Chapter 8 #2
Dani let out a little laugh, a puff of ironic disbelief that embodied everything she was feeling—confusion, alarm, disbelief.
She’d finally managed to ask her pressing question and it was answered with ten more questions.
“Smuggling distresses you?” he asked.
“I cannot say. I’ve never given smuggling the slightest bit of thought. But do you slink about under the cover of darkness?
Do you evade officials and lie? Do you sell stolen goods?”
“Slink in darkness? Yes. Evade the law? Well, I evade customs officials. Steal? Smuggling might be viewed as the opposite
of stealing. I am providing goods otherwise unavailable at a reasonable price. I do not steal them, I buy them. And then I
sell them.”
“You steal from the Crown, then. These goods are not unavailable, they are taxed. And taxes belong to the Crown, which you
do not pay, and your customers do not pay.”
“So you do know something about smuggling.”
“I know it is a hanging offense. Forgive me, I will need to . . .” she squeezed her eyes shut “. . . look into it. Honestly the most distressing thing is that I’m only learning this about you now. But do my parents know?”
“Probably not.”
She let out a little cry, thankful that they’d not deceived her in this—at the very least. She turned away and began to pace.
“You are cross,” he observed.
“I am foolish. And careless. Mooning over Eastwell Park without examining all that comes with it.”
“You are not foolish, Miss Allard; you are frustrated with what I’ve just revealed—and rightly so. I take full responsibility
for the incredible oddness of this conversation. The betrothal has been strange for all of us. I am not accustomed to meeting
proper young ladies and carrying on like a gentleman. The war-hero mantle is not only new, it’s been fastened around my neck
by others. It weighs heavily and fits very uncomfortably, indeed. I did not want it, but I cannot seem to escape it. It is
a burden I neither enjoy nor fully understand.”
He exhaled sharply, a man who’d sprinted to outpace a downpour. He pinned her with a hard look, at once defiant and beseeching.
Dani’s traitorous stomach flipped again.
“Will you hear me out?” he asked.
“Please. I have been asking for two days to understand.”
“Although I am a smuggler, I’ve worked also as what is known as a privateer; using my boat to run errands for the Admiralty. Is this a term you know? Privateer?”
She shook her head.
“War with France demands more of the Royal Navy than the fleet can manage. I have—or, I should say, I had—a very fast, very nimble boat and a skilled crew to sail it. Because of my years of smuggling, I also have an expert knowledge of the Bay of Biscay and the Celtic Sea, which is the water between England and Spain. Knowing this, the War Office began to pay me to ferry dispatches from Cornwall to Aviles. On my final—and, I should note, deadly—privateering mission, my men and I were engaged by a French lugger. I survived the attack and,” an exhale, “bobbed in the ocean for three days, along with the king’s cousin. You know the last bit.”
“The rescue,” she said.
“The swim.”
She chuckled. “Your favorite joke.”
“It’s very reliable.”
He was clever; she could acknowledge this. He was handsome and clever and strong, just as Amelia had said. And also an outlaw. Which no one had bothered to mention until now.
“That cousin is Lord Fernsby, by the way. In case this isn’t clear. He’s become a friend—or rather, he’s become someone who
follows me about. Is that a friend? He believes he owes me a sort of life debt.”
“A life debt,” she repeated, still trying to understand why a known outlaw was given a house and a wife—and her. Was it an honor, she wondered, to be betrothed to a smuggler? If her parents knew, would they oppose the match?
“It was a lie of omission, I suppose,” he said, “for you to believe that I’m a naval officer. The news reports have described
me as a patriot. I prefer accuracy over zeal, but I don’t control what the scribblers print. To you, I should have said something
from the start.”
Dani narrowed her eyes, searching for signs of honesty on his face. How did one identify honesty in a man she did not know?
He’d revealed so much—it was hardly everything she wanted, but the things he’d just shared were not insignificant.
“So when you ask why the prince gave me this house as reward for my bravery,” he said, “I think his goal was to dissuade me from my former life of crime. I am to be retrained as a gentleman farmer. The house and lands were the means.”
“And the wife?”
“The incentive,” he said, looking at her. “And a sort of guide?”
Incentive. The word hooked into her heart and gently tugged. A guide? If ever there was a siren’s song to someone like Dani—someone who wanted only to share, and include, and help—it was this.
