Fletcher was only slightly inebriated. He was a moderate drinker and always recognized the point when he needed to stop before his wits became too addled for him to function properly.
The moon was too bright for smugglers to go about their business. It was as though Silas’s death had put a curse on it. But it was just right for lovers who wanted to be moonstruck. And he was obviously in the mood to be.
‘Where did that delectable little female come from?’ he asked himself, turning his face up to the glowing orb. ‘Who is she?’
Her mouth had been as soft and melting as a bowl of butter, her body firm and small. Her deliciously upthrusting breasts had almost invited his tongue to tickle the virginal nubs pushing against her bodice.
What was she doing at his uncle’s home? Had she come with his dinner guests or was she a house guest? She’d been there long enough for the dogs to be happy with her presence.
The thought that she might be his uncle’s guest caused him more than a little disquiet. His reasoning went off at a tangent, so he didn’t have to follow where that particular thought was leading him. It was possible the girl was a new maid. He shook his head. Not in the gown she wore or the way she spoke. It was more likely that his uncle had brought her home for his weekend entertainment. There … he’d thought the unthinkable.
Miranda of the violet eyes hadn’t looked, smelled or tasted like a trollop.
She’d been delectable, innocent … bloody scrumptious. In fact, she seemed to have woken latent cannibalistic tendencies in him!
He adjusted his trouser seam, which had begun to strangle his balls, and, straddling the stile, thought he’d far rather have a woman between his legs. He gazed back at Lady Marguerite’s House. He hadn’t found what he’d been looking for – the correspondence between lawyers that had surrounded his birth … the papers Silas had told him about, but wouldn’t discuss with him. The only place left to search now was the attics … and his uncle’s study. He frowned. No, not that. He did have some scruples.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been back to his uncle’s house over the past two years, but it was the first time he’d been detected. He could have stayed hidden in the shadows, but somehow she’d sensed his presence. Her breathing had quieted and she’d gone on alert, her senses twitching like the whiskers on a mouse.
His room was as he’d left it, his clothes still hanging in the wardrobe or folded neatly into the drawers, as though he was expected back. No dust had been allowed to gather on the surfaces of the furniture.
Would the girl tell Sir James he’d been there? He wondered, and then remembered the talk about his uncle taking two orphaned children under his roof after he’d buried their mother. The girl he’d met hadn’t been a child, though there was certainly an air of innocence about her.
He’d left his horse just at the end of his own property, the boundary of which was on the other side of the copse. The gelding snickered softly when Fletcher approached and called out his name.
The wake for Silas was still going on in the seaweed drying-shed when Fletcher got back to Monksfoot. Some of the mourners were singing out-of-tune but vulgar sea shanties as he took his horse to the stable to bed him down for the night.
He heard the cook giggling and shushing in the darkness of the hayloft and a man grunting. He grinned. He hadn’t ridden a woman for a while. Although there were a couple of attractive woman amongst the house staff who’d made sheep’s eyes at him, it wouldn’t be wise to take his pleasures so close to home if he wanted to keep the respect of his workers. As it was, one or two of them resented him taking over from Silas. Not even the faithful Tom had managed to take his measure yet.
‘Miranda,’ he said, tasting her name on his tongue. His grin widened as he wondered if he’d swallowed a tad too much brandy and had imagined her.
There was no sign of Tom or some of the more able-bodied men about, but the Wild Rose had gone from her berth. It surprised him that Tom would take her out on such a bright moonlit night. But then he remembered that Simon Bailey had been dining with his uncle. The revenue would not expect a run when the master of the house had just been buried, and most of the workers had been as drunk as fiddler’s bitches.
Making his horse comfortable for the night, he went indoors.
The house staff were absent too, but the kettle was steaming on the hob and the lid rattling. He made himself some tea and slapped thick slices of ham and cheese between two slices of bread, eating his supper at the scrubbed pine table.
When he went up to bed, Dog and Dog were outside their former master’s door. Glancing up at him, they whined.
He hunched down on his heels and fondled their ears. They stood, going through a stretching ritual and sniffing him, making growly noises as they detected the alien scent of his uncle’s dogs on him. They seemed to waffle between doggy menace on behalf of the late Silas and pleasure at his attention to them.
These battle-scarred old hounds without names didn’t move far from the house now. They’d belonged to Silas since they were pups. They’d pine for him, but Fletcher hadn’t been able to carry out the instruction from Silas to shoot them and send them off into hell with him.
‘Sorry, but your master isn’t coming back, dogs. You can sleep in there if it gives you some comfort, just until you get used to his absence.’
One of them barked when someone bade the cook goodnight in a deep voice.
‘Shush, Murdoch; someone might hear you.’
Fletcher knew he’d recognize the man by his voice alone, if they met.
