Julia stretched out a hand to him. “Must you go now? Can’t Keswick or one of the others sail the ship?”
“They have been, for nigh on two hours, while I’ve slumbered in your arms. It’s time for the captain to take a turn at the wheel. Go back to sleep, Julia; it’s not yet dawn, and you’ll need your rest when we make landfall.”
“Hmm. I suppose it’s the price I must pay…for being married to a wicked smuggler.”
“Shh.” He was gratified to see his wife’s smile when he tucked the quilts snugly around her and grazed her lips with a tender kiss. With luck, Julia would be sleeping soundly before she realized that they were headed into a ferocious summer gale.
* * *
Sheets of black rain drove against the decks when Sebastian emerged through the hatch.
“We’re only two dozen miles from shore,” Keswick told him as he came up beside him at the wheel. “The wind has hastened us across the channel, but the weather—”
Before Sebastian could reply, one of the crew who was manning the lines gave a sudden cry and pointed abaft, over the stern rail, toward a flash of white in the night sky.
“By God,” shouted Sebastian into the wind, “I believe it is another ship, brazen enough to give chase! Bring the spyglass, Keswick.”
As the waves swelled beneath the Peregrine’s hull and sea-spray mixed with the rain to cascade across the decks, Sebastian was thankful for the fore-and-aft rigging that allowed the compact ship to shift course and maneuver more efficiently, using the wind to her advantage.
“She’s a big, hulking thing,” he told Keswick, holding the brass telescope securely against the storm. “She may be a powerful foe, but if we set extra sails and change course, she’ll be hard-pressed to follow.”
Keswick peered into the night, shaking his head at the sight of the bigger craft speeding closer, her great sails swollen by the storm winds. “We wonder at times why we are here, my lord,” he muttered under his breath.
“I heard that! But you can’t fool me, old fellow. You wouldn’t trade this adventure for a warm bed on land, would you?” Before Keswick could speak, Sebastian answered his own question. “Not bloody likely! And you and I have been through worse, have we not?”
“Perhaps,” the little man allowed. “But then we were sailing for His Majesty’s Navy, on the right side of the law. Tonight, if we are caught, we all may very well hang.”
Sebastian shook his head, laughing. “That will never happen. However,” he conceded, lifting the spyglass to his eye once more, “the danger is real. That ship is flying a Customs pennant. Mr. Keswick, give the order for additional sails. We’ll then tack to starboard and those eager lads will soon see the last of us.”
No sooner had the order gone out than a cluster of crewmen rushed across to the captain, protesting, “It be folly to set more sails, sir! The storm’ll tear the rigging to shreds and snap the yards like matchwood!”
Sebastian only gave them a grim stare. “Obey my orders.”
They exchanged panicky looks before reluctantly staggering off in the raging storm to hoist new sails. Finally, when the sheets of canvas were set, the men dropped to the deck, loudly praying to St. Elmo for deliverance.
A moment later, Sebastian saw Colvithick scrambling across the deck, rain streaming from his terrified face. “It be a King’s ship, Captain!” he cried. “We’ll all die!”
It was Keswick who pulled the young man aside and gave him a shake. “See here, lad, you’ve forgotten who your captain is. Already we’re beginning to outrun them. Now calm down and return to your station before you’re sent below.”
Just then, across the churning sea, there was a flash of light from the other ship and Sebastian realized that they had been fired upon. The shot had fallen short, but as the Peregrine tacked up-wind, Sebastian had a better look at the Revenue cutter and saw at least twelve gun ports yawning open on her larboard side.
His adversary was an imposing vessel of perhaps two hundred tons, with a crew that appeared to be twice that of the Peregrine. Yet, even though it had more men, firepower, and brawn, the ship was hampered by its size. It was surging ahead, but now that the Peregrine had set more sails, it could not keep up the chase and it dared not spread the same amount of canvas to the wind.
“Shall we fire back, Captain?”
Sebastian turned to find a lanky young man named Martin, a relative of Primmie’s, standing close behind him. He was white as a ghost against the stormy night sky.
