Damian, his hand on his own sword, found, even in the midst of crisis, something amusing as well as admirable about that indomitable little figure daring this group of hulking men to leave their comrades in the lurch.
Luke dropped his eyes before the ferocious stare. “Get ready,” Bart ordered. “We'll pull 'em in. That way, we'll gain a few more minutes.”
Another musket shot rang out as Jacques swung his boat into the wind, letting the sails flap as the craft sped on the crest of a wave to the beach.
“You must not stay here,” Merrie hissed urgently, finding Damian beside her in the surf. “Not nowânow that there is danger of discovery.'
“When this night is over, Merrie Trelawney, I shall take immense pleasure in ensuring that you regret that remark,” he gritted. “How dare you tell me to desert when you hold others to their post at knife point! ”
“I beg your pardon,” she said, acknowledging her mistake instantly, shooting him a mischievous grin that entranced him even as it amazed.
Then the boat was upon them, and for a moment all was chaos as its crew leapt into the surf, cursing up hill and down dale. “Leave the boat, Jacques.” Merrie's voice rose urgently as the Frenchmen struggled to beach the laden vessel. “There is nothing to be done now except save our necks.”
“Leave the contraband.
Sacré bleu!
You are out of your mind, Meredith!” Jacques tugged at the painter. “You know how much that cargo is worth.”
“And I know how much I value my life,” she snapped. “A deal more than brandy and tobacco,
mon ami.
Besides, it will distract the revenue for a few precious minutes.
Allons-y.”
With a vicious oath, the French smuggler released his boat and cargo as if consigning precious offspring to the flames before leaping through the shallows onto the beach where the others were already making for the narrow trail snaking up to the cliff road.
Meredith glanced over her shoulder as she reached the base of the cliff. The cutter was about to land, but its skipper, not as canny as Jacques, had turned too late into the wind, and it was listing heavily in the crosscurrent. She drew her pistol from her belt, squinting along the barrel as she held it at arm's length.
“Damn you, Meredith!” Damian knocked her arm to one side. “I refuse to marry a murderess. Get up that trail!”
“I wasn't aiming to kill, just to make the landing more difficult,” she protested. He put a hand beneath her backside, shoved her upward, and turned to put what he had to admit was a sound plan into action. His pistol cracked, the bullet spurting sand. The men in the boat paused. He reloaded with the speed garnered from years of battlefield experience and kept firing until a quick glance behind him showed that the others were almost at the top. Meredith, from halfway up, was firing doggedly in support, but someone in the cutter had come to his senses and fired back as the boat bucked on the unruly surf, and the revenue men were torn between the lure of the contraband waiting to be seized and chasing the smugglers. A musket ball whined over Damian's head, burying itself in the cliff a few inches from the cowering Meredith.
“Move!” he yelled. “Now!”
“I'll cover you,” she called back.
“You'll do as you're damn well told! Climb! And keep your head down!”
Meredith, recognizing the colonel's incisive accents in her lover's voice, found herself scrambling upward as if all the devils in hell were on her heels as, indeed, they were. More than one musket was firing now, but she dared not turn to look behind, could only go on, keeping her head low, wincing as musket balls hit the dust around her. How had they not hit Damian, so much more in range? Unable to bear the suspense any longer, she risked slowing her pace to look over her shoulder.
“If we're going to continue in this crazy business, I am going to have to give you some instruction in guerrilla warfare.” The cool, amazingly controlled voice accompanied that hand on her behind again, propelling her upward. He did not seem to be remotely out of breath and had caught her up as soundlessly as it had been swiftly.
“You would know, of course,” she gasped, “after all those years in the Peninsula.”
“Just so. Now save your breath and keep up your speed.”
The shooting from below had become sporadic. Meredith realized the reason as she hauled herself over the cliff and onto the road. Only a few coastguard remained on the beach, the rest were streaming up the broad path that would bring them onto the road a quarter mile behind their quarry. That quarter mile was the only advantage the smugglers had.
