Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women

“Spence is fine. Odette took care of him, but she was angry. Couldn’t even remember her English, but just kept railing at him in that mix of French and whatever it is she speaks when she’s upset.”

Julia shivered. “I don’t think I’d like to be on the receiving end of Odette’s anger. But Spencer really worried me last night.”

“Spence is much too headstrong,” Morgan said dismissingly, neatly hopping from the shale and sand up onto the wooden flagway that was wide enough for she and Julia to walk side by side. “Hot-blooded. Always wanting to play the hero. Papa should simply buy him a commission and let him trot off to war. It’s all Spence wants. All Rian wants, too. They’re both terrified the war will be over before they can get there.”

“And this worries you?” Julia asked, carefully picking her way on the wet, slippery flagway.

“No. Not a bit. A person should do what a person wants to do. And it’s even worse for us women.” She stopped, turned to smile at Julia, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Don’t you ever wish to just do something? Forget about your skirts and your fragile nature and just do something? Be somebody?”

Julia frowned, truly not understanding whatever it was Morgan was trying to say. “I am somebody, Morgan, and so are you. And Mr. Becket is wonderfully lenient. You won’t find such freedom of behavior in London.”

“Then that’s decided. I won’t go. You tell Chance for me, would you? Tell him I most humbly decline his kind invitation—or something of that sort.”

“Chance invited you to come to London for a season?”

“Uh-huh, but I won’t go now, not if there are going to be a multitude of rules Chance would expect me to obey, because we’d both end up being very disappointed,” Morgan said, turning to peer into the small, dusty shop window. “Oh, Ollie’s waving me in. I suppose the leather has arrived for my new riding boots. Italian leather, you know. The very finest.”

“But aren’t we—never mind,” Julia said, smiling at her own naiveté. From Florence to Spain to the French coast to Romney Marsh. “Shall we go inside?”

“No, no, I’ll take forever. Ollie insists on new measurements each time.” Morgan leaned closer. “I think he likes holding my feet and looking at my legs, but he’s an old man now, and I don’t see the harm, do you? I giggle and tell him my feet are ticklish, and he smiles and blushes.”

“You’re incorrigible, you know,” Julia told her. “And I think I like you very much. Where is the blacksmith located?”

“At the end of the village and then another few steps along, in case the forge catches fire. I’ll join you when I’m done or you can just walk back here, if you don’t mind? Waylon’s probably waiting for you.”

“Will I have to giggle as I let him hold my hand to measure my finger?”

“Only if you want his wife to take a pitchfork to you,” Morgan said, winking, and Julia headed toward the blacksmith shop, now able to see the smoke rising from the forge.

She couldn’t help but notice people stopping, staring at her, so she lifted her chin and smiled, nodded to the ladies and kept moving, her pace increasing as she passed by the larger building displaying a burned-wood overhead sign, Last Voyage.

By the time she reached the smithy, Julia wondered if she had grown a second head, for all the curious looks she was getting, which possibly explained why she hadn’t noticed she was being followed.

She’d pulled open one of the remarkably heavy doors and taken no more than two steps into the dark, overheated shop smelling of hot iron, where a leather-aproned man the size of a door himself yelled at the young boy working the bellows on a nearly white-hot fire, when a voice behind her said, “Guard the door, Gautier.”

Julia instantly froze in place, then turned about to see Jacko. Looming over her, smiling that delighted, deadly smile. Just the sort of smile Julia imagined the devil wearing as he welcomed newcomers to hell.

“Good morrow, Miss Carruthers,” he said, gifting her with a rather insolent salute. “Gautier? I said, guard the door.”

“Oui, Jacko.”

Julia stepped back several paces, then peered around Jacko’s heavy-shouldered bulk to see a small man in a tight-fitting red-and-white-striped seaman’s jersey and rather ragged, definitely baggy drawers. Gautier smiled at her.

“From the outside, Gautier,” Jacko said, still smiling at Julia, and the little Frenchman hit the palm of his hand against the side of his head, said, “Mon Dieu, naturellement. Pardon,” and scrambled through the doorway, closing the door behind him.

Silly as all this melodrama seemed to her, Julia was becoming rather uneasy. “Precisely what do you think you’re doing, Jacko?”

