by Mary Brendan
‘Thank you, no,’ Paul Stewart replied to her offer of refreshment, and gave a smile that perhaps conveyed he knew she hoped his visit would be brief. ‘Unfortunately, this is not a social call, Miss Woodville. I am here on official business.’
‘I don’t see how I can help you in any way with that, Captain.’ Deborah’s open expression displayed her surprise.
‘I should like to ask you some questions about Mr Chadwicke,’ he said, his pale blue eyes narrowing on her face as though he watched closely for her reaction.
‘Please sit down if you wish to,’ Deborah said and turned her back on him to approach a fireside chair. She hoped he had not noticed the rush of colour beneath her cheeks, propelled there by the mention of Randolph’s name and an odd, but instant, apprehensiveness.
‘Have you seen Mr Chadwicke since he escorted you home from the vicarage?’ he asked, settling opposite her.
‘I have not, sir,’ Deborah informed coolly. ‘I believe you came here to see him just as he was leaving that night.’
‘Indeed I did,’ Paul Stewart said.
‘And was it official business that brought you here on that occasion?’
A mottling of colour appeared beneath his pale complexion as though he’d not appreciated her pert question. ‘I’d wanted to ensure that all guests had got safely home. Also, I’d wanted to question Mr Chadwicke. If he’d reported seeing something suspicious whilst driving your carriage back to Woodville Place, Sergeant Booth and I would have immediately gone to investigate. However, if I’d known then what I do now, I would not have wasted my time.’
‘I see—does that mean you now know what caused our driver to have such a scare that night?’
‘No…it means now I have delved a little deeper in to Mr Chadwicke’s background I’m not sure I could have trusted him to truthfully tell me if he had seen anything suspicious.’
For a moment Deborah simply stared at him in astonishment. ‘Will you explain what you mean by that, Captain? ‘ she eventually demanded.
‘I have been making a few enquiries about Mr Chadwicke and what I have discovered is alarming to say the least.’ He paused. ‘I understand from the vicar that you knew him well when you lived in London some years ago.’
Deborah’s eyes darted to him in annoyance. ‘If you have anything you want to know about my past, I would sooner that you ask me directly, sir.’
‘Indeed—that is why I am here,’ he answered smoothly. ‘You knew him when you lived in London?’ he persisted, his tone hardening.
‘The Earl and Countess of Gresham are mutual friends of ours.’
‘Ah…yes,’ Captain Stewart muttered sourly. ‘He seems able to foster acquaintance with the high and mighty despite his exceedingly dubious connections.’
‘I take it you are referring to his late brother,’ Deborah said stiffly, keen to let him know he could not shock her by exposing the fact that Sebastian Chadwicke had been a scapegrace. ‘I take it you are also referring to Mr Chad-wicke’s friendship with a nobleman who lives locally.’
‘Stratton?’ Paul Stewart barked in contempt. ‘It’s true Stratton is a viscount, but whether a noble is another matter.’ He smiled in satisfaction as he saw a quickening of interest in Deborah’s lucid blue eyes. ‘Ah, I collect you do not know that Viscount Stratton springs from a clan of Cornish brigands. I am not from these parts so am immune to fanciful tales of his heroics. In my opinion, he was no more than a common criminal. Perhaps he still is.’ He settled more comfortably in his chair, looking unattractively smug as he steepled his fingers. He tapped them gently together whilst continuing to watch her through shuttered vision. ‘First I shall let you know that Viscount Stratton and Ross Trelawney are one and the same. The Trelawney brothers were once the most infamous smugglers to ever infest the south coast.’
‘Ross Trelawney?’ Deborah echoed faintly. It was impossible to have lived in the vicinity for more than half a decade and not have heard tales of the Trelawney brothers’ exploits. But, if the epic were to be believed, when still young men they had all seen the error of their ways and given up free-trading. They were now well-respected gentleman who had fabulous wealth and legitimate businesses. Ross Trelawney, so she’d heard, had been given a peerage by the king following services to the crown. Deborah had decided that surely indicated he’d atoned for past sins. Yet she had not made the connection between the buccaneering Cornishman and Viscount Stratton being one and the same. But why would she? She’d had no idea that Randolph had dealings with smugglers.
