Endure My Heart (29 page)

By now, Wicklow knew the brandy was on the
Seamew,
but he could only know it by induction—suspect it strongly, in other words—so he would still be leery of any untoward move by any of my men. The night was dark and still, oppressively so. The naked eye could not spot the
Seamew,
but I knew she was there, hovering within sight of our signal—a dark lamp, whose cover would be raised three times, to signal a safe landing.

The
Seamew
had orders to return to shore around eleven. She would not be there sooner, for if the gentlemen had a fault, it was a little too strict following of orders, without using quite the ingenuity one could hope for from the likes of Jem.

I went home and sat like a spider, hiding in the window crack, waiting for her prey to set foot in her web, except it was Jemmie I awaited. He came, approved my plan and left to follow instructions. Wardle and his son were to take their boat out, or make as if they meant to, which would hopefully occupy several dragoons in preventing him.

As the hour of landing drew near, I could not sit at home. This was the crisis, the most outrageous stunt I had tried yet. If my men were to be caught, I would be with them. Back on with the trousers and mask, and off to the dock, after first saying goodnight to Edna and pretending I was about to go to my bed. I personally took the dark lamp from Jem and raised the lid: once, twice, three times, then retired to the shadows to wait.

“Phillips should be here. What can be keeping him?” I asked.

“I’ll nip up to the tavern and see.”

It was lonely and frightening, standing all alone, waiting, but I was not long alone. When Jem came back, he said, “He can’t come. He’s being watched. There’s a dragoon in the taproom with him. He’d have orders to follow Phillips if he moved an inch. I gave him a sign not to come.”

As he spoke, the lapping of the waves hitting a prow was heard, the white sails soon discernible through the misty haze. Jem went forward to tell them they must leave again. Some evil genie urged me to interfere. I called him back. “We’ll land it while we can, Jem. Can you break the lock on that warehouse belonging to Owens? We’ll store it in there. I’ve seen by the window it is as well as empty—plenty of room.”

“Do ye think we should, miss?” he asked, wide-eyed at my gall.

“I do, and I only hope we will have as clear a coast to get it out again in the near future as we have to put it in.”

“We’ll manage somehow,” he chuckled, shaking his head and crowing a little.

The landing went off quietly, quickly, with not an unnecessary word spoken. When the last barrel was within, Jemmie closed the door, reassembled the lock to an appearance of normalcy, and the men disappeared into the shadows, to go home, leaving the
Seamew
docked at the public wharf overnight.

“Ye don’t think ye should have the
Seamew
taken home to Oxton’s?” Jem asked as we slithered home in the shadows of the roadside bushes and hedges.

“I have a pretty good notion how Wicklow’s mind works. He won’t expect to find the brandy anywhere near the ship. The public wharf is the safest place we could leave it.”

“Blimey, I hope ye’re right, miss.”

“So do I. Keep your fingers crossed.” I disliked to ask him to pray in such a criminal cause.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Sabbath dawned
bright and cool. Wicklow was in the choir loft in the morning, as was Jemmie, nor was the congregation below us in the seated section noticeably smaller. A sort of unofficial truce was in effect on this day of much-needed rest. Wicklow, knowing Miss Sage would not a second time move in broad daylight, was waiting. We all of us went about our customary activities as though in a trance that day—waiting, watching, hoping, planning.

For myself, most of all it was a day of planning. Wicklow would have seen the
Seamew
at the public dock on his way home last night, so I had her moved in the early morning back to Oxton’s. He had gone aboard and searched her before he came to church. My scouts told me all this, told me he had detected the lingering trace of brandy, which vexed him even more than
not
detecting it on Wardle’s vessel the night before. He was understandably in a wretched mood that morning. He hardly sang a note, but kept looking down into the church, mostly at Andrew, with a pensive look on his face.

When the service was over, he said only, “I must leave at once, Mab. I’ll look in on you sometime this afternoon, if I may?”

“I expect to be home all day,” I answered, trying for an air of nonchalance. I did not feel calm enough to try for any information.

“Will Andrew be home as well?” he asked.

“As far as I know, he will.”

