Page 42 of The Smuggler & the Society Bride

With a growl, Kessel dropped Eva’s hand and strode toward Honoria. She was backing away, ready to tell Eva to make a run for it as she desperately scanned the area for something she might use as a weapon, when the first shot rang out.

Chapter Nineteen

Overwhelmingly anxious to be back in Cornwall after foul weather and breakdowns of the coaches delayed his arrival by nearly five days, Gabe rode the horse he’d hired in Penzance back into Sennlack. Before taking the lathered beast to a well-deserved rest at the Gull’s Roost stables, however, he’d ride by the harbour and check on the Flying Gull. With the unanticipated delay in his return, and the details of their next run to France already nearly complete when he’d departed almost two weeks ago, he knew he’d probably be taking her to sea immediately.

Though before he left, he would somehow carve out the time to visit a certain lady. He had a tale to relate he knew she’d find interesting, though until he tracked down the Gypsy—a task that, maddeningly, he would have to leave until after this next voyage—he wouldn’t be able to offer her the full story.

How would she react when she realized he knew the truth, all of the truth?

How would he, facing her again now that he knew it?

He’d ruminated over their next meeting for most of the long, boring, frustrating journey from London. He was no closer now to deciding how to handle the situation than he’d been in the shocked few moments after first discovering her identity.

Pulling up before a vista of the harbour, chopping waves under a sky of scudding grey clouds, Gabe mulled it over yet again.

Should he maintain a polite, respectful distance, as befitted a lowly younger son addressing the daughter of an earl? Sweep her into a passionate embrace as demanded by a man who’d been invited to her touch, revelled in her taste, had her voice and scent and essence too deeply imbedded into his soul to let her go?

Once she knew he knew, would she return that embrace or slap his face for effrontery?

Gabe was frowning over the possibilities when it dawned upon his distracted senses that the Gull was not at her customary anchorage. Shaking his head free of the distracting Miss Foxe—no, Lady Honoria—he leaned forward and peered through a patch of drizzle, but that space remained empty.

The Flying Gull wasn’t in the harbour.

Fury raged through him as he wheeled his mount and guided it in the direction of the inn. Who had dared take his ship to sea without him in command? Given his unexpected delay in returning, the answer that bubbled to the top of his consciousness added to his rage—and a sense of betrayal.

That foreboding was only enhanced when he leapt from the saddle at the Gull and no stable boy appeared to take the reins. His ire burned hotter when he stalked into the stable to find it, too, deserted.

That state of affairs not being the poor nag’s fault, he delayed long enough to remove the saddle and give the animal a quick brush-down before continuing into the inn.

Which, as he’d feared, was also deserted.

Though there were normally few customers during the middle of the day, there could be only one reason for the establishment to be totally empty. Pacing behind the building to a narrow platform that overlooked the cove, he found Old Jory sitting in his accustomed corner, smoking his pipe as he gazed with mostly sightless eyes out to sea.

‘Where are they landing it?’ he demanded, too incensed for an exchange of civilities.

‘Flatland about four miles south of town,’ the old sailor replied. ‘There’s a tunnel cut from the cove to an old stone hut. You’ll see the craggy tor that marks it on the moors as you ride in.’

From the location and description, it sounded like Eva’s cave and tunnel, Gabe thought with a jolt of unease.

After a quick thanks, Gabe hurried to the stable, glad there was at least one fresh horse left.

Some half hour later, he was approaching the summit of a rise, the craggy tor in the distance, when he heard a sharp, popping sound that, after years as a soldier, he recognized as musket fire, as surely as he knew the whine of the wind in the Gull’s rigging when it was time to come about.

Spurring the job horse to greater speed, Gabe topped the hill and reined in to reconnoitre the scene below. Only a green recruit rode hell-bent into battle without first taking the measure of the ground.

His resolve to honour that timeless wisdom shattered, however, when he saw in the distance a slender figure in a deep blue riding habit, crouched behind the small stone hut which was indeed the structure concealing the opening to Eva’s secret tunnel. In the shock of that instant, he also recognized the fleeing horse as Aunt Foxe’s mare. And beside Miss Foxe cowered a child who could only be Eva Steavens.

