Could Mr. Brennan be an exciseman? The smugglers didn’t take kindly to customs officers from London, and he
had
come from London…Yet he didn’t seem the sort. Besides, excisemen didn’t bring their wives along with them.
Well, it was none of his concern
what
Mr. Crouch wanted with the Brennans, was it? Seth hefted the silver in his clammy hands. Surely he’d done more than enough by letting them stay in the barn. They’d stolen that other fellow’s horse, after all. And they’d been sneaking about when Seth had come across them, too.
Still…they didn’t seem like thieves, and they’d been awful nice to him. He counted the shillings. Thirty. Thirty pieces of silver, like what Judas was given to betray Our Lord. With a little cry, Seth dropped the money.
It was a sign, it was. He’d done wrong, after all. He shouldn’t have taken their horse, even for a minute. Mum would call it stealing, especially since he’d took it to do something wicked like go off drinking in town.
He stared down the road. There was something mighty wrong here. But he daren’t go to the constable, not after what Mr. Crouch’s man had threatened to do to him. His tongue itched, already feeling the touch of a blade against it.
All the same, it didn’t sit right with him to let it pass, neither. He had to do something to help the two escape their captors. Perhaps he could sneak a weapon to them. If he got it past Jolly Roger’s men without them knowing who done it, they’d never know to come here after him.
And he was fairly certain where the Brennans had been taken—everybody knew that Jolly Roger’s gang came from Hastings. Perhaps if he went to Hastings and asked around a bit…
He gazed down at the thirty shillings. He’d walk the few miles into Sedlescombe and use the blood money to hire a horse to carry him to Hastings. It wasn’t that far. With the rest of it, perhaps he could pay somebody to tell him what was going on and where the Brennans were.
Because he couldn’t bear being the cause of any harm done to them.
His gown was large, made of good serge; his petticoat was yellow
And such a bouncing girl was Dick, in Belfast had no fellow.
“Dick the Joiner,”
anonymous ballad
H
is own blood.
Mr. Seward’s words had shocked Helena, but she could tell from Daniel’s slack jaw that they’d shocked him even more.
“His own blood?” Daniel growled. “What the devil are you talking about?”
Mr. Seward fidgeted, his fingers steadily drumming his knee. “I swore to Jolly Roger I never would tell you this.
But I can’t stand to see you thinking so ill of him, after all he done for you.”
“All he—If you call trying to use me to blackmail Griff—”
“He took you out of the workhouse, and at great risk to himself, damn it!” Mr. Seward cried.
Daniel went very still. “How in God’s name do you figure he risked anything?”
“He’s your uncle, m’boy. Your mother’s brother.”
Helena’s heart caught in her throat at the look that passed over Daniel’s face—shock, anger, and finally a dangerous calm that would give a wise man pause. “My uncle is dead,” he enunciated, the words echoing stark and cold above the clattering carriage wheels.
“No, he ain’t.” Mr. Seward’s voice quivered, then steadied. “Come on, Danny, you ain’t thinking! He went to Essex for
you,
not to buy a damned cutter. You ain’t never seen Crouch in Essex before nor since, and there’s a reason for that. If anybody in Essex ever recognized him as Tom Blake—the man who rode with Wild Danny Brennan—he’d be caught and hanged!”
“My uncle never rode with my da,” Daniel bit out. “I don’t know why you’ve got this fool idea in your head, but my uncle drowned himself—”
“No, Jolly Roger only did that to escape capture. Your parents got caught, but he didn’t. He confessed it all to me when he was drunk a few months back, shortly after Knighton refused him. He blubbered about being ashamed of hisself for using his own nephew to get money. He said next time he wouldn’t involve you a’tall. That’s why he was hoping to keep you out of it.
And
why he’s going to be damned angry to find you here.” He softened his voice. “He don’t like
Knighton much, but he’d slit his own throat afore he’d hurt you.”
“Is that so?” Daniel’s eyes were steel in ice. “In the midst of all his ‘confessing,’ did Jolly Roger happen to mention why he never told
me
that he was my uncle?”
Mr. Seward shrugged. “Because he was a wanted man. He didn’t tell you when you were a boy because he was afraid you’d let it slip, and then later…there just never seemed a right time. And once you worked for Knighton, he wasn’t going to put a weapon into the man’s hands, was he?”
