Moon Love (3 page)

She exchanged a meaningful look with Tombey, his aging valet and nurse, who had served him faithfully for half a century. “Of course you shall have a story,” she said. “But first you must eat your dinner. Cook has made you a nice turbot in white sauce.”

He pouted. “Don’t want turbot. Want plum cake.”

Plum cake played havoc with Lord Ashworth’s digestion. “No, no. You want a nice blancmange – after you eat your fish,” she said, smiling to entice him.

Tombey took the tray. “Allow me, Miss Bratty. We are in a bit of a pucker today. You might get the nice blancmange thrown in your face.”

“Try to get him to take a little of the turbot, Tombey,” she said. “He cannot live on blancmange.”

“He had some coddled bread and milk this afternoon. Perhaps I can tease a few bites of this into him. I had best get a bib on him first.”

Amy watched in consternation as Tombey fastened a towel around his neck. As she returned belowstairs, she wondered what the Wolf would think if he could see Lord Ashworth at this moment. She must see that the Wolf and the Cougar never met.

Her own dinner was waiting for her. Since her stepfather no longer came to the table, Amy usually ate in the morning parlor, unless there was company. This small room with its cozy fireplace and oaken paneling just suited her. Felix Bratty, the son of Ashworth’s younger brother, now deceased, was spending more time at Bratty Hall since Ashworth’s decline, and he insisted on the proper dining room. Amy preferred dining alone. As far as conversation and common sense went, there was little enough to choose between the nephew and his senile uncle.

It had been Ashworth’s wish, when he was of sound mind, that Felix and Amy should marry. He was not such a tyrant as to force Felix on her, however. He had settled on her a dowry of twenty thousand pounds, fifteen of which had belonged to her mama. She never could decide whether it was the fortune or herself that was the lure to Felix, but he left no doubt that he wanted her to be his wife.

The turbot was delicious, done in Cook’s special cream sauce. The roast beef that followed it was tender and juicy. Amy cleared her plate, but she hardly tasted her dinner. She was busy trying to discover some way in which she could inveigle the Wolf to include her in his plans without begging.

She was just leaving the table when Mary, Cook’s flustered young helper, came rushing up to her, blotting at her eyes with the tail of her apron. “Oh Miss Bratty, the rain’s stopped and they’re coming for sure, and Da’s taken another of his turns. I haven’t the nerve to ask you–”

“It’s quite all right, Mary. I’ll see to it. The usual time and place?”

“Yes, Miss. All just the same as usual. I’ll not ask you again, Miss. It’s just that we need the money to home, and if Da loses the job–”

“Yes, yes. I understand. Leave it to me. Now go and tend to the washing up or Cook will be in a pelter.”

Amy was always delighted to fill in for Jed Hoskins, who was spotsman for the Gentlemen. His job was to scout about to see the Preventiveman was not around when the Gentlemen were bringing in a load, and give the French captain the signal that the coast was clear. In fact, she made it a point to be lurking nearby even when Jed held the lantern that flashed the signal.

She had first taken on this unlikely role a year ago when she found Mary crying in her room. Mary had told the sad tale that her papa’s gout was acting up, and he couldn’t do his job that night. Obie Hanks, from the blacksmith shop, had been after the job for a year now, and if her papa couldn’t do it, the family would be destitute. No one must know he was unwell. The pay was good, half a crown a day while waiting, and a guinea a night when actively engaged.

Amy had arranged for George, the brightest and strongest of the footmen, to masquerade as Jed, but he had come down with the flu on the crucial night and was incapable of either speech or standing when the time came. With only minutes to make a decision, Amy had said, “Don’t cry, Mary, I’ll do it myself. But you mustn’t tell a soul!”

“Oh Miss, you can’t! It’s too dangerous!”

“What is the danger? They’ll be landing not a half mile from Bratty Hall. All I have to do is make sure the Revenueman is not about, give three flashes from the dark lantern, and leave.”

“Oh no, Miss. You can’t leave. You have to stay around and keep watching till the brandy’s landed, in case Rankin is lurking behind a bush.”

“But I don’t have to talk to anyone?”

“No, miss. Our own lads would never lay a hand on you, and the Frenchies only come ashore for a few minutes.”

