Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) (16 page)

Harriet thought that they had already agreed that she would be able to negotiate, but one look at his granite-like face decided her. “Tommy! I need the rowboat. I’m going to pick up Lord Stanton.”

“What? Master Chance! You can’t do that, you’re not strong enough! I’ll come with you.” Tommy made to get down into the row boat but was prevented by Bill, who appeared at his shoulders.

“Whilst I’m on board, I’m captain, Tommy, and I give the orders.
Master Chance
is to go alone. I need you to help me haul up the anchor.”

As Bill drew Tommy away, the man muttered like a dog chewing a bone.

“At least let me give her me cape.” Tommy threw his cape around Harriet’s shoulders and tweaked up the hood to protect her from the rain and unexpected waves. He patted his shoulder. “If you had not sorted me out, Master Chance, I wouldn’t have been here now.”

Blinking back tears at Tommy’s kindness, and fear of what was to come, Harriet got into the boat and cast off from the
Rocket
. She would show them all. It was only two hundred yards to the beach, and the current was moving there quickly. And then she could get Lord Stanton to row on the way back.

Expertly she maneuvered the oars into the rowlocks and pushed the boat off from the hull of the
Rocket
. Immediately she had to pull hard to plough the boat through the water. It was later than she or Bill had realized. Whilst there was a wash that was pulling her towards the shore slightly, she could feel the resistance beginning to start. This was good for coming back, but meant that she would be half-dead by the time she was back at the
Rocket
.

Knowing that she had to keep up the pretense that she was Master Chance, she heaved on the oars, slowly but surely ploughing through the waves until she reached land, grounding ten yards out. She was more tired than she realized, and she sat for a few seconds with her shoulders slumped as she waited for the bobbing light to reach abreast of the rowing boat.

Harriet stood up, holding grimly on an oar to keep the boat steady, her cape billowing. James appeared out of the gloom, and quickly doused his light. Harriet sat back down quickly, hiding the sudden nervousness she felt by attempting to fit the oar back into its rowlocks again.

Without a word, James pushed the boat off the shingle and, grabbing the sides, flipped his legs in.

“What’s your name, boy?”

Harriet kept her gaze downcast. James was angry. “Master Chance S…s…sir,” she said softly. Good grief. How on earth was she going to stop him discovering her? He would think that she was following him. She still had her own pride left.

“Well then, Master Chance, move over. I’ve one good shoulder and one bad, but together we should be able to row back to the
Rocket
.”

Harriet swallowed, but shifted over slightly, her breeches rubbing softly against her legs. James picked up one of the oars and, with a muffled count, started to row. She gritted her teeth and pulled on her own oar with the little strength that she had left.

The boat lurched as she rowed out of misstep and she let out a soft moan.

“Are you alright, lad?” James looked forbidding in the moonlight.

Harriet gritted her teeth, shook her head and hunched lower into her cape.

Small waves lapped against the boat as neither of them rowed. Harriet heard the chink of James’ oar in the rowlock as he started to dip it gently into the water again.

“I know of a poem that has just been published in London that should see us right till the
Rocket
,” he said in a low voice. “If you row in step with it, it should help ease the burden.”

With a surprisingly musical voice, James began “
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, A stately pleasure-dome decree—
”

Harriet stared at her hands on the oars. Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge, the most famous poem of 1816. She was yet to get her hands on it. Surprisingly the way James declaimed matter of factly as he heaved on his own oar brought the sparkling words to life. And unlike the London Weekly, he knew all the words. Adjusting her hood slightly to listen to James’ voice, she began to row again in earnest.

It took half the time to reach the
Rocket
than it had taken for her to row to the shore. A kindly hand helped her out of the boat. She collapsed on the deck, wrapping the cape around her in fatigue.

“Look after Master Chance,” James said softly, his eyes searching the deck. “And find me Bill.”

Tommy heaved Harriet to her feet and led her to the sloop deck where he gently lowered her to one of the makeshift cots.

“Chin up, Master Chance!” He slipped her a long tubular shaped object, and with a kindly pat, he left her.

