Smuggler's Lady Read Free

road. The Gentlemen were clearly very active on this part of the Cornish coast and would provide some compensation for discomfort.
    Cousin Matthew’s bedchamber was as gloomy as if the corpse still remained. There were sheets on the feather mattress, though, and an oil lamp on the bulky armoire. A pitcher of cold water appeared on request, initial reluctance to fulfilling the request having disappeared miraculously when it had become a sharp order issued in tones more suitable to a barrack square. His lordship was slowly becoming resigned to the idea that London ways had not reached Cornwall. He could have appeared unexpectedly at any one of the establishments owned by the Keighley family, at any time of the night, and been received as if it were mid morning and he had been eagerly awaited. But those establishments were staffed by veritable armies, a far cry from the morose, elderly retainers who had served Cousin Matthew and were now to serve him. Or would do so, if he could bring himself to remain beyond the morrow, Rutherford reflected moodily, dousing the lantern and climbing onto the high mattress. He sniffed suspiciously—the linen was most definitely musty, but at least it didn’t feel damp. He’d endured much worse in the Peninsula, of course, but he hadn’t had a stiff shoulder then, and what a soldier expected in a war was rather different from what a man expected in his own house in a country at peace.
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    The small cave was cool, dry, and as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Meredith moved to the back and then seemed to vanish into the rock face. The entrance to the narrow tunnel, just high and wide enough for a small pony, was concealed behind a jutting boulder in the far corner. The tunnel itself widened as it burrowed into the cliff, eventually opening into a vast cavern where a single lamp burned, sending spectral shadows a-dancing on the rough-hewn walls. The six ponies who had formed the baggage train earlier glanced incuriously at the slim figure, more interested in the contents of their nosebags now that their task was completed. Bundles, boxes, parcels, and casks were stacked against the sides in orderly ranks, and Meredith viewed the results of this night’s work with a contented smile. There would be a goodly profit to be had, of which her own share would supply the final mortgage payment on the forty acres of Ducket’s Spinney. The process of reclamation was slow but steady, and, at least, sufficient funds were now ensured for the boys’ schooling for one more year.
    Meredith took the lantern and left the cavern, not the way she had come but by a further passage at the back—a passage that climbed steeply through rock, coming to an abrupt halt at an impenetrable wall. The slight figure did not pause, however, but merely stretched upwards, pushing at a slab of rock in the passage roof. The slab fell back with a dull thud on the thick blanket waiting to muffle the sound of its fall. Meredith hitched herself through the opening with an experienced agility, leaning down to bring up the lantern before replacing the slab. She stood now in a small pantry where slate shelves bore jars of preserves, crocks of butter, and rounds of cheese—the produce of the home farm that kept the household supplied with all but the luxuries.
    Merrie removed her boots and, carrying them and the lantern, crept out of the pantry and into a large kitchen, warmed by a black-leaded range, silent but for the ticking of the grandfather clock beside the dresser. It was two-thirty, and the household would not stir for another three hours. On stockinged feet, she made her way out of the kitchen, past the back stairs and through the green-baize door that separated the servants’ quarters from the main part of the house.
    Sir John Blake, before his untimely demise three years previously, had managed to sell off most of the family heirlooms, and the stone-flagged hallway was bare,