Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women. Kasey Michaels
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said in a near growl, walking over to the door to the hallway now that he’d given anyone who might have been listening time to hide out of sight. He stepped into the hallway himself, and it was empty, as he’d expected, then backed into the room and closed the door. Locked it.
“Was…was anyone out there?” Julia asked, whispering.
He could say no. But that wouldn’t put the fear of God into her, would it? Besides, he knew Jacko. Jacko may have the size of a bear, but he moved like a cat. He knew the man had been there listening. “Yes, I saw Jacko, the back of him, sneaking into a room down the hall.”
“Oh, good God in Heaven,” Julia said as she clasped her hands in front of her to keep them from shaking. “Do you think he heard me?”
Chance stepped closer. “I’m sure he did, but you didn’t say anything too dangerous. You’re concerned for the idiots we brought with us, that’s all. Ease your mind on that head at least, please. The boys and their family will be leaving the Marsh in the morning. I’m having them sent north, to my estate near Coventry, well clear of here. Now say whatever else it is you feel you must say and then we won’t discuss any of this again.”
Julia backed up two paces, because he was standing so close and she was suddenly very aware that he had earlier called her “darling.” She mined her brain for the list of questions she had for him and came up with the first that she recalled. “Why is Billy your coachman? He’s an atrocious coachman.”
Chance smiled. “I knew you’d have questions, but I hadn’t considered that one. But fair enough. Billy is my coachman because I choose that he be my coachman—and probably because he believes his life’s work is to protect me, from only God knows what.”
“He still walks as if he’s on a rolling deck,” Julia said, hoping to ease the tension that seemed to be increasing between them, a tension that had little to do with the questions in her head or the growing fear in her heart.
“He does that, doesn’t he?” Chance said, smiling. “Jacko was also a sailor, as you already guessed. Ainsley was a sailor. Most anyone you encounter here at Becket Hall might have gone to sea at some time. After all, we lived on an island. But that’s all it is, Julia. When we left the islands and came here, everyone gave up the sea. They gave up anything to do with the sea. Do you understand me?”
“You’re telling me that no one at Becket Hall is associated with the smugglers or even knows or cares about them. I understand.” She bit her bottom lip between her teeth as she looked at him, as everything seemed to fall into place for her, the pieces of the puzzle now all fitting together tightly, showing her a picture she’d rather not see. Did he think her a fool? “They know you are a part of the War Office.”
“Yes, they do,” Chance said, his expression going dark, unreadable. “And the war is on the continent, not here in Romney Marsh.”
Why did she keep pushing at him? But she had to know. “True enough. But the Owlers are here, and they trade with the enemy. Did you really bring Alice to Becket Hall because you believe she should be here or are you using your own daughter as an excuse to spy on the smugglers for the king?”
“One does not necessarily make the other true. I had only planned to bring Alice home. And, my dear, as it stands, I don’t have to justify my actions to you.”
“No, you don’t. But please don’t dismiss me as some foolish London society miss who has no notion of what can happen here. Do you know the history of the Hawkhurst Gang? You made mention of my birthplace, but I doubt you know all that I know. The worst of it happened a long time ago, but the stories still are told and retold in Hawkhurst.”
“I only know that some five or six men were hanged in chains for murdering a king’s officer, their bodies strung up along the roadway for all to see. But that was—what?—sixty years ago?”
Julia nodded her agreement. “They butchered one of their own at the same time, a man who was going to give the king’s testimony against the gang. The gang had grown too large, too powerful. Smuggling isn’t only a dangerous but necessary occupation for desperate people wishing to feed their families. Many people became very rich, both here and in London.”
“The government destroyed the Hawkhurst Gang, and many more like them. There are better patrols now, Julia, more troops assigned to capture smugglers. The Crown has the situation under control—or will very soon. The war and the shortages war causes have simply stirred things up for a while, that’s all.”
Julia wasn’t convinced and was far from satisfied with his reasoning. Hadn’t she only a fortnight ago drunk the last of the contraband tea left at the church just days after her father’s funeral? She had to make him understand.
“The Hawkhurst Gang thought nothing of murdering people who got in their way, people who saw too much, said too much. People like Dickie and Johnnie. People like us, who have stumbled over what they’d done. And from what Dickie said, it would seem there are more large gangs out there now who could be very much like the Hawkhurst Gang. This Black Ghost, for one.”
Chance felt a tic beginning in his left cheek. “You never heard that name, Julia. Never. Never so much as think it again. And I won’t keep you here if you’re going to worry yourself to death. I can send you back to London tomorrow morning, if that’s what you want.”
Julia shook her head, feeling suddenly stubborn. “Not unless Alice travels with me.”
Chance cursed under his breath as he stabbed his fingers through his hair. “Do you honestly think I would let Alice come to any harm? This is my family, Julia. It may not seem so to you so far, but they would kill for me, and I would kill for them. Any one of them. And I would never harm them. Never. Jacko and Billy? I consider them family, as well. Everyone at Becket Hall is family. No matter how stupidly they—”
Julia watched as Chance brought himself back under control. She longed to ask the real question: did he think members of his own family had joined the smugglers? Because she’d certainly gotten that impression through his few terse comments to her in the coach after they’d found the boys.
And yet, was that so terrible? Her own father allowed contraband to be stored in his church before the smugglers could move it inland. Everyone in Romney Marsh and other coastal areas, in some way, large or small, was involved with the smugglers, knew some of the smugglers, benefited from the goods that were left as payment for the use of an outbuilding or the loan of a horse. Her best gown, the yellow silk, had been fashioned from a bolt of cloth left for her at the vicarage one night.
“The matters of business that will keep you here for a few weeks,” Julia asked, “do they have anything to do with the smuggling trade? No, please don’t answer. I shouldn’t have asked. We shouldn’t even be having this conversation. Not any of it.”
Chance smiled at her. “At last. Yes, Julia, we shouldn’t be having this conversation. But I will tell you, I am not here to run about, hoping to capture smugglers and bring them to Dover Castle to be tried and hanged. I’m only charged with speaking to the Waterguards and such up and down the coast, hopefully putting some of the fear of God into them so that they will do what needs to be done. Because they certainly haven’t yet, have they, or Georgie would still be alive and thinking of no more than hoping to steal a kiss from some young girl.”
Julia nodded, agreeing with him. The pity of the smuggling trade was not only that it was so necessary to survival but that generations of Marshmen knew no other way to feed their families.
“I…I suppose you should go downstairs. Your…your father may be waiting to see you.”
“I’m sure he is, along with at least one of my brothers. As I remember it, your chamber is over there, on the other side of the nursery. Will you be all right? No bad dreams about bogeymen coming to truss you up and toss you in the Channel?”
“I believe they buried the king’s man alive as he stood in a hole and tossed the other man down a dry well, then dropped rocks on him until he stopped moaning. But as you said, that was