by Jane Feather
“Merrie, there is a famous fair!” Rob babbled. “The circus is nothing, just a mangy tiger and a parrot, but the fair has a Fat Lady. She is enormous! Sir, you would not believe ...” He turned shining eyes to his lordship whose rather hard expression softened.
“I think I can imagine, Rob,” he said. “What did you think of it, Theo?”
“Not a great deal.” With the wisdom and experience of his fifteen years, Theo shrugged in blase indifference. “It’s nothing compared to the one that comes to Harrow in September. But Rob hasn’t seen that yet, and he won’t be able to until he’s in the third year and allowed to visit the town.”
“Well, I do not care,” Rob said stoutly. “And as soon as I have had nuncheon, I am going back. I am starved!”
“I cannot think how you can be,” Hugo declared. “You have been eating humbugs and gingerbread all morning.”
“Peace,” their sister implored. “I cannot see what possible fun there would be in a fair if one did not stuff oneself with sweetmeats. Do you not agree, Lord Rutherford?” For a moment forgetting their quarrel, she turned naturally to him as an ally.
“Absolutely,” he concurred without the blink of an eyelid. “Shall we address ourselves to this more than adequate repast?” He drew out a chair for her, and, as she took her seat, his fingertips brushed the back of her neck.
Meredith shivered at the contact, knowing that he had felt the reaction. She passed a dish of Cornish pasties to Rob and made some inconsequential remark about the weather.
“May I carve you some ham, Lady Blake?” Rutherford inquired with sardonic courtesy. “Or perhaps you would prefer the game pie?”
“Some ham, thank you.”
“Very wise.” Carving wafer-thin slices, he laid them on her plate. “This Cornish predilection for pastry is something of an acquired taste unless one has the appetite of extreme youth.”
“Or one earned by labor in the fields or with the lobster pots,” she countered. “I would have thought that as a soldier you would sympathize with the hunger resulting from physical exercise in the open air.”
“Were you a soldier, sir?” Theo’s attention was instantly caught. “In the Peninsula?”
Meredith held her breath, wondering if he would snap the boy’s head off. There was a short pause, then Rutherford said easily, “Yes, as it happens.”
“Oh, famous!” Theo’s eyes shone. “I wish of all things for a pair of colors when I am old enough. But Merrie is as difficult about that as she is about Hugo’s taking orders.”
“I am not difficult,” Merrie protested. “I merely said that we would wait until you were older before we discussed it. And if Hugo is still of the same mind when he comes down from Oxford, then I will not stand in his way.”
“You are well served, I think,” his lordship said softly, placing a piece of bread and butter on her plate. She did not pretend to misunderstand him. Having brought up the subject of his army experience to annoy him, she had only herself to blame if the tables had been turned.
Theo, however, continued to question Rutherford eagerly and, after only the barest hesitation, his lordship responded, leaving Merrie free to retreat into her own thoughts without further interruption.
After the meal, at Rob’s insistence, they repaired to the fair where Merrie was induced to shy for coconuts, and in the ensuing competition she found it impossible to maintain her air of hauteur with Rutherford. The Fat Lady was pronounced to be truly prodigious, and it was generally agreed that, if Rob’s consumption of toffee apples continued at its present rate, she would soon have a rival.
At the end of the afternoon, Merrie found herself in possession of a number of trinkets representing presents from her brothers and their combined winnings at the stalls where the prizes seemed exclusively designed to appeal to the fairer sex. “What am I to do with them?” Laughing she laid out the trumpery bracelets and rings, the little bone fan, and a colorful scrap of material intended as a scarf. “There must be many a girl in the village who’d be glad of them.”
“Keep them.” Rutherford gathered up the fairings, tying them in the scarf. “One day, when you are old and gray, you will find them in a storeroom and wonder for a moment where they came from. Then you’ll remember a sunny afternoon in Fowey when the world lay at your feet.”
Meredith frowned as a finger of cold touched her between the shoulders. “That is a most depressing thought, Lord Rutherford.”