“
Now
who’s not thinking?” Daniel snapped. “He spun you a pretty tale, man, and you swallowed it whole.” When Mr. Seward drew himself up stiffly, Daniel added, “The reason he never told me was he knew I’d find out the truth about my parents’ capture one day, and then I’d be after him, bent on making him pay.”
“For what? Not getting caught?”
“For betraying my parents to the soldiers!”
Mr. Seward paled. “What’re you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Crouch—or Tom or whatever his bloody name is! He never rode with my da, you arse. He was the one who turned them in. That’s why he didn’t want me to learn who he really was, because he knew what I’d do to him if I found out.” Daniel snorted in disgust. “When he moved to Sussex, he changed his identity not because he feared capture, but because he realized that no free trader with an ounce of sense would work for the man who’d betrayed Wild Danny Brennan!”
Mr. Seward was shaking his head over and over. “Jolly Roger wouldn’t have done that. For God’s sake, your mother was his sister.”
“Yes. But that didn’t stop him from telling them where
to find her and Da the night they were taken. I went back to Essex a few years ago and talked to one of the soldiers. My uncle did it for the reward. He turned his own sister in for a bag of gold. And
that’s
the man you’re defending, the man you claim would never kill anybody!”
Fear wrapped itself around Helena’s heart. Daniel did have a point.
Apparently Mr. Seward recognized it, too, for he slumped against the squabs to stare bleakly out the carriage window. “I can’t believe it. Crouch betray his own sister? It don’t…seem like him.”
“All the same, he did it.” Daniel dragged in a harsh breath. “That’s why I distrust him and his motives now. And if you help him do this, Jack, then you’re as bad as he is.”
A mutinous expression crossed Mr. Seward’s face. “You’re making this all up, aren’t you? You want to twist me against him so I’ll let you go. Well, it won’t work, Danny Boy, so you may as well give up. I can’t believe it of him. I won’t.”
Daniel’s features seemed carved from stone. “Do as you please. Or better yet, ask
him
and see what he says.”
“I will, don’t you worry,” Mr. Seward said stoutly.
An awful silence fell on the carriage, punctuated only by the wind whistling through the windows. What else was there to say? Mr. Seward was fretting, and Daniel looked ravaged. Helena wished she could take him in her arms and just hold him to ease his pain, but she doubted Mr. Seward would allow it.
She kept hoping he would look at her, that she could show him her sympathy with her eyes. But he held himself remote, as if too shattered to allow any connection with another human being.
Thankfully they soon arrived in Hastings, and the
coach shuddered to a halt before a half-timbered cottage at the top of a hill in the center of town. Mr. Seward’s companions dismounted and called for help with the horses. They were joined by more men, which made Helena decidedly nervous. She glanced at Daniel, but he was staring morosely out the window, as he had for the last few miles.
“Here we are,” Mr. Seward said grimly as he descended from the coach. “This is where you’ll stay for the moment.”
“At your house?” Daniel said in surprise. He disembarked, then turned to help her out.
“Why not? Nobody in Hastings will think aught of it. Besides, with Bessie…gone, the lads who aren’t working spend their time here while waiting for darkmans.”
“Darkmans?” she whispered to Daniel.
“Night.” He laid his hand protectively in the small of her back. “That’s what smugglers call it.”
Lord, these free traders were as elaborate as spies with all their code words and odd practices. No wonder the excisemen couldn’t keep them under control. Without Daniel playing Virgil and leading her through the Inferno, she would have been quite lost. She only hoped they made it at least into Purgatory. Paradise seemed unreachable at the moment.
Mr. Seward led them toward the entrance. “You and your missus can have a bit of breakfast if you like, m’boy.”
A faint smile touched Helena’s lips. She’d never get used to Mr. Seward’s calling Danny “m’boy,” as if the man who now towered over him were still in leading strings.
A chorus of “Danny Boy! It’s Danny Boy!” erupted from the occupants of the cottage as soon as she and
Daniel crossed the threshold. Daniel’s hand on her back tensed at the greeting, and her heart broke for him. Poor Daniel. No doubt he found this as difficult as she did.
