Silken Secrets (7 page)

“And I can hardly call for you after being hinted away. You could send me a note at Vulch’s place if you find anything.”

This speech indicated pretty clearly that it was the silk he was interested in and not herself. When she replied, there was a chill in her voice. “If you don’t hear from me, you may assume I didn’t find anything. I shouldn’t think you’ll be hearing from me.”

“Pity,” he murmured, and smiled softly.

They stopped then, at the edge of Mr. Christian’s land. Before them was the pasture gate and open ground. She felt he would leave her there, safe on her uncle’s property. She disliked to part on this sour note, with no assurance of ever seeing him again.

“Well, thank you for rescuing me,” she said with the small smile that activated the dimples at the corners of her lips. He noticed the dimples vanished when her mouth was open, but those prim, closed-mouth smiles were delightful.

“Perhaps I should see you safely to your door.”

“I’ll be all right now. This is our pasture—you can see Horton Hall,” she said, pointing to it.

The patch where the lead sheeting had fallen was visible from this direction. The sheets that still adhered to the roof were rusted around the edges and coming loose. Mr. Robertson felt a stab of pity for a young lady who would spend her reward on a piece of lead. He had already discovered Mary Anne’s circumstances from Vulch, but asking her gave him an excuse to linger.

There was some charm in this idyllic country setting, far from the intrigues and affairs of London drawing rooms that were his more usual haunt. “Have you lived with your uncle long?” he asked.

“For as long as I can remember. My mama was his wife’s sister. Uncle Edwin made an unwise match, which is why he is so dreadfully poor. Younger sons should marry wisely, I suppose.”

“And your own father?”

“Papa was a younger son, too. He tried to raise horses in Ireland. He got thrown from a wild buck he was trying to tame and broke his neck. That’s when Mama came back to England. Uncle Edwin says she should have bought a small property with Papa’s money, but she was restless. She lived in Bath for a spell, then Brighton. But I don’t remember any of that. She died when I was four, and that’s when Uncle Edwin took me in. Really, it was Aunt Hattie who took me, but then she died, too, a few years later, so it’s just Uncle and I alone now.”

Mr. Robertson listened closely to this tale of woe. One aspect of it smote him more closely than the rest.

“Younger sons should marry wisely.” Truer words were never spoken, but it was also true that an elder son was expected to garner himself a noble heiress. A man in his situation was not expected to bring home a penniless bride.

Mary Anne noticed the expression he wore and brought forth for his consideration her sole advantage. “I’m connected to some highly placed people through Uncle Edwin,” she said baldly. “His older brother, Lord Exholme, is an earl with a fine estate in Sussex. We visited Longcourt one Christmas. They have a ballroom and everything, but I was too young at the time to attend the ball. Is all your family in trade, Mr. Robertson?” she asked, to highlight the difference in their connections.

“Only I have sunk so low,” he told her. One Christmas visit told him pretty clearly that Exholme didn’t acknowledge the girl.

“I expect there’s a good living in it.”

“At least my roof is in good repair,” he riposted.

“Bess Vulch is very pretty, don’t you think?” was her next remark.

Mr. Robertson had no difficulty following her reasoning. “A pleasant girl,” he answered vaguely.

“She has a dot of ten thousand and is very popular hereabouts.”

“I’ll wager she is,” he replied, and laughed aloud at her transparent musings. “But then, of course, she has no highly placed connections.”

“Her papa is an M.P.”

“Yes, quite. I had forgotten that advantage. Take care she don’t nab Joseph while you’re out flirting with Frenchies. He was there last night when we returned, you know.”

Far from taking offense, Mary Anne’s face lit up like the sun. “Was he really? How splendid!”

“Are you and Joseph not—how shall I word it discreetly—are you two not courting?”

“Well,” she said, frowning over their situation, “he’s trying to, I think, but I don’t care for him, and Uncle hates his interfering ways, so it doesn’t seem to be coming to a head.” She glanced at the little pearl ring and spun it around on her finger.

Twenty-four years old. “Perhaps I’ll have him in the end,” she said disconsolately.

Mr. Robertson observed the downturn of her pretty lips and felt a pronounced aversion to Joseph Horton, whose self-righteous prosing the night before had repelled him.

“I take it that catastrophe isn’t imminent?” he asked.

