Raven's Shadow (Book 2, the Ravenstone Chronicles)

by Louise Franklin

  She was shocked by his words, and with them, her anger disappeared suddenly. This, too, was not the reaction for which she had hoped. He stood up and strolled over to the window, staring out with his hands behind his back.

  “I married you for your money, nothing else,” he said coldly. “As such, I will spend that money any damn way I please, and you have nothing to say about it. I did not marry you so you could insult me, but perhaps I am to blame for I have given you too much freedom.

  “I have been advised by Mr. Madden himself that your conduct toward him has been reprehensible, and that you have tried to stop him from doing his duties. Your interference with the estate is to blame for its lack of performance, and nothing else.

  “A good manager would take full responsibility and not blame others. I have been lax in not curbing your tongue, which has often brought me embarrassment of late. I have withstood your bad manners toward guests and neighbors with laudable calm and aplomb and have on occasion even defended you, as is my duty as your husband.

  “But, madam, let me make myself perfectly clear that I will not stand by while you reprimand me like some wayward child. You go too far in assuming I am your equal for you, my dear, are my inferior and you would do well to remember that. Did I wish it your life could be made unpleasant indeed, and I think I have been more than kind in allowing you to think for so long that you have the upper hand. Remember your place, madam, and your idyllic country life may continue. Goad my anger again, even in the smallest of ways, and you will find out what it means to suffer.”

  She had sat through his words as if in a bad dream, hearing him but wondering if any of his rant was real. She watched him now turn to her and smile, his anger once more replaced by his façade. Once again, she was struck by the notion that she knew little about who he really was. His long absences and short visits were meant to keep her in that ignorance, she realized. He did not wish her to see him for the actual person he was, and she wondered at his motive.

  He walked over to her and kissed her on the cheek before straightening again.

  “Now I must insist you rest here, for I am sure the heat has made you lightheaded. I will return to our guests.” He departed, closing the door quietly.

  3

  The soldier blew into his hands while stomping his feet to ward off the cold. He pulled his jacket closer to keep the early winter chill from his body. Before him, the waters of the bay were still and dark, blanketed by the fog that had rolled in hours ago. The lapping of the sea on the piles of the pier below him echoed in the night.

  He picked up the lamp on the ground next to him and walked back toward the warehouse, his footsteps on the wood planks echoing his path. Standing sentinel over the quiet village, he knew midnight had come and gone.

  Circling around the warehouse, he stopped beside the back window and peered inside. Contraband seized from smugglers was stored here until a cutter could transport it further down the line to Plymouth.

  Satisfied with his rounds, he coughed, and turning to the bushes, he put the lamp down and took a good long piss. Then the guard buttoned up and returned to his post next to the double doors.

  A second soldier stood there, his hands deep in his pockets, his rifle slung over his shoulder.” I canna stand this night watch,” he said grumpily.

  “Cold it’s getting, and no fire allowed,” the other answered, equally miserable.

  Neither saw the slight figure that hid behind a boat pulled up on the beach. A signal was given, and passed on to a shadowy companion further along, who slipped easily past the guards and around the back of the warehouse. The back door’s lock was easily picked, and another signal was given up the hill.

  A small gang emerged in the dim moonlight, and descended silently down the hill, and into the warehouse. Emerging moments later with compact tubs slung over their shoulders, they carried them up to a cart that waited in the shadow of a tree. After several trips, a signal brought their work to a halt, and they disappeared into the shadows. The door was relocked and all was quiet.

  The soldier once again walked down the pier, then back, and around the warehouse and looked inside. He tried the door, found it locked, and walked back to his post. The lookout who lay behind the boat signaled again, and the smugglers repeated their previous movements.

  Every hour the watch made three rounds, and always returned to the same place to wait. After two hours, the smugglers had filled their cart. The warehouse door was locked for the last time. The diminutive lookout next to the boat waited for the prescribed moment when the soldiers would be distracted in another direction. A rustle to their left alerted them to movement, and they both looked that way. One picked up his lamp and moved to investigate, while the other stayed at his post to watch him. Nothing was found.

  “Probably a fox,” the soldier said, returning.

  The other only shrugged, and neither saw the lookout next to the boat disappear into the darkness.

  ***

  Georgiana raced up the hill and down the road to meet the cart making its way slowly round the bend. She jumped on the back, next to Morris and Eye. The run up the hill had felt good since her limbs were frozen from having to lie still for two hours.

  “All right?” Eye asked.

  “A good deal easier than I expected,” she said, feeling the knot in her stomach slowly fade.

  “That’s why there is so many of us,” Eye said casually, and shrugged. “No’fink to it. Biggest danger comes from your own people.”

  “’ow so?” asked Morris.

  “Talk too much,” said Eye, and he put his finger on his mouth, silencing them.

  He was right, Georgiana knew, and the danger was not over yet. They still had to move the contraband miles away to the Black Horse Inn through an otherwise still and dark countryside. A cart on the road at this time of night was all too easy to hear and see.

