Caught in a Cornish Scandal
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Eleanor Webster
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17
Chapter One
Rain stung Millicent Lansdowne’s cheeks. Wind sliced through the coarse seaman’s cloth of her borrowed shirt. Tangles of wet hair fell into her eyes, blinding her as she pulled on the oars. The darkness suited the enterprise and yet she longed for the merest sliver of a moon. The only relief from the gloom came from the intermittent flash of the lighthouse lamp shimmering across huge troughs of water and towering, omnipresent rocks.
Millie had lived on the Cornish coast most of her life, but had never smuggled. She’d never even considered it...until now.
The buffeting wind stole her breath so that she gulped at the air, panting with effort. The muscles in her arms cramped. Her hands ached as she clutched the oars, but she dared not pause even to flex her fingers for fear that her small vessel would be dashed against the jagged cliffs. She glanced apprehensively seawards. Somewhere, hidden behind the rough seas and salt spray, The Rising Dawn waited with its bounty of brandy.
Yesterday, the decision had felt less foolhardy. Yesterday, the weather had been better and the danger so much less immediate.
But this was necessary. Smuggling had served Cornwall and its people well in times of crisis. And this was a crisis.
Millie had accepted her own duty to marry a dull man twice her age, but she would not let her sister marry a man without morals or conscience. She would not. She had failed to keep her brother safe, but she would not, could not, fail Lil.
Clenching her teeth, she pulled back on the oars with renewed energy, shifting away from the rocks and towards the open sea. It was the flicker of movement that caught her attention. She paused briefly, peering at what seemed like an improbable hand waving from the sea’s belly. She hunkered forward, as though this slight shift would make her better able to see. She shouted, but her voice disappeared, drowned by the wind.
The lighthouse beam swung around. Again, she saw flailing arms, the frantic limbs silhouetted against the light.
She acted instinctively, sprawling across the gunnel as she pushed the oar out over the water. ‘Here! Grab on!’
The oar dipped, pulled by a heavy weight. She saw a man’s face, mouth open in a silent shout. He caught at her arm, gripping so tightly that she half feared she would be dragged into the sea. The boat sank into the trough, soaring up again on the crest of the next wave.
She clutched at wet cloth, flesh and muscled arms, pulling and tugging until the man floundered aboard. He tumbled to the boat’s bottom. For a moment, she could do nothing except pant, staring at the inert figure briefly outlined in the light’s glare.
Then the splintering crash of the waves jolted her into desperate action. With frantic energy, she pulled on the oars, fighting wind and current, inching away from the white-flecked foam of the crashing breakers.
But relief was a transitory, fleeting thing.
Even as she pulled clear of the cliff face, she felt the ship’s presence. The Rising Dawn was the stuff of legend; the smuggler’s ship that could outrun the fastest cutter. The ship’s transom towered above her, a black bulk, invisible save for a signal light which swayed with the sea’s movement. In the distance, one of the village boats scuttled back to shore, a small shadowy outline, disappearing fast into the wet darkness.
And then she was alone.
Her heart thundered. Her chest felt tight, unable to expand to properly breathe as she looked nervously upwards towards the deck. The torchlight moved, illuminating a single person, his craggy brows, nose and the folds of his face deeply shadowed.
‘Who’s there?’
Her mouth felt dry. ‘Heaven sent!’ she shouted.
‘You new?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ll lower—’
Whatever the sailor was going to say died on his lips as the man at the bottom of her boat coughed, retching up the contents of his lungs into the bilge. Not dead, it seemed.
‘What the hell’s that?’ the sailor asked, moving the torch so that its weak light shone down into her vessel.
‘He’s injured,’ Millie shouted.
‘Didn’t ask about his health. Who is he?’
‘One of your men, I presume. He was drowning.’ Her tongue felt huge and unwieldly in her dry mouth.
‘Not ours.’
The drowned man pulled himself to a seated position, staring blearily, blood trickling across his forehead. She could have wished him dead longer.
‘Best come aboard as you’ve brought company,’ the sailor shouted, his mouth a black hole, save for a single tooth.