“Not till he’s paid off his mortgage.” There seemed to be nothing more to say. “I’d best be getting home now.”

“I’ll help you up.”

He put his hands around her waist and lifted her into the saddle. She was light in his arms, and when she looked down to thank him, a smile trembled shyly on her lips. “Thank you, Mr. Robertson,” she said.

“You’re welcome, Miss Judson.”

He opened the gate and she walked Bingo home, her mind alive with romantic conjectures. Mr. Robertson turned and slowly wended his way back to recover his mount. It was foolish of him to be thinking of Miss Judson in amorous terms. She was totally ineligible. He could name offhand half a dozen topnotch heiresses on the catch for him. Some of them were prettier than Mary Anne; all of them had more polish.

A man in his position should marry wisely. Long-lashed brown eyes and magical dimples were not a wise choice; they were merely irresistible. The thing to do was to stay away from her, he told himself severely, but somewhere at the back of his mind he was figuring out how he could spare time to see her again.

Chapter Six

Mary Anne entered the house, swollen with importance after her brush with the smugglers, which lost nothing in the telling. Mrs. Plummer was a suitably impressed audience. Her brown eyes bulged from her head, and her face turned pale.

“Glory be to God, it’s a miracle you’re alive, child. Didn’t I warn you not to go out alone? Two of them, and in a nasty shepherd’s hut. What a place to have their way with you, as private as may be. You’re lucky you weren’t raped. I’ll lock the doors at once and have Fitch bar up all the broken windows.”

“If it weren’t for Mr. Robertson, I doubt I’d be alive to tell you the tale, Mrs. Plummer,” Mary Anne finished. “Where’s Uncle?” One relating of her story only whetted her appetite. She wanted to tell Uncle and Fitch, and she especially wanted to tell Bess Vulch how Mr. Robertson had come dashing to her rescue. What never entered her head was to tell Joseph Horton.

In Lord Edwin’s study behind the bolted door, his lordship was in deep conversation with his butler. “The sooner we get it out of here. Fitch, the better,” he worried. “It must be done under cover of darkness. I come to think a ship is the safest way. You could sail it up to Folkestone and have the draper pick it up at the dock. He asked if it would be coming by sea or land.”

“My wee boat don’t have sails.”

“Then you’ll have to row the stuff in your fishing smack.”

“Nay, it’d take two trips, and more than two days to row so far and back twice. I could borrow Elroy’s fishing boat, but he’d want his cut.”

“That no-good Elroy? Can’t let him in on it. He’s Vulch’s man. He’d blow the gaff on us. Could you borrow the boat tonight without telling him?”

“He goes out at night, and we can’t move the stuff in daylight.”

Lord Edwin sighed deeply and fell into an unaccustomed fit of poetics. “These are the times that try men’s souls, Fitch. The times that try men’s souls. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“It’s our minds we should be trying. We need a boat. It can’t be impossible here on the coast, where every second shanty has something that floats.”

“You must come up with something and let me know. By tonight, Fitch, at the latest. I’m on nettles with that load just waiting to be discovered and stolen from me.” His duty done, he went to harry Plummer into serving lunch.

Last night’s chicken served cold was a welcome treat from ham and cheese. Mary Anne related her morning’s adventure, with much emphasis on Mr. Robertson’s heroism.

Her uncle was in such good humor to learn the Frenchies were wasting their time at Christian’s shepherd’s hut that he forgot his anger with Robertson. “Well done of the lad. I’ll thank him next time we meet. One ought always to be civil to the lower classes—show them how a gentleman behaves.
Noblesse oblige,
what?”

Miss Judson felt free to ask if he planned to go into the village that afternoon. He did, but his errand was to sniff around for a boat he might borrow for one night and he didn’t want his niece hobbling his progress. “Not today,” he lied easily. “I’m going to speak to some workmen about getting the roof fixed, if they’ll do it on tick. The plaster in my bedroom has turned brown and wet. It looks like one of Plummer’s plum puddings before it goes into the oven. Can’t have the ceiling falling on my head.”

No trip to Dymchurch, then, no meeting with Mr. Robertson. Mary Anne was disappointed, but not disconsolate. She would do as he had suggested and search the house for the silk. It was a large house, with easy access from outside by any of half a dozen doors that no one bothered to lock at night. The silk might have been stored in the cellar, for instance.

