The Devil Earl (30 page)

At the pointed question, their host grew wary. He lifted the mug to his lips and drained it, then set it down with a thump. “I’m not saying anything, my lord. Like I told you, I have no dealings with the boy. Perhaps you had better be on your way.”

Prudence felt her heart sink. This kind but apprehensive old man was their only link to Phoebe. If he did not help them, where would they look? Reaching across the table, Prudence placed her hand on his, startling the old gentleman. “Please, Mr. Darlington. I am afraid that my sister might be with him. I just want to make sure she is all right.”

His wrinkled features softened then, though he slid his hand from beneath hers. “Well, I know that he does his drinking at the Bloody Mary, down along the water, but it is no place for a young lady like yourself.”

“Oh, thank you, sir!” she said, leaping to her feet. “You have been most helpful.”

“Yes,” said Sebastian, rising to stand beside her. “Most helpful indeed.”

The Bloody Mary was definitely no place for a lady, but Prudence would not hear of Sebastian going inside without her. “Phoebe is my sister,” she protested. Besides, as much as she respected Sebastian, she had learned at the Darlington cottage that the arrogant earl was not the best person to coax others to talk.

He did better at the tavern, where his money and his willingness to part with it made the owner positively loquacious.
“Aye, Darlington was in here,” the man said with a grin. “When was it, Jack?” he asked a nearby patron.

Jack scratched his filthy beard and crooked his head, as if studying a complex problem. “Wednesday,” he finally answered.

“Aye, so it was. Wednesday,” the owner repeated. “Had a woman with him, too. Pretty little thing. They got a room,” he added, with a wink that made Prudence’s blood run cold.

“Did they stay the night?” Sebastian asked coolly, and Prudence was thankful for his aplomb. The earl was unflappable, whereas she…Well, this situation was entirely too close to her heart for her to maintain the proper equanimity.

“Can’t rightly say,” the owner answered. “As I recall, there was a fight not long after he came in. Happens here sometimes,” he said, winking broadly again. “And I lost track of him,” he concluded with a shrug.

“Really?” Sebastian asked, fixing the man with one of his steeliest stares.

“Yessir,” the fellow muttered. “How about you, Jack? Did you see what happened to Darlington, or the filly with him?”

Jack swiveled toward them again, scratching his beard and rolling his eyes back into his head so far that Prudence was afraid he might swoon. Finally, he rested his rheumy gaze upon the earl. “No.”

Prudence felt like shaking the fellow, but the distasteful notion of touching him made her dismiss that idea.

“How about you, Tom?” the owner asked. A skinny fellow with black, beady eyes, who reeked of alcohol and reminded Prudence of a ferret, lifted his head. “You talking about a pretty little blonde, looked like an angel?”

“Yes!” Prudence said, leaning forward. A whiff of the drunkard made her move discreetly back again, and she
glanced at Sebastian, catching the slight twitch of his mouth at her discomfiture.

“Well?” Sebastian asked.

“She and her gentleman friend went somewhere,” Tom said. His gaze jumped up and down the earl, as if assessing his price, and Sebastian obediently placed a coin in front of him. “Heard ’em say they was to find a better inn than old Charlie’s here,” he said, his lips splitting into a grin that revealed his lack of teeth. “The Chapel Inn.”

“Why, that’s up the coast,” the aforementioned Charlie said, looking interested. “I wonder what Darlington’s up to?” His eyes narrowed speculatively. “I’ll thank him to settle his bill here before moving on to them fancy places. And you can tell him so,” Charlie said, a bit too vehemently. Suddenly, the genial tavernkeeper appeared dangerous, and Prudence was glad to feel the earl’s hand upon her arm.

“We most definitely will,” he assured the man as they left the dingy, smoky place.

Outside, Prudence drank in the dank air greedily, although it reeked of rotting fish and garbage, owing to the unsavory location of the Bloody Mary.

“It appears we are off to the Chapel,” Sebastian said, helping her into the waiting coach. “Let us hope it is a bit more refined.”

“Yes,” Prudence agreed. “Though I must say, this trip is providing me with plenty of grist for my writing.” She heard Sebastian’s low laugh, a gentle comfort, and then his orders to the driver.