Fear snaked through her. ‘No! That was not the agreement...’
Instructions and warnings had been clear enough. A smuggling ship was no place for a female. Ferrying goods to shore was foolhardy enough, going aboard could spell disaster.
She grabbed at the oars, pulling her vessel away.
A shot rang out, audible even over the wind and waves. Gasping, she looked towards the single flickering light. The sailor stepped forward so that he was illuminated. He did not speak, merely beckoned her on board. She shook her head, gripping the oars more tightly. He shifted the pistol. The metal glinted as his lips stretched in a wide, almost toothless grin.
Sam’s head thudded. The pain was so great that sparks flashed before his eyes like the fireworks at Vauxhall. He tasted salt water, blood and bile. He coughed, rolling on to his side, before again slumping to stare upwards into the black heavens.
Where was he? He could make no sense of the voices, the lurching movement, wind or rain. Everything had the surreal, disjointed quality of a bad dream. The effort to think, to push away the blank fuzziness overwhelmed him and he felt himself slip again into the inviting nebulous state which was neither sleep nor consciousness.
Seconds...minutes...hours later, he wakened once more. He was being moved, handled by rough hands and dropped or tumbled to the ground. He lay quite still, orienting himself in a world spinning and lurching.
He forced his eyes open. He could see his own fingers splayed on wet rough planking and, beyond that, a black seaman’s boot.
‘Captain! ’E’s awake,’ a man bellowed from somewhere above his head, the words inordinately loud so that they ricocheted about his skull.
Sam pulled himself painfully on to his knees. Briefly, everything blurred as his head thudded. Then the thunder lessened and he found himself looking up into the distorted visage of an old man, his features eerily lit in the swinging torchlight.
For a moment, he distrusted the evidence of his own eyes. It seemed he was on a ship. The man opposite looked to be a pirate, or as good as. The sea was so rough that Sam put his hands back on the deck for balance. Rain fell. His hair was plastered to his forehead. Water ran into his eyes and down his cheeks. He could feel the rain’s sting and the cutting cold of the wind.
It made no sense. He’d come to Cornwall to visit his elder sister and her new baby. He’d travelled from London in a private carriage. Why was he on a ship? Had he been attacked on the highway? Except he’d made it to Fowey. He’d seen his sister...
Before his thoughts could clear, he was brought back to the immediate present as another man strode over, the sea boots huge, mere inches from his face.
‘Best get rid of them.’ The command was cold, without emotion.
Instinctively, Sam reared up, only to be struck by the boot. Helpless, he crumpled to the deck.
‘You cannot kill us. I work for you.’ The words were calm, unflinching and reasoned.
Sam turned quickly. His head thudded with the movement. A scrap of a lad stood beside him, wet hair and shirt plastered to his skin.
The first man, older and with just a single tooth, did not even acknowledge the lad. Instead he continued to chew his tobacco with a singleness of purpose. With methodical motions, he reloaded the pistol. The ‘Captain’ was already turning away, as though their execution no longer merited his attention.
Sam pulled himself again to a seated position, fighting down the nausea induced by the movement. He would not have them discuss his murder as though he were a kitten to be drowned. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘My absence will be noted.’
‘Indeed,’ the lad said in clear, crisp, surprisingly educated tones. ‘Besides, you have no idea of this fellow’s identity. He might be some bigwig.’
‘Good Lord,’ Sam said, before silencing himself. Even in the dim light, the lad’s silhouette had a delicacy of feature that was not masculine and the wet shirt definitely showed a femininity of form.
Perhaps this was, indeed, an illusion or nightmare too bizarre for reality. Was he to believe that he and this female had been captured by pirates? Was this some elaborate ruse? A practical joke or crazy wager? A hallucination after too many brandies?
The clear calm reasoned voice spoke again. ‘It makes no sense for you to hurt us. You were happy enough to accept my services.’
‘That was before you started bringing strange, unknown folk to my ship,’ the Captain said, turning back to his captives.
‘I did not bring anyone to your ship. I did not want to be on your ship. I wanted to collect the merchandise and return to shore.’
‘Leaving him as a witness.’