Lord Edwin left immediately after lunch, and Mary Anne was about to begin her search when there was a loud banging on the front door. Mr. Robertson! was the first thing that popped into her head. She went with a trembling smile to admit him and found herself staring at Mr. Codey, the customs man. In his hand he held a document, signed by Judge Endicott and set with his seal.

“I have a warrant to search these premises, Miss Judson,” the little fellow stated importantly.

Codey was the very picture of a bantam cock: small, pigeon-breasted, with hair the color of an orange, a beaky nose, and an aggressive expression. He was well known and hated as an avid worker.

“Who had it sworn out?” she asked. “If that wretch of a Vulch...”

“It was sworn out by Viscount Dicaire.”

“Who the devil is Viscount Dicaire? I never heard of him.”

“Some London friend of Vulch,” he admitted shamelessly. “A big chief in the customs-and-excise department. After one glance at the paper from Dicaire, Endicott couldn’t move his stamp fast enough. I figure the cellar is the likeliest place. Easiest access. I’ve brought my own torches. Stand aside, if you please, ma’am.”

Mary Anne stood aside to let Codey precede her, but she followed him to the kitchen. When Codey had descended, she informed Mrs. Plummer of Vulch’s heinous trick.

“Where’s my rolling pin?” Mrs. Plummer demanded, eyes blazing. “I know right where it is, if I could only find it. I’ll lay it over Codey’s red head if he goes smashing the last dozen bottles of wine in the cellar.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” Mary Anne said. She took up a candle to follow Codey into the cellar.

“He’ll not find a thing but mice and black beetles,” Mrs. Plummer said with grim satisfaction.

He also found a nest of bats, but as a quick scoot through the bowels of the house was enough to show him no large bales of silk were there, he soon returned above stairs.

“Open your pantry, Mrs. Plummer,” he commanded.

She strode, arms akimbo and face red with indignation, to throw open the innocent door. “Mind you keep your fingers off that bowl of leftover chicken!” she warned, brandishing her rolling pin. A mouse came running out, and she vented her wrath on it.

Mary Anne was close behind Codey as he peered into pickle bins and behind a wheel of cheese, and in an excess of enthusiasm tapped at walls and floors for a secret passage.

“Mind you don’t knock the walls down,” Mrs. Plummer called in.

The search continued upstairs and down, through airless parlors and mildewed bedchambers and sodden attics. After two hours, Officer Codey was assured of Lord Edwin’s innocence.

“The house is clean,” he announced. After a glance at his dusty fingers, he altered this misleading phrase. “That is to say—the silk ain’t here. It’s tiring work,” he said, wiping his brow and looking about for a keg of ale.

“I’d offer you a seat, but all the empty chairs are full,” Mrs. Plummer said, grimly placing a dirty pot on the one closest to him.

With a glower and a military straightening of his shoulders, Codey said, “As you were, ladies.” Then he saluted and left.

Mrs. Plummer stared at his swaggering departure. “Gudgeon. Why we have to pay taxes to be badgered by the likes of that yellow hammer is above and beyond me. He’s set me an hour behind on my work. The bread will have swelled to a mountain.” On this complaint she returned to her kitchen.

The untidy condition of the house had been borne in on Miss Judson during the tour, and she went for a dust cloth to tackle the main saloon. “You’d best use beeswax and turpentine, or you’ll only rearrange the dust,” Mrs. Plummer told her, and supplied these necessities, before returning to beat her bread dough into compliance.

Mary Anne had just tucked a tea towel into her waistband and begun the job of restoring a sheen to ancient furnishings when the door knocker sounded again. This unwonted flurry of visitors was a distraction from her usual solitude, and she quickly whipped off the towel to answer the door. She smiled in surprise to see Mrs. Vulch and her daughter, Bess, standing on her doorstep. Bess was arrayed in yet another new gown. The Vulches were the smartest-looking women in the village, due to their unique closeness to incoming silk.

Fond as they were of silk, however, they did not wear it during the daytime. Mrs. Vulch was a large, strident, dark-haired woman, florid of complexion and outspoken in the extreme. Bess, having been born into more opulence than her parents, appeared closer to gentility. She wore a fashionable blue and white gown of mulled muslin, with a broad ribbon around the waist. Mary Anne thought the straw cartwheel bonnet must have been sufficient protection from the sun, but it was augmented with a sun umbrella that matched the gown.