Chapter 3
Sybil watched Lang ride off and then quickly changed into some of his clothing.
“You ought to let me go in Lang’s stead.” Cass helped Sybil into the bulky jacket that would help disguise her shape.
Cass had been shocked when she came down in trousers and guessed what she was doing. He didn’t know she was going in his stead, not Lang’s. Lang was with the revenue force now, and she wouldn’t let Crofton’s demands jeopardize her brother’s chances.
Lang’s Riding Officer was a friend of his from school and knew his past history with the local smugglers—that was one of the reasons he took Lang on. Unfortunately, Crofton was holding the mortgage over her head and demanded Cass go in Lang’s place.
Even if either twin was hale and hardy, she wouldn’t have allowed it.
“Crofton will recognize you,” Cass said.
“He won’t be with these fellows. He’s left Butley in charge and gone off to meet with someone further north.”
“With who?”
“With whom, little brother. And best we not know which squire or clergyman is storing his contraband.”
Crofton had access to barns, buildings, caves, even churches and vicarage cellars.
“There,” she said, tightening the belt holding her trousers and buttoning her coat. “I will pass, or I won’t. Take care of Paul. We’ll send for the apothecary if he’s still ill tomorrow.”
Cass handed over a sheathed knife. “Put this in your boot. In case someone sees through your disguise and tries to, er, bother you.”
Suppressing a shiver, she shoved that worry aside and took the weapon.
Her brother’s eyes sparkled. “Will you have to fight with a revenue agent?” he teased.
She hadn’t thought that far ahead… Being taken up by the revenuers. Held for trial. Transported. Or worse…
She shook her head. Lang had influence. If the worst happened, he’d have to help her. She was doing this one time for the sake of her brothers, and then she’d find a way to pay Crofton off. Perhaps Sir Peter Somerville might know someone who would loan her money.
“Of course not. I’ll be shifting casks is all.” She hoped. “Fixing them to the pack horses.”
With luck, she herself wouldn’t be weighted down with barrels. She was strong—the work here kept her so—but she didn’t quite have a man’s strength.
Hopefully Crofton’s men would expect a skinny youth and assign the appropriate task.
“It’s a wonder Crofton doesn’t worry about Lang giving evidence against him,” Cass said.
Crofton had once trusted Lang, but no longer—that was one reason he’d bought out the mortgage and now demanded what amounted to a hostage.
“You’re not to worry,” she said.
He limped with her through the kitchen and to the door that led out to the yard.
“Here,” he said handing her a paper-wrapped package and a flask. “It’s a sandwich. And in case your nerves fail, some gin. Good gin. Tasted it myself.”
She ruffled her brother’s hair. “A wee taste is fine, but don’t make it a habit.”
Adding a candle stub and tinderbox to her supplies, and lighting a small lantern, she eased the door open.
Cass would have followed her out into the night, but she pushed him back. No telling whether one of Crofton’s men was watching.
* * *
Wes left his horse grazing in a stand of trees near Devil’s Dyke Grange and waited.
A rider on a large bay trotted down the lane. He’d seen Lang Picard on that same horse earlier in the day.
While he debated knocking on Sybil’s door before all the lights inside dimmed, a figure in a bulky coat and droopy hat passed by the barn and glanced quickly around before shuttering a lantern.
A split-second instinct set him to follow.
Light gleamed in the curtain-shrouded window of a cottage behind the outbuildings where their man, Emmett, lived with his family. That left Sybil and the twins, one sick, the other too injured to walk.
He stifled the urge to call out.
Surely that was Sybil, dressed as a man and off to do who knew what?
He would follow her; smugglers, ghosts, and highwaymen be damned.
Crackbrained woman. There was something about her that put him in mind of…
no, not his stepmother. Stepmama had independent notions he’d been unaware of before, but her oddness was restricted to dabbling with paints.
Nor his granny, the dowager Lady Twisden.
Strong-willed as she was, she limited her adventures to haring off to spas to take the waters and keeping up a flow of gossipy correspondence.
Nor was Sybil Dunsford like any of the other females, respectable and otherwise, who he’d encountered at home or in the social circles of York or London.
Sybil Dunsford was a curiosity, an attractive one, an intriguing one. One that had to be investigated.