‘He was out cold.’
‘He was throwing up his guts in your bilge.’
‘Either way, he certainly did not seem capable of witnessing much,’ the woman said.
The Captain held up the lantern and Sam could feel his scrutiny. Shrewd eyes glinted, deep set within leathery, pockmarked skin. He lowered the lantern. ‘He looks capable enough now. And I cannot see any other solution. Killing ’im seems the best policy.’
‘Not unless you want every Bow Street Runner investigating the situation,’ Sam said, collecting his thoughts and forcing the words out. Even if this was a bizarre hallucination, he refused to be the snivelling coward in it.
There was a silence interrupted only by the regular squelch of the older sailor’s tobacco.
‘When I want the opinion of a toffee-nosed Brit on my own ship, I will ask for it,’ the Captain said. ‘And I wouldn’t mind adding an aristocrat to the minnow population.’
He chuckled at his own joke. Sam swallowed. He wished his thoughts would clear. Everything was a blur of disjointed images: his sister, the baby, dinner. How could he argue for his life when he had no idea why he was here or how?
‘But that’s just it,’ the girl said in her clear tones. ‘I know him. He is a gentleman. From London.’
Sam startled. Good God, she was right. But how did she know him? Had they met? Had she attended dinner with his sister? He had no recollection of her and she certainly was not dressed for it.
‘I am Mr Garrett,’ he said. It was an effort to say the words, as though their enunciation required conscious thought and labour. He felt less that he was providing information and more that he was clinging on to a fact, as one might a life ring.
‘There, you see!’ the girl said with some energy. ‘As posh as they come. He is quite rich and might well be worth more to you alive than dead.’
The words hung in the air.
Millie held her breath. Despite the storm, the wind had dropped so that even nature seemed to be waiting. A variety of expressions flickered across the Captain’s face. He was not smart, but she detected a natural cunning.
‘What’s your meaning?’
‘Likely, he has a family that would pay for his return.’ She made her voice calm despite her nervousness. She knew nothing of Mr Garrett’s family. Indeed, even her belated recognition felt as though it had come from a force external to her, an image dropped into her mind from a lifetime previous. Later she would be fully conscious of the oddness of this coincidence—finding themselves together on a smugglers’ ship off the Cornish coast—and would feel a stunned disbelief.
Right now, she felt nothing.
‘It would put me and the company at risk. And I do not like loose ends,’ the Captain said.
She swallowed, biting her lip. Sal’s husband had warned her. Smuggling was different now. The war with France was over and the coast rife with excise men. Fear and risk had grown exponentially and, with it, a harder, crueller breed of smugglers. They would forgive no mistakes and demonstrate little humanity or mercy.
The Captain nodded to the sailor who again raised the pistol.
She saw the glint of metal. She saw the movement of his finger on the trigger. Instinctively, she held her breath, squeezing her eyes tight shut, ludicrously bracing herself for impact as though taut muscles might deflect steel.
The shot did not come. Instead, peering through her lashes, she saw the Captain’s gaze had turned towards the rocks and then seawards. The ship had drifted too close to shore.
‘Luck’s with you fer now.’ He turned away. ‘Wind is dropping. Best to git out.’
‘What do I do with ’em?’ the sailor asked.
‘Tie ’em up and git ’em below decks. I’ll decide what to do with ’em later.’
Millie exhaled, limbs wobbly like so much blancmange. The Captain strode towards the foredeck, already bellowing orders. The old man stopped chewing tobacco long enough to emit a piercing whistle, producing two younger sailors.
With rough efficiency, they pulled her arms behind her. Coarse rope was twisted tightly around her wrists as they did the same with Garrett before jerking them upright.
‘Git!’ the old sailor said, spitting out his tobacco.
She walked unsteadily across the wet, slippery planking, stumbling with the ship’s continued movement. To either side, she saw figures and heard the rustle as huge sails were hoisted.
Beyond the ship, hidden in the dark, was her home...more remote than the moon, stars or any constellation. She hadn’t told her family about the plan. She’d expected to do this quickly, efficiently, under the cover of darkness. She’d be in and out and back for breakfast.
