“Good. Because the first person who does will draw back a stump.” Daniel stalked off to help Helena into the carriage, leaving Jack mumbling to himself about people who got above themselves and turned into gentry.
Once they were in the coach, Daniel tried to sit next to her, but Jack would have none of it. He put her beside him, then took out his pistol, which he kept none too casually resting on his knee, pointed at Helena.
It was uncocked, and it was possible Daniel could wrestle it away, but he wasn’t taking any chances with Helena’s life. Besides, he might be better off playing along for a while and trying to find out where Crouch had Juliet.
Despite the pistol, Jack seemed determined to treat this like a bloody social call. As the coach rumbled off, he turned to Helena with his smoothest smile. “So how long have you been married to our Danny?”
In typical Helena fashion, she straightened her spine and shot back, “I believe he is no longer
your
Danny, nor has he been for some time.”
Take that, you old fool,
Daniel thought smugly. Helena mightn’t have consented to marry him yet, but she was loyal to him all the same.
“Ah, but we did have good times when he was,” Jack replied, not to be put off. “Didn’t we, Danny?”
Daniel lifted an eyebrow. “D’you mean all those cold nights playing spotsman and dodging the preventive officers? Or the predawn mornings running up the beach with two loaded tubs while the icy rain pelted us?”
“You’re leaving out the good stuff—the thrill of slipping past an exciseman in the dark, and those evenings when the sky was so scattered with stars, it was like a thousand spilt shillings.”
Daniel snorted. Only Jack could wax poetic about free trading. Jack’s eyes twinkled with mischief now, which put Daniel on his guard.
“As I recall, Danny Boy, there were certain tasks you didn’t mind a’tall. Like the letting down.”
“Letting down?” Helena asked.
Although Daniel glared at him, Jack was in the mood for devilment. “Ain’t Danny told you about that?” At her shake of the head, Jack explained, “When we transport the liquor into England, it’s over-proof, y’see. That’s so
more of it can be brought in. Once it’s here, we got to dilute it for sale. Water’s added a bit at a time, and we put numbered glass beads in it that float to the top when it’s at the right mix. When he was only a wee bit, Danny was in charge of watching the beads until the right one floated.”
“Danny always was good with numbers,” Helena said, straightfaced.
Daniel’s gaze shot to her, but she actually seemed amused.
“Aye,” Jack retorted. “But that wasn’t the part he liked best. He fancied the reward for getting it right: a dram of the brandy. You can be sure that Danny learned right quick how to get the dilution perfect.”
“Damn it, Jack, you make me sound like a tippler at the wee age of ten.”
“As I understand it, my dear,” Helena interjected, “tippling wasn’t the only vice you began at an uncommonly early age.”
Impudent wench.
Jack went on gleefully. “Danny enjoyed the letting down so much that he even got testy when another boy took it over from him.” Jack nudged Helena. “Can you believe it? Danny tried to sabotage the lad by rubbing the paint off the beads and painting new numbers.”
He’d forgotten all about that, and despite his annoyance, he smiled. “I got into trouble for it, too. Had to spend the week mending sails, and I loathed mending sails.”
“You got off easy, in my opinion,” Jack commented. “I wanted to tan your hide, but Jolly Roger wouldn’t let me. Always did coddle you too much, m’boy.”
“Do you call sending his men out to carry me and my wife off ‘coddling’?” Daniel retorted.
“Oh, he don’t know about this. He’s off on a run, won’t be back until early morn. But when Wallace told me you
were nosing about, I figured I’d best take care of it. I know Jolly Roger will want you where he can keep an eye on you once he returns.”
Yes, so Daniel couldn’t sneak Juliet away. He sobered at the thought. “So you’ve stooped to kidnapping now. I wonder what Bessie thinks of that?”
That seemed to suck the wind out of Jack’s sails. He glanced away quickly. “Bessie’s dead, Danny. She died of the consumption two years ago.”
When Daniel’s face undoubtedly reflected his shock, Helena glanced in bewilderment to Jack. “Who’s Bessie?”
“Jack’s wife,” Daniel answered. The closest thing he’d had to a mother during his years smuggling.
He glanced out the coach window, barely registering the town of Sedlescombe they now passed through. Bessie was dead. It was hard to fathom. Though he’d lived in a house with Jolly Roger and some bachelor free traders during his youth, it was Bessie who’d kept an eye out for him, making sure he was well-fed and well-treated. She was probably the real reason he’d escaped having his hide tanned by Jack.
