Chapter Four #2
“They’re certainly used to catering to someone’s expensive tastes,” Tabitha remarked, setting down her glass. She began to suspect the origins of those lights they had followed.
While Lily consumed the cold apple pie and cream that followed the stew, Tabitha went to the window and slipped behind the heavy curtains to peer outside.
However, the view was from the back of the house, looking away from the sea.
To her far left, a faint glow seemed to imply that James had been given a berth at the back too, but above the stable block.
She knew he would not have retired if his horses had not been well enough cared for, so she did not need to worry about them either.
On the other hand, she saw no familiar pattern of bobbing lights, so whoever they belonged to, they had not passed the Headless Horseman.
She wondered if they were still advancing.
On sudden impulse, she turned and took one of the spare candles she always carried when she travelled and lit it from one of the wall sconces.
“I’m just going to explore and walk off this dinner,” she said casually. “Will you stay awake long enough to finish the pie?”
“Maybe not,” Lily said with a sleepy smile. Her unease about the inn seemed to have been overcome by food or exhaustion or both. “Just be careful, Tabbie—it seems an odd sort of a place to me.”
And to Tabitha. Wrapping herself in a shawl against the drafts, she took a candle and left the room.
She walked along the passage to where she had seen the half-glass door and the outside staircase.
Although the door was locked, the key had been left inserted, so she turned it carefully to avoid any loud clicks, then slipped outside onto the stone landing.
The stairs were at the side of the house, and she peered out into the darkness toward the front. Her heart thudded once with excitement, for there were the moving lights, very close now.
She flitted silently down the stairs, abandoned her candle on the bottom step, and moved through the darkness at the base of the building toward the main yard. She had just crept as far as the corner when her skin prickled.
Someone was just around that corner. She could sense their breath, their heat.
Considering her suspicions of the house and the approaching lights, she really did not want to fall over any lookouts and betray that she was spying.
She eased carefully back, listening to the slow, gentle thud of hooves on soft ground.
Inevitably, curiosity got the better of her.
Sensing that the other presence had moved away, she crept forward again, craning her neck, and watched as an array of men with lanterns and ponies ambled through the arch and into the yard.
Tabitha almost crowed with triumph, for the ponies were all burdened with casks and baskets of bottles.
The lights they had been following belonged to smugglers, moving from their landing beach to this inn where, presumably, the contraband was stored before being distributed.
She could not imagine the Headless Horseman got enough trade to justify so much brandy and wine and whatever else the poor ponies carried.
A few darkly-dressed men led the ponies.
Another more dignified fellow walked in their midst beside a gangly boy.
Something moved too close to her, treading on her toe, and abruptly she was thrust back against the wall, both hands gripped captive above her head and a gloved hand hard across her mouth.
Terrified, she was held too strongly to struggle, though she kicked instinctively at her attacker’s shins.
She heard his breath hiss, but he only moved closer, restricting the rest of her body with his own.
She stared up into her attacker’s face, waiting with angry helplessness for the blow of fist or knife.
Her brows flew up. The rest of her suddenly sagged. For enough light now spilled around from the yard for her to recognize the features of Jack De’Ath.
The gentle eyes that had disturbed her dreams were unexpectedly hard. And then they changed to warm astonishment. At the same time, his teeth gleamed, and his hand fell away from her face. He bent his head and covered her mouth with his.
***
LILY, HAVING GUILTILY consumed both portions of apple pie, felt slightly sick and stood up to walk it off.
She looked forward to bed, but the inn made her so uneasy that she didn’t want to retire before Tabitha returned and locked their chamber door.
What took her so long? Was there really so much of the inn to explore?
Well, it did seem to be an odd place, big and rambling with no guests, extremely plain food, and wine worthy of her father’s table.
No doubt the last was smuggled, a crime that most people she knew seemed to regard with indulgence—decent bottles being of greater importance than either the King’s revenue or the ongoing war with France.
Eventually, after a few circuits of the room, she decided to go in search of Tabitha and find out what was so wretchedly interesting that it had to keep them from their soft feather beds.
Copying her stepmother, she threw a shawl about her shoulders, lit one of the spare candles, and opened the bedchamber door.
She gasped and almost shut it again, for outside the door on the right, only a few yards down the passage, stood a man looking directly at her.
For a moment, they both seemed to be paralyzed. The candle he grasped lent his face an oddly sinister tone, until he said, “I beg your pardon, ma’am. I did not mean to startle you.”
She smiled with relief, for his speech alone proved he was a gentleman. And now that she could think again, she realized he was young and in military uniform, with a shock of fair hair and a most pleasing countenance—not quite handsome perhaps, but very agreeable.
He bowed. “Allow me to introduce myself? Lieutenant Nathaniel Meade, at your service.”
She curtseyed. “Lily Lisle.”
“What a pretty name.”
“Do you think so? My cousin says it makes me sound like a flower girl in Covent Garden.”
He laughed. “Hardly! Are you looking for Mrs. Rains? May I escort you?”
“Actually, I was looking for my stepmother, who went to explore quite fifteen minutes ago...”
To her surprise, he seemed to understand her unease. “Yes, it’s a rum sort of place, is it not? I was just going to step downstairs and have some supper. Perhaps your stepmother is there. I don’t believe there are any other public rooms.”