In an evening’s work, or a few evenings, she’d ensure that her mother did not have to go to debtors’ prison and her sister need not marry a lecherous, middle-aged man.
Instead, her absence would be noted, her reputation ruined so that even Mr Edmunds would not want to marry her. Granted she did not particularly want to marry Mr. Edmunds, but the union would have offered her mother and sister some financial stability.
Risk-taking and misplaced optimism were the hallmarks of the Lansdowne family. Her father had lost his money in investments gone wrong. Her brother had lost his life in gambling gone wrong. And now she—apparently—might well lose her life in smuggling gone wrong.
She’d promised she’d keep Lil safe. She’d promised.
But, like her father and brother before her, she had failed to save Lil, instead making her more vulnerable.
‘Git!’ the sailor holding her said, his rough voice jolting her back to the present as he shoved her into the small doorway leading below deck.
She lurched unsteadily down the steps. The stench struck her first. It was a solid wall, a mix of sweat, stale food and human waste. Instinctively, Millie pulled back, only to feel the pistol at her spine. She continued forward into a corridor that was dimly lit by a single lantern. It swung, casting weird shadows within the narrow confines. The smell worsened.
‘Stop ’ere!’ The sailor thrust open the door and rough hands pushed her through so that she stumbled over the sill, falling to the floor.
She heard Garrett also stagger.
‘Best get ’em tied up.’
The older man’s gaze passed over her body so that she was painfully aware of the thin cotton shirt and the damp cloth clinging to her chemise. She pushed herself back, flattening her spine against the wall, as though this slight distance might provide protection. She struck her shoulder as she did so and, wincing, realised a hook stuck out of the wall. With efficient movements, one sailor grabbed the rope, looping it over the peg she had hit and wrenching her arms back with a painful twist.
‘That ought to keep you still.’ His smile widened. She shivered, although it was not cold in the belly of the ship.
The men turned. The torch flickered with their movement, distorting their silhouettes. They stepped into the corridor, taking the light with them and letting the door slam.
The bolt slid into pace with a final metallic click.
Sam could see nothing. The darkness felt impenetrable, as though made of a substance more solid than air. As for his fellow captive, he could discern no part of her form or face. The only evidence of her presence was the intake of her breath and the shuffling sound as she shifted against the wall.
‘How do you know me?’ he asked into the fetid air.
‘I have an excellent memory for faces.’
‘We have met? How? Who are you?’
She made no reply. He heard her swallow.
‘I know you are a woman. There is no need to dissemble,’ he said.
‘It is not in my nature to dissemble.’ Her voice was sharp. There was that clipped tone, a clarity of enunciation which did not sound like that of a local villager.
‘You are not from the village.’
‘I was born just outside Fowey.’
‘But you are educated.’
‘Being from the village does not preclude education,’ she said.
‘No, but it makes it less likely. What is your name?’ He sensed her reluctance. ‘I am hardly in a position to tell anyone and I imagine your absence may soon be noticed.’
‘Millicent Lansdowne.’
He startled. He knew the name. They were small landowners in the area. He had known her brother, Tom. He had eaten at their house when they’d still had a place in London. And drunk with Tom when he’d imagined his heart broken.
Granted, the Lansdownes had lost money, but they were a decent family. Why would Tom’s sister be here? In a smuggling vessel? Involved as part of a criminal enterprise? It was a role totally unsafe and unsuitable for any female, never mind one from a decent family.
‘Miss Lansdowne?’ He looked in her direction as though to discern some clue even in the darkness. ‘Why are you here?’
‘As I recall, we weren’t given much choice and were rather thrown into these confines.’
‘No, I mean, out here...at sea? Working for these people.’
‘Financial gain.’
He almost admired her composure except her brazenness shocked him. Good Lord, surely she felt something: shame or embarrassment or something.
‘But these men are...are pirates. Your family owns land. Your brother would be...distressed,’ he said.
‘They are smugglers. And my brother rather forfeited the right to such distress when he took a nose dive off his horse. It is hard to emote from the grave.’
