He’d set out to find them after an early breakfast; fate had smiled and he’d intercepted them riding across his lands. He suspected they’d been on their way to search the caves tucked in the various coves that scalloped the western shore of the peninsula, but they’d been readily distracted by his suggestion of taking out his favorite sailing boat and tacking around Black Head to beat up the coast toward the Helford estuary to a fishing spot they all knew.
They’d dropped anchor in the inlet near the village of St. Anthony; they’d each flipped a line into the sea, and now sat slumped against the sides, watching the breeze ruffle the furled sail.
Although his gaze was on the pennant rippling from the top of the mast, Gervase was aware of the glance the three boys exchanged.
“I suppose,” Harry said, “that when you were younger, you must have done runs with the smugglers.”
Gervase hid a grin. He nodded. “Quite a few.” Still lazily ga
zing up at the pennant, he went on, “In those days, there were runs every few weeks—at least one a month, often more. The wars, and the excise levied because of them, made smuggling a lucrative trade. Now, however…”
Appreciating how devoted Madeline was to his three eager listeners, and when he married her, then regardless of any legal obligation certain natural and moral responsibilities regarding them would fall to him, given all that he had no wish to inflame their already engaged enthusiasms regarding the smugglers, and joining their runs.
“Now the wars have ended, there’s a rather large question over what smugglers will run—what goods will make smuggling worthwhile, whether there’ll be reason enough to continue doing runs at all. At present, there’s not much that would be worth the risk”—he lowered his gaze to sweep the three attentive faces—“which is why the gangs have gone quiet.”
He let that fact, and the implied prediction, sink in, then smiled. “Have you heard how the smugglers helped His Majesty’s services during the wars?”
Edmond’s eyes went wide. “They helped our forces?”
“Often.” Gervase settled his shoulders against the boat’s side. “For instance, when I was in Brittany, at a little fishing port called Roscoff, near St. Pol-de-Léon, I had to get back to England, fast, and…”
For the rest of the hour that they bobbed in the inlet, he held them enthralled with stories of wartime adventures, some his, some of other operatives like Charles St. Austell and Jack Hendon, whose exploits had passed into legend.
Noticing the wind rising, he capped his last tale with, “So those are some of the adventures my generation had, but while your generation will doubtless have adventures, too, as the times have changed, those wanting adventures will need to look in other arenas. The exciting new challenges will assuredly come from some different, unexpected direction—that, my lads, is the nature of adventure.”
Edmond and Ben grinned, then scrambled to help as he moved to ready the sail. Although Harry also smiled, Gervase noted his more pensive expression, and was satisfied. He hadn’t had a chance to probe the cause of Harry’s underlying restlessness; he hoped Madeline had acted on his advice and taken steps to include Harry in the work of the estate.
With their anchor raised and sail unfurled, the canvas filled, billowed, then snapped taut. The hull lifted and sliced southward through the choppy waves. Once they were under way, Gervase located Ben crouching before the mast. “Ben—why don’t you come and take the tiller?”
Ben’s eyes lit. He glanced at his older brothers, but both only nodded him back toward Gervase and shifted forward to sit on either side of the prow, enjoying the bounce and spray as the boat beat swiftly down the coast.
Scrambling to join Gervase at the stern, Ben sat on the bench Gervase vacated and wrapped both hands around the wooden handle. “I haven’t done this much before.”
Gervase smiled at the breathless confession. Once Ben had a good grip, he switched to sit on the other side of the tiller, resting his hand along the upper edge—for Ben’s reassurance more than his. The seas weren’t high, and they weren’t so close to the shore or the outlying reefs that he wouldn’t have plenty of time to seize the tiller and get her back on course should they go astray.
“You’re doing well.” He relaxed against the stern. “Just keep her nose in line with the cliffs—the wind’s sitting just right for us to beat straight down to Black Head. I’ll tell you how to manage when we get there.”
Ben didn’t reply, just nodded.
Gervase glanced at his face, saw the light shining in his eyes. Smiling, he sat back, entirely content.
Knowing one sure way to Madeline’s heart, after lunch he set out on Crusader to visit his smuggling contacts. Not to ask about smuggling, but about whether there’d been anything to suggest that the wreckers had plied their trade during the squall that had struck during Lady Porthleven’s ball.
This morning he’d distracted the Gascoigne trio, but tomorrow would be another day, and from their direction when he’d come upon them, and the few references they’d let fall during the morning’s sailing, they were plainly still intent on searching for wreckers’ treasure, not a safe pastime if there had been recent wrecks.
He stopped in Coverack to speak with the innkeeper there, then rode north to Porthoustock, then on to Helford and Gweek, eventually reaching Helston itself, and Abel Griggs.
“Nah.” Abel hefted the foaming pint pot Gervase set before him and took a deep draft. Lowering the pot, he wiped foam from his upper lip, then settled to chat. “Ain’t been no action—not for us, nor for them. That squall was a bad one, right enough, but it didn’t sit right for them. Far as we’ve been able to make out from the whispers and the remains of false beacons on the cliffs, they’ve only been using the reefs to the west, mostly laying in for the coves from Kynance to Mullion.”
“Not to the east?”
Abel shook his head. “There’s just the Manacles that side, and while they might be right jagged teeth lying there ready to rip out a ship’s hull, they’re difficult for the wreckers, leastways with the currents ’round that way.” Abel studied his beer. “Besides, with the wind as it was in that squall, it’d only be a ship beating north for the Helford estuary that’d be at risk, and no captain on this coast would do that in a blow.”
Gervase nodded. “True enough.”
Reassured that there was—still—nothing for Madeline’s brothers to find in the caves that dotted the western coves, he chatted with Abel about this and that, after his reminiscences of the morning reliving and recounting certain shared adventures from decades before.
He left Abel in the tavern on the old docks that had always been his “office” and headed back to Coinagehall Street and the Scales & Anchor where he’d left Crusader. He turned in under the arch of the inn’s stableyard—to find Madeline striding toward him.