Page 75 of My Secret Duke
Ivo cleared his throat. “Yes, well… I have been a smuggler since I was a boy, and my father introduced me to Free Trading. We Fitzsimmonses have all been smugglers, back as far as we know. We have never had any trouble until Polgarth, the captain who brought my contraband in from France, was stopped off the coast by a revenue cutter and arrested. He had been informed on. The same happened to others along the coast. The only captain who wasn’t arrested was a Frenchman called Mystere.” He wiped his palms on his breeches.
“After Polgarth’s cargo was impounded, Charles was in desperate need of supplies for the club—and not just Charles, I have other customers—so I decided to risk using Mystere. As far as we knew, everything went well. Mystere delivered the goods to my men, and they werepassed on to my customers. No one complained. But then Harrison was everywhere, and he was focusing his attention on me. He searched my house, harassed my men in Portside, even offering protection to anyone who gave evidence that could lead to a conviction. And now this.”
He shivered, remembering that cramped room.
Gabriel and Arnott had exchanged glances during his recital. “Your thinking is sound,” Gabriel said. “But my question is, why is this Mystere so eager to have you arrested and charged?”
“We think Mystere is Jacob Rendall, and he hates me because of something I did to him. He wants to revenge himself on me, and this is his way of doing it.”
He wondered how he could have been so thoughtless as to insult the boy. His hurt and anger must have festered over the years, and this was the result. Yes, at the time Ivo had been young and his father had just died, but all the same, he felt he should have done better. It was as if all those instances of reckless behavior had come home to roost.
“Do you think Rendall will stop now? Keep silent to save his own skin?” Gabriel asked. “Charles is worried about the club, and if he’s worried, then so am I.”
Ivo imagined Charleswouldbe worried. With the club in their joint hands, the last thing Charles needed was his partner charged with smuggling. The gaming club’s customers would shy away, and the previous owner, Longley, would stir things up into a storm. Charles would lose money he could ill afford to lose. And Ivo would lose his freedom.
He wasn’t sure he could survive prison and whatever came after—transportation to the colonies, or hanging, or simply languishing in a cell for years and years. Hehad always taken his privileged life for granted, and to have it taken away from him… No, he wasn’t sure he would survive it.
The coach stopped, and Ivo looked up. They had reached his town house, and the windows were alight, unusual for the late hour—his mother was always early to bed. With a sinking heart, he knew his interrogation was not over just yet; he had to face his family. The front door opened, and Carlyon the butler stood there holding a lantern.
“My mother,” Ivo began, a lump in his throat. Until now, the consequences of his arrest had not fully come to him.
Gabriel said sympathetically, “Your mother is understandably upset. You will need to set her mind at rest. Your sisters too. We will talk when we have both rested.”
Ivo wanted to mention Olivia again. He had told her he loved her and had dared her to marry him! And he could have sworn she was going to accept. Well, Gabriel was unlikely to consent to a union between his sister and a felon. It was debatable whether he would consent to her marrying a smuggler either, although Gabriel was no hypocrite. But how could he take Ivo seriously after everything that had happened?
Ivo stepped down to the cobbled street. “Thank you again,” he said sincerely. “I am in your debt.”
“You are,” Gabriel agreed cheerfully, and then the coach rolled off.
Ivo looked up at the moon and felt very alone. He could not remember ever feeling quite so alone. He wished, as he hadn’t in years, that his father was by his side, to bluff his way through the coming interrogation. His father had always been a good liar. But then Ivo reminded himself that he was a better man than his father. With adeep breath, he started toward the house.
“Sir, your mother—” Carlyon began in a quavering voice, but he didn’t finish.
“Is that my son? Ivo, is that you? Oh, thank God, I feared…” Ivo’s mother was already coming down the stairs toward them. In the light of the lantern, he could see that her face was flushed and swollen from weeping as she stretched out her hands.
He hurried forward to take them, and then wrapped his arms about her as she clung to him.
“Ivo, oh Ivo, I was so worried! Tell me it is all some dreadful mistake!”
“It was a mistake, Mother, and see? Here I am, safe and sound.” Over her head he could see his sisters had joined them, both looking apprehensive. “There’s no need to worry. I am quite all right.”
He led his mother into the sitting room, where there was a fire. As they sat on the sofa, her hands in his, it took some time to convince her that he really was fine. Every time he thought she was over the worst of her terrors, she would start up again. “Your father,” she said. “He was…” Her eyes slid to his, and he was shocked at the misery in their depths. “He was mixed up in some dangerous business, but… I had hoped for better for you, Ivo. I know you idolized him, but when I pleaded with him not to lead you astray, he laughed.”
It occurred to Ivo that they were having a truthful conversation. He had often wondered if his mother had so successfully erased the truth regarding her husbandfrom her mind that she could no longer admit to it. But it seemed the truth had always been there, just well hidden, and the shock of Ivo’s arrest had brought it out of hiding.
Eventually, he and his sisters persuaded their mother to retire with a dose of laudanum, and Lexy went with her. Ivo was left sitting, staring at nothing and feeling shattered. It wasn’t until Adelina spoke that he remembered she was still there.
“You are, aren’t you?” she said in a wavering voice that strove to be firm. “Involved in smuggling? Just like father and his father before him? Ivo, how could you!”
He wasn’t sure how to answer her. “How could you” seemed to suggest it was something he had chosen, and he wasn’t sure it was that simple.
“It was handed down to me by our father,” he said. “Like my fair hair and green eyes. It justwas, and it never even occurred to me to say no. When he died, it felt like a link that still bound me to him, and I wanted to make him proud by carrying on the family business.”
And I enjoyed it. It was an escape from the tedium of running an estate drowning in debt.
Adelina heaved a sigh. “I know Mother can be frustrating, but it’s the only way she can cope with the past, with our father. She pretends he was some dashing Sir Galahad who could do no wrong. Lexy and I go along with her because it’s easiest, but we know that wasn’t true. I remember very well the tears that were shed whenever she discovered he had a new mistress. I know I should have guessed about the smuggling, but perhaps I am a little like Mother and have my head buried in the sand.”
For a time, they were silent. Earlier, Carlyon had served them coffee, and there was a decanter of spirits onthe table. Ivo poured himself a glass and, with a glance at Adelina, poured her one too.
