by Candace Camp
“Benedict is not a murderer.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. It’s absurd to even think it. Why would a customs officer go about stabbing people, anyway?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he isn’t one. Perhaps he is a smuggler himself. Maybe he is the one who is taking over the smuggling ring. Maybe he killed Nat Crowder, too.”
“That is the silliest thing I ever heard of!” Camilla retorted, her eyes flashing. “Benedict is not a smuggler or a killer! I won’t have you saying such things about him.”
“It isn’t as if he is really your husband,” Anthony pointed out. “Egad, we better hope he is not the killer or a smuggler, for then you’d really be in the suds. What if he got arrested for murder, and here’s everyone thinking that he is your husband?”
“Well, they won’t, because he won’t get arrested. He is not a killer.”
“I am not taking the chance and turning this man over to him.”
“But if he is a customs officer, he—”
“Camilla! Don’t you see? I think this fellow is a smuggler.”
“What?” Camilla looked back down at her patient, then at Anthony. “But I’ve never seen him before. He isn’t from around here.”
“No. But I saw him the other night when I was helping to unload the boat.”
“What? How do you know it was he?”
“He has a ring.”
“What?”
Anthony picked up the man’s rough coat and dug in the pocket, pulling forth a piece of twine tied into a necklace. A man’s gold ring dangled from one end of it.
“Oh, my.” Camilla reached out and took the ring in her hand, bringing it closer. The design was of a serpent swallowing its tail. Emerald chips glittered as its eyes. “This looks expensive.”
“I would not think that he is a peasant, no.”
“Was he wearing it?”
“Not on his hand. He must have known how that would stick out among the others. But once, when he bent over to pick up a barrel, it fell out from the neck of his shirt, and I saw it. He quickly stuffed it back in. Of course, I couldn’t see the design, but when I found this man with the ring on a cord around his neck, I was certain that it had to be he.”
“But why was he with the smugglers? He’s not from around here. And he’s carrying that expensive ring….”
“He could be a gentleman smuggler.”
“Two at the same place?” Camilla retorted sarcastically. “I think that is unlikely.”
A little reluctantly, Anthony went on. “I— Well, he was on the boat when they came to shore. I think he came with the brandy.”
“Came with it? You mean from France?”
He nodded. “When I came back last night, he had a fever. He was asleep, but he was mumbling in his sleep. He said, well, I don’t know what it was, but I think he spoke in French.”
Camilla felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. She sat back on her heels, staring at her cousin. “He’s a Frenchman? Are you saying that this man is a spy?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I DON’T KNOW,” Anthony answered wretchedly. “I could hardly believe it when I heard it. When he spoke to me, he didn’t have a French accent. But I am certain it was French that came out in his sleep.”
“Then you must turn him in!”
“But what if he is not a spy? What if I was wrong, or—or he’s Belgian? And there must be Englishmen who can speak French.”
“Can, yes. I can myself. But I don’t go mumbling it in my sleep. That is the sort of thing you do when it is your native tongue.”
“Even if he is French, it doesn’t mean that he is a spy,” Anthony went on stubbornly.
“What else would he be? We are at war with them.”
“It could mean that he is escaping from France. That he is against Bonaparte, even that Bonaparte tried to arrest him, say, and he had to flee. That would explain him being with the smugglers. He paid them to bring him over with the cargo.”
“He could have paid them to do that if he was a spy, too. That is no proof. Anthony, this is awful.” She looked back down at the man. “We cannot let him run about free in England, no matter how much compassion we might feel for him.”
“I don’t think he is going to run about anywhere, at least not anytime soon.”
Their patient did look undeniably helpless at the moment. Camilla wavered. It seemed inhuman to give him up to the authorities, as weak and ill as he was right now. If they turned him in, whoever had tried to kill him before would know exactly where he was and could try again. And Anthony was right in saying that the magistrate would be of little help and even less protection to the man. Oh, she wished that she could ask Benedict for his advice! She did not stop to question why she should rely so much on the opinion of a man she had met only a few days ago.
“There’s not even anything to arrest him for,” Anthony pointed out. “All we know that he has done is get attacked. So they might not even put him in jail. We would probably still be taking care of him at the house, only everyone would know about it.”
Anthony could see that he was making headway, so he went on in a wheedling voice, “Please, Milla. Let’s just see what happens, how he does. Right now, we’re not even sure he will survive to be turned in. And it may be that if he comes out of the fever, he will tell us all about himself and how he got to be here. There may be a perfectly safe explanation for his speaking French.”
“All right.” Camilla sighed and stood up. She had finished rebandaging the man’s wounds. “I have done all I can do for him. That paste may help the wounds. He will need to take this draft periodically, though, for his fever. Can you tend to him? I can’t be missing all day, or everyone will wonder. Especially Benedict.”
Anthony nodded. “Yes. I will row you over to the mainland, then come back here and sit with him today. I’ll just lock the door to my bedroom and put it out that I am ill. Will you come back later, when the tide is low?”