He directed a strange look on me, questioning, uncertain—sorry. He
did
think Andrew was Miss Sage. I had been sure it was myself he suspected. Perhaps he thought me an accomplice. And was Andrew the parasite, the greedy monster he had spoken of earlier? I could not think so. I could almost pity him in his dilemma, except that his wedding was so near. To get his promotion, he would turn Andrew in. My pity was not overwhelming.

I waged a war with my nerves during that day, as I sat glued to the window, watching the traffic go by at a subdued, sabbatical pace. At about three, with my heart nearly distilled to jelly at the
sight, Wicklow came into town and went down to the wharf. If he decided to get to his own living quarters through the warehouse, I was done.

I breathed a little easier when he came back up from the dock, turned onto the main street and used the front door. He had not noticed the scent of brandy from the warehouse then. There are few odors that permeate so thoroughly and linger so long as brandy. But then there are few breezes so stout as sea breezes, and it seemed he had not sniffed my cargo out.

I thought he might be freshening his toilette for a call on me, but though I sat on for some time, he did not emerge from the front door, nor did he go to the tavern for dinner. His servant was seen to dart from the doorway in the general direction of the school, down the sea road that passes all our old familiar haunts. He could be going anywhere, most probably carrying orders to the dragoons. There was a goodly number of them promenading the main street with the local girls, every one of them trying to see if he could discover anything of interest for Wicklow.

As the shadows of evening began to lengthen, Wicklow had still not called on me, nor had he left the building. Of this I am fairly certain, for when I was not there to watch myself, Edna replaced me. She was extremely nervous throughout the whole ordeal. I had the onerous chore of assuring her there was nothing to worry about, while my insides heaved and lurched, like a fishing smack caught in a storm. The sickening thought kept intruding itself too that even if Wicklow had not come out the front door, he might have gone out the back, into the yard, back into the warehouse...

“You are pretty cool,” Edna said. “Nothing to worry about indeed, with one hundred barrels of brandy stashed in the revenue officer’s own warehouse.”

“My name is not inscribed on them, Edna,” I reminded her. “Only on Stamford’s heart, carved in stone, you see. The worst that can happen is that we lose them—we are not caught red-handed at least.”

“You will be when you try to move them. When will you do it?”

“As soon as he budges from that apartment, if he ever does. Only after dark, of course. It must be done in the dark. Phillips went halfway to Ipswich this morning, to have an excuse to be on the road tonight, coming back. He’ll hold the wagons outside of town, down the road a bit. The men will have to carry the barrels that far.”

“There he goes now!” she exclaimed, grabbing my arm in her excitement. “He is crossing the street! He’s coming here! No, he goes toward the tavern. He must be having his mount saddled up. He would not do so only to come here. He must be going out—down the road.”

“Thank God for small mercies. Jem’s brother will shadow him, and let us know where he goes. I must learn if he has been into the warehouse too.”

We were greatly surprised to see him stop off at the little cottage that housed Crites. He could not be asking for help—that was not in character. While we stood watching, Crites came out the door with him, nodding and smiling, and looking mighty pleased about something. They spoke together a few moments, then Wicklow turned his horse down the road, and Crites just stood there in the street, looking after him, but with his chest puffed out in gratification. He held in his fingers what looked very much like a telescope.

I wished I had one myself that day. I would not risk any conversation with Wicklow, but Crites was always voluble. I decided Edna and I would take a little walk, to fill our lungs with fresh air, before ostensibly turning in for the night. We threw on our pelisses and bonnets with little regard for appearance, to be sure to waylay him before he disappeared.

“The evenings are still chilly, are they not, Officer?” I asked in a friendly way.

“Very chilly indeed,” he agreed, with a smile a foot wide. Had I commented on the sudden warmth, I expect he would have agreed with equal relish. A close examination of his smiling countenance told me he had just heard some good news, for the telescope hung loosely at his side, forgotten. No news could be so good to a revenue officer as news of a seizure, unless it would be the capture of the chief smuggler.

As this was my first conversation with him since news of my troublesome engagement had leaked out, he had to congratulate me, and to my surprise, he went on to utter all manner of commendation on Wicklow. “A fine gentleman,” he praised. “Wide awake on all suits.”

