Devonshire

by Lynne Connolly

  Chapter Seventeen

  GERVASE STOOD IN THE hall, about to take his leave to stay in his parents’ house in Exeter. “Are you sure you won’t come?” he asked Richard.

  Richard smiled and glanced at me. “In a few days. I want to make sure young Skerrit is out of any danger.”

  He addressed Martha, who stood behind us. “If it’s no trouble? If you’re overwhelmed with preparations, I can always go today.”

  “Not at all,” Martha replied, thin lipped. She would never turn anyone from her door, however inconvenient she found it.

  I kissed Gervase on the cheek and he smiled, returned the salute, and went out to his waiting chaise.

  “The mantua-maker is waiting,” Martha reminded me.

  After a rueful look at Richard that made him laugh, I followed her upstairs. My trousseau took up more and more of my time—I had never owned so many garments in my life before. The seamstress came every day, and the mantua-maker was here for a final visit to ensure my wedding gown was exactly as it should be.

  WHEN I WAS BACK TO myself, dressed in a simple gown, ordinary again, my attendants left me and I went downstairs to see if I could find Richard.

  He was in the small drawing room, talking to Tom, who looked tired, drawn-faced and white. I didn’t think he’d had much sleep recently.

  Richard seemed calm, reasonable, but he wouldn’t relent. “I have apartments in several cities abroad that you are welcome to make use of, but I don’t think it will come to that,” I heard him say when I entered. Looking round to see who it was, he smiled in greeting, but continued to talk to Tom. “You must have some relatives you can pay a diplomatic visit to.”

  “I don’t see why I should leave the high ground to them,” Tom said, his mouth set in a mulish line. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Richard glanced with me, his expression serious and concerned. “Tom, you sought this man out, you attacked him in front of witnesses. And if a man is stabbed in this country, the man who stabbed him is automatically convicted of murder, whatever the circumstances. Accidental or not, you are to blame. You’re in grave danger.” I caught my hand to my chest. I had no idea that was the case.

  Tom stared at Richard, amazed. “There was no murder.”

  “There is strong evidence you’re right, not least because he fell on his own knife, but you may find the procedure of proving that difficult,” Richard pursued. He tried hard to get Tom to see sense, but I didn’t know if it was for Tom’s sake or for mine. Any matter that concerned Tom would also reflect on me. I decided I didn’t care. If he managed to persuade Tom to discretion, then I’d be much happier to leave my old friend while I left with Richard for my bride-trip. Norrice Terry was a magistrate—he could help in this.

  “I won’t go,” said Tom mulishly, reverting to the language of childhood, and the sulky expression to match it. I’d have laughed had the situation not been so serious.

  To my surprise, Richard shrugged. “I’ve done my best.”

  “Can’t you send word to the Cawntons again?” I crossed the room to his side. Tom glanced up, frowning, but he didn’t say anything.

  “No, not this time,” Richard told me. “If I interfere again they might think I’m taking it personally, that I want to take a hand in it, and then matters might escalate far more than they need. No, discretion is the better answer.”

  “Do you know these men?” Tom walked across the room to face Richard.

  He shook his head. “No, of course not, but if you can remember it, I was involved in a small incident myself when I first arrived. They sent word to me they would leave me alone, but it was nothing like as serious as your misadventure.”

  Tom accepted his explanation, but didn’t look pleased. “I’m sorry, my lord, but I propose to see this thing out. I bid you good day.” With that formal salutation, he left the room.

  I glanced back at Richard and he grimaced, shaking his head in defeat, so I hurried after Tom. “Let me walk with you.” I might persuade him where others could not.

  Tom waited while I fetched a cloak and hat, and, his mood restored somewhat, we set out arm in arm for Peacock’s.

  Tom breathed the air in deeply. “There’s nothing like Devonshire air.” He showed all the signs of relief that he’d got through a difficult interview.

  “Spoken like a true squire,” I teased.

