Chapter Twenty

H arriet had woken to a feeling of rising nausea some time in the middle of the night, as the ship began to pitch and roll. At first, Theo slept on in her arms as she lay between the bales of tobacco fighting the rising inclination to cast up her accounts. Before long, the movement of the ship grew more violent, and, but for the fact she was wedged, she might have been thrown about. This woke Theo up, and the first thing he did was groan and throw up all over her.

That was enough for Harriet. She struggled out of their dark little nest, the horrible smell of vomit in her nose and throat, tried to stand up in the pitching hold, failed and fell over, and was herself horribly sick all over the floor. The hope that having thus cleared out her stomach prevailed, and she crawled back towards where Theo was lying moaning. Luckily his stomach contents had gone mostly over her cloak, so she divested herself of the offending garment, and climbed back in with Theo.

Peace was not to be hers. The ship appeared to be in the grip of a violent storm, sometimes almost upending itself as though plunging headfirst into the troughs of the waves and about to sink, sometimes tipping towards its stern. And her hope that having cast up their accounts once they would feel better for it was unfounded. As the night progressed and the tossing of the ship only grew worse, Harriet felt worse in parallel, and so, it seemed, did Theo.

When the hatch jerked open letting the morning light spill in, Harriet had reached the point where she no longer cared if a hundred ferocious smugglers discovered her whereabouts. She just wanted to get out of the noisome hole she was stuck in and preferably right off this ship.

“I don’t think I like boats anymore,” Theo murmured, blinking at the brightness.

A demanding voice shouted down to them. “We know you’re in there. Come on out right now and show yourselves. Get up here on deck and let us see you.”

Harriet froze. Surely that was Jack’s voice? All hopes that he was playing an unwitting part in the smuggling vanished. What was she to do?

Beside her, Theo retched again, but without result, as for some time now he’d had nothing to bring up. He gave a little whimper of discomfort.

The voice, Jack’s voice, called out again. “You’ll feel better in the fresh air up on deck. Come on up. We’ve no intention of hurting you.”

That was reassuring, at least.

Harriet extricated herself from between the tobacco bales and hauled Theo to his feet. He came reluctantly, one hand hanging on to the tobacco bales for support as though his legs wouldn’t hold him up properly. At least the pitching of the ship wasn’t quite so forceful right now. She stepped into the square of light thrown by the open hatch and stared up at the face of the man looking down at her.

His mouth fell open. “Harriet?”

She nodded, her stomach roiling with the continual rocking motion, and sent up a silent prayer that she wasn’t about to disgrace herself by retching bile in front of someone she knew. She’d retained that tiny scrap of dignity and didn’t want to lose it.

He recovered himself quickly and held out a hand to her. “And Theo, I see. You’d better come on up.”

On legs as wobbly and weak as Theo’s seemed to be, Harriet climbed the ladder, ushering Theo ahead of her, ready to catch him if he fell. But he didn’t. As he emerged, strong hands took hold of him and sat him down on the other half of the hatch cover. She took Jack’s offered hand, and he pulled her up the final few steps, out into the blessed fresh air. Overhead, the wind snapped the sail canvas and, to right and left, she could see the white tops of what looked like enormous waves still. Immediately, though, her stomach began to feel better.

She became aware Jack was staring, and a glance down revealed why. She’d quite forgotten she was only wearing her long nightgown and woollen dressing gown, but at least both were voluminous and thick, even if they were festooned with the remnants of vomit.

“What on earth are you doing on my ship?” Jack asked, avoiding the obvious question of what she was doing on it dressed for bed not a voyage.

Harriet looked around at the sea of swarthy faces staring at her, all of whom must have had the same question in mind. Apart from Jack, six other men regarded her in open curiosity, none of whom she’d ever seen before. Four, of varying ages, looked like common sailors in rough, homespun clothing, but two were cut from a different cloth. The older of the two, an imposing middle-aged man whose sizeable gut did nothing to detract from his fierce good looks, had his graying hair confined in an old-fashioned queue. The other, due to his close facial resemblance, had to be his son, a handsome lad not a lot older than Lyddie, who’d fixed an appreciative gaze on Harriet’s lack of suitable clothing.

Harriet swallowed, not at all sure her dry, vomit-ravaged throat could manage speech.

“Water for the lady,” Jack said, and a moment later a bone cup was being pressed into her hands. She drank deep, relishing the liquid as it drained into her empty stomach.