“It is depressing to have the world at your feet?” he inquired with an unreadable smile. “Surely it will only be depressing if you kick it away?”
There was no mistaking his meaning and, with a definitive gesture of refusal, Meredith turned away from him, calling to the boys. “It is time we were returning home. Cook will not be best pleased if her dinner is kept waiting.”
Lord Rutherford’s visits to Pendennis continued during the following two weeks, and Meredith avoided him as and when she could. But she could not avoid the thrill of eagerness when she heard his voice in conversation with the boys or the pang of disappointment when, on returning from some errand around the estate, she did not see the black patiently awaiting his master. He did not deliberately seek her out on these visits, but she was aware of his gaze, shrewd and just a little amused as if he could read her mind, whenever they were in the same room.
One afternoon in August, four nights into the new moon, he noticed something different about her, an air of suppressed excitement, an absent-minded preoccupation. She seemed not to hear what was said to her or, if she did, to forget to respond.
Lord Rutherford could think of only one explanation. It had been just over a month since that night of his arrival on the cliff road. Was there to be another run tonight? If so, would there be another ambush? He remembered hearing her say that they had been warned of the last one, and, from what Bart had said, they had walked deliberately into the trap. Surely she would not take such a risk again? She had promised Bart, had she not? He could not help the thought, though, that perhaps Meredith treated promises with the same insouciance that she treated the truth. Having twice seen how much pleasure the danger afforded her, Rutherford had developed the shrewd suspicion that the excitement of smuggling, combined with the mischievous amusement she took in hoodwinking her neighbors, was the breath of life for Merrie, the only compensations for an imprisonment that such a free spirit could not help but find intolerable.
He was waiting on the cliff top when she emerged from the cave beneath just before midnight. She was alone, and tonight there was no whistling tune, no skipping dance. She moved along the path with the stealth of a hunter—or of the hunted—and, even from that distance, he could sense the tension in the wire-sprung frame.
Damian followed at a considerable distance, having the conviction that even a conventionally safe gap would be too close for those sharp ears, the senses alerted to a hint of anything out of the ordinary. At one point she halted, standing motionless, staring into the darkness ahead. After a minute he saw it too. A light flashing so briefly and intermittently that it would escape a casual watcher. As far as he could deduce, it came from the spot on the headland known as Devil’s Point for the treacherous reef of jagged rock below.
Merrie moved on, then quite suddenly disappeared as she had done that other night. Damian swore softly, afraid to move in case she had stopped in hiding for some reason and he should run up against her. After five minutes, he crept forward again. At the point where she had vanished, he peered cautiously over the cliff. A thin, steep trail more suited to a goat than a human snaked down the almost sheer cliff. The beach below was invisible, but he could hear the roar of surf that even on a calm night rose high. It was clear that, if he wanted to continue his observation, down the path he must go.
Cursing the ill luck that had catapulted him into love with a creature who treated goal trails in the pitch dark as if they were the post road from London to Dover, Rutherford lowered himself over the cliff. It would be interesting, he reflected dour
ly, to see how his shoulder bore up under the strain of this night’s activities. The descent would have been difficult enough in ideal circumstances, but the need for silence presented a devilish complication, that and his fear that he would dislodge a stone or a shower of sand to alert anyone below.
Meanwhile Meredith, blissfully unaware of her follower, stood on the beach with the others. They were a silent, but not anxious, group. Anxiety was an emotion that tended to impair efficiency. They were alert, however, ears and eyes straining in the darkness for the sound and sight of Jacques’s boat.
“Here she comes.” Bart discerned the dark shape riding high on the white crest of surf. “That wave’ll run her direct to the beach.”
