Authors: Madcap Marchioness
“But you are master here, are you not?”
“I am.” He smiled at her. “Do you think I allow my aunt to rule to roast?”
She was sure, having seen Aunt Adelaide, that he must, but she knew it would be impolite to say so. Instead, she said, “If the inconvenience to the servants is so great, then—”
“The castle is not run for the convenience of the servants,” he retorted lightly. “If the food were to come cold to the table, certainly other arrangements would be necessary, but there are warming dishes on the sideboard, and one cannot deny that the southeast room is more pleasant in the morning than the dining room. Before, the dining room must have seemed a day’s march on an empty stomach for the aunts. And,” he added with another chuckle, “Aunt Adelaide complained that the scenes carved in the plaster there discouraged her matutinal appetite.”
Adriana was able to examine the dining room and judge these scenes for herself at the supper table. The lavender walls set off the white plasterwork carvings nicely, displaying a veritable paean to Bacchus. The overmantel depicted a sacrifice to the god with fat garlands of vines tumbling over the sides of a basket supported by two snarling panthers. The same vines decorated the fireplace surround as well as the many empty rococo frames carved into the walls at points equally spaced about the room.
“I see you are looking at the frames, Adriana,” said Lady Adelaide when she had been served from a platter of sliced beef. “I had the pictures removed after my brother’s death.”
“Removed, ma’am?”
“My father, the ninth marquess, had a penchant for hunting scenes and still lifes of dead game. Not suitable for a dining room, I believe. The hunting horns, foxes’ masks, and bows and arrows entwined with the vine leaves in the frames, though engagingly symmetrical, do not please me either, but Chalford has a liking for them, as he does for that dreadful eagle hovering over us. Thus, they remain. I do not choose to look upon them.”
Unable to help herself, Adriana looked up to see that at the center of the ceiling there was indeed a great plaster eagle, its wings outspread, its long, sharp, gilded talons curling around the chain that suspended the giant chandelier above the table. Light from the many candles made the eagle’s eyes glitter and gave its golden beak a threatening prominence. She looked away, only to encounter her husband’s gaze instead. Chalford’s eyes were lit with amusement.
“Tell us more about your family, Adriana dear,” Lady Henrietta said then. “You mentioned earlier that you have a brother and a sister—just as Chalford does—but you did not tell us very much about them. Are they both married?”
Adriana smiled at her and willingly described her siblings, Miranda in warm tones and Alston as diplomatically as she could, adding, “Since my father is in poor health and dislikes going into company, I was married from my brother’s house. My sister and my best friend, Sarah, Lady Clifford, stood up with me.”
The discussion passed to the wedding guests, and Adriana discovered that the Lady Henrietta had a passion for gossip, particularly gossip having to do with members of the
beau monde.
She wanted to hear about Emily Lamb’s recent marriage to the Earl Cowper and was willing to discuss the royal family at length.
“With whom did you pass the night, Adriana?” asked Lady Adelaide suddenly in the midst of an exchange of information regarding the latest reports of the king’s health.
“We stayed in Maidstone,” Chalford put in quickly, thus sparing Adriana’s blushes. Then, without taking so much as a breath, he turned to Lady Henrietta and asked her to tell him more about her recent activities on behalf of the neighborhood. “For I am persuaded you have done a great deal more than organize the potential devastation of the countryside,” he said.
“Indeed, yes,” she assured him. “Everyone is making inventories of their possessions, there are plans to flood the marsh if necessary, and men have boomed the entrance to Thunderhill Bay. If you bring the
Sea Dragon
into the harbor, you must have one of the lads show you how you must go, though your captain might already know, I suppose.”
“Goodness,” Adriana said, “how does one boom a harbor?”
“Logs are chained across most of the entrance,” Chalford explained with a grin. “They float beneath the surface and wreak havoc with ships trying to make landfall, particularly at night.”
“An unnecessary obstruction to shipping,” pronounced Lady Adelaide, signing for the servants to clear the first course.
Adriana looked around, wondering who would see the signal, for there was no servant in the room. Then she noticed an arched sideboard on the north wall that had small jib doors on each side leading to the butler’s pantry. Mirrored panels on the reveals of the arch allowed the butler and footmen to survey the table even though they were outside the room, out of hearing. The niche also gave added prominence to the display of gold and silver plate massed on the sideboard in the French manner, flanking a formal pyramid of apricots, peaches, and grapes.