‘Ross Trelawney has a magnificent estate in Kent and owns a good amount of the county,’ Paul Stewart continued. ‘He has a hunting lodge not far from here. I understand from your friend Gerard that Mr Chadwicke is staying there with Trelawney.’
Deborah’s skin prickled icily; her mind darted hither and thither. ‘So, they are friends,’ she managed airily to say. ‘I don’t see what any of it has to do with my acquaintance with Mr Chadwicke, or Noose-head Ned frightening our driver that night—’
‘Well, let me tell you,’ Captain Stewart fluidly interrupted. His mouth curved, yet his pale blue eyes looked icier. ‘I have learned from my sources that in the past Trelawneys and Chadwickes have not only been friends, but colleagues.’
Chapter Fourteen
As a debonair gentleman in Mayfair Randolph had been the epitome of polished civility. Deborah feared that Captain Stewart was about to tell her that a moon-dappled beach might rival a candlelit drawing room as his natural habitat. Despite her pounding heart she realised she was not as shocked as she ought to have been. She’d been subduing a suspicion that something sinister about Randolph might emerge.
On the day they’d met in Hastings she’d sensed a latent danger about him. The cool, professional manner in which he’d handled his pistols, and seen off the Luck-hurst gang, had alerted her to a menacing undercurrent she’d not before encountered in his character.
‘Were you aware prior to his arrival that Mr Chadwicke was coming to Sussex to purchase sheep?’ A slight lift to his top lip displayed Paul Stewart’s doubts on the veracity of Randolph’s claim to have an interest in livestock.
‘I wasn’t. It was a great surprise to bump in to him in Hastings,’ Deborah replied faintly. ‘We’d had no communication for many years.’
‘It was a happy coincidence, then, for you to meet one another. Or perhaps your chance meeting was not such a surprise to him as you say it was to you. I imagine he is a shrewd fellow and renewing a connection with an esteemed local family might have been to his benefit.’
‘You think he would deliberately foster our friendship and use my mother and me to lend him respectability?’ Deborah’s tone held a mingling of disbelief and muted outrage.
‘That’s exactly what I think, Miss Woodville.’
Again Deborah felt her insides painfully knotting while her mind ferreted this way and that, examining facts. She had considered whether Randolph had known she was in Sussex and had come with an axe to grind over their ill-starred relationship. Was she only half-right? Had he discovered she lived in the right area and engineered the meeting to callously exploit to his advantage their shared history? It seemed preposterous to suppose him capable of such calculating behaviour, or that he would want her and her mother to tacitly supply his character reference. Yet, if what the captain was implying were true, and he were embroiled with free-traders, she could not deny that she and her mother had endorsed his image as an honest, personable fellow by offering him hospitality in their house. The vicar and his family, and Squire Pattinson and his wife, genteel people generally considered above reproach, socialised with Randolph as a consequence of his friendship with the Woodvilles.
‘I think you are mistaken in this, Captain,’ Deborah said slowly and clearly. Her snap decision had been easily made. She would not believe any of it without proper proof. In fact, she knew she would not be convinced until she’d heard Randolph admit he was a villain. In her heart she had never believed Randolph a li
ar. If he said he had sent her letters, then he had done so and they’d got lost. But she could accuse him of withholding information. She knew he would do that if he wanted to protect her from distress; he had admitted doing so when he’d discovered Luckhurst prowling about the grounds after dark. He lusted after her, and was careless about her knowing it; but she was equally sure he harboured an ember of affection for her that he was reluctant to display. With sudden clarity she knew she wanted very much to make him love her.
‘I know that on the day he arrived in Hastings Mr Chadwicke nearly had a fight with Seth Luckhurst,’ Deborah began her defence. ‘I was present and witnessed all that went on. Seth had made a nuisance of himself that afternoon and had beaten my driver. Mr Chadwicke was escorting me home when Seth and two of his cronies accosted us. Seth was very aggressive. When Mr Chad-wicke got the better of him and frightened him off, his humiliation was apparent. I’m sure Seth can dissemble, but equally I’m sure he is not a good enough actor to fake such a scene. He genuinely had no idea who Randolph was.’
