Hope's Betrayal Part 10

"There's nowt to see."

The officers dismounted, Bennett took both sets of reins and hitched them over a tree. Nero snorted and pawed the ground, then quickly lost interest and took to cropping the gra.s.s.

"Just to check you have an honest load. Nothing for you to worry about, that is unless you are carrying contraband."

"Me?" Lee placed a hand melodramatically over his heart. "On my life, I swear as I have no truck with smuggling."

"That remains to be seen." Walking in opposite directions around the cart, Huntley and Bennett prodded the bails. Standing back, it occurred to Huntley that they were a little too neatly stacked. Why go to such trouble?

"Unload the lot." Huntley ordered.

"What?"

"You heard."

"An' what if I don't want to?"

"Then I shall arrest you for impeding an officer in the execution of his duty."

More muttering and cursing, and with irritating slowness, Lee went around to the rear and with a great show of effort, hefted down a bale. He dropped it to the ground and was overtaken by a coughing fit.

"I'm not a well man, Captain sir. This aint good for me."

"And moving hay at night is? Get on with it."

It took twenty minutes to unload a few bails, and eventually Huntley grew impatient and gave Lee a hand. But standing back, with the hay transferred to the roadside, it seemed once again their efforts were in vain. Refusing to be defeated, Huntley jumped into the empty wagon. He tapped the side panels and listened, and levered up planks, searching for secret compartments. But he found nothing but an ordinary cart. Huntley sat back on his heels, refusing to believe he was wrong.

"I told yer you'd find nowt." Lee leant against a tree, chewing on a gra.s.s blade, c.o.c.ky as you like.

The Captain jumped down and stalked toward him.

"No?" Huntley resisted the urge to jab his finger in his smug face. "But that doesn't mean you weren't up to something-and when I work out what, then..."

"Then what?" Lee spat out the gra.s.s blade.

Huntley pressed his face closer. "Don't push me, Lee."

"Well, are you going to give me a hand reloading or what?"

"Bennett, bring the horses. And Lee, let it be a lesson in doing an honest day's work."

"Is that so?" Lee wiped his sleeve across his nose. "Bet you'd have given me a hand if I had a pretty face."

Huntley took Nero's reins, glancing over his shoulder at Lee. "What?"

"If I had a pretty face like that choice little piece you've got cosied up at The Grange."

His foot in the stirrup, Huntley froze.

"Bet you give her more than a hand! Keeping your bed warm is she? Is that the price of a pardon these days?"

Huntley bristled. "What did you say?"

"I said as if you have a pretty face, the law takes payment in kind."

Time slowed, aware of every heart beat as his hand formed a fist. "How dare you!"

Lee met his hard stare with a sneer. "Go on then-hit me if yer've to b.a.l.l.s-although tekkin advantage of girls is more your style, or so I've heard."

Cold hard anger slammed around his body. "I've a good mind to beat you..."

A hand clamped around his arm, holding him back as Bennett pulled him away.

"Captain. Leave it."

"Go on then! Why don't yer? Oh, I forgot-you prefer your prisoners young and female."

Bennett stood between the two men, pushing them apart.

"Alan Lee, if you've any sense, leave well alone and load your cart. Captain, get on your horse."

With a shudder, Huntley shook Bennett off and s.n.a.t.c.hed at Nero's reins. In a single bound he was on the horse's back, and put his heels to Nero's flanks, leaving Lee grunting and cursing by the hay on the roadside. Bennett mounted and followed.

With Lee's foul slurs still echoing in his ears, Huntley was grateful for Bennett's tactful silence as they picked up the Sandehope road. Even the lilt of Nero's easy stride did little to soothe his spirit as he dwelt on the accusations. He nearly laughed aloud. Surely people did not believe such slander? He glanced at Bennett's profile.

"I need you to tell me the truth."

"Captain?"

"There will be no repercussions...I just need to know....is it true, what Lee said? Do folk hereabouts truly think such vile things?"

Bennett looked straight ahead, stony-faced.

Huntley's heart sank. "No need to speak, your discomfort is eloquence itself. But perhaps you can answer this, as a friend."

"Yes?" Bennett's voice cracked.

Huntley drew a deep breath. "What of the Excise men? What do they say?"

In the gloom of early dawn, Huntley fancied Bennett's face grew pale. This situation with Hope was far worse than he'd feared. Things couldn't continue like this. Much as his mother would object, Hope must be sent away. It needn't be back to the Island, perhaps some friend of the Huntley's in London, where she could earn an honest living, but without dragging his name through the dirt.

Despite the late hour, Huntley dutifully returned to the office and wrote a full account of the patrol, but he sent Bennett home since there was no sense in them both being up all night. It took a while to commit events to paper and satisfied at last, he blotted the ink, pushed the journal aside and turned down the lamp. With a sigh he gazed through the window across the harbour, to quietly rolling waves and a sky touched with the flushed crimson of dawn.

The rattle of the opening door disturbed his thoughts.

"Mornin' Captain." An Excise man strode in, the smell of sharp air of early morning clinging to his clothes.

