‘I’m sorry,’ said Miss Thane, in answer to a reproachful glance from Eustacie. ‘I could not stop him.’
‘You should have stopped him!’ said Eustacie. ‘Now what are we to do?’
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Miss Thane turned to Sir Tristram. ‘The truth is, my dear sir, that your cousin fell in with a band of smugglers last night upon the road here, and had a sad fright.’
‘Smugglers?’ repeated Shield.
‘Yes,’ averred Eustacie. ‘And I am just telling this stupid person that it was I who came here last night, and not a smuggler.’
‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said the riding-officer, ‘but the young lady’s telling me that she rid here last night to catch the mail-coach.’ His tone inferred that he found the story incredible, as well he might.
‘I’ll have you know,’ growled Nye, ‘that the Red Lion’s a respectable house! You’ll find no smugglers here.’
‘And it’s my belief I’d find a deal you’d like to hide if I knew just where those cellars of yours are, Mr Nye!’ retorted the Exciseman. ‘It’s a fine tale you’ve hatched, and Miss knowing no better than to back you up in it, but you don’t gammon me so easily! Ay, you’ve been careful to sweep the snow from your doorstep, but I’ve followed the trail down the road, and seen the blood on it!’
‘Certainly you have seen the blood,’ said Eustacie. ‘There was a great deal of blood.’
‘Miss, do you ask me to believe that you went gallivanting about on horseback in the middle of the night? Come now, that won’t do!’
‘Yes, but you do not understand. I was making my escape,’ said Eustacie.
‘Making your escape, miss?’
‘Yes, and my cousin here will tell you what I say is true. I am Mademoiselle de Vauban, and I am the granddaughter of Lord Lavenham, and he is Sir Tristram Shield.’
The Exciseman seemed to be a little impressed by this. He touched his hat to Sir Tristram, but still looked unconvinced. ‘Well, miss, and supposing you are, what call have you to go riding off in the night? I never heard of the Quality doing such!’
‘I was running away from Sir Tristram,’ said Eustacie.
‘Oh!’ said the Exciseman, looking more dubious than ever.
Sir Tristram stood like a rock. Miss Thane, taking one look at his outraged profile, was shaken by inward laughter, and said unsteadily: ‘This is a – a matter of no little delicacy, you understand?’
‘I’m bound to say I don’t, ma’am,’ said the Exciseman bluntly. ‘What for would the young lady want to run away from her cousin?’
‘Because he would have forced me to marry him!’ said Eustacie recklessly.
The Exciseman cast a glance of considerable respect at Sir Tristram, and said: ‘Well, but surely to goodness, miss –’
‘My grandfather is dead, and I am quite in my cousin’s power,’ announced Eustacie. ‘And when I was on my way here I met the smugglers. And I was naturally very much afraid, and they were too, because they fired at my groom, and wounded him, and he fell off his horse with both my bandboxes.’
Sir Tristram continued to preserve a grim silence, but at mention of the groom a slight frown knit his brows, and he looked intently at Eustacie.
‘Indeed, miss?’ said the Exciseman. ‘Then it queers me how there come to be only the tracks of one horse down the road!’
‘The other horse bolted, of course,’ said Eustacie. ‘It went back to its stable.’
‘Maddened by fright,’ murmured Miss Thane, and encountered a glance from Shield which spoke volumes.
‘And may I inquire, miss, how you come to know that the horse went back to its stable?’
Miss Thane held Sir Tristram’s eyes with her own. ‘Why, Sir Tristram here has just been telling us!’ she said with calm audacity. ‘When the riderless horse arrived at the Court he at once feared some mishap had overtaken his cousin, and set out to ride – ventre à terre – to the rescue. Is that not so, dear sir?’
Aware of one compelling pair of humorous grey eyes upon him, and one imploring pair of black ones, Sir Tristram said: ‘Just so, ma’am.’
The look he received from his cousin should have rewarded him. Eustacie said: ‘And then I must tell you that I took my poor groom up behind me on my own horse, but I did not know the way very well, and he was too faint to direct me, and so I was lost a long time in the Forest.’