Speechless, Serena merely stared at him, though laughter seemed to be rising up from her stomach. Perhaps she was hysterical.
“About your smuggler, though, you need to involve the magistrate, or the soldiers, or both. You can’t have armed strangers running tame about your home.”
“I know, and I ought to inform against them, only first I need to get rid of whatever they’re hiding in the cellar, or Braithwaite will get the blame.”
He veered across toward the orchard, which was a short cut to the castle from this part of the wood. “Well, let’s go and see, now. I can help your servants shift the contraband elsewhere—or tip it into the sea, which might be better.”
She stopped in her tracks at the orchard door, catching his arm. “No, no, you can’t come to the castle!”
“I can’t?”
“I’m not allowed to receive male visitors, for my only chaperones are my sisters, Mrs. Gaskell the housekeeper, and Miss Grey the governess. In fact,” she confided, “I’m not meant to receive any visitors at all. I’m not even meant to be outdoors.”
Opening the door, he paused, frowning down at her. “Because you danced with Dax?”
She sailed past him. “Because my engagement to Sir Arthur is ended. No one can hold Dax responsible for that. It is my fault.”
“Sounds like Sir Arthur’s fault to me,” the artist said disgustedly, his long, easy strides catching up with her. “I think you had a narrow escape and are much better off being not engaged to him.”
“Well, to be frank, I have felt rather relieved,” she confided, strolling along the path. Then her breath caught. There was something too comforting about the orchard walls, or perhaps it was the artist’s large presence. “Oh drat, I’m doing it again.”
“What?”
“Blabbering,” she said ruefully.
“I shall be discreet enough for both of us,” he assured her. “Our main problem is your smugglers.”
“Well surely they won’t come back now they know I’ve seen them?”
He made a noncommittal noise. “Is there direct access to the rest of the castle from the cellar?”
“No, it’s quite inconvenient, actually. Braithwaite keeps talking about moving the wine cellar elsewhere, but so far, he hasn’t. The only entrance is through the door in the old courtyard.”
“So as long as your staff lock the rest of the doors, you should be safe?”
“Yes,” she agreed, “although it must be said they lock the cellar door, too.”
His frown deepened. “Then, our smugglers have at least one key. Serena, you have to go and stay somewhere else. Get your own people to move the contraband if you won’t allow me, and then report this to—”
“I’m not leaving,” she interrupted. “This is my home. Besides, if they haven’t murdered my servants, why should they go out of their way to murder me?”
“Because the servants don’t chase them through the woods?” he suggested.
“Well,” she said, allowing him the point. “I expect they won’t come back, for they’ll surely expect to be confronted by excisemen, soldiers, and magistrates.”
“I suppose it depends if they were merely leaving brandy for his lordship or up to something else entirely.”
“What else could they possibly be up to?”
“I have no idea, but this behavior does not seem natural for Blackhaven smugglers.”
She mulled that over and had to concede he was right. “Then, if you would be so good as to consult with Smuggler Jack on what is going on, I shall investigate the cellar.”
“Do you have a very large footman employed at the castle?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Take him with you,” the artist advised.
“Perhaps you’d lend him your stick?” she said innocently.
He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t mock me, madam, or I might be forced to kiss you again.”
“You can’t kiss me again!” she all but gasped. “I’m the Earl’s sister.”
“You were always the Earl’s sister.”
She dropped her gaze before the dangerous glint in his. “You are most improper, sir.”
“I suspect that’s why you like me.”
“I’m not perfectly sure I do like you,” she retorted.
“Well, take my advice and don’t go around kissing men you don’t like.”
She glared at him in outrage until she saw the laughter in his eyes. “You are impossible,” she said crossly. “Do you take nothing seriously?”
“Actually, yes, but you don’t pay attention when I’m serious.”
His care for her safety was genuine, at least. Touched, she assured him she had a household full of devoted retainers. “And I’m sure Miss Grey could reduce twenty armed men to obedience,” she added. “They’d probably be improving their letters before they escaped.”
He laughed, and she thought there might be a hint of admiration in his smiling eyes. “You’re not afraid of anything, are you, Serena?”
“How can you say that when you’ve just seen me terrified?”
“It was very temporary, and understandable to the point of being necessary to survival.” He took an old-fashioned pocket watch from his coat and glanced it before giving it a shake. “Wretched thing’s stopped again,” he said, shoving it back in his pocket. “You don’t know what the time is, do you? I have a hopeful worthy wanting to sit for his portrait at nine o’clock.”
“It can only be around eight,” Serena guessed, “but the gardeners will be abroad soon. You should go.”
“The gardeners are mostly used to me.”
She regarded him. “You are quite…insidious, aren’t you?”
“You make me sound like a plague.”
“I’m not perfectly sure you aren’t. This castle was in perfect order when I left in the spring, and within a few months, it’s become rife with smugglers and artists and I don’t know who else. Bailiffs, probably, looking for you!”
“Don’t say that,” he begged.
“Are they still after you?” she asked with more sympathy.
“He sat on my doorstep all day yesterday, but I crept in when he left, and out before he came back.”
“Is that why you’re here so early?”
