The Pursuit of Pleasure (29 page)

The walk across the west lawn and through the shrubbery to the stables did her good. She felt purposeful and independent. She would get over him. She would be herself again. Every day, with every accomplishment, with each decision, she would recover more and more.

All was quiet and serene as she walked across the yard and into the stable. The pungent odor of horse, hay, and leather rose around her like a balm. She’d always loved that smell.

“Maguire?”

“Yes, miss?” Maguire appeared from one of the box stalls she had just passed. He was as silent as water. She’d have to remember that.

“I wanted to see how you were faring.”

“Well enough, thank you.” He called over his shoulder, “Here now, boy. This is my grandnephew, my sister’s daughter’s boy, Jims. Jims, make your respects to your lady.”

The boy tugged his cap and said what was right.

“Pleased to meet you, Jims. You’ve settled in then? I rather felt I had neglected you.”

“Not to worry, missus.”

“Good. And what do you think of the place so far?”

“It’s a fair setup, miss. I can see why someone would want this for their ken.”

“Yes, it is everything a smuggler could want, especially when it was empty. But do you think, once the house is properly filled, that they’ll give it up?”

“Don’t know. It might be too sweet to give up.”

“Hmm. And what about the staff here? I’m not sure what to make of them or if I can trust them.”

“Can’t rightly say, yet. But they’re up to something. Especially that lank-sleeved fellow. I can practically smell it.”

“Mr. Tupper. I fear you’re right. They certainly know more about my husband than they’re letting on. But if I simply let them go, I may never find out. They are my one connection to him.”

Maguire nodded, but said no more.

“Well, why don’t you come down to the house now? I’d like to introduce you to the rest of the staff. And you can tell me what you think.”

“Right then, missus. Let’s have a look.”

Mr. and Mrs. Tupper were waiting in the kitchens, entirely Friday-faced. Tupper started right in, without waiting for the introduction.

“Ma’am, Captain Marlowe did not give leave for the hiring of any extra staff. In fact, he gave specific orders that the house was to be closed up and be opened only to work on repairs.”

“Yes, he may have done. But as he has chosen to absent himself from his responsibilities here for whatever reason, his words no longer have any sway.” Lizzie waited a moment for the words to settle in. “I’m here now, and I think it might be too much for just the two of you and those unreliable groundsmen, so I’ve got Maguire here, and his nephew Jims, along to take care of the stables. And speaking of the groundsmen, where is that big blond boy, McAlden? Does he never do a lick of work?”

“Ma’am, he’s out in the dory this morning, checking the pots. I’ve asked him to do that for your supper.” He gave her that little nod of his chin, in confirmation. Which meant he was lying.

“Out sailing. How fitting. Well then, what about the other one, the one who’s groundsman proper? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him.” She looked down at the leeks stacked up on the table. “Well, at least he seems to know his business gardening. Unless you’re the one keeping us in turnips, Mrs. Tupper?”

“No, ma’am.” Mrs. Tupper kept her eyes downcast as she fiddled with her keys. Another liar. Oh, they were really going to have to get much, much better at this if they had any hope of succeeding. It was almost insulting, how gullible they must think her.

“And the stables are just a start. Now the whole householdis up to six, plus me. That will be too many mouths for Mrs. Tupper to feed by herself as well as see to her other duties, so I’ll be interviewing with an agency of employment in town about a cook and a kitchen maid. And possibly a footman, to actually be around. Perhaps you’d like to suggest someone else from the Navy, Mr. Tupper? No? Perhaps not. These Navy lads do have a regrettable tendency to be off in boats and whatnot, and I should like some indoor staff I can count on to be present, on the off chance we have another rash of housebreaking.” She gave the Tuppers her sunniest stare. “Any questions? Protestations on behalf of the Captain? Good. Mr. Maguire will be accompanying me to Dartmouth. I expect to be back for tea, and I shall want dinner for eight o’clock.”

Lizzie pulled on her riding gloves and moved towards the door. “Though I will have to see about purchasing a dining table straightaway so I might have somewhere to eat.”

The trip through the principal mercantile establishments of Dartmouth town was productive, if not amusing. While the shopkeepers, warehousers, and employment agents were happy to engage her trade, her fellow shoppers were not.

