“I wouldn’t wager on it.” Charles glanced at her. “The operation seems to have been well organized, and don’t forget, the procedures must have been set up by your father long before Granville got involved.”
He purposely hadn’t asked if the previous earl had been known to join the smuggling gangs; none knew better than he that those of the local aristocracy who ran with the gentlemen as lads had only to ask to be accommodated. On both occasions he’d had to rush home, the Fowey Gallants had answered his call with an alacrity he’d found disarming. They’d risked the might of the French navy to pick him up, and then later return him to Brittany, purely because they considered him one of their own and he’d asked. None of which he needed to explain to Penny; she nodded and trotted on.
Once they were past the last cottages, he urged Domino into a canter. On her mare, Penny kept pace.
They’d covered just over a mile when he slowed. Penny followed suit, glancing at him inquiringly; he signaled her to silence, and to follow as he turned off the lane onto a narrow track. A little way along, he veered into a clearing, halted, and dismounted. Stopping her mare, Penny kicked free of her stirrups, swung her leg over the pommel, and slid to the ground. She led the mare over to the tree to which he was tying Domino’s reins.
“Where are we?” she whispered, glancing around as she secured the mare alongside.
He looked at her. Instinct insisted he leave her with the horses, but he wasn’t sure that was safe-at least not any safer than taking her with him. On top of that, it was likely the reservations of the Polruan crew over speaking of the dead would surface there, too.
It hadn’t occurred to him, but her presence had loosened tongues far faster than his own persuasions would have.
He mentally sighed and reached for her hand. “We’re near the Bodinnick smugglers’ meeting place.” Bodinnick was a hamlet and didn’t boast a tavern; the fishermen made do with an establishement of their own. “I hadn’t intended stopping here, but as we apparently have to interview all the gangs, then as we’re down this way…”
Turning, he strode back to the track, slowing when she hissed at him.
She came up close, just behind his shoulder; her proximity made him feel a fraction easier on one hand, rather more tense on the other. Gritting his teeth, he grasped her hand more firmly and led her on to the crude hut almost hidden by bushes that the Bodinnick smugglers had built.
He marched directly to the plank door and rapped, a complicated succession of taps and pauses. The instant he’d finished, the door was opened; a ruddy-looking seaman stared out at them.
“My lord! Why, we’re honored! And who…” Johnny’s eyes widened.
“Never mind, Johnny-just let us in, and you’ll learn all soon enough.”
Johnny stepped back, waving them in with a flourish, his gaze riveted on Penny as she followed Charles across the threshold.
He scanned the faces that turned to stare at them. Many were familiar; the Bodinnick gang was one of the smaller crews in the area, but he’d sailed with them often enough in his reckless youth.
The procedure was the same as in Polruan; he donated generously to their drinking fund, accepted a mug, then told them of his mission. They, too, recognized Penny; bobbing their heads deferentially, they answered his questions in much the same way.
Yes, Granville had on occasion asked them to take him out to meet with a specific lugger that had stood well out in the Channel. The tale was the same; he’d always rowed out to meet a man who had rowed out from the lugger. In their case, no one could recall Granville handing any item over.
They also confirmed that Nicholas had contacted them in much the same way he had the Polruan crew.
“Setting hisself up as Master Granville’s replacement, insistent about it, too. Not that we’ve any contacts to give him, o’course, nor likely to have. ’Twas Master Granville himself always had things set up.”
They left having ensured Nicholas would learn nothing, but also having learned that there was nothing more to know.
Once they’d remounted, Penny using a fallen log to clamber up into her saddle, Charles headed for the Abbey. He was barely conscious of the fields they passed, his mind revolving about one simple fact.
They clattered into his stable yard in the dead of night. His stableman looked out; Charles called a greeting and waved him back to bed. Pausing to light a lamp left hanging beside the stable door, he led Domino into the stable; Penny followed, leading her mare.
The horses were housed in neighboring stalls; Charles set the lamp on a hook dangling from a roof beam, and they set to work. Penny unsaddled, as adept as he, but when she hefted her saddle onto the dividing wall between the stalls, she paused and caught his eye.
“How was it organized? Granville went out with the smuggling gangs, and the lugger was waiting. How did it know to be there?”
He held her gaze, then nodded. It was precisely the question he’d been wrestling with. “There has to be someone-someone who carried a message, or some way, some manner, some route through which Granville communicated with the French. We haven’t found it yet.”
Grabbing a handful of fresh straw, Penny turned away to brush down the mare. “So we’ll have to keep looking.”
He hesitated, but then said, “Yes.” He wasn’t going to stomach her “we,” but he’d fight that battle when he came to it.
They finished with their mounts. He went to help her shut the stall door. She headed out of the stall; the mare shifted, catching Penny with her rump, propelling her forward-into his arms. Into him.
He caught her against him, body to body, saw in the lamplight her eyes flare wide. Heard the hitch as her breathing suspended. Sensed surprise drown beneath a wave of sensual awareness so acute she quivered.
Her shoulder was angled to his chest, his left hand spread over her back, fingers curving around her side, his right splayed over her waist. He only had to juggle her and she would be in his arms, knew that if he did, she’d look up-and their lips would be only inches apart.
He hauled in a breath and found it almost painful. Gritting his teeth, jaw clenched, he steadied her on her feet and forced his hands from her, forced himself to set her aside and give his attention to securing the stall door.
He didn’t-couldn’t-risk meeting her eyes. With any other woman, he’d have made some rakish comment, turned the whole off with a wicked smile. With her, he was too busy subduing his own reaction, quelling his own impulses, to worry about soothing hers.
Not in the stable. That would be far too reminiscent, too foolhardily dangerous. If he wanted to persuade her to look his way again, that was precisely the sort of misstep he didn’t need.
With the door safely shut, he reached up and unhooked the lamp; she’d already turned and was ahead of him, walking out of the stable. He followed, dousing the lamp and replacing it. Crossing to the well in the middle of the yard, he took the pump handle she yielded without a word and wielded it so she could wash her hands.
He did the same, then they set off once more to walk side by side up the grassed slope to the house.
Except it was after midnight.
Except he’d kissed her the last time they’d walked this way under the spreading branches of the oaks.
She strode briskly along, sparing not a glance for him.
He walked alongside and said nothing; he didn’t even try to take her hand.
Penny noted that last and told herself she was glad. Indeed, now she thought of it, she couldn’t imagine why she’d allowed him to claim her hand over the past days, although of course he never asked. Far better they preserve a reasonable distance-witness that heart-stopping moment in the stable. She really didn’t need to dwell on how it felt to be in his arms, or her apparently ineradicable desire to experience such moments.