“I think that’s obvious, don’t you?” He turned and lowered the bar onto the hooks attached to the door, then called out, “Waylon! Take the boy and leave. Use the back door.”

Waylon, who was possibly as large as Jacko, took one look, then grabbed the boy by his arm and pulled him toward the rear of the building.

Julia folded her arms and tried to appear calm as Jacko approached the forge. Waylon had mistakenly left an iron rod still heating in the fire, and Jacko slid on a glove, then picked up the rod, its tip glowing white-hot. “Pretty, isn’t it? And yet so dangerous in the wrong hands.”

Wanting to scream, wanting to run, Julia instead stood her ground. “Am I supposed to be terrified, Jacko?”

His eyes sparkled, looked amused, and his tone was light as he smiled at her. “That would be the general idea, Miss Carruthers, yes.” He took a step toward her, and she retreated in spite of her determination to stand her ground. “Tell me about your father.”

Now Julia was terrified, even as she realized she was more terrified of Chance finding out she’d lied to him—a sin of omission, but a sin nonetheless—than she was of Jacko and his menacing weapon. “You’ve been to Hawkhurst?”

His grin was positively delighted. “Oh, and aren’t you the clever one. And a quick thinker, too. I’ve heard about Lieutenant Diamond’s visit last evening. Not just the wound to Spence but to his horse, as well. Very clever, very quick, very credible. And, yes, Miss Carruthers, I’ve been to Hawkhurst.”

“I can explain…”

“Really,” Jacko said flatly. “Just let me safely deposit this pretty thing into the water bucket, and then the two of us can sit over there on those fine oak chairs of Waylon’s…while you explain.”

Julia quickly did as he said, for her knees were knocking together so badly she was sure she might fall down otherwise.

Jacko picked up the other chair as if it weighed no more than a feather, turned it around, straddled it, then rested his crossed arms on the carved back of the chair. “So? What do you want to tell me?”

“What you already know, I suppose. That I am from Hawkhurst,” Julia began, untying her cloak because it was so very warm in the smithy, even though her fingers were cold and clumsy. “And my father was the vicar of Saint Bartholomew’s.” She looked down at her shaking fingers. “Until he was asked to step down.”

“Ah, there we go—and so quickly, too. Confession is good for the soul, isn’t it?” Jacko asked, leaning his large head on his crossed forearms, grinning at her. “And why was he asked to step down?”

Julia glared at him. “Although I’m at a loss as to how you found out, you obviously already know why.”

“That I do, that I do. But now I want you to tell me.”

“He was accused of thievery by his superiors from Rye.”

“So your holy papa was a thief? Stealing from his own church? And then he died, all suddenlike, before anyone could be told and he could be carted off to trial. How’d he die, Miss Carruthers?”

Julia blinked furiously as her eyes began to sting. “I won’t answer that.”

“He hanged himself,” Jacko said for her. “Took himself up to the attics of the vicarage that same night he was accused and hanged himself.”

How dare the man push at her like this? “He did not! My father died in his bed. I found him in his bed. He died in his sleep.”

“So everyone told me. Except for the man I found sweeping out the church. He told me something different.”

Julia hugged herself, began to rock. “Penton? Penton’s a simple man. And he drinks sometimes, poor soul. Nobody listens to Penton.”

“Drinks quite a bit, in truth, when someone else is paying down the blunt,” Jacko agreed.

He was still smiling. How Julia wanted him to stop smiling. But maybe Jacko was like some dogs—when the tail wagging stops, the dog bites.

Julia rushed into speech. “Why are you doing this to me? Why won’t you let my father rest in peace? Yes. Yes, Penton helped me cut Papa down and put him in his bed. He helped me wash him, prepare him for burial, so no one would see him…see him as he was. And my father was wept over by his congregation and buried in the churchyard. And I came to London and met Chance and to my great surprise found myself back here. Is that all you wanted to hear?”

“He was fronting for the local smugglers, wasn’t he? He’d give them money from the church coffers to buy goods across the Channel, then they’d pay him back, until the next time. Not for profit—unless you can call a cask of tea or perhaps some silk or lace for the pretty daughter profit—but to help his struggling congregation. How long had he been doing this? Who knows. But there was a storm or two at a bad time, and the goods had to be scuttled to save the men, so now there was no money when the officials from Rye came to call.”