“Some for Theo,” she croaked, a little ashamed that she hadn’t thought of him first, and the beaker was filled up and handed to him, where he was sitting half-supported between the two oldest sailors. He sipped it warily, probably afraid that if he drank it dry he’d end up seeing it again all too soon.

Jack cleared his throat. “I’ll ask you again. What are you doing on my ship?”

Theo, bless him, piped up, his voice barely a croak, like hers. “It’s my fault, Cap’n, sir. I wanted to see in the hold. So I came back here while you were fetching your men from the kiddley and I knew you wouldn’t be on board, and Mama must have followed me.” He glanced at Harriet. “But you and your crew came back, and we were frightened they’d be angry if they caught us, so we hid. Mama didn’t think you were going out in the ship, and she wouldn’t let me speak in case your men heard me.” He pulled a face. “I don’t think I like going to sea. I’ve changed my mind about being a sailor.”

From a second hatch forward of the mast, a sandy-haired boy maybe a year or two older than Theo emerged, barefooted and untidily dressed. He came to stand behind Jack, balancing as easily as they all were and eyeing Theo with open curiosity.

Jack looked at Harriet and raised his eyebrows.

She nodded. “That’s about it. Now can I please sit down.”

Jack nodded to the boy. “Clemo, close the other half of the hatch. It’ll be your job to go down there and clean up the mess.”

The boy pulled a disgusted face but slammed the hatch shut.

“Take a seat,” Jack said, indicating it. “While I think what to do with you.”

Harriet sat down close to Theo.

Jack jerked his head at the large middle-aged man. “I’d best introduce you. This is my partner, Captain Will Richards. His son, Harry. My bo’sun, Daniel Bussow. My crew—Uncle Billy, Silas, Phoby, and our cabin boy, Clemo.” He nodded at Captain Richards. “And this is Mrs. Harriet Penhallow, of Keynvor Cottage, and her son Theo.” He waved a hand at his men. “Now, back to work. Cap’n Will and I will sort this out.”

“You too, Harry,” Will said with a grin. “You can stop ogling the lady just because she’s in her nightgown.”

Harry grinned at his father and turned away, but not without an appreciative wink for Harriet. Good heavens. Did he think her some kind of light-skirt?

The two sailors who’d been supporting Theo got up, and Harriet slid closer to him, thankful to be off her feet, and bristling with annoyance at the wink. Her stomach roiled anew and for a moment she feared the hastily drunk water was about to reappear, but it didn’t. She reached out a hand and took Theo’s and he hung on tight, very much her little boy and not the brave adventurer he’d fancied himself. As spray kept coming over the edge of the boat to strike the deck, Harriet gripped the edge of the hatch with her free hand, not at all confident she and Theo wouldn’t be tossed over the side by the ship’s movement at any moment.

Jack and Will exchanged glances, and Will gave a shrug. “It’s your ship,” he said. “You decide, but we don’t want them interfering with the business we have to do, now do we? And I doubt we’ve time to take them back.”

Jack shook his head. “You’re right. Look at them. What they need is clean clothes and a wash more than anything. The sea’s calming down a bit now, but they’ll be best out here on deck in the fresh air.”

Calming down? Was it? Harriet hung onto the hatch tighter than ever.

Will nodded. “We don’t want them stinking up the cabin, that’s for sure, or we’ll have complaints.”

The embarrassment of the situation washed over Harriet anew as she began to feel a little better. The fact that she and Theo were smelly, and everyone had noticed, bore down on her.

“Clemo,” Jack said to the boy. “D’you have clean trousers and shirt?”

Clemo managed a heavy scowl. “I does, but they’re me Sunday best.”

Jack frowned back at him. “Go and get them.” He nodded to Theo. “You can go behind the mast and take off your soiled clothing and put on Clemo’s Sunday best. Chop chop.”

It didn’t take Clemo more than a minute to return with items of clothing that looked nothing like the sort of Sunday best Harriet was used to, but Theo, after a reassuring nod from her, went behind the mast and struggled out of his dirty clothes and into the new ones, remaining barefoot like Clemo. The expression on his face told Harriet how much he approved of his new clothing and the effect it was having on his morale.

“Go and give these a soak then hang them out to dry,” Jack said, again addressing Clemo, who again looked as though this order was an insult. But obedience must have been ingrained, and he took the clothes and departed to where a bucket on a rope sat by the side of the ship. A quick dip into the water produced an almost full bucket into which he immersed Theo’s soiled breeches, shirt and jacket, holding them delicately between finger and thumb, like an old duchess with her teacup, and poking them in with a long stick until they were submerged.

