The Wily Wastrel Page 15

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When the door closed behind them, the pair apparently thought themselves safe because both Juliet and James could hear a sudden fit of giggles from the maid and a guffaw from the valet.

  James started toward the door, as though he meant to fling it open and ring a peal over the servants’ heads. Juliet stopped him by placing her hand on his arm.

  “They mean well,” she said softly. “Indeed, I think they are happy for us.”

  He hesitated and she pressed her case. “I think they wish us happy and are pleased that we are beginning to act like a couple on our honeymoon. And since it seems so important to you to give everyone that impression, what could be more useful than two servants who make it clear what their master and mistress are about?”

  That gave him pause—she could see it in his face. And with a sigh he drew her to him and buried his face in her hair. It was an intimate gesture, one that sent a rush of warmth all through Juliet. She risked putting her arms around him and tilting up her face to make it easy for him if he should decide he wished to kiss her.

  He did. It was a gentle, tender kiss that somehow swiftly became so much more. It was as though he did not wish to succumb but could not help himself. Well, that was fine with Juliet. She did not wish him to be able to help himself either.

  And when he drew her toward the bed, his fingers fumbling with the fastenings on her dress, she made no objection. Indeed, her own fingers began to deftly undo the fastenings of his shirt. He scarcely noticed, she thought, until he suddenly caught her fingers with his hand.

  Alarmed she looked up at him, fearing to see shock or disapproval in his eyes. Instead she saw something that might have been, that she desperately hoped was, warmth and approval and even, perhaps affection in those fine gray eyes.

  “You must stop doing that long enough to allow me to lift your gown over your head,” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

  Juliet nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and helped him remove her dress. And the garments beneath. At the same time she coaxed the shirt from his back and reached out to touch his broad chest.

  Then they stood, naked as the day they were born, together in the middle of the room. As he reached for her, Juliet was astonished to realize that she felt neither distress nor embarrassment.

  To be sure, she had dropped her nightshift the other morning but that had been different somehow. A challenge of sorts. This was a celebration of something special between them. And Juliet was quite sure that neither her mother, nor anyone else she knew in the ton, would approve. But she didn’t care. Not when James so clearly did.

  She reached out for him now, even as he was reaching for her. She reveled in the feel of her body against his. It was only a few steps to the bed but it seemed to take forever to get there.

  Later, when they lay side by side, Juliet ventured to reach out to touch James. Instantly he captured her hand with his own and raised it to his lips, where he caressed each fingertip.

  Juliet shivered but she made herself ask him anyway, “Where did you go last night? Where have you gone every night?”

  He started. She could feel the tension throughout his body, pressed as close as it was to her own. Still, his voice was casual.

  “To look through my telescope. I’ve told you so before.”

  “At the bell tower.”

  Now he frowned. Thinking. As though trying to remember what she might have overheard. At last he seemed to decide it didn’t matter. He shrugged.

  “Yes. The tower. Excellent viewing from there.”

  “Could I go with you next time?” she asked in a voice kept deliberately mild and even meek.

  He hemmed and hawed and in the end stammered an apology and something about preferring to do it all on his own. Onlookers making him nervous, or some such nonsense.

  Juliet pretended to believe it all.

  “Oh. Of course,” she said. “I understand perfectly.”

  She felt him relax and a surge of anger went through her own body. How dare he deceive her this way? One of these days he would find out just who the fool might be!

  Still, when he reached for her, her anger was not enough to make her keep him away.

  A good many hours later, the leader of the smugglers looked at his men in exasperation. Overhead the moon shone with remarkable brightness.

  “Again?” he demanded. “How could they make such a mistake again? Surely they realize by now that they are looking too close to the castle and it ain’t our lights they’re seeing?”

  The other man was careful to keep his eyes fixed on the ground. Frustration echoed in his voice as he said, “We tried to signal ‘em. But we was too late. They was already too close to them rocks. Lost one boat they did afore they realized wot was wot and sheared off and come found us where we was supposed to be.”

  “We did get some’at this time,” another man added helpfully.

  “But not the best of it,” their leader muttered. “Enough is enough, I say! Before the next shipment is due, we must take care of the blasted tower lights.”

  “How’s we gonna do that?” another of the men asked, puzzled.

  The leader got a faraway look in his eyes. His expression grew very grim. “I don’t know,” he admitted slowly, “but somehow we will.”

  He paused and then suddenly pointed to a handful of men. “Tomorrow night you will all come with me and we’ll scout about the castle walls. If we see the means to act, we will. Otherwise we’ll look and watch and plan. I tell you this cannot and will not go on any longer. I’ll not be made a fool of by anyone!”

  Chapter 20

  Harry sat and stared at the message in his hand. This was the answer he’d been waiting for. He knew better than to ask how the information had gotten to him so quickly, what risks had been taken to ensure that it did.

  So. He had his answer. And now he must send his to James. Better yet, he would carry it himself, he decided. The fewer people involved, the better. His imminent departure for Spain would be explanation enough for stopping to visit his brother and the bride in Dover.