“The Frenchies actually come ashore? Is that how it’s done? I thought our Gentlemen went to France, or met the Frenchies in the Channel.”

“It’s done all different ways along the coast, Miss, but our lads just buy what the Frenchies bring in.”

“Why do the Frenchies come ashore at all?”

“To get paid, Miss. Cocker, he’s the Gentleman in charge, he picks a barrel at random and breaches it to make sure the stuff is good before he pays them. He started that after he got a load that was diluted with caramel water. But Da has nothing to do with that. He just watches to see Rankin ain’t on hand. And if he is, he don’t flash the lantern. That’s the signal not to land. I’d do it myself, only Da says I haven’t the wits.”

Mary was given to fits of hysterics. A mouse was enough to set her off. Amy borrowed an old hacking jacket and hat of her father’s, a pair of boots from a footman, and went to hold the lantern for the Gentlemen.

She had enjoyed the adventure. There was really very little likelihood that Rankin, the Revenueman, would be about. Other Gentlemen had the job of making sure he was not, and they were very good at their job.

Mary’s papa had a bad spell over the summer, and Amy had filled in for him a few times. It was on the second night that she overheard the two Frenchies talking between themselves in French. They appeared to be complaining of the amount of money they were paid, but their complaint wasn’t with the Gentlemen. They had said they were fools to be carrying brandy when their lugger could as easily hold paper.

This made no sense to Amy, until rumors of forged banknotes began to surface in Easton. She got hold of one of the notes and enclosed it in a letter to Sir George, explaining her suspicions. To lend credence to her report, she had used the Cougar’s seal. On another night, she had overheard the Frenchies name “Alphonse” as the Frenchman who was carrying “paper” into England at great profit. This, too, she had reported to Sir George, who had immediately dispatched Mr. Bransom to Easton to discover who was receiving the “paper” on the English side. Cocker, a patriotic Englishman even if he was a smuggler, had agreed to let Bransom pose as his cousin and join his gang when the situation was explained to him under oath of silence.

At eleven o’clock, Amy donned her disguise, took up the dark lantern, and went out into the night to watch for any sign of the Revenueman. The rain had stopped and the wind subsided, but the grass was wet and the air chilly. She knew that Larry West, a local yeoman farmer who raised donkeys, would be waiting nearby with his eight donkeys to haul the brandy to various hiding spots. Ditches, pig styes, haystacks and any abandoned buildings were used for temporary concealment, when she was sure the coast was clear, she took up her position to watch for the arrival of the lugger from France.

She always waited at the same spot, atop an outcropping of rock with one straggling tree to lend concealment. She lay flat on her stomach, looking down on a small bay with a shingled beach where the barrels would be hauled in. The ocean glittered with a dull light under the moonless sky. Gentle waves whispered on the shingle, leaving a rill of white lace as they receded.

Her heart pounded, not with fear, but with the hope that tonight she would learn who was receiving the “paper” cargo. That was what Sir Hugh wanted to know. That was why he had sent his “best man”, the Wolf, down to Easton. And Amy wanted very badly to teach the Wolf a lesson.

Chapter Four

Amy watched as the barrels were dropped with a splash into the water and the Gentlemen waded out with their grappling hooks to retrieve them. As the last barrel was hauled ashore, two men from the French lugger lowered themselves into a small rowing boat and rowed ashore. Cocker chose a barrel and got out his hammer and chisel to breach it.

While this was going forth, the Frenchmen talked to each other in their native tongue. Knowing the Gentlemen couldn’t understand them, they were careless of what they said. Amy lay down on the rock with her head directly above them and listened, hoping to hear the name Alphonse. The taller was boasting to the shorter about some woman he was going to visit as soon as they reached home. The other man told him that Jeanne was only after his gold.

They argued a moment, then the shorter one said to Cocker in broken English, “Where tonight is Thatchley?” Amy came to attention. Thatchley was the name Bransom used, when he got himself recruited into Cocker’s gang of Gentlemen.

“
Allez
. Gone,
ne pas
here.” Cocker was the linguist of his gang. He had picked up
merci
,
bonjour
,
au revoir
and a few such common speeches.

The Frenchman nodded, and said to his partner, “The fools haven’t found his body yet.”

“Good. That’ll teach ‘em to sic a spy on us.”

“Pshaw. This lot don’t know what he was up to. They’re just the haulers.”

