‘Delighted to be of service, Monsieur Luke.’ He bowed smartly with military precision. ‘Easy enough to warn the lady to be ready. Otherwise—luck played her hand, keeping Noir and his associates interested in a keg of brandy.’ His smile was cynical. ‘How miraculous that so large a keg of such excellent quality should find its way to Les Poissons Rouges for three nights running at this precise time! You owe me for it, Monsieur Luke. Now go, before—ah! Too late!’ Shouts reached them. A warning pistol shot. ‘Someone saw us and raised the alarm,’ Captain Henri remarked laconically. ‘To be expected…’
‘Let’s get them aboard…’ Luke ordered. But shots rang out again, closer now. ‘Too late for that. Get down!’
He pushed the lady to her knees behind the bales of tea, also the smuggler cradling the child as he focused in intense relief on the figure of Harriette, still aboard as he had ordered, crouched in the shadow of the mast. As long as he could protect her…Then all Luke’s concentration was on the approaching rabble, standing to confront them with Adam and Captain Henri at his side. Could they escape out of this, getting everyone to safety? But then there was no time to think of anything because there was his enemy, Jean-Jacques Noir. Short, thickset, wrapped in shadow, a pistol in his fist, a group of thickset individuals with clubs and knives at his back.
Breathlessly, Noir threw back his head and laughed.
Luke’s muscles tensed, but he simply stood, waited, a silent challenge.
‘Very clever, my lord,’ Noir hissed in smooth English. ‘Was it your idea to plant the brandy?’ His face broke in an animal snarl. ‘But you’ll not take her, Venmore. Not without payment. I’ll make you pay for your trickery. And you know the cost if you refuse to hand over the gold.’
‘I’ll not put gold in your pockets,’ Luke snapped. ‘The lady goes with me to England.’
‘If you resist, I shoot her first, then the child.’ Noir raised the pistol. ‘And then I might just shoot you for putting me to so much trouble with no reward.’
‘But if you shoot the lady, where would be your bargaining tool?’ Luke enquired as calmly as if discussing the purchase of a horse, but he raised the pistol in his own hand. ‘I wager my bullet would find your black heart first.’
‘Ha! You won’t risk it, Venmore. Not if the child is your brother’s cub. Give her back to me, and I might just let you go.’ For the first time a hint of unease crept into Noir’s voice. ‘I might even renegotiate the value of the pretty widow—to your advantage.’
‘And I should trust you?’ Cold, deadly cold. ‘I shall never give her into your keeping.’
‘Enough! We have nothing more to say to each other. Get her. Now!’ Noir’s patience snapped. He waved the pistol, indicating to his men. ‘Kill any who stand in your way.’
As Luke leveled his pistol at Noir, he was suddenly aware of a movement at his shoulder. Harriette! A knife in her hand, catching the moonlight with an evil gleam. Fear for her gripped his belly as admiration for her courage swamped him. She had come to his aid despite the threat of death, despite his orders. By God, he should beat her for her wilfulness…! By God, he loved her!
‘Before you do something so foolhardy, Monsieur Noir…’ her voice ran out fearlessly ‘…you and your rabble should see that we are not alone here.’
‘An old trick,’ Noir snarled, ‘that would fool no one.’
‘Do you think so, monsieur? Would we be so ill planned as to allow ourselves to fall into a trap? Look around you!’
The shadows moved to become dense figures. Luke held his breath as he saw what Harriette and Marcel had arranged. Behind Noir, moving swiftly to encircle him, stood the stalwart bodies of Marcel’s smugglers.
Luke laughed softly as relief and respect surged through him. Not only had Harriette leapt to his side, but she had set up this neat trap. He caught her glance, held it as the heat of awareness tightened between them.
That was for later. But for now…‘Attack, mes amis!’ Luke growled.
The quay erupted into a mass of heaving figures. Shifting his weight, Luke thrust Harriette unmercifully into the safety of the waiting bales before wading into the mêlée. Blows were struck and landed with shouts and groans and curses, but there was no doubt of the ultimate victory. Captain Henri’s brandy had done its work and the drunken rabble were disarmed by enthusiastic smugglers. When Noir in desperation raised his pistol, without compunction Luke fired his. Struck above the elbow, Noir howled and dropped the weapon as he was seized and held struggling, at shoulder and wrist, by two smugglers.
