06.The Penniless Peer (The Eternal Collection) (15 page)

“Keep your heads down,” Lord Corbury said sharply.

The mist was all around them but it was growing lighter and Fenella strained her eyes forward in hope of seeing the cliffs ahead.

Then came another explosion and yet another, and she suddenly felt something sear her arm like a red-hot iron.

She gave a little cry and slipped back against the bales, but no-one heard her because at that moment Lord Corbury was saying triumphantly,

 “We are nearly out of range! A few more strokes and they will not catch us on this trip!”

The Revenue Cutter fired again. Lord Corbury was right. The report was some way behind them. Fenella sat very still her hand on her arm. For a moment she felt faint, and then she realised that the bullet cutting its way through the thick cloth of her jacket had only seared the fleshy part of her arm.

She was wise enough to realise it was not a serious wound, but at the same time it was extremely painful.

‘I am feeling the effects of the shock,’ she told herself sensibly, ‘and there is no point in making a fuss or drawing attention to what has happened until we are on shore. We have escaped one Revenue Cutter, but there may be others.’

She could feel the blood on her fingers, but her heart was beginning to beat normally again and she no longer felt faint.

Now she began to wonder bow she could explain away such a wound to her mother and whether it would be better to seek out a doctor and have it bandaged before she returned home.

She was still wondering what would be best when she realised the boat was running into Hellingly Creek and the men were springing out to pull it up from the water.

Lord Corbury walked quietly up the beach looking for the ponies that should have been waiting for them, but instead there was only a small boy who crept up to him out of the shadows.

“Tis th’ military Guv ! Oi was to tell ye there be soldiers all along th’ cliff,” he whispered. “They told Oi to say tis best to sink th’ boat and th’ cargo in th’ creek. ‘Taint safe to do nowt else.”

“Damn it! Is that the truth?” Lord Corbury enquired fiercely.

“That’s wat Oi were a’told to tell ye, Guv,” the boy said and disappeared.

Lord Corbury went back to the men who were waiting,

 “There is trouble,” he said. “They suggest we sink the boat in the creek, but that would ruin the tobacco although the brandy will be all right. Shall we put the bales in the caves?”

“Aye, we’ll do that,” one of the men replied.

They seized the bales from around Fenella and hurriedly carried them into the caves.

Feeling shaken and rather limp, Fenella moved out of, their way noting that Lord Corbury was busy counting out the sovereigns for the crew and handing them to their leader.

“Sink the boat,” he ordered, “and disappear!”

The cork was pulled from the bung-hole and the boat sank quickly just inside the creek.

By now it was light enough to see it disappearing under the surface, and Fenella wondered despairingly if all their efforts had been in vain. But there was little time for introspection.

The men had taken their wage and were vanishing into the mist which still hung over the creek but was becoming more transparent every moment. Now another man appeared leading their horses.

“Ye’d be wise t’get away quick like. There be soldiers everywhere!”

“Thank you,” Lord Corbury said and rewarded him with a guinea.

He swung himself into the saddle.

“Will you — help me?” Fenella asked. “I am — afraid I have — hurt my arm.”

Lord Corbury noticed her for the first time. In the brightening light it was easy to see the blood on her fingers and on the arm of her jacket.

“What has happened?” he asked dismounting. “One of the bullets grazed me.”

“Good God, why did you not say so!” he exclaimed.

“I am all right. Just put me in the saddle, it is difficult to mount with only one hand.”

“We will have it attended to as soon as we are out of this mess,” he said harshly as he lifted her onto her horse. Fortunately the wound was in Fenella’s left arm and she picked up the reins with her right hand.

“I can ride,” she said. Lord Corbury remounted.

“I wonder which would be the best way to ...” he was saying when they both heard the sound of approaching hooves.

“Quick!” Lord Corbury cried and turning his horse he rode away in the opposite direction followed by Fenella.

They had only gone a very short distance before they realised they were being followed. There was no doubt that horses were being urged after them and that men were shouting instructions to each other.

