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

in his gaze and she had the impression that he understood some part of what she was feeling.

This was a fallacy, of course. Mr Samuel Garrett was from a privileged position, a place of power. He could hardly understand the feelings of someone duty bound to marry. Or the sense of inadequacy in knowing that her sister might be doomed to a worse fate, enduring marriage to a worse man.

Millie moved back against the wall, taking her hands from his grasp, turning back to Jem. ‘I should have listened to you,’ she said. ‘You warned me not to try smuggling. I looked for a quick answer. I am more like my brother than I thought.’

‘You were desperate, miss, and with reason. No point worrying about that now. You do a good job when we get to France, you might still end up earning a bit. The Captain’s a fair man.’

‘Won’t I look conspicuous?’ She glanced down at her seaman’s pants and boots.

He frowned as though bemused by her words.

‘We’ll say yer a cabin boy. You’re a drab little thing, not the sort to get attention.’

‘That is a cause for gratitude,’ Millie said.

Sadly, it was true. Drab and mousy had always been apt descriptions and she felt a familiar longing that she might be more like Lillian. Although, she shouldn’t.

Indeed, she should not wish she was like Lil, but that Lil was like her. If Lil had been drab and mousy, she would not have caught Harwood’s attention.

Not that ‘attention’ was an apt word. It was more like ‘fixation’. Lord Harwood wanted Lil. He had always wanted Lil. Even when Lil was little more than a child, he’d appear on their estate at odd times, so frequently that Lil seldom went out alone unless he was in London. Sometimes he’d stop her, smile and say too nice things while his gaze roamed over her body.

In those days, Lord Harwood had been a predator, but a distant one, a shadowy menace but not an imminent threat.

Two days ago that had changed.

Even now, Millie shivered when she remembered Lord Harwood’s visit.

He’d smelled of perfume, the scent somehow worse than the stink of vomit and urine which permeated the ship. He wore a dirty wig that was out of fashion and had a sore on his lip. He’d talked to her mother alone and when he’d left, he’d bowed, smiled and strutted, leaving a trail of stale scent in his path.

‘Tom owed him money, a promissory note. He showed me,’ her mother had said. ‘He wants to marry Lil. He said that he would throw me in debtors’ prison. And I just couldn’t survive.’

‘He can’t marry Lil. We’ll think of something. I’ll marry Mr Edmunds, I suppose.’

‘Mr Edmunds wouldn’t have that sort of money.’

‘I’ll manage. She can’t marry that man.’

Millie had been managing throughout the gruelling six months since Tom’s death.

Indeed, her mother had been little help, remaining in her bed for weeks armed with smelling salts and laudanum. Millie had been the one to make sense of the accounts and keep the family out of debtor’s prison.

And she had done so. She’d haggled, scrimped and saved. She’d sold livestock, furniture and paintings. She’d even considered marrying the humdrum Mr. Edmunds.

But Harwood would not touch Lil.

And it was this desperate, foolhardy determination which had led to this moment, sitting on a smuggling vessel with Sally’s mountain of a husband discussing lace.

Jem picked up the tin cups as he prepared to stand within the narrow space. ‘I’ll go back to the Captain. See when he wants to see you.’

‘Thank you,’ Millie said.

Jem nodded. Taking the lamp, he went to the door, stepping into the corridor. The door clattered shut behind him, blanketing the room in thick darkness.

Millie shivered. She could hear the scrabble of rats across the floorboards, audible now that the storm had lessened. She wondered what time it was. It must be dawn soon, surely. One lost any sense of time within this interminable darkness, deep in the very bowels of the ship. Her family would be worried. Lil would be worried. Sal would be worried. It was Sal who had suggested smuggling. ‘We cannot let Miss Lillian marry that man. And your mother is not like to do much,’ she’d said.

Millie pressed back against the wall. How long to get to France?

France. France. She’d only been twice to London and now she was going to France. On a smuggling vessel. To look at lace. Would she even recognise shoddy lace?

As a child she’d avoided going to London. Her love had always been for Cornwall and she’d been allowed more freedom than was usual. Her parents had been distracted. Her, lovable jovial father was often inebriated and always busy chasing an improbable scheme. Although, he’d had a larger-than-life presence when he was around, teaching them to row and swim.

Her mother was anxious, too often dosed with laudanum. As the years went by, her mother had withdrawn, shunned by the people she wanted so much to impress, and her father’s gambling had worsened, marked by desperation.

‘I do not even speak French,’ she muttered. She’d shared a governess with the vicarage children, but Miss Collins did not run to French.

‘I do,’ Mr Garrett said.

‘I knew I’d rescued you for a reason.’

For a few moments, they were quiet, surrounded by the dark, the scuttling of rats and the creaking groans of a moving vessel.

‘When did we meet, by the way? I have been racking my brains, but I cannot recollect.’

Millie laughed. ‘Sorry, that was an exaggeration. It was more a sighting than meeting. It was about a month before Father lost his money and Mother insisted I come to London. I was little more than fourteen. I woke up one night when I heard you and Tom coming in. You were singing and I crept out of my bed and stared through the banisters.’

‘You remembered my name? How did you even know it?’

Millie felt a wash of heat through her cheeks. Truthfully, she could still remember