Hope's Betrayal (11 page)

"For your
day dress, Lady Ryevale selected a particularly pretty spring muslin—a fabric I
think you will recognise."

"Oh!"
Hope peered around the screen. "Does it have darling little rosebuds in
pink, mingled with pale blue daisies?"

"The
same." Mrs Locke winked and lowered her voice. "There are many in
these parts grateful for the work of the free traders."

Feeling
considerably cheered, Hope emerged from behind the screen.

True to her
professionalism, Mrs Locke worked without comment, as Hope colored in her
patched and darned chemise.

“Hmm, you will
need stays, you have an enviable figure, but stays are de rigour in polite
society.”

Hope swallowed.
“Really? Stays are absolutely necessary?”

“Essential. But
don’t worry, you’ll soon get used to them—and you’ll need two night-rails, two
chemises, petticoats—as well as a day dress and walking gown…”

“I can’t possibly.
I have no money.” Hope’s voice trailed off.

“Lady Ryevale
insists. She’s taken quite a shine to you. Apparently she knew your mother.”

The room swam a
little and Hope's arms fell to her sides. 

"Lady
Ryevale told you that?" She forced a laugh.

"Indeed."
Mrs Locke seemed in earnest, jotting down figures with a stubby pencil.
"Arms up again, please."

Befuddled, Hope
obliged as she searched her memory for clues. What could Lady Ryevale know of
her mother? That night in the garret, she'd confided in Lady Ryevale that her
mother had taught her French—but that was all. Surely? Hope screwed up her eyes
with the effort of remembering. Surely, she had not mentioned her high-born
mother? Definitely, she had not named her, except perhaps once calling her Emma…

"I must set
her Ladyship straight, tell her she's mistaken," Hope mumbled. Alarm
prickled across her skin. Doubtless her mother's disgrace caused a scandal in
the ton at the time. If Lady Ryevale was her mother's contemporary, they must
be of a similar age—gossip must have been rife. What more juicy tittle-tattle
than a ruined debutante being disowned because she wouldn’t give up the baby?
Hope's heart rate doubled—merciful heavens, what if the young Lady Ryevale
really had known Emma Castelle from her time in society? 

"I must
talk to Lady Ryevale, tell her she's mistaken." Hope mumbled again,
wondering if the laudanum had loosened her tongue more than she knew.

"Between
you and me, I shouldn’t worry. Accept your good fortune and make yourself
indispensable. That way, if Her Ladyship is mistaken, she will like you for
yourself."

 "I have no
intention of doing any such thing." Hope said, with affront. "I
believe in honesty at all times."

"I'm sure,
dear. Now turn around and I'll measure your back."

At the dead of
night, two men rode through the woods; trees silver in the moonlight, a mist
rising from the ground. Huntley and Bennett had spent hours patrolling the
coast in this miserable dampness, with nothing to show for it—now their thoughts
ranged ahead with hearth and home. A bird broke cover, his wings beating
against the darkness. Nero shied but Huntley sat deep in the saddle and scanned
the trees to the left and right.

"Hold!
What's that?"

Nero stopped on
a sixpence while Bennett's gelding sidled on a few steps. Huntley stood in the
stirrups, staring toward a bend in the road. A low, grinding rumble of wheels
and the soft thud of hooves on springy ground; the sound grew louder, a shape
grew out of the mist and took on the form of a cart.

"Tis a
strange time for a drive."

"My
thoughts entirely. Come." Huntley nudged Nero into a canter, with Bennett
close on his heels.

A mangy,
sway-backed horse was hitched to a farm wagon; a cussed determination about the
creature's plodding, as if it was only momentum which kept him upright.

"Hold
there!" Huntley nudged Nero alongside. With a mutter the driver pushed
back his hat and pulled on the reins.

"Whoa up,
Jessie!" The nag staggered to a halt, blowing hard.

Huntley circled
around the cart, his eyes darting over the hay bales.

"Strange
time of day, or should I say night, to be moving hay."

The man snorted.
"Aye, but there's no law agin it."

"What's
your name?"

The man
glowered, his heavy brow exaggerated in the moonlight.

"Alan
Lee." He muttered.

"Well, Mr
Lee, if you are about honest business, you won't mind unloading your wagon to
prove it."

Clearly, Mr Lee
did mind, but after more muttering, jumped down.

"There's
nowt to see."

The officers
dismounted, Bennett took both sets of reins and hitched them over a tree. Nero
snorted and pawed the ground, then quickly lost interest and took to cropping
the grass.

"Just to
check you have an honest load. Nothing for you to worry about, that is unless
you are carrying contraband."

"Me?"
Lee placed a hand melodramatically over his heart. "On my life, I swear as
I have no truck with smuggling."

"That
remains to be seen." Walking in opposite directions around the cart,
Huntley and Bennett prodded the bails. Standing back, it occurred to Huntley
that they were a little too neatly stacked. Why go to such trouble?

"Unload the
lot." Huntley ordered.

"What?"

"You
heard."

"An' what
if I don’t want to?"

"Then I
shall arrest you for impeding an officer in the execution of his duty."

More muttering
and cursing, and with irritating slowness, Lee went around to the rear and with
a great show of effort, hefted down a bale. He dropped it to the ground and was
overtaken by a coughing fit.

"I'm not a
well man, Captain sir. This aint good for me."

"And moving
hay at night is? Get on with it."

It took twenty
minutes to unload a few bails, and eventually Huntley grew impatient and gave
Lee a hand. But standing back, with the hay transferred to the roadside, it
seemed once again their efforts were in vain. Refusing to be defeated, Huntley
jumped into the empty wagon. He tapped the side panels and listened, and
levered up planks, searching for secret compartments. But he found nothing but
an ordinary cart. Huntley sat back on his heels, refusing to believe he was
wrong.

