He grimaced horrendously. He didn’t need even a second to realize what sort of argument proposing would land him in-one he’d never win. Opening his eyes, he sipped, felt the crisp wine slide down his throat. “This can’t be happening.”
If he proposed now, he’d risk losing all he’d thus far gained. Worse, he’d put her on her guard against him.
Frowning, his wits now fully re-engaged, he reviewed his campaign-as if winning her were a war with her and her hand the prize. While seducing her had seemed an excellent idea at the time, having won that battle and taken that hill, he’d now discovered that the position made his push to take his primary target harder, not easier.
He had to take another approach. A flanking maneuver.
Replaying her reasons for believing he couldn’t possibly be interested in marrying her, while he’d undermined one-that he wasn’t honestly attracted to her-the other three still stood firm, at least in her mind. Her age, society’s expectations of the type of lady who would be his wife, and their compatibility in day-to-day dealings.
Given where they now were-given she’d already tried to step back-if he wanted to convince her he truly wanted to marry her, he would need to attack and weaken, preferably vanquish and quash, those other three reasons before he risked asking her to be his.
In light of the feats he’d routinely accomplished over his years as a spy, that shouldn’t be beyond him. He drained his glass, eyes narrowing as he planned. Persuasion was his strong suit, but sweet words didn’t work well with her-she was too wary, too cynical. Sweet actions, however…
By the time he sat up and set aside the empty glass, his new plan of campaign was clear in his mind.
“Sybil?” The following morning, summoned by Milsom to the drawing room, Madeline discovered that not only Sybil but Belinda, Annabel and Jane had come to call. Touching fingers with Sybil, acknowledging the girls’ curtseys with a smile, she waved them to chairs, then sat beside Sybil on the chaise. “Is anything wrong?”
“Not wrong.” Sybil fixed her with a sober gaze. “But I have to confess, Madeline dear, that this is a social call with a purpose.”
“Oh?” Glancing from Sybil’s unusually serious expression to those of her daughters, equally intent, for one dizzying moment Madeline wondered if someone had seen Gervase and her at the boathouse, on the path…but Sybil wouldn’t have brought the girls if that were the case.
Turning back to Sybil, she raised her brows. “What purpose?”
Sybil leaned nearer. “It’s the festival, you see. With the best will in the world…well, Gervase is a man, my dear, and desperately needs female assistance.”
Madeline studied Sybil’s blue eyes, then glanced at the girls. “I thought you…?”
“Oh, no, dear.” Sybil sat back with a light laugh. “Not that we wouldn’t be glad to help-and indeed we will as far as he’ll allow. But you see, he thinks of us as…well, dependents. As ladies to be cosseted, not taken notice of.”
“He’s been our guardian for years, of course,” Belinda put in, “so he views us as veritable babes-never to be taken seriously.”
“The notion that on some issues we might know more than he, especially as he’s been away for so long, never enters his head.” Annabel looked disgusted.
“Yes, well”-Sybil bent a reproving glance on Annabel-“it’s not that we don’t value his protection and his care of us. No.” She turned to Madeline and laid a hand on her sleeve. “Indeed, it’s because we understand why he’s unlikely to listen to advice from us that we’ve come to appeal to you.”
Madeline suddenly found herself the object of four pleading looks not even her brothers could have bettered.
Sybil patted her hand. “We know how busy you are, dear, but if you could find the time, just to hint him in the right direction. Oversee things, as it were. I know I can rely on you to know just how to word advice so he’ll follow it, and he’ll listen to you.” Sybil smiled. “The truth is, he’s such a strong character that it needs an equally strong character to make any impression on him, and sadly none of us is up to his weight.”
Madeline blinked, but as a good neighbor and friend she couldn’t fail to agree. “I’ll do what I can, of course. The festival is for the entire district, after all-only fair that a few of us share the organizational burden.”
“Exactly!” Sybil beamed. “I knew you would know just how to put it. Now, I hope you’re free to dine with us tonight? Just us”-with a wave she included the girls-“and Gervase. I thought perhaps you could bring your brothers, as well as Muriel, of course. It might be useful to learn if the boys have any suggestions for activities that might keep the younger males amused.”
Madeline found herself agreeing, then Sybil rose, collected her shawl and her daughters, and with her usual sweet smile, departed.
Standing on the front porch waving the carriage away, Madeline considered, then sighed. Turning inside, she headed back to the office and the work still remaining from the previous afternoon.
There was absolutely no point in cultivating moss. Gervase had lived by that maxim for most of his thirty-four years; he saw no reason to eschew it now. So while Sybil and his sisters drove to Treleaver Park to cultivate Madeline, he bobbed on the waves, and cultivated her brothers.
He’d set out to find them after an early breakfast; fate had smiled and he’d intercepted them riding across his lands. He suspected they’d been on their way to search the caves tucked in the various coves that scalloped the western shore of the peninsula, but they’d been readily distracted by his suggestion of taking out his favorite sailing boat and tacking around Black Head to beat up the coast toward the Helford estuary to a fishing spot they all knew.
They’d dropped anchor in the inlet near the village of St. Anthony; they’d each flipped a line into the sea, and now sat slumped against the sides, watching the breeze ruffle the furled sail.
Although his gaze was on the pennant rippling from the top of the mast, Gervase was aware of the glance the three boys exchanged.
“I suppose,” Harry said, “that when you were younger, you must have done runs with the smugglers.”
Gervase hid a grin. He nodded. “Quite a few.” Still lazily gazing up at the pennant, he went on, “In those days, there were runs every few weeks-at least one a month, often more. The wars, and the excise levied because of them, made smuggling a lucrative trade. Now, however…”
Appreciating how devoted Madeline was to his three eager listeners, and when he married her, then regardless of any legal obligation certain natural and moral responsibilities regarding them would fall to him, given all that he had no wish to inflame their already engaged enthusiasms regarding the smugglers, and joining their runs.
“Now the wars have ended, there’s a rather large question over what smugglers will run-what goods will make smuggling worthwhile, whether there’ll be reason enough to continue doing runs at all. At present, there’s not much that would be worth the risk”-he lowered his gaze to sweep the three attentive faces-“which is why the gangs have gone quiet.”
He let that fact, and the implied prediction, sink in, then smiled. “Have you heard how the smugglers helped His Majesty’s services during the wars?”
Edmond’s eyes went wide. “They helped our forces?”
“Often.” Gervase settled his shoulders against the boat’s side. “For instance, when I was in Brittany, at a little fishing port called Roscoff, near St. Pol-de-Léon, I had to get back to England, fast, and…”
For the rest of the hour that they bobbed in the inlet, he held them enthralled with stories of wartime adventures, some his, some of other operatives like Charles St. Austell and Jack Hendon, whose exploits had passed into legend.