Luke rescued Noir’s pistol from the floor.
‘You lost this game, monsieur,’ he observed. His voice was soft, his actions ferociously controlled. ‘The prize is mine. You talk of trickery, yet last time we met you robbed me and put a bullet in my arm. You were a fool to try to trick me a second time.’
‘Damn you for a treacherous Englishman!’ Noir spat on the quay.
‘What do you wish us to do with them, milord Luke?’ Marcel asked with a glint in his eye. ‘Do we kill them all?’
‘Why not?’ Luke replied, relishing the fear that ran round the group. ‘They deserve no less for the wretched misery they have caused.’ For a moment cold fury turned his eyes to grey-green ice, and in that instant he was quite capable of cold-blooded killing. But only for a moment. ‘Let him go,’ Luke ordered.
‘Not so.’ Marcel shook his head, his grin widening. ‘He deserves some entertainment for our inconvenience.’
‘Let him go,’ Luke repeated.
At the authority in the tone the smugglers released him, stood back.
‘What will you do? Shoot me in cold blood?’ Noir said, face ashen in the moonlight.
‘No. By God, I’ve an urge to do it, but, no, I won’t.’ Luke walked slowly forwards. There would be no more blood on his hands. ‘Monsieur Marcel wants entertainment. I hope you can swim.’
The blow of his fist to Noir’s chin connected with a wicked snap, sending the man staggering back, and off the wall into the filthy water of the harbour with a splash. A roar of appreciation went up from the smugglers, who tossed the rest of Noir’s men into the water with him.
There was no time to be lost. No time for Harriette to admire the final humiliation of Luke’s enemy. Not blood, nor captivity for a martyr to feed on, but a foul drenching in the scum and refuse of the harbour and an ignominious clamber on to the quay. Harriette felt her blood heat and race through her veins as she took the lady’s arm to help her on to the Ghost, seating her as comfortably as she could in a nest of canvas in the stern before taking the whimpering bundle from Adam and giving it over into the care of its mother.
‘Merci, monsieur,’ the lady managed hesitantly.
And Harriette squeezed her hand whilst on the quay Luke made his farewells to Captain Henri.
‘When the war is over, contact me in London. I’m in your debt and always will be.’
‘I will, sir.’
‘No time…’ George interrupted, an eye on the swirl in the water. ‘The tide’s on the turn.’
Then Luke was there at her side, eyes blazing, her calculated disobedience forgotten in the thrill of success. ‘We did it. Thank God we did it!’
Marcel raised his hand, a final signal. ‘Au revoir.Always good to do business with you, Captain Harry. Milord Luke. We enjoyed the scuffle! A bientôt.’
‘Farewell, Marcel.’ Harriette raised her hand in response.
There would be no next time.
Lydyard’s Ghost sailed out of harbour, for home. Harriette turned her face to the wind. The crew was safe, the lady rescued, Jean-Jacques Noir overturned. She should be rejoicing. So why did she feel as if her whole world was disintegrating at her feet?
The bay might be invisible in the darkness, but the lamp from the Tower Room at Lydyard’s Pride beamed steadily, beckoning them home to a safe berth. A wind stirred the sea into an uneasy swell, growing stronger by the minute. Luke fixed his sight on the light, relief sweet in his veins that t
he lady and her child were safely in his care. Whether she was Marcus’s widow, he had yet to discover—a dangerous voyage in an open boat being no place to exchange information—but she was no longer under the dominion of Jean-Jacques Noir.
But the sweetness of relief was short lived, replaced by the bitterness of loss, as his gaze moved to the figure standing before the mast. He might have solved the one burden that had plagued him through weeks of gnawing anxiety, but another, far greater, far more personal loomed. A weight of regrets pressed down on him. He made his way forwards through the piles of contraband.
‘Harriette.’
Startled, she swung round. Lifted her hand in denial. ‘No…not here.’
‘Captain Harry, then, if you prefer.’ He could not smile. ‘What?’ Her attention was elsewhere, on the state of the sea, the strengthening wind, the approaching landing. He knew he should retreat, but could not. ‘Can’t it wait?’
