My Lord Deceived (22 page)

“He has been
very kind and generous to help us the way he has. He will make a
very fine husband for someone one day.”

“But not for
me,” Kat whispered. Her voice quivered with unshed tears and she
drew back to smile sadly at her mother.

“People like us
don’t marry people like him,” Agnes sighed. “You know that
Kat.”

“I do. I don’t
know why I am crying really. I have known all along that he is
irresponsible and not likely to be here for long. It just shook me
tonight when he asked me outright about the smuggling that was
going on in the village. He helped us in Tattersnell, and we lied
to him.”

“We have to
keep ourselves out of jail,” Agnes argued. “We didn’t ask him to
get himself involved so it wasn’t as though we duped him into
it.”

“I know, but it
just doesn’t seem right.”

“You know what
I think?” Agnes included Billy in her forthright glance. “I think
that it is about time that we left this village and started again.
We have the market stall, but we are paying more and more for the
goods we buy to re-sell. We would be much better off if we bought a
small farm of our own where we could grown our own stock to sell at
market.”

Kat stared at
her mother in surprise. It was the first time she had ever heard
Agnes mention leaving the village. Quitting smuggling, yes, but the
village? She stared blankly at Billy who slumped into the chair
beside her. Avid curiosity was evident on his face. He wasn’t going
to object to the possibility.

“But we don’t
have the funds,” Kat whispered. She thought of the years of
smuggling ahead of her that they would need to rely on if they had
any hope of even being able to raise part payment for something the
size of a farm, and shivered in horror.

Agnes smiled
secretively and moved to the fireplace. Despite the flames that
glowed in the fire, she began to rummage around up the chimney and
emerged, sooty and sweaty moments later with a box clutched in her
hands. She carefully placed it on the carpet and lifted the
lid.

Kat gasped at
the notes and coins stuffed into the wooden box. There were piles
of it. Her gaze moved from the box to her mother and then back to
the box as she tried to absorb what she saw. She watched Billy
kneel almost reverently beside the box and poke one small finger at
the pile of gold coins.

“How on earth?”
Kat whispered.

“Your father
and I began to squirrel away money for a long time before he
passed. He always said it would help us in our old age. You know,
when we couldn’t work anymore. When he passed he made me promise
that we would use it wisely. I have continued to add some of our
profits from the smuggling to the pile.” She allowed the children
to absorb her surprise and felt inordinately pleased with herself,
not only for having saved so much, but for the fact that her
surprise had stopped Kat’s tears.

“But why have
we been involved in smuggling then?” Kat tried to bank down her
anger. She thought of all of the sleepless nights when she had been
cold, exhausted and hungry. She had fought death and danger to
bring ashore a hoard of goods that could send them to jail. All the
time her mother had astonishing wealth secreted away, that rendered
the money she had earned through smuggling a mere pittance.

“Because we
need every penny we can get. These funds are to help all of us. At
some point you are going to head out on your own way in life. You
will have your share to help you along that way. But, meantime, we
have the option of spending some of this to purchase a small fruit
farm for ourselves so we can grow our own stock. The smuggling
money has filled the coffers greatly because what your father and I
managed to save was only a small portion of this.”

Kat felt
slightly mollified, if a little put out that her mother hadn’t
confided in her before now.

“Why now?” She
demanded and watched her mother begin to count the notes.

“Because I
strongly believe that it is time that we got out of the smuggling
game once and for all. Harrison is becoming more and more
persistent. It is only a matter of time before he finds something
on one of the villagers that brings us all under suspicion. Look at
how close we came the other day to getting caught. If it wasn’t for
Molly’s manure pile, we would be behind bars right now. Now that
Jonathan suspects the truth, we cannot afford to risk him being
forced to tell his friend Hamilton-Smythe. We need to get out of
this Kat, preferably before the Redcoats turn up in support of the
Excise men and we are all carted off to serve a sentence.”

