Kitabı oku: «Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women», sayfa 4

“Yes, I heard John mention tubs. Tea or brandy, do you suppose? Well, it’s of no matter. They came afoul of someone, didn’t they? What nonsense, to be just three of them out here on the Marsh.”

Chance smiled a not-quite-amused half smile. “I suppose when you are out smuggling, you only travel in groups of ten or more.”

“Ten? I should say not. More like dozens, Mr. Becket. Only a fool doesn’t align himself with one of the gangs. And I have not run with the freebooters, sir, although I would lie if I said I didn’t know many of them and haven’t heard their stories. Poor Georgie,” she said, looking at the body sprawled facedown in the road. “He couldn’t have been more than seventeen, could he? His poor mam.”

Chance glanced up at the moon. “And now you want me to transport all three of them to Becket Hall. Feed them, hide them, endanger my family with their presence. Has it by any chance occurred to you, Miss Carruthers, that I am a representative of the king and that the proper place for my two prisoners is Dover Castle? Dover Castle, then on to London where they will either be hanged and gibbeted or duly whipped and transported.”

Julia put a hand on Dickie’s shoulder, easing him back onto the ground. “He doesn’t mean that,” she said soothingly, then got to her feet to all but go belly to belly with Chance Becket. “If you’re quite done putting the fear of king and courts into these poor boys?”

“Oh, bloody hell,” Chance said. “Billy!” he called out, still looking at Julia. “Get the boy and have him help you load his brothers into the second coach. I want to be moving again in five minutes.”

“Ah, now, sir, couldn’t Nathan be takin’ up the other end with me? Big, strappin’ boy, Nathan.”

Chance looked toward the groom, then toward the weeping boy. His jaws tightened as he remembered the time when, no more than fifteen himself, his wrong move had cost another man his life and how Ainsley had driven the lesson home. “No. He’ll be less inclined to reckless acts after carrying his own dead brother. There are some weights a boy must live with if he’s to learn to be a man.”

Billy nodded. “Rodolfo. Right you are, sir. I’m just gettin’ old and soft.”

“And growing deaf, as well. I told you to get the boy and load the others.” Then he gave Billy a pat on the shoulder as the man shuffled off.

“Thank you, sir,” Julia said, totally confused by the exchange between Chance and Billy but knowing enough not to ask any of the many questions that had popped into her head. Such as, who was Rodolfo? And what so-sober memory did Billy and Chance share? So she merely watched, her heart aching for the boy, as Billy and a sobbing John picked up Georgie by his wrists and ankles and carried the body back along the road.

She’d seen dead bodies before, seen wounds before, but she was not nearly so calm as she pretended to be, because she’d always had her father by her side and in charge. Far easier to follow orders than to be responsible for giving them, responsible for the person needing her help.

“Dickie told me he and his brothers had gone to retrieve their small share of a larger run,” she told Chance, feeling the need to fill the silence between them, speaking quickly, probably saying too much. “No one was supposed to do that until the entire gang could assemble tomorrow night, meet up with the land carriers. But Georgie wouldn’t hear of that for some reason or other. These two men John spoke of must have spied them out and followed them. Now the entire haul may be lost, not just their portion of it, and the gang will be forced to find a new hiding place for freshly landed goods. A mess all around. Dickie and John had best be gone from the Marsh before anyone else knows what happened. His mam and any other family, as well.”

Chance cocked one eyebrow at her, rather amazed by her knowledge and her deductions, not to mention her cool head in the midst of this crisis. “Obviously you’ve been giving all of this some considerable consideration. You expect retribution from the boys’ compatriots?”

“Don’t you? Freebooting is a desperate business and demands total secrecy. Through their eagerness, Georgie and his brothers may have lost the entire proceeds of a smuggling run. Possibly tons of goods, all paid for and brought to shore, hidden. Considerable work and cost are involved, sir. Someone will be very unhappy and want revenge. Dickie made mention of a black ghost but then quickly begged me to forget I’d heard what I’d heard.”

“That would probably be wise. Excuse me,” Chance said tightly and went after John, who was now wringing his hands and crying yet again. He took the boy roughly by the elbow and steered him into the tall grass beside the narrow roadway. “Stop wailing like a little girl. Stand up straight and look at me. Your brother told the lady about a black ghost. Now you’re going to tell me.”

John’s eyes went wide. “Oh, no, sir. He did no such thing. None of us never would, sir. Dickie’s just hurtin’ bad, that’s all. He never said that.”