  “Well, and isn’t that what I am? And proud of it. No, these scoundrels won’t see me off my own land.”

  “Richard only suggested a discreet withdrawal for a small time.” Once he regained his temper, always volatile but usually overcome by his good sense, he would come around, I was sure.

  Walking through one of our orchards, I reached up to drag the branch of a nearby tree, and let it thrash up again to disturb its neighbours, a trick I’d been particularly fond of when we were children.

  Tom smiled at the memory I brought back for him, but he wasn’t distracted. “If I left, it would seem like a victory for them. My father feels the same way, you know. He regrets what happened, but he doesn’t regret who it happened to.”

  I sighed. “It’s not the authorities I’m afraid of. It’s the smugglers.”

  “They won’t dare start anything with us.” He sounded more confident than I was feeling. “Don’t worry, Rose, I’ll be there to dance at your wedding.” He didn’t say this in a particularly cheerful tone, but I couldn’t pursue it, as we had reached the end of the orchard and had to climb the stile into the field beyond.

  Once over, I paused to study the field, a gentle slope of green pasture with a wide expanse of clear blue sky above, meeting in a hard line in the distance, fringed at the left side with trees, earth meeting air. Every morning this was as fresh as a newborn baby, memoryless, meeting the world with new moods, new expectations.

  I breathed in the sea-scented air. “I shall miss this.” I linked my arm with Tom’s again.

  “What?” This view was so familiar to him he’d never even noticed it, but I, who would lose it soon, was making the most of it while it was still there for me.

  I waved my free hand around me. “All this.”

  Tom gazed around. “Oh, yes. I wouldn’t like to live anywhere else but here. I’d feel like a fish out of water in some other place.”

  “I don’t know how I’ll feel.” Richard had become my home, but I’d come back here from time to time to renew that part of me which had been here before him, and try to keep it, for my own sake.

  “I’ve often thought it’s more unfair for women,” said Tom, as we strolled across the damp, soft field. “They have to follow their husbands wherever they are, whatever they do.”

  “Some don’t. Some people live completely separate lives after the birth of the heir. They even set up their own households.”

  “Most do. It’s only the high born who can afford to live as two households instead of one.”

  We walked for a while in silence, listening to the sounds of our county, the seagulls above us, shrieking above the sounds of the birds in the woods we were approaching. I would miss this. “It’s been a bit frantic recently. This is much better. I should have come up here before.”

  “Rose?”

  “Yes, Tom?”

  He stopped short of the gate into the wood and turned me to face him. “I’ve wanted to talk to you about that.” He studied my face. “Are you quite sure about all this? When I heard your brother had inherited the earldom, I thought you’d stay in Yorkshire, and I might never see you again. Then you decided to come home, and I thought things might settle down. Then I heard you’d decided to marry Lord Strang, a man with a dreadful reputation, and I was worried. I must say he seems a better man than I’d feared, but he’s a lord, a member of a world we’ve never even considered. He’s sophisticated and worldly. Are you sure you want all this? Really sure? “

  My heart went out to Tom, that he should care so much for me. He was as dear to me as my own brothers. With friends like these, I need never be alone.

/>   “How can I be sure of anything, Tom?” I leant my forehead against his, an old childhood habit of ours. “I’m as sure of Richard as I can be. As for the rest, no, I’m worried and I’m nervous, but I must try. I can’t let the world pass me by any more. I must go out to meet it while I have the chance.”

  Tom withdrew and we opened the gate and went into the wood that marked the start of his father’s estate. “I hope you’re happy in your new life. For myself, I can’t imagine being happy anywhere else.”

  Gradually, a chill seeped through to my bones, and the lingering dampness crept around me. The arching branches above us cut out the sun. As we walked further up the path, I became aware of the hush in the wood. The birdsong from the field had ceased, and there was none of the usual rustlings of the wildlife amongst the debris beneath our feet. We stopped at the same time, aware that something was different, not quite right.

  Tom saw something behind me, and the expression on his face changed to alarm. “Rose, run!”