He smiled into her eyes, depriving her of breath. “No, that’s because I wanted to see you.”
“Stop that,” she said severely. “And go and paint your worthy portrait. Goodbye!”
Before he could have any chance of repeating his outrageous behavior of yesterday, she hurried down the path toward the bottom door. He didn’t follow.
However, her triumph was short-lived, quickly drowned in relentless disappointment. Truly, she would have liked him to kiss her again, whatever resolutions she’d given herself away from his company. And she should, in all decency, have thanked him for his support against the armed smuggler, for she was sure it was his presence that had scared the villain away. As well as being curiously necessary to her at the time.
She paused and turned back. He still stood where she’d left him, the familiar satchel over one shoulder, the stick still by his side. She lifted her hand in a wave and smiled with relief when he waved back.
With gladness now, she began to run down the rest of the hill, just as the bottom door opened and a large man walked in.
She skidded to a halt.
“Morning, m’lady.”
It spoke volumes for her earlier fright that it took her so long to recognize an old childhood friend.
“Why, Jem! How are you?”
“Very well, m’lady. Good to see you home.”
“It’s good to be home,” she assured him, and it was true, despite her annoying confinement. “How is your mother?”
“Keeping busy. She asked to be remembered to you, should I happen upon you.”
“I’ll call on her,” Serena promised.
He smiled and raised his rake in salute. “She’d like that.”
Jem, whom she’d on
ce beaten at tag, had grown into a big, strapping young man. “Jem?” she called after him. “When you’ve finished here, could you help me with something else?”
Chapter Three
Lord Tamar tried to find the best in his sitter. A wealthy mill owner, he had a strong, determined face, and if there was also ruthlessness in the set of his lips that could turn quite easily to cruelty, there was challenge in that. Tamar was normally quite happy to paint the middle-aged, the old, or the ugly, who were often more interesting than the young and handsome. But today, he had no interest in any painting except the one in his studio that he’d begun yesterday. Lady Serena Conway.
But this was his bread and butter and he had to force himself to go through the motions. It was not his most productive hour, but he did make some progress and made a hasty arrangement to come back two days later, before he departed and strode homeward.
Rivers, the bum bailiff, was marching up and down the shore road, presumably to keep warm. When the man’s back was to him, Tamar hastened after him and dived into Smuggler Jack’s cottage.
Several children were wrestling on the floor, making such a racket that he didn’t see how their father could possibly sleep through it. But, stretched out on the floor before the stove, Jack seemed to be managing.
“Morning Mr. Tamar!” called one of the children, half-emerging from the pile on the floor, a greeting echoed in a more muffled fashion by his siblings. “Can you wrestle Wee Jack, can you?”
“Right now, I couldn’t wrestle the tiniest Jack who ever lived. Is your father sick?”
“No, he’s resting his eyes. Will I wake him for you?”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Tamar said.
The child pulled himself out of the sibling pile, rather like a man dragging himself from a swamp, and shook his father roughly.
Instead of the angry, or even violet reaction Tamar expected—for he could smell the alcohol from where he stood—Jack merely opened one eye.
“What?” he demanded.
“Mr. Tamar wants you,” the child said cheerfully and threw himself back on top of his siblings.
“Who?” Jack said, hauling himself into a sitting position and shaking himself like a dog before peering owlishly around the cottage and discovering Tamar. “Ah, it’s you. Just leave your things at the back, out of harm’s way.”
“Thanks, Jack. I wanted a word with you, too, if you’re not too bosky.”
Jack seemed to think about it, then shook his head. “Slept it off,” he pronounced. He raised his voice. “Oi! Go and play outside!”
Somehow, the pile of children fell apart and bolted out of the doorway with cries of careless farewell flung at their father and Tamar.
“They’re lively,” Tamar observed.
“Weren’t you at the same age?”
“Lively, yes, though I seem to remember it a lot more ill-natured. Jack, do smugglers use the castle to store contraband?”
Jack blinked at his bluntness. “How would I know that?” he demanded, getting to his feet and throwing himself on to a chair at the table instead.
“Jack. I need to know.”
Jack scratched his head. “Cargo gets landed at Braithwaite Cove, especially when the family’s not there, but you’d be stupid to leave it at the castle—any more than a couple of kegs for his lordship, that is. Stupid to leave it anywhere. It’d be gone too quick.”
“You mean it’s distributed immediately?”
“Long-standing customers,” Jack explained.
“And are the—er—free traders hereabout long-standing, too? Same gentlemen as always?”
“Well, we had a bit of trouble some months back, nearly brought the soldiers down on all of us. And Captain Alban’s ships passed by a few weeks ago, but they’re long gone.”
“And now?” Tamar pursued.
Again, Jack hesitated, Clearly, it went against the grain to talk about anything in the present.
“I wouldn’t ask,” Tamar said. “But something’s going on at the castle and someone connected with it threatened Lady Serena.”
“Threatened her?” Jack repeated quickly. “You mean to scare her off? Discourage her from meddling?”