The dogs disappeared through the door when he opened it, tails wagging in expectation of seeing their master there. If they were disappointed, they didn’t look it, taking up their usual position on the rugs by the bed.
Fletcher propped the door open with a chair under the doorknob so they could get out if they felt the need.
The next morning, most of the servants were suffering from an excess of alcohol consumption. The cook must have overslept. Fletcher went to the kitchen, to find her bleary-eyed and short of temper.
He accepted her churlish apology and overtly gazed at her when she turned her back on him to examine the contents of a pan. Most of Silas’s servants were too familiar for Fletcher’s liking. This one was about thirty, and as slim as a reed. She had light brown hair pulled back into a knot. Her lack of hip spread was overshadowed by an abundance of bosom. All in all, she was passing fair, and a competent cook. The kitchen was grubby, though. Food scraps had been swept into a corner and left to go mouldy.
‘Is the Wild Rose back at her mooring, Bertha?’ he asked.
A pair of tawny eyes were turned his way. ‘As far as I know, she hasn’t been anywhere, sir.’
‘Her berth was empty when I got home last night.’
‘The brandy must’ve made you see things that weren’t there. Or perhaps it made you not see what was there. Then again, the Wild Rose might have gone out to catch a tasty fish or two for your breakfast.’
If it had, there was no sign of them. ‘And perhaps you were too busy entertaining a man friend in the hayloft to notice.’ He didn’t let her know he was aware of the person involved, but it would bear watching.
‘You should learn to keep what you see to yourself, master, lest someone chop off your nose.’
Lifting the lid from a pot, she grinned, stirred it with an iron spoon and aimed a dollop of oatmeal into a dish. She spun it across the table to where he stood. ‘There, that will put hairs on your chest. Oatmeal was Master Silas’s favourite breakfast.’
And she would learn, right now, that she had a new master, one who would demand politeness from his house staff. Gently, he pushed the bowl aside. ‘Gruel is for invalids and children. I’m neither. Taking into account the upset to the household of Silas’s demise, I will overlook what has just taken place between us. But if your intention is to remain in my employ, from now on you will not address me with such familiarity. Is that understood?’
Her mouth tightened; her gaze slid away, then came back. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Make sure you remember it. I’ll have fried ham, eggs and bread. Serve it in the dining room, please. And get this kitchen cleaned up.’
‘I haven’t got time to do everything, with no help to speak of … sir.’
‘I’ll get you some help if you need it. When Tom returns, tell him I want to see him. And here’s a word of advice for you, Bertha: I’m not the fool you think I am, so take care.’
She hesitated for a moment, and then, under his steady gaze, she murmured, ‘Yes, sir … sorry, sir.’
He spoke to Tom in what passed as a study, though it was more like a junk room with piles of paper everywhere and the surfaces of the furniture dull and scarred. He hadn’t been able to make head or tail of the account books, except to notice that they had been neglected for several years before the accounting ceased altogether. Receipts were piled high, and he might have to employ a clerk to deal with it and sort the books out.
‘What’s your function round here, Tom?’
Tom scratched his head and then grinned. ‘Most everything now, I reckon. I started off doing the outside work when I was little more than a boy. Then I went on the boat and learned how to sail her. Now I keep things running, as well, ’cepting for the kitchen. There hasn’t been a manager for the farming side for some time. That’s gone by the by, I reckon.’
‘Have we got a housekeeper to oversee the domestic side?’
‘We did have once … a long time ago, I reckon. She was a distant cousin to Silas, I recall. Blood kin or no, Silas fancied her. After a while, she went off to work in London, as your mother’s maid. There was talk that she had some idea in her head of becoming lady of the manor.’
‘And?’
‘Not long after, they come back from London and you were born. One day Rosie Jones upped and left without telling anyone. I was just a kid then, about ten. There was a bit of talk because the last baron had died about the same time, but there were a lot of changes going on with Sir James taking over, so it soon faded. Silas named the Wild Rose after her.’
Fletcher couldn’t help but grin at Silas having such a romantic thought over a woman. ‘Do you remember my father – Adrian Taunt?’
‘Adrian Taunt?’ Tom scratched his head. ‘Can’t rightly say I ever clapped eyes on him. Went abroad and died there, I heard.’
‘He left my mother and me without support.’
‘Reckon that’s the way it was, then.’
Fletcher’s mind jerked him back to the present. ‘As far as I can see, we have several maids, but, judging by the state of this house, they don’t seem to do much work.’
‘It never bothered old Silas.’
‘A lot of things that didn’t bother Silas bother me. Would any of the present maids be suitable to take charge of the household?’
‘Flora Targett. She’s not flighty like the others, and does her best to keep up with the work. The others laugh at her when she complains.’
