Smuggler's Lady

by Jane Feather

  The small cave was cool, dry, and as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Meredith moved to the back and then seemed to vanish into the rock face. The entrance to the narrow tunnel, just high and wide enough for a small pony, was concealed behind a jutting boulder in the far corner. The tunnel itself widened as it burrowed into the cliff, eventually opening into a vast cavern where a single lamp burned, sending spectral shadows a-dancing on the rough-hewn walls. The six ponies who had formed the baggage train earlier glanced incuriously at the slim figure, more interested in the contents of their nosebags now that their task was completed. Bundles, boxes, parcels, and casks were stacked against the sides in orderly ranks, and Meredith viewed the results of this night’s work with a contented smile. There would be a goodly profit to be had, of which her own share would supply the final mortgage payment on the forty acres of Ducket’s Spinney. The process of reclamation was slow but steady, and, at least, sufficient funds were now ensured for the boys’ schooling for one more year.

  Meredith took the lantern and left the cavern, not the way she had come but by a further passage at the back—a passage that climbed steeply through rock, coming to an abrupt halt at an impenetrable wall. The slight figure did not pause, however, but merely stretched upwards, pushing at a slab of rock in the passage roof. The slab fell back with a dull thud on the thick blanket waiting to muffle the sound of its fall. Meredith hitched herself through the opening with an experienced agility, leaning down to bring up the lantern before replacing the slab. She stood now in a small pantry where slate shelves bore jars of preserves, crocks of butter, and rounds of cheese—the produce of the home farm that kept the household supplied with all but the luxuries.

  Merrie removed her boots and, carrying them and the lantern, crept out of the pantry and into a large kitchen, warmed by a black-leaded range, silent but for the ticking of the grandfather clock beside the dresser. It was two-thirty, and the household would not stir for another three hours. On stockinged feet, she made her way out of the kitchen, past the back stairs and through the green-baize door that separated the servants’ quarters from the main part of the house.

  Sir John Blake, before his untimely demise three years previously, had managed to sell off most of the family heirlooms, and the stone-flagged hallway was bare, where once a rich Turkey carpet would have kept the chill from Merrie’s feet. The Jacobean oak table beneath the mullioned windows had escaped the auctioneer’s hammer because of its somewhat battered condition, not so the heavy silver tray and the Chinese urns that once had graced its surface. Meredith was now inured to these reminders of her late husband’s profligacy, however, and ran soundlessly up the broad, curving staircase, along the minstrel’s gallery overlooking the hall, and into a large, front-facing bedchamber.

  “Nan!” she exclaimed softly. “What are you thinking of?”

  The elderly woman asleep on a chintz-covered chaise longue started up, blinking in the light from Merrie’s lantern. “There you are at last, child,” she grumbled. “ ’Tis most inconsiderate in you to be this late. You know full well I cannot go to my rest until I know you are safe and in your bed.”

  “That is such nonsense, Nan.” Meredith yanked off the knitted cap and sat on the bed to pull off her stockings. “What could possibly happen to me?”

  Nan raised eyes and hands heavenward. “Why, nothing at all, to be sure.” She poured water from a ewer into a matching porcelain basin. “ ’Tis but a bit o’ smuggling you’re about, after all, and the revenue’s only desperate to lay hands on you, after all. Why, of course there’s nothing to worry about, and I’m a foolish old woman who’s only nursed you from your cradle, which gives me no right nor cause for concern . . .”

  Meredith made no attempt to interrupt the flow, knowing that only thus would Nan manage to relieve her anxiety. The scolding continued unabated as the elderly maid helped her out of her clothes and into her nightgown, released the dark auburn hair from the tight knot that held the mass confined beneath the cap, and gave it the requisite hundred strokes despite Meredith’s pleading that the hour was too advanced for such niceties.

  “You’ll not go to bed with your hair unbrushed, not while I have anything to say about it,” Nan declared. Eventually she released her and turned to pull back the covers on the four-poster bed.

  “I cannot imagine the day when you will not have something to say about it,” Lady Blake murmured, climbing meekly into bed. It was one thing to command a band of Cornish smugglers or to outwit a troop of revenue men, quite another to stand against Nan Tregaron when she was determined to have her way.