‘And how did Chadwicke get the better of three men when the odds were stacked heavily against him?’ Captain Stewart interrogated immediately.
Colour rimmed Deborah’s cheekbones. In her haste to support Randolph she might have hampered his case. Briefly she said, ‘Mr Chadwicke was armed.’
‘Was he, now?’
‘It would be a foolish gentleman who travelled without a weapon for self-defence,’ Deborah offered with some asperity.
‘Perhaps you are right. He had a lucky victory on that occasion. As for Seth not liking, or recognising him, that is perfectly possible. I have not said Chadwicke is in cahoots with the Luckhursts. Perhaps the opposite is true.’ He paused, unsure whether he ought to continue. In truth, he knew he should not. He was aware the intelligence he was passing to Deborah Woodville was confidential. Yet the more she defended Randolph Chadwicke, the greater became his need to tell her all he knew until he’d painted him so black she turned against him.
He had come under her spell from the first moment he’d spotted her looking angelic in the vicar’s drawing room. Her blue silk gown and fair ringlets weren’t present today; she was modestly dressed and her glorious hair was windswept; still her pale, unadorned beauty had the power to stir his blood. The fact that Chadwicke had that night subtly signalled she was his had embittered Paul. When Deborah had seemed aware, yet unminding of foreign-looking fingers that had rested so close to her they almost touched her naked shoulder, he’d realised, with a stab of jealousy, that Chadwicke might already have seduced her.
Sergeant Booth had been a colleague of Deborah’s murdered fiancé. Booth had informed him of Lieutenant Green’s fate, and also that since the dragoon’s death Deborah was known to be unwisely vociferous in her hatred of all smugglers. Paul had felt elated to unearth Chadwicke’s infamy. He’d felt sure that Deborah must be unaware of it and had wanted to rectify her ignorance and gain her gratitude. But she was not acting in the way he’d hoped for, or expected. She’d appeared shocked by what he’d disclosed, yet still she seemed determined to defend Chadwicke. In Paul Stewart’s mind there was only one reason why she would cleave to him at any cost: she was in love with him.
‘A newcomer is expected to challenge the status quo,’ Captain Stewart announced. ‘We’ve had intelligence from our informants about it. In my opinion Chadwicke isn’t in Sussex to join the Luckhursts, but to do battle with them for control of the lucrative trade in contraband on the south coast.’
He had finally unequivocally stated he believed Randolph a smuggler, and Deborah was unable to suppress a breath of despair parting her soft lips.
Sensing victory, Paul pressed home his advantage. ‘Almost eighteen years ago Sebastian Chadwicke was the principal in a gang of smugglers operating along the Suffolk coastline.’
Although Deborah heard the captain’s damning evidence, it seemed his voice drifted to her from a long way off.
‘A particularly vicious band they were, too, by all accounts,’ the captain impressed on her. ‘It is on record that Sebastian Chadwicke fled abroad to evade capture for the murder of a Revenue man who’d been stabbed in an affray just outside Hadleigh. Even before that dreadful event about eight years ago, his younger brother, Randolph, was involved in the business and was running contraband from the continent. He would liaise with other gangs around the country, especially those on the south coast. He and Ross Trelawney were in partnership for a while.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Deborah whispered, but her lack of conviction was plain in her unsteady voice.
‘Why not? Because you are in love with him?’
Deborah blushed to the roots of her fair hair. Dreadfully disconcerted she might have been, but his impertinence rankled enough to inspirit her. ‘How dare you make such a personal assumption!’
‘Are you?’ Captain Stewart demanded, unmoved by her hissed objection. He gained his feet. ‘I’m sure Chadwicke’s capable of using you as an unwitting decoy; perhaps he’s been taking other liberties too…?’
‘I think it is time you left, sir.’ Deborah’s eyes flashed blue fire at him before she averted her face from his bold, impenitent scrutiny.