‘Then let’s give her some authority. Tell her I want to speak to her. I’m giving you fair warning, Tom. Things are going to change from now on. My main income will come from the Midnight Star, and I intend to make the land productive again as soon as I can find a good manager who I can trust. Are you that man, Tom? Let me know when you’ve thought it over.’
‘Could be that I am.’
‘Where did you take the lugger last night?’
Tom took his pipe from his pocket and deliberated for a moment, taking a couple of empty sucks before he tucked it away again. ‘We used the rowing boats to do a grapnel creep for fifteen hundred casks we’d lost a week ago, and we dropped fifty pounds of tobacco and several hundred pounds of tea disguised as seaweed fertilizer into Marguerite Cove.’
Fletcher whistled. ‘Right on my uncle’s doorstep … last night … and under the nose of Simon Bailey?’
‘Silas was always hand in glove with your uncle, and your uncle has more nerve than most. He didn’t do it for the money but for the excitement. For Silas, it was a way of life, but he knew he was ill and he wanted to get out of the business.’
‘Then why didn’t he?’
‘Your uncle had something on him, I reckon. Silas would have sold Sir James the estate except your uncle kept driving the price down. Besides, it’s a way of life for most of the men. Silas and your uncle had a two-way split after the workers got theirs. Your uncle always did have a nose for business.’
‘How many people know about this?’
‘Everyone except Simon Bailey, I imagine. Sir James will find some way of involving him before too long if he can.’
His uncle would take advantage where he could; that was the nature of the man. Charismatic he might be, but neither friendship nor kinship was allowed to interfere with his business arrangements. Everything came at a price. ‘What was it that my uncle had on him, do you know?’
The man’s eyes lit on him, considered him. Then he sighed. ‘I reckon old Silas didn’t trust me with that one, Mr Taunt.’
Tom knew something, but Fletcher wasn’t about to push him. Instead, he changed tack. ‘Do you know who those two young women staying with Sir James are?’
‘I heard that the dogs ferreted them out after the older one stole a loaf of bread from the kitchen. The mother was dead over the other side of the woods with a stillborn in her arms. The younger girl was ill, and both were starving.’
Fletcher frowned at that. ‘What does he intend to do with them?’
‘As to that, we’ll know when he does it. Happen you might want to attend church on Sunday. Perhaps he’ll give them an airing. Sir James rarely broadcasts his intentions beforehand.’
Fletcher knew that all too well. He nodded. ‘I want this estate put to good use. I do understand that the estate workers need a little extra on the side for their retirement, but so much activity and bloodshed along the coast has attracted an increase in the number of officers to deal with it. Even the French are getting involved. And have been for some time. The Midnight Star had to run the gauntlet of French boats on the way in – and they’re heavily armed. Those who work for the crown are getting more coordinated and more ruthless. The coastguard service is run by fully trained officers of the Royal Navy who are fearless, and, with the soldiers on land, they are slowly but surely set to wipe out most of the smuggling along the coast.’
‘Aye, Silas was of the same mind, but it remains to be seen if they can.’
‘The land here has good pasture for sheep, and wool is in great demand as well as the meat. I’ll be establishing a flock, and I hope to buy a second clipper in the future. In short, I want my business dealings to be clean.’ He remembered the gold and grinned. ‘Well, almost clean.’
Tom grinned in return. ‘Silas was of the same mind.’
‘I’m aware that smuggling is a game to my uncle, but just because I’ve inherited Silas’s fortune, it doesn’t mean I’m going to take up his way of life and the risks that go with it.’
‘Aye, Mr Taunt. Silas—’
‘If you tell me he was of the same mind again, I’ll pick you up by the seat of your britches and throw you into the cove,’ he said fiercely, and then realized Tom had been leading him on and he’d been preaching to the converted.
Tom chuckled.
After he’d finished interviewing Flora Targett, Fletcher sorted the house staff problem out and the cook had an assistant to help in the kitchen. He was a little perturbed about the cook’s relationship with his uncle’s second coachman. He would keep an eye on that relationship. But at least things should run a little more smoothly in the house now.
He needed to go into Poole and talk to Oswald Avery, to find out how much his legacy was worth. Then he must put out feelers for another ship, via the agent in Southampton. He should be able to pick up another ship fairly cheaply as the big shipping companies changed to steam, and she would pay for herself in a year or two.
After Fletcher got things clear in his mind, he would go and see his uncle. It had always been his uncle’s intention to unite the two estates. While Silas had made it possible for him to be independent of his uncle, there was no reason why they shouldn’t work together and remain on good terms, as long as he made the effort to restore and maintain their former relationship.
Apologizing for something he hadn’t done went against the grain, though.
And he had a good future to look forward to now. He grinned, looking forward to his tryst with Miranda. Would she turn up or would she not?