Chapter Twenty-One

H aving watched their two passengers teeter up to the bows and take up residence on the spare sails, Jack retired to the stern, where Will had taken charge of the tiller and sent the early morning watch down to kip in their hammocks.

“That’s her, then, is it?” Will said, without taking his eyes off the horizon. Western Brittany would be coming into view before too long.

“What d’you mean by that?” Jack leaned on the gunnels and squinted up towards the top of the mainmast at the way the topsail was straining in the following wind. That was what he liked to see—a strong wind and a foaming wake trailing behind the ship.

“You know what I mean,” Will said, nudging him in the ribs. “She’s the girl you’ve got your eye on.”

“I have not.” But the moment the words were out of his mouth, Jack knew them to be a lie. He did indeed have his eye on Harriet Penhallow, deny it as he would.

Will, rather annoyingly, just chuckled. The wind blew a few wisps of his grizzled hair out of his pony tail and across his eyes, and he had to put up a hand to brush them away. “Pretty little thing when she’s not covered in vomit.” His gaze rose to a gull that had been following the ship, its back curved like a sickle against the wind. “And she do scrub up well in boys’ clothes, enough to tempt a man. Don’t you go tellin’ my Eliza I said that, mind. She don’t like it if I so much as look at any other woman, even if that woman might chance to be dressed like a lad.”

Jack’s turn to laugh. “Only if you shut up about me having my eye on Mrs. Penhallow.”

Will shot him a sideways glance. “She was Harriet just now.”

Jack folded his arms across his chest. Frequently, his friend didn’t know when to drop a subject, and now felt like one of those times. Mrs. Penhallow… Harriet… Somehow, calling her by her married name and title helped to distance himself from her, whereas calling her by her Christian name had done quite the opposite. He hardly knew her. He’d met her only a few times, been intrigued by the mystery about her, ridden out with her once, and now found her hiding on his ship. None of this served to make her someone for whom he should be nurturing feelings of this kind.

That brought him up short. Feelings of what kind? What did he mean by that? He looked away from Will, who had a smug smile on his face, and stared out across the rolling, white-capped waves, trying very hard not to think about Harriet.

And failed.

At least he now knew why she was so reticent, thanks to Theo’s indiscretions last night. Not that she was being nearly so reticent right now. The look of wary fear in her eyes had vanished, probably chased away by her severe seasickness and her instinct to protect her child. Something he had to admire in her. She’d found herself on board a ship with eight strange men, well, one she knew a little and seven strangers, and she’d stood up for herself and her son, despite her sickness.

He peered down the deck, but the sails were in the way, and he couldn’t see her properly. Hopefully, she and the boy would have a sleep there until they arrived in Roscoff. It was the safest spot on board for them and would keep them out of the men’s way. They must be exhausted after that bit of rough sea and being down in the hold, to boot. The first time he’d been to sea as a green fifteen-year-old he’d been sick as a dog. It had been nothing like the voyages he’d made along the coast in his little crabbing boat, checking his crab pots, and, like Theo, he’d at first decided it would be his one and only trip out of coastal waters.

He needed to stop thinking about Harriet Penhallow before he drove himself mad.

*

After a bit, Will went below to take a nap, and Jack took over at the tiller. The sea was still lumpy, and a strong wind drove The Fly onwards at a good speed. With any luck they’d be in Roscoff by early evening, and it should be high tide. They’d need that to get moored by the jetty. He didn’t want The Fly ending up beached on the sand for hours on end. Far too vulnerable a position.

Occasionally, the sails shifted enough to give him a view up the boat of Harriet and Theo fast asleep on the sails in the bows, Theo nestled in the crook of his mother’s arm. Enough to reassure him that they remained safe, at any rate, and unlikely to be any more of a nuisance right now.

At midday, Uncle Billy, the oldest crew member, his sparse white hair hidden beneath a knitted cap his equally ancient wife had made him, brought out some bread and cheese, and the men who’d been below came up, stretching and yawning, to take over duties on deck. With eight men on board, no one needed to work too hard unless the weather was bad. Worse than it had been overnight which had only been a high wind.

Carrying a tin plate of food and a flask of water, Jack wove his way forward to the bows. Theo had wriggled away from his mother and was now curled into a ball with his knees drawn up almost to his chest, but Harriet lay on her back on the folded sails as though in the most comfortable of feather beds. Her dark hair, that had been confined in a single braid earlier, had come undone, and now fanned out around her in a silky cloud that had Jack’s pulse racing so much he had to tighten his hold on the tin plate and steady himself on the foremast.

The pastiness she’d had when she climbed out of the hold had vanished, and her cheeks had flushed a delicate pink, with her thick dark lashes fanned out across them. A veritable picture of delicate womanhood, and yet incongruously cast in the attire of a scruffy boy. Never had he seen boys’ clothing so attractively worn, with the shirt open enough at the neck for him to see the all-too tempting rise of her breasts. Almost a shame to waken her, but she needed feeding, and so did her son.

