The Raven's Lady (2 page)

Then the raven
swooped down to land on the beach beside her, and removed all
doubt. Miss Bellingham’s pet cawed at her, a loud raven alarm call,
and she looked anxiously up at the cliff. A few quick orders to the
remaining women on the beach, and they all scattered, some heading
for the path and some for the narrow way around the cliffs that had
been uncovered as the tide fell.

Now what did he
do? He stiffened his shoulders. Woman she may be, but smuggler she
certainly was. He would do his duty, of course. Even though once,
long ago, she had been Joselyn, the girl child who dogged his
footsteps and whom he would have died to protect.

Miss Bellingham
led a few other women up the cliff face, and stopped to speak with
them a few paces from where Felix hid. The raven swooped in to join
them.

“It will be
enough, Matilda,” she was saying. “The money we raise will pay your
rental and that of the other tenants and keep cousin Cyril from
casting you out.”

“For another
quarter, miss,” the woman addressed as Matilda said dolefully. “We
canna keep doing this here smuggling though. If’n the Black Fox
catches us, or the excise, we’ll all hang.”

Miss Bellingham
nodded, her brows drawn anxiously together. “By next quarter,
perhaps I will have thought of something else.”

“Master Felix
had no business dying in foreign parts,” Matilda declared.

“I do not
suppose he did it on purpose,” Miss Bellingham said. Was it just
his imagination, or did her tone sound wistful?

“If’n he’d
lived, tha’ could have wed him,” another woman suggested. Felix
recognised her; she was a servant at the grange. “Tha’ always said
he promised to come back and wed thee.”

“He was 14,
Betsy. Even if he was alive, he would have long forgotten a few
words said in haste when his mother took him away.”

“Mayhap you
should marry that man your cousin brought home,” Betsy said.

Miss Bellingham
gave an inelegant snort. “If I were inclined to marry, and I am
not, I would certainly not marry anyone who was friends with cousin
Cyril.”

“He’s a
well-enough looking young man,” Betsy insisted, “and polite,
too.”

“He is prepared
to pay my cousin in order to get his hands on my trust fund. In any
case, I do not think he wishes to marry me any more.”

“Only for that
you’ve gone out of your way to discourage him,” Betsy said.

Miss Bellingham
giggled. “I just listened to everything Cyril said he liked, and
did the opposite.”

Why, the little
minx. Certainly, Miss Milk-and-Water was unrecognisable in the
laughing maiden he could see before him. He had told Cyril he
preferred women with opinions, who could think for themselves and
hold an intelligent conversation. He might have added that he
wanted to wed a lady who put the welfare of his tenants ahead of
her own, as this delightfully grownup Joselyn clearly did.

The women were
splitting up, Miss Bellingham and Betsy taking the wood path,
followed by the raven, and the other women heading along the
clifftop to the village. He watched them out of sight, but stayed
where he was. He had a lot to think about. Miss Bellingham was
clearly not the Black Fox, even if she was a smuggler. And she was
far more the Joselyn of his memories than he had believed.

The sound of
shifting rocks attracted his attention.

Two men emerged
from another rocky outcrop some distance down the cliff, and walked
up to the junction of the two paths, talking as they came. One was
cousin Cyril, the other a dark burly man who walked with the
distinctive roll of a sailor.

“It’s my
cousin, I tell you,” Cyril insisted. “That damnable bird follows
her everywhere.”

“I don’t care
who it is,” said his companion. “She’s on my patch, and I’ll have
her cargo and I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way, and so I
will.”

“Look here,
Fox!” Cyril was clearly alarmed. “You can’t kill my cousin. I’ve
got a man up at the house who’s willing to pay good money to marry
her.”

The Black Fox,
for it must be he, looked interested. “How much is the wench
worth?”

“2000 pound.
And this Matthews is willing to stump up 500 to have the rest free
and clear.”

“2000, eh?
That’d go a long way to sweetening your exile!” The Fox laughed.
“Worth more dead than alive, I’d say.”

Cyril shook his
head. “She’s made a will leaving the lot to her sister’s children.
Not that the brats need it. They’re wealthy orphans; inherited a
packet when their parents died. I need her alive, I tell you.”

“You could
marry her yourself.”

Cyril shook his
head. “I tried that. She won’t have a bar of it. And I’ve no wish
for a wife anyway.”

“Drug her,
marry her, and then kill her before you run,” the Fox advised.

For a moment,
Cyril looked interested, but then he shook his head. “Too
complicated. I couldn’t have the bans called. Even if I could
wait—and the real Viscount Maddox could turn up at any time—no-one
here would believe she was willing. I’m just lucky that I heard two
men discussing his unexpected survival, and his petition to the
courts to be recognised as viscount. It has given me a little
warning to sell off everything I can lay my hands on. Once the
courts notify me, I’ll not be able to touch a penny.”

“A special
licence?”

“Expensive. And
chancy—she could still refuse me at the church. No; getting this
Matthews to court her is the best plan.”

“Or...” The Fox
fell silent, clearly thinking deeply.

“Or?” Cyril
prompted.

“I could buy
her off you. I’ll pay 400 pound, mind, and not a penny more! But
I’ll be able to sell her to the Barbary pirates, a fair-haired
virgin like that. She is a virgin, I suppose?”

Cyril nodded,
eagerly.

“Yes,” the Fox
continued. “It’s only fair, the trouble she’s caused me, taking
cargoes on my patch. Yes, and I’ll take my pick of the other women
she had with her.” He grinned, an evil leer that made Felix shiver.
“Some to sell, and some to use on the way.”

“450,” Cyril
said, “and you have a bargain. What’s the plan, then?”