Jack, no doubt satisfied with this attempt at laundry, turned his attention back to Harriet. “You’ll need clothes too, but you won’t be able to change behind the mast like a boy. Can you go below decks into the cabin, do you think? Without further upset?”

Could she? Immediately the ship seemed to pitch more violently as though the weather knew she was about to go below decks again. Or that might have been her imagination. “Perhaps if you have a bowl or bucket I might take with me?”

He did. She followed him down the ladder into the cabin and found herself in a small, low-roofed space equipped with half a dozen hammocks, rocking gently with the motion of the ship. Better not look at them or she might feel sick again.

Jack pulled a shirt and a pair of breeches out of a small chest and held them out to her, although whose these were this time she had no idea. “These’re all I have, I’m afraid. We can get your own clothes…” and here he looked up and down her night attire again, “washed and dried, but I don’t think they’re suitable for wearing on board a ship.”

“Thank you… Jack.” She took the bundle of clothes. As she did so, her fingertips brushed his hand and a current of unexpected electricity shivered up her arm. Jack’s eyes widened for a moment, and he snatched his hand back at the same moment she did the same with hers. Had he felt it as well? And what had it meant? Her whole body felt as though it had come alive in that instant, suddenly aware of the proximity of this man and the intense masculinity he was radiating in such a small space. It should be frightening her, but it wasn’t. Instead she felt as though she were holding her breath, waiting for something good to happen. What an idiot she was. She stepped back until her shoulders came up against the side of the cabin, holding the clothes to her chest like a shield.

“Well,” he said, suddenly looking as awkward as she felt and rather pink about the gills. “I’ll leave you to change. Come up as soon as you’re dressed. Being in the fresh air is the best way to get your sealegs.” And he departed, closing the hatch behind himself as he went. This plunged the tiny cabin into near darkness, but Harriet had little trouble getting into the unaccustomed breeches and shirt. A buckle affair on the back of the breeches tightened them sufficiently not to fall down, and a pair of braces finished the task. She tucked the tails of the shirt into the breeches and shrugged into the waistcoat. Deciding bare feet might make gripping the spray-doused deck easier than her own impractical shoes, she started back up the companionway. The moment she touched the hatch, it opened for her.

Jack. He must have been waiting for her to finish her toilette.

“I didn’t need the bowl,” she said, with some pride, handing it back. “I think your ship isn’t tossing about quite so badly.”

He nodded. “We get a lot of ocean swell here in the west, because we’re almost in the Atlantic. And the wind’s behind us, driving us on, building the waves. You should be all right now, as long as you take it easy. Come and sit by your boy and keep an eye on him for me. He’s in danger of falling asleep sitting up.”

Harriet moved to the middle of the deck and sat down on the hatch again, next to Theo, whose skin had lost some of its alarming pallor. He was chewing on a hunk of brown bread as though he’d eaten nothing for days.

Jack nodded at him. “Best thing to do if you feel sick on a ship. Eat. Then you at least have something to bring up.”

Harriet shook her head. “Please don’t talk about that. I’d rather not think about it.”

Jack grinned and, pulling a coil of rope over, sat down opposite them. “Took me a while to get my sealegs, Theo. No one gets them straightaway. Takes time.”

“I feel better now,” Theo said. “Where are we going? I don’t see any land.”

“France,” Jack said.

Just as she’d been fearing.

Theo swallowed another mouthful of bread. “Are we smuggling? That’s what’s in the hold, isn’t it? You didn’t want me to see in case I gave you away, but I wouldn’t do that. Not ever. I want to be a smuggler one day, too. Just like you.”

Harriet suppressed a smile at his use of the word “we.” Did he fancy himself a party to this now they’d been discovered? What boy didn’t dream of adventure on the high seas. What mother didn’t fear it becoming a reality.

“No, Theo,” Harriet said. “ We are not doing anything of the sort, and you are never going to become a smuggler. Captain Jack, on the other hand, seems to be doing just that.”

Theo frowned. “But I’m on board now, and I want to help.” He glanced at where Clemo was doing something to the end of a rope. “And he’s not fourteen, is he? You said I had to be fourteen to sail with you, and that boy isn’t that old. He’s not much bigger than me.”

Jack opened his mouth to reply.

“Where in France are we going?” Harriet asked, swiftly changing the subject. “I mean, where are you going?”