His gaze swung back to Jack. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“You might have if you’d ever bothered to come back and see us,” Jack grumbled. Then, as if embarrassed by that show of sentiment, he shrugged. “Anyway, it was her time, is all.”
Daniel was used to the stoicism of free traders, for whom the dance between the sea and the exciseman occasionally ended in death, but it suddenly seemed too cruel for the likes of Bessie. “She was a good woman. She didn’t deserve to die so young.”
Jack flinched. “No, she didn’t. And you’re right about what she would’ve thought of this—she wouldn’t have liked it a bit. I know that.” His chin jutted out. “But times
are harder now than when Bessie was alive, and liable to grow harder still. There’s rumors of a new coast guard being formed. It’s been plaguing Crouch to distraction. He’s thinking of giving up the free trading now that he’s getting old.”
“Not too old for kidnapping, clearly,” Daniel said sarcastically.
Jack looked affronted. “Wouldn’t none of this have happened if Knighton had considered Jolly Roger’s proposal in the first place.”
A sudden chill wrapped about Daniel’s gut. “Proposal? What the devil are you talking about?” He glanced at Helena, who looked as bewildered as he.
“You know what I mean,” Jack said. “The one Jolly Roger offered last spring. When he went to London and told Knighton that he’d expose your connection to us if Knighton didn’t start doing business with us again.”
“He did
what
?” Daniel leaned forward, his hands clenching into fists on his knees.
Jack shifted nervously on his seat. “Knighton must’ve told you about it. Jolly Roger threatened to go to the papers with the story of how you used to be a notorious smuggler and how you were the son of Wild Danny Brennan. He figured Knighton wouldn’t want to see you tarred and feathered in the press, possibly even arrested. It mightn’t set well with his lofty friends if they knew you’d been a criminal.”
“Those ‘lofty friends’ already know most of it.” Still, Daniel reeled from Jack’s revelation. Crouch had tried to force Griff by using Daniel’s past? And Griff hadn’t told him?
“That’s what Knighton said. He told Jolly Roger to go to the devil, said he didn’t care who knew and he didn’t figure you cared, neither.”
“Bloody right!” Why hadn’t Griff told him all this? He’d probably thought to protect him, knowing that Daniel would cut off his right hand before letting his connections harm Griff or Knighton Trading.
Jack went on. “Knighton said he’d make damned sure Jolly Roger was hanged for it if he went to the papers about you.”
“Good for Griff,” Daniel snarled. “That’s what Crouch gets for assuming that Griff would be an easy mark. He should’ve known better. Griff would sooner lance a vein than give him hush money.”
“It wasn’t money he wanted,” Jack reminded Daniel as the coach clattered over a bridge, jarring them all. “He just wanted Knighton to go back to buying our goods. Nobody wants to fund the runs anymore—and Jolly Roger thought that p’raps with a bit of pressure, Knighton would consider it.” His tone turned acid. “He never dreamed you and Knighton had got so respectable you considered yourselves too good for shady profits.”
Daniel shook his head. “Even if Griff wanted to finance the runs again, he sure as the devil wouldn’t choose Crouch. The man nearly had him killed, for God’s sake!”
Jack made a dismissive gesture. “That was ten years ago, Danny. Tempers were high, and hasty words were spoke. I don’t think Jolly Roger had any idea Knighton still held that against him.”
“Then he’s more of an idiot than I took him for.”
“Anyway, Knighton didn’t take kindly to any of it. Said it was blackmail. He had Jolly Roger thrown into the street on his arse.”
“I’m not surprised.” But if Griff had told him, Daniel could’ve warned him that Crouch wouldn’t stop at blackmail. Griff had badly underestimated Crouch, something Daniel never would’ve done.
“To be honest,” Jack went on, “the way Griff humiliated him is what fired Jolly Roger’s temper. If not for Knighton’s threats to set the excisemen on him, he would have marched down to the
Times
there and then. But when he heard about Knighton’s wedding a few months later, he saw his chance for a better revenge.”
Helena made a little whimpering sound, and Daniel’s gaze shot to her. He’d forgotten what she must be thinking of this, of him. Bloody hell, what if she thought he
had
known of it? Bad enough that Griff had unwittingly brought this on Juliet, but if Helena thought Daniel had kept it from her…
He groaned. He couldn’t even reassure her without revealing her identity to Jack.
Especially when Jack was already eyeing them both curiously. “Jolly Roger half-expected you to come later and offer him hush money yourself. He was surprised you let Griff speak for you.”
