Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 02] (3 page)

He had been keeping an eye on the sea and at last he saw what he had been waiting for. Light flashed from a covered lantern. Two more flashes followed. Swiftly, he opened his tinderbox and lit a sulfur match. Seconds later his lantern was lit. As he moved away from the wreckage, he saw yet another flash of light at the eastern end of the beach. So Michael had not trusted him to meet the Frenchmen alone. Not surprising. Since the man had known him less than a fortnight, he had been more surprised at being ordered to go without a second. A test, no doubt. He wondered if the other watcher had seen the coach plunge over the cliff. He did not remember seeing carriage lanterns. No doubt they had been broken and their lights extinguished soon after the coach left the road. It had probably rolled several times. He would have to consider carefully what he was going to do about it.

“Cousin Charley, I think they’ve gone.”

“Keep still a few minutes longer, Letty.” But Charley, too, had heard sounds of departing horses above them. She could feel the chill of the rock beneath her, and she could feel the child trembling.

“I-I lost my muff,” Letty said in a small voice.

Charley knew she was concerned about much more than a fur muff, and she thought a moment before she said, “We cannot think just now about what we have lost, Letty. We must think about getting ourselves out of this predicament. That is the only thing, right now, that we can do anything about.”

“It … it is very far down to the beach, is it not?”

“Very far,” Charley agreed, “but if we keep our wits about us, we won’t fall.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. To the best of her knowledge they were some twenty or thirty feet below the road, not far from where the slope of the headland met the side of the cliff, and perilously near the edge of that slope. It was, after all, little more than the point at which two cliff faces came together at slightly more than a right angle. In daylight a man in buckskins and wearing gloves might be able to climb back to the road easily. At night, with an unknown enemy nearby, two females in long skirts and heavy cloaks would not have an easy time, even though one of them wore stout half boots.

“Were you injured, darling?”

“I don’t think so,” Letty said. “I hit my head on the carriage door, but it was only a bump, and then I fell on you. Oh, and my hand is scraped, I think, where I first grabbed the rock. What about you?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” Charley said. “I don’t think I broke any bones, but I am beginning to feel a few aches and pains, and I am quite sure I bounced against a few rather pointed rocks. My cloak protected me from the worst, although I did bang the back of my head when we landed, hard enough to make me see more stars than are showing above us tonight. I think your head must have hit my chin at the same time.”

“The moon is—Listen!”

A rattle of loose stones and pebbles startled both of them, but a moment later a chirping sound made Letty stiffen, then call out in a low, excited voice, “Jeremiah!”

More chattering accompanied another rattle of stones. Then four small paws touched Charley’s shoulder before the little monkey dove under Letty’s cloak.

“Oh, Jeremiah, I was so worried about you! I thought you must have been killed. Oh, Cousin Charley, do you think Uncle Charles and Aunt Davina might have been thrown clear, too?”

Tempted though she was to say that anything was possible, Charley was a firm believer in honesty. She had loathed being lied to as a child, especially by grown-ups who insisted later that they had done so for her own good. Her Aunt Daintry had always been honest with her. She owed that same honesty to Daintry’s daughter. “No,” she said with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and a shiver of horror as she remembered her mother’s screams, “I do not think they were thrown clear. They were still in the coach when it went over the edge.”

Letty was silent. Then she said, “Those men on the road are gone. I think we had better see what we can do about finding a safer place for ourselves. I do not think we should try to climb back to the road till we can see what we are doing, do you?”

“No, and you make a sensible suggestion. I confess, I am afraid to shift my position. The rocks under me are very loose and I fear the slightest movement might start us sliding again.”

“Well, I think I can get behind this boulder I’ve been clinging to,” Letty said. “If I can, then I can brace my feet against it, and if you hold my hand, I think you can inch up behind it, too.”

Charley’s first, terrified impulse was to tell the child not to move a muscle, but she was getting cold, and knew that eventually one of them would have to try. Better to do so, she decided, while they both still had some control over their limbs, and better that Letty try. The child would have no chance of holding her if she slipped, but she might hold the child.