  Without looking back, I took to my heels.

  I raced towards the gate, back into the open, back to my home to fetch help, but it was too late. Someone behind me caught my heel, and I fell headlong into the damp earth, kicking to try to free myself from the powerful grasp.

  The man pinned my arms to my sides, and fastened them firmly behind my back, then someone else bound my ankles together. I did the only thing left to me. I screamed, as loudly and as long as I could, but a filthy hand clamped over my mouth. When I tried desperately to bite, the hand was removed and a stinking rag tied around my face, choking off my cries. I struggled, but I couldn’t prevent being thrown over a burly shoulder, where I could only squirm, like a freshly caught fish in a net.

  The man took me back to where Tom lay. Blood trickled from a wound on his head. I was terribly afraid they had killed him, but he was bound in the same way I was, trussed like a cut of meat ready for the spit. He must be alive, or they wouldn’t have bothered to tie him.

  The fight was getting me nowhere, and sapped my strength to no purpose. When I stopped struggling, the man who carried me smacked my backside. “That’s better. You can’t get away. We won’t hurt you if you behave yourself.” He sounded almost cheerful. I could have spat in his face. I still would, given half a chance.

  They carried us to the edge of the wood, to a farm track. There, a cart waited, and Tom and I were thrown unceremoniously into it, while the four men who had taken us jumped up behind. We started off.

  I lay quietly and studied the men I could see. I didn’t recognise any of them. They must come from outside our area, although their accent was distinctively Devonshire. One of them saw me staring and reached for a sack. He lifted my shoulders and pulled the sack over my head. I saw no more. I started to count as a desperate way of marking our progress.

  I reached seven thousand five hundred and six when we stopped. By now the initial shock had worn off, and fear had me in its claws. I’d thought at first they were footpads, but they’d made no effort to search us or steal anything. I still wore my ruby ring, the first thing they would have taken if they’d been common thieves.

  That only left one thing. These men were smugglers and this must be some sort of reprisal for Tom’s actions. My fear escalated to terror, but I swallowed it down. It was a luxury I couldn’t afford to indulge. I couldn’t hear a sound from where Tom lay, still as death.

  We were lifted off the cart and into a building, up some wooden stairs and into a small space. The difference in the sounds of shuffling feet told me that. I had no idea where we could be but I guessed at an outlying barn of some kind. I remained as quiet as I could, aware my struggles would be useless against four large men. We were laid down and then a door closed.

  I LAY QUIETLY UNTIL sure we were alone, and then I managed to shrug the stinking sack from over my head. I lay for a while, breathing deeply. I felt sick, and I knew that with such a tight gag around my mouth if I actually vomited I could choke and suffocate. I lay still, the taste of filth in my mouth from that rag, until I’d settled my wayward stomach.

  I sprawled on floorboards in a room without windows, but light filtered in thinly from somewhere, because I could see Tom’s leaden body on the floor in the dim light. By squirming like a snake, I made my way slowly across the floor, inched over to him, and laid my forehead against his in an effort to see if he was still alive. It was a travesty of the friendly gesture of so short a time before.

  His forehead was warm, and now I was closer I heard his uneven breathing. I closed my eyes in a short prayer of thanks that he was alive. I rolled over on my side and looked around.

  We were in a small room with bare floorboards, and no furniture. A thin stream of light came from several points high up on the wall, dazzling my eyes at the pinpoints where they entered, diffusing into fitful gleams and a dull, all over light below, where we lay. The walls were rough plastered, but the ceiling was a wooden one, and seemed too high in proportion to the walls.

  I assumed we lay in a barn or cottage somewhere, not too far away from the wood where we had been taken, perhaps even Darkwater itself, although I doubted that. It would be far safer to take us somewhere more remote. Besides, once Richard knew I was gone he would tear Darkwater apart in an effort to find me and they would know that.