Chance ruthlessly squeezed the boy’s upper arm. “Dover Castle, boy. Ever see a body hanging in gibbet chains? The blacksmith comes and fits you for your very own set. Grown men have been known to keel over dead just seeing the smithy come at them with the measuring stick. And it all starts at Dover Castle. I know the way—you and your brother could be there by morning. Of course, with that hole in him and with no one to doctor him, he’ll be dead soon and you’ll probably hang alone. Crying and pissing your pants as they drag you to the rope, your mam there to watch.”

He gave the boy’s arm a shake. “Tell me.”

“We…we travel with him now, sir. The Black Ghost. Him and his men protect us from the others. From this side of Camber to Appledore and all the way to Dymchurch, sir. We’re almost all together now, with the Black Ghost watchin’ over us.”

“Is that so?” Chance did his best to control his breathing, his temper. “The others, John. And who are the others? The ones who came after you?”

“I can’t say, sir.” When Chance squeezed again, John rushed into speech. “I don’t know, sir, that’s what I mean. Hundreds of them, all together. From Lunnon-town, we think. We had to join together, too, or else lose everything. We’re the Black Ghost Gang now, sir. We can’t say it because nobody is to know but us. Never say Black Ghost, sir. Dickie never should have said that. But Georgie, he said we didn’t need to listen to nobody what won’t even show his own face and…oh, sir, what do I tell our mam? Georgie was her favorite of all of us.”

Remembering what Julia had said, Chance asked, “How many of you are there?”

Johnnie wiped his runny nose on the sleeve of his smock. “Twelve, sir. Da’s gone, drowned on a run these two years past, but there’s still twelve of us.” He half choked on a sob. “E-eleven, sir. And now they seen us. They know who we are. Now they can find us. We’re all going to be dead, like Georgie. Mam and Dickie and me, even the little ones. The Black Ghost can’t help us now. Maybe the Black Ghost will even want us all dead, too. We was told to stay away until tomorrow night and we didn’t listen. What should I do?”

“Christ,” Chance muttered, then pulled the boy roughly into his arms. He let John weep against his shoulder while he told himself this boy was nothing like he had been years ago, when he knew that wasn’t true. Desperate was desperate, no matter what the cause. Desperation was a taste, a smell, a fear you took to bed with you at night and woke with again in the morning.

“We really should be goin’ on, sir,” Billy said, grinning as he dug one booted foot into the stones. “I’ll take young Johnnie off your hands, now that you’re done teachin’ him a lesson and all.”

Chance disengaged himself from John’s clinging arms. “Maybe I’m getting old and soft myself, Billy.”

“Don’t worry, boy, it’ll all come back to you,” Billy whispered with a wink, then took John by the shoulders, handed him his own filthy handkerchief, called him a good boy and led him back to the second coach.

Chance looked toward the lead coach to see that Julia had been watching him, had seen him with the boy. Had probably overheard him as he’d spoken both to Johnnie and Billy. Without a word she turned, hiked up her skirts and climbed back into the coach.

Leaving Chance to stand in the moonlight, silently cursing the Black Ghost. “This is how he hides?” he asked the night at last, then headed for the coach.

“Will your father—will Mr. Becket be upset that we’ve brought the boys to him?” Julia asked when Chance was seated across from her once more and the coach was moving yet again.

She could see his wry smile through the darkness. “Upset? Miss Carruthers, tonight will be probably the first time I will have pleased Ainsley Becket in thirteen long years.”

Julia said nothing more but only sat in the darkness to consider the London gentleman whose knowledge seemed to reach far beyond concerns such as the cut of his coat or the latest society gossip, her mind full of questions, possibilities…and more than a little apprehension about what might await her at Becket Hall.

CHAPTER FIVE

LOW CLOUDS AND A SLICE of moon allowed Julia to see some of the facade of Becket Hall as she stood in the courtyard looking up at the huge stone building.

They’d driven up a wide, curving gravel path that was happily well-tended, to stop in front of the large central section of the house that seemed to be in the shape of a large U—although it could be an H, as she couldn’t see if the wings also extended toward the Channel she knew to be behind the building.

“The house doesn’t overlook the water,” she said mostly to herself, but Chance heard her.

“There are terraces,” Chance told her as he lifted the sleeping Alice from the coach. “But only a fool would face a house toward the Channel, Miss Carruthers. Then again, only a fool would order so many windows built into that side of the house.”

