My Lord Deceived (5 page)

Jonathan moved
slowly down the bar, aware of the suspicious looks he was
receiving. He glanced back. His eyes met and held Kat’s for several
moments and he read the secrets there. He knew that she had been
discussing something private. He had heard the old man say
something was a mess, but that didn’t mean it automatically related
to smuggling.

Luckily, the
noise within the tavern had dimmed to a dull rumble now that the
singing had finished. He could at least hear what Harper was saying
to him, even if he preferred to hear what Kat was discussing
further across the room. He nodded amiably to two old sailors
stationed beside the fire and smiled when one lifted his pipe in a
mock salute.

“Is it my
imagination, or is there a strange atmosphere in here tonight?”
Harper muttered softly from behind his tankard as he took a sip of
his delicious ale.

The Shipwright
Inn made its own ale and was reputed to be the best for miles
around, Harper could see why. The amber liquid slid down his throat
like silk and he savoured the malty flavour for several minutes
while he waited for Jonathan to tear his eyes away from the
delectable bar maid.

“It is very
strange,” Jonathan sighed. He studied each of the occupants in turn
carefully. He hadn’t missed the knowing looks that passed between
practically everyone present, but was that because there were two
highly influential strangers in the pub, or because they had
something nefarious to hide?

“It is as
though they are expecting something,” he added and flicked a
cautious glance at Harper

“Us to leave
maybe?” he drawled ruefully. The atmosphere was almost expectant.
Were they waiting for Jonathan and him to leave? If so, why? What
were they going to do when they had gone? The hour was still
relatively early, but it would soon be chucking out time. Most of
the tavern’s occupants were fishermen who had to leave port at dawn
to bring in the day’s catch anyway, so Harper couldn’t see why they
would be expectant.

Jonathan and
Harper made no attempt to move and drank their ale in companionable
silence while they watched as many people as they could. At first
glance, everything was as it should be. On closer inspection, there
were many furtive glances and whispered comments.

Jonathan shared
a glance with Harper, and watched Kat walk from behind the bar to
gather up mugs and clean the tables down. She did it with swift
efficiency that was poetry in motion to watch. She shared a laugh
and a joke with the old sailors and helped one of the oldest to his
feet when he took his leave.

“Time,
gentlemen, please,” Harry cried. He laughed at the collective
groans and grumbles rumbled around the room and began to clear away
the mugs.

Kat slowly made
her way around the room. She finished cleaning the table next to
Jonathan. He waited for her to turn toward him, only to watch her
to walk straight past, her nose in the air as she made her way
toward the far end of the room where she began to ferry tankards to
the bar. There was no jocular teasing or friendly conversation for
him. Jonathan had a sneaking suspicion that she was avoiding him,
and could only wonder why.

She tried to
remain visibly relaxed and at ease with the world around her, but
it was so very difficult when he seemed to be watching her every
move. What did he want with her? It was on the tip of her tongue to
ask him if she had a mark on her shirt while she had cleared the
small table next to him. She had to bite her lip from issuing him
with a biting put down, but could feel his eyes boring into her
back as she made her way to the far corner of the busy tap in a
desperate attempt to get away from him. He had been studying her
closely since he had arrived, and it was starting to grate on her
nerves. Did he want to talk to her? He had certainly made no
attempt to approach her to engage in conversation before. There had
been plenty of opportunity to ask her questions if he wanted to
but, instead, he had sat on the fringes of the room with his friend
and had watched them all. She didn’t like it. Did he suspect
something? She wasn’t sure but she certainly wasn’t going to ask
him.

“Come on now,
our beds are calling.”

“Kat, are you
going home soon?” Jonathan asked from behind her. She jumped and
whirled toward him. She couldn’t keep the astonishment off her face
and struggled not to take the hesitant step backward at his almost
overwhelming presence. The man he was with, the local magistrate,
Mr Hamilton-Smythe moved to stand beside him. What did they want
with her?

“No, not yet.
There is work to do here,” she replied hesitantly with a slight
frown.