Merrie ran to the shore with the rest, kicking off her shoes to wade thigh high into the waves to catch and steady the boat. Damian’s incredulous ears caught that unmistakable chuckle of exhilaration as the surf slapped against her. Sweet heavens! What kind of duchess would she make? But he had a long row to hoe before that became a possibility, his lordship reminded himself, settling into the sandy hollow behind a jutting boulder. It was not particularly comfortable but provided him with an unobstructed view of the goings-on in the cove while at the same time afforded him a fair degree of protection against casual eyes.
He stiffened, however, when Merrie, in conversation with a short, stocky man from the French boat, moved away from the activity and came up the beach toward his boulder. To his relief, they stopped just short of his hiding place, providing him with the added bonus of ears as well as eyes.
“Jacques, I intend to deliver this run to the Eagle and Child in Fowey.” Merrie spoke in a brisk, businesslike manner, but there was a hint of excitement in her voice.
“Ah, magnifique!” The Frenchman clapped her on the shoulder with a hearty camaraderie that made the watcher wince with annoyance. “I wondered if you would take the bait, mon amie.”
“You knew well I would, you old devil!” Merrie chuckled. “But I will need another run within the month for our regular customers. They’ll not take kindly to being ousted.”
“In three weeks,” Jacques promised. “After the full moon.”
“Aye.” Merrie nodded with satisfaction. “We’ll be waiting. I think ’twill be safe enough to use Devil’s Point for the signal again. We’ll change the position next month.”
“You’ll need to be charging a bit extra for the brandy,” Jacques said, pulling a flask from his hip pocket, offering it to Merrie. When she shook her head, he took a long pull, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “My contact’s become a little greedy.” His eyes narrowed. “This time he will get away with it. It will make him feel secure, you understand? It will not happen again, you can be sure, Merrie. But—uh—I must pass on the cost. Vous comprenez?”
“I would rather continue to pay the extra, Jacques, than that you should ...” Meredith paused, then continued with resolution, “than that you should eliminate your contact.”
“Tsk-tsk.” Jacques shook his head. “So brutally frank, Merrie. You must leave these matters to me. They do not concern you. You complete your end of the business; I will complete mine.”
Damian felt a cold shiver as he watched Merrie’s face in the moonlight. The usually vibrant features were cold, set, wiped clean of all emotion, telling him more clearly than anything else how affected she was by the exchange. Smuggling was no prank, for all that she seemed to treat it as such. Then, suddenly, she shrugged, turned back to the beach, and Rutherford heard no more.
The contraband was loaded onto the ponies, the French boat departed, and the train started up the broad cliff path running diagonal to the beach. The goat trail was clearly a shortcut, not one that could be taken by laden ponies. Rutherford, now knowing the smugglers’ destination, was in no hurry as he scrambled back up the trail. His only concern was to be sure that Meredith reached Pendennis safely. If she did not, he had no idea what he could do about it, but he did know that he would not sleep this night if he was uncertain of the outcome of the enterprise.
All went well, however, without scent or sight of the revenue. Ponies, contraband, and Merrie disappeared into the cave beneath Pendennis. The rest of the group vanished into the night.
Damian, Lord Rutherford, went home to his bed, more than ever convinced that smuggling was no activity for the future Duchess of Keighley, however proficient at it she might be.
Chapter Ten
It was in a mood of strong determination that Lord Rutherford set out for Pendennis three days later. It was the first time he had ridden over since the day of the smugglers’ run, and his absence had been deliberate. He did not think he had mistaken Merrie’s pleasure in his visits, however hard she had concealed it beneath a mask of indifference. If she had missed him at all in the last three days, then it was possible she might be more receptive to what he had to say when he appeared unheralded. Receptive or no, his lordship was resolved that Merrie Trelawney would at least hear him out. Extricating her from her brothers would be the major problem.
As it happened, this proved less arduous than he had expected. Upon being shown into the morning room where he found the three brothers, he was instantly struck by their subdued, disconsolate mien. “What’s to do?” he inquired cheerfully, laying whip and gloves on the sofa table. “You all look as if you have lost a sovereign and found a penny.”
