Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) (14 page)

Once outside, she picked her way carefully up the road towards where she had left Isabelle. She would have to take the pony and cart home and wait for the next sailing.

As she arrived at the entrance to the field where she had left Isabelle, she could stand it no longer. She had tied her hair so tight in a plait that she was beginning to get a headache. With relief, she pulled out the tie and combed the strands across her shoulders. At last she could think clearly again.

CHAPTER 14

James shivered as he lay in the undergrowth just above Fountain Vale. From there he had an uninterrupted view of Brambridge, from the Fountain Inn, down to the forge and on to the sea beyond. Although it was a late summer, dusk had drawn in early and the stars were beginning to appear.

He pulled his telescope up from his side as a small figure of a lad stealthily approached the forge. Goddamn but his shoulder hurt. He had spent the past few weeks riding across Devon, along the coat to Seaton and all the way down to Exeter. Nowhere had he found hide or hair of Marie Mompesson or the Viscount Summerbain. All he had received for his efforts was an ache in his shoulder that refused to go away.

Turning the cylinders of the telescope, he focused on the lad. It was hard to make out the features of the boy in the dim light. But his behavior was very strange. As he walked down the road he strutted as if he held a sword around his waist, and then at the slightest sound he would slouch and scuttle into the undergrowth. He was definitely up to something.

The boy sidled into the forge. James cursed. He was too far up Brambridge Vale to scramble down to the forge in time to hear what they were talking about. Putting the telescope carefully away in its leather case, he drew his knees up beneath him, and started a slow zigzag down the hill and into the village.

He dropped back into the bracken as the small lad came back out of the forge and walked up the hill towards the Fountain Inn. If he intercepted the boy, then perhaps he could find out more about what Bill was up to, if he was the one that was disrupting the trade route. The boy had to have information.

Dragging himself forward on his elbows, James made it to the safety of the edge of the field and dropped quietly onto the road. Soft as a cat, he rounded the side of the inn.

“As a prominent member of this community, of course sir I will keep you informed.”

James drew back into the shadows by the outdoor privies. He wrinkled his nose as the smell began to take hold.

“I would be grateful, Officer Carmichael. These smugglers do not give our village a good reputation, especially after our recent war with France.”

Bloody hell, he knew that voice. He held his breath as Edgar passed within a hair’s breadth of his hiding place, the tapping of his cane on the ground matching the man’s light tread.

“I will be especially careful given what happened to the other customs officers, sir. It seems that the smugglers round here are particularly vicious.”

“Yes indeed. A rough bunch all of them, I shouldn’t imagine.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but wasn’t your cousin involved with them at one time?”

James’ breath caught.

“You mean in the death of Officer Fairleigh?”

“Yes.”

“He was accused but never tried.”

James waited. Surely Edgar would say that he was innocent? The conversation was getting fainter and fainter as the men walked to the front of the inn. James made to follow but a slight movement in the hedge further down the road caught his attention. He should be following the boy, not the men.

Cursing his stupidity, he ran low along the hedge and into the field entrance below.

A cart stood blocking the entrance, moving gently as the pony tied to it jerked at its harness.

As the moonlight shone briefly onto the back of the cart, the shadow of a small figure crossed its light timbers. Moving low and fast, he dived at the shadow and, grasping it around the shoulders, pulled it to the ground.

A small light body fell on top of him, and a mass of hair tickled his face. The lad screamed in a high pitched voice.

“Don’t hurt me!”

“Harriet?” James pushed in frustration at the hair that covered his face. It smelled of apple blossom.

A pair of small hands pushed at his chest and then stopped. “James?”

He sighed. “Yes Harriet, ’tis I.”

“What are you doing?”

James couldn’t think what to say. Apple blossom filled his senses.

“Is this because of the tea incident?” Suspicion filled Harriet’s voice. “Because I’m very sorry about that. Mrs. Madely drove me to it.”

Harriet did not sound very sorry to James’ ears.

