by Mary Brendan
The stinging rebuke brought raging heat to Paul’s face. He knew, resentfully, that the charges against him were true. He’d learned that not only had Deborah Woodville been at Susanna Swinton’s mercy that night, but several servants too. Yet, an intrepid heroine, Deborah had managed to capture and hold the fort until her hero appeared to rescue her.
To his squirming shame he knew now that Randolph Chadwicke had never been a contender for the lucrative contraband trade in Sussex, though his association with Ross Trelawney, undisputed smuggler par excellence in his day, had added quite intentionally to the impression that the opposite were true. The Chadwickes’ link to Suffolk smuggling had also given the scheme credibility. Only the most senior courtiers and army officials had known of the plot—even the local judiciary had been unaware of the intrigue being played out in their midst. Undercover agents had been planting rumours for months: a new smuggling ring was ready to fight for supremacy in the area and with Trelawney’s colossal backing it was sure to succeed in taking over.
Ned Swinton had fallen hook, line and sinker for the plot, and in his desperation to retain control, had broken cover and exposed himself and his accomplices to capture. In the ensuing affray Swinton had been mortally wounded. His wife had been taken off to Horsham gaol to await trial. The Luckhurst brothers and a few others were languishing, red-faced, in a Martello tower awaiting their fates.
Captain Stewart knew it had been a magnificent victory…but none of the glory was his. When Chadwicke and Trelawney had appeared by the beach that night he had attempted to have them arrested. He’d been relieved of his post by Colonel Montague who’d arrived to oversee operations that morning. Later Paul had discovered that the Colonel had been instrumental in hatching the trap with Chadwicke. Paul’s humiliation had been unendurable. Had he not been offered a transfer to the other side of the country he would have had no option but to resign. He’d never have been able to bear his subordinates sniggering behind his back over the episode, perhaps for years to come.
Once he’d got completely back on his feet, Captain Stewart swiped his gauntlets over an unsteady palm, adjusted his uniform, and stalked from the magistrate’s office without another word.
* * *
‘It is very nice to see you, sir,’ Deborah said warmly. Ross was now seated and a tea tray, brought by a blushing Lottie, covered the table set between their fireside chairs. ‘I’m glad to have the opportunity to properly thank you for your help. I must also thank you for your kindness in having our trap repaired and returned to us. Your manservant drove it back the following day and Bessie looked none the worse for her adventure.’
‘It was my pleasure to be of service, Miss Cleveland…or is it Woodville?’ He chuckled. ‘It might be simpler if I call you Deborah unless you quite rightly object to my scandalous lack of etiquette.’
Deborah smiled wryly. They barely knew one another yet, oddly, she found his suggestion refreshingly unconventional rather than improper. She imagined that Viscount Stratton was quite used to flouting the rules.
From the moment in the woods when he’d firmly, yet gently, clamped a hand on her mouth to quieten her, she’d intuitively trusted him. Even when he’d revealed himself to be Ross Trelawney, infamous rogue, her opinion had not altered. By the time he’d delivered her safely home, and helped placate her mother, she’d known how easy it would be to like him. ‘You may call me Deborah if I may call you Ross,’ she boldly declared. ‘It’s only fair; it is equally confusing for me to know how to address you. Do you prefer Viscount Stratton or Mr Trelawney?’
‘I prefer Ross, so that’s settled then,’ he grinned. ‘We shall be shockingly informal with one another.’
Having taken a sip of tea, Deborah clattered down her cup. ‘Is Randolph’s wound healing well?’ she burst out.
‘He is very much on the mend. The wound had a bit of an infection in it, but—’
‘An infection?’ Deborah gasped anxiously. ‘He has a fever?’
‘Not any more,’ Ross soothed her. ‘And the doctor is pleased with his progress.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Deborah cried in alarm. ‘I…I thought he simply had much business to attend to, or was still very angry with me, and that’s why he had not yet come to visit.’ She looked at the hands clasped in her lap and blinked to clear an abrupt stinging heat in her eyes. She knew now that Randolph had every right to be angry with her for accusing him of being up to no good that night. Nothing could have been further from the truth, as everyone in the locality now knew.