Kat closed her
eyes on that and couldn’t find any objection to her mother’s logic.
She glanced at Billy who had yet to take his eyes of the box of
money.

“Alright. I
will tell Harry tonight if we are all in agreement?”

Agnes and Billy
nodded. Kat felt as though a huge weight had been removed from her
shoulders and she visibly lightened at the thought of being free
from some of her burden of responsibility.

“Now, let us
count this and then we can work out how much we should look at
spending on our farm,” Agnes suggested. She smiled at Billy as he
began to reverently stroke the gold coins.

Later that
night, as she closed the kitchen door behind her and made her way
down the back alley toward the harbour, Kat felt considerably
lighter and more carefree. The wind was fierce, and she ducked her
head to protect her ears from the chill. Luckily she had dressed
for the occasion and now wore an old pair of her father’s trousers,
a work shirt and a heavy fisherman’s jumper beneath her jacket. The
clothes were far too big for her but allowed her to put layer upon
layer. It went some way toward protecting her from the worst of the
stiff winds and kept her from freezing to death while she was knee
deep in the sea. It also helped her to disguise her identity. That,
and the flat cap she wore tugged as low on her brow as possible hid
her body and her hair. Her heavy boots made it impossible to walk
softly but at least they kept her feet warm.

Luckily, her
father had been a fisherman and had been suitably attired for a
life at sea. It was part of the reason why she had adopted his
wardrobe. The clothing had been designed to keep a man warm, even
when they were wet and suited her purposes perfectly.

Half way down
the alley, she looked up and saw the faint twinkle of lights out at
sea. She knew the cutter was out there, and the men in the rowing
boats were already on their way to shore. She lengthened her stride
she caught sight of the group of men at the back of the tavern and
hurried in their direction.

Nobody spoke as
they made their way down to the beach. Up on the cliffs she saw
several of the look outs as they patrolled around. The horses were
already harnessed up and waited with their carts at the ready. The
white caps on the waves made her wrinkle her nose and she knew that
tonight would not to be easy.

Tense
nervousness hung in the air. It wasn’t lost on any of them that
they would be at their most vulnerable while they dragged the cargo
ashore. They had to concentrate or someone could die. Because of
that, they had to rely heavily on the look-out stationed up top,
and hope to God that the Excise men or Redcoats wouldn’t turn
up.

They waited for
several moments under the shelter of the ragged cliffs until the
faint shadows of several boats appeared out of the darkness. The
white caps dipped and swayed. The huge swell would knock a man off
his feet and drag him out to sea. None of them made any attempt to
go into the water and watched with baited breath while the rowers
battled the huge waves as they pounded the shore.

The huge surge
of the tide threw them rapidly toward shore only for a large wave
to loom menacingly above them. Terrified cries came from the crew
of one boat that was overwhelmed by the relentless force of the
waves, and Kat watched in frozen horror as one boat disappeared
from view altogether. There was nothing any of them could do. To
wade into the water would mean death.

“Have they all
gone?” Someone whispered.

“Aye.”

They all
watched solemnly as the debris and assorted cargo began to wash up
in the swell. Three other boats continued to battle the tide until,
eventually, nearly an hour later they slammed into the sandy shore.
No sooner had the boats landed than everyone converged around them
and began to offload the cargo while the boats were kept steady.
The rowers remained on board and didn’t speak to anyone, while the
smugglers carried out their allotted tasks.

The carts were
loaded and trundled off across the beach while the smaller cargo
was ferried toward the small cove close to the village. It wouldn’t
be protected if it rained but it could be moved to safety
relatively swiftly if the promised storm released its deluge.

Kat grabbed two
bolts of cloth and hurried across the beach. There were eight bolts
in all, three on two boats and one on the other. She tried hard not
to look at the gnarled faces of the sailors as they waited for
their cargo to be removed, but curiosity drove her to give them one
cursory look. She knew in the space of one look that they would cut
her throat rather than acknowledge her presence and, with a shiver,
she grabbed the next two bolts and hurried off.

