Amanda Scott (26 page)

“Only think of it,” Lady Hetta was saying indignantly to Chalford when Adriana paused in her own account to draw breath. “To have been taken captive and borne off to France, then simply abandoned there. The poor man!”

Chalford, noting Adriana’s bewildered look, explained, “She has just been telling me that Petticrow has come to grief again.”

“Mercy, what now, ma’am?”

“Those detestable smugglers—not ours, I think, but the others, the new ones—carried him off to France and left him there without any identity papers or food or anything. He could have been killed by those dreadful French or starved or goodness knows what. It was an appalling thing to do to the poor man.”

“Indeed, it was, ma’am,” Miranda agreed, “but how do you know that is what happened?”

“Why, he told us so! Mr. Braverstoke rescued him, you see, and Mr. Petticrow came here at once to tell us all about it.”

“Braverstoke rescued him!” Chalford repeated.

“Pure foolhardiness,” pronounced Lady Adelaide in measured tones of disapproval. “The man had no business to involve himself in so dangerous a venture.”

“Indeed, it was no such thing,” said Lady Hetta. “It was the most fortunate circumstance.”

“Encroaching,” insisted Lady Adelaide. “He and his father.” Encountering a look from her nephew, she added, “Perhaps you will say I ought not to speak so, Joshua, but you know it is perfectly true. The son is a ne’er-do-well and the father a bumptious little man, the last person one expected to inherit Newingham Manor or to have the impertinence to come courting at Thunderhill. What, a fourth cousin with a title for life and not a penny to bless himself with, if the truth be known, for the stipend accompanying such titles is never princely. I do not like for him or that young man to be running tame here, and I devoutly hope you will not continue to encourage them to do so.”

Chalford waited politely until she had finished, then turned to Lady Hetta. “Pray continue your tale, ma’am.”

She smiled gratefully. “You know how dear Mr. Braverstoke enjoys taking that yacht of his out, Joshua, and sailing as near as the devil himself to the French coast—really, a most dangerous pastime, I agree, but very brave of him, Adelaide, not foolhardy at all. Well, someone from shore carried word to the
Golden Fleece
—no doubt some of the French smugglers, if the truth of the matter were known, since our people must deal with someone over there, after all. In any event, someone did, and Mr. Braverstoke’s people were able to collect him.”

“That was fortunate, certainly,” Chalford said. “How long ago did this occur?”

“They brought him home yesterday afternoon. We gave him a good meal, and he is sleeping in his old room right now. I insisted upon that. The poor man simply could not go home alone in the state he was in. He hadn’t slept for three days!”

“Well,” said Chalford, “Petticrow does seem to be prone to adventure. We must hope he will tell us all about it.”

The riding officer was only too willing to comply with this request when he joined them that evening for supper. His clothes had been brushed and pressed, and he was fully refreshed, but his temper was not entirely mended. He cast a sidelong look at Joshua when Adriana and Miranda began to pelt him with questions.

“’Twas the most damnable thing, m’lord,” he said, looking squarely at Joshua, then turning back again to apologize for the intemperance of his language. “It would try a saint, m’ladies, in truth it would. I was taken like the veriest amateur. They came up behind me when I was watching Strawberry Cove—north of Hythe, you know. There are cliffs there, so the lads don’t attempt to unload cargo, as a general thing, but there are caves in the cliffs, so when things get hot, they sometimes unload there until the coast is clear again. I spoiled a run a sennight past, so I expected they’d be wary for a time. There I was, waiting for them, and they must have known I was, for the next I knew, I’d a sack over my head and was trussed up like a bag of hops ready for the oasthouse. They rowed me out to the ship and stowed me in the stern hold. All the way to France they took me, and all the way I listened to the damned sound of their blasted stern mast above me, creaking and wailing in the wind like fingernails on a slate. Like to drive a man to Bedlam.”

“How dreadful,” said Miranda, “but how fortunate Mr. Braverstoke was able to rescue you and bring you home again.”

“Aye,” the riding officer agreed, but there was a note of doubt in his voice, and after a moment’s silence, he looked at Joshua again and said, “I’d know that ship again, I believe, m’lord. Got free of the trussing before she’d cleared the French harbor, and it was dawn by then. Only saw her from astern, but I could hear the screeching of that stern mast, so I know it was the right ship, and she’d got a pair of carved wooden panels mounted on the stern bulwark in the same place as the
Golden Fleece
has those garish gilded medallions.”