“I was going to
offer you a walk home,” Jonathan replied smoothly, unsure where the
surge of protectiveness came from. She undoubtedly did the same
walk every night while he was away, and didn’t have anyone watching
her back then. Still, there was something going on in the area.
Until he got to the bottom of what was going on, he felt driven to
ensure that she was safe.

“I am fine
thank you. I will be here for a while yet. Please don’t let me keep
you. Harry needs to close up for the night.”

“I will say
goodnight then,” Jonathan murmured. He was about to turn around but
paused to glance back at her. “Thanks for reading to uncle.”

Kat stared at
him. She had no idea that he knew she made thrice weekly trips to
Dentham Hall to read to his uncle, Bruce. “I don’t mind. I enjoy
it.”

“He asked me to
find out if he will see you tomorrow?”

Kat nodded
warily and flicked a glance to Mr Hamilton-Smythe, who nodded
politely as he made his way to the door.

“That’s fine, I
will see him tomorrow.”

“You have
chapter two to begin, I believe. Uncle’s biggest regret is that his
sight is so poor, he cannot read himself but I know he thoroughly
enjoys your company.”
As do I,
Jonathan sighed to
himself.

Kat nodded
sympathetically, strangely lost for words. It was an unusual
arrangement for the local bar maid to read to the elderly relation
of the lord of the parish, but theirs worked well. Jonathan’s uncle
Bruce had heard Kat reading to some children in the village one day
at the village fete. The following day, she had received a summons
to the house whereupon Bruce had explained his failing sight had
rendered him unable to focus on the printed words in his books. He
had offered her payment if she would come to the house twice a week
to read to him. Kat had delighted in the prospect of being able to
enjoy some of the books in the vast library at Dentham Hall, and
had eschewed payment just to be able to read some of the classics
she had only ever heard about. Their arrangement had been a
mutually beneficial one. They shared tea while Kat curled up and
read to Bruce, who studied the fire and listened to each chapter
with the avid interest of a young child. She had no idea that
anyone else except her mother knew of the arrangement.

“I enjoy
it.”

“Excellent. We
shall see you tomorrow at the usual time then,” Jonathan replied,
and ignored her shocked look as he swept out of the tap room.

He had every
intention of being there for the next reading, and made a mental
note to ask Kat a few carefully structured questions about the
exact nature of the goods her mother had for sale on her stall.

CHAPTER
THREE

Kat hefted the
last box of vegetables on to the back of their aged cart and stood
back to brush her hands off.

“That’s
everything then,” she muttered and glanced up at Agnes, who sat on
the bench seat with the reins in her hands.

“Wait a minute
while Billy helps me, then you can be on your way.” She shivered as
a swift breeze tugged at the loose folds of her dress and she
hurried back into the house to get out of the biting chill. Billy
stood in the middle of the sitting room. He stared down in horror
at the large mound of items on the floor as though he wasn’t sure
where it had all come from.

“Where are we
going to hide all this?” he whispered. He glanced at Kat with a
mixture of fear and consternation.

Kat knew that
he dreaded the knock on the door that announced the arrival of the
excise men just as much as she did, but today was worse than any
other day because they now had two loads of smuggled cargo, and
nowhere to put most of it.

“We can hide
the bolts of cloth, tea and sugar in the usual places,” Kat sighed
and moved to the fireplace to stamp out the fire. The temperature
within the room had only just started to go up. It was a shame to
extinguish the meagre flame but still, their freedom depended on
getting rid of the evidence as quickly as possible.

She hefted
Billy up the chimney and handed up the bolts of cloth. They managed
to secure all of the bolts up there, double the usual amount, and
turned to gather up as many of the boxes of tea and sugar as they
could carry. Once the packages were stored in their usual place,
they returned to the sitting room. The mound still looked huge.
Without the vegetable boxes in the yard, they had nowhere else to
put the goods.

