Rake Beyond Redemption Read Free

the cottages. Quiet here too. A few children playing, voices raised in shouts and laughter. George Gadie’s stout wife unpegging a line of washing. George, he presumed, with his son Gabriel, would be out with one of the fishing boats. He greeted Mistress Gadie with a lift of his hand and a preoccupied smile, but moved on. Dismounting in the courtyard, he looked in at the Silver Boat. Quiet as the grave. No one sampling the excellent stock of contraband. No Captain Rodmell sniffing out evidence of lawbreaking. Even Sam Babbercombe, the entirely sly and ruthless innkeeper who never passed up an opportunity to bring money into his pockets, was nowhere to be seen. Most likely sleeping off the effects of the last glass of brandy before emerging to fleece his evening customers.
    Back outside, Alexander remounted. And frowned in indecision. There was nothing here to raise his hackles. So why did a hand still grip his heart? What made his belly churn, his throat dry? Clear sky, calm sea, the only boats in the bay the fishing smacks of the inhabitants of Old Wincomlee engaged in their legitimate business. Nothing to disturb him. No threat, no danger.
    Down to the cove, the little harbour. There was Venmore’s Prize anchored in the bay, sails neatly rolled and stashed. His cousin Harriette’s vessel, not used as much now as she might once have been. A pity. A fine cutter even if not of the same quality as the ill-fated Lydyard’s Ghost , fired by the Preventives in revenge for a successful contraband run that they failed to apprehend. Five years ago now, a night he did not care to think about.
    Alexander’s narrow-eyed scrutiny moved on. Next to the Prize was his own cutter. For a brief moment of sheer pleasure Alexander simply sat to admire her lines.The Black Spectre. Not the most cheerful of names, he thought with a wry amusement, but it had suited his mood at the time. She was a masterly vessel, riding the waves with spectacular ease, as swift and invisible on a dark night as the spectre he had named her. No outlay of money spared here, where a fast cutter to outrun the Preventives could be a matter of life or death.
    He cast an experienced eye over the inlet and cove. High tide tonight, the water already racing in as it did through the deep channels worn over the years between the shingle. Not as an innocuous scene as might appear to the unwary or foolish who did not know they could be outflanked and surrounded within minutes. He looked lazily towards the distant headland where the first wave-edged inflow would now be showing.
    And then he saw.
    His heart gave a single heavy bound. His breath backed up in his lungs so that he had to drag in air.
    A woman. Clearly in danger. Floundering through the water, skirts held ineffectually to try to prevent the drag of them in the rapidly rising swirl. She was already cut off from dry land. Soon she would be out of her depth entirely and overbalanced by the undertow. What the devil was she thinking? He cursed viciously, silently. This went far beyond foolish. This was suicidal!
    Alexander did not hesitate. ‘Stay!’ he ordered the spaniel who promptly sank, chin to paws. And Alexander nudged the mare forwards into the water.
    With hands and heels, keeping a tight hold on his own fear, Alexander persuaded the reluctant mare into the waves, urging her through the shallows, out on to the rapidly disappearing shingle until the water swirled knee-deep. The mare jibbed, but Alexander soothedwith hands and voice, all the time keeping an eye on the floundering figure, skirts bunched in her hands, pressing determinedly forwards. She was not yet in any real danger, he estimated, but was having increasing difficulty in keeping her feet. Five minutes later and it would have been a different matter.
    Not a woman, he decided as he took stock of the slight figure bracing herself against a larger wave. A mere girl, and a witless one at that! Didn’t she know any better? Chancy tides were a matter of