  Chapter Two

  Lord Rutherford awoke to the rattle of curtain rings being drawn across brass rods. He opened his eyes onto sunlight and onto the wonderful image of Walter.

  “Gad, but I’m glad to see you, man.” He hitched himself up against the carved headboard with a grimace. Walter regarded his lordship with wary concern, noting the countenance that was, as usual these days, somber, bearing none of its past humor or the signs of pleasurable anticipation in the new day. He also saw the sudden flash of pain in the gray eyes and drew his own conclusions. After yesterday’s overlong ride, followed by the damp discomforts of this house, it was no wonder the colonel’s shoulder was playing up.

  “It was the devil’s own work to find this place, m’lord,” he said. “We’ll be moving on again, I suppose?” It was both question and statement, a technique of his batman’s with which Lord Rutherford was well acquainted. It allowed for the expression of Walter’s opinion, couched in the discreet language of servant to master.

  “You don’t care for Mallory House then, Walter?” Damian swung his legs to the floor and looked around the chamber where thick dust coated every surface. “I’m given to understand Cousin Matthew died in this bed,” he remarked casually, thumping the pillows. A cloud of feathers rose in the mote-thickened air.

  “Can’t say it surprises me,” Walter intoned. “That couple downstairs don’t know their left foot from their right. Beggin’ your pardon, m’lord, but this ain’t no gentleman’s establishment.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you,” his lordship said with some feeling as he rose from the bed and stretched languidly. “It is always possible, of course, that my esteemed Cousin Matthew was no gentleman himself. Although it seems an unlikely eventuality, given his antecedents which, I am assured, were impeccable. Second cousin to the duke, you understand?”

  “Yes, m’lord,” said Walter woodenly, turning to open a portmanteau resting on the window seat. “I’ll look to your shoulder now, Colonel.”

  “I received my furlough six months ago,” Damian snapped, and there was no disguising the note of bitterness in his voice. “I’ve no need for that nomenclature now.” Shrugging out of his nightshirt, he strode to the open window and looked down at the disordered garden. The lean, powerful frame seemed to vibrate with the pent-up need for action, to radiate an impatient energy.

  “You earned it, m’lord, and no wound can take that from you.” Walter spoke with resolute determination. If the colonel snapped his head off, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time these days and was unlikely to be the last. “If you’d just sit down, m’lord . . .”

  To Walter’s relief, the colonel sat on the window seat without a word although his expression was grim as he readied himself to receive the batman’s ministrations. The soldier’s square hands were incongruously gentle as they moved over the jagged cicatrice carved into Lord Rutherford’s shoulder, and massaged ointment into the stiff muscle and joint. “When d’you think we’ll be moving along then, m’lord?” Walter returned to the original topic in an effort to divert Lord Rutherford from whatever bleak contemplation was responsible for the present grimness. Such attempts at alleviation were usually unsuccessful but must be tried if Lord Rutherford was not to fall victim to another of the black depressions that had dogged him since his service with the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula had come to such an abrupt end.

  “
I’m not sure there’s any hurry,” Damian returned. “It’s not as if more intriguing prospects await elsewhere.”

  “No, m’lord.” Walter sighed. “There’s hot water for your shaving on the dresser. If we’re to stay here awhile, I’d best see what can be done to make the place habitable. Not to mention the stables,” he added. “I doubt Saracen’ll recover from the shock in a hurry.”

  Lord Rutherford gave a somewhat mirthless chuckle as he sharpened his razor on the leather strop. “He’s had worse billets, Walter, as have we. Not much worse, I grant you, but I’ve a mind to improve this one. Such abominable neglect offends me.” The image of a slight figure brandishing a small sword flashed unbidden in his mind’s eye, and the peal of melodious laughter, rich in enjoyment, rang again in his ear. Unless his lordship much mistook the matter, he had stumbled upon a most intriguing situation last night. The identity of the stripling smuggler would bear some investigation and, while it was hardly appropriate for the heir to the Duke of Keighley to consort with such a band of rascals, it was an infinitely more appealing prospect than listening to his mother’s fond solicitude and his father’s strictures on the subject of fulfilling the duties of his heir. At some point, Damian supposed, he would take a wife and set up his nursery, but he was still too close to the soldiering that had occupied him to the exclusion of all else since his twentieth year—too close to it, and too bitter at its abrupt cessation to switch easily and swiftly into the role society would have him play.