“We have to hold them off,” Meredith said breathlessly as Damian joined her on the path. “Give the others time to hide until the pursuit dies down. There are dozens of places for those who know them, and Bart knows them all. Eventually, they will make their way to the cavern, but we cannot risk relying on being able to outrun the revenue.”
Damian looked up and down the road, eyes narrowed speculatively. “You will obey orders implicitly?”
“Yes, Colonel,” she agreed instantly, shooting him the same impish grin she had given him on the beach. Damian shook his head in amazement. The greater the danger, it seemed, the greater her stimulation. Nothing seemed to frighten her at all events.
“Very well. Give me your pistol and ammunition. Now, run and keep running for five minutes. Then set fire to the scrub beside the road.”
Swallowing the temptation to ask what Damian intended to do himself, Merrie ran obediently. The sound of rapid firing broke out behind her. Rutherford, using both pistols, was creating as much havoc as he could, sprawled on the cliff top, firing down onto the path where the coastguard, suddenly as exposed as tall trees on a moor, milled around, firing blindly in the direction of the sniper. Damian knew he could not keep them confused for long, and he needed to keep some ammunition in case of further emergency. When he judged that Merrie had had a little over five minutes, he backed away, still firing, then turned and ran.
Merrie had had difficulty initially in getting the damp scrub to catch and in the end set fire to her jacket, which burned easily, and then set the light to the recalcitrant brush. When Damian appeared, covering the ground easily with long strides, she followed the curt order to fan the flames as he dragged sticks and fallen branches into the road, throwing a burning brand into their midst. The wind tugged merrily at the sparks, and the damp fuel created a thick, oily blanket of smoke that billowed down the road. The fire in the scrub beside the road was burning well so the coastguard would meet a barrier ahead and to the left when they rounded the corner. On their right, the cliff dropped sheer to the sea.
“It will not hold them for long,” Damian said. “Run now as you've never run before.”
“In half a mile we can go over the cliff,” she gasped. “They will run right past us.”
Recalling the manner in which they had all disappeared on that first memorable night that had turned his life inside out and upside down, Rutherford agreed to the plan. There was no sign of their fellow smugglers, who had clearly taken advantage of the delayed pursuit. Shouted oaths and expletives rent the air as their pursuers reached the fire. They would find a way around it soon enough, and Meredith, for all her wiry strength, was flagging, fighting for breath, her lungs bursting, her legs screaming for relief. Rutherford, with the dispassion of a commanding officer, closed his mind to her plight; if he showed any concern, she would probably collapse, and he could not possibly carry her while maintaining the necessary speed. She must manage alone, knowing that he expected it of her.
When Merrie fell suddenly to her knees at the edge of the cliff, his heart sank as he made to haul her upright. Unable to speak, she shook her head weakly, pointing to the cliff edge.
“Here?” He peered over, seeing only the black space of a sheer drop.
Meredith nodded. “Just drop,” she gasped, “exactly where I do.” She had no breath to expand the statement, but Damian realized grimly that, if he missed the exact spot, he would plummet down to the rocks beneath. Then she had disappeared, just like on that other occasion, and he approached the edge gingerly, lying on his belly, inching backward until his legs hung free. To his inexpressible relief, he felt something grasp, then guide his feet. “Drop now!” the urgent whisper came from what seemed a great distance below. “Straight as you can.” For a dizzying instant he held onto nothing, then his feet touched solid ground. “Don't step back,” she hissed, and he hugged the cliff face convulsively.
“One of your ancestors must have been a goat,” Damian muttered. “Guerrilla warfare as a necessary component of marriage is one thing, emulating mountain goats quite another. Don't you ever expect me to do this again!”
“I won't,” Merrie promised with a feeble chuckle. Then she fell silent at the sound of pounding feet and raised voices from above.