Her voice was blunt to the point of coldness. Sam had forgotten about Tom’s tragic accident. He’d become quite wild after his father’s death, gambling, drinking, duelling and taking crazy risks.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I forgot.’
‘You may have other things on your mind at present.’
Good God, he did not know if this was dry wit or unpleasant hardness. He did not know if he was shocked, appalled or fascinated.
‘My condolences,’ he added. ‘On both your father and brother’s passing, I mean.’
‘Mr Garrett, I realise that gentlemen of fashion feel the need to fill in the silence with small talk. However, that is not required here.’
‘I was merely expressing my condolences.’
‘I am not particularly at ease with small talk or condolences.’
Just then the ship pitched sharply and he applied himself again to the ropes, determined to loosen them. They would have no chance of escape if the ship sank, tethered as they were.
‘The Rising Dawn is a seaworthy vessel,’ she said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘It has been crossing between Cornwall and France these many years.’
‘I am reassured.’
‘And I know someone on board. I hope... I am certain he will help.’
‘You know someone? A young lady shouldn’t know smugglers,’ he said.
‘Young ladies in Cornwall sometimes do.’
His mind was still reeling. He had vague memories of Tom’s mother, Mrs Lansdowne—a typical matron, as he recalled. ‘What does your mother say?’
There was a pause. ‘She doesn’t know, but I am certain she would express disapproval quite volubly.’
He did not know what to say. All young ladies of his acquaintance held their mothers in high esteem or at least pretended to do so, when in public.
‘And this friend will help? So far, they have not been exactly hospitable.’
‘“Friend” may be an exaggeration. I hardly know Sally’s husband. And he would not consider me a friend, more an acquaintance. He strongly disapproved of the idea and was quite cross with me when I made it clear I would be going through with it.’
The man, whatever his other shortcomings, showed some sense. ‘But you think he will help?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
Her certainty of assistance was naive. Sam wanted to disillusion her, but it felt unkind. Besides, right now, she was his only ally so it made little sense to antagonise her.
‘I will attempt to loosen the knots in case he does not come,’ he said.
‘Indeed, it is always wise to have an alternate plan.’
‘It might have been wiser for you to stay on shore,’ he muttered.
‘But fortunate for you I did not. And you’re welcome, by the way.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I saved your life,’ she said.
‘I—Yes, I suppose you did. Thank you. What happened exactly?’
‘You were drowning. I rescued you at some inconvenience to myself.’
‘Right.’ He vaguely remembered searing pain in his lungs, the choking taste of salt water and then a desperate fight for air. He felt a confused muddle of emotion: shock, gratitude, curiosity, intrigue and even admiration. ‘Er...thank you. You are unusual. I mean, you are very composed, given the situation.’
‘I suppose that has always been my role. My mother has a predilection for hysterics. Father was absent and tended towards grandiose gestures. Someone had to be sensible.’
He wanted to say that, given their situation, sense did not seem to be her greatest attribute but this again felt unkind. Besides, the woman had saved his life, no mean feat given the storm and weather.
‘Well, thank you for my life, I mean,’ he said, conscious that this statement seemed inadequate.
‘Truthfully, I am not as “composed” as I might seem. In fact, in retrospect, I rather wish I’d chosen not to do this.’ She sounded less airy and he felt an unexpected sympathy.
‘Why did you?’ he asked. ‘I mean, if you do not mind me asking?’
‘My father lost a lot of money, as you might know. My brother gambled. We are in some financial difficulties and my sister may have to marry an unpleasant person. I wanted to help. This seemed like the best solution.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He heard her swallow and the rustle of cloth as though she had shrugged or shifted against the wall.
He felt a certain empathy. She must have been desperate.
‘So now you know my story. Why did you end up in—?’ she started to ask, but was silenced by the grating grind of rusty metal against rusty metal.
Sam stiffened. He felt his eyes widen as though this would help see in the heavy darkness. He tugged at the ropes, twisting his fingers against the rough hemp until the tips felt raw.
The door swung inwards, banging against the inner wall. Lamplight spilled into the dank confines. A figure of immense size filled the doorway, his uneven features visible within the light.