  “I’ll see about breakfast, then.” Walter moved to the door. “We’ll not get much accomplished on an empty belly.”

  “It’s to be hoped you have better luck than I did last night.” Damian drew a long swath through the soap on his face and turned to grin at his batman. “Courage, friend. I’ve a feeling this expedition might turn out to provide some amusement.”

  Walter’s unconvinced sniff hid the pleasure he felt at the sight of that grin and the gleam in the gray eyes. He was quite willing to endure any amount of discomfort if it would restore to his colonel the humor and sunny temper of the past. Ailments of the spirit were a deal harder to cure than those of the body, and, while the colonel’s shoulder had healed with the speed of youth and strength, his spirits had remained depressed, seeing only a bleak future of boredom and duty that no diversion could alleviate.

  While his lordship completed his ablutions and donned clean linen and his buckskin riding britches, Walter had the elderly couple below stairs scurrying around between henhouse, pantry, and range. Eggs were found, together with a side of bacon, and Walter decreed the ale to be passable. When Lord Rutherford eventually rose from the breakfast table in the hastily dusted parlor, it was with the firm conviction that here, at least, he had found an outlet for his restless energy, a worthwhile task to perform that would provide him with a much-needed sense of purpose. He had not expected to have to put his inheritance to rights when he had set out for Cornwall, and, if he chose to leave it in its present neglected condition, it would make little difference to the long-term fortunes of the future Duke of Keighley, but the soldier’s passion for orderliness found the ramshackle condition of his estate quite intolerable.

  By early afternoon the village and the surrounding countryside was buzzing with the news. Young Mary Pendragon and little Sally Harper were up at the manor to help old Martha Perry set the place to rights. Messages had been sent, summoning Jonas Williams, the solicitor in Fowey who was executor of Matthew Mallory’s estate, to wait on Lord Rutherford. It was said Jonas had been in quite a taking when he’d read the message, so sharp had it been. Bill Wiley, who had had a half-hearted care for the stables at Mallory House, had been given a flea in his ear by his lordship’s manservant and had been set to cleaning as if the stables were to house royalty.

  Damian, after a morning spent issuing orders and generally instilling the fear of the devil into the slovenly Perrys and anyone else unfortunate enough to earn his disapproval, judged he could safely leave matters to take their course and escaped the hubbub and the clouds of dust being raised by the combined brooms and dusters of the village girls, setting off on Saracen to explore the estate. As he had expected, he found everywhere evidence of wanton neglect: fences broken, fields left fallow, gardens untended. It would take an army to put it to rights and a reliable steward to oversee the work unless he chose to do that himself. It was positively criminal of his cousin to have allowed this devastation, he reflected irritably, pausing by an overgrown stream to water his horse.

  A movement in the rushes and a glimpse of red caught his eye. “Who goes there?” he called. Matthew Mallory might have allowed trespassers, and with the estate in its present condition it could hardly matter who wandered over the land, but Mallory House had another owner now and, when fences and fields were in order, there would be no welcome for people without legitimate business. The people of Landreth might as well learn that fact as soon as may be. Silence greeted the question and the rushes became breathlessly still. Lord Rutherford dismounted and walked purposefully toward them.

  “I b—beg pardon, sir.” A rather small voice spoke, and the rushes parted to reveal a lad of about eleven. “Are you Lord Rutherford?”

  “My fame seems to have preceded me,” his lordship observed. “And who may you be?”

  The lad was dressed like a village boy in a red shirt and worsted britches rolled above his knees, leaving his legs and feet bare. But he spoke in accents as well-bred and educated as Lord Rutherford’s own.

  “Rob, sir,” the boy replied.

  “That is somewhat uninformative. Rob who?”

  The boy bit his lip, wrinkling a freckled nose, and Lord Rutherford frowned at an elusive memory. “I’m not supposed to be here,” Rob offered. “But it’s quite the best spot for tickling trout. I’ve three already.” He lifted a catch net from the stream, proudly showing Damian its three brown-speckled occupants. “Merrie doesn’t mind,” he went on, “but Hugo is so stuffy and prune-faced, and he will prose on forever. I don’t see why he should since Merrie is my guardian, not him.”