She was being cut. Everywhere she went, with Maguire a silent shadow behind, Dartmouth’s residents pulled in their skirts and turned their backs. Remarkable how the taint of the gaol lasted. She may have escaped the prison and the charges against her, but people had their own ways of enacting a kind of bitter justice.

It stung. But it could not turn her from her purpose. She would see Glass House transformed. And she would do it her own way.

Early the next morning, Lizzie headed through the east vestibule with her fowling piece. Mrs. Tupper would be engaged throughout the morning with all the deliveries she had arranged and in greeting the new staff scheduled to arrive.

Maguire was meant to poke about in his useful, cunning way down towards Stoke Fleming to see what he could find. The Naval crew, as Lizzie has taken to thinking of the men, were most likely off on their own secret agenda. Maguire was meant to be keeping loose tabs on them as well.

Which left her alone. Despite her current state of bravado, Lizzie was still not confident enough to venture forth by herself. Or unarmed.

Pistols were probably the most ladylike, as they could be concealed in one’s pockets, but she was comfortable and well used to the fowling piece. She’d been firing it successfully since the day more than ten years ago when she had absconded with it from her father’s gunroom.

“Ma’am.” Mr. Tupper appeared in the doorway, tugging at his hat.

“Ah, Mr. Tupper. Are you engaged at present? I wondered if we might speak later this morning about the vacant tenant farm over towards Swannaton? I think we might want to consider a dairy. The grazing up along Jawbone Hill is very good, but I have an imperfect understanding of the buildings there. I’m going out shooting now, but I should like to ride over there this afternoon.”

“Perhaps you might put that off until tomorrow, ma’am.”

“Why might I want to do that, Mr. Tupper?”

Lizzie waited, but when an explanation was not offered, she felt her temper and patience snap.

“And am I really to expect no explanation, no elaboration on your plans? Mr. Tupper, perhaps, given the nature of your employment by Captain Marlowe, God rot his soul,” she muttered as an aside before continuing, “you are not aware that as steward, your employment rests solely on my pleasure. Your job is to accommodate me and the business of this estate. And while I should like to honor your employment agreement with Captain Marlowe, as both you, and Mrs. Tupper especially, have been very good to me, and have served me faithfully inan extremely trying time, I do not feel bound to do so. And until such time as Captain Marlowe decides to walk back through that door and see to this estate, the task will fall to me, and I shall run this estate as I see fit.”

Mr. Tupper worked his jaw, but after a long moment, he nodded grimly.

“Thank you. I value your advice and assistance, Mr. Tupper, but I should value it more if I knew you were always telling me the truth.”

He couldn’t even meet her eyes. She took up the gun to move off.

“I don’t like the idea of your going shooting alone, ma’am, if I may be so bold. It isn’t safe. If you want birds for your table, you can safely leave the shooting to me.”

“I daresay I could. And I will concede you are a fine shot for a one-armed man. Indeed, you could bring down more birds with a pistol than any ten men with shotguns, but I do think the birds deserve a sporting chance. And besides, I like to shoot. I find I rather want to keep my hand in. One never knows when gun skills might come in handy.”

But she really didn’t want to kill birds. She really just wanted to be able to walk out of doors, in the fresh, clean air, and think. And she needed the gun to feel safe doing so.

Lord, but it was a hard thing, feeling afraid. And not knowing exactly what, or whom, to be afraid of.

There were so many choices, so many unanswered questions. Why was Jamie not dead? Why were naval men, or former naval men, who may or may not be working for the smugglers, working as staff in her house, and why were free traders breaking into her house in the middle of the night, armed with pistols? But she
didn’t
know who the smugglers were, apart from Dan Pike and Sir Ralston, and she
did
know who was Navy, or had been. Mr. and Mrs. Tupper. Hugh McAlden. Francis Palmer. And Jamie. Wherever he was.

Lieutenant McAlden, Lord deHavilland had called him. There must be some way to find out if McAlden was still considered an officer of His Majesty’s Navy, or if he was just forging documents willy-nilly and turning smuggler. Perhaps Maguire knew a way. He would at the very least know someone who would know someone else, who would know. Much like Lord deHavilland.