Her attention was drawn back almost immediately to her companions, particularly to Lady Henrietta, who was once again defending her project to her sister. “Really, Adelaide, you must not underestimate the danger. You have said yourself, any number of times, that the French are not to be trusted. We might all be murdered in our beds if proper precautions are not taken.”
Although Chalford shot Adriana a look that sorely tried her equanimity, reminding her as it did of his prediction earlier in the day, Lady Adelaide did not so far forget her dignity as to enter into argument upon the subject. Her opinion was clear nonetheless, and Adriana had no difficulty under these circumstances in believing that Lady Henrietta exaggerated the danger. Thus it was that when she was awakened late that very same night by Lady Henrietta’s shrieks that the French had landed at last, she sat bolt upright in Chalford’s bed, stiff with terror.
T
HE BEDCHAMBER DOOR HAD
been flung wide, and Lady Henrietta stood upon the threshold, her thin figure outlined by light from the stair-hall window behind her. The sound of her sobbing breaths carried easily to the bed, and the echo of her shrieks seemed to linger in the air.
Chalford’s arm was around Adriana now, and her own breathing, in consequence, was calmer. At the sound of his deep voice, she felt calmer still. “What exactly leads you to believe the French have landed, Aunt Hetta?” he asked.
“I’ve seen them, that’s what,” she gasped. She was holding herself upright by clinging to the door frame.
Adriana slipped quickly from the shelter of Chalford’s arm and, heedless despite her thin nightdress of the damp chill in the air, hurried to Lady Hetta’s side, saying anxiously, “Come, ma’am, sit down. So much excitement cannot be good for you.”
“We’ve no time to rest, child. The castle must be aroused. The men must take up arms.”
Chalford was also up now, shouting for his manservant as he slipped into a pair of breeches and moved to light a candle from the banked embers in the fireplace. “Where did you see these Frenchmen?” he asked as he got to his feet again.
“On the beach below my window, of course. Do you think it wise to show a light, Joshua?”
He chuckled. “If the Frenchies can see this candle from a beach on the other side of the castle, they’ve got mighty fine eyesight, Aunt Hetta. Now what, precisely, did you see?”
“Lights on the beach where there oughtn’t to be any,” she replied testily. “Oh, if only Adelaide had listened when I begged her to help us. With her directing the others, so much more might have been accomplished.”
“How many lights?”
“Three or four. There is no moon, but I saw shadows. The clouds have broken and the reflection of the stars in the water gives light to the beach. I daresay they expected the storm clouds to give them more cover. Oh, do hurry, Joshua. We must waken everyone. I sent my maid to rouse the other maidservants and I tried to waken Adelaide, but of course she would only say she meant to sleep, regardless, and that dreadful woman of hers would not let me enter the room to try to make her listen to me.”
“Take heart, ma’am, it would take an intrepid Frenchman to breach those defenses. Ah, here you are, Miskin,” he added, turning toward the dressing-room door, upon the threshold of which stood his manservant in hastily donned breeches and shirt, awaiting his instructions. “Her ladyship believes the French have landed on the beach below the castle. Rouse a few of the men and see what there is to see, will you?”
“Yes, my lord, at once,” replied his man without batting an eyelash. It was, Adriana thought, watching him, as though his master issued such orders daily.
Chalford turned his attention to his aunt. “There, you see, ma’am, all is in train now. Miskin will rout them in a trice.”
“A manservant and a few footmen to stand against the French navy, Joshua? You cannot be serious. Fortunately, Martha and the other maids will have begun to rouse the menservants by now.”
“Well, I cannot help but think you will wish later that you had not acted in so precipitate a manner, ma’am, for I must own that I see little likelihood of your intruders proving to be members of the French navy. I daresay that if they were, you would have noticed more than three or four lights, and I’m quite sure that you would have seen the bulk of more than one ship on the water. You did not mention seeing even one.”
“Well, no,” she confessed, “though to be sure one cannot see all of the bay from my window. I am persuaded there must be a ship down there somewhere.”
“Yes, very likely, but not more than one, I’ll wager. Can you not realize what it is you must have seen, ma’am?”