They had long ago, somewhere between London and Maidstone and the incident on the Marsh, given up the notion that he was her superior, with she his docile servant (or at least she had), so Julia didn’t think twice before asking bluntly as she reached back into the coach to retrieve Alice’s small traveling bag, “Then I am to consider Mr. Becket a fool?”

“That would probably depend on where he decides to put you. If your bedchamber overlooks the water, you may think so once winter comes and storms begin to blow, rattling those same windows. But, no, you’ll be in the nursery with Alice, which I believe to be even worse, as your chamber will be directly on a corner. Shall we? Billy, go pound on that door knocker, will you?”

Julia moved close beside Chance as they climbed up one of the wide stone staircases to a large stone porch, attempting to block Alice from the salty breeze that found them even in the shelter of the immense building.

“What about the boys, Mr. Becket?” she asked, holding the hood of her cloak over her head as the wind whipped at it. “Someone should be sent for the doctor, I believe.”

“First let’s get Alice into the house, Miss Carruthers. Billy well knows what to do.”

“Really? Let us only hope he well knows better than he drives a coach.”

Chance took a moment to smile at this, then disappeared as the large front door opened and light spilled onto the porch. Fifty servants scattered about Becket Hall and its outbuildings, at the least, and Jacko opened the door? Had Chance’s luck gone from bad to even worse? “Jacko,” he said, keeping his tone even if not cordial. “He’s got you butlering now in your declining years?”

Julia squinted, trying to see the man as her eyes became accustomed to the brightness of the light that outlined a tall, wide shape that stood in the doorway. She watched as two thick arms came away from the man’s sides before he jammed his hands onto his hips, the breadth of him now, elbows out, all but filling that doorway. Not loosely, sloppily fat, like Mr. Keen, the Hawkhurst baker, but just big and very, very solid. Stone-wall solid.

And with a voice that sent a chill down Julia’s spine. “Here now, look what the sea dragged up. No, no, never the sea. Can’t get your dainty city feet wet, can you? What’s the matter, boy? Running from creditors, are you? Or did you wink at the wrong woman? Thinking to hide here? Not under my skirts, you won’t.”

Julia could feel Chance tensing beside her. “Skirts? But it’s a man, isn’t it?”

Chance sniffed, shook his head. “It’s Jacko. And if he ever wanted to wear skirts, Miss Carruthers, I can assure you I’d be the last one trying for a peek beneath them. Come on or he’ll just pose there spouting nonsense to amuse himself and have us standing out here all night.”

“Oh, so that was in the way of friendly banter then?” Julia asked, knowing she’d heard nothing friendly in anything Jacko had said, no matter that he was dressed as a gentleman.

“Could it be anything else, Miss Carruthers?” Chance asked through clenched teeth, then shifted his blanket-wrapped daughter in his arms. “I’ve got Miss Alice here, Jacko, as Ainsley obviously didn’t get my letter, so you can either leave off your crowing and let us in or take a bow, then shut the door on our faces and we’ll be on our way.”

The man stepped forward, the light from the dying flambeaux on either side of the door at last revealing his face, showing his age to be somewhere older than Chance Becket and younger than Moses when he’d come tripping back down the mountain with those clay tablets in his arms. More than that, she really couldn’t tell.

Julia didn’t know whether to smile or run screaming for the safety of the coach. For this was a round, happy face. Even a jolly face, with eyebrows raised up high on its forehead, a large nose with a bulb at the end, a carelessly trimmed mustache and small beard surrounded by apple cheeks. His smile was wide and exposed huge white teeth that were all odd-sized and oddly spaced.

The eyes? The eyes showed amusement, even playfully twinkled. The skin around the eyes crinkled when he smiled. Oh, so jolly. Jacko would probably look jolly even as he was carving your beating heart right out of your chest.

“You’ve got the babe with you?” Jacko asked, his head coming forward on his thick neck, as if this part of him, at least, wanted a closer look. “God’s backside, you do! Well, get in here, boy. Don’t leave the child out in the damp. God gave you brains, didn’t he?”

Julia bit her lips between her teeth and waited for Chance to precede her into the large entrance hall, then followed after him, making sure she stood as far from Jacko as was possible without physically crawling beneath the long table pushed against a side wall.