“Right, let’s
empty the copper kettle. We can put the tea in there,” she sighed
and turned her gaze toward the small bucket containing a flowering
plant. She quickly emptied the contents and ordered Billy to bring
a packet of the tea. After she had carefully repositioned the soil
around the packet and knocked roots off the plant to make it go
back into the pot she stood back to assess her handiwork.

“Cor, that’s a
good idea,” Billy whispered in awe.

“I know,
Billy-boy, I am pure genius,” Kat teased him and turned to study
the room carefully. “Now move, and hurry up because mother is
waiting.”

Together they
broke up the rest of the contents, placing packets of sugar in
boots, under the dresser and under the feed bucket of Molly’s
stable outside. Unfortunately, the mound that sat in the middle of
the sitting room floor didn’t seem to have gone down much at
all.

She sighed and
glanced at the pile of tea boxes, brandy barrels and sugar sacks
and shook her head. She had no idea what they were going to do
now.

“Heads up!”

“Oh God, no!”
Kat cried and shared a look of fear with Billy. Her heart began to
race and she fought the rising well of panic that threatened to
overwhelm her. She moved to the door and beckoned Agnes, who had
heard the cry and was already on her way back to the house. Kat
studied the garden for several moments but immediately dismissed
the possibility of digging holes big enough to hide the goods. She
was about to turn back toward the house when she caught sight of
something at the far side of Molly’s stable.

“Billy,” Kat
snapped and turned to her brother with a smirk. “It’s time to get
inventive.”

She ignored
Billy’s questions, stalked inside the house and gathered up several
large packets which she shoved at her mother before she doled out
the same amount to Billy. She scooped up the rest herself and led
them all outside. With a sniff, she ignored their gasps and began
to dig.

Kat had just
finished covering the goods over when there was a loud knock on the
front door.

“Quickly, go!”
Kat snapped to her mother and shoved her and Billy toward the cart.
If the cart was searched, the goods would be found and the last few
fraught moments would all be for nothing. She waited only until
Agnes and Billy had disappeared out of the end of the alley at the
back of the house, and hurried inside to answer the persistent
thumping on the front door.

She yanked the
door open with a scowl and met the snide gaze of Harrison and his
small group of men. She didn’t bother to speak to them, merely left
the door open and stalked back outside.

“Took you long
enough,” Harrison drawled having followed her through the
house.

“I am busy,”
Kat snapped. She picked up the rake and dragged piles of manure out
of the stable. She made no apology for the fact that her skirts
were liberally covered with horse manure, and stood back with a
glare when the excise man began to search the yard carefully. She
flicked Harrison a pious glance when he sniffed at her, wrinkled
his nose up and sidled past as though he was afraid of catching
something. Having made a mental note to cover herself in horse poo
the next time that the excise men called, she continued to clear
out Molly’s stall. She knew that unless the excise men grew more
inventive with their searches, there was little possibility of
anything illegal being found in Kat’s back yard.

“Are your
mother and brother not here?” Harrison drawled from several feet
away.

Kat scowled at
him. “Its market day,” she snapped. She could see no reason to
inform Harrison that they had only just left; several hours later
than they should have done. She could only hope that Agnes would be
in time to meet all of her purchasers. They couldn’t run the risk
of anything being brought back. When she heard heavy thumping
inside the house, Kat sighed, dropped her rake and hurried into the
kitchen. She placed her hands on her hips and watched the excise
men stomp randomly on the floor.

“I take it that
you haven’t seen or heard anything unusual around here lately today
either?” Harrison sighed. He too watched his men stomp their way
around the sitting room as they checked for hidden compartments
beneath the floor. He knew that they wouldn’t find anything, but
could see no reason to call them off, especially when he needed to
question the pretty young lady.

“Besides you,
you mean?” Kat snorted disparagingly and turned her back. She
didn’t want to stand and watch them desecrate the house, and
appeared almost unconcerned as she went back outside and began to
shovel Molly’s stall until it was empty. The loud thump of the
front door gave her the all clear, and she raced into the house in
time to hear heavy thumping on Mr Peat’s door.