“But nearly every ship has some decoration of that sort, sir,” Adriana protested. “Why, the
Sea Dragon
has heraldic devices in exactly those same places, though neither she nor the
Golden Fleece
can be the ship you describe, of course, since both are sloops and have but a single mast. But even if you identify the ship, how would you catch your men? The owner may know nothing of the use to which his boat is being put. Why, it could be a situation exactly like when—”

“That’s a point,” Chalford said, cutting in. “You know as well as I do, Petticrow, that the Gentlemen tend to ‘borrow’ what they need. They’ll leave a keg or a sack of tea to pay for what they borrow, but they have no scruples against taking a prize horse right out of a man’s stable if they need it for a run.”

“And you know, m’lord, that that don’t excuse anyone,” Petticrow said severely. “A man’s boat being used without his knowledge don’t mean the revenuers won’t hold him to account if the boat is seized with contraband aboard. Not,” he added, “that that signifies for much when we don’t know the man or his boat.”

“If you could identify the ship beyond a doubt—”

“Ah, but that’s what I can’t do, m’lord. Only seeing her from astern, I never saw her lines clear. And if I was to keep an eye on every private yacht I suspect of taking part in nefarious doings,” he added with a sharp look, “I’d need a hundred eyes just for my own five-mile bit of coast, and no mistake. What with the Sandgate gang moving in on the locals hereabouts, as they are, I’ve enough on my plate without seeking more trouble, and that’s the nut with no bark on it.”

When the ladies left Joshua and Mr. Petticrow to enjoy a glass of port after supper, Miranda said, “’Tis the drollest thing, you know. I have never before sat down to supper with a riding officer. Only think what Alston would say, or Sophie, with all her bourgeois gentility—how she would stare!”

“I am sure I cannot think why,” said Lady Hetta, looking quite as bewildered as she sounded. “Mr. Petticrow’s antecedents are perfectly respectable, you know.”

“Are they, indeed, ma’am?” Adriana shot her a twinkling look. “I must say, one doesn’t expect a riding officer to speak like an educated man, as he often does, although I never knew a riding officer before, so perhaps I am being unfair about that.”

“Geoffrey Chaucer was a customs agent,” said Lady Hetta, “and he was certainly an educated man.”

“But not,” said Lady Adelaide acidly, “a man whose works a lady of quality ought to read, Hetta.”

Lady Hetta squared her thin shoulders. “I daresay Mr. Petticrow speaks as he was taught to speak, you know. His papa is a squire in Berkshire, and he told me once that he was expected to go into the Church—for he is the younger son, as anyone can tell merely by looking at him. I cannot think why younger sons are always so much better-looking than their more eligible elder brothers, but such is always the case.” She blinked myopically. “What was I saying?”

“He was supposed to enter the Church,” Adriana prompted, avoiding Miranda’s eye and stealing a glance at Lady Adelaide, whose attention was now riveted on the needlework in her lap.

“Oh, well,” Lady Hetta said, following her glance self-consciously, “he thought he would prefer to do something more adventuresome, you know, though not the military, because there was nothing much doing to interest him when he was of an age to join. And since he disapproves of smuggling—although to do him credit, he blames the government quite as much as he blames the smugglers for its existence—he became a riding officer.”

Adriana repeated this information to Chalford that night after they had gone to bed, certain he would enjoy hearing about Geoffrey Chaucer in particular. She lay with her head upon his shoulder, anticipating his amusement, but instead of chuckling, he sighed. It was a long sigh, even a long-suffering sigh. She turned her head, trying to read the expression on his face.

“You disapprove, sir?”

“There is nothing of which to disapprove. I was just wondering if, having learned what an eligible
parti
old Petticrow is, you will now wish to add him to your list of conquests.”

“Detestable man,” she said, applying her elbow to his ribs, “and I do not speak of Mr. Petticrow. You know, though,” she added musingly as another thought struck her, “I shouldn’t be at all surprised if your Aunt Hetta has an interest there.”

He snorted. “Don’t be nonsensical. Aunt Adelaide would forbid him the castle if she suspected a thing like that.”

