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

Millie lunged at him, pressing a kiss on his lips. The move was so unexpected, he lost his balance, stumbling back against the wall while clutching her tight to him.

‘Heavens above! I’ll not have this! This is not to be tolerated. We run a respectable house and I’ll not have goings on. Dressed like a man. And then carrying on! Off with you. Wait out front. I’ll douse you with water if I have to. A respectable house this is. A respectable house!’ After this rush of speech, Doris flapped her apron, making a clucking sound.

Millie stopped kissing him and Sam dazedly straightened from the wall.

‘Off with you!’ Doris gave another flap of her apron. The hens which had approached, hoping for scraps, scuttled away, while the cockerel darted towards her apron.

On any normal day, Sam would find the landlady funny, he thought, with that detached part of his brain. Indeed, this whole scene, complete with donkey and rooster, had an element of humour.

But this was not a normal day.

‘We’ll go,’ Millie said, taking his hand and Sam found himself following her because compliance was easier than resistance. They walked to the front of the inn, skirting the chickens and donkey who stared at them with unwarranted malevolence.

‘What was that kiss about?’ he asked at last as they reached the road, just in front of the inn’s bay window.

‘It seemed the only way to shut you up before you confessed to something you cannot even remember,’ Millie said.

‘I was not confessing, but you must concur that it cannot be coincidence.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe, but that does not mean you had any responsibility. Surely it is more likely that you both met with an accident. Besides, those two were looking for a good gossip. I know their type. Doris would dine out on the tale for a month of Sundays. You’d have accosted him with the Spanish Armada by the time she’d finished. Besides, we do not want them calling in the constabulary. The most important thing right now is that you get back to Manton Hall and talk to your sister.’

‘Yes,’ he said. Indeed, his first priority must be to make some sense of this situation. Poor Frances must be out of her mind with worry. He certainly could not risk delay with unnecessary interrogation. ‘That is true. Thank you.’

‘Do not mention it. I seem in the business of saving you.’

Millie saw it first. The vehicle appeared little more than a small dot, visible on the road some distance away.

‘That must be the carriage the landlord mentioned,’ she said.

They watched as it grew in size, meandering through the fields. Sam paced beside the inn’s stone exterior as though this would accelerate its progress. Millie sat on the inn’s cobbled path, leaning against the wall. Her feet hurt too much to bear her weight for any longer than was strictly necessary. Besides, she looked sufficiently like an urchin to sit like one.

The vehicle was, Millie realised, a mail carrier which meant she was likely to know the driver and while this would guarantee them a ride, it might well end any last vestiges of her reputation.

Of course, given her prolonged absence, it was entirely possible her reputation was already in tatters and the option of marriage to Mr Edmunds gone with it.

‘Millie,’ Sam said. ‘Who knows about you meeting The Rising Dawn? Anyone in the village?’

‘Just Sally.’

‘Do not say anything.’

‘Because of my reputation? It seems cowardly,’ she said. ‘Besides, the damage is likely irreparable.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not just about your reputation. Right now, the wreckers do not know anyone witnessed what happened at the beach. But if they know we were there and survived, they will worry that we know their identity.’

‘I did not see anything except the movement of the light up the path.’

‘But they do not know that. If they do, they may try to silence us.’

Millie nodded. There had been a ruthlessness in the men’s execution. She had no doubt that the shooter would take any steps necessary for self-preservation. ‘I won’t say anything. But we must stop them and get Jem justice.’

‘We will.’

The clip-clop of hooves heralded the coach’s arrival as it turned around the corner and, with a rattle of wheels, pulled to an abrupt stop. It was Dobbs. Millie knew him quite well and pulled her cap lower.

‘You two had best not be up to no good. I’m not having any trouble. I have my blunderbuss and will make good use of it,’ Dobbs announced to them, brandishing the weapon.

‘We require a ride,’ Sam said.

‘No doubt. And what will you pay me with?’

Sam produced another gold guinea. ‘I am staying at Fowey. You go that way?’

‘Aye.’

Dobbs’s gaze shifted, moving to Millie. His eyebrows pulled together as though knowing he should recognise her, but not yet finding the name. She looked down, hoping her cap might further obfuscate her identify.

‘Good Lord! Miss Lansdowne? What are you doing? And in that there customary?’

She sighed. ‘You mean costume. It is a long story, Dobbs. Please, can you give us a ride?’

‘I can hardly leave you, now can I? But good gracious, what would your mother say? Or your father, God rest ’is soul? And poor Master Tom?’

She did not say that if her father had not been drawn to disastrous financial investments or if Tom had not given promissory notes to despicable individuals, she might not have ended up on a smuggling mission disguised as a street urchin.

‘Perhaps we might spare my mother’s feelings by not—um—mentioning this,’ she said. Dobbs was generally a decent type and everyone knew that her mother suffered greatly from nerves.

‘Thankfully, we have no passengers, otherwise I do not know what they would say. Or what tale you could possible devise to explain your current situation.’

‘I would ride outside with you and chat like in the old days,’ Millie said. She had fond memories of childhood rides and had found him a source of useful information, a window into the lives of