He damped down his exhilaration and set off, like one of the natives of North America he’d read about in stories, stalking this doe silently, wishing he’d thought to dress differently, worn a dark jumper and a dark wooly hat over his light hair.
Though in fact, his wardrobe was deficient in both of those items.
The figure moved quickly, slowing only when brush became dense, squeaking and uttering a muffled oath when a holly leaf snagged the coat.
The curse had been low-pitched. The squeak, utterly feminine.
She moved beyond the tree line onto a narrow path worn into the grassy rim of the valley. With a rustle of gravel, a rider came upon her, and she jumped to the side.
“I say. You startled me,” the rider said in a cultured voice. “What are you about tonight?”
Wes lingered in the tree line, straining his ears to listen. Nothing in Sybil’s demeanor reflected fear. She might know this fellow. In fact, Wes himself sensed something familiar about him.
“Looking for…”
The voices lowered to almost a whisper, and he couldn’t hear the rest. But the rider soon saluted and rode on.
* * *
Sybil pulled her coat tighter and looked around. Robin Somerville had come upon her so suddenly she wondered at first if he was the one stalking her, because her nerves and the occasional snap of a twig or rustle of dead leaves told her she wasn’t alone.
“What are you about tonight,” Robin repeated, leaning closer.
She took a step back, buying time to settle her butterflies and clear her throat.
Remember, you are Cass, not Sybil.
“Looking for…” Scrunching her face and taking a breath, she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “you know,” and then waggled her hand and ducked her head quickly.
“Ah,” he whispered, “one of the Picard brats. Which one, I can’t tell. Off to meet the local free traders, and you with a brother who’s one of the King’s gaugers. Yes, I saw him on the road heading west, presumably to meet up with his lieutenant. How odd when you’re going east.”
Sybil stood silent, studying the damp path. She was not going east, but north and east. Fresh boot prints imprinted in the mud told her at least part of the party had passed this way ahead of her.
But Lang… was he steering the revenuers west at Crofton’s behest?
If not, perhaps the revenuers were going to circle around and put her in danger of arrest.
Her brother wouldn’t allow that, would he?
The thought sent chills down her back. She might have to give evidence against Crofton to escape punishment, and then she’d have to leave Devil’s Dyke Grange and the wrath of his gang.
“Does he know you’re off to meet your Lady Geneva?” Robin’s question shook her out of her catastrophizing.
A girl from these parts knew what Lady Geneva was, and she had no idea whether the cargo was in fact gin, or some other luxury the government was eager to tax.
“Don’t know anything about that. I’m out fetching one of the pigs that got out.”
“Hah. Of course, you are.” He leaned even closer. “Do you have a weapon?”
She hesitated and then nodded.
“Good. Stay to the verge, and to the tree line when there is one. We’re not alone out here. Besides the free traders, and ghosts, there’s that highwayman to be wary of. Play stupid again. It might work.”
He saluted and rode off.
When he was out of sight, she dropped to her knees and gulped in deep breaths. She wasn’t a timid girl, and she’d grown up on this land and knew it well. There was always a risk—smugglers, wandering sailors who’d jumped ship, or the occasional ex-soldier roaming the country looking for work.
Her hand went to her pocket where the flask offered ease to her nerves, but she fingered the smooth metal, remembering she needed her wits about her.
Standing, she dusted her hands and continued down the path. Robin had turned to travel cross country, though why he would risk his horse in the dark, she had no idea.
She kept to the verge and trees as he’d recommended. The clouds cleared, and the moon and stars kept her on track.
There’d been humor in Robin’s voice. He knew many of the smugglers might be local people, and that worthy fellow Captain Moonlight was too selective to rob the empty pockets of the residents of Devil’s Dyke Grange. Robin, brother of a baronet, was a far better target for the fellow.
Sir Westcott Twisden as well, or perhaps more especially, since he was a newcomer to the area and rumored to be very rich and just arrogant enough—one might say muffin-headed enough—to go roaming about the countryside alone at night.
A picture of him as he’d looked that afternoon flashed in her mind: Sir Westcott shedding his coats to reveal broad, muscled shoulders; mud plastering his tight buckskins and outlining well-shaped limbs…
A shiver went through her. With his height and muscles, he ought to be able to take on a highwayman. The free traders though, there would be too many of them.
The stupid man. She must stop woolgathering about Twisden and thinking the sort of girlish thoughts that might give her away.