Stephanie Laurens - A Lady of His Own

“Where did he run it to?” Charles asked.

The old man nodded encouragingly. “Aye, you’ve twigged it. I caught a glimpse of it a time or two, well out and headed for the Isles. Not many hereabouts would risk it in such a small craft, but those Smollets, they was born to the waves. No fear in ’em at all. And I do know your pa”—he nodded at Penny—“kept in touch. He was there when they buried Smollet the elder some fifteen years ago. Not many others at the graveside, but I’d gone to remember a good sailor.”

“Did you ever see my brother with the Smollets?” Penny asked.

The man’s nod was portentious. “Aye. Gimby was a year or so older than Master Granville—it was he taught your brother to sail. Gimby was as close to your brother, mayhap even closer, than his pa had been to your pa—well, they more or less grew up together on and about the water. Howsoever, not many others would know. My cottage is on the water’s edge, just around on the estuary, so I see the Smollets more than most. Otherwise, they was always next to hermits. Don’t know as many of the younger ones”—with his head he indicated the tavern and presumably the Gallants inside—“would even know they existed.”

Penny realized she’d been holding her breath; she exhaled. “Thank you.”

“Here.” Charles handed over two sovereigns. “You and your friend have a few drinks on the Prince Regent.”

The old man looked down at the coins, then cackled. “Aye—better us than him, from all I hear.”

He raised a hand in salute. “Hope ye find what you’re looking for.” With that, he turned and shuffled back into the tavern.

Penny stared after him.

Charles caught her hand and pulled her away. “Come on.”

The marshy stretch by the river mouth lay just off their route home.

“No!” Charles said. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Tomorrow, when she was safely stowed at Wallingham. “No. We should go there tonight.”

From the corner of her eye, Penny glimpsed the opening of the track to the river mouth coming up on their right. She didn’t look that way, but kept her gaze on Charles’s face.

He was frowning at her. “It’s nearly midnight—hardly a useful hour to go knocking on some poor fisherman’s door.”

Riding on her right, he and his mount were between her mare and the track. She had to time her move carefully. “If he’s a fisherman, it’s the perfect time to call—he’ll almost certainly be in, which is more than you can say during the day.”

Exasperated, Charles looked ahead. “Penny—”

He whipped his head around as she checked the mare, swore as she cut across Domino’s heels and plunged down the narrow track. It took him a moment to wheel the big gray. By the time he thundered onto the track she was a decent distance ahead.

Too far for him to easily overhaul her, too dangerous as well.

He knew the track; it remained narrow for all its length, wending this way and that as it tacked between trees and the occasional thick bush. It led to the river mouth, then an even narrower spur angled north, following the river bank. The Smollet cottage had to be along there. He could vaguely remember a rough stone cottage, rather grim, glimpsed from the river through the trees.

Muttering resigned curses, he urged Domino forward, closing the gap, then settled to follow in Penny’s wake. She glanced back; realizing he wasn’t pressing to overtake her, she eased the mare to a safer pace.

Ahead, through a screen of trees, the river glimmered. Penny slowed even more as the track became steeper. It ended in a small clearing above the river; beyond lay lowlying, reed-infested marsh.

Penny swung left onto the even narrower path that followed the bank upriver. Lined on the landward side by a stand of thick trees, it was reasonably well surfaced but barely wide enough for a cart. She cantered along through the shadows, searching for a clearing.

She was almost past the cottage before she realized. Alerted by a glimmer of moonlight on stone, she abruptly drew rein, wrestling the mare to a halt, peering through the trees at a single-roomed cottage—more a hovel—gray and unwelcoming; any paint that might once have brightened the door and shutters had flaked away long ago.

Not a flicker of light shone through the shuttered windows, but it was after midnight.

Charles, coming up hard on the mare’s heels, swore, rearing and wheeling his big gray.

She glanced at him; for an instant, in the silvery moonlight with his curling black hair, he appeared a black pirate on a moon-kissed steed, performing a dramatic maneuver that should have demanded his full attention—yet his attention was fixed on the cottage.

His horse’s front hooves touched ground; Charles urged him under the trees screening the front of the cottage. She turned her mare and followed.

Charles halted under the trees between Penny and the cottage. His senses, honed by years of danger, had tensed, condensed; something was wrong.

He took a moment to work out what. Even at night, even if there was no human about, there were always insects, small animals, always a faint, discernible hum of life. He couldn’t detect any such hum in or around the cottage. Even the insects had deserted it.

He’d seen death too often not to recognize its pall.

He dismounted. “Stay here with the horses.” He tossed his reins to Penny, briefly met her eyes. “ Don’t follow me. Wait until I call.”

He turned to the cottage, went forward silently even though he felt sure there was no one there. The door was ajar; his sense of foreboding increased.

Glancing back, he saw Penny, dismounted, tying the reins of both horses to a tree. Looking back at the cottage, he put out a hand, pushed the door wide, simultaneously stepping to the side. The door swung inward, almost fully open before it banged on something wooden.

No other sound came from within.

Charles glanced inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness, then he saw a form slumped unmoving on the floor.

He swore, scanned with his senses one last time, but there was no one else there, then stepped to the doorway. The smell told him what lay in the cottage wasn’t going to be a pretty sight. He sensed Penny drawing nearer. “Don’t come any closer—you don’t need to see this.”

“What?” Then, more weakly, “Is he dead ?”

No point pretending. “Yes.”

He saw tinder and a candle on a rough wooden table. Hauling in a breath, he held it, then stepped over the threshold. The wick caught, flared; he shielded the flame until it was steady, then he lifted the candle and looked.

His senses hadn’t lied.

He heard Penny’s sharp, shocked gasp, heard her quit the doorway, slumping back against the cottage wall. His gaze locked on the body strewn like a broken puppet on the rough plank floor, he moved closer, holding the candle up so he could better see.

After a moment, he hunkered down, through narrowed eyes studied the young man’s face.

“What happened?”

He glanced at the doorway, saw Penny clutching the jamb, looking in.

“Is it Gimby?” she asked.

He looked again at the face. “I assume so—from what the old man told us, he’s the right age and build.”

Putting out a hand, he unfurled one of the youth’s slack, crumpled hands, and found the calluses and ridges marking him as one who earned his living from the sea. “Yes,” he said. “It’s Gimby Smollet.”

Again his gaze went to the youth’s face, noting the ugly weals and bruises. He recognized the pattern, could predict where on the youth’s body other brusies would be found—over his kidneys, covering his lower ribs, most of which would be broken. His hands and fingers had been methodically smashed, repeatedly, over some time, hours at least.