“Hugo and Merrie have quarreled,” Rob informed him glumly. “And now Merrie is as cross as two sticks. It is quite horrid when she is.”
“Oh, I see.” His lordship glanced at the eldest Trelawney. “D’ye care to tell me about it, Hugo?”
Hugo flushed a dull crimson. “She treats me like a baby as if I do not know my own mind,” he blurted out. “I am almost twenty and only wish to help, but she will not allow anyone to do so.”
“Well, you ought to have known she would not allow you to come down from Oxford before you are finished,” Theo put in. “If you must waste your life as a poor-relation curate making up to Cousin Sybil in Dorset, then you may as well have some amusement first.”
“Merrie said Hugo likes to be a martyr,” Rob explained helpfully. “And Hugo said she was a—a—”
“Hold your tongue!” Hugo exploded, advancing on his brother, fists clenched, definite menace in his eyes.
Lord Rutherford stepped between them. “I think I have heard enough. Where is your sister?”
“Riding on the beach, I expect,” Theo said, absently shuffling a pack of cards. “It’s what she usually does when she’s out of sorts.”
His lordship retrieved his whip and gloves. “Rob, I would recommend that you make yourself scarce,” he suggested. “I am certain you do not intend to exacerbate raw nerves, but I fear that you do, nevertheless.”
He left the morning room without waiting to see if his advice was followed and went to reclaim Saracen. Ten minutes later he found Meredith, as Theo had said, riding on the beach below the house. She heard the thud of hooves on the sand behind her and reined in the mare, turning to look over her shoulder.
“Good morning, Lord Rutherford. You had best continue on your way, for I should warn you that I am out-of-reason cross.”
“Yes, so I have been informed,” he responded placidly, drawing up alongside her. “But that does not scare me off.”
Merrie, who, much as she hated to acknowledge it, had been racking her brains for the last three days to find a reason for his absence, made no comment.
“What was it that Hugo said when you accused him of martyrdom?” his lordship inquired with a quizzical lift of his brows. “Rob was about to tell me, but Hugo became somewhat annoyed.”
“I am a petticoat dictator, it seems.” Meredith found that she had no hesitation in pouring out her woes to this, the one person she somehow trusted to hear them with a sympathetic, if objective, ear. Neither did she stop to consider why this should be so. “I am in love with power and wish to keep my brothers in leading strings to gratify myself.” She gave a short laugh, nudg
ing the mare into a trot. “If Hugo is set upon entering the church, then of course I will not prevent him. But I am not yet convinced of that, and he is too young to be making such a decision for the wrong reasons.”
“He is but three years younger than yourself,” Rutherford reminded gently. “You have been making decisions as important since you were younger than he.”
“And not always the correct ones,” she flashed. “Sacrifice appeals to Hugo at the present. It is but a stage he is going through. In a year’s time, there will be no need for his sacrifice.”
“What do you mean?” Convinced that she had let slip the statement, he waited breathlessly to see how she would answer him.
“Why, simply that by then I shall hope to have saved sufficient funds to ease matters a little,” she responded with an airy wave, but he had not missed the hesitation, the sudden biting of her lower lip.
“You are not telling the truth again.” It was worth trying, he thought, although it might be considered unchivalrous to push so hard when she was already vulnerable. But it was the best opportunity he had had.
Meredith flushed, and there was no mistaking either the appeal, or the anger, in the glorious purple eyes as she looked across at him. “My affairs are mine to manage,” she said curtly.
“I expect it is that attitude that annoys Hugo,” Rutherford replied with a bland smile.
Meredith’s heels pressed into the mare’s flanks and the animal took off along the sand, swerving abruptly into the waves. Damian, taken by surprise, watched for a minute as horse and rider galloped along the edge of the breaking surf. She would be drenched in a minute! But what would that matter to such an impulsive, headstrong creature? Urging the stallion into a canter, he rode parallel with Meredith and the mare but well away from the water, keeping pace with her until, with her headlong gallop, she had exorcised the demons possessing her.