With some relief—for he seemed to be a very comfortable, unthreatening sort of young man—she closed the bedchamber door and walked with him. Which was when she realized he was limping.
“Are you injured, sir?” she asked in quick sympathy.
“Oh, not anymore,” he said cheerfully. “They’ve been happily digging shrapnel out of my leg for weeks, but apparently it is all removed now. I wanted to go back to the Peninsula, but the doctors have insisted on two weeks more rest.”
“Here?” she asked, appalled.
He grinned. “Lord, no, but since the doctors didn’t define what sort of rest they meant, I’ve been trying out driving my brother’s curricle about. I got lost taking the back roads to Hawthorn Court.”
“Why, so did we!”
Delighted by this coincidence, it took her some time to notice that there were more voices in the common room downstairs.
As one, they paused, leaning over the balustrade to see those gathered below: a well-dressed man in an exquisitely cut coat, a boy of around fourteen, similarly dressed, and another man who appeared to be a servant.
They were all talking urgently in French when Mrs. Rains came barrelling in from the kitchen bearing a tray which she slammed down on the nearest table in order to glare up at Lily and Lieutenant Meade.
“What the devil are you doing there?” she demanded angrily.
***
JACK HAD FOLLOWED THE lights from the beach, at first from mere curiosity about the nature of “free trading,” and then with the suspicion that more than mere brandy was being smuggled here.
With his suspicions confirmed by snatches of French on the breeze, and the fact that three of the party he had followed did no actual work, he slipped back around the corner of the inn to decide what to do about it.
Encountering another body there, literally underfoot, scared the life out of him, and he reacted from pure instinct.
Having never indulged in any physical violence more dangerous than punching his pillow, he had no plan and no real intention to hurt.
His main concern was silence, though even as he acted, it struck him that if this was one of the smugglers or their allies at the inn, then he was already caught.
His physical strength was largely untried and unknown.
And the fellow wriggled like a desperate eel.
As Jack tightened his grip, imprisoning the sneak’s body with his own, grasping the small hands against the wall, clamping his hand across the mouth, which seemed very low down, he realized two things very quickly.
This was not a fellow at all—she had far too many curves and skirts, and her perfume was inexplicably familiar.
He leaned his head to the side to let the light from the front of the house touch her face above his hand, and relief and pleasure reacted without permission.
Tabitha. He didn’t know if the word was on his lips or merely inside his head. It was just so unexpected and so wonderful that it seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss her.
Only it wasn’t, of course; it was entirely wrong, and the kiss was as fleeting as it was stunning.
The flutter of her parted lips was indescribably sweet but barely more than an impression as he freed her at once.
Her hands fell to her sides, and he ached for the loss of her soft, luscious curves against him. ..
She blinked and pushed around him to see what was going on in the yard.
Abruptly, reality rushed back on him, and he peered over her head. The pack ponies were being led toward the outbuildings, leaving only the two men he had overheard speaking French, and the boy who accompanied them. The innkeeper’s wife was all but dragging them inside.
Jack moved back several yards, drawing Tabitha with him.
“What on earth are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Staying at the inn, of course. You?”
“I followed the lights from the coast.”
Her lips twitched and she remembered to drawl this time. “So did we. No wonder the wine is good. The brandy will be excellent too.”
“It could well be more than that,” he said. “I don’t suppose you know the way to the nearest town?”
“Don’t inform on the Gentlemen. It will make you unpopular, and it will upset supplies for the rest of us.”
“You don’t understand. They’re not just smuggling brandy. They’re smuggling French people.”
It was too dark now to see her face, but he heard her intake of breath. “With what purpose?”
“Who knows? Spying at a guess. Sabotage.”
“Oh dear... That would be a much bigger problem. But how do you know they are French?”
“I heard them speaking while I followed them.”
“Lots of people speak French,” she said, “especially when they don’t want the lower orders to understand. I’ve been known to do it myself.”
It was something he hadn’t thought of, so he spared the theory a moment’s consideration.
“It did not sound like Englishmen speaking French,” he said cautiously.
He could tell the difference, having had both English and French tutors in that language.
“And they certainly came off the small boats along with brandy. But perhaps I’ve jumped to conclusions. ”
“And perhaps not,” she said urgently. “This is a very odd inn, Jack. It’s large and spacious and yet most of it smells unused, and we appear to be the only guests.
We weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms. There are lots of rooms, yet Lily and I were shoved into the same one at the very back of the house and strongly encouraged to dine there—kept out of the way, in other words. ”
His name on her lips gave him a pleasurable little frisson, though he tried to concentrate on her words. “There are some inns that are little more than dens of thieves,” he said.
“Were you robbed in one of them, too?”
“No, I was warned off just in time by a more experienced traveller who sold rather charming under-garments for ladies. I don’t like your being here.”
Her eyes were alight with laughter, though whether at his caution or his under-clothes salesman, he could not tell. He just felt the effect in the pit of his stomach. And lower. He tried to think.
“I shall stay here, too,” he said decisively. “It will take me only five minutes to fetch my horse.” He began to move toward the courtyard wall by the stables, over which he had climbed in the first place.
“Wait,” she hissed after him. “What if they don’t let you in?”
“I shall be too important to keep out.”