‘Randolph’s not too angry to want to see you, trust me on that,’ Ross said gently, interrupting Deborah’s introspection. ‘But he has much business to attend to, you can trust me on that also. Lord Buckland is a sought-after chap. He has had to attend meetings with all manner of lofty officials and courtiers. Despite being under the weather he has attended them all to get matters finalised as soon as he can.’
‘LordBuckland?’ Deborah frowned her confusion. ‘Surely he has no right to use the title.’
‘I knew it,’ Ross sighed. ‘Already I have said too much.’
‘And Randolph has told you to say nothing at all to me,’ Deborah guessed.
‘Randolph thinks it is for him to explain things to you,’ Ross said mildly, settling back in his chair. ‘And I wholeheartedly agree with that. So might I ask you to forget what I just said?’ An appealing look from unusual green-flecked eyes was levelled on her.
‘Of course, I won’t say anything. I know you are a roguish gentleman, but I don’t wish to get you into trouble. I think you are a very good man.’
‘I tell Elizabeth so quite often,’ he wryly quipped.
‘Elizabeth? Your wife?’
‘Yes, my wife,’ he confirmed softly. ‘Are you surprised I have one?’
‘Indeed, no. She is a lucky woman.’ ‘I tell her that too.’
‘From which, Mr Trelawney,’ Deborah said with an ironic inflection, ‘I think you believe you are the lucky one.’
‘The most fortunate man alive—and that is why I am keen to set off home. I have come to say goodbye for now, although I’m sure we will soon see one another again. I know Elizabeth would dearly like to meet you.’ He paused before adding without a scrap of self-consciousness, ‘I have not been away from Stratton Hall for long but already I miss my family. My children have birthdays to celebrate this week.’ Seeing her surprise, he added with a throb of pride, ‘They share the same birthday; they are twins.’
‘How old? Boys or girls?’
‘Five. One of each.’
Deborah nodded, smiling, feeling a little prickle behind her eyes, for his pure emotion was infectious. ‘You must go without delay and I wish them both the happiest of birthdays,’ she said simply.
* * *
‘Oh! He has not gone already! Really, Deborah! I would have liked to see Viscount Stratton. I hardly got to properly thank him the other evening when he brought you home. He seems such a charmer. Would he not wait a few hours to dine with us? You did invite him to stay for supper, didn’t you?’
‘He wanted to go home, Mama, and be with his wife and children. Nothing—not even Mrs Field’s finest dinner—would have persuaded him to do otherwise,’ Deborah wryly explained.
With a frown of disappointment Julia stripped off her gloves. She had just returned from visiting the Pattin-sons; she’d had a fine time gossiping about the recent intrigue that still absorbed everybody. On entering the house, she’d met Lottie coming from the kitchens. The maid had told her that the handsome Viscount had come to call while she’d been out. Julia had immediately hurried to the parlour to see him. But she’d just learned from Deborah that Basham had shown out their guest just ten minutes since.
‘I’m surprised Randolph hasn’t yet paid us a visit.’ Julia levelled a penetrating look on her daughter.
‘The viscount told me Randolph’s wound became infected. He suffered with a fever for a while. By all accounts he is much better now,’ Deborah added quickly, not
wanting her mother to worry unnecessarily.
‘When I was with the Pattinsons this afternoon the squire said he’d heard on the grapevine that Randolph’s brother had died. Randolph’s name cropped up in conversation many times and once or twice the squire named him Lord Buckland.’ A delicate shrug of her shoulders preceded, ‘I didn’t know whether to correct him; I recall that Randolph said his brother had produced a son.’ She put her bonnet and gloves on the table and continued peevishly, ‘I wish he would come. It is best to have all the news straight from the horse’s mouth.’
Deborah went to the window and looked out at grey skies. She couldn’t bear to wait longer to see him. She felt as if she might explode with tension if she did not talk to him today. If he wouldn’t come to her, then she would go to him and force him to tell her everything. She must hear from his own lips who he was now and who he had been when younger. She tilted back her head a little and sighed at the ceiling. She should have asked Ross if Randolph was staying alone at the Lodge or whether he had moved back to the Woolpack. She had no idea where to start in running him to ground. But do it she would.