“You have changed your opinion of him since the last time we spoke,” I quizzed amiably.

“Ha ha, so I have. So I have indeed. An about-face, you might say, and yourself the same, ma’am, if I may be so bold. But he improves on longer acquaintance. Once it was learned who he was, it was only natural you should try... that is... so very eligible.” His comments petered out into silent embarrassment, with his teeth tucked into his lower lip.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Now where is that fiancé of mine off to? I saw him speak to you just now.” It was clear from Crites’ continued friendliness that the word spoken had nothing to do with myself being in any way involved in the business, even through Andrew. “He was to call on me this evening, but he seems to have forgotten.”

“Business before pleasure, ma’am. There is big business afoot tonight, as I need hardly tell Sir Stamford’s lady.”

“Those infernal smugglers!” I nagged, like a jealous woman, peeved at whatever removed her lover from her side.

“It won’t be much longer, ma’am,” he replied with a knowing nod, almost a smirk, I would call it. “Aye, things will be warmer before this night is over, if we know anything, eh?”

“What do you two dutiful officers know that the rest of us don’t?” I asked with an arch smile.

“There can be no harm in telling you, Miss Anderson. We shall have Miss Sage under irons before the night is out.”

The flesh crept on my scalp. Had I not been wearing a bonnet, I am sure my hair would have stood out six inches from my head. I had to try for a name—try to discover whom they took for Miss Sage. In my distraction, I hit on the one name Stamford had mentioned more than once. “Surely it is not—Porson?” I asked, in a strange, hollow voice.

“I see your fiancé has intimated something of the truth to you. Well, as you know anyway, there can be no harm in confirming it. Yes, it is that villain, Squire Porson. The gall of him, using your boat, the
Seamew,
for his work. The outside of enough. But if he thinks we do not know where he stabled the load, he is mistaken, and so he’ll find out when he goes to retrieve it.”

A cold dread that Wicklow had been into the warehouse came over me. I could not risk many more questions, but with Crites being a little slow, I must risk this one. “I hope he has not put it in my schoolhouse again!” I charged, hoping he would reply in full.

“Schoolhouse—no indeed! Even worse—a
sacrilege
I’d call it, to use...” Then at the crucial juncture, he stopped. It hardly mattered. It could not be construed as a sacrilege, surely, to place it anywhere but on church territory. Stamford had figured out or discovered we sometimes used the crypt, and as he had had no luck in looking elsewhere, he decided it was in the crypt again.

I had discovered what I had to know. Wicklow knew perfectly well it was not Porson who had put the brandy in the crypt—he knew it was an Anderson who was Miss Sage. What he did not know was which one, and of more importance, he did not know where the load was stored.

I complimented Crites on his telescope—I could hardly fail to, when it was being ostentatiously flailed about in a manner to bring it to my attention. Wicklow was the greatest fellow there ever was, for having thought of it, and thought the Board might reimburse him the price if he sent in his bill, explaining for what purpose it had been bought.

I finally got away, just peeping over my shoulder to see where Crites went. He had apparently been ordered to take up his guard at a later hour. He went back into his own cottage, using his telescope to look at his door knocker as he went, and fell flat on his face by stumbling over a cobblestone.

“I wonder why Wicklow gave him the name of Porson?” Edna wondered. “It looks as though he means to protect us.”

“It looks to
me
as though he were afraid I might talk to Crites, and he did not wish me to discover anything of importance. Now I think of it, who but Porson and us would have access to the crypt?”

“Why would he tell Crites about the crypt if he was afraid he might talk to you?”

“He wants him to keep an eye on it. Maybe he even
wants
us to know he knows, to hasten us into moving it. Yes, that is what he is up to. It might have worked too, had the brandy been there.”

Jem soon came to report Wicklow had been down the road, stopping to talk to various dragoons, in an excited manner, as though giving them instructions and a pep talk. Those instructions would surely be to surround the crypt in a large circle, and let my men enter, then catch them as they emerged. I gave the order for the men to slip quietly by one’s and two’s down to Owens’ warehouse and hide wherever they could find a dark spot close by, till they received the word to move.