Jacko kicked the door shut and turned to look at Alice, who had awakened at last and was already looking at him. “Hello, princess,” he said, his voice tender now, his delight obvious.

“Hello,” Alice responded sleepily. “I’m not a princess. You’re funny.”

It was true, Alice wasn’t afraid of strangers. But Julia didn’t trust that smile, that laugh. She knew a dangerous man when she saw one. Jacko was like a dog you met on the village street, seeming pleasant enough but just as likely to bite as to wag its tail.

“She’s very tired,” Julia said, stepping in front of Chance, as her concern for Alice outstripped her reluctance to draw this man’s attention to her. “We need to be shown a room where I can get her into bed. Thank you.”

Jacko cocked one eyebrow and looked past Julia, to Chance. “Not the wife. I remember the wife. Didn’t say two words to me, but I remember her. Who’s this?”

Chance held his temper as Alice slipped her thin arms up and around his neck. “Miss Carruthers is Alice’s nurse, Jacko. And my wife is dead these six months, as well you know. I’ve brought Alice to stay here, within the warm, loving bosom of my family. Now I’m taking Alice up to the nursery, as I know the way, and you can tell Ainsley I’m here. Or you can go to hell.”

Julia let out a half cough, half choke, then lifted her skirts to follow after Chance when he headed up the staircase, as being left in the hallway with Jacko wasn’t the most appealing thought she’d ever entertained.

She made it halfway across the hall before a large hand grabbed her at the elbow and pulled her to a quick halt.

“You don’t look like a nanny. Too pretty by half, and you look like one who really sees what’s around her. Why’s he here? Why’s he really here, pretty girl?” Jacko asked quietly, smiling down at her.

“If you have questions for Mr. Becket, you should direct them to him,” Julia said, wondering briefly if she might faint. “Please let go of my arm.”

“Leave off, Jacko. She’s good enough. Knows what she’s about, this one does.”

“Billy?” Julia asked, blinking, as the coachman rolled his wiry body into the hallway. What on earth? Servants didn’t come into the front of the house, most certainly not a coachman wearing all of his travel dirt and with mud still caked on his boots. And most definitely not any servant carrying a half-eaten drumstick.

Billy’s walk was suddenly more assured, the tone of his voice much more forceful, and Julia realized that this was the real Billy she was seeing now and not the awkward, scrambling little man who worked as Chance’s fairly cow-handed coachie—probably playing that role for her benefit, now that she considered the thing.

“Billy boy, there you are, ugly as ever.” Jacko let go of Julia’s arm. “You can go up now, miss. Third floor, then turn to your right and then your left and follow your pretty nose to the end.”

Julia didn’t move other than to rub at her arm where Jacko’s sausage-thick fingers had been. “You’re seamen. Both of you. I should have realized…I should have—”

She shut her mouth, remembered Billy’s description of her: Knows what she’s about, this one does.

And she did, didn’t she? She hadn’t lived in Hawkhurst on the edge of Romney Marsh for all of her life without coming to “know what she’s about.” Knowing what Billy and Jacko were and even what those three unlucky young boys had been “about.” Knowing that asking too many questions in Romney Marsh could mean she’d soon know too much for anyone to be comfortable.

But there was one question she had to ask. “Billy? Will you please tell me what you have done with the boys? Have you sent for the doctor? They’re harmless, Billy, just boys.”

“What’s she running her mouth about? What boys?”

“The lads will be fine, missy,” Billy said, ignoring Jacko’s question as he looked at Julia. “Excepting the dead one, of course. He’ll still be dead. Odette’s with the other one. If she can’t fix him, he’s good as fish bait anyway. No harm will come to them, rest your mind on that. Mr. Chance, he gave orders. You go on upstairs now, missy.”

Julia opened her mouth to ask something else—so many questions already half-formed in her mind!—but Jacko was looking at her again. “Thank you, Billy. Our…the baggage?”

“Already waiting on you, missy.”

“Thank you again,” Julia said as she clutched the small traveling bag to her and neatly sidestepped Jacko. She didn’t break into a run until she reached the third floor, barely remembering anything of her surroundings on the way up, except to think that Mr. Ainsley Becket, whatever and whoever he was, must possess amazingly deep pockets.

She had, however, found time to think up at least a half dozen pointed questions for Mr. Chance Becket!

Julia pushed wide the already opened door that led to the nursery—again, an almost ridiculously well-appointed room, larger than the entire vicarage in Hawkhurst—then followed the sound of voices into an adjoining room to her left. There she found Chance Becket and little Alice, Chance doing his best to pull the blue gown up and over his child’s head.