Having watched her daughter’s fraught expression for a moment, Julia drew in a deep, inspiriting breath. There was a weight that had lain too long and too heavy on her shoulders and she knew this was as good a time as any to finally be rid of the burden. ‘There is something making you sad, Debbie, and I think I know what it is.’ She started her confession about the missing letters. ‘I have guessed you and Randolph have been fond of one another for a very long time. I suspected you jilted Marcus Speer because you had fallen in love with his friend,’ she added. ‘But Randolph went off abroad, didn’t he, and things…went awry between you.’
Wistfulness twisted Deborah’s rosy lips as she stared through the glass at the leaden heavens. ‘He sent me letters,’ she said softly. ‘I received not one. I know he thinks I am lying when I say so. He knows I think he is lying and believe he sent me nothing.’
‘The matter can be put right,’ Julia began in a croak. ‘It is not an insurmountable hurdle at all for neither of you has lied…’
‘It does not matter any more,’ Deborah interrupted sharply. She turned to gaze at her mother with blue eyes that blinked back tears. ‘It really doesn’t matter about a few letters,’ she said in a tone that apologised for her brusqueness. ‘There are now worse hostilities between us than a dispute over lost notes. Randolph thinks I class him as a vile criminal, and no better than his treacherous brother.’
‘Who told him such rot?’ Julia barked. ‘Captain Stewart?’
‘No…I did.’ Deborah pressed a few white fingers to her lips to stifle a hysterical laugh.
Julia frowned, seemed about to speak. With a despairing shake of her head she gave her melancholy daughter a fierce hug, then quit the room with a quiet, ‘I think I shall take a nap.’
Determined she would go, Deborah prepared to leave the house with a frenzied speed. Not only did she fear losing her nerve, she realised that Randolph’s business might take him directly home and she’d lose her chance to speak to him. Perhaps he already had gone away. She comforted herself with the memory of Ross, just an hour or so ago, reassuring her that Randolph wanted to see her. But surely if he did want to see her as eagerly as she wanted to see him he would have found the time to come? With that thought spurring her on—and subduing a prickling sense of pride that demanded she take off her cloak and boots and act with some sense and dignity—she checked she had enough money to hire a ride and hurried from her room.
Speeding lightly down the stairs, she tried to ignore the thought that never in her life had she chased after a man. She was a viscount’s daughter and a pretty one at that, so she’d been constantly told throughout her life. In the past—and not just in her heyday—she had been under siege from many gentlemen. After she’d jilted Marcus she’d received six marriage proposals in rapid succession and turned down every one because she was waiting for a letter from Randolph. With just a paragraph to encourage her she would have turned down suitors for a decade. She knew that Edmund would have been amongst them.
On she flew through the vestibule. She was sure that if she could just get out of the grounds and on the road that insistent voice of conscience would cease whispering hatefully in her ear about the lateness of the hour and the impropriety of her mission.
She drew her warm cloak tighter about her as she marched along the shingle towards the gate with the clouds hunched on the horizon behind her. She prayed Lottie would not forget to give her mother the note she’d written explaining that she was going out to see a friend. She knew her mother would assume she’d gone to the vicarage. Without slowing her pace she turned and headed briskly towards town, fervently hoping the breeze would hold off the rain.
On reaching her destination, dry but chilled, Deborah made straight for the blacksmith’s forge. She knew Donald Smith hired out a dogcart for short journeys and his son, Simon, would be fetched to drive if required to do so. It would be safer for her to be a passenger; she was not at all sure of her own skill with the reins. She had on occasion, and in clement weather, taken out Bessie pulling the trap over the short distance to the vicarage. But the blacksmith’s horse might not be a Bessie. It might be an awkward animal with a mind of its own. Besides, if she drove off unaccompanied, such peculiar behaviour would certainly stir gossip. Equally tattle would start if it leaked out that Simon Smith had driven her from place to place so she might track down Mr Chadwicke.