  Harry looked at the clock. It was late to be starting out today. And yet he dared not delay. Better to ride as far as he could before dark and the rest of the way in the morning. It would not take him long to pack his things, but there were other matters to be taken care of, letters to be written before he could be on his way. And then he would need to take his leave of George and Athenia.

  When Harry finally went in search of his brother sometime later, he found him in his study.

  Lord Darton waved the major to a seat. “Well, what plans have you for this evening?” he asked in a jovial voice.

  “I came to tell you, George, that I must be on my way back to Spain,” Harry replied soberly. “My orders arrived this afternoon. My bags already are packed and in the foyer.”

  “So soon?” George looked shocked and his voice was querulous as he said, “I thought you fixed in London for a little while longer. Can you not at least wait until morning to leave?”

  Harry shrugged and pretended to a carelessness he did not feel. “I dare not disobey orders. I think it best I leave at once. I shall stop on my way to the coast and visit James and his bride and wish them happy.”

  George grumbled and pushed away the pile of accounts he had been working on. “That is another match I cannot entirely like. No, nor the circumstances that led to it! But I suppose it cannot be helped. I just hope that you, Harry, will show more sense than your brothers when it comes time to wed. No unlikely and unsuitable bride for you, I pray.”

  “No, none,” Harry agreed. “Because I do not intend to marry at all. It would be most unfair to any woman to ask her to tie her life to a man who might well be killed at any moment.”

  “Here! That’s not what I meant!” George protested.

  “No, but it is the truth, nonetheless,” Harry replied. He paused and smiled, not unkindly. “Give it over, Geo
rge. I will not fall prey to matchmaking. Yours or anyone else’s. I mean to stay a bachelor.”

  “I do not like it, Harry. I do not like it at all. But I suppose,” George said with heavy irony, “there is nothing I can say or do about it that will change your mind.”

  Now Harry grinned outright and waved his hand at Darton. “No, nothing,” he agreed. “But you can wish me well. It’s time I was on my way.”

  Both men rose to their feet and clasped hands. In a voice suspiciously husky, George, Lord Darton said, “Take care of yourself, Harry, and at least try to come back to us safe and sound.”

  The major smiled wryly. “I shall. If I can.”

  “Why the devil you had to choose such a dangerous occupation I will never understand,” George continued to grumble as they walked out of the study.

  “It’s where we part company, you and I,” Harry answered with affection patent in his voice. “Just know that it was something I had to do.”

  George sighed. “I do know it.”

  Then, before either could utter any more words that might make the leave-taking even harder, they headed for the front door.

  In the foyer Athenia, Lady Darton, was waiting. Somehow she already knew that he was leaving. The servants in this house, Harry thought wryly, were a remarkably efficient source of information. Though perhaps it was his bags, standing by the door, that had given the game away.

  “I wanted to wish you well, Harry,” she said. Then echoing her husband’s words, she added, “George and I both hope to see you back here soon, safe and well.”

  The major grinned unrepentantly. “I have already promised I shall try,” he said.

  Then as Lord and Lady Darton watched, Harry lashed his belongings to his saddle and mounted his horse. A quick salute to both of them, a word of thanks, and a coin tossed to the groom who had been holding the reins, and Harry was off.

  The coast, he thought, was a long ride away, but with luck, he would reach it by noon tomorrow.

  ———

  The night began like every other night when Juliet had slipped out of the inn after James. After almost two weeks of this nonsense, she was getting quite tired of these ridiculous expeditions. Especially since she had already dropped her spectacles several times and almost lost them once in the dark! It would be different if she could actually take part in the experiments he was conducting, but as it was, it was only sheer stubbornness that made her continue to follow him, night after night.

  Indeed, Juliet had just about decided to go back to the inn when, as she slipped out of the tower door, she suddenly found herself surrounded by a very unsavory group of men. What on earth were they doing here? Surely it should have been safe within the castle walls? But Juliet didn’t stop to think about the matter for long. She didn’t even stop to recall the dagger she carried in her boot. Instead, instinct took over and she let out a most unladylike shriek.

  The two men above her in the tower heard the shriek. With a shock, James recognized the voice and he was moving toward the doorway before Baines even had time to react.

  In moments he was down the stairs and out the door and at Juliet’s side. He arrived in time to hear her saying, “Do you think I’d be wearing breeches if the ghosts hadn’t burned my dress off of me?”

  The moment she said the words, Juliet knew they were a mistake. The men were bound to ask where the breeches and shirt had come from. So she kept right on talking. Perhaps if she talked fast enough, they wouldn’t have time to ask that question or even, perhaps, think of it. But then, her mother always did complain that she had an impetuous tongue. For once it might prove useful.

  Desperately she tried to distract the men around her. “There are ghosts here, you know. They delight in fire. And noise. It was terrible up in the tower, terrible.”

  And then, suddenly James was there beside her. Theatrically Juliet shivered and with a fearful moan she fainted into James’s waiting arms. At least she appeared to faint. Juliet hoped she was convincing. This was not, after all, the sort of thing she had any practice at and she did have to be careful not to dislodge her spectacles and land on them as she fell.