"Morning, Jessop." Huntley stretched and yawned. "Is it that time already?"

"Aye, Captain, I'm the early shift."

"Best be on my way and leave things in your capable hands."

"Good night, Captain, sleep well."

Huntley saddled Nero and the pair set off for The Grange. Huntley liked this time of day and the constantly changing light, and the feeling that while others slept he witnessed the birth of a new day. But if Huntley had hoped for an easy ride he was to be disappointed. They had not got far out of Sandehope, still within sight of chimney smoke, when Nero threw a shoe and pulled up lame. Huntley dismounted to find the hoof badly bruised. There was nothing for it but to lead the cob the rest of the way.

With the reins over his shoulder, Nero nodding along beside him, Huntley set off again, guessing it would be mid-morning before they got home. Resigned to the long walk, Huntley took consolation in the scenery; the mix of farmland and sea. To his left the waves tossed in the bay with seagulls diving for crabs, to his right a patchwork of ploughed land rolled over the hillside. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with the smell of green life and growth from bra.s.sy daffodils to primroses, wood hyacinths to crocuses.

Some time later at The Grange, with Nero stabled and the hoof poulticed, Huntley made for his bed. The maid answered the front door.

"Capt'n Huntley." She dropped a curtsey.

Huntley nodded and stalked past into the hall. A movement caught his eye-Miss Tyler going up the stairs. He stood riveted, left breathless by the way her hand lingered on the banister. She even limped gracefully, her derriere swaying in a clingy muslin gown. His mood became grim. d.a.m.n it, the gossips were right, the girl had a hold over him.

The maid cleared her throat. "Your coat, Capt'n?"

"Ah, yes."

He hoped the maid would ascribe his flushed cheeks to the wind and shrugged off his outer garments.

"Where is Lady Ryevale?" There was no time like the present for what he was about to say.

"I believe as she's in the office, Capt'n."

Huntley also made his way upstairs. The office had once been used by his late father for receiving tenants, its panelled walls and oak furniture sombre and intimidating. Now it was where his mother went to do business, only she had brightened the gloomy atmosphere with vases of spring flowers. Huntley found his mother seated at his father's old desk, sorting through papers. Hearing him enter, her face lit up.

"At last, George dear."

"Morning, Mother. You look uncommonly well today." Indeed, there was a freshness about her that took him by surprise.

"Me? How nice of you to notice."

"Is that a new gown. The shade suites you."

In amber-colored satin, Lady Ryevale looked like a gem shining against the fusty bookshelves. Huntley stared, fascinated, trying to place what else had changed.

"You've done something different to your hair." He said, surprised.

Self-consciously her hand touched the amber, silk turban swathing her head.

"Do you like it, dear?"

Huntley searched for a compliment. "Very nice. It looks...very nice."

Lady Ryevale beamed. "Oh, I'm so glad you think so. I feel rather self-conscious but Hope convinced me to try it. Apparently turbans are all the rage in France."

Huntley bristled, the mention of Miss Tyler hitting him like a dose of cold water.

"Mother, you do realise the French are our enemy?"

She threw him a withering look. "Of course dear, but when it comes to fashion, such things transcend politics."

Huntley felt too weary to argue.

"Mother, I need to talk to you about Hope-Miss Tyler."

"The girl's a gem! An absolute find! I can't think what I did without her. Why yesterday's correspondence took a fraction of the time."

"Really?" Huntley braced himself. "You see, the thing is..."

"Oh yes," she interjected, "we have a system. I dictate the letters. She has such a neat hand, and so quick!"

"Mother, I really must insist you listen."

"And the other day, when my stomach was dyspeptic, she prepared this wonderful tisane and the gripes were gone within the hour."

"Mother!"

"Yes dear. I am listening."

Huntley steeled himself.

"Mother, Miss Tyler's presence undermines my authority with the revenue." He paused. "Miss Tyler must be sent away. We can find her a position in another household, elsewhere in the country-but not near here."

"You sound so serious. Surely things can't be as bad as all that. After all, it was your idea in the first place."

The Captain gritted his teeth; thinking the Admiralty board's disciplinary committee could take lessons from his mother. "I broke rules bringing Miss Tyler into our home and people...people that matter are not happy about it."

"I don't see why that worries you, it never has done before."

Huntley counted to ten. "I didn't envisage Miss Tyler being treated like a member of the family, but a position altogether more appropriate to her station."

Lady Ryevale looked disgusted. "You'd have Hope scrubbing floors? I think not!"

"But don't you see, people gossip. They whisper about the favor shown Miss Tyler. I'm sorry to say this, Mother, but they make some pretty vile accusations."

"Then ignore them!"

From the pounding in his temple, George antic.i.p.ated a headache.

"I can't, Mother. She undermines my authority. Miss Tyler must go."

Lady Ryevale stared icily. "George, I understand how important your work is, but as soon as the Swann is refitted-this posting will end and you will be off. I like Hope. She will be good company when you are gone again."

"I'm not being hard-hearted, but I was seconded here to clean up the Excise service, and now it appears I'm condoning the corruption."