“Very likely. That was a clever trap Alphonse and his friend arranged for the spy, eh?”

Amy held her breath, not daring to breathe. Now she was going to hear what they had done to Bransom. Alas, they were distracted by Cocker. He held a tin cup to the spout and tried the brandy. He passed the cup around in a hospitable fashion and complimented the French smugglers on its quality. “
Tray bone
,
” he said in an execrable accent. Then he drew out his purse and counted out the payment in gold coin. Amy heard the coins clink enticingly into the Frenchman’s outstretched palm.
Au revoirs
were exchanged, and the Frenchmen rowed back to their lugger.

Larry West led the donkey train forward and the Gentlemen began the laborious chore of arranging the barrels over their strong backs to be hauled away for concealment until it could be safely delivered to local inns and hotels, and stately homes. Brandy was easily available, despite its being banned in England.

Before going home, Amy made a quick survey of the surrounding territory to ensure the Revenueman was not about. She ran like a hare through the darkness, with bushes snatching at her coat tails and the wind cold on her face. Cook, who was Mary’s aunt and a part of the scheme, always kept the back door open for Amy, with a pot of tea waiting. Smuggling was not considered a crime on the coast but a way of life. It was all that kept body and soul together in many cases.

Amy changed out of her disguise into the dressing gown that Cook had waiting downstairs for her. While she took her tea, she assured Cook that all had gone well. Cook said, as she always did on these occasions, “I do think one of the grooms or footmen ought to be doing this if Jed can’t.”

Amy said, as she always did, “It is quite all right, Cook. I don’t mind. And you know once a young man took over he would want to keep the job.” There was no arguing with this.

“Seems to me a young lady should be getting her excitement from beaux, not brandy.”

For some reason, an image of Ravencroft’s harsh visage popped into Amy’s mind. She would have to tell him what she had overheard that night. Bransom was dead, murdered. A trap had been set for him. Therefore, someone had tumbled to it that he was a spy. In fact, the French smugglers had used the word “
espion.
” How did they know? Had he been followed? Had they searched his room at the Greenman and found some incriminating evidence?

Someone had warned Alphonse, who had connived at Bransom’s death, and passed the word to the brandy smugglers to inquire about Thatchley. Common sense told her that “someone” was the man who was receiving Alphonses’s “paper” cargo. A moment’s consideration suggested this same man had murdered Bransom.

Her instinct was to rush off to Easton to tell the Wolf that very instant. As that was ineligible, she must be in touch with him tomorrow morning. She doubted that he would answer a summons after the harangue he had read her yesterday. She must go to him. Her pride balked at the idea. He was the most toplofty, arrogant, overbearing man she had ever met. Also the most elegant. His toilette put even Felix in the shade.

Once her decision was taken she went up to bed, where she lay awake a long time, trying to think of a plan to discover who was working with Alphonse.

She awoke in the morning to clear white skies and watery sunlight, which was called a fine day on the coast, where a blue sky was a rarity. Her first duty every morning was to take her father’s breakfast tray up to him.

“How is he, Tombey?” she asked, when he met her at the door.

“He was a bad boy last night, Miss Bratty.”

“Oh dear. He wet the bed again.”

“And threw a glass of water at me. But there, he’s not hisself, Miss. I remember him well from the old days.”

A wavering voice called to her from the bed. “They’re treating me like a dog, Nanny.” What an injustice to loyal Tombey! He shook his head in sorrow.

She went to the bedside and comforted her father as much as she could. It was heartbreaking to see the dignified old gentleman sunk to this pitiable state. She remembered him from the old days, too, when the parish looked up to him, and rushed to him in their time of trouble. And to think Felix Bratty, that foolish fop, would be his replacement! It was the one thing that inclined her to marry Felix, to provide a steady hand at Bratty Hall.

Amy never took much care of her appearance. With no one to appreciate a fancy toilette, she had fallen into the habit of wearing plain gowns and bonnets. She usually drew her hair into a chignon on the back of her head and called that a coiffure. As she donned her plain round bonnet, she remembered the dismissing way the Wolf had looked at her when she first spoke to him at the market. It was almost
as if he couldn’t see her. Perhaps if she dressed in a more stylish fashion, he would not dismiss her so readily.