Harriet sat, her senses dulled from the physical activity. She fumbled at the package, her stiff fingers scraping at the wrapping. Inside she found a small bottle of brandy. She sat quietly, recovering from the shock as the crew of the
Rocket
unfurled her sails and lifted the anchor.

“What were you thinking, Bill?” Harriet jumped; the voices came from behind her, lifted in her direction by the breeze.

“You can’t send a mere lad out in a rowboat alone in that weather. Even in dead calm you would normally send two people!”

“He needed the experience, James. He was getting too cocky by half.”

Harriet nearly snorted. If he could know the truth…

“Rubbish, Bill. You don’t do things like that. That could have meant life or death out there, and you know it.” James’ voice was commanding. This must have been how he talked to his men. Bill was obviously feeling the pressure. His reply was plaintive.

“We were watching him all the time, he would have come to no harm. Anyway, he knows these coves the best anyway. Spent his life by the sea, and out in a boat fishing for his family. “

Harriet grunted. Bill was an expert liar. She uncorked the bottle and, whipping her head back, took a deep sip. She coughed and then gargled.

“We both know that wasn’t a mere lad,” James said softly. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize her in the dark? I would know her anywhere.”

Harriet gasped.

Their voices fell silent.

Bill groaned. “I’ll show you to your cabin.” The men went below and Harriet was left alone on deck.

The night’s sailing was smooth, and as fast as it could have been given the winds and the tides. It took six hours to reach the coast of France near Roscoff where the
Rocket
dropped anchor in a secluded cove. They waited for dark to fall again, when the
Rocket
would sail round to the next cove which, although it was more populated, had easier access to move cargo onto the boat.

The boat’s French design meant that it didn’t matter if it was seen. It wouldn’t be believed that it was British, merely another fast fishing boat, cruising the coast in the summer.

Tommy showed Harriet to a small cabin separate to the rest. Lying in her hammock, she hugged the words to her like a blanket.

I would know her anywhere
. Her last thought warmed her more than any blanket. He’d recited the Kubla Khan for
her.

She awoke early the next morning, and took time putting on her clothes. The word
anywhere
still floated in her head. Still, she pulled on the ruined breeches with care. She needed to get it just right in the daylight in order not to raise suspicion. The shape of her waistcoat hid the rounded mounds of her breasts. The breeches she could do nothing about.

The day broke gloriously, sun bright in the sky glinting off the sea. She sat, with a steaming cup of coffee in her hand, enjoying the sunshine. A hat perched on her head at a jaunty angle, and her unruly hair tied back in a queue. The deck was warm and the timbers reflected the heat of the sun on her bare feet.

“I thought I recognized those breeches.”

Harriet pulled her feet beneath her as James appeared beside her. He was as quiet as a cat—she hadn’t even heard him arrive. He put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back down to the deck again as she tried to stand.

If only she hadn’t had to wear his breeches. She hadn’t had any choice—the night he had accosted her in the dark, she had climbed up on to the cart so quickly in an effort to get away that she had split the trousers she had made seam to seam. They had been irreparable in the time that she had left. She’d taken the chance and pulled on his stained breeches instead.

“And there aren’t many lads or
lasses
in the village with your color hair.”

“I… I can explain.”

“One might think that you poured tea on me on purpose.”

“I didn’t,” Harriet replied hotly. “No, I did, but not to get your trousers.” Oh dear, the situation was getting worse. A hot flush rose to her neck.

James quirked an eyebrow at her. “Interesting.” He sat down next to her. Harriet closed her eyes. He was too close. She swallowed and opened them again to see him looking at her.

“Harriet, what are you doing here?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Did you know I was coming?”

“No!” Harriet closed her mouth with a snap. “No,” she said again in a softer voice. She had hoped he wouldn’t think that.