  They traveled in silence and she watched the road pass under her feet. Unexpectedly, a lone rider in uniform, a cutlass at his side, appeared. She watched him approach and realized it was a riding officer. No one seemed particularly upset by his appearance and the cart continued its slow progress.

  She glanced toward the front of the cart at Peter to see if he was aware of their follower. The rider finally caught up with them at a trot, and overtaking them, blocked their way. Peter pulled back on the reins and glanced at Haskell who sat up front next to him. The rest of them were piled on the back atop a tarpaulin under which the contraband was hidden.

  “Evening,” the officer said casually to Peter, who nodded.

  “It’s late to be on the road,” he said, but received only silence.

  Georgiana held her breath and marveled at the boys for they all looked so calm, even bored. True, he was only one and would not be much good against the eight of them. Did he really expect to be able to stop them? she wondered He rode alongside the cart, and leaning over, lifted the canvas to look at the tubs. Then he casually rode around the cart looking each person over, before pausing next to Peter.

  “I have not seen the likes of you around here before,” he said.

  “Not likely to,” Peter said easily.

  “Way it works is you pay me a little fee, and I haven’t seen you tonight, either.”

  “Way I work is,” Peter replied, “the next time I see you if I had no trouble to meet me on the road tonight, I pay you a more generous fee.”

  They eyed each other for a moment, and then the officer shrugged and said, “How am I to know what danger lies ahead?”

  Peter slapped the reins, and the cart jerked forward. The officer followed them slowly for a little while, and then rode forward again.

  “Stay to the main road tonight,” he said. “The Dragoons are up in the hills.”

  Then he rode off at a gallop, and was gone. Georgiana climbed toward the front of the cart, and sat down between Peter and Haskell.

  “Do you believe him?”

  “These officers are locals usually, and everyone smug
gles around ’ere. The locals won’t look kindly on one of their own giving them up, so he is alive because he helps smugglers, not because he turns them in. Besides he makes more money taking bribes from us than collecting his wages.”

  “Don’t the excise men know this?”

  “Sure, but what can they do? Riding officers exist because some big man in London thinks they are a good idea.”

  The main road did prove quiet, and they reached the Black Horse Inn without incident. It was a good distance from where they had loaded their stolen contraband so that it would not likely be inspected after the goods were found missing. The tubs were unloaded into the stable, and the innkeeper paid Peter for the rum and gin.

  On the drive home, she took the reins while Peter slept in the back of the wagon with the rest of the crew, tucked out of sight under the tarpaulin. The two horses ambled along the dark road, and her thoughts turned to Edward.

  He had left Ravenstone along with his guests, having taken every last cent from her. Without the money from tonight’s work, she would have nothing to pay the servants next month’s wages. She would still have to pay the accounts for the kitchen, and with winter arriving quickly now, the sprawling stone mansion would require extra heating. They might be able to make one, maybe two, more raids from the warehouse before the loss was noticed, or they were caught.

  The kind of luck they had tonight would not last, no matter how easy the job had been. The small loads they carried in one cart would not generate enough coin. After she paid the boys their share, and gave Peter half of hers, she was not left with much. Now the Major wanted a share too. She could only see one solution. She needed to find a way to double their profits.

  They could not use the tunnel anymore, which meant they would have to find other routes and hiding places. What they required was their own enterprise and for that they needed a boat. Then, they could fetch their own contraband across the waters and transport the goods, once ashore. Without any middlemen, her profits would multiply. She would run her own smuggling ring with Peter, but she would also have to remain part of the vicar’s ring until she solved the problem of Major Price.

  In the midst of her musing, three riders suddenly appeared from the woods and pulled up in the road ahead of her. Their silhouettes were framed by the half-moon behind them. She thought about pulling the reins back, but instead, she slapped them hard, and using the whip, she startled the horses into a gallop.

  The riders gave way as she passed them, but one jumped from his horse onto the back of hers and pulled them to a stop. A second rider pulled his horse alongside her, and she was forced to give way as he climbed into the seat next to her. Once the cart pulled to a stop, the last man pulled his horse up next to her and slammed his fist into her face with a blow that jarred her head. She might have passed out except he grabbed her by her hair, and jerked her face close to his.

  “That’d be for rudeness,” he said. “All’s we wanted was a chat, but now I think you might have something you’d not be a willin’ to share with the rest of us, so give it over then.”

  “I got nothing,” she said weakly. “I’m just an overworked farm boy on me way home.”

  “It’s too late to be on the road even for an overworked farm boy. You’ve been a smuggling boy, but I be the tax man so hands it over.”

  “I’m just transportin’ turnips, honest,” she said. “See for ya’self.”

  The highwayman reached back for the tarpaulin and pulled it back. A battle cry exploded in the still night, as the boys jumped up, and hurled themselves at the riders, who were too surprised to react. Morris and Peter threw themselves at the driver, while Haskell and Jack took her man.

  The rest jumped out of the cart and chased the last man who had run off into the woods. Haskell held the leader down, while Jack pummeled him about the face with his fists until Peter called him off.