  In any event, she appeared to have created a most satisfactory commotion. And it was with another shiver, this time of delight, that she heard James demand, in a masterful voice, “What the devil is going on here?”

  Now the leader of the men appeared to have recovered somewhat. At least enough to say, “That’s wot we’d loike to know! These lights. They caused some friends of ours to land in the wrong spot. Thought your lights was ours. Now we can’t get wot they left be’ind, it being too close to the castle wot they left it.”

  James blinked. Even with her eyes closed, Juliet knew he blinked. Then he must have smiled. A seraphic smile. Finally he spoke.

  “My wife is quite right. It was the ghosts. I’m an avid investigator of ghosts, you know. And I’d heard there were some particularly nasty ones here. But no one told me about the lights. I collect it’s a new phenomenon. Started in the last week or so. I’m trying to understand how it’s done.”

  “Lights. Fire. Ghosts.”

  More than one of the men snorted in disgust. There were a few guffaws and the leader sounded even angrier as he said, “Oi think you’re making fun of us. Ghosts!”

  At just that moment, a light flashed overhead. Juliet decided, as she heard the gasps around her, that this might be a good time to recover from her faint. Besides, James must have been finding her a trifle heavy burden by now.

  She was in time to see another glow of light above, and then still another. Then an eerie howling above them. The men began to shift uneasily. One or two started to slip away. The leader, however, was not so easily daunted.

  “Oi don’ts believe it’s no ghost. Oi’m going up there to see.”

  As he opened the door to what some said had once been a Roman lighthouse, there was another flash of light and this time the sound of an explosion.

  Without a word, the leader let go of the door and signaled to his men and in moments they had all slipped away. As they went, someone called out that they would be back to check the tower another time.

  Juliet and James didn’t care. It was enough to know the men were gone. They waited for what seemed forever, neither speaking until they were certain no one was going to return. Then James turned a stern gaze on Juliet and said, reprovingly, “Ghosts burnt your dress?”

  Juliet avoided his eyes. She looked at the ground as she said, “I had to find some reason to explain why I was in breeches.”

  “Ah, yes, the breeches. You shall explain that one to me. Right after you explain what you are doing here at all,” James said, a stern expression on his face.

  But before she could answer, the door to the tower opened and the chaplain’s assistant emerged. He slipped silently over to where they were and in the oddly cultured voice that was as much an anomaly as the man himself, he said, “I thought myself an excellent teller of ghost stories, madam, but you beat me all hollow.”

  And then he bent and kissed the back of her hand. Juliet shivered. The man was very, very strange. Mind you, he was very nice, but there was something very much out of place about the fellow too.

  James turned to the chaplain’s assistant and said, with a frown, “I didn’t have any powder up there. How did you cause the explosion?”

  The other man lifted his eyebrows and smiled. “I did. A precaution, you might say. And a notion for an experiment of my own. But the less you know, the better.”

  Juliet expected James to be annoyed at the impertinence but he wasn’t. He only nodded. How odd! One more strange thing to chalk up about this man who couldn’t possibly be the simple chaplain’s assistant that he seemed to be.

  “It might be best to stop for the night, Langford,” the man said quietly. “We cannot be certain those men will not return. Or that the noise will not bring others to investigate.”

  James nodded. “First we need to find my valet. He must be around here somewh
ere.”

  They found Woods, knocked unconscious, at the usual spot where he napped each night while James and the chaplain’s assistant were busy in the tower. They managed to rouse him and he was at once mortified at his failure to warn them about the smugglers.

  “Never mind,” James said soothingly. “Let’s just get you and my wife and myself back to town.”

  Woods nodded and somehow managed to get to his feet. James helped support him as the four of them made their way to the small castle door they used each night for entrance. It was standing open and the chaplain’s assistant and James looked at one another, a grim expression on their faces.

  “This must be the way they came in. They must have seen me do so,” James said.

  The other man nodded. “Let me check that no one is still hanging about.” A moment later he returned. “I saw no one. But your carriage is gone. They must have taken it. You’ll have to go back on foot.”

  Now James looked at Juliet with concern but she merely planted a hand on one hip and said, daring him to contradict her, “And my donkey is gone as well. We’d best get started walking, hadn’t we?”

  There was nothing he could say to that, so they did. Occasionally Woods stumbled and James had to help him, but they made it back to town. Near the edge of it, they found the carriage and horses. It looked as though the horses and carriage had not been stolen but had merely bolted, perhaps when the smugglers tried to take charge of them.

  “At least it’s here and undamaged,” James said. “Let us get back to the inn.”

  “But my donkey!”

  “You must hope it found its own way home for I see no donkey hereabouts, nor do I think it wise or safe for us to dally looking for it.”

  “I suppose you are right,” Juliet reluctantly agreed.

  The three climbed into the carriage for the rest of their journey back to the inn. The horses’ hooves had been muffled and the wheels well greased so that they moved with very little noise. And Juliet was not altogether displeased to find herself squeezed very close to James on the seat.