‘Allow me to handle them,’ he said.
‘Ar, that’s easy for you to say,’ grumbled the captain. ‘But you don’t have to live in these parts.’
‘Good morning,’ said Lord Rawcliffe, as the captain threw a rope in the direction of a wooden post and thrust his lad up out of the sides of the ship after it.
One of the men on the quayside caught the rope before the lad could get to it and tossed it back into the boat.
‘You can’t land here,’ he barked. ‘We don’t have nothing for tourists,’ he finished, eyeing Rawcliffe and Clare with contempt.
‘Ah, but we are not tourists,’ said Rawcliffe. ‘We are here to visit the Reverend Cottam.’
The men on the quayside looked at each other. Their spokesman, a tall, rough-hewn individual with shoulders a couple of yards wide, stuck his meaty hands on his hips.
‘You want to speak to the Reverend, you go to church on Sunday up at Lesser Peeving and wait for him after service. He don’t like being bothered during the week.’
Clare gasped. And stood up. ‘That cannot be true. He would never—’ she paused to swipe a tendril of hair, which had escaped from her bonnet, from her mouth ‘—neglect his calling by refusing to permit parishioners to come to him with their problems during the week!’
Rawcliffe sighed at her misplaced faith in her brother.
‘Ar, but you ain’t one of his parishioners, are you?’ sneered the spokesman.
‘No,’ retorted Clare, lifting her chin. ‘I am his sister!’
The spokesman peered at her intently. Tilted his head to one side as he noted the colour of her hair which the wind was still whipping across her face. And for once, Rawcliffe was glad that she bore such a striking resemblance to her brother.
‘He never said as you was coming,’ said the spokesman resentfully.
‘What difference does that make? Why should I not visit my brother whenever I wish?’ Clare had become so annoyed that she did what she always did when provoked. Took to physical action. She bent to pick up the rope which the captain’s lad was too intimidated to touch and threw it with remarkable accuracy at the spokesman. ‘You will tie this boat to that post, if you please, and then take me straight to my brother!’
The spokesman gestured to one of the men at his side, who took the rope and looped it round the nearest bollard.
Just as he’d suspected, Clare had become the key to gaining entry to this supposedly impregnable stronghold. Not that it made him feel any better about how she’d feel when she discovered he’d been using her.
The spokesman made a signal to a sturdy boy who’d been standing on the outskirts of the group, who promptly went running off in the direction of the houses.
It took a few moments to get the gangplank in place and for him to help Clare cross it to gain solid ground.
‘Oh, my word,’ she said, clinging to his arm. ‘It feels as if the land is pitching up and down. How peculiar.’
Just then, the boy who’d been sent away came running back and went straight to the spokesman, who bent down to hear what he had to say. Whatever it was had the spokesman straightening up sharply, whipping off his cap, and making a clumsy bow to Clare. His men followed suit.
‘Beg your pardon, Miss Cottam. The reverend says as how we’re to take you straight to him.’
And treat her with respect, too, by the looks of it. Interesting.
‘I should jolly well think so,’ she said. Not bothering, he noted with irritation, to correct their assumption that she was still a single lady.
‘It’s this way,’ said the spokesman, indicating with a sweep of his arm that she should follow him. ‘Not you,’ he growled, as they set off, arm in arm.
‘Not I?’ Rawcliffe raised one eyebrow at the man, in his most imperious fashion.
‘No. The rev said as how we was to bring his sister to him. Only his sister. Not nobody else, see?’ To show he meant business, the man stuck his chin forward aggressively.
‘How very tiresome of him,’ he said mildly, though he wasn’t at all surprised. Cottam would want to get Clare alone, so that he could present his own, twisted version of events, and no doubt try to convince her that whatever he’d done, he’d been acting from purely altruistic motives.