“I’ll give that order, Plyn. You may wait for it.”
“But, Captain—”
Before Sebastian could lose his temper, he was further distracted by the sight of the hatch opening in the deck a dozen feet away. A moment later, a head peeked out. Although she had drawn a dark shawl around her head and shoulders, he quickly recognized his wife.
“Julia, get down!”
She did the opposite, clambering up out of the hatch. Almost immediately, a gust of wind caught her and tossed her down on the rain-washed deck, but Julia looked up with an expression that said she was too angry to care.
Sebastian reached her side in an instant, lifting her into his arms. A crazed mixture of fear and passion swept over him. “What the devil are you about? Are you trying to kill yourself? Get back down to my cabin and wait for me there.”
“This is madness!” she shouted. “We are in a horrendous storm and that ship is firing at us! Sebastian, nothing is worth the loss of life!”
“Can you not trust me?” He could feel the angry fire in his own gaze as it met hers.
“That has nothing to do with this!”
“It has everything to do with it. What are you suggesting? Would you have us surrender now and be hanged?” Grasping her arm, he pulled her to her feet and shouted to Colvithick. “I want you to take her ladyship below to my cabin and see that she does not leave until I give the order.”
When they had disappeared into the hatch, Sebastian looked around to see that the storm had eased a bit. The frightened crewmen were on their feet and Peregrine was tacking once more into the shifting wind, this time to larboard, charting a zigzagging course that the Revenue cutter was unable to match.
Watching the larger ship drop back farther and farther into the pitching seas until it no longer attempted to fire across the gap to the Peregrine, Sebastian leaned back against the mizzenmast and took a deep, harsh breath. Rain blew at his face, and he wiped it away with both hands, pausing to close his eyes for one blessed moment. Although threats lay all around them, he knew that the real danger of that night had passed.
Of course, Sebastian thought, there was still Julia to deal with, and he would need all his wits for that challenge.
* * *
“I insist that you leave me,” Julia told young Drew Colvithick. “It is ridiculous for you to remain in this tiny cabin, watching me as if I were some sort of criminal who needs guarding!”
“I be doing as the captain ordered,” the boy repeated. His brown hair had dried now and stuck up in spikes, and his face was streaked with grime.
Julia could smell him from where she sat on the bunk and fought an urge to wrinkle her nose. “Won’t you at least look to see if we are out of danger?”
Dawn was breaking and a soft, rosy light bathed the cabin. She could sense that the seas had calmed, although they still plunged and pitched as the Peregrine charted a southeasterly course toward Cornwall.
“I did fear we all be going to die,” Colvithick exclaimed, suddenly animated.
“I know. I shared your anxiety,” she murmured. “Kindly peek out the hatch and tell me if that horrid ship is still upon us.”
The boy stood to do her bidding, but before he could exit the cabin, Sebastian appeared. He bent his head to come through the low doorway, his face stern yet weary. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Her ladyship be askin’ if the King’s ship do chase us still!”
He looked as if he wanted to shout at the boy, but only wa
ved a hand instead. “Go on then, but don’t return. I’ll make that report to my lady.”
When they were alone, Julia looked at Sebastian and was overtaken by a surge of emotion that brought tears to her eyes. “Tell me then, what is happening?”
“It is just as I said to you earlier. We led the Revenue cutter on a merry chase across the channel, but that great hulking ship was no match for our quick and agile Peregrine.” A smile touched his mouth. “Of course, it doesn’t hurt that our crew is highly skilled, and I might be so bold as to add that your captain had the situation well in hand.”
Waves of anxiety made her breathless. She wanted to beseech him to listen, to swear he’d never put himself in jeopardy that way again, but the expression on his darkly handsome face told her to save her words.
“I must ask you to stay here,” Sebastian was saying with a bit more tenderness than before. “The seas are still rough, and there are challenges ahead this morning.”
“What do you mean?”