‘You have not denied that you are in love with him,’ he purred. ‘Are you going to let him use…perhaps incriminate…you and your mother?’ Her refusal to be drawn seemed to irritate him. His gloves were swiped against an open palm. ‘Now I have informed you of the nature of the beast I would not have thought you’d want to defend him, Miss Woodville. I understand you were engaged to a Lieutenant Green who, whilst carrying out his duty, was murdered by a smuggler.’
Deborah’s dusky lashes drooped low over her eyes. It seemed the captain knew where to hit. Even before he’d reminded her of that awful fact it had been pricking at her conscience. Abruptly she stood up. Her sharp little chin was elevated to a rather haughty angle and she coolly met his eyes. ‘I think what you have told me about the Chadwickes—and I do not know it is true, but if it proves to be—it is none the less far in Randolph’s past. He has been in the Indies for many years and thus cannot have been running contraband across the English Channel. He has only recently returned following the death of his brother.’ She drew in a gulp of air. ‘I don’t believe he would engage in criminal activity now he is head of his family. His mother is still alive and he has a spinster sister also dependent upon him.’
‘And all of them in straitened circumstances, thanks to Sebastian Chadwicke having squandered the family’s assets and died in disgrace.’ He paused for effect. ‘His crimes finally caught up with him, and not before time. He was hanged for treason.’
Deborah’s complexion went deathly pale, but she conquered any other sign of her astonishment.
‘Chadwicke is in need of funds, Miss Woodville,’ Paul Stewart informed her in a poisonous purr. ‘And what better way to refill the Chadwicke coffers than to take a tried-and-tested route to riches with Trelawney’s backing?’
‘I think I must ask you to leave now, Captain,’ Deborah whispered.
‘I think you forget I am here on official business, Miss Woodville. I don’t want to seek a warrant…’ Paul Stewart rattled out the threat in angry frustration. Still she would not desert him!
‘Will you arrest me?’ Her challenge, spat in a voice of suffocated outrage, seemed to finally temper his vindictiveness.
‘Of course not.’ He forced a frosty smile. ‘I warn you about him for your own good, you know. I hope you understand the gravity of what I’ve told you. If you persist in being his advocate, and bring shame upon your own and your mother’s heads, do not say I did not give you fair warning of it.’ With a stiff bow he strode past her and to the door.
* * *
For some fifteen minutes after his departure Deborah paced back and forth in the parlour, her head filled with vying ideas of how to proceed. Over and over again a theory, or course of action, was leapt upon, then rejected for none was properly thought through. Her mind darte
d always onwards to find some new and better way of proving Captain Stewart wrong and Randolph innocent. Finally she went back to the chair she’d sat in and slumped down. Her fair head bowed into cupped hands and she felt tears transfer from her lashes to her palms. Her shoulders hunched forwards to contain a sob swelling in her chest.
The captain surely would not fabricate something so serious. She believed he was malicious, but a liar? No, he had his military career and his reputation to protect after all. She had sensed at the Davenports’ soiree that Paul Stewart had taken against Randolph, but he would not jeopardise his future because he had a fancy for her and had sensed Randolph to be a rival. She rather thought the captain was a self-righteous stickler. He would have carefully done his research before presenting her with his shocking findings.
Still she was unwilling to accept that there wasn’t a reasonable explanation that would negate what he’d told her. Annoyed with herself for wanting what she could not have, she shook back straggling golden tresses from her damp cheeks. Why would she defend him at all cost? Unless…was the captain right about that as well?
A bittersweet ache fluttering in her chest was her answer. She was still in love with Randolph and that, in its way, was as alarming to her as the knowledge of his family’s dreadful secrets. Little wonder nobody had ever spoken about Sebastian Chadwicke other than in mutters. Little wonder he had always been addressed as Chadwicke rather than by his title of Lord Buckland. Nobody would believe him worthy of the honour held by his decent father. Had her parents known the extent of his wickedness?
Deborah knuckled her dewy eyes and gazed into space. Her mother had known that Sebastian had fled abroad to escape arrest for murder. Deborah had assumed he might have been embroiled in a duel over a woman. Nothing quite so noble, her mother had sourly quipped, and she’d named him a devil. How much did her mother know about Sebastian Chadwicke’s wickedness? And was she aware of Randolph’s involvement in his heinous crimes?
