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

the wrecking business. Didn’t sit right with him. Plus they weren’t going to get away with it for much longer.’

‘Why not?’ Sam asked.

Mr Aimsworth exhaled a cloud of smoke. ‘Too many cutters. This Waterguard nonsense. Besides, your brother-in-law isn’t best suited for a role requiring silence and subterfuge. He enjoys his drink and likes to talk.’

That much was true. Tom had occasionally brought Jason to Lansdowne House.

So had Jason plotted against The Rising Dawn or was there another person or entity involved?

She’d always considered him capable of violence, but not the cruel measured calculation needed to lure a ship to its doom. Millie remembered the steady shooting as the three half-drowned men had struggled from the water. They had been so utterly defenceless.

‘I did not think him capable of wrecking,’ she said.

‘Jem did not know anything about this, so why? Why did Mr Ludlow or anyone kill him?’ Sal asked.

‘No loose ends,’ her father said.

Millie tightened her clasp on her friend’s hands, holding them between her own. She looked about the small, familiar cottage and felt the tears in her eyes. They had so little. It was so cruelly unfair that fate should have taken Jem.

With unspoken accord, they stood, chairs scuffling back.

‘Thank you,’ Millie said, again reaching to hug her friend. ‘Let me know if there is anything you need. Anything I can do to help.’

‘I will,’ Sal said.

Millie glanced down at the well-used battledore. ‘You’re teaching them to read?’

‘You taught me,’ she said. ‘Gerald is a bright lad. There has to be other choices than smuggling or the mine.’

Millie nodded. There was something brave in her friend’s determination to help her children achieve a better life.

‘I will send Flora down with some more primers or come myself, I promise.’

They walked towards the door.

‘And we will send word if we learn anything,’ she said.

‘You have an idea where Mr Ludlow might be?’ Sal asked.

Sam glanced at Millie. ‘I do not know where he is, but I know where I will start looking.’

Sam and Millie walked into the cool chill air of evening. There was a relief in leaving. The atmosphere in the house felt weighted with grief. For a few moments they strode in silence, needing to distance themselves from the poverty and pain in the cottage.

‘You’re thinking of the hut? You think Jason might be there?’ Millie asked, as they neared the base of the cliff.

‘It’s a good place to start,’ Sam said. ‘Sir Anthony could take the constables tomorrow.’

Millie shook her head, glancing towards the shale beach and the unusually calm sea. It would be a clear night. ‘Tomorrow will be too late. If Jason is alive, he has done all of this to make us believe him dead. He wants to escape to the Continent.’

‘You think he would go tonight?’

‘The weather is good. He would be a fool not to.’

‘So he has likely already left the hut?’

She nodded. ‘He has likely taken the jewellery and coins and is hiding close to shore with a boat arranged to take him to France. We could rouse Sir Anthony and we could get a boat—’

‘No.’ He spoke sharply. ‘We are not doing or going anywhere. Not tonight, tomorrow or the next day. There is no “we”.’

‘Fiddlesticks,’ Millie said. ‘I am in this. Talking to the Aimsworths was my idea. Someone lured those men to their deaths. I cannot turn my back on them. I can be a witness—’

‘I won’t let you put yourself in danger. We still do not know if Jason was working alone. We may not even be right about Jason.’

‘It is my choice. You do not need to protect me as well as your sister. You are not the self-appointed protector of the vulnerable and hopeless. I make my own decisions.’

‘Why?’ He faced her. ‘Why would you want to be involved? I thought you were all about honesty. You said you are sensible and not a risk taker. You cannot decide to be cautious one moment and marry Mr Edmunds and then decide to chase a murderer in the next.’

‘Sally is my friend. I knew those men. They were lured to their death.’

‘And your death will hardly be a comfort for her or any of them. Plus it would be mighty inconvenient for Edmunds at the wedding.’

‘I do not know why you keep mentioning Mr Edmunds and my wedding.’

‘And I do not know why you did not bring it up a tad sooner.’

‘For goodness sake, it is not even decided yet. Mr Edmunds hasn’t officially proposed. Anyway, I did not mean to keep it a secret. It just did not come up.’

‘It did not come up? We were talking about everything else. I felt... Anyway, it seems a big item to omit.’

‘Perhaps not when escaping a shipwreck,’ she retorted. ‘Anyway, you know now.’

‘I do and I am certain your intended would prefer that you do not run around chasing criminals.’

‘It isn’t any of his business,’ she retorted.

‘It soon will be.’

This, of course, was true. It was why she would prefer never to marry anyone. ‘A fundamental weakness in our society,’ she said. ‘Anyhow, I feel no need to consult him at least until the engagement is official.’

He glared at her and then turned, walking briskly. ‘And I feel no need to involve you in the further pursuit of Mr. Ludlow.’

‘But I am involved. I was there. I witnessed men murdered. Besides, you still need me.’

‘I do not,’ he said.

‘Actually you are going up the wrong path to get back to the inn, so maybe you do.’

They hurried up the steep path in an angry silence, punctuated only by the scrabble of their shoes and ragged breaths. The sun was setting, its dying rays disappearing behind the horizon. The temperature had dropped and their breath formed small clouds of mist.

Once at the top of the cliff, they hurried across the grass towards the lighted windows of the tavern. Roast beef mixed with smoke, salt water and that peaty scent indigenous to Cornwall still perfumed the