“The landing must be effected. We are far off the time we’d planned to come ashore with the cargo, so no one will be there to meet us. There will have to be an alternate plan. Sowing the crop, perhaps.”
She watched him think, intoxicated by his nearness. “What on earth does that mean?”
“Oh, it’s a means by which the smaller kegs may be strung together, sunk with weights close to shore, and then retrieved at a more convenient time. The men know all about it.”
“Can you not hear yourself? You sound like—like one of them!”
Sebastian was peeling off his sodden garments and replacing them with dry clothes. “Them?”
“Yes, you know—a real smuggler!”
“Shocking! Perhaps that’s because I am one.” He took up his sword and pistol, pausing beside the bunk where she perched. “Will you kiss me, my lady?”
Powerless to resist, Julia came into his embrace, twining her own arms around his neck where his hair was caught back in a rough queue. It seemed impossible that the rake she had met in Bath’s Royal Crescent could have become this dangerous smuggler, but it was true. And when he took her face between his two sun-darkened hands and kissed her with an intensity that defied words, Julia surrendered, losing herself in the moment.
Chapter 30
Just offshore from Coombe Hawne’s pebbled beach, dawn was streaking the eastern sky in shades of magenta and gold. Nearby, the Peregrine rested at anchor as barrels of brandy were carried up from their hiding places below decks. The casks were then linked together with ropes, weighted with rocks, and dropped into the shallows.
“Everything will happen tonight according to our original plan,” Sebastian told Keswick as they stood at the forward rail, watching the operation. “The only missing element will be our ship and crew. Jasper’s men will arrive with their carts and ponies to retrieve these barrels and move them inland.”
“We must admit, it seems to be a wise strategy, particularly because the crew will be elsewhere when the night-time landing occurs, and it will be harder to connect any of us to it, should suspicion be aroused.”
“Exactly so.” He looked around. “I am impatient to weigh anchor and be on our way. Are we ready?”
“Yes, sir. We’ll give the order.”
Sebastian stood alone, thinking, as the Peregrine sailed eastward along the rugged coastline, toward Fowey. When he had explained to Julia the reasons why they were not landing at Coombe Hawne, he neglected to mention his worry that the vessel had been identified by the Revenue cutter. He wanted to sail up the Fowey estuary as soon as possible, since the changing winds would prevent the King’s ship from following them if it happened to reach the coast at the same time. The sooner that the Peregrine was safely tucked away in Tristan’s secret quay off Lerryn Creek, the better Sebastian would feel.
* * *
The Fowey estuary was bathed in a soft morning glow as the Peregrine sailed under the picturesque cliff-top ruin of St. Catherine’s Castle and into the harbor mouth.
As soon as they started into Pont Creek and were clear of Polruan’s jumble of whitewashed cottages, Julia was summoned by Colvithick to join her husband on deck. She was clad in the same blue-and-white patterned cambric gown and flat-crowned straw bonnet that she’d worn the day of the storm, when she’d taken shelter at Coombe Cottage.
It seemed almost like another lifetime.
Now, as the Peregrine glided up the creek, its sails spread like one of the water birds that watched from shore, Julia sighed. Deep green, magical woods covered the hills right to the water’s edge, woods that she knew by heart, and she inhaled the rich scents of rain and moss.
She felt Sebastian come up behind her, but he didn’t touch her. “I’m going to take you home now,” he said.
“And what then?”
“I’ll return here to the ship and then sail her north, to a hiding place off Lerryn Creek.”
“But, that’s where Tristan lives! Isn’t that dangerous? He is a Revenue Officer!”
“Kindly allow me to manage this situation, my lady,” he said coolly. “I assure you that I am fully capable of doing so.”
As the Peregrine came alongside the quay near the lime kiln, Julia was distracted by the sight of her swans approaching on the quiet water. The cygnets clearly recognized her and a few tried to fly in their haste to reach her.
“This is your world, isn’t it?” asked Sebastian.
“Yes.” Tears pricked her eyes. “I love it more than you’ll ever know. It’s the home I have searched for all my life.”