Letty said, “I can get between you and the boulder, I think, but my cloak and skirt are dreadfully in my way, and these slippers I’m wearing do nothing to protect my feet or give me traction.”

Charley felt her wriggle some more and did not speak, focusing all her attention on keeping her own body flat and perfectly still against the loose scree. She heard Jeremiah protest when Letty removed him from beneath her cloak. When the child shifted her weight off Charley, Charley felt as if she were beginning to slide again, but the sensation soon passed.

“I’ve got my feet against your side,” Letty said. “This boulder seems stable. I am going to stand up.”

Charley held her breath. A moment later, Letty dropped her cloak over her. Odd noises and movements followed, and even in the dim light, Charley could see the child doing something to her clothing. “What are you doing?”

“Tucking up my skirt,” Letty said. “If I slip, I don’t want it getting tangled round my legs again. It’s all right,” she added, with amusement in her voice. “I’ve got on my dimity pantalets with the Swiss lace that Mama bought me just before we left Paris, so if anyone should chance to see me—”

“You’ll shock them witless,” Charley murmured. “I brought a pair, myself, but I am not wearing them because my mama thinks—” She broke off, realizing the tense of the verb was probably wrong, then added with forced calm, “She thinks only men should wear pantaloons of any kind, but that’s only because of Lady Charlotte Lindsey’s having lost one leg of hers as she walked down Piccadilly, and causing such a stir. Mine are fashioned in such a way that one side cannot fall off by itself.”

“Mine, too.” Letty fell silent for a long moment, then said on a note of satisfaction, “There. Now I’m holding the boulder with both hands, and it is as steady as can be. Just one more moment.”

Charley felt loose pebbles sliding past her with each step Letty took, and kept tight hold of the base of the boulder with her left hand. Her arm was stretched to its full reach, however, and she knew that if she trusted her weight to that slight handhold, or tried to pull herself toward the boulder, she would lose her tenuous grip. Difficult as it was for a woman of her active nature, she knew she had to keep still until the child was as safe as she could make herself.

Without warning, Letty’s cloak was whisked off her. “Now, Cousin Charley,” the child said. “I am sitting on my cloak, and my feet are pushing hard against the boulder. It hasn’t twitched. If I hold your hand with both of mine—”

“No,” Charley said firmly. “You must hold the boulder or some other solid object with your right hand. If both of your hands are holding mine and I begin to slip, my weight could yank you right out of there. Reach out your left hand from near the base of the boulder. When you find my hand, grasp my wrist as tightly as you can. Then I’ll hold your wrist. Your mother taught—”

“Oh, I know,” Letty exclaimed. “It’s the way she swings me up to ride pillion with her.”

“Right,” Charley agreed.

The little girl’s hand seemed very small, her wrist far too slender and fragile for the purpose, but her grip was tight and the slender arm steady when Charley grasped it. Charley’s legs were still tangled in her skirts, so she spent several long moments moving slowly and carefully, using her free hand to twitch them free. When she could use her heels to dig into the scree, she inched her way up, but a few moments later when she tried to sit, the unstable surface beneath her shifted. Only Letty’s tight grip kept her from sliding.

“Cousin Charley, are you sure sound travels up more easily than down?”

“I think so,” Charley said, willing her heart to stop pounding and forcing her breathing to slow down. “Why do you ask, darling?”

“Because there are men and lights on the beach,” Letty said. “I don’t think they can see us, but a lot of loose rocks went over the edge just then.”

“Do you think they can be the highwaymen?”

“I don’t know. Most of them came in a boat, I think. I can just barely see a dark shape farther out on the water that might be a ship. The little boat is leaving again, but there are at least two men still on the beach!”

“Hold tight, Letty. I’m going to try again.”

As Antony helped carry cargo from the longboat to the cave where it would be stored till the ponies collected it for transport, he thought about Wellington’s warning against involving himself in criminal activities. If revenuers surprised them, they would have nowhere but the caves to hide. Michael had assured him that folks in south Cornwall were friendly to the free traders, but he was risking a lot on Michael’s word, and he had little reason to trust the man—no more, in fact, than Michael had to trust him. The man had taken him on faith—that, and reference to a mutual acquaintance in France who would (if he knew what was good for him) vouch for Antony’s “good” character. As yet Antony had heard nothing about an assassination plot, but he knew the locals would continue to test him for some time.