Back the way they had come, she thought dismally, for they had passed the Chapel Inn on their way to Mullion.

It was still early afternoon when they came to the inn, a pleasant little stone building sitting off the road among golden gorse and blackthorn. “If he could afford a nicer
place, why did he take her to that horrid tavern?” Prudence asked.

“I suspect that he was doing a bit of business there,” Sebastian replied, with a grim look. “From what his uncle said, young Darlington is involved with some rather unsavory smugglers. Perhaps he knows something about the goods stored below Wolfinger.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Prudence said. “These free-traders are usually local.”

“Yes, well, one never knows, does one?” he asked, with a wry twist of his mouth. “I will enjoy speaking with him, nonetheless.”

Prudence felt a shiver go up her spine at Sebastian’s tone. As much as she despised Darlington, she did not want the earl to do anything rash to the man, who might possibly be her brother-in-law. The thought made her cringe. A smuggler in the family! And Phoebe had thought the Devil Earl was bad.

The Chapel Inn was quaint and cozy and blessedly clean, and the owner did not look as if he kept a knife in his boot or a gun in his waistband. Once apprised of Sebastian’s title, he was most obsequious, and without any money changing hands.

“A Mr. Darlington, you say, my lord?” He frowned, as if in disappointment. “I cannot say as I have seen him. It has been quiet this week, with only the young couple here now.”

“What young couple?” Sebastian queried.

“Is the lady blond and petite?” Prudence asked, hope burgeoning in her breast.

The landlord looked from the earl to her, as if bewildered by their interest. “Why, yes, a lovely thing she is—”

Sebastian did not let the man finish. “What room?”

“Why, my best, the front one,” the landlord said, but when Sebastian and Prudence began rushing forward, he
hurried after them, protesting. “Here now, you can’t go disturbing my guests!”

Sebastian was already trying the door, and when it did not open, he thrust his shoulder against it. The old wood, unprepared for such usage, swung free to fall to the chamber floor with a great crash.

Hearing a suspiciously familiar shriek, Prudence peeked in to see a man lying on top of a woman in the bed that filled the space, and as the man rolled aside, there was no mistaking Phoebe, who was pulling the sheet up over her bare breasts and screaming at the intrusion.

“Phoebe!” Prudence cried.

“What the devil?” yelled a male voice, and Prudence was startled to see not Darlington, but another man, naked in bed with her sister. He had long golden hair, a bronzed chest, and an earring that glittered from one lobe, making him look like a pirate.

“Oh, my!” Prudence whispered, truly horrified.

Beside her, Sebastian tensed and took a step into the room, as if preparing to threaten the stranger. Then he stopped cold and stared, not with his usual menacing air, but with startled wonder.

“James?” he asked.

“Sebastian!” the pirate exclaimed.

“Prudence!” Phoebe cried.

“Oh, my!” Prudence muttered again, for it appeared that Sebastian’s brother, James, had returned…to bed her sister.

The earl was the first to collect himself. “What are you doing with Miss Lancaster?” he asked. Although he appeared as composed as ever, Prudence detected the emotion that rode beneath his calm surface, and she stepped beside him. She could almost feel his loyalties tearing him apart, and she reached out to put a restraining hand on his arm, for she did not want Phoebe to come between the brothers.

James, who looked as if he didn’t know whether to hug his brother or strike him, wrapped a blanket around his middle and left Phoebe cowering under the remaining covers. He stalked toward them with an assured gait that little resembled his previous dandified steps.

“I was making love to my wife!” he replied. “Would you care to see the special license?”

“No,” Sebastian said. He cleared his throat. “I believe congratulations are in order, then.”

“Just one moment,” James said, looking behind them. If he was expecting to find a chaperone, he was surely disappointed, for no one stood there but the distraught innkeeper. “I might ask the same of you, brother,” he said, in a peremptory tone not unlike his sibling’s. He put his hands on his hips, making his blanket slip precariously, and Prudence averted her eyes.

“Just what are you doing with
this
Miss Lancaster?”

After the landlord was most generously compensated for the damage to his door and everyone involved assured him that all was well and that they would need his private parlor and plenty of food and drink, he was mollified and hurried off to see to a meal for his guests.

