Easy for her to be magnanimous, Vincent thought.Shewasn’t the one Clyde had fired upon, wasn’t the one nursing a throbbing headache.
Clyde jumped down from the cart, saw Vincent, and visibly blanched.
Using his extraneous height, thick build, and dark coloring to his advantage, Vincent snapped his eyebrows together, crossed his arms over his chest, straining the seams of his coat, and glared at Clyde.
Clyde gulped.
“Get to it,” Vincent growled at him, deliberately using his lowest, most gravelly speaking voice.
“Y-yes, my lord.”Clyde hurried into the tunnel, calling for Davey the ostler to get the lead out of his arse as he followed.
At Vincent’s nod, Marshall followed them with a lit torch.
Mr.Renwick had barely begun to engage in awkward conversation and more obsequious apologizing when the three men ran out of the tunnel.
“It’s gone!”Clyde looked to be losing the struggle to be polite to his betters, expressions of anger, dismay, and shock chasing themselves across his face.“It’s all gone!”
“He’s right, ma’am,” Marshall said to Gert.“The cave is empty.”
“Gone?”Vincent grabbed the torch from Marshall and went to see for himself.
Sure enough, the cave was as empty as it had been as long as Vincent had been visiting, except for yesterday.Clyde’s anger and frustration proved Vincent hadn’t simply imagined the crates, sacks, and casks.
Vincent headed back to the beach, doing his best not to stumble when he passed by the cave where he had been entombed with Miss Walden.
“I know my dolt of a son used the space without permission, ma’am,” Renwick began, “but—”
“We certainly had nothing to do with moving the contraband,” Aunt Gert said.“Did we?”she called up the hillside.
“No, ma’am,” Kendall replied, still out of sight.
“No, ma’am,” Matthew echoed.
“Then where did it go?”Gert planted her hands on her hips.“Mother Hobart certainly has no use for untaxed spirits or tea.”
Everyone looked around, literally or figuratively scratching their head.Everyone, except for Davey, the ostler who had accompanied Clyde.He stood off to one side, staring at the toes of his scuffed boots as they sank into the damp sand.
“What?”Clyde demanded of him.“What do you know of this?”
“Them Revenuers been riding a lot the last fortnight.That’s why we dropped the load here instead of in town.”
Vincent kept his expression blank while he processed the fact that the ostler had at least one other form of employment in addition to the inn.
As a boy he’d thought smuggling to be an exciting profession.The smuggler and ostler before him, practically trying to bury himself in the sand to avoid scrutiny, looked like he barely had two farthings to rub together, between his mended breeches, patched elbows, and moth-eaten hat.
“The local officer has eaten several meals at the inn recently,” Renwick said, scratching his chin.“We usually only see him a time or two each month.”
Still assimilating the revelation that the ostler also worked for the smugglers, it took Vincent a moment for the import of Renwick’s words to sink in.“You think the Revenuers confiscated the load?”
“What?”Clyde’s face turned an alarming shade of red.“I paid good––”
“My money!”Renwick roared at his son.“You spentmymoney on supplies, and didn’t even secure the goods before some Sam Jack Revenue officers made off with them?”
“It ain’t my fault!”Clyde bellowed back.“I—”
“Gentlemen!”Everyone turned at Gert’s shout.“Let us focus on the important detail here.Revenue officers have been trespassing … on …my… property!”
Technically the property belonged to Vincent’s father, and along with the rest of the entailed estates would pass to Vincent upon the marquess’s death, but Vincent kept silent.He glanced at Matthew, who had been watching the speakers as though he was at a sporting match, grinning at realizing Gert was not offended by smuggling in general, just about it happening on her property.Without her consent.