There was another cunning fellow. How much else did
he
really know? He had been very canny about his contact and knowledge of the Admiralty. And as far as she knew, she had never paid his fee through the solicitor, Benchley. If she hadn’t, who
had
paid his honorarium? That was another avenue she would need to pursue. So bloody much to do.

Lizzie leaned her elbows on the low stone wall edging the cliff path. Bother. She hadn’t even gotten around to the part where she hated Jamie and would never forgive him. After she found him, of course.

She threw a loose rock out over the cliff towards the sea, but she was still so weak, it didn’t go very far. Bloody bother.

It fell into the underbrush at the base of the cliff. As she looked down, her eyes picked out a slight pattern. There, below to the right. A ribbon of sandy brown. Not a ribbon—a path. A path straight into the cliff side.

Lizzie was enough of a child of the south coast to know exactly what that meant. Hadn’t she and Jamie explored countless limestone caves along the river cliffs as children? Everybody knew the seacoast was riddled with them, too. And everybody wanted to use this house and these cliffs and the private, protected, secluded waters at Redlap cove.

She scrambled down the path and around onto the beach of the cove. The cliff grew in height as it jutted out into the water, away from the sandy beach. It took her some little while to get her bearings and pick it out. Farther right, behind one of the large shed-sized boulders. The path, a thin sandy trail through the scrubby underbrush, led to the small round entrance to a cave.

She had to duck down on all fours to get through the entrance. Lizzie was glad for her leather gloves and boots as she crawled her way in, only so far as was still illuminated by the sunlight from the opening. She went slowly, letting her eyes adjust to the diminishing light. About eight to ten feet into the hillside the tunnel opened up to a larger earthen room, a cavern with a higher ceiling—she could stand up. The cavern was empty, but there were marks in the sand. Footprints and wheel marks from a narrow-axle handcart, leading ahead to the left, following the line of the cliff face around a dark corner.

What an astonishing discovery.

Odds were the cave, or more likely the series of caves, were connected to the house. There was another dark passageway at the back corner, leading straight back, north under the land. There were holes halfway up the walls surrounded by large dark, greasy patches of soot. Places for torches. And here and there, between the torch holes, were empty hooks, for hanging lanterns. This cave had been used for a very long time. This cave was where her answers would lie.

It all made perfect sense. She should have known, or at least suspected. Stories of caves and smugglers’ haunts were the stock-in-trade of the Devon coast. Every child from Dartmouth to St. Ives had grown up on such tales.

But who else knew about this cave? The smugglers, certainly. Dan Pike could have used the caves to gain access to the house if they were connected. That could have been why the doors had still been locked when she’d shot him.

But she wasn’t in the least bit equipped to follow his trail, whichever way that might be, through the passageways. She needed to get the proper equipment for an exploration. A lantern and replacement candles, a long spool of heavy twine to mark her way, and a compass to keep track of her direction and distance.

It was just like the old days, when she and Jamie had explored the caves along the river cliffs when they were children. Except this time she was working against Jamie and all of his lies.

Lizzie inched herself back out of the passage and out onto the beach. The tide was fairly low, about three quarters ebb. How deep was the water in the cove at high tide? How large a ship could come in, and how close to the cliff could it come? And how tall a ship could be concealed by the cliffs and trees above?

She’d have to come back later, possibly tomorrow, since she had already engaged herself for the afternoon with Mr. Tupper. She could hardly disappoint him and change her mind. Not after that haughty dressing-down she’d delivered. He might just remember he was a bosun and toss her out on her ear with his one brawny arm.

She took the path east off the beach. It would give her a longer walk back to the house and more time to think. Did the old-timers, like Maguire, know about this cave? Most likely. And she should certainly get his help. She really oughtn’t go exploring the cave on her own.

Strange. After her recent stint in Dartmouth Gaol, one would think she would have had a reaction to the closed confined spaces of the cave and tunnels. The thought brought her up short. She always said it, didn’t she—she couldn’t abide a closed space. And yet she had just crawled in and out of a confined tunnel and into a cave without the least bit of trepidation. The whole time, the thought, the feeling of overwhelming panic, had never occurred to her.