“Yes. I will sneak away this afternoon to check on him.” She sighed, casting a last look at the man on the floor. “Promise that you will keep yourself armed when you are sitting with him?”
Her cousin rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Camilla! The man is so weak he can barely lift a hand. What do you think he could do to me?”
“I don’t know,” Camilla snapped back. “I just know that he is perhaps French, perhaps a spy—and that no one knows anything about his being here except you and I. It is a dangerous situation. If you won’t have the sense to be careful, then I shall have—”
“All right, all right…” Anthony playfully laid his hand across her mouth, chuckling. “I promise I will always be armed around him. And I will watch him like a hawk. I have no desire to let a French spy loose in the country, either. Now, come.” He curled his arm around her shoulders and began to steer her toward the door. “We had better get you back to the house.”
* * *
AS SOON AS they reached the house, Camilla hurried to her bedroom, while Anthony went to the kitchen and his room to gather supplies for his day on Keep Island. Camilla was disappointed to find that Benedict was not in the room, for she had hoped that she would be able to slip back into bed unnoticed.
Instead, she dressed and went downstairs to the dining room. She hated having to lie to Benedict, and she wanted to get the story over with as soon as possible. She paused at the doorway, looking in, and was relieved to see that he was breakfasting alone. Pasting on a smile, she sailed into the room.
“Good morning, Benedict.”
He turned at her words and jumped up, his brows drawing together fiercely. “Where the devil have you been? I was beginning to worry.”
His words brought her up short. She had braced herself for his curiosity, but not for worry.
“You mustn’t,” she replied. “I was with Anthony.”
He cast her a speaking look. “Oh, that relieves my mind greatly.”
Camilla chuckled. “Anthony is quite protective of me.”
“I am sure.” Benedict pulled out Camilla’s chair for her in an ungracious manner and waved to her to sit down. “Where were you?”
“We went out for an early-morning tramp about the estate. We often do.” Camilla could not bring herself to meet his gaze as she told him her fib, so she was glad for the distraction of the footman bringing her a plate of food from the sideboard.
“Without telling me? Rather cavalier attitude for a wife, don’t you think?” he asked softly.
Camilla glanced at him oddly. She leaned closer and whispered, “But I am not really your wife, am I?”
For a moment, he looked a little taken aback, but then he, too, leaned forward and whispered back, “We agreed to make it look real. Otherwise, you will make a slip.”
“I will!” Camilla retorted. “Never you, of course.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her and sat back in his chair and returned to eating. For the next few moments, the room was filled with a heavy silence.
The strained quiet was beginning to weigh on Camilla’s nerves when Benedict leaned forward again and whispered, “Don’t you think your dressing gown is, ah, somewhat casual attire for a walk around the estate?”
Camilla glanced up at him, startled, and met his bland gaze. She could feel her cheeks growing warm. “How did you know—”
“I was looking out the window—keeping an eye out for you, you see—and I saw you and Anthony returning,” he explained.
Camilla struggled to keep the guilt out of her face. She tried to remember the exact view from her bedroom window. He couldn’t see as far as the ocean, so he would not have seen her and Anthony dock the boat.
“Well, uh…you see, something had happened. That’s why Anthony came to get me. He needed help.” She was seized with inspiration. “Medical help.”
“One would think a doctor would have been a more likely person to fetch than you,” he offered mildly.
“Oh, no, it was old Nan Gandy. The widow of one of my grandfather’s tenants. She lives in a little cottage on the other side of the woods. She was sick, and she would never see a doctor. Not even if Anthony brought him out there. She fears doctors and is convinced that they are more likely to kill her than heal her. She would never trust anyone but my grandmother to give her a potion. Grandmama was well-known locally, you see, as a healer. She knew a good bit about herbs, and she always took care of the servants and the tenants. Old Nan believes I inherited her gift, though in truth I only inherited her medicine bag and her recipes.”
“I see. So Anthony was there visiting her at dawn and discovered that she was ill and came to fetch you?”
“Oh, no.” Trust him to immediately latch onto the flaw in her story. “Old Nan’s great-nephew came to fetch me. He just, uh, happened to meet Anthony. Anthony, you see, had been out for an early-morning walk. He likes to do that. And Anthony told him he would bring me over to their cottage.”
“You must be very devoted to your tenants, that they know they can rouse you from your bed at dawn to tend to them.”
“Normally they would not have, of course, but she had turned quite ill. Feverish. She was out of her head with it. They were rather frightened.”
“Ah. Time was of the essence.”
Camilla nodded. It occurred to her as soon as she said it that she had worked herself into an untenable position with her story. If the family had rushed here at the crack of dawn to seek her aid, the natural thing for her to do would have been to ride a horse over to old Nan’s cottage, not to walk. She wondered if Benedict would see the contradiction in it. He did not say anything, but his steady, silent regard made her nervous.
“We walked,” she offered, “because it really isn’t that far and—and the woods are rather dense. It would not be much faster by horseback, what with the time it would take to wake the grooms and get a horse saddled and all.”