She surveyed the oak table crowded with men, in the center of what had once apparently been a parlor. Framed needlework samplers still graced the walls and a set of pewter plates were displayed on the stone mantel, but now they were nearly obliterated by soiled crockery, gunpowder bags, and even a sword or two. It was clearly a male preserve now, with free traders playing cards, drinking, and laughing raucously. Instinctively, she drew nearer to Daniel.
“Sit down, and I’ll fetch you something to eat,” Mr. Seward said as he hurried off into another room.
By the time Daniel found them seats at the table, Mr. Seward had returned with their food. As she ate breakfast, Helena surveyed the faces of the men at the table. That broke at least one of Mrs. N’s rules—a Well-Bred Lady wasn’t supposed to stare—but until Mrs. N wrote a book on etiquette for kidnappings, Helena would have to improvise. Besides, the men ignored her staring, too intent on questioning Daniel about what he’d been up to since they’d last seen him.
That left her free to sort them out in her head. The tall red-haired man with the scar at his temple. The man with crooked teeth and clear blue eyes. The boastful, flirtatious youth they called Ned. If she and Daniel ever got out of this alive, she wanted to be able to recognize them all. Perhaps Griff wouldn’t want them brought to justice, but if he did, she wanted to help.
If only she could sketch them. She still had the sketch of Daniel and her pencil—it wouldn’t be hard. And if she could pass the sketches to someone who’d carry them to Griff in London, Griff could take
some
sort of action…
Well, there was no chance of that at the moment. It appeared that she and Daniel were to stay in the company of these men for some time.
The one man she didn’t see among them was Mr. Pryce. Was he off alone with Juliet even now? The thought was most unsettling. When she finished eating, she drew a clove from the packet in her apron and chewed on it, then leaned over to whisper to Daniel, “Pryce isn’t here. That probably means Juliet isn’t here, either.”
He nodded and whispered back, “I’ll find out what I can, but you’re to keep quiet about it. I don’t want them guessing who you are.”
“What are you two muttering about?” Mr. Seward asked with a frown.
Daniel squeezed her hand, warning her to silence. “My wife’s a bit tired, since we were so rudely awakened this morning. D’you have a room where she can go rest?”
Taken by surprise, she shot him a sharp glance. She didn’t want to leave without him, for heaven’s sake.
“Aye, there’s one upstairs for you both.” Mr. Seward rose from the table, gesturing toward the staircase. “I’ll take her up there.”
“Thanks, Jack.” Daniel’s gaze met hers, imploring her to go.
Perhaps it was for the best. The men would talk more freely about Juliet and Mr. Pryce if she was gone, and it
would
give her a chance to sketch their faces.
Removing her clove, she dropped it onto her plate and stood. Then she took the arm that the old smuggler offered and let him lead her up the stairs. She tried to memorize everything she saw, for her sketches. When they reached the top, she noted three doors, all closed.
Mr. Seward caught the direction of her gaze. “The girl
ain’t here, if that’s what you’re wondering. Like I told you, she’s been kept separate.”
“I see,” she said, swallowing her disappointment.
The room he showed her into was large and neatly furnished, though not terribly clean or tidy. Mr. Seward hurried about, picking up a discarded shirt here, a sock there. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but I didn’t have time to make it presentable before we rode out early this morn. And I’m not much of a housekeeper myself.”
“This is
your
room?”
“No. My son’s. I got three of ’em, and they’re all as slovenly as their father.”
A jolt of sympathy hit her. It had been easy to dismiss Mr. Wallace as a plain villain, but Mr. Seward, with his dead wife and untidy sons, didn’t seem the least villainous.
He didn’t even look villainous. She examined him with an artist’s eye, trying to figure out why. She supposed it was his age, the graying hair and the fine wrinkles about the eyes and mouth. She’d guess him to be about fifty, which seemed a trifle old for a smuggler, considering what she’d learned of the rigors of the profession. There was also his obvious affection for Daniel.
An affection that stopped at helping them escape Crouch, she reminded herself. None of these free traders could be trusted, even the ones with families. Daniel’s own wary expression around them told her that he knew very well how far their amiability extended, and the distance was short indeed.