Julia felt him watching her intently, but he said nothing. Instead, he leaped to the quay and reached up with both hands to lift her down beside him.
The men were ranged along the starboard rail, and they took off their caps to bid her farewell. Keswick winked, and Julia smiled and waved to him.
“Thank you all for allowing me to join you,” she called to them. “I can assure you that your secrets are safe with me.”
Sebastian took her arm and they started across the little footbridge and up the path that led into the beautiful woods below the Trevarre Hall estate.
“That was quite an adventure,” Julia remarked with a note of finality. “Perhaps it’s something we’ll tell our grandchildren one day.”
“That’s an odd thing to say. What’s really on your mind?”
All the feelings and thoughts that had simmered inside her, unspoken, suddenly came bubbling to the surface. “You aren’t going to continue with this madness, are you?”
“Am I not?”
Furious and heartsick with love, Julia turned to him on the path and caught his arm. The trees, with their leaves in myriad shades of greens, made a magnificent canopy above their heads.
“Sebastian, I know that you will not want me to say these things to you, but I simply cannot help myself. After the brush with death we experienced at sea last night, I assumed that you would realize that this cannot continue. Were your eyes not opened by the fact that we all nearly lost our lives, or at least were almost captured by that Customs ship?”
“If I had spent my adult life running away after every brush with death, I would be a very sad excuse for a man.” His eyes were as stormy as the night seas had been. “You and I have had this conversation already. And the smuggling will stop when I have made enough money to re-purchase Severn Park.”
She gasped, shocked that he could still be talking of living anywhere but Cornwall. “Severn Park! How can our minds and hearts be so far apart? And as for the conversation you refer to, that happened before last night’s battle at sea, when a warship was firing upon us. Your own men were frightened out of their wits!”
“Julia, calm down. Do you imagine that I have no regard at all for your feelings?”
“In truth, I wonder. I know that I have been guilty in the past of trying to manage other people’s lives, but can I not at least voice my opinion?” Blinking back tears, she paused to breathe, hoping to ease the pain in her heart. “I a
m afraid for your safety, Sebastian. I—I—care for you so very much.” Somehow, in the light of day, with so much at stake, she didn’t have the courage to tell him that she loved him with every fiber of her being. It came to her that he had never actually said it, either, except to call her his love.
His face was dark with consternation. “Devil take it, Julia, this is the very reason why I didn’t want you to know that—I mean to say, what we were doing.”
“Don’t you want to speak the word? I will say it for you then: smuggling! I thought you were proud of your new calling.”
She could see in his face that he was at war. Part of him wanted to turn his back on her, she knew it.
“You are the most provoking female I have ever known!”
“I am your wife.” She waited for him to throw back in her face the fact that he had not chosen her at all, that their very marriage was based on a charade fueled by her misguided need to manage the lives of people around her.
Instead, Sebastian turned away on the muddy path and raked a hand through his windblown hair. “You will drive me mad.” After a long moment, he unclenched his fists, turned back, and opened his arms. Julia went into them with a little sob of relief.
“Thank God,” she whispered, pressing her face to his shirtfront.
“I will consider stopping.” He paused and she could feel the thump of his heart. “We have one more important run to make, and when it is over, I hope to have enough capital to reclaim Severn Park. We’ll talk about it then.”
She blinked, trying to take it in, and a cold chill spread over her. “One more run?”
“Yes, a crucial one.”
“Do you have any notion how many times Papa told me that he would be done with gambling after just one more game? That recklessness cost him his life. Your own brother played with fire in exactly the same way, losing every material thing your family owned, yet you cannot see the parallels.”
“No, I cannot. I am getting money for us, to rebuild those fortunes they gambled away. It is not the same thing at all.”
“You’re quite right.” Hopelessly, Julia pulled free of his embrace and started back up the path. Tears blurred her vision. Thick tree roots coiled out of the dirt, catching her worn slippers, and she nearly lost her footing. “It’s not the same thing, it’s worse. You are not gambling with money, but with your very life!”
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