The dilemma on how to approach the delicate subject of her need to locate a man who was considered either a hero, or a Judas, depending on personal viewpoint, made Deborah hesitate.
Whilst changing into her outdoor clothes earlier she had dismissed the idea of Fred bringing her in the trap; now she wondered if she might have done so too readily. She had forgone transport and walked to town to keep knowledge of this trip from her mother. Julia would be horrified at the idea of her daughter stooping to chase after a gentleman, albeit one she now considered a paragon.
Yet how was she to explain to the Smiths that she’d need to be taken on to Hartsmere Lodge near Green End if Mr Chadwicke were not at the Woolpack in Rye? She scoured her mind and came up with no plausible excuses. Conscious that a few passers-by had amiably acknowledged her, but were continuing to give her speculative looks, she turned to stare sightlessly at the wares in the draper’s shop window so she didn’t appear to be aimlessly loitering.
After a moment a reflection in the glass caught her eye and she focused, unblinking, on it. She turned with thumping heart to look again at the forge.
Only weeks had passed since they’d stood in almost exactly the same positions as they did now and stared at one another, yet it seemed so very long ago. She dearly wished she had not come. She should have been patient and waited at home. Despite the wounding things she’d said to him he would have called to say goodbye, she was sure of it. Now their parting might be limited to a few stilted words exchanged on Hastings High Street whilst inquisitive locals watched.
Curbing her instinct to rush across the street and launch herself against him, she waited as Randolph handed cash to the blacksmith. A moment later he was at her side.
Chapter Nineteen
‘It’s late to be out shopping,’ he said softly, a smile in his voice. ‘Are you waiting for your mother?’ He glanced at the interior of the shop. It appeared to be deserted and the dark figure of the draper could be seen moving about, extinguishing the lamps.
Deborah shook her head. His abrupt, powerful presence had set her pulse racing and stolen her voice.
‘Is your mother with you?’ His question now held a sharper edge, yet the flare of desire in his eyes was undiminished.
Again Deborah’s fair head quivered in reply.
‘Who is? Fred?’
She’d recognised a hint of rebuke in his voice this time and his authoritarian attitude rankled enough to embolden her. Up tilted her chin and she challenged his censure. ‘I’m a
lone,’ she said clearly.
‘I thought you’d promised me never again to go about on your own.’
‘So I did, but that was before you made your ruling unnecessary,’ she reminded him with acid sweetness. ‘Thanks to you there are no Luckhursts about now to ambush me on my walks.’
‘You sound disappointed. Would you have them back again, Debbie?’
‘Of course not,’ she whispered. Heat bled into her cheeks; she felt ashamed her tumultuous emotions had made her petulant. For days she’d yearned obsessively to see him. Now she understood why that was. Whatever he’d done, whatever he was or had been, she still loved him. But she was unsure of how he felt about her. Oh, she knew he wanted her still. But did he love her? Had he ever loved her?
‘Why are you out alone, Deborah?’ he asked with deceptive calm.
She shrugged in the hope it might convey she’d simply wanted a constitutional. Her pride would certainly not allow her to admit it had been her intention to track him down.
‘Why are you in Hastings?’ she countered quickly. ‘I imagined you’d be found at the Woolpack in Rye or perhaps at Hartsmere Lodge.’ Inwardly she squirmed. She was aware she’d betrayed herself even before she’d heard his mocking response.
‘Have I saved you the trouble of searching for me by turning up here?’ His amusement faded. ‘You weren’t intending to walk to the Woolpack in Rye?’ When she didn’t answer he glanced over his shoulder at the smithy. ‘I’ve been staying at the Lodge in any case. Were you on your way to hire Donald’s cart?’
To avoid his shrewd assessment she discovered a renewed interest in the drapery’s wares. Her eyes collided with the shopkeeper’s and she wondered how long he’d been peeking through the glass at them. Realising he’d been spotted, he jerked back behind the blind. Before he’d concealed himself Deborah had recognised a grudging respect in the merchant’s eyes. And she knew what had put it there.