She began to pace anew. She prowled the room, skimming her hand over the draped furniture. Could Eastwell Park capture the
heart and imagination of a new landowner if the man applied himself? Yes, of course. What if he was a former smuggler? Did
Captain Bannock intend to stop smuggling? Did he want to farm and work the land and rescue Ivy Hill? None of this had been discussed.
“I was always going to tell you,” he added quietly. “This sounds like too little, too late, I’m sure. But before we entered
into any sort of negotiation, I was going to tell you.”
And that’s another thing, she thought, still pacing, the emphasis on negotiating.
There were fifty things she should be asking him now, but her mind kept returning to the lawlessness.
This man was a criminal. He didn’t seem like a criminal.
Did he also seem like a gentleman? She could not say.
She did not know any proper gentlemen. Mr. Stinchcomb was, she supposed, a gentleman.
If nothing else, he was rich. And she would never marry a man like Stinchcomb, not for any mansion in the world.
She would flee Mr. Stinchcomb—literally, she would pick up her skirts and run away to avoid him.
But she had not fled from Captain Bannock.
She’d done the opposite. And with less information. After knowing him for all of a day.
Even now she wasn’t marching from this salon, down the corridor, and out the front door. Instead, she was circling the room
like a dove with an olive branch, looking for a safe place to light.
The truth was, marriage to a smuggler—to this smuggler—did not feel impossible. She did not relish the notion; it confused her and taxed her, but she could think of many qualities she could never abide, and Captain Bannock
possessed none of them. He was not mean-spirited or overbearing; he was not boring or stupid or silly. He did not make her
feel small, not small-minded nor unimportant. Was this out of character for a known criminal? She could not say. And what
of all the things he was? Handsome. Exciting. Clever. Capable, obviously. She thought of how he’d challenged Giles Stinchcomb
in the street. Imposing. He took her seriously and treated her like an adult woman with valid motivations and dreams.
She came to the library door and stopped walking, covering her face with her hands. There was so much to consider, and she
would not be rushed. She would not squeeze onto tiny benches and speak to his profile. She must gather her thoughts and ask
what she wanted to know. If he wanted to negotiate—fine. First, she would interrogate.
She swallowed hard, uncovered her face, and peered into the library. The dark room now glowed orange with the light of a roaring
fire. She could see the tops of the bookshelves, so high, only a ladder could reach. The floor was stacked with the baron’s
old journals and newspapers. The drape had been pulled from a large leather divan, emerald green, tufted with brass grommets.
Of course there would be a green divan. Everything at Eastwell Park was fine and beautiful and distinctive.
“Our negotiation, Miss Allard? You do remember?” Captain Bannock came to stand behind her.
Dani frowned. He was rushing her. She glanced over her shoulder, gave a dismissive shake of her head, and disappeared into
the library.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn—bloody, bleeding hell. Damn.
There were four things this woman should accept in order for Luke to rescue Linus Welty.
First, she needed to understand that Eastwell Park could be hers. Fine, he’d managed that—well, he’d managed part of that.
She knew the prize, not the terms.
Second, she needed to understand that she was a bloody French princess. Failure. He’d not revealed this.
Third, she should know the betrothal happened because Luke required a French princess—required her—to rescue his friend. Another failure.
Finally, she should know—and accept—her active role in the rescue of Linus Welty. Third unsaid thing.
Every other bloody thing he might tell her—his unknown mother, his absent father, his life as a smuggler—was unnecessary.
Certainly the lie about Prince George’s benevolent need to see Luke retrained as a farmer?
She didn’t need to know this because he’d made it up. On the spot. Lies. For no reason other than to distract her from asking again for the truth. Prince George didn’t care if Luke was a farmer,
butcher, baker, or resting in eternal slumber at the bottom of the sea.
He paced the perimeter of this room, scowling out the windows.
Every few minutes, he stopped to check the library door.
She’d excused herself to—what? Prepare a treatise on all the ways he was unfit?
Find a reference book called A Proper Miss’s Guide to Smugglers?
Escape down the terrace steps and run into the fields?
After a quarter hour with no sound, Luke’s anxiety beat out his instinct to give her space. With heart pounding, he peeked
through the library door.
“Miss Allard?” he called carefully. The room appeared empty.
“Here,” came a voice from behind the desk.
Thank God. He exhaled. She hadn’t gone.