“Well, frankly, that would be bad enough. You can’t go around scaring innocent people. But in this case, no, he attacked her with a knife and chased her when she ran. If I hadn’t chanced upon her—or if there had been more than one of them around at the time—I’m pretty sure she’d be dead.”
He spoke with deliberate brutality, because he wanted Jack to face the truth of who he was covering for. But whatever his words did to Jack, Tamar’s own blood ran cold.
“You can’t go round killing earls’ daughters,” Jack said severely.
“No, you can’t,” Tamar agreed. “So you see why I’m worried and need to know.”
Jack tugged at his hair. “There was a strange boat landed at Braithwaite Cove night before last. Landed several barrels. But no one bought from them. No one who buys from the usual gentlemen knew anything about them.”
“So, they are storing them at the castle. Why would they do that?”
“Waiting until supply’s low, then undercut us? I don’t know. Unless they’re Braithwaite’s own men? But then they wouldn’t try and kill his sister, would they?”
“I would hope not,” Tamar said faintly. “So you’ve seen and heard nothing of these characters?”
Jack thought. “Not me, I haven’t. Maybe at the tavern, though. There’s always strangers, there. I’ll spread the word, so they know they’re not welcome.”
“Thanks, Jack. Let me know if you hear anything else?”
“Aye, I will.”
Tamar wasn’t convinced he would, but it was the best he could hope for at the moment. Nodding amiably at Jack, he walked to the door and peered out.
Beyond the children now playing tag with a gaggle of other urchins who’d appeared from nowhere, Rivers was strolling in the direction of the market.
Keeping a weather eye on him, Tamar called to Jack’s children. “Think you can distract that gentleman so that he doesn’t see me going home?”
“Aye, easy!” came the reply, and while Tamar stepped nimbly along the street, the crowd of children roared in the opposite direction. When, fitting his key, he glanced after them, they’d surrounded the bewildered bailiff and seemed to be spinning him in circles.
Grinning, Tamar let himself inside and bolted the door behind him. As he threw his coat on the floor as usual, he caught sight of the two portraits he’d begun yesterday, and smiled. What he really wanted to do was throw himself in front of them and paint until the light vanished. But he needed to get Rivers off his back, and to do that, he needed to sell more pictures.
He’d had a run of sales at the Blackhaven gallery where he exhibited some of his paintings, but foolishly, he’d sent the money back to Tamar Abbey to feed his siblings—who were probably all sponging off his sister Christianne anyway. He knew he should go home and see what was happening there. In fact, he’d fully intended to do so this week, only now there was Serena to paint. After that, he would go. If he could stay out of debtor’s prison.
Impatiently, he walked the length of his studio, looking for pictures to take to the gallery to sell. The trouble was, he never really considered any of them finished. Although there was the one of the harbor…
He pulled one landscape back from the wall, to pick out the harbor scene beneath. It was no longer there. Mildly irritated, he looked through all his other paintings in search of it. He scowled, trying to remember if he’d already sold it or given it away while he was foxed. Perhaps he’d already taken it to the gallery. He needed a damned assistant to take care of such things. Which would just be another expense he couldn’t afford.
Shrugging, he picked up four landscapes at random and wrapped them in the old blanket he used for such purposes. Outside, the children were now marching up the street with the bailiff, engaging him in conversation. He seemed to have softened slightly.<
br />
Tamar shrugged his coat back on and waited until the bailiff was escorted in the other direction. Then he nipped outside, locked the door, and sprinted the opposite way along the row, taking the back lanes up to High Street.
Oddly enough, shameful as the whole thing might be, he imagined the hide and seek game with the bailiff would be a lot more fun if Serena was with him.
*
After luncheon with her sisters and Miss Grey, Serena extracted the wine cellar key from the housekeeper.
“Lord Braithwaite wanted me to count the bottles of a particular wine for him,” she lied blithely, “and I shall be writing to him today.” After all, there was no point in frightening her or the rest of the household—at least not until she knew what the devil was going on.
The housekeeper removed a key from her belt. “Be sure to give me it back at once, if you please. For Paton has mislaid his key and this is now the only one we have.”
“How did he mislay it?” Serena asked at once.
“Who knows?” Mrs. Gaskell said tartly. “If we did, we could find it again.”
“True,” Serena said as if she didn’t care, and tripped off to the courtyard with the key.
Paton had been butler at the castle for all of Serena’s life, and she didn’t seriously imagine he could be in league with this set of smugglers, nor that he wouldn’t have reported any theft of his key. But it did seem extremely suspicious that his key had vanished just when the strangers appeared to have acquired one.
Jem was waiting for her in the old courtyard, carrying a lantern already lit. His large presence was something of a comfort as she unlocked the door, though her heart still beat like a rabbit’s, and every hair on her neck seemed to stand up in expectation of some attack.
She threw the door wide.
Nothing happened.
The cellar was dark and quiet. As it should have been.
By the light of the lantern, they descended the old, worn stone steps. At first glance, the cellar looked as it always did, as Paton and Braithwaite between them kept it. Serena began to think she’d dreamed the delivery the night after her arrival, although she’d definitely been awake when she’d chased the stranger into the wood and faced his dagger.
Blackhaven Brides: Books 5 - 8 Page 3