“Griff never told me about any of it.” Daniel’s gaze shot to Helena, who looked stricken. “Griff kept it from me,” he repeated, more for her sake than Jack’s.
Though her eyes were alive with emotion, she seemed to have mastered her agitation. But that only made it worse, because now he didn’t know what she thought. Did she believe him? Surely she wouldn’t blame him for this, too.
His heart sank as he tore his gaze from her. What did it matter if she did? She had every right to. Griff may’ve brought this on her family initially, but it couldn’t have happened without Daniel’s past. The weapon had always been there—Crouch had just taken his sweet time about using it.
“So Jolly Roger kidnapped Juliet for money because he was angry at Griff,” he said. “Didn’t he realize that
Griff would send the excisemen after the lot of you once this was over?”
“He wasn’t supposed to find out it was Crouch.” Jack’s arch look made it clear that he blamed Danny for that change in affairs.
“Come now, surely you realized he would figure it out in the end.”
“Pryce covered his tracks, took a false name and everything.”
“
I
found Pryce, so why couldn’t Griff?”
Jack rubbed his chin. “You’re better at looking for our sort than Knighton. Not to mention that fool Wallace opening his mouth. If not for him, you wouldn’t have known what we were about, would you have?”
Probably not, though he’d be damned if he told Jack that.
“Besides,” Jack went on, “the ransom note wasn’t signed—it just gave instructions for switching off the money and the girl, which ain’t happening in Sussex.”
Daniel stored that bit of information. “Surely you realized that once Juliet was freed, she’d tell Griff…” He trailed off, icy apprehension stealing his breath. “Unless Crouch never intended to free her. Unless he’d decided he wasn’t above killing.”
“No!” Jack protested. “No, killing was never part of it. That’s why we didn’t let the girl see nobody but Pryce. We figured Knighton would think it was Captain Will Morgan running the show, and he’d not be able to track him down, since there’s no such man.”
“But that’s all changed now,” Daniel reminded him grimly. “You’ve got me and my wife to contend with, don’t you? Crouch isn’t going to let us go now that
we
know, you can be sure of that.”
“Danny! Don’t talk like that.” Jack looked annoyed. “You know him better than that. He ain’t gonna lift a hand
to you.” He paused, then fixed Danny with an earnest gaze. “You’ll understand better when you see him, Danny Boy, but he’s faring poorly. Right ill, he is. He’s giving up the free trading to go live somewhere comfortable. This was his last chance at making money to keep him the rest of his days. Once Griff pays him the ransom, he’ll take off for parts unknown. Then it don’t matter if you know.”
Daniel had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out that Griff would pursue Crouch to the ends of the earth for kidnapping his wife’s sister, and Rosalind would be right behind her husband, wielding a sword. No point in giving Crouch any more reason to consider killing them all. “How much is he asking for, anyway? It’d have to be a lot to stretch to all of you.”
“Not so much. Nobody else’s getting any of it, because nobody else had a part in it but Pryce and me and Jolly Roger. Pryce don’t want money for his part, and I don’t, either. I’m taking over for Crouch when he’s gone. That’s enough for me.” His voice softened. “Besides, I ain’t the least worried about your turning me in, m’boy. You wouldn’t hand me over to be hanged, and we both know it. Just like I’d never harm you or your missus or the girl. Crouch will get his money from that arse Knighton and be gone. Then it’ll be over. Simple as that.”
Daniel persisted, unconvinced. “So he’ll hold us until the money comes, and then let us go? I find that hard to believe.”
“I can’t be certain exactly what he’ll do, that’s true. But I can be certain he’d never hurt
you,
of all people.”
Daniel laughed bitterly. “And why not?”
“Because he ain’t gonna hurt his own blood.”
Seth Atkins stared down the road long after the coach had trundled off. They were gone, thank God. He was
safe again. So why did he have this sickening feeling in his chest?
He stared down at his hand, dawn’s light gilding the shillings that lay there. Blood money. For his silence, Mr. Crouch’s man had said.
But what did Jolly Roger Crouch want with the Brennans? And why did he want them bad enough to send men with pistols to take them away? He’d never heard tell of the smugglers doing such a thing. Father’s friend Robert Jennings had done a run with Mr. Crouch’s gang, before he got into trouble with his wife for it. He was always saying as how it paid good money and they treated their men well. And most of Mr. Crouch’s men only did the free trading when there was no work to be had at the failing ironworks.