  I couldn’t think what they meant to do with us, or why they had taken us. I’d assumed they would give Tom a beating for his part in the unfortunate death the other day, but apart from that blow to the head, they didn’t seem to have touched him. Did they mean to hurt us? Why would they want to take us otherwise? My head began to ache.

  I don’t know how long I lay there, stifled by that loathsome gag. My hands tingled, and then went numb under the tight bonds. Then I heard a sound, a groan from Tom.

  He opened his eyes and saw me, then instinctively tried to lift his hands to his head, groaning again when he found they were bound behind him. “Rose?”

  I made a sound and his eyes widened when he saw I was gagged.

  I realised that the fact they had not gagged him meant they were not afraid anyone would overhear us. Perhaps an isolated cottage, then. “God, my head hurts.” He tried to flex his arms, but they had tied them just above the elbow. He blinked and turned his head from side to side gingerly, cried out when he felt the spot where they had hit him. “We’ve been taken?” I nodded.

  “Rose, turn around and get really close. I’ll see if I can’t loosen that filthy thing with my teeth.”

  I did as I was told. “The knot is only a simple one, I can manage this.”

  Tom tugged as he tried to loosen my gag and I felt pressure at the back of my head. He worked at it for some time. I lay passive, waiting. I might even have let a tear or two drop, but I was determined not to give way to them. I blinked them back.

  Eventually, the tight pressure around my mouth loosened, and I could spit away the rag and move my jaw to get some feeling back. I turned around so I faced Tom. I must have looked a fright, my hair wild around my face, and I must assume, a red line where the gag had been, for he closed his eyes briefly, and his face contorted. “I’m sorry, Rose, I’m sorry.” Despair etched his voice.

  I coughed, and although my mouth was dry, I found I could talk. “Never mind, Tom. These people are brutes. It’s their fault, not yours.”

  “But if I hadn’t had a hand in killing that man...”

  “You can’t repine on that. We have to think, to see what can be done.” He nodded, seeing the sense of that. “Tom, you did well with my gag. Do you think you could do as well with my other bonds?”

  I turned my back on him again, and worked my way up so he could see the ropes fastening my arms and hands. “No,” I heard him say. “The knots are much better. I’d need a knife to get through these.”

  I shuffled back down and turned to face him again. “I don’t think there’s much point shouting or they would have gagged us both.”

  He agreed. “There might be someone outside on guard, waitin
g for us to call out. We should stay quiet, and try to think what to do. There might be a chance,” he said. “Rose—look inside my coat. There’s a small pocket there, where I keep my knife.”

  Heartened, I nuzzled my way inside his coat, and found the pocket by touch. I used my teeth to pull it open, tearing the seam in the process. There was nothing inside. I went back up to where he waited, anxiously, and I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  He sighed. “They must have searched me.”

  “I don’t think they searched me.” I rolled on the floor and felt the pocket around my waist hard against my leg. I came back to Tom. “I still have my necessaire. There’s a small fruit knife in it.”

  “Where is it?” He tried to work his way down to my waist, wincing from the pain in his head, but then the door opened. We froze.

  The light from the open door blinded us at first, and we both lay squinting against it. Two men came in, followed by another who carried two chairs and another with a table and candles. The door closed. One of the men placed a chair against it and sat down heavily against our only way of escape. The first man sat. Even sitting, his presence was heavier, more commanding than the smugglers we had seen up to now, and I realised we must be getting close to the head of the gang. The man regarded us in silence, and we stared back.

  I broke the silence. “Cawnton.”

  He smiled. Most of his teeth were missing, which didn’t improve his appearance. “Miss Rosalind Golightly. Soon to be Lady Strang.”

  I replied, careful to keep all trace of a tremor out of my voice, deliberately speaking quietly so he couldn’t detect my fear. “Now the introductions are over are you going to let us go?”

  “I might.” His accent was also Devonshire, but not as pure as the men I’d heard earlier. He must have spent some time away from his home county. In the army, perhaps?

  “Why have you done this?” Tom demanded. “What do you want with us?”