Lord Corbury spurred his horse.

“We must not be caught, not with your arm in that state, there would be too much explaining to do.”

Fenella realised too how incriminating it would be for her to be found wounded and wearing boy’s clothes, with no reasonable explanation for their being near Hellingly Creek.

Fortunately both the horses were fresh. They had been stabled while Lord Corbury and Fenella had crossed the Channel.

At the same time the mist was clearing and as soon as they were clear of Hellingly Village and setting off across some flat land, Fenella looked back over her shoulders and saw they were being pursued by four soldiers.

There was no mistaking the red coats of the Dragoon Guards and she knew without questioning Periquine that he had seen them too.

The soldiers were well mounted and Fenella and Lord Corbury had only a short start. Their one advantage was that both of them knew the country well.

They had ridden over this land so often that it was as familiar to them as their own Parks, but it was also open country and they were well in sight of their pursuers and spurring their horses who seemed to realise that an extra effort was required of them.

“Are you all right?” Lord Corbury managed to shout as they thundered over a field of clover and heedless of the damage galloped on over a field of young wheat.

“Yes, I am all right!” Fenella answered.

She was thankful she was riding astride and could grip the saddle with her knees. Her horse kept beside Lord Corbury’s without her having to guide it and both animals knew instinctively they were heading for home.

They galloped on and on. Now the Priory was not far ahead but, though the soldiers behind had not gained any distance on them, it was still impossible to lose them.

“Where shall we go?” Lord Corbury asked, the words coming almost gaspingly between his lips.

For a moment Fenella did not answer. To go to their own stables, she thought, would be disastrous, since the soldiers would follow them there. To try and hide in the woods ... The answer came to her in a flash.

“The Church-in-the-Woods! “she shouted. “The Crypt!”

She saw Lord Corbury grin at her and then they were thundering through thick trees which encircled the back of the Priory, twisting their way through the heavy trunks to where the Monk’s Chapel which had been left derelict for years had been restored for the old Vicar.

Surrounded by trees, the Chapel was difficult to find unless one knew the way, and as Lord Corbury and Fenella drew their sweating horses to a standstill in front of it, they realised that for the first time they had an advantage over the soldiers.

They could hear them in- the distance, but they were not as near as they had been.

“Get the Crypt open,” Lord Corbury said sharply. “I will manage the saddles.”

He pulled the bridle and saddle from his own horse as he spoke, and gave him a slap which sent him careering off through the wood towards home, and as Fenella ran into the Church he turned towards her horse.

The Crypt of the Church-in-the-Woods was where the monks had buried many of their brothers.

Periquine and Fenella had found it when they were children and had often hidden there from tutors and governesses, well aware that few people knew of what was, from a child’s point of view, the perfect secret place.

The Crypt door was a stone slab which lying flat on the floor of the Church was almost indiscernible to those who had no knowledge of its existence.

There was a special way to open it, and it had been constructed by stone-masons who knew that the profane must not be allowed to enter what to the monks was a holy place.

Inside the little Church there was a smell of age, dust and decay which Fenella had known all her life and loved because it was so much a part of her childhood.

As she entered the Church there was a scuttle of tiny animals running under the oak pews and the flutter of wings from birds which were perched in the rafters.

Fenella slipped the catch and pulled up the big stone finding it difficult with one hand, and almost as she did so Periquine came staggering in through the door carrying the two saddles.

He flung them down the aperture, and without waiting for him to speak Fenella slipped down the steep staircase and he followed her, closing the heavy stone door behind him.

It was completely dark and very cold in the Crypt, but Fenella with a sigh of relief knew that they were safe. She put out her foot tentatively so as not to stumble over the saddles and then as Lord Corbury came down the steps to stand beside her, they heard the soldiers arrive outside the Church.

Fenella slipped her hand into Periquine’s. Her fingers were trembling and he gripped them tightly. She was frightened but Periquine was there, and she thought wildly that nothing mattered except that they were together.

