The Pirate's Duty (Regent's Revenge #3)(46)
“Watch your back. It’s possible that message was a trick to lure Miss Thorpe away from the Roost. Be prepared for the worst when you return.”
“Aye, sir.” Girard kicked his horse into motion, making a mad dash to the inn.
Tension mounted inside Walsingham.
With Carnage and Oriana out of the way, plenty of cutthroats would be free to move in, employing the Roost’s tunnels to elude revenue men. The location of the hideaway between Portloe and Looe—particularly the myriad caves on the twenty-two-and-a-half-acre island of St. George’s—gave it profitable advantage. Not to mention the lookout provided by St. George’s summit, some 150 feet high, providing views of Looe Bay, Whitsand Bay, and the mainland.
He kicked his horse into a trot. Time had not changed the need to earn a pence, and war and import fees all but assured smuggling would continue along the Cornish coast.
Buzzards circled in the distance as he urged his bay across the green plateau. Large black wings propelled the birds on blustery currents in the robin’s-egg-blue sky. Sheep grazed in a nearby hedged field where a farmer raked in furze. An occasional crop of stones peppered the landscape, as if dropped by a giant’s hands, and the sea roared her mighty thunderous song on the breakers in the distance.
Unlike people, nature could be counted on to play its part. Human nature, on the other hand, crushed men. Betrayal at the hands of a friend or foe broke the weak. He should know. Lieutenant Corbet’s maniacal tactics had taught him to trust his instincts and intuition and to act of his own accord when the time was right. If the scar on his left hand had taught him anything, it was never to doubt his gut again.
And right now it was screaming that Oriana was in imminent danger.
Thirteen
PATROLS in MEVAGISSEY, CAWSAND, and COVERACK have returned from the CHANNEL empty-handed. While sightings of the REGENT last pinpointed his SHIP in the STRAIT OF DOVER, Lord B and Lord U ask why the REGENT would ATTACK the very people the CREW of the FURY aided for so long.
~ Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, 13 October 1809
Hours after receiving Charles’s disturbing note, Oriana was riding in a merchant cart seated beside Nicholas. The boy was not yet twelve years old, but as was the case with most Cornish children, he’d been prohibited from getting an education after he’d turned ten. Farmers needed their sons to operate oxen and plough. But when time availed itself and Nicholas wasn’t helping his father, he supplemented their family income by helping her deliver ale, among other things.
He was a quick-minded lad, and it hadn’t taken him any time at all to memorize the route she took every week. Thin as a rushlight, the boy was the little brother she’d never had. And because Oriana had grown fond of him, she found ways to fatten him up whenever she could.
This morning, for instance, he’d been ravenous when he’d arrived at the inn because he’d agreed to go to bed hungry so his younger brothers and sisters could eat—an almost weekly occurrence. Not so at the Roost. The morning’s dish, Sky blue and Sinkers—bread dipped in cream—along with bacon, eggs, and mashed potatoes, had been far richer, more appetizing and substantial than the barley and oatmeal that Nicholas ate at home.
“Pardon me, Miss,” he’d said, immediately rising from his chair when she’d entered the kitchen. “O’Malley told me I could finish what was left after I hauled in more faggots.”
The tashes of turf needed to be brought in and arranged in the wood corner each day so there would be enough furze and turf for the fire. Ever eager to please, Nicholas readily accepted work in exchange for food, even though she never forced labor upon him.
“I would be greatly disturbed if he hadn’t offered it to ye,” she’d said. “Sit down, Nicholas. Finish your meal. Leave nothing to waste. We’ve a long day ahead of us.”
Nicholas had wolfed down his food then, and Oriana smiled to herself, content in knowing she’d helped another living soul. She’d used the extra time to walk through the tavern, contemplating how much longer she had to live and whether or not John and his men had found a sizable shoal of pilchards.
She frowned. Thinking of the fisherman reminded her there were many things in life she’d never experience: coupling between a husband and wife, children, grandchildren. John had opened her eyes to the glorious splendor to be found with a man, but she knew she’d only been given a taste. And she felt different now because of it, because of him.
Older, wiser . . . and more fearful now that she’d received another threatening letter from Charles.
Beyond her ken, ghostly notes of Old Bailey’s and Samuel’s fiddles teased her ears, the faint melody persuading her how empty life would be without someone she loved beside her.
I won’t live that long. My time on earth is runnin’ out.
Oh, she could run. She could hide. Perhaps buy herself a year or two. Use Charles’s gold to purchase passage aboard a ship to somewhere he’d never find her. No. Running away wouldn’t buy happiness. Why did she always have to sacrifice her desires and dreams? Cornwall was her home, and she’d fight to operate her inn until her last breath. Abandoning the inn only served to leave it vulnerable to the smugglers who’d petitioned for its use, men who desired to confiscate the tunnels for their own ends.
Over my dead body!
She shivered as a portent of doom swept over her. The Marauder’s Roost had seen its share of blood and gore. No more.