“That woman,” Harriet continued, “is insufferable. She’s always complaining about something. I really…”

With a curse, James finally cleared his face of her hair. Pushing a hand into the mass of curls, he drew her face down to his. For a second he studied her. “Harriet, will you be quiet for one second?”

“Oh. Yes. Sorry,” she said, one of her curls continuing to tickle his throat.

James blinked and then groaned. Pulling her face towards his, he captured her mouth in his.

It was the softest kiss he could ever have imagined. Her lips were plump, and as ripe as a strawberry.

Drawing back, he sighed. “No, it is I who should be sorry.” He drew his hand reluctantly from her hair.

Harriet blinked in the moonlight, the corkscrew curls of her hair cascading round her shoulders. “For kissing me?”

He knew she would jump straight to that conclusion.

“No.” He loosened his tight grip on her waist slightly. She was wearing a short coat. He couldn’t resist sliding his hands underneath, feeling at the soft linen undergarment she was wearing. Loose and soft against her body, it allowed him to feel through to the warm skin beneath. Sweeping his other hand against her face, he finally freed himself from her intoxicating hair.

In the darkness, the only thing he could occasionally see were her eyes that were intent on his. Her hands still pressed against his chest.  He took a deep, pained breath. He had to think about Marie Mompesson should he ever find her.

“For leading you on.” The weight of her hands left him.

“So you are sorry for kissing me.”

“No.” James shook his head from side to side. “You don’t understand. Harriet, I am attracted to you.” He forced the words out. “God knows why. You’ve been like a little sister to me. Your temper should frustrate me but instead it’s like a fire.”

“It’s the hair,” Harriet said in resigned tones.

“Whatever it is, it can’t be.”

“We’ve been through this before.”

“Harriet, it’s not what you think.”

“Get your hands off me.”

“Harriet, you don’t know me. You don’t know what I need…”

“I know what you need.”

James involuntarily withdrew his hands away from his body and clenched his teeth. He waited for a rap on the knuckles, a kick to the shins, but none came.

“You need a lady.”

“I do, but…”

“A woman like Melissa.”

“Well.”

“Someone who can wear fine clothes and not pour tea on your lap.”

James couldn’t stop himself. “That would be nice.”

“Oooh.” 

He braced himself again. But with scrabbling fingers, and a ripping sound, Harriet’s weight was off his and gone.

“Harriet,” James pleaded. But with surprising ease for a woman, Harriet had climbed onto the cart and was clicking her tongue at the pony. James scrambled to his feet as the back wheels of the cart came close to lopping off his ankles. “Harriet!”

“I don’t know what you were doing scouting around in the dark, James,” Harriet called over her shoulder. “But you might want to go home and have a wash. You smell of cows.”

Good God! The lad that James had been following, he had disappeared into thin air as Harriet had pinioned him to the floor. He hauled himself to his feet and ran to catch up with the cart.

Harriet looked down at him as he jogged alongside. “Brr, it’s cold,” she mumbled, twitching a rug further onto her lap.

“Harriet, have you seen a young boy come this way? Did he pass you?”

Harriet twitched her reins at the pony that started to trot. James took a deep breath and tried to keep up.

“Can’t say I have.”

“Surely you must have heard someone pass you?”

“They might have done. You made some much noise, though I didn’t hear anything else.”
      James was breathing so hard by this time he thought his heart might explode from his chest. That was the other thing that had happened in London. He had lost stamina.

“Watch out for the… oh… sorry, James, can’t stop. Must get home.”

James lifted his head and watched as the cart disappeared out of sight. His foot had hammered into a mile marker, tipping him over the foot high conical stone and straight onto his face into the verge beyond.

At least he had
tried
to apologize. But none of it had gone quite as he expected. And he had also lost the lad, probably never to see him again.

He would not waste the night. If he could not trap the lad, then perhaps confrontation was the best option. Rubbing at his face, he clambered back to his feet and limped back down the hill to the forge.

Bill was hard at work hammering at a crowbar. It took him a while to sense James’ presence. When he did, his nose wrinkled.

“What have you been doing?” He waved his hand at James. “Stand back, would you? I can’t think with my nose clogged full of cow pat.”