She glanced up at him, but James turned his head away from her and looked out across the bow of the boat. He was dressed in typical sailor’s garb. A pea jacket and cloth trousers and a common hat with a jaunty orange ribbon tied around it completed the ensemble. It shouldn’t have looked good on him but it did. He seemed comfortable in the clothes, not like the stuffed shirt with shiny boots Harriet had assumed he had become. What had happened to him in the war?

“I’m not following you, James,” she continued in a soft voice. “I’m not a young girl any more. I have my own life to lead, and my own concerns to foster.”

“That is abundantly clear,” he muttered, still not looking at her. “I still want to know what you are doing on this boat. This is not a jaunt that delicate young ladies should undertake.”

Harriet swallowed and crossed her legs underneath her. Did he mean that he thought her a delicate young lady? Or that she wasn’t a delicate young lady because she was on the boat?

“Not like Melissa Sumner?” she ventured, forcing a little jollity into her voice. She braced her fingers against the warm deck.

James gave a snort of mirth and looked at her. She drew in a quick breath. His eyes sparkled, and the frown lines that he wore habitually on his forehead smoothed away.

“Melissa? No, you would never find her here.”

“Oh.”

“Or her mother. Gods take me. She’s like a leech. I can’t seem to get rid of her.”

“Why don’t you just ask them to leave?” Harriet bit her lip as small creases formed at James’ hair line.

“I can’t,” he said flatly.

“Do you remember when I turned up at the manor kitchen door just after the… err… sandbank incident?”

“Mmm yes.”

“Do you remember how you persuaded me to leave then?”

James looked at her in surprise. He thought for a moment. “You wouldn’t go away. My father was at home and would have skinned me alive if he had found you.” He laughed suddenly. “I had to steal one of cook’s pastries for you and promise to re-enact the scene from Romeo and Juliet… Mercutio and Tybalt! No wonder you managed to stick me in the side with your dagger.”

Harriet nodded. “I’d wanted to thank you but you wouldn’t let me get a word in edgeways. You were too nervous about your father discovering me that you promised anything to get rid of me.”

“My father was a tyrant.”

She nodded. He had been. She scraped at the surface of the deck with a finger. “At least he’s dead now. There’s nothing more he can do to cause trouble.”

James shook his head, his overlong black hair brushing against his shoulders. The orange ribbon of his hat caught in the breeze and flapped against the back of his neck. He brushed it away. He took a long breath in, and laid a large hand over hers, stilling it.

“Boat ahoy!” A cry from the aft deck silenced James. Harriet silently urged him to go on. Was it about Melissa? His plans for the future?

But James took his hand away from hers. He got to his feet, leaving her looking after him as he walked to the side of the boat and peered over the edge. It was only a returning party of the crew who had gone ashore; they had left early when Harriet had first reached the deck.

James glanced back at Harriet for a moment, but then with a set of his jaw, walked towards the rope ladder where the returning party would climb back up.

Harriet wanted to drum a hole in the planks she was sitting on. Could a man have been more frustrating? Being enigmatic in theatre was all very well, that was expected, but in real life it was infuriating. What was so interesting about the returning party that James hadn’t finished his sentence? In truth, why was James on the
Rocket
at all?

Harriet put out a hand and, pulling hard on a halyard, drew herself to her feet. She peered over the side of the boat. The little skiff seemed to be much fuller than when it had left. Perhaps Renard was among the returning sailors. She looked hard, but none of the skiff’s occupants appeared to have that dangerous allure that she assumed a smuggler of some renown would have. Some of the crew were dressed oddly for sailing though. French fashions were more different than she thought.

CHAPTER 16

Thank God for the returning skiff. It had saved James from blurting out everything, from the conditions of his father’s will to his need to reach out and brush the ever present flaming curls from Harriet’s face. He’d wanted to kill Bill as soon as he had caught sight of Harriet’s drawn face framed by the ludicrous hood of her cape. He’d wracked his brain to think of a way to keep her spirits up, to bring back the customary fire to her features. The only thing he could think of was Kubla Khan, a poem so dramatic that it was sure to appeal to her. He had had to work hard as he stumbled over the words,
‘As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted, By woman wailing for her demon-lover’.