“Well, I shan’t suggest it to her, then. Would you mind?”

“The question won’t arise. Aunt Adelaide, I can tell you for a fact, is much more concerned about Lord Braverstoke. Seems he’s been haunting the place. But neither he nor Petticrow will win the day. Aunt Hetta has had numerous offers since her come-out, but she told me once she’d never met a man who could offer her more than she has here. Very proper sentiments, I thought.”

“You would,” said Adriana.

“By the bye,” he said then on a more somber note, “Petticrow informs me that the disturbances between the Sandgaters and our local people have escalated in number and degree of violence. A Burmarsh man was beaten nearly to death in a scuffle last week, and the batmen carry more than lumber now to protect their runs.”

“Batmen?”

“The landsmen consist of tubmen and batmen,” he said. “The tubmen collect the goods from the ship, and the batmen stand guard over the whole business, start to finish. Generally, they are armed with clubs, but of late they have not worried so much about noise as about losing goods to the Sandgaters. There have been, Petticrow says, a number of skirmishes. Several men have been threatened, pressed to join the Sandgate gang.”

“Joshua, are you trying to suggest more subtly than usual that your restrictions will stand with regard to our going outside the castle walls?”

“Nothing to be subtle about,” he said. “I’ve already given the orders, and I expect you to relay them to your sister. And, Adriana, please, for once in your life, don’t attempt to circumvent my commands. Just obey them.”

“Yes, my lord,” she replied submissively.

Joshua raised himself onto his elbow, looking down at her, and though the room was too dark to read the expression in his eyes, Adriana could feel its intensity. “I mistrust you most when you sound like that, sweetheart,” he murmured gently, “but you would be well advised to obey me in this. You have had but a single taste of my temper, and you didn’t like it. I can promise you, you will like the outcome even less if you cause me to lose it again. You are to take outriders with you if you go out in daylight, and you are not to go out at all after dark. Agreed?”

“Oh, very well,” she said, wishing she could sink further into the mattress, away from him, until he relaxed again. “I’ll tell Miranda, too, Joshua, so will you please stop looming over me like that?” She put out her hand to caress his bare chest, moving her fingers lightly, teasingly, until she had distracted him from anything else he might have wished to say on that uncomfortable subject. But half an hour later when they lay back, sated, against the pillows again, it was she who returned to it, saying curiously, “Why do you not simply request assistance from the dragoons if you are so concerned for our safety? Surely, they would come if you asked them.”

“They have fifty miles of coastline to patrol, sweetheart, so whether they would come at my command is not the question. They are too few in number and they are needed everywhere. We cannot keep a squadron sitting on the beach here hoping for a convenient confrontation. Moreover, there are indications that this new gang intends to unite the Gentlemen all along the south coast, so the patrols will no doubt be particularly busy now.”

“Then you ought to organize your own patrols, sir.”

“My men will protect the castle and the lands surrounding it to the best of their ability,” he said, “but I will ask no one to risk his life unnecessarily. If the trouble increases as I anticipate it will, there will be questions asked in Parliament soon, and no doubt the military patrols will be increased accordingly.”

She thought his attitude distressingly nonchalant, and found herself wishing he would exert himself to more assertive action against the intruders. Not surprisingly, she discovered the following day that her sister shared her views.

“One would expect him to fight buckle and thong to protect this place,” Miranda said when they found themselves alone in the breakfast parlor. “Lady Hetta has said he cares for nothing so much as Thunderhill. Indeed, you have said the same.”

“True,” said Adriana, adding with a sigh, “I believe his passion for this castle may exceed any other feeling he has.”

Miranda stared at her, then said suddenly, “What does one do to amuse oneself here when there are no houseguests?”

Adriana gave herself a shake and grinned. “I warned you. Pray, do not tell me you are bored already.”

“No, of course I am not, only I hope you mean to do something to entertain me.”

Adriana wrinkled her nose. “I suppose that once Prinny leaves Brighton we will have visitors again, and Joshua has said that his sister, Lydia, will come in September with her children, although, with the troubles, he may put her off for a time. Sally and George are going straight to Prospect Lodge Saturday, because Lord and Lady Jersey expect to meet them there for George’s birthday on Monday, so they won’t come at all.”