The two men
moved out of earshot, still talking. Felix hurried after them as
soon as they’d cleared the open ground and gone into the trees, but
they had horses tied in a small clearing, and he caught up only to
see them ride away.

Time to return
to the house, then, Felix thought. And past time for a little
conversation with the lady smuggler.

When Felix got
back to the house, he could not find Miss Bellingham. However, he
found the servant, Betsy.

“Tell Miss
Bellingham, please, that I heard her cousin Cyril and the Black Fox
plotting against her, and I need to see her now. I’ll wait in the
library.”

After a shocked
moment, Betsy hurried upstairs, and a few minutes later, Miss
Bellingham entered the room.

She’d clearly
been interrupted before she could complete her change. She’d put on
a dress, but her hair was caught back in a long plait that brushed
her rump as she walked. Betsy came in at her shoulder, and their
glares were identical.

“Mr Matthews?
What’s this about my cousin?”

“Not Matthews,”
Felix told her. “My name isn’t Matthews. I was sent here to
investigate the Black Fox for the Crown. I followed you last night,
and I saw you bringing in your cargo.”

Now the women
had identical looks of alarm.

“It is not what
you think,” Miss Bellingham said. “I am not the Black Fox. And the
women; they were just following my orders. I am the leader. Arrest
me. Let them go.”

“No, Miss,”
Betsy objected. “We all agreed. We’re all in this.”

“None of you
are in this,” Felix said. “I’m not after you. I want the Black Fox.
In any case, Miss Bellingham, I don’t wish to arrest an old friend,
and I certainly don’t intend to arrest the wives and daughters of
my tenants.”

Betsy was
bewildered, but Miss Bellingham was examining him with narrowed
eyes. “You are dead,” she told him.

“No,” he
said.

She was shaking
her head. “We were told you were dead.”

Joselyn still
got a white pinched look around her lips when she was angry, Felix
noted, and two bright spots of colour on her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he
said, not sure what he was apologising for.

“You should be.
I cried. I wore black for a year. Why are you not dead, Felix?” And
then she was in his arms, punching his shoulder and fighting back
tears. “I am so glad you are not dead.”

He tightened
his arms around her, but Betsy cleared her throat, and Miss
Bellingham pushed away.

“You be
Viscount Maddox, seemingly?” Betsy asked. “Come to take yer own, is
it?”

“After we catch
the Black Fox and Cousin Cyril, yes,” Felix said. He was finding it
hard to focus on the job ahead of them, given how wonderfully Miss
Bellingham filled his arms and how empty they felt without her. The
idea of redeeming his boyhood promise was growing more and more
appealing.

“Where have you
been? Why have you waited so long to come home?” That was his
Jocelyn; pestering him with questions.

“I will answer
every question you have,” he told her. “But we don’t have time
today. Today, we have to decide what to do with your enemies.”

Quickly, he
told the two women what he’d overheard. Then he had to repeat it
for most of the rest of the household. Not the valet or the butler
who, Joselyn said, were from London, and Cyril’s men through and
through. The local people, she said, could be trusted.

When Felix had
finished his story, the servants were of a single mind.

“You can’t go,
then, Miss,” said Betsy. “We’ll have to let the Black Fox have the
cargo.”

“We can’t risk
you, Miss,” one of the other servants said, and the others murmured
their approval.

Joselyn turned
to Felix. “I suppose they are right. But I hate letting Cyril and
the Black Fox win.”

“I might be
able to help there,” Felix said. “What if we went ahead with the
move, as planned, but set an ambush for the Black Fox and our
delightful cousin?”

They couldn’t
settle their plans immediately. Joselyn would need to bring in the
farmer’s wives who, with Betsy the housekeeper, were her chief
lieutenants. And Felix needed the officers of the troops who
awaited his orders in the nearby town.

“I’ll send
messengers,” Jocelyn said.

“We can’t risk
Cyril finding out,” Felix warned. “Is there somewhere else we can
meet?”

Joselyn and her
supporters fixed him with identical looks of exasperation. “We have
a place,” Joselyn said patiently. “I’ll give your officers the
direction.”

The servants
went to carry out Joselyn’s orders, but Felix lingered, and so did
Joselyn. Betsy, the last to leave, looked at her mistress
uncertainly.

“Go, Betsy,”
Joselyn told her. “I’ll just have a word with Lord Maddox and be
along shortly.”

But when they
were alone, she was silent. Was she shy, all of a sudden, his brave
Joselyn?

On the
cliff-top, she had referred to the last time they’d seen one
another; that long-ago morning when his mother had carried him off
to the other end of England. Should he start there?

“Joselyn,” he
said. “I came back to redeem my promise.”

Joselyn
laughed, her mouth turned up in a smile, but something unreadable
in her eyes. “No, you did not, Felix. You came back to catch the
Black Fox.” And then, suddenly sober, “After eight years of
silence, Felix. Eight years!”

All his
excellent reasons for staying away turned to dust in his mind in
face of the angry tears pouring down her cheeks. In a moment, he
had her in his arms, and was kissing the tears away, murmuring
apologies and endearments.

Finally, they
drew a little apart. “I have made your shoulder damp,” Joselyn
said, brushing at it ineffectually.

“We had better
join the others, my love,” Felix said. “We have a busy day ahead of
us.”

“Your love,
Felix? You hardly know me. And I am still angry with you,” she
continued sternly. “Do not think to butter me up with a few
kisses.”

“After the
ambush, I will tell you my whole story, and make whatever penance
you assign. But, yes, you are my love. Now and forever, Joselyn.
Show me the way to this meeting place. We can argue later.”