‘No. It has to be said now. Whatever happens—’
‘I know. You’re grateful. You’ve told me. Now, I’m busy.’
He would not have it. ‘Yes, you have my gratitude, but I need—’
‘There’s no need to say more.’ Her eyes were brilliant, hard as diamonds. She wore her command easily, her words clipped, spine straight, every inch the captain. ‘You have the lady and the child. If she’s Marcus’s widow, then you have victory indeed.’ She would have pushed away from him towards the prow.
Beneath the natural frustration that she would not listen to him, all Luke could think of was how magnificent she was, how determined to bring this enterprise to a successful conclusion—and for him. How had he never noticed how sensuous her mouth was? Awareness of her chased through his body without mercy, filling every part of him with love. It sank, a spreading warmth, into the very marrow of his bones and, for that one moment, coated the strains of the past days. Without thought of their surroundings, the crew around them, he reached out to take her wrist, held on when she yanked hard, and instead pulled her into his arms.
‘No…!’
‘Yes! Captain Harry.’ He was aware of the outrageously grim humour underlying the moment as his mouth took hers, hard, as need slammed into his body. Battered by the increasing wind, doused with spray, he held her to him as her lips parted beneath the elemental force of his, his tongue claiming hers. He tasted the salt on her face, the honeyed sweetness of her lips, the heat of her mouth. As on their wedding night in the Tower Room, molten fire, a searing energy, ran through him that he poured into her. His arms were bands of steel that left no spaces between them. And Harriette clung to him. He felt her respond, her body plastered against his.
Until a lurch of the boat beneath their feet made them stagger and forced him to raise his head. Yet his eyes captured and held hers, fierce as a hawk, dark with desire, even as they struggled for balance.
‘Whatever happens next—’ his voice harsh above the roar and thwack of the wind and sea ‘—don’t forget. Don’t forget what has been between us. How I made you feel.’
What made him say it, he had no idea. To remind her of the fire between them, of the passion they had found in each other’s arms, the storm of desire that could overwhelm them, even as they were planning their ultimate separation.
Obviously stunned, Harriette clung to him with one hand, raising the other to her lips. ‘I can never forget that…’
I love you, Harriette. I adore you… The words appeared in his mind and he would have said them with the approaching storm as a backdrop.
‘Cap’n Harry!’ George Gadie coughed discreetly. ‘There’s lights on the cliff—and on the path down to the bay—but the signal from the Tower’s constant—still says all’s well.’
Luke felt every muscle in her body tense. Harriette pulled away from him, and Luke let her go.
‘Look.’ George pointed at the pinprick of lights. ‘What d’you think, Cap’n?’
And Luke felt her hand close convulsively over his arm. Her reply might be matter of fact, but he felt a knot of fear form in his belly. ‘I think Captain Rodmell and his dragoons have come to meet us.’
‘I thought Ellerdine’s job was to warn you,’ Luke spoke the thought in everyone’s mind.
‘It is,’ Harriette snapped.
Harriette turned from the string of bobbing lights, back to Luke. ‘We’ve got to get this boat and its crew—and the cargo—to safety. It’s too late to sail along to the next bay—a storm’s approaching. We’ve some hard work ahead of us if we’re to pull it off right and tight.’
George was already laying hands on rope and weights, lashing them to the barrels. Harriette stepped to help him. Luke put out a restraining hand.
‘Captain,’ he requested formally, ‘tell me what you want of me and I’ll do it. I may be no sailor, but I can do more than sit and wait.’
A flash of a smile to break the tension. Luke felt the warmth of it. She held his hand in a cold slick clasp for just a moment. ‘Grab that rope and do what George tells you. The next hour is going to be as fast and dangerous as any you’ve ever known. Welcome to the Brotherhood of the Free Traders, Lord Venmore!’
Harriette fought to keep a clear head and considered her options She didn’t have many. None, really. Anger and astonishment warred within her. Never had a run gone so wrong, never had the signals been so dangerously contradictory. The lamp from her own Tower shone safety, whilst the lights on the cliff, so many of them, could be none but the Revenue men. The safety of all of them, her crew, the French widow and her child, Adam, and of course, Luke, was in her hands.