In face of the danger threatening her, whether she ultimately received him with passion or disdain mattered no more than the adage of analyzing the field. Kicking his horse into motion, Gabe descended the slope at a full gallop.

Pushing his mount to cover the ground as quickly as possible, Gabe wished he was on his old cavalry saddle, a pair of pistols primed and ready in their holsters and his sword in hand. As it was, he carried only a small pistol that gave him a single shot.

After reviewing his weapons, he noted that there appeared to be only four or five revenue agents firing at the men driving the loaded farm wagons. They must not have received word of the landing in enough time to summon the troop of infantry garrisoned nearby to assist them.

He also thought he could make out, leading the group, the zealous young revenue officer he’d pulled half-drowned out of Sennlack Cove. Perhaps the revenuer was so keen to be avenged for his previous dunking—and failure to seize that particular cargo—he had chosen not to wait on reinforcements.

It required no reflection at all to determine who would be foolish, and arrogant, enough after that first near-disaster to call for another daylight landing.

Hadn’t he warned Dickin about his brother’s recklessness? And how could his friend have allowed John to order the Gull to sea—his ship, his crew—in his absence?

Now that he was closer, Gabe could hear the shouting of the free-traders, those nearest the structure running their tubs into the stone hut and doubtless back into the tunnel. Once there, they could close and bar the exit door behind them, making it nearly impossible for the revenuers to break through and trail them back to the beach.

The customs agents must have realized that, too, for they concentrated their fire on the men engaged in loading goods onto the carts. Those individuals had taken cover behind their wagons, some frantically pulling out an assortment of blunderbusses, muskets and pistols to return fire, while others wielded picks, clubs and shovels, ready to defend their cargo.

Gabe noted approvingly as he approached that in the mêlée, Miss Foxe had grabbed Eva and dragged her away from the hut, sheltering with her behind a nearby outcrop of rocks. If he could work his way behind the hut with the revenuers still concentrating their efforts on the cargo wagons, he might be able to lead them back along the cliff edge to a position where he could safely mount them on his horse and send them out of danger.

Then he could return and confront the Kessel brothers.

He glanced back toward the wagons. At the moment, the struggle between the revenue agents and the free-traders seemed a stalemate, the King’s officers possessing more firepower, but the free-traders having superior numbers and better cover.

As Gabe returned his attention to the stone hut, John Kessel himself stepped out the doorway and peered around the structure to gage the progress of the struggle over the cargo. Spotting him, the revenue officer Gabe had saved wheeled his horse and headed for the hut at a gallop, levelling a pistol as he approached.

Less than a hundred feet more, Gabe thought, pressing his skittish mount, who was not at all happy about heading toward, rather than away from, the firing. Then to his horror, as he watched helpless to do more than utter a furious curse, before he could reach the woman and child, Kessel sprinted to the rock and grabbed Eva. Pulling the child in front of him, he forced her back toward the stone hut, using her as a shield between him and the revenuer’s pistol.

‘You’ve only one shot, whoreson,’ he shouted at the man. ‘Take it and you hit the brat.’

The revenuer pulled up his horse, irresolute, his pistol still levelled at Kessel. Though the child struggled, Kessel held her easily, keeping her thrust before him. ‘I suggest you ride away before my men turn on you.’

At that moment, Laurie Steavens, a livid bruise on her cheek, emerged from the hut. ‘Let her be!’ she screamed, running toward her sister.

While the revenue agent looked about wildly, unwilling to fire upon the child or the girl, Gabe leapt from his horse and raced over. After jerking Eva away from the distracted Kessel and shoving her toward her sister, he tackled the smuggler, knocking him to the ground.

‘Take her and run!’ Gabe shouted at Laurie as he untangled himself from Kessel. While the girl scrambled away, her sister in tow, still on his knees, Gabe looked up at the revenuer. ‘Let the females go. You’ve no quarrel with them.’

At the far side of the stone hut, numbers were winning out over firearms. As the revenuers ran out of ammunition, small groups of free-traders advanced, wielding clubs and sticks. They circled behind the revenue agents and then laid into them. One agent had been cornered against a wagon and was being beaten about the head and shoulders by two of the smugglers.

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