Pippa recounted exactly what had happened. ‘I was hoping Nat would know what to do, but he has disappeared,’ she finished.
‘I might have known. Nathaniel has led the boy astray. Ben didn’t know what he was doing. We will have to get him out somehow. You had better ask Sir Felix to intervene. The dragoons will take the captives to him; he will be the one to decide whether to send them for trial. He will help, I am sure.’
Pippa knew all that, but she was reluctant to go to him. Sir Felix Markham was the local squire and magistrate. He was twice widowed and made no secret of the fact that he had his eye on Pippa for wife number three. She did not like him. He was fat and over fifty and could not keep his hands to himself when they found themselves in the same company. Being beholden to him for a favour went against the grain. ‘I would rather wait for Nat to come home. He can do it.’
‘We dare not delay.’ Augusta was hurrying back to her own room as she spoke, followed by Pippa. ‘Once Ben has been sent to the Assizes, it will harder to get him set free. Where is Nathaniel anyway?’
‘I do not know.’
‘Was he on the beach?’
‘I did not see him.’
‘A fine kettle of fish this has turned out to be. I am beginning to wonder why I ever bothered to come here to live. You and your scapegrace brother both go your own way, whatever I say. You should have been wed by now and bringing up a family, not rushing all over the countryside like a hoyden and writing books. That is no occupation for a lady. No wonder Edward Cadogan changed his mind about marrying you.’
‘Aunt, that was six years ago and long forgotten.’ It wasn’t forgotten, not by Pippa, but the memory was too humiliating to talk about and it was better to pretend it was of no consequence.
‘Hmph,’ was her aunt’s reply to that. ‘Why did you go out anyway?’
‘I wanted to know about the smugglers for my next book. Reading about them is not the same as seeing them on a dark and windy night with danger all around.’
‘No, I do not suppose it is,’ her aunt said repressively. ‘Had you thought of what might happen if you had been arrested too?’
‘It would be an experience,’ Pippa said, more to bait her aunt than because she welcomed the idea. She realised almost at once that she was being unkind when her aunt was so anxious about her son. ‘I was well hidden.’
‘No doubt that is why you have sand in your hair and all over your clothes. Go and change. If the Customs Officers come here, they will see at once where you have been. And dress respectably. We are going to pay a call on Sir Felix. I think a demure, frightened young woman will fit the bill.’
‘Aunt, I am neither demure, nor frightened.’
‘Well, you should be. Off with you, while I dress.’ She clapped her hands to summon her maid from the adjoining room, still addressing Pippa. ‘Go and tell Mrs Sadler we will breakfast early, then tell Joe to harness the carriage. We have not a moment to lose.’
Sir Ashley Saunders was breakfasting with Sir Felix Markham. Having been alerted by his informers that a cargo of contraband was to be landed at Narbeach on the north Norfolk coast, he had jumped at the chance to leave London for a while. His latest mistress, Arabella Thornley, was becoming more and more demanding and had broken the explicit condition of their relationship and was hinting quite openly that he ought to marry her. It was the last thing he wanted. At thirty-four, he was a confirmed bachelor and intended to remain that way. His previous mistresses had understood and agreed to bide by that and it annoyed him that Arabella should think she was any different. He had once been fond of her, appreciative of what she provided, but the prospect of making her his wife filled him horror.
Norfolk was far enough from the capital to afford him some respite; as it was currently being plagued by smugglers who were openly defying authority, he had taken the opportunity to investigate their activities. Arriving in Narbeach, he had made himself known to Sir Felix, who had invited him to stay at Narbeach Manor. ‘Can’t have someone of your rank staying at the Cross Keys,’ he had said, when Ash told him he was spending a holiday in the area.
Ash did not tell his host that he belonged to the Society for the Discovery and Apprehending of Criminals, popularly known as the Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club. They had their headquarters in Piccadilly at the home of Lord Trentham, who had encouraged James, Lord Drymore, to set up the group twelve years before and it was now well established. Its principal members, besides James and Sir Ashley, were Viscount Jonathan Leinster; Harry, Lord Portman; Captain Alexander Carstairs and Sam Roker, Lord Drymore’s servant, who had been recruited in the early days because he was familiar with the cant of the criminal fraternity and could gain access to places where a gentleman would have stood out like a sore thumb. Not all of them were such masters of disguise as Harry Portman.
Each had their own area of expertise and each was required to promote law and order. They were not empowered to arrest anyone, but they would track them down and alert the watch or the parish constable or the army, who would apprehend the criminal, preferably with incriminating evidence on him. They were not paid for their services, but did it for love of their country and in a spirit of adventure, so it was important that each was of independent means. Ash had inherited a property and some money from his grandfather and had managed to increase it several-fold with judicious investment and was now prodigiously wealthy. He had joined the Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club because the ever-increasing crime in the country was something that needed addressing and membership gave him something useful to do.
Lately he had turned his attention to the smugglers who operated along almost every coast of the British Isles. Like the coiners whom Harry Portman investigated, their activities were depriving the government of thousands of pounds of revenue and threatening to destabilise the country’s finances. With the army away fighting a war there were not enough troops to deter them and they mocked the efforts of the Customs and Excise men to catch them. The war, which had been waging in Europe for seven long years, had ended the month before, but the troops had not yet been brought home and only a handful of dragoons helped patrol the coast.
Ash was not concerned with the village men who took part out of necessity. There was little labouring work to be had in the winter months and what there was did not keep a man and his family in food, let alone other things they might need, like fuel, clothes and medicines, and the smuggling barons paid them well for their services. It was these barons who were the focus of Ash’s attentions. He suspected that Sir Felix knew more than he was admitting, but it served Ash’s purpose to pretend he believed him innocent, if not exactly ignorant.
They had almost finished their leisurely breakfast when a footman appeared to say Mrs Whitehouse and Miss Kingslake had arrived and wished to see Sir Felix on an urgent matter.
‘What can they want at this hour?’ Sir Felix murmured to Ash. ‘It is hardly a civilised time to make calls.’ To the footman he said, ‘See that the ladies are made comfortable in the withdrawing room. Tell them I will join them directly.’ Then to Ash. ‘I must go and change. I cannot receive them in a dressing gown. You will wait for me here?’ He did not wait for a reply before dashing from the room.
Ash left the table and wandered about the room, idly looking at the ornaments and pictures. There was one of Sir Felix with his family grouped about him: a wife, upright and unsmiling, and three girls, which must have been executed some years before because he had been told Sir Felix was twice a widower and his daughters were all adults with families of their own.
The door behind him was flung open and he swivelled round to face a middle-aged woman dressed in widow’s weeds, who had determination written on every feature of her lean face. She was followed by a younger woman, who was endeavouring to restrain her. ‘Aunt, you should not come in here. We were asked to wait in the withdrawing room—’ She stopped suddenly when she caught sight of Ash. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon.’
She was tall, he noticed, wearing a blue