“Here, sir, I’ll do that,” Julia said, stripping off her pelisse and tossing it onto a nearby rocking chair that, goodness, had carved swans’ heads for arms. She opened Alice’s traveling bag and pulled out a night rail. “I imagine you’ll be wanted downstairs.”

“Do you really,” Chance said, stepping back to let Julia take over the chore of undressing a child so sleepy her arms and legs seemed boneless. “You took your sweet time, Miss Carruthers. I already know you’re a curious sort. Did you allow yourself a tour?”

Julia lowered the night rail over Alice’s head, tucked her arms into the sleeves, then kissed the child’s cheek as she worked to push back the coverlet and slip Alice’s legs between the sheets. “Someone knew we were coming, Mr. Becket,” she said as she stood up again. “Those are fresh sheets on Miss Alice’s bed. There are fires in the grates. And there are newly lit candles. We were expected.”

She watched as Chance ran a hand over his hair. He’d had a long two days, definitely a long evening tonight. He looked almost adorably rumpled, some of his hair having escaped the ribbon, and there was a hint of strain around his eyes. Obviously this was not a happy homecoming.

“True, Miss Carruthers. Jacko knew. He simply preferred to pretend he didn’t. I was expected last night, however, and when I didn’t arrive I may have disappointed someone. Jacko wanted me to be quite sure I understood that.”

Julia shook her head. “Well, I don’t understand. Why would you plan to leave your daughter here? You obviously detest the place and dislike your family, at the very least.”

Chance’s look was cool and level. “If we’re done here, Miss Carruthers?”

He knew what was coming even before he saw her lift that maddeningly expressive chin. How in the name of Hades had he been so stupid as to hire this confounding woman?

Ah, desperation. It had been out of desperation, of course. Once he’d sent the letter off to Ainsley, once he’d made up his mind that he had no logical recourse but to go back to Becket Hall with Alice, he’d had no choice but to stay with his plans, even when Mrs. Jenkins proved unacceptable.

Those were his reasons, along with the way Julia Carruthers had appealed to him physically. A welcome surprise to sweeten the large bite of crow he would swallow once he stood in the same room with Ainsley Becket.

Even now, when he knew Julia was about to say something totally unacceptable and clearly out of line with her duties, all he wanted was to undo that ridiculous bun that was once more half sliding off her head, to learn if her honey-blond hair felt warm and silky under his hand.

“I would speak to you in the nursery, sir,” Julia said, and he nodded, knowing the only way out of this bedchamber was via that nursery and that Julia Carruthers would probably physically tackle him if he attempted to leave without listening to her as she gave her opinion on whatever was sticking in her craw.

Mrs. Jenkins, nipping gin and all, would have made a safer choice. Any woman who had not been raised near the coast in Kent would have been a better choice. Someone oblivious, someone who would keep her nose in the nursery and her opinions to herself.

But he had picked Julia Carruthers. And this woman knew. But did she know enough to watch her tongue?

If he managed to stifle her now, it would be only a temporary victory—and perhaps a very costly one, as well. For Julia was certain to pick at him and pick at him until she’d said what she felt needed to be said—probably at the most inopportune time and in the most dangerous company.

Chance retrieved his greatcoat and hat and followed Julia as if he were a schoolboy summoned to the headmaster’s office. Once they were in the nursery, he stood with his back to a piebald hobby horse he could remember as Cassandra’s favorite and ruled his expression unreadable.

And, fool that he was, he’d hope that Julia had some budget of complaints about something other than what had been made so glaringly and disgustingly obvious to him. “Well?”

Julia’s heart was pounding so loudly she was sure he could hear its every beat. She pointed in the general direction of the center of the house and said, “You know what’s going on here? This Jacko person? And Billy? I never thought that Billy…although I should have…I’ve seen many a man like him walking the streets of Hawkhurst. They’re seamen—at least, they were. And men who have been to sea very often feel a kinship for the smugglers. Georgie and his brothers did a very dangerous and stupid thing that could bring trouble raining down on everyone. What’s really going to happen to Johnnie and Dickie? Are they in danger here?”

Chance clenched his hands into fists. She was going to ruin everything.

He had to shut her up. Now.