Jack leaned his elbows on his knees. “Roscoff.”

As Harriet had no idea where this was, she was none the wiser, but she wasn’t about to let Jack know that. “And what are you going to do there?”

He tilted his head to one side. “What do you think? But I’m not sure it’s something I should divulge to you. After all, you were seen in company with Captain Carlyon not so long ago. Did he ask you to find out about me?”

Harriet’s body stiffened at his own change of subject. “Do you have people out spying on me?”

Theo’s eyes widened.

Jack chuckled and shook his head. “Not especially. But everyone in Cornwall knows what everyone else is up to. I’d’ve thought you’d have known that, being from Truro yourself. Or maybe up there they’re not so nosy. But they are down here. You’d be wise to bear that in mind.”

Harriet bristled. Whatever he said, only a spy could have reported this. “While it is true that Captain Carlyon came to call on me last week, I can assure you it was not a welcome call.” Above her head, the sails snapped in the wind. “I could not in all politeness turn a visitor away without seeming rude and churlish.”

“Lyddie and me were doing our lessons,” Theo said. “We were listening. I don’t think he asked about you.”

Harriet held up a hand to hush him. “I was most surprised that he chose to call. He suggested taking a walk along the cliffs to the east, which would have passed the alehouse—the kiddley—and that big square house on the point. But I suggested we should head west as I hadn’t seen that part of the coast yet.”

“Cudden Point,” Jack said. “Yes. You were seen.”

Harriet bristled again. “You say you weren’t spying on me and yet it seems you were. You have your informants in every corner of the countryside. If you knew that was the way we’d walked, why not just come out and say it?” She glared at him. “Did you think I might try to lie to you? Was this a test of some kind?”

He had the grace to blush. “Nothing of the sort. But in my line of business it’s well to cover every eventuality. And to keep an eye on those we don’t trust.”

Did he not trust her? “Well, as it happens, he did ask me questions about you. But I told him I scarcely knew you, and you’d just been kind enough to allow me to ride out on your mother’s horse to visit Mrs. Bolitho. Because I’m a friend of your mother.” She paused. “She’s not a smuggler, too, is she?”

This served to make him laugh, and Theo joined in. “No, my mother most definitely is not a smuggler,” Jack managed. “She would be horrified if she thought you believed that.”

“I don’t. I just wanted to check. I didn’t think you could be a smuggler until last night.”

“What did you think was going on, then?”

“That others were using your ship for their own ends, unbeknownst to you.”

He laughed again. “I’d like to see them try.”

“You haven’t answered my question yet. What do you plan to do in this Roscoff place?”

He got to his feet. “Well, now you’re a smuggler yourself, you might as well know. We’re more than halfway there and should be moored up in harbor by early evening. We’ll dispose of the goods we have stored in the hold and take on the cargo for the return journey. Then we stay the night and return tomorrow morning, so we’ll be back in the dark with the rising tide to unload.”

Harriet’s mouth fell open. “Theo and I are most definitely not smugglers any more than your mother is, so please don’t include us in your deeds.”

Jack grinned, suddenly as wolfish as Fitz. “You’d rather we just put you ashore in Roscoff and left you there? I think you’ll find that all the English craft that put in there are about the same business as we are, so you’d be hard put to find a berth on a return journey that doesn’t see you as implicated as returning with us will.”

“So, we’re truly smugglers now?” Theo’s satisfaction at this prospect shone out of him, banishing the last dregs of seasickness. “Oh boy!”

At the side of the boat, Clemo lugged up a fresh bucket of water. “If’n you wants me to clean up the hold then you’d all better shift,” he said, banging the bucket down in front of them, a surly expression on his young face.

Harriet and Theo rose to their feet and Harriet grabbed Theo’s hand before he could get away. “We are not smugglers. And you, Theo Penhallow, are staying right beside me. The sides of this boat don’t look anywhere near high enough for safety.” He wriggled but she had him tight.

Clemo threw them both a pitying look. “Sit on the spare sails up in the bows, why don’t you? I likes to sit there when I’s not workin’. Makes a good place for forty winks.”

“Thank you.” Theo’s hand still firmly clutched in hers, Harriet turned away from Jack and walked carefully up the rolling deck. Sure enough, there were the sails, although they didn’t look as comfortable as Clemo had implied. She settled herself on them with Theo beside her. At least here, they were mostly out of the wind, and if she tried hard she could pretend she wasn’t on a boat at all. Maybe…