While she thought the matter over, he took the opportunity to light several more candles, and this time she made no protest. Adriana looked from one to the other in bewilderment.
When Lady Henrietta spoke at last, her voice was smaller. “Do you truly think that is all it is, Joshua?”
He nodded. “’Tis a dark night, and whoever landed made it past your entrance booms, which argues an excellent spotsman. The French would not have been so fortunate, or so skillful.”
“Who would?” Adriana demanded. “What’s a spotsman?”
Chalford grinned at her, and Lady Henrietta said with a sigh of resignation, “Free traders.”
“Smugglers!” Adriana’s eyes widened with excitement, and she stared from one to the other. “Right here on your beach?”
“Our beach,” Chalford said, smiling at her. “I’m nearly certain of it, and ‘spotsman’ is smuggler’s slang for one who can bring a boat in on the darkest night to a precise landfall.”
His calm manner reminded her of what she had heard about the attitude in Kent toward the “Gentlemen,” as they were called, and she nodded wisely. “I see. Nothing to fear, then.”
“Nothing at all,” he agreed. “Aunt Henrietta will suffer some joking when it becomes known that she mistook the Gentlemen for Frenchies, but that is all.”
“All!” Lady Henrietta regarded him with an air of reproach. “That is very easy for you to say. Can you not imagine what odious observations Adelaide will make when she hears of this?”
Laughing at her, Chalford pulled the bell cord. “Since the servants are up and about, you might as well have a cup of tea to soothe your nerves, ma’am. I mean to have something stronger, myself. Miskin will bring word to us soon enough.”
They had their refreshment before the fire, which Chalford had poked into flames again, and Miskin entered the room soon after the tea had been served.
“As you expected, m’lord, no more than a small run in progress. The lads and me thought it best to allow the Gentlemen to get on with their business undisturbed.”
“Wise of you,” Chalford said. “How many were there?”
“Thirty or thereabouts. We observed them from the cliff path. The tub lines were still attached to the cutter when we turned back to the castle, but I believe most of the tubs had been hauled ashore. The goods were disappearing into the marsh as quick as the men could carry them, so I doubt there’ll be a sign of life in half an hour.”
“There, you see, Aunt Hetta, you can go back to bed without fearing further disturbance.”
She glared at him. “It would serve them right to have the riding officer descend upon them, scaring me as they did.”
“I’ll wager Mr. Petticrow’s nearer Dymchurch than Hythe tonight,” Chalford said, turning with a smile to add for Adriana’s benefit, “No one knows the riding officer’s habits better than the men he’s trying to catch.”
“There’s only one officer?”
“One for each five miles of coastline. Even if the Gentlemen didn’t make it their business to know his schedule, keeping him under observation would be easy enough.”
“But how can they know before they land where he will be?”
“Bless you, sweetheart, our local smugglers aren’t seamen. They keep their feet firmly on dry earth. The ships come in from France or Holland, and they don’t sail into harbor without a signal from shore telling them it’s safe to do so.”
“There are no English ships involved in the smuggling?”
“Oh, no, a good many of them are English. I just meant the sailors generally stay aboard ship and the landsmen deal with the goods that come ashore. Once they disappear into Romney Marsh, I’d defy any man, alone, to follow them. I told you what a maze it is of roads, dykes, ditches, and hedges, and since it’s impossible to find anyone in Kent or Sussex who will agree to act as riding officer, the men in that position are at a great disadvantage from the outset in knowing so little of the countryside. Our present man is from Berkshire. Even if he did know Kent well, one man would stand no chance against so many.”
“They would kill him?” Her eyes were rounder yet.
He shrugged. “That has certainly been known to happen, but it is unlikely nowadays, since the Gentlemen have only to intercept the officer and render him helpless long enough to get the goods to safety. There is no need to kill him.”
Lady Henrietta said firmly, “I am persuaded that no one could be so degraded as to wish harm to Mr. Petticrow, who has always been all that is kind. Why, when the Payton child in Lydd was injured falling from the roof of his cottage—where he’d no business to be in the first place—it was Mr. Petticrow who rode his horse all the way to Hythe to fetch Dr. Simmons, who knows more than Dr. Bailey in—”