Wary of touching her hand, for some reason, instead he poked Harriet’s bare foot with the toe of his own boot.

She stirred and stretched, like a cat, and Jack’s trousers took on a tightness he was becoming familiar with the more he saw of her. In a hurry to disguise his embarrassment, he sat down on the sails a couple of feet away from her, still holding the plate of food.

Her lashes fluttered on her cheeks, making him glad he’d sat down, and her eyes opened. For a moment, confusion reigned as she gazed up at the billowing sails above her head, then realisation dawned. Her eyes focused and she looked up at him. “Oh.” She pushed herself upright. “I was hoping this was all a dream.”

A little of the old wariness had returned to her face. Not so much as when he’d first met her, but nevertheless still lurking. Perhaps she’d decided that if he had been going to do anything nasty to her he’d have taken advantage of her position and done it by now. Likewise his men. Jack smiled at her. “I’ve brought you both some food.”

“Thank you.” She shifted a little as if to get more comfortable. “I think I’ll let Theo sleep a little longer though. He’s not used to midnight sorties.”

He grinned. “I would have thought you weren’t, either.”

A little smile played across her face as he passed her the plate. “You are quite right. Not much call for smuggling in Bath, nor sailing ships.”

“Highwaymen perhaps?”

“None that I ever met.”

“Footpads?”

“None of them, either, thank goodness.”

“But now you’ve met a smuggler, do you think more or less highly of the profession?”

She tore a small piece off the bread. “Butter would go well with this and make it less dry. And I have yet to form an opinion about smugglers.”

He leaned back, resting his back. Standing for long periods at the tiller always made it ache, a constant reminder of a fall he’d had from a horse as a boy. A horse he’d not been supposed to be riding. The doctor had confined him to bed for several weeks of rest, which had done nothing for the pain and not improved his temper. When he’d finally been allowed up, he’d resumed riding the horse and mastered it, but the back pain remained. “Well, you’ve jumped in at the deep end where smugglers are concerned. You find yourself in a good position to form an opinion of what we do… and of us.” What he really meant was for her to form an opinion of him and divulge it, but he refrained from saying so. He didn’t want to admit how much it mattered to him that she thought well of him.

She shrugged her shoulders and set about eating a little of the cheese, breaking off dainty portions and nibbling them like the well-bred lady she was. Perhaps he should have provided her with a knife. Niceties like that didn’t exist on board ship. In fact, plates rarely came out of storage, so she was honored he’d found one for her.

Gulls circled the top of the mast, silhouetted against the piercing blue of a sky marred only by a few fluffy clouds, their cries harsh. They must be nearing Roscoff with its far more favorable climate than Cornwall. Every time he was over, be it summer or winter, the weather seemed inclined to sunshine, as though the weather god had chosen that particular corner of the world for special treatment. The wind was dropping as well, and the sails were less full. The ship would be slowing down as she approached the coast of Northern Brittany.

Harriet set down the plate and uncorked the flask of water. “Well, as to what I think of smugglers, we shall have to see.” She took a long swig. “I’ve seen your cargo of tobacco. What is it that you’ll be returning to Cornwall with? Brandy, I presume? Even in Truro we often had brandy in the house that had paid no taxes. My father said it tasted better than the stuff that had paid duty.”

“Of course. Brandy. And silks for the ladies, spices in all likelihood, coffee perhaps, and lace. All things on which the tax in Britain is set exorbitantly high. We’re doing the people who buy from us a favor, and they know it. Most of the brandy drunk in the houses of Cornish gentry, just like your father’s, has paid no import duty.” He laughed. “Once upon a time, we used to bring over tea, but the tax on that’s so low now it’s no longer worth including. But it depends very much what’s on offer when we get there. We never know for sure what we’ll be bringing back.”

She sat quietly digesting his words and her meal before taking another pull on the flask of water. “So you see yourselves as philanthropists?”

Well, maybe they were. He shrugged. “I don’t do it for the money. I do it for the excitement. The thrill.”

A frown marred her alabaster brow. “Aha, so that absolves you of all guilt?”

“No, of course not.” How irritating she was being. “But what guilt should I bear? The guilt of putting food in the mouths of my crew’s families? The guilt of providing the people of Cornwall with cut-price goods? Who am I depriving?”

“The government.”

He’d not taken her for a goody-two-shoes. “And what do you care for the government? What do you even know of it? How has it ever helped you?”

Her frown deepened. “I don’t think we’re supposed to ask what the government can do for us. Surely it’s what we can do to help them, and paying our taxes is one of them, so they can do things like defeat Napoleon, by paying the wages of their soldiers.”

“Like your husband?”

Her face clouded and that hunted look returned. Damn it. He hadn’t meant to upset her. Beside her, Theo shifted in his sleep and she glanced down at him, stretching out her hand before drawing it back. “Like my husband.” But her tone had flattened, and her eyes were guarded.

