I’m thinkin’.”
Clay was staring at her in open surprise. With the bit halfway into the animal’s mouth, MacLeaf’s hands went still and he turned to look at her, too.
Lily cleared her throat self-consciously. “Me father was after bein’ a racin’ man. Used to take me about to some of the meetings, Doncaster and Newmarket and … such.”
“A racing man?”
“Well, more a bettin’ man, as you might say. He was especially good at losin’,” she admitted candidly. “But once his two-year-old filly won the sweepstake purse at the St. Leger. Twenty-five guineas, that was.” She smiled, recalling it. She’d tried to talk him into paying off some of his debts with the winnings, but with no success—he’d treated his friends to a two-day celebration and spent every penny of it in a Parkhill tavern.
Clay and MacLeaf exchanged looks. The stableman led the horse outside to the hard-packed yard. Disdaining the mounting block, Clay leaped to his back. He turned in the saddle to look back at Lily, who stood in the doorway watching him. “I’m going up to Tattersall’s in August, Miss Lily Troublefield. Would you care to come along and help me pick out a pair of fine, strong hunters?”
She laughed. “Ask me closer to the time, Mr. Darkwell; I can never be plannin’ so far in advance.”
“I might just do that.” With a grin and a wink, he turned his horse and nudged it into a jaunty trot and then, very quickly, an elegant canter.
MacLeaf came toward her, grinning his gap-toothed grin. She smiled back at him. Sometimes she had trouble deciding which of his eyes to focus on when she spoke to him. Usually his right eye slanted off a bit to the side; but as soon as she’d fix him with a stare to his left, as often as not that one would go sliding off and the right one would seem to straighten itself out. It was a most disconcerting thing, and sometimes she wondered if he could possibly be doing it on purpose.
“How are you going along, Galen?” she asked amiably.
“Oh, well-a-fine, thank ee for asking. An’ you, Miss Lily?”
“I’m very brave. I’ve a message for you from Lowdy.”
He made a great business of looking disappointed. “Tedn from your fair self, an?”
She lifted a shoulder playfully. “Lowdy says she can meet you tonight after supper beside the lake, but only for an hour.”
His expressive face lit up. “You d’ tell ‘er I’ll be there.” Then he remembered that he was a rake. “Will you be there with ‘er, Miss Lily?” he inquired with a waggish leer.
“No indeed, I won’t, Mr. MacLeaf.”
“Ah, too bad. We should’ve been a rare boiling, us three.” He rested his hand on the wall behind her and leaned close in a most familiar way. “What’s that owl-faced cook makin’ me for dinner today, my heart?”
She smiled blandly. She’d have enjoyed flirting with Galen MacLeaf if Lowdy hadn’t liked him so much. “Veal cutlets for Mrs. Howe in her room, hashed mackerel and potatoes for the rest of us in the hall.”
“The devil you say!”
She laughed out loud at his comical expression. Over his shoulder, she caught sight of two men approaching from the house. One was Francis Morgan; the other was the master.
Some instinct made her jump sideways, away from MacLeaf’s arm-barrier against the stable
door. It occurred to her afterward that the sudden movement had a guilty look about it. The men walked past. Francis Morgan kept talking and didn’t see her. But the master’s austere gaze raked her with a look that, in her agitation, Lily took for scorn. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Devon Darkwell though she’d been trysting with the stableman.
What surprised her was the urgency of the impulse she felt to go after him and set him straight. Of course she did no such thing. She interrupted MacLeaf in the middle of a sentence and excused herself, explaining that the housekeeper would scold her if she stayed away any longer. Then she hurried back to the house. That afternoon, Mrs. Howe set her to washing the scullery walls as a punishment for being late.
Five
“BY JAKES, IT’S HOT!” Lowdy thumped her heels and fists against the mattress in sweaty irritation and leapt out of bed. “Thur bain’t a whiff o’ breeze blawin’ in th’ whole blighted county, I’m bound. Lord’s my life, I hate June.”
Lily wiped away the perspiration under her nose and groaned agreement, too enervated to speak. She was sitting up in bed, slouched against the headrail, weary but loath to lie down because the damp sheets smelled of mildew and stuck to her skin. Through the open window came the chime of the clock in the library two floors below, counting out midnight.
Lowdy went to kneel on the chair under the window, elbows on the sill, and stared up at the face of the full moon. “Do ee think Galen’s lookin’ up right now,” she mused dreamily, “seein’ the selfsame moon I’m starin’ at?”
Lily tried to picture it, and couldn’t help wondering which eye he would be staring at it with. “I expect he’s been fast asleep these two hours or more. As you and I should be.” She’d stopped struggling with an Irish accent for Lowdy’s benefit days ago; the story she’d made up to account for using it in the first place—that she’d been running away from an abusive uncle and had hoped she would sound more like an experienced housemaid if she said she was Irish—hadn’t sounded very believable in her own ears, but Lowdy had never questioned it.
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