And after the sisters and brothers had hugged each other and Prudence had hugged James and Phoebe had even hugged Sebastian, tearfully begging his forgiveness for her previous accusations, everyone settled down to eat and talk. They chatted amiably, but Prudence knew that all of them were waiting expectantly to hear James’s story.

Personally, Prudence had never seen a more changed man. Sebastian made much of her having redeemed him, but she thought him little different from the man she had first met. The earl of Ravenscar had always been the same, deep inside; only his more outrageous behavior had been abandoned.

But James! Prudence had to look twice to recognize him. His hair had been bleached by the sun until it was streaked with highlights, and it hung past his shoulders in a natural fall that had none of the artifice of the latest London fashion.

His clothes little resembled those of the dandy he had been, for he wore a simple white shirt, without vest or coat, boots, and buff breeches that stretched taut across his now muscular thighs. He had filled out, growing in the span of those missing months from a gawky boy into the strong, hard body of an adult male. Although he would never be as tall as his brother, he was bulkier, his muscles more noticeable.

And more startling than his tanned good looks was his attitude. Unlike the tentative youth who had graced their cottage, James held himself with a supreme confidence that reminded her of his brother’s ingrained arrogance. One could see the likeness between them now, simply in their manner.

If James had altered considerably, Phoebe had grown up a little bit herself. She watched James with an adoration that was plain to see, and a refreshing change from her previous self-absorption. Perhaps all she had needed was a firm but loving hand, Prudence mused, as she studied her sister.

Apparently, those two were not the only ones who looked altered. “Is that a new gown, Prudence?” Phoebe asked suddenly.

“No, dear.”

“Oh, but you seem different somehow. Your hair…And where are your spectacles?” Phoebe questioned.

“I have them,” Sebastian answered, patting his vest pocket. If Phoebe thought that was odd, she did not comment, but simply shook her head and turned her attention back to her spouse.

Although James had eaten twice as much as Sebastian, he finally seemed to be finished. He leaned back in his chair,
hooked his fingers in his waistband and began to speak, and Prudence edged forward eagerly to listen.

“I assume you are all aware of my argument with Sebastian,” he said, and everyone nodded. Although Prudence saw Sebastian’s mouth curled downward, James grinned unrepentantly at his brother. “Then I shall begin there. Being a hotheaded sort of idiot, I ran out into the storm, with no real direction in mind. I was wandering along the cliffs, trying to let the rain cool my temper, when I saw some lights down below.

“Although I never had any love for the abbey,” he said, inclining his head toward Prudence, “I decided to investigate, and since I was still angry with Sebastian, I charged off by myself,” he added. He smiled in a self-deprecating way that made Prudence decide right then and there that she liked him very much.

“Despite the rain and wind and waves, I clambered over the rocks in some kind of vain attempt to be brave, I suppose. Actually, I was doing fairly well, until I lost my footing and fell headfirst in front of a cave where smugglers were waiting out the weather. As one might suspect, they did not look too kindly upon my intrusion and grabbed me immediately. Realizing the depth of my predicament, I took off my ring and dropped it, hoping—foolishly, I guess—that someone might come across it,” James said with a sigh.

“Not so foolishly,” Sebastian said. Although he spoke in an even tone, Prudence could tell he was deeply affected by his brother’s story. Suspecting that he was blaming himself for not finding the cave earlier, Prudence nearly reached out to pat his knee before realizing that it would probably be unseemly. They were not married, and although Sebastian had again claimed that they were betrothed, the two younger people would probably be shocked if they knew the degree of intimacy that existed between their elders.

Prudence drew back her hand, while Sebastian leaned forward to hold out his to his brother. Nestled in his palm was James’s ring. “Prudence found it,” he said.

James glanced at her in surprise. “Did you?”

“She found a passage leading from the abbey into the cave, the smuggled goods, everything.”

“There is a way from the cave into the house?” James asked.

“Why, yes,” Prudence answered. “It leads up into the wine cellar.”

James muttered something Prudence assumed was an oath. “Let us hope that the smugglers know nothing of it, or we shall surely find the abbey stripped of its finery when we return.”

“I am afraid there is not much left to steal,” Sebastian said.