Jack sat up again, stretching his back and rolling his shoulders. “Theo told me about your husband.”

Her eyes widened. “Theo?”

He nodded. “Children notice more than you would think.” Just as he had, as a child, when his mother had thought her sadness hidden.

She set down the flask and plate. “What did he tell you?” She’d thrown a mountainous barrier up between them at the mention of her husband that he’d have to gently demolish.

“That you were unhappy with him.”

She glanced back at Theo. “He knew? I was so careful not to show it.”

“Like I said, children pick up on everything, all too easily. It’s hard to keep secrets from them.”

“You speak as though you have children of your own.” She paused. “Do you? Have children?”

He chuckled. “No, none that I know of. But I was once a child myself. Just as you were. Think of all the things you knew then that perhaps your parents thought you didn’t. I bet you knew a lot of things you weren’t meant to be party to.”

She nodded. “You might be right. But tell me, what was it that you knew, that your mother thought she’d kept secret from you?”

Now she was asking. But he wanted her to be honest with him, so he’d have to be honest with her first. “About my father.”

She pressed her lips together but didn’t look surprised. This wasn’t news to her. Ysella must have told her. She glanced at Theo again before she spoke. “Did she keep his identity secret from you, then?”

He shook his head. “No. Not at all. My father visited us at Rosudgeon every week when I was a child, and I thought that quite normal for a father. I had no way of measuring how a father should behave, and my mother told me his business kept him away from us the rest of the time.” He paused, turning over how to put this. “But servants talk, and children’s ears are always open. I found that he and my mother were not married and that I was his by-blow—a bastard.”

She was watching him now, her attention held by the tale of someone else’s childhood.

“I had to ask what that meant, of course, and the person I asked was my nurse. Instinct told me, guided by the way I’d heard it said, that my mother would not be the one to question. And so I learned that not only was my father not really my father in the eyes of the law, but he was married to someone else. And I had sisters.”

“How old were you when you discovered this?” The hunted look had vanished again, to be replaced with what might have been compassion, which he didn’t want. He wasn’t being honest with her to gain her pity, but to invite her to open up with her own story. Finding out why she was so nervous and wary seemed the most important thing in the world right now. Finding out what Theo had only guessed at.

He ploughed on with his own confession. “I was nine. And I was curious. My nurse had told me that my father resided at Trengrouse Castle, and you must know how close that lies to Rosudgeon.”

She nodded. “The castle just to the west. I’ve seen it in the distance. Very splendid with its towers and crenellations.”

“The very one. Well, I decided I should go there myself and visit my father. Not, as it turned out, one of my best ideas.”

“What happened?”

“My father was not at home. The lies I’d been told about him being often away on business turned out to have been true. But his wife was.” He paused, the scene on the castle lawns replaying in his minds eye. The sunshine, the laughter of a little girl running with a small white dog after a ball, the woman seated at an iron-work table in the shade of a spreading cedar, the nurse cradling the shawl-wrapped baby in her arms.

“I walked over. If I’d taken my pony, I’d have had to take the long way round by the Penzance road, so instead, I walked over the fields. My way brought me to the gardens rather than the front of the house, and the sound of a child playing drew me. My father’s wife was in the garden… with her children. Children who were not bastards like I was.”

Was he playing for her compassion even though he’d told himself he didn’t want it? His words were beginning to sound as though he was.

“Don’t tell me if it upsets you too much.”

Was he upset, still, at the way the haughty Lady Charlotte had treated him that day? The way she’d shouted at him and called his mother a whore as the nurse hurried the children away. His sisters.

He grinned. “Let’s just say she knew exactly who I was, and she wasn’t pleased to see me. She made that blatantly obvious when she had a footman throw me off her property.”

“Oh dear.”

He pulled a rueful face. “And of course, she told my father what had happened, and he told my mother, who was furious that not only had the gossip of our servants revealed my bastardy to me in the worst possible way, but also that I’d sneaked off to try and see where my father lived. And met my father’s wife. The other woman in his life. The one who won him from her.”

“Did your father say anything to you about it?”

He nodded. “The next time he visited, which wasn’t for over a month, he took me into his study and gave me a talking-to about my duties to my mother, and that I was to keep away from his house.” He grinned again. “That was the moment I decided to become a smuggler.”

She smiled. “An act of rebellion?”

“You could say that. He’d made me angry, and I wanted to show him I didn’t care. That I’d make a life for myself, and he could be damned.”

“But you were only nine.”

He grinned. “But I knew what I wanted.”

Would she now feel she could reveal her own secrets to him? After all, he’d bared his soul to her, so to speak. And it had been harder than he’d expected. Even after all these years reliving those moments came hard. They weren’t incidents he often revisited. He’d done it for her.

She was saved by the bell. “Land ho!” Uncle Billy shouted.

Theo stirred on his sail bed and sat up. “Are we nearly there?”