“There be a Church ‘ere, Sir,” they heard a man say.

“Then that is where they will be hiding. Get inside and be sure there is not another door through which they can escape.”

The voice was that of an officer, cultured and authoritative. A moment later there was the clump of heavy boots on the flagged floor above them.

The first soldier was obviously joined by the Officer and two other men.

“They dinna seem to be ‘ere, Sir.”

“Run your sword under the pews,” the Officer commanded, “and look behind the altar.”

“If us finds ‘em here, Sir,” another man remarked, “they be a takin’ sanctuary, we canna touch ‘em.”

“I will touch smugglers wherever I find them!” the Officer answered grimly. “Go on, you fools, they must be here. I saw the marks of their horses’ hooves outside.”

“They must ‘ave gone on, Sir, they ain’t ‘ere.”

“Two of you ride on through the wood,” the Officer said.

Fenella heard the men ride off. She wanted to ask Periquine if he thought the fact that the horses were hot and sweating would prove incriminating. Then she answered the question herself.

By now both the horses would have headed for their own stables. It was not likely that anyone seeing a horse moving saddleless across a field would think there was anything unusual about it. It had been clever of Periquine, she thought, to remove the saddles.

Above them there came the Officer’s voice.

“They must be somewhere! Two men cannot vanish as quickly as that!”

“I’ll swear they’re not ‘ere, Sir. They must be ‘iding in th’ bushes somewhere.”

“Then look for them, you dolt!” the Officer said sharply.

 There was no mistaking the disappointment and anger in his voice. He had thought to make a capture, which would have been a feather in his cap. But his victims had eluded him.

“There be nowhere else t’ search, Sir.”

“Very well, we had better go back to Hellingly and see what we can find out locally. There is no doubt that a boat was expected and that these two men had something to do with it. We have lost them, blast it! They should give us better mounts in the Army! If they want us to catch smugglers, they must afford the best horseflesh.”

The Officer’s angry voice seemed to echo round the walls of the little Church. Then they heard him stamp noisily down the steps and a moment later there was a jingle of bridles and the sound of hooves moving away.

It was then Fenella gave a deep sigh which seemed to come from the very depths of her being.

She realised now that she had been holding her breath and had been rigid with fear all the time the soldiers were searching for them overhead.

“We have done it!” she heard Lord Corbury exclaim. “We have escaped once again, Fenella, and by God this time it really was by the skin of our teeth! “

He let go of her hand to put his arm round her waist and drew her towards him in one of the affectionate hugs that he gave her so often. And in the darkness he bent his head to kiss her cheek.

Without realising it Fenella had raised her face towards his. Her lips were smiling a little because she too knew they had escaped captivity only by a hair’s breadth.

Then instead of kissing Fenella’s cheek as he had intended, Lord Corbury’s lips found hers.

Just for one second she was still with surprise at his touch, until as if it were a streak of lightning, a feeling of wonder and rapture struck through her whole body.

It was impossible to move, impossible to do anything but know that her lips were soft yet captive beneath his and his kiss evoked within her a wonder such as she had never known existed.

A gleam of fire flickered into life and she felt it burning through her until it reached her lips.

The pressure of Periquine’s mouth on hers deepened. Instinctively he put out his other hand to draw her closer and gripped her arm.

The agony of the pain was worse than when the bullet had seared its way through her flesh. Fenella gave a little gasp and the darkness seemed to close in upon her ...

Chapter Seven

The old maid put a rug over Fenella’s knees and arranged a pillow behind her head in an easy-chair set under the shade of a big lime tree.

“Now just you rest, Miss Fenella,” she said firmly, “and no running over to the Priory when my back is turned to go afussing over Master Periquine. He can look after himself for a while and it’ll do him good.”

“Did he seem all right when he came here yesterday, Anna?” Fenella asked.

“There was nothing wrong with - him,” Anna answered sharply.

She had been in the service of Fenella’s mother and father for over thirty years and had looked after Fenella, loved her and scolded her since she was a small child.