Revenge of the Barbary Ghost (29 page)

“Milord,” a voice whispered. It was Johnny.

“I told you not to say that word as long as we were at this place,” Darkefell warned the lad, keeping his tone low and trying to see through the murky dark and shadows of the back alley. They quickly discussed their plans as they walked back to the Barbary Ghost Inn, and the marquess and his secretary then returned to their rooms.

It was the middle of the night, but Osei lit a lamp so they could shed their rags and wash the filth of the Dirty Dog from their skin. Darkefell saw, as the light leapt, casting weird shadows up the walls, that his secretary was shuddering as if chilled.

“What is it, man? You look as if you’d seen the proverbial ghost?”

Osei shook his head, but after a moment, he sank to his knees on the floor, still shuddering and retching. He covered his face with both hands.

“What is it?” Darkefell asked, kneeling by him. “Osei, speak to me!”

“That place, that hole under the Dirty Dog … I held it off as long as I could, sir, but coming from it …” He shook his head. “It was so like the hold of that slave ship, the smell, the darkness, the sounds of feet stomping on wood above. I am sorry, sir, but it took me by surprise. I must gather myself.” He shrugged off his employer’s hands and stood, shaking himself. He turned to the marquess. “I beg your pardon, my lord,” he said, his spectacle glinting in the lamplight. “I did not mean to make a spectacle of myself.”

Darkefell stared at the younger man, examining a face that mapped the horrors he had endured at the hands of slavers. “Only you would call a momentary lapse in private ‘making a spectacle of yourself.’ Think nothing more of it.”

Osei’s reaction left Darkefell in a serious mood, and he once again wondered what he could do for the fellow that he had not already done. It was then that he remembered Osei’s occasional remarks about his sister, who had been taken into slavery at the same time as he, but who had disappeared into the hold of another slave ship. Could anything be done to reunite the siblings? He wondered. He must write another letter in the morning. Until he received an answer, he would say nothing to his secretary.

***

For two long days, a wild storm raged, scouring the beach.

Darkefell knew the smugglers’ goods could not be landed in such weather, and had heard as much from Micklethwaite. He spent the intervening time to good end. He did not yet know, perhaps, who had murdered St. James, but he did know too much to be easy.

Never intimate with smugglers, the marquess learned much from Johnny. A smuggler’s cutter or lugger would weigh anchor some ways from the beach, as near as they could safely go, and then rowboats would be employed to ferry the goods to the beach. There, as he had observed when he had saved Johnny from harm, local men with carts would gather, and stout fellows would carry the goods from the rowboats to the carts, and thence inland. Or, as was going to happen this time, the goods would be carried directly into the tunnel below Cliff House, to be distributed on subsequent nights.

Finally the storm blew itself out and Thursday—it was already late in May—dawned sunny and calm. The landing would take place that night, Darkefell knew, as they had not too many nights of low tide left. One thing worried him: Micklethwaite had hired a boat to do this run rather than using his own. He had reassured his men that it was solely because the officials were looking at his operation too closely, so he had arranged to have both his boats tied up with legitimate runs. No one, he explained, would be expecting the St. Wyllow Whips to be out, if they believed him to be a part of that gang. It made sense, but Darkefell was worried.

He had tried to visit Anne, but she wouldn’t see him. He still didn’t understand what he had said or done that was so wrong. She was being foolish and taking unnecessary risks. Why wouldn’t she let him take care of things? If Miss St. James’s finances and safety were all that truly mattered, wouldn’t the affair be safer in his hands? As a man, he was used to action and accomplished in planning, much more so than a couple of young ladies. The contradiction in her behavior baffled him as he tried to make sense of it.

Thursday afternoon, with Osei for company, he walked the short distance from the Barbary Ghost Inn to the side of the cut opposite the bluff beyond Cliff House, to observe and think about the landing he assumed was going to happen that night. He had a spyglass, and lay on the cliff examining the shore below where he thought the tunnel came out.