What in Heaven’s name was Zan thinking? Why had he not given her some warning? If she could see the Preventive men, then so must he. All he had to do was send a lad to Wiggins who would immediately flash the warning.
No time to think of that now. She nodded to George, who needed no advice from her. He, too, must have seen the necessity.
‘Sow the crop?’ he asked.
‘Yes. And fast. We must get to the beach and away, before the Preventives.’
She had done it only once before, but had every confidence in her crew. And now she had extra hands to tie and lift. She found the time to glance back to the woman and child cowering beneath a boat cloak in the stern. Safe enough. And there was Luke, cursing as the loops of wet rope tightened around his fingers, as he staggered to keep his balance against the thrust of the waves. He would do well enough, following orders as any seaman. Her throat tightened as she watched him brace and haul against a recalcitrant barrel. Could she really agree to live alone, without him? Later…that was for later…She turned away to keep an eye on Adam, whose queasy belly had abated under the excitement of action.
Then there was nothing to think about but the task in hand.
Anchor dropped, the cutter lurched and wallowed in the waves, as one by one the barrels, lashed one to the other, a heavy stone at one end, were hoisted and tipped over the side so that they sank anonymously into the water.
‘How do you know where they are?’ Luke gasped from his exertions, drenched to the skin as they all were, hair plastered darkly to his head, but heart-stoppingly beautiful to her eyes.
Adam answered, his hands full. ‘This. Gabriel says to use this.’
‘Let me tie it, lad.’ George elbowed him aside without compunction. ‘If it comes adrift, we lose everything. It needs firm lashing, and you’re no smuggler yet! Another dozen years, perhaps, under my hand…’ And as Adam grinned, George grasped the end of the rope attached to the barrels and lashed the inflated bladder with a tuft of feathers to it.
‘So the bird marks the spot.’ Luke watched it bob and dip in the waves.
‘Exactly.’ Harriette nodded in satisfaction. ‘We come and reclaim it when the danger’s past. Now we land. We’ve those to dispose of.’ She eyed the dozen small bales with concern.
‘Can you not do the same?’
‘No. It’s lace. Too fragile, and the bales not waterproof enough. But too valuable to abandon unless we must
. We need to hide them. Don’t worry. The dragoons are always slow—they don’t know the cliff paths.’ She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. ‘If luck’s with us and Zan is to hand, we’ll land and be gone before the Revenue men even reach the shore. Your widow will be safe.’
They ran the cutter up on to the beach before a squall of wind much as they had done many times before. Harriette leapt off into the shallows to help her crew drag the boat as high as they could. Within minutes the bales were exposed on the pebbles, the widow and the child carried in stalwart arms. A thoroughly disreputable group if Captain Rodmell caught them, Harriette acknowledged.
She looked around, her eyes telling her what she had feared. No ponies. No tubsmen. What had gone wrong? What was Zan doing? Her mind tried to snatch at possibilities, but failed entirely. The dragoons were still making their clumsy way down the cliff path. She could hear the roll of stones, the smothered curses off to the left. They still had time to hide the evidence. The clouds broke, shifted, the moon illuminating them, making them too easy a target. Couldn’t be helped.
George and Gabriel were already lashing two small bales to each smuggler, looped efficiently on back and chest. Harriette grabbed Luke’s arm to get his attention, the wind snatching away her words.
‘Luke! Adam…you, too…Help them carry the bales…’ She felt the resistance in him even as she issued her order, heard his furiously edged reply that left her in no doubt of his opinion.
‘You’ll not do it, Captain Harry! Send me off with the contraband to save my skin whilst you wait for the Preventives? Do you think I will leave you here alone to face the weight of the law?’ Temper was vivid on Luke’s face. ‘I won’t do it.’
‘I need you to carry the bales,’ she stated as calmly as she could as the crunch of pebbles on their left grew nearer, and the lack of aid for the smugglers lit a fear that lashed at her.
Luke’s hands were tight on her shoulders. ‘I can’t leave you here.’
‘You must. I know what to do, and you don’t. You must go…’
Compromised Miss Page 22