As she had predicted, the coastguard ran straight past them. When the noise of pursuit had faded, she whispered to Damian that she was going to climb behind him to his other side so that she could lead the way along the ledge. They would come up on the road a quarter of a mile back, thus putting even more ground between themselves and the revenue. They could reach Pendennis across the fields, going behind their pursuers.
“Be careful,” he enjoined, trying to shrink into the cliff as he felt her hands on his waist, the brush of her body against his back, and then she was beside him again, but this time on his left.
Crabwise, they traversed the narrow ledge until it petered out, and they hauled themselves up onto the road. “I do not suppose we could go back to the beach and recover some of the contraband,” Merrie said wistfully.
“For God's sake, have you never had enough!” Rutherford grasped the nape of her neck between pincerlike fingers, pushing her across the road into the field. “You have not considered that the boat is bound to be guarded. Or does that minor detail not concern you? ”
“Jacques is going to be enraged,” she said. “He will have to get another boat since the coastguard will impound that one. So, not only will he have lost his cargo, but he will have the expense of replacing his vessel. I will have to share the cost,” she added gloomily.
“Well, permit me to inform you, my love, that that is one burden I shall not remove from your shoulders. All financial transactions with the Frenchman are yours to bear!”
“I would not dream of asking you to do any such thing,” she said indignantly, trying to turn her head against the pressure of his fingers. “You talk, sir, as if matters are in a fair way to being settled between us.”
“So they are,” replied Damian in uncompromising accents. “A few details remain to be discussed, that is all.”
“More than a few,” Merrie muttered, squelching through a deep ditch.
Damian grinned to himself, unperturbed by this minor recalcitrance. They had reached the copse on Pendennis land by this time, and Merrie made straight for the side door of the house. “We will go to the cave from inside,” she whispered, unlatching the door, which opened soundlessly on well-oiled hinges.
Damian followed her through the sleeping house, into the pantry where she lifted the slab, revealing the secret passage. In the lamplit cavern, they found the relieved French crew and the disconsolate Jacques. Bart was the only Cornishman in attendance, informing Meredith that the others had chosen to go their separate ways, but as far as he knew all were safe.
“Thank God!” Meredith sighed with relief. “That was too narrow an escape.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Rutherford declared, sitting on a rock and stretching his legs. “Perhaps, in future, we can avoid further such narrow ones.”
“Who's this?” Jacques demanded, scrutinizing the long, lean Englishman whose aristocratic bearing seemed not a whit disguised by the filth on his hands, the tears in his clothes, the black smoke streaks on his face.
“Lord Rutherford,” Meredith introduced absently. “It seems that we are to be married. Jacques, you must calculate your losses for this night's work, and I will contrive to meet half of them. Is that fair?”
“Married?” said Jacques, obviously intrigued by this idea. “When?”
“In three weeks' time,” Damian informed him with a serene smile.
“What?” Meredith squeaked. “Do not be absurd.”
“They are already calling the bans in St. George's, Hanover Square,” Damian said calmly, “and the notice appeared in the
Gazette
last week. Madame Bernice is making your wedding gown, and you cannot possibly postpone Bella's preparations for the reception, it would be too unkind.”
“This wedding you said you must attend. . .” She stared in disbelief.
“My own,” he corroborated. “I think, gentlemen, if you will excuse me, Merrie and I have matters of some moment to discuss.”
“I will fetch blankets and wine,” Merrie said in a dazed voice. “You will not be too uncomfortable, and in the morning we will decide what to do next.”
Jacques chuckled richly. “I would never have believed it possible,
mon amie
, but I think you have found a man your equal in determination. Bring us wine, by all means. Blankets we can do without. As to my lossesâ” he shruggedâ“I will bear them myself. A wedding present,
comprenez?”
Meredith smiled, returning the bear hug, before turning to Bart. “Will you go home now, Bart? Or do you keep our friends company until morning?”
“I'll stay,” the fisherman pronounced. “No sense running further risks.” He looked at Rutherford and then nodded, as if satisfied. “You'll do, I reckon, m'lord.”