“I believe I can see where that vivid imagination of yours is taking you. Yes, Billy and Jacko were once sailors, years ago, and came here to Romney Marsh when we left the islands. But Billy’s far too lazy and Jacko far too fat and happy here for either of them to care about anything but their own comfort. This is Becket Hall, not your childhood home in Hawkhurst. You’re exhausted, Julia, darling, and our adventure on the Marsh and your very natural fatigue have made you fanciful,” Chance said, still with his back to the door and as, with eye shiftings accompanied by jerks of his thumb, he directed her attention to that open door.

Darling? Julia took a step back. What on earth? Someone was out there? Someone was listening?

And then she shut her eyes, realizing the mistake she’d made, before opening them wide again, looking straight into Chance’s face. “That is…oh, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Those poor boys, come upon by robbers out there on the Marsh. A person who grows up in Hawkhurst hears stories of the old days, you understand, and I was so tired, tending to Alice all day—she’s a sweet child, but her own fatigue made her a little fractious, didn’t it? I’m so sorry…” She took a deep breath, let it out in a rush and pushed on, taking her cue from him. “Dearest Chance. I’m seeing bogeymen, aren’t I? That will teach me to allow my imagination to wander.”

“Yes, it will, won’t it,” Chance said, looking into Julia’s frightened eyes and marking the rather alarming lack of color in her cheeks. She might be pluck to the backbone at times, but she could also topple in a faint at any moment. “But Alice is asleep now and we’re alone. Just let me close this door so no one disturbs us. I haven’t kissed you in hours.”

Well, that brought the color back into her cheeks!

“But…but don’t you think you should seek out your father…that is, Mr. Ainsley Becket? Jacko must have told him you’ve arrived.”

“He can wait. They can all wait. I can’t,” Chance said in a near growl, walking over to the door to the hallway now that he’d given anyone who might have been listening time to hide out of sight. He stepped into the hallway himself, and it was empty, as he’d expected, then backed into the room and closed the door. Locked it.

“Was…was anyone out there?” Julia asked, whispering.

He could say no. But that wouldn’t put the fear of God into her, would it? Besides, he knew Jacko. Jacko may have the size of a bear, but he moved like a cat. He knew the man had been there listening. “Yes, I saw Jacko, the back of him, sneaking into a room down the hall.”

“Oh, good God in Heaven,” Julia said as she clasped her hands in front of her to keep them from shaking. “Do you think he heard me?”

Chance stepped closer. “I’m sure he did, but you didn’t say anything too dangerous. You’re concerned for the idiots we brought with us, that’s all. Ease your mind on that head at least, please. The boys and their family will be leaving the Marsh in the morning. I’m having them sent north, to my estate near Coventry, well clear of here. Now say whatever else it is you feel you must say and then we won’t discuss any of this again.”

Julia backed up two paces, because he was standing so close and she was suddenly very aware that he had earlier called her “darling.” She mined her brain for the list of questions she had for him and came up with the first that she recalled. “Why is Billy your coachman? He’s an atrocious coachman.”

Chance smiled. “I knew you’d have questions, but I hadn’t considered that one. But fair enough. Billy is my coachman because I choose that he be my coachman—and probably because he believes his life’s work is to protect me, from only God knows what.”

“He still walks as if he’s on a rolling deck,” Julia said, hoping to ease the tension that seemed to be increasing between them, a tension that had little to do with the questions in her head or the growing fear in her heart.

“He does that, doesn’t he?” Chance said, smiling. “Jacko was also a sailor, as you already guessed. Ainsley was a sailor. Most anyone you encounter here at Becket Hall might have gone to sea at some time. After all, we lived on an island. But that’s all it is, Julia. When we left the islands and came here, everyone gave up the sea. They gave up anything to do with the sea. Do you understand me?”

“You’re telling me that no one at Becket Hall is associated with the smugglers or even knows or cares about them. I understand.” She bit her bottom lip between her teeth as she looked at him, as everything seemed to fall into place for her, the pieces of the puzzle now all fitting together tightly, showing her a picture she’d rather not see. Did he think her a fool? “They know you are a part of the War Office.”

“Yes, they do,” Chance said, his expression going dark, unreadable. “And the war is on the continent, not here in Romney Marsh.”

Why did she keep pushing at him? But she had to know. “True enough. But the Owlers are here, and they trade with the enemy. Did you really bring Alice to Becket Hall because you believe she should be here or are you using your own daughter as an excuse to spy on the smugglers for the king?”