“Of course.”
Camilla realized that she was babbling. It would have been better to say nothing than to try to explain something that had not even been questioned. Usually she was better at carrying off a story than this. But she found it extremely difficult to look into Benedict’s face and lie.
She wished, with a sudden, fierce pang, that she could tell him the truth. She felt confused and uncertain, and she was very afraid that Anthony had gotten in over his head with this adventure. Like Anthony, she wanted to protect the injured man, to keep his would-be killer from finding him, but, on the other hand, she was afraid that they might be aiding and abetting an enemy of England. Then, there was also danger from the man who had attacked him. What if he was out searching for him? What if he found out where they were hiding him and attacked him again? She thought of Anthony sitting alone with the man over in the ruins, and her heart squeezed within her chest.
Something of what she felt must have showed in her face, for Benedict said suddenly, “What? What’s the matter?”
She looked at him, surprised to see worry in his eyes. She wanted quite badly to tell him her troubles, to lay the whole burden on his ample shoulders and let him deal with Anthony and the wounded stranger and the man who had tried to kill him. The idea of resting her head on his chest and pouring out the whole story sounded very appealing. She could almost feel his arms going around her, could almost hear his deep voice telling her not to worry, that he would take care of it.
Camilla sighed. She could not do that. She was growing more and more to believe that Anthony had been right, that Benedict was an excise man. It was clear to her that he was not the common thief she had at first believed him to be. His speech, his manners, his very bearing, bespoke a gentleman—not to mention the story of his fiancé and her rejection when he was displaced by a new heir. He had not received the inheritance, of course, but it showed that he was a member of a family with enough property to dispose of. So why would the son of a gentleman, even an impecunious one, go along with her thinking him a thief, or even participate in her charade? Perhaps need of money had made him that desperate…or perhaps he was engaged in some secret endeavor, such as chasing smugglers.
Her problem, she told herself, was that she had begun to believe her own story. Sometimes she found herself actually thinking of Benedict as her husband. It made her erroneously believe that she could trust him, could count on him. She did not dare do that. She could not hand over the fate of the stranger, much less that of her own cousin, into his hands. If she let him in on Anthony’s secret, he would find out about the smuggling, too, and then the whole family would be in terrible trouble. She could not let that happen simply because of her own weakness.
So when he looked at her with concern on his features and asked her what was the matter, Camilla squared her shoulders and forced a smile to her face.
“Nothing’s the matter,” she told Benedict brightly. “Nothing at all.”
* * *
SHE WAS LYING. Benedict scowled as he urged his horse forward. The horse responded to his expert handling, as well as to the anger surging in him, and fairly flew down the road.
It would have been obvious to him that Camilla was lying even if he had not already seen her go across to Keep Island with her cousin. She had been unable to look him in the eye, and her voice had been rapid and nervous. Explanations that he had not even asked for had come tumbling from her lips. She had been lying about where she’d gone and why. And she had been lying when she told him that there was nothing wrong. Why? Why wouldn’t she trust him? Confide in him?
He had wanted to press her on the issue, but some remnant of good sense had stopped him. He could not appear too interested in Anthony or what was going on at Chevington Park. She thought him an uninvolved party,
a stranger to whatever was going on. He could not risk making her suspicious of him by appearing to be too concerned or too disbelieving of her story.
However, it galled him that she had not turned to him—worse than that, that she regarded him as someone with whom she must dissemble. He was certain that he could help her, if only she would tell him what was the matter. Benedict disregarded the fact that she had no idea who he really was or how much influence and power he had. The point was, she had not asked him for help.
He was in a foul mood, and had been all morning, from the moment he saw her sneak over to the island with her cousin.
Benedict would have preferred to explore Keep Island, to see if he could find what had drawn Camilla and Anthony there. However, he already had an obligation to meet Sedgewick. The two had arranged the meeting before he went to Chevington Park with Camilla, so that Sedgewick could be apprised of whatever Benedict had discovered at the Park. It could not be easily canceled.
When he reached the clearing where he and Sedgewick had agreed to meet, his friend was already there, sitting on a flat rock, waiting for him. As Benedict dismounted from his horse and tied it to a tree branch, Sedgewick strode across the clearing, smiling at him.
He greeted Benedict with a cheerful “Hallo.”
Benedict mumbled an unintelligible reply.
Sedgewick raised his eyebrows a little, but forged ahead. “The masquerade still intact?”
“Yes.” Benedict wondered if Jermyn had heard in the village that he was supposed to be married to Camilla. Knowing the way small towns gossiped, he suspected that it was common knowledge in Edgecombe that Miss Ferrand was married to him, not just engaged. But he was not sure that Sedgewick, being an outsider, would have heard such news. He found himself hoping that he had not.
Jermyn alone would know for a fact that the marriage was a pretense and that therefore Camilla’s honor was a shambles now. Of course, Jermyn was not the sort who would spread it about; there was no one whom Benedict trusted more. Still, Benedict wished that no one knew how thoroughly her reputation was at risk.