  “I am quite at sea, child.” Damian sat down on the bank of the stream. “I do understand your difficulties with—uh, Hugo, is it? Prune-faced is most descriptive, but who are these people, and who are you?”

  “You won’t say you saw me?”

  “I’d never betray a poacher,” Damian assured him solemnly and Rob chuckled.

  “It is poaching, but no one has fished this stream in years. D’you care to try it, sir?”

  “Perhaps later. Although, in my case I can hardly be accused of poaching my own trout, Rob—uh?” he prompted.

  “Trelawney.” Rob shrugged and joined his lordship on the bank. “My parents are dead and there’s only Merrie and Hugo and Theo and me left of the Trelawneys, and Merrie’s not really a Trelawney anymore. She’s supposed to be a Blake, though actually,” he dropped his voice confidingly, “she was never a Blake, not even when Sir John was alive. Once a Trelawney always a Trelawney is what Papa used to say and it’s true. Except for Hugo. He’s not a bit like a Trelawney. He wants to take holy orders although Merrie says it’s nonsense for a Trelawney to enter the church, and he’s being absurd to think he’ll be less of a burden if he accepts Cousin Sybil’s living in Dorset. She says a Trelawney could never live in Dorset, and she’ll not have Hugo sacrificing himself just because our circumstances are a little straitened. She says we’ll come about eventually.” This last was said in tones of supreme confidence as Damian struggled to separate the threads of this artless recitation.

  “Merrie, I take it, is your married sister in addition to being your guardian?”

  “Yes, but she’s not married anymore. Sir John fell off his horse. It was a real bonebreaker and Merrie says he should never have been on it in the condition he was in. I think she meant he was inebriated, he often was.” His lordship was spared the need for response as the boy continued cheerfully. “Anyway, he broke his neck on the hunting field and left Merrie with lots of deb
ts and Hugo and Theo and me to look after. I did say I wouldn’t go back to Harrow if it would be easier, but she said it wouldn’t,” Rob added glumly. “She became quite prune-faced.”

  “She might well,” Rutherford murmured, feeling some sympathy for the mysterious Merrie standing guardian to this ingenuous scapegrace. “Merrie is an unusual name.”

  “It is really Meredith,” Rob explained. “Our mama was a Meredith and it is tradition that the first-born of a Meredith woman bears the name as Christian name. Only usually the first-born is a boy. It is only considered uncommon because Merrie is a girl.”

  “Quite so,” his lordship agreed, much struck by the logic of this. “And Hugo and Theo are your brothers?”

  “Yes. Hugo is up at Oxford, and Theo and me are at Harrow. It is because it is such an expense that Hugo says he wants to take orders because, if he does so, Cousin Sybil has offered to provide for him, and when he is ordained she will present him with the living in her gift. He will have to go as curate first because the present incumbent is not dead yet, but he is quite old so Hugo should become the rector quite soon.”

  “But your sister is opposed to the idea?”

  “Yes, indeed.” Rob scrambled down the bank, back to the stream where he lay on his stomach, thrusting his arm up to the elbow in the cool water. Silence fell, disturbed only by the indolent droning of a honey bee, as Lord Rutherford watched with amused interest the boy become motionless, concentrating on his battle of wits with the trout. The scene reminded his lordship pleasantly of his own childhood, long summers spent at Rutherford Abbey doing much as that engaging scapegrace was doing now. Rutherford completely forgot his intention to discourage trespassers. The July afternoon had acquired a rather rosy patina, he reflected, feeling pleasantly lazy. Rob’s story had created in him a lively desire to make the acquaintance of the rest of the Trelawney family and the oddly named Merrie in particular. She presumably took her place in whatever society the local gentry had to offer unless, of course, she had been recently widowed. But the boy wore no mourning bands, and his manner of speaking of his deceased brother-in-law did not somehow indicate a recent loss—scant respect, certainly. Damian surprised himself with a soft chuckle. He would have liked to ask, but it would be a crime to disturb the lad’s concentration, not to mention to alert his intended victim, so he removed himself with due caution, turning Saracen’s head for what now passed as home.