"I told yer
you'd find nowt." Lee leant against a tree, chewing on a grass blade,
cocky as you like.

The Captain
jumped down and stalked toward him.

"No?"
Huntley resisted the urge to jab his finger in his smug face. "But that
doesn’t mean you weren’t up to something—and when I work out what, then…"

"Then
what?" Lee spat out the grass blade.

Huntley pressed
his face closer. "Don’t push me, Lee."

"Well, are
you going to give me a hand reloading or what?"

"Bennett,
bring the horses. And Lee, let it be a lesson in doing an honest day's
work."

"Is that
so?" Lee wiped his sleeve across his nose. "Bet you'd have given me a
hand if I had a pretty face."

Huntley took
Nero's reins, glancing over his shoulder at Lee. "What?"

"If I had a
pretty face like that choice little piece you've got cosied up at The
Grange."

His foot in the
stirrup, Huntley froze.

"Bet you
give her more than a hand! Keeping your bed warm is she? Is that the price of a
pardon these days?"

Huntley
bristled. "What did you say?"

"I said as
if you have a pretty face, the law takes payment in kind."

Time slowed,
aware of every heart beat as his hand formed a fist. "How dare you!"

Lee met his hard
stare with a sneer. "Go on then—hit me if yer've to balls—although tekkin
advantage of girls is more your style, or so I've heard."

Cold hard anger
slammed around his body. "I've a good mind to beat you…"

A hand clamped
around his arm, holding him back as Bennett pulled him away.

"Captain.
Leave it."

"Go on
then! Why don’t yer? Oh, I forgot—you prefer your prisoners young and
female."

Bennett stood
between the two men, pushing them apart.

"Alan Lee,
if you've any sense, leave well alone and load your cart. Captain, get on your
horse."

With a shudder,
Huntley shook Bennett off and snatched at Nero's reins. In a single bound he
was on the horse's back, and put his heels to Nero's flanks, leaving Lee
grunting and cursing by the hay on the roadside. Bennett mounted and followed.

With Lee's foul
slurs still echoing in his ears, Huntley was grateful for Bennett's tactful
silence as they picked up the Sandehope road. Even the lilt of Nero's easy
stride did little to soothe his spirit as he dwelt on the accusations. He
nearly laughed aloud. Surely people did not believe such slander? He glanced at
Bennett's profile.

"I need you
to tell me the truth."

"Captain?"

"There will
be no repercussions...I just need to know….is it true, what Lee said? Do folk
hereabouts truly think such vile things?"

Bennett looked
straight ahead, stony-faced.

Huntley's heart
sank. "No need to speak, your discomfort is eloquence itself. But perhaps
you can answer this, as a friend."

"Yes?"
Bennett's voice cracked.

Huntley drew a
deep breath. "What of the Excise men? What do they say?"

In the gloom of
early dawn, Huntley fancied Bennett's face grew pale. This situation with Hope
was far worse than he'd feared. Things couldn’t continue like this. Much as his
mother would object, Hope must be sent away. It needn’t be back to the Island,
perhaps some friend of the Huntley's in London, where she could earn an honest
living, but without dragging his name through the dirt.

*****

Despite the late
hour, Huntley dutifully returned to the office and wrote a full account of the
patrol, but he sent Bennett home since there was no sense in them both being up
all night. It took a while to commit events to paper and satisfied at last, he
blotted the ink, pushed the journal aside and turned down the lamp. With a sigh
he gazed through the window across the harbour, to quietly rolling waves and a
sky touched with the flushed crimson of dawn.

The rattle of
the opening door disturbed his thoughts.

"Mornin'
Captain." An Excise man strode in, the smell of sharp air of early morning
clinging to his clothes.

"Morning,
Jessop." Huntley stretched and yawned. "Is it that time
already?"

"Aye,
Captain, I'm the early shift."

"Best be on
my way and leave things in your capable hands."

"Good
night, Captain, sleep well."

Huntley saddled
Nero and the pair set off for The Grange. Huntley liked this time of day and
the constantly changing light, and the feeling that while others slept he
witnessed the birth of a new day.  But if Huntley had hoped for an easy ride he
was to be disappointed. They had not got far out of Sandehope, still within
sight of chimney smoke, when Nero threw a shoe and pulled up lame. Huntley
dismounted to find the hoof badly bruised. There was nothing for it but to lead
the cob the rest of the way.

With the reins
over his shoulder, Nero nodding along beside him, Huntley set off again,
guessing it would be mid-morning before they got home. Resigned to the long
walk, Huntley took consolation in the scenery; the mix of farmland and sea. To
his left the waves tossed in the bay with seagulls diving for crabs, to his
right a patchwork of ploughed land rolled over the hillside. He breathed
deeply, filling his lungs with the smell of green life and growth from brassy
daffodils to primroses, wood hyacinths to crocuses.

Some time later
at The Grange, with Nero stabled and the hoof poulticed, Huntley made for his bed. 
The maid answered the front door. 

"Capt’n
Huntley." She dropped a curtsey.

Huntley nodded
and stalked past into the hall. A movement caught his eye—Miss Tyler going up
the stairs. He stood riveted, left breathless by the way her hand lingered on
the banister. She even limped gracefully, her derriere swaying in a clingy
muslin gown. His mood became grim. Damn it, the gossips were right, the girl
had a hold over him.

The maid cleared
her throat. "Your coat, Capt’n?"

"Ah,
yes."

He hoped the
maid would ascribe his flushed cheeks to the wind and shrugged off his outer
garments.

"Where is
Lady Ryevale?" There was no time like the present for what he was about to
say.