Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women. Kasey Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ moved carefully through chill standing water, he said, “Why the Black Ghost?”

      And at last Courtland smiled, ruefully, obviously at his own expense. “Idiocy. A touch of madness. It was stupid of me, Chance, I know that. But there’s nobody to make the connection, trace it back to Ainsley. We’ve been safe here for thirteen long years. Safe and bored.”

      Chance looked toward the horizon, which was a good distance away on this flat, treeless land. “We’ll soon remedy that, brother,” he said, pointing toward the long, winding trail of lit torches moving inland. He pulled the thin black scarf Billy had left on the bed for him up and over his nose, just as Court did, just as they all did.

      “Yes. Everyone’s seen them and knows what to do. The majority are land movers and will drop their loads and run when they see us, but their guards will fight. We’ll get some revenge on the Red Men Gang tonight,” Courtland told him. “And with any luck, we’ll get back most of the haul, too.”

      Chance turned in his saddle to see that the riders were fanning out now, making the party into one long line of darker shadows in the mist. Saddle horses, dray horses, horses more used to pulling a plow. Old men, young men. Boys. All fighting for their own. He felt his own heartbeat increase as the itch to be moving, riding headfirst into the danger, came up to greet him like an old friend, long forgotten but definitely welcome.

      There was always the planning, the hunt. But land or sea, nothing surpassed a good fight.

      Romney Marsh might physically be a part of England, but those who lived there believed mostly in Romney Marsh, just as the family and crews had believed in the island. Their land, their lives, their fight, and the devil with anyone who got in their way.

      Tales of this night’s work would reach London and not be well received. England was already at war with France and soon to be at war with America, if the rumors could be believed. No one wanted a third war on their own English shores, between their own English citizens.

      Chance pulled down his mask to grin at Courtland. God, but he felt alive. Alive in a way he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. “Well, shall we, brother? It’s been a while since I’ve broken the king’s law.”

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      JULIA STOOD IN FRONT of the long mirror in her bedchamber, surprised to find that she looked the same this morning as she had last night. She should have been able to see some difference, for she most certainly felt different.

      She raised her hands to her breasts, covered once more in her simple cotton shift, and for the first time in her life thought of her body as anything more than that—her body.

      That Chance could show such delight in that body, that he could bring such delight to that body?

      “We’re all God’s creatures, Julia,” her father had told her the day she’d come running to him, sobbing, telling him that she was bleeding, she was going to die. “Today, my sweet girl, you have taken one more step in His plan for His creations. Today, Julia, you are a woman.”

      Julia smiled, that smile a mixture of sadness and wry amusement. “No, Papa, not then,” she said quietly, acutely missing the man who had been both father and teacher. “Last night I became a woman. But if God has a plan, Papa, it’s still His secret.”

      She crossed over to the bed and picked up the length of black grosgrain ribbon that had last been tied around Chance’s hair. She’d held it tight in her hand all night, like some silly, simpering fool.

      She should give it back to him. She really should.

      Instead she walked back to the mirror and watched her reflection as she tied the ribbon around the left strap of her shift, then tucked it inside, next to the skin of her breast, over her heart.

      “There,” she told herself, lifting her chin. “You are now most definitely a pitiful, pathetic penny press heroine with more hair than wit.”

      Julia quickly finished dressing, having declined the assistance of the maid who had come scratching at her door earlier with hot chocolate and toasted bread and butter. She’d needed to be alone.

      But now she needed to be with people so that she had something else to occupy her mind other than what she would say when she next saw Chance Becket.

      She found Alice in the nursery, Callie with her, the two of them happily investigating cupboards for toys that had been tucked away when the older girl had left the nursery, while Edyth watched them, a smile on her homely face.

      The drapes had all been pulled back from the windows, and the morning sun streamed into the large room, making blocks of sunlight on the large Aubusson carpet that could have graced the finest London drawing room if it weren’t here, in the back of beyond.

      The sunlight reminded Julia that she had wanted to walk out this morning, see the house and sea, smell the air.

      “Good morning, ladies,” she said, and the two girls turned to grin at her. “Who would like to accompany me on a walk down to the water?”

      Ten minutes later, after being assured that both children had eaten and with all three of them wearing pattens Edyth had told them they could find in the hallway behind the kitchens, they were off.

      Holding tight to Alice’s hand, Julia followed Callie, who ran ahead, waving her arms as she danced her way toward the water. “Oh, go with her,” she told Alice, who was tugging on her hand now. “Just be careful.”

      Julia watched the children as they ran up and down the waterline, pretending they were gulls, swooping with their arms, daring the water to lap at their feet.

      That’s when she looked to her left and noticed in the distance, around a curve in the waterline, the marvelous sloop anchored not fifty yards from the shore, its sails secured as it rode high in the water. She was much too far away to see it clearly, but it looked to be perhaps sixty feet in length and well kept. There were also a few smaller boats pulled up on the shore and turned upside down, cork-strung fishing nets spread over their hulls to dry in the sun.

      The presence of the boats didn’t surprise her. Becket Hall was, after all, sitting right next door to the Channel.

      The French ship was still out there, too, small in the distance, still sailing parallel to the shore. She watched it for a while, then turned about to look back at Becket Hall.

      She couldn’t decide if the house looked as if it had been dropped there from the sky or if it had grown up from the land. There was something of the fortress about it, even with the sun winking off the multitude of windows and with its large terrace and gracefully curving staircases at either end of the terrace winding up from the ground.

      From her vantage point and in the same direction as where the sloop was anchored, she could see what had to be the large stables, as well as a multitude of outbuildings of all shapes and sizes, all of them at a good distance from the Hall.

      Keeping one eye on Alice and Cassandra, Julia walked along the shoreline, seeing where the shoreline, in the distance, rather than being flat, rose into low chalk cliffs, with the waves crashing up against them. She wondered if there were caves there and if the smugglers used them to hide their hauls before moving them inland.

      Then she decided she shouldn’t think about such things.

      “Look, Julia, СКАЧАТЬ