  The others soon returned with the third, and they sat them down on the ground and went through their saddlebags but they found nothing.

  “What’s your name?” Peter asked the leader.

  He spat a glob of bloodied spit at Peter’s shoes, and glared at him.

  “Now ’askel here will have to ask you again, and he ain’t so polite.”

  Haskell used his fist to repeat the question. He had to ask three times before a muttered name of Ivan finally passed the man’s lips.

  “Now, Ivan, you might be seeing a bit more of me and the boys ’ere on this road,” Peter explained, “and some others ’ereabouts, and we would be much obliged to you did we not have to come to blows just to greet each other every time. Did you feel the need to ever say a polite word to us of others we would need to be wary of, we would be generous in return.”

  “Ye can all go to hell,” Ivan spat. “I’ll not be helpin’ ye.”

  “You won’t be harming us either, or we’ll come after you,” Peter said, his voice icy.

  They tied them up to a tree in the woods and left. Peter took the reins again and the others returned to their places. She sat next to Peter, quietly staring out into the night.

  “Does it hurt?” Peter asked softly.

  She rubbed her jaw and nodded her head. The truth was the pain was excruciating. She had the beginnings of a headache spreading through her skull, but she tried to ignore it.

  “You should not be ’ere,” he said.

  “Where should I be?”

  He said nothing for a moment then asked her, “Do you not trust me?”

  “I do,” she said.

  “Then why risk it?”

  She spoke in a whisper, fearing they might be overheard.

  “They know,” he said.

  “Who?” she asked puzzled.

  He jerked his head back at the boys asleep in the back. “They know who you are.”

  The information settled into her mind and she felt suddenly afraid.

  “Did you tell them?” she asked angrily.

  He gave her a hurt look and she regretted her words.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “When I get scared, I also get angry. I can’t help it.”

  “Morris was the first to bring it up, but I think they all suspected. No matter ’ow much dirt you put on your cheeks, it’s still your face.”

  “How long have they known?”

  “Since about their third week.”

  “That long and they never….”

  She wondered who else knew, and that really scared her. Gordon had not acted any differently to her, but then neither had the boys.

  “Do you think Gordon knows?”

  Peter shrugged. “He never lets on.”

  It did not matter, she told herself. It changed nothing. If Gordon did know, he seemed to not care, or more likely, he was waiting to use that knowledge against her somehow. That was what she would do.

  “You should not come out with us again,” Peter said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  He had never said so much to her. He usually kept his distance, took her orders, and somehow always knew what needed to be done without anything needing to be said.

  “I would risk your lives, but not my own?” she asked. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  “It’s not about that,” he said. It was his turn to be angry, to her surprise, for he had never showed any emotion until now. “Without you, none of us would be here. We would be back to the streets of London, to starvation and a brutal life and early death.”

  “Edward would not send you back.”

  “Would he not? When it comes to the estate, he does what Mr. Madden tells him to do, and you know that man would dismiss us instantly.”

  He would. How did he know this though? She had not realized just how much attention he had paid to the circumstances of the estate. She knew that he never missed a lesson with the governess, and he made sure the other boys did not either. He took advantage of the opportunities given him. It made him smarter than most. The governess complained to her often about having to teach them. They were illiterate when t
hey arrived, and she had seen Peter sometimes sitting in the stables with a book, struggling with the words on the page. The boy had ambition and it was this she counted on now.

  “We need to make more money,” she said.

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “I say we buy a boat.”

  “A boat?”

  “A substantial vessel, I should think, so we can sail to the Continent ourselves and secure our own contraband. Bigger profits. And this time it’s just us. No Gordon.”

  “We don’t know how to sail. We’ll end up in bleedin’ Africa, enslaved to some black devil.”

  Georgiana was paying no mind to Peter’s worries. She mused, “We just have to find someone who knows the back end from the front end of a boat.”

  “I do,” a voice said from behind them.

  They turned around to see that every single one of the boys had been paying close attention to her conversation with Peter. They all sat up, watching them.

  “Who is ‘I?’” she asked.

  They all turned to look at Morris, and he smiled at her.

  “And you also speak French?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Neville?”

  “Certainement,” he replied.

  She turned with a smile to Peter, who frowned at Morris.

  “Morris, ’ow much do you know about boats?” Peter asked.

  “I started as a powder monkey on a third class in the Royal Navy when I was but seven and worked my way up to able seaman.”

  “Why did you leave the Navy?” Georgiana asked.

  “Mutiny, miss. I was to be hung but escaped.”

  “When was this?”

  “Three years ago, miss.”

  He would have died at thirteen, she realized.

  “Don’t call me ‘miss.’ Can you take a boat across to the Continent?” she asked.

  “Nothing to it, miss.”

  “Then seaman, it seems you are promoted to captain, on condition you call me George. When we get back, we’ll make a list of what we need to get started.”

  She turned back to the horses, and smiled at Peter, happy with the night’s work. Peter, however, was still frowning.