Caught in a Cornish Scandal by Eleanor Webster (top novels of all time .txt) 📗

‘Not villagers. Or fishermen. They would not wreck. No decent Cornish man or woman would wreck.’

‘Even after discovering this, you’re still defending them?’

‘Yes,’ she said, bristling at the condemnation to his tone.

‘Look, I do not know who did this, but odds are they are smugglers, either from your group or a rival gang. Like it or not, they are criminals.’

She glared at him. His cravat had likely cost more than Jem could make in a year. ‘Jem and the other men did not have choices. Jem had children. He wanted to put food on the table, grow old and see them grow up. Do you know what his other options were? To be snuffed out in a copper mine. Or survive the mine and die coughing his lungs out. He had no education or chance of education.’

‘So that excuses crime?’ he asked in that arrogant tone.

‘No, but it makes it understandable. You are rich. You have so much money, you can gamble it away.’

‘I did not know that you were so personally acquainted with my activities and financial situation.’

‘Have you ever been in the mines? Have you ever been so deep in the earth that you are freezing, with air so dusty you cannot breathe and so little light that you cannot see? It makes smuggling seem the better alternative.’

‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Are they now employing gentlewomen in the mine? Is that your excuse also?’

They stared at each other over the chest with its dangling broken lock and damning contents. They were only a foot from each other. She could see the dark intensity of his eyes.

‘I do not need an excuse. I do not need to explain myself to you, but if you must know, I want to save my sister from marriage to Harwood.’

‘Harwood? Lord Harwood?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why would she marry him?’

‘Apparently my brother owned him money.’ She stepped towards the door. ‘Right, shall we go?’

Sam followed Millie as she led the way, skirting the low land. The rain had stopped, but the clouds were still heavy, the mists tangled in the few trees, obscuring the sun except for its glowing disc.

Millie’s every movement, the way her hands formed tight fists, her quick steps and hunched shoulders spoke of her anger. Sam hurried after her.

Lillian Lansdowne should not marry Lord Harwood. No woman should marry Lord Harwood. Harwood was middle-aged. He was not accepted in polite society, frequented brothels, abused his mistresses and was diseased.

‘Miss Lansdowne? Millie? There must be another option. How much is owing?’ Sam asked.

‘A thousand pounds,’ Millie replied, without stopping or slowing.

‘And it is authentic? Not a forgery?’

‘I do not know.’

‘What do you mean “I do not know”?’

‘I do not have the information. Clear enough for you?’

‘Why not?’ he asked.

‘His chose to talk to my mother and I did not see the note proving the debt.’

‘A predator always goes for the weakest.’

She turned, briefly pausing. ‘Very wise, Mr Garrett, but when I rescued you from the sea, it was not an invitation into my family’s business.’

‘I want to help.’

‘Well, you cannot. Tom gave Harwood a promissory note. Now, he will throw Mother into debtors’ prison if Lil doesn’t marry him.’

‘Do you have a solicitor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then he needs to look into it. Have you spoken to him?’

‘No, I was somewhat preoccupied with rescuing a drowning man and being kidnapped.’

She turned, starting to walk briskly again.

‘It might have been a better initial first step. I mean, instead of smuggling.’

‘A solicitor cannot find money that is not there. He will merely charge for the privilege. Besides, I needed to do something, not listen to some fusty man tell me there was nothing I could do.’

Her voice was thick with emotion.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I sounded judgemental.’

She shrugged. ‘Obviously, my smuggling idea was not my crowning achievement.’

This much was true but he could understand her near panic. ‘Harwood is...’ he paused, trying to find the words ‘...unpleasant.’

No woman deserved such a fate. He realised he had no right to judge her or dead men.

Besides, his harsh words had been less about anger or judgement, but more about his own vulnerability. There was something about this woman which made him feel a complexity of emotion he did not begin to understand. She had such spirit and humour. What other woman would seek to save her sister by smuggling? Or be able to walk for miles, shoeless, and without complaint?

She was so different than most women of his acquaintance. He felt more in her presence. She attracted him in a multitude of ways. She intrigued him. His thoughts circled back to those moments by the fire. He remembered the touch of her lips and how physical desire had trumped sense.

She engendered a raw neediness, marked by a lack of control, and made him want to throw caution away.

But he’d done that before, immersed past, present and future into his adolescent love for Annie Whistler.

And then everything had disintegrated.

He pulled himself back from the past, focusing on the woman in front of him. She strode forward, her spine stiff, irritation almost bristling from her. She must love her sister very much to try smuggling in the middle of a gale.

‘Miss Lansdowne, about Harwood—he is known to be ill and I have heard his behaviour is erratic. Why would he suddenly produce this promissory note, six months after your brother’s demise? I do not know anything for certain, but a solicitor should be involved. Will you let me get my solicitor to look into it?’

She paused, glancing back at him and studying him with her intent gaze. ‘Very well.’ She turned away and they continued to walk for several minutes. Then she stopped again. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘Over there. Look!’

Millie had stopped. Roused from his introspection, he squinted towards low hills.

‘See! A road and a building. I think it is a tavern. Indeed, we are quite close to Fowey. I do not think I have been more glad to see human habitation before.’

He saw now the road winding through the