“Right there,” he said, and handed the glass to Osei, explaining to him how to find what they were looking for. Osei spotted it with no trouble, and trained the glass along the beach. Darkefell rolled over on his back and stared up at the sky, watching puffed white clouds scud across the blue. “How am I going wrong, Osei? What offended Anne so much about me wanting to protect her? I fear for her life in such an enterprise as this. Smuggling! What kind of man would I be if I did nothing and let her do what she would?”

“I was not there, sir, and did not hear how you phrased the things you said.”

“But I’ve told you
exactly
.”

“Pardon me, sir,” Osei said, taking the spyglass away from his eye and glancing over to his employer. “But you told me what you said, not how you said it.”

“Surely that’s the same thing?”

“Not at all. I have observed that when we relate what we have said to another, we summarize, not using the exact words. Nor are we able to duplicate the tone, the facial expressions, the exact phraseology utilized.”

“How like a woman to care about that,” Darkefell said.

Osei did not respond.

Darkefell rolled over onto his side and watched his secretary lift the spyglass again and gaze down the beach. His secretary’s thin, dark face was set in an expression he knew well now, after five years of having him in his employ. Osei had his own opinions, but had not expressed them all. “Do you not think that unreasonable,” Darkefell pressed, “to care so much how a thing is phrased?”

Still Osei said nothing.

Darkefell sighed in exasperation and swept his unruly hair off his forehead. “I give you permission to speak freely, Osei. I think you understand the lady well, perhaps better than I do, and I’m asking your opinion.”

“Words are significant. They hold weight and meaning, each one, individually,” Osei said, slowly. “But tone is of import, too. How you are told to do something is
very
important, for beyond the words lie many implications. The tone in which words are delivered can say ‘you are a fool, so I must treat you like one,’ or ‘I trust your shrewdness in this matter.’ I suppose, having been in a subordinate position for some years now, sir, I know what it feels like to have my intelligence slighted—”

“When have I ever slighted your cleverness?”

“I did not say
you
did so, sir.”

“I beg your pardon for interrupting,” Darkefell said. “I’m impatient, aren’t I? I jump in too quickly, before hearing people out.” And he accused Anne of impetuosity? “Who, then, would dare slight your intelligence?”

“At first, when you hired me as your secretary, Mr. Jones,” Osei said, referring to Darkefell’s land steward, Mr. Posthumous Jones, “did not make it simple. He questioned everything I said, and disbelieved every order I gave. Do you not remember how often he came to you for clarification, when I had said exactly what you told me to say? You would reaffirm it, but it was three years before he began to believe me. You even asked me once if I relayed your messages to Mr. Jones and others completely.”

“Why didn’t you complain to me? I would have
made
him pay attention to you.”

“Sir, that would just have proved Mr. Jones’s point, that I was not able to make decisions for myself, nor solve problems on my own. I persevered.”

“And now?”

“We are beginning to have a good understanding, Mr. Jones and I. I think I have won his respect, finally, and it is worth having, for he is a good man underneath it all.”

“You must have been relieved when I sent him to London on business a couple of months ago,” Darkefell said, wryly.

“It does make my job simpler, not to be questioned at every turn.”

“But how does that equate with my desire to protect Anne from harm?”

Osei sighed, and framed his answer carefully, frowning into the distance. Darkefell watched his thin, dark, intelligent face. He began to see how Osei had struggled, and yet had kept the struggle to himself, preferring to make his own way and fight his own battles.

“Lady Anne has lived her whole life—not just the few years that I have endured—within a society that expects her to be someone she is not. From what I have observed of your English society, ladies are thought to be impetuous, and so are not trusted to make decisions affecting their own lives.”

“She
is
impetuous,” Darkefell said.

“So are you, sir, but your impetuosity, even when it results in a bad end, is called risk-taking, daring, boldness. When you speak up, you are called courageous and manly. When she speaks up, she is called unwomanly, unattractive, silly, ill-judged. Shrill. Irritating. If she wishes to make her own decisions and choose how she wishes to live, it is thought to be wrong-headed and dangerous. I ask you, why is it dangerous to allow a woman to make her own decisions about life?”