Jonathan cursed
fluidly and watched the spectacle before him with a sense of acute
disappointment. He recognised at least four faces, not least of
which was Harry from the tavern. Anger warred with disgust but he
remained still and watchful as the smugglers emptied the vessels of
cargo and pushed the boats back out to sea.

Shaking his
head, he watched the so called ‘patrol’ amble slowly past. Why the
hell they bothered heaven only knew. Jonathan had eased into place
without a murmur and had watched the oaf amble past at least four
times without even so much as a flicker of a look in Jonathan’s
direction.

When the
‘watch’ had disappeared again, Jonathan returned to his careful
study of each of the smugglers. There was a man in a jacket and
heavy fisherman’s jumper who he couldn’t identify because of a
large flat cap but other than that knew now that Harry, Mr Peat
(Kat’s neighbour), Mr Smithers, Charlie and Norman were all
involved. There were some others who he couldn’t get a good enough
look at to identify but was fairly certain that he could find them
in the tavern. Although there were a couple of women on the beach,
he was greatly relieved that neither of them was Kat.

Had she been
telling him the truth when she had said she knew nothing about the
smugglers in the area? He wasn’t sure. He wanted to believe her but
given that she worked in the village tavern it was highly unlikely
that she hadn’t heard any rumours at least. The tavern was a hot
bed of gossip in any village and Bentney on Sea was no exception.
Still, at least she wasn’t down on the beach to drag illegal goods
off the sand. The knowledge that she was not guilty made his job of
putting a stop the smuggler’s activities considerably easier.

He couldn’t see
any gang masters, and considered the possibility that this was just
a village operation. Although he couldn’t condone any kind of
smuggling: it was what he had joined the Star Elite to fight after
all, he was at least sympathetic to the villagers’ desire to make
more money that would ease their way through life. He had seen
enough to be confident that there were no spies being brought into
the country, but he couldn’t help but wonder how long that would
last. This was a route into England, and it wouldn’t be long before
the French took advantage of it if Jonathan didn’t shut the door
and quickly.

He puffed out
his cheeks he waited until the patrol passed again and eased
backward. He ambled around the cliff top and kept to the shadows as
he moved to stand a little way down the cliff path, deep in the
shadows to watch the procession go through the village. Up at the
top of the cliff he heard the soft snort of one of the horses and
suspected that they were headed to the huge barn that sat in the
middle of nowhere. He made a mental note to investigate it further
tomorrow.

He watched
Harry disappear through the rear door of the tavern with his first
load of cargo before he headed back down to the beach for another
load of barrels and boxes. In total silence, he stood for over an
hour and watched various villagers return the goods to their houses
and various hiding places around the village until eventually, all
activity ceased. He was about to head up the cliff path when the
flurry of movement to one side captured his attention. With a
mental curse he drew the hood of his cloak to cover his face and
pressed himself against the cliff wall. He had to climb awkwardly,
backward and up, until he was off the path and plastered himself
against the cliff wall as he watched eight men carry two bodies
silently past. They had to watch their step on the narrow path, and
try not to slip while they carried the unfortunate sailors who
hadn’t made it through the swell. Out at sea, the solitary light
was extinguished. Jonathan knew that the ship had turned around and
was now headed back out to sea.

He had no idea
how many more bodies had been washed ashore. Each boat had four
crewmen inside. Two of crew the crewmen had just gone by. Were the
men going to head back down to the beach to fetch the other two, or
were they now lost as sea? Until he knew for certain, he couldn’t
move and had to wait and see.

He watched one
of the smugglers hurry toward the hill with a bolt of cloth in
their hands. The flat cap rendered them impossible to identify. He
cursed and watched them disappear into the alley that ran along the
back of Kat’s house. The lights to her home were all out. Everyone
was in bed. He was glad that she wasn’t involved, and could now set
about drawing an end to the smuggling operation in the village
without any risk to her freedom.