“It’s not that strong,” James protested. He’d had worse on the Peninsular when he’d had to wade through a stagnant pond.

“Strong enough to repel any man or woman from your advances.”

Oh dear.

“Who was that boy?” James asked, careful not to allow any inflection into his voice.

“Boy?” Bill turned his back to James and lifted up the hammer again.

“The boy who just left your forge.”

“No idea.” Bill brought down his hammer and, with several blows, began work on the crow bar again. “Probably one of Janey’s lads. They’re always hanging around.”

“I don’t think he was that young.” James had met Janey’s lads the previous week. It was hard not to when riding round the village.

“Then I don’t know.”

James skirted the fire, and grabbed the shank of the hammer as Bill was about to let it fall again. Surprised, Bill turned to him and pulled. James tightened his grip.

“I think you know who that lad was but you are just not telling me.”

“I might be,” Bill said cautiously. “But that’s between me and… them.” He looked into James’ eyes and, with his other hand, carefully peeled James’ hand off the hammer and put it down on the anvil.

“Mind the heat,” he said softly, thrusting the glowing crowbar back into the fire. Wiping his hands on his leather apron, he turned back to James. He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head on one side. “I’m a man down on the
Rocket
. I need someone to help me on the next voyage.”

  “What are you saying?”

“Will you come with us? It would be like old times.”

James paused before he replied. Bill obviously wasn’t giving up his contact, but what he was offering was better than that. James had the chance to see him at close quarters. If Bill did anything that jeopardized the passing of information, James would be on hand to see it happen.

“When do you sail?”

“Midnight. A week tomorrow. Off Longman’s Cove. If you aren’t there we’ll go without you.”

“Fine.”

James turned to go. “It’ll be good to have you back, James,” Bill called over his shoulder.

It was a long cold trudge back to Brambridge Manor. The flames of a fire in the drawing room lit up the hall as he passed it. James wished he was back in bed.

“James, James! Come in here.” A shadow crossed the light of the fire.

James pushed his head around the door. They were all in there, Melissa, her mother, his mother and Edgar, still wearing outside boots. “I must go and change, Mama—”

“When are you going to start looking for that Marie girl again?” His mother grasped a small full glass of sherry. It didn’t seem to be her first. 

“What Marie girl?” Mrs. Sumner leaned forward.

James shook his head at his mother and stepped further into the room, but instead she took a large sip of her sherry and looked at Mrs. Sumner with wide eyes.

“You know, the one I told you about,” Lady Stanton replied. Oh Gods, she hadn’t, had she?

“I’m sorry, I must have been occupied with something else at the time,” Mrs. Sumner said contritely.

James held his breath. Please
no
. “I’m not sure Mrs. Sumner needs to hear—”

“Gracious. If James doesn’t find this Marie this woman—within two months now, well, then he loses Brambridge estate.”

Bloody hell, he was going to kill her.

“And I will have only one hundred pounds to live on. Oh, it is just too awful!” Lady Stanton buried her head in her hands and began to weep loudly.

James stood still in shock. How could she?

Edgar stood and patted Lady Stanton on the back. “Her name was Marie Mompesson, and she was the granddaughter of Viscount Summerbain,” he said helpfully.

Mrs. Sumner sat up ramrod straight, eyes wide open.

“Viscount Summerbain, but he was my father!” she cried. “We changed our name to Sumner after the tragedy of losing our home.”

James grasped strongly at the warm leather of his telescope case. He took another step into the room. Could it really be true, could he really have found a connection after all this time?

Mrs. Sumner put a hand over her eyes. “What was the name of the girl again? Not Marie Mompesson? Oh my goodness.”  Her shoulders slumped and her head thumped on the back of the chair as she fell back in a faint.

“Mama, Mama!” Melissa cried. “Quick, get me some smelling salts, anything!”

James stood, the words Marie Mompesson still echoing around him. He watched, frozen, as Cecilia quickly grabbed a quill from the Lady’s writing desk in the corner, stabbed it in the fire and then held it under the woman’s nose.