“I am beginning to think men don’t allow women the freedom to choose for themselves how they live, because we fear they will decide they don’t wish or need us as husbands.” Darkefell frowned off into the distance. “Listen to me: ‘allow women the freedom.’ I wonder how much there is in life that I don’t understand.”

Osei smiled and didn’t comment.

“Will Anne ever accept my proposal?” He thought of her life, as a being of intelligence, courage, and wisdom, and yet she could not work, nor order her own life, nor command her own money. She could not purchase land. She could not choose a representative in government. On marriage she would lose even the right to speak for herself in court. Frustration must attend such limitations on action, when the woman was as accomplished and intelligent as Anne.

He had been taught his whole life that women did not wish such things as to be in charge of their own destiny, that it was too great a burden for frail shoulders to bear. But that wasn’t true, clearly. “I’ve offended Anne terribly, Osei. I see that I should have offered to help, not told her I would send her away and do it all
for
her. But I cannot and will not allow her to fall into danger because I did not frame my offer of help in such a way as to be acceptable to her. I must risk that she will turn me away forever, while I do what I will to keep her safe.”

Osei nodded. “I know.”

“And it has nothing to do with distrusting her judgment as a woman. But I cannot sit on my hands while I fear for her life.”

“I know.”

“So the plan goes on,” Darkefell said. He stared down at the beach. “I pray it goes well.” He stuck his hand in his pocket and fingered Anne’s lace fichu. “Tonight will tell the tale.”

Eighteen

“I’m worried, Mary,” Anne said, pacing in her room. Irusan sat on her bed and watched her, his green eyes fixed on her face. “Something is not right about this whole mess, and yet I cannot make Pamela listen to me.”

“Aye, that’s what I fear. She’s trusting folks you have no reason to trust. But you must not risk your own life, milady, trying to save hers!”

“I know, I know. Darkefell tried to make that same point two days ago,” Anne said, and did not need to elaborate because she had told Mary about meeting him in the tunnel, though she didn’t confess
all
that had occurred between them. “Was I wrong, Mary?” She stopped in front of her maid. “Should I, for
Pam’s
sake, have let Darkefell take over?”

Mary didn’t answer, and just watched her mistress as she tried to repair the damage to another of Anne’s hats. It was late afternoon, and the storms of the last two days had finally calmed. Pam had received word that the run was going to be that very night, just a few hours hence.

“If my only thought is for Pam’s safety, and I do know Darkefell to be competent and as good as his word, should I have let him take over?” Anne pondered that question, drifting over to the window and staring out without seeing. Pride must not get in the way of helping Pam to the utmost of her and anyone else’s ability. If Darkefell was the most capable of helping her in this final foray into the criminal world, then he should have been allowed to take over. But she shook her head.

“No,” she said, turning away from the window. “He doesn’t care for Pam as I do. He would do what he could, but I will do more. I owe so much to her, more than anyone will ever know. If he had only offered to help me, rather than demand I leave, I may have accepted his assistance, for he’s a good ally. But he would have bundled me off, and I cannot just go away and hope for the best. What kind of friend would I be?”

“You’re not a foolish woman, milady,” Mary said, frowning as she tried to prop up a broken feather. But there was no hope for the plume, so she removed it and tossed it aside. Irusan, in a rare display of feline fancy, leaped upon it, chewing it and tossing it around on the bare wood floor.

“I wish Darkefell fully believed that. I’m afraid I was very rude to him, but he will not accept that I am no fool. He
claims
to think me intelligent, but then goes on to command me in the same tones as any other man.”

“He
is
just a man, milady,” Mary said, poorly trying to hide a smile.

Anne picked up the feather and tossed it in the air, letting her cat race after it, dashing across the polished wood. She laughed at the injured look on his face as he slid into a wall. He stalked away and sat in an inelegant pose to wash his bottom, one leg stuck up in the air. His nonchalance was feigned, Anne knew, because he despised being laughed at. He demanded respect, and so did she.

Anne couldn’t stop thinking about Darkefell’s confession, his claim that he loved her. It had deeply touched her and she had been about to confess her own feelings, before he commanded her to stay out of Pamela’s troubled life. She stiffened her backbone, putting thoughts of Darkefell away.