The only person in Cornwall who knew him for a government man was the agent for Lloyd’s of London in St. Austell. Antony had paid Mr. Francis Oakley a visit, liked the cut of his jib, and told him he meant to do a little investigating of the coastal gangs for His Majesty’s government. He had confided only so much to Mr. Oakley. The Fox Cub had learned long since to trust no one but himself with all the facts.

While he hauled kegs, he was constantly aware of the wrecked carriage at the west end of the beach. The moon had moved west of the headland, and the wreck lay in shadow. Unless someone decided to stroll to that end of the beach for some reason that Antony could not presently imagine, it would draw no one else’s interest tonight.

Daylight was another matter. He did not know the victims. He had seen no crest on the door, and doubted that he would have recognized it if he had seen one. He had found no coachman either, he realized. Perhaps the man had jumped clear and gone for help. In any case, he would be wiser not to return by daylight, lest his villainous compatriots believe he was after their booty. But neither could he reconcile it with his conscience to leave that poor woman and her husband to rot on the beach if the coachman had not survived. Somehow, he must learn if anyone had, and if not, get word to the authorities about the accident.

Tucked between two boulders, with a third below them on the slope, Charley and Letty were as safe as they could make themselves. Huddled inside Charley’s thick cloak with Letty’s smaller one over them and Jeremiah snuggled between them, they soon grew tired of watching the activity below them on the beach, and fell asleep.

When Charley awoke, it was because Letty had moved away from her and was anxiously calling Jeremiah.

“Keep your voice down,” Charley whispered. “Someone might hear you.”

“The smugglers are gone,” Letty said, “but so is Jeremiah. I’ve got to find him! What if he fell over the edge?”

“If he didn’t go over with the carriage, you may be sure he did not fall later,” Charley said, hoping she was right. “He is very agile, you know, so he has probably only gone exploring. He will be back soon. Maybe he will find some food.”

Letty giggled. “Are you hungry, too? I did not like to say anything, but I am starving. There were apples in Aunt Davina’s basket, too.” The silence that followed was awkward, but for once in her life Charley could think of nothing to say. At last, in a small voice, Letty said, “I’m awfully sorry, Cousin Charley. I-I know that most likely they are dead. At least, don’t you think they are?”

“Yes,” Charley said. The alternative—that her parents could be lying in dreadful agony at the base of the cliff, while she sat doing nothing to help them—was too horrible to contemplate.

“Well, I am sure they must be, and perhaps it is only that they are not my own parents, but should I not feel like crying, even so? Because I know I keep saying things I ought not to say—like about the apples—and … and …”

Charley reached for Letty’s hand and gave it a squeeze, saying, “I am very glad you are not weeping and wailing, darling, because that would only make matters much worse than they are.”

“Yes, but ought I not to
feel
like doing so? You are grown up, so I don’t expect you to fall into flat despair, even though they are your parents, but I don’t want to cry. I don’t feel anything at all—except cold and a little tired.”

“I think we have both had a lot to think about just to stay alive,” Charley said quietly. “Moreover, I have heard that it is not unusual to feel numb at first. It is a great shock, after all, and everything happened very fast, so perhaps our sensibilities have not quite caught up with the reality of it all.”

“I don’t seem to have much sensibility at the best of times,” Letty said thoughtfully. “Young Gideon has much more than I do. He cries if a bug gets squashed. I just think what a good thing it is to have one less bug to crawl on me.”

Charley chuckled and gave her a hug. “Young Gideon is only five.”

“Yes, I know, but I didn’t have much sensibility even then. Papa frequently says I’ve got more sense than sensibility. Mama said he had that from a book.”

“A fine book,” Charley said. “I have a copy at home. Do you like to read?”

They talked in this manner for some time, until Charley began to notice that the eastern sky was growing light. It would soon be dawn. She wondered if they would be able to reach the road. She wondered, too, if they would have to walk to Tuscombe Park, and if she could do so without first making her way down to the beach to be sure that what she knew in her heart was really so.