Chapter 24
After her morning ride Summer kept Ebony to crop the lawns and was thankful she wouldn’t need to water the vegetables today because the heavy morning fog had taken care of that chore.
Spider fashioned three wooden crates which looked as if they might hold paintings while Summer wrote a letter about the Brussels lace to Auntie Lil. She packed the lace lovingly, making good use of the oilskins, and Spider nailed the crates closed.
By eight o’clock he was on his way to Falmouth in the ponycart and Summer reckoned the lace should add another couple of thousand pounds to their savings. She carried water from the well and set it to boil for the washing, then as she scrubbed the linen her mind never left Ruark Helford.
All her time was running out and she knew he must make her his mistress soon if she was to obligate him with her debts. Once they had become intimate, she hoped he would be loving and generous enough to forgive her deceptions. She would have to choose very carefully the perfect moment when she would confess all.
He was going away again next week and heaven only knew when he would return once he was reunited with the King and court. So she decided she must make it happen. Tomorrow night he must make love to her!
When Spider returned, he had brought food from Falmouth. He unhitched the cart and set his pony to crop the lawns with Ebony. Over lunch he told her how smoothly it had gone when he carried the crates aboard himself and stowed them in the cargo hold. Lord Helford instructed Mr. Cully to deliver them to Lady Richwood when the ship docked in London and then, Spider said, the magistrate had ridden off to Plymouth, no doubt to condemn the poor bastards from Brittany who were imprisoned there, awaiting their sentence.
Later in the afternoon when Spider saddled the bay, she asked him where he was going. “When I checked the lobster traps this morning, they were empty, so I thought I’d ride up the Helford River and do a spot of fishing.”
She sighed with relief, for he was getting to an age where he wasn’t going to listen to a woman’s admonitions to be careful, not even his sister’s. When he hadn’t returned by dusk, she felt uneasy, then when it turned full dark, she could not dispel a nagging worry. When a knock came upon the front door, her heart plummeted. A shabby urchin handed her a scrap of paper. “Spider’s been taken,” he said breathlessly.
“You mean arrested?” she cried.
He nodded. “Excise men.”
She felt the blood drain from her face. She closed her eyes and grasped hold of the lintel. “Where have they taken him?”
The boy shook his head, so she looked at the paper on which were scrawled two words, “Falmouth jail.” “Aren’t you the Penrose boy from the tavern in Helston?”
He nodded, “They got my da’ an’ my brother, too,” he gasped.
She thanked him and gave him some coppers. “Run home to your mother, she’ll need a strong lad like you.”
She wondered if she might be able to bribe Spider’s way out and ran upstairs to get money from the cash box. Should she get dressed up, sweep in telling them she was Lady Summer St. Catherine, and demand his release? No, if she knew Spider, they hadn’t the faintest idea who he was, so it would be best to dress shabbily this first time and hope she could learn something.
She put on her gardening skirt and wrapped a shawl about her, then she rode the pony to Falmouth. She put the shawl over her head and had no trouble gaining access to the prison. She wasn’t the only woman hastening to the jail this night. All those who had been arrested for unlawful importation were housed in a common cell and not a few of them stood at the bars talking to their anxious womenfolk. Her brother motioned her over quickly. “Don’t worry about me, Cat, I’m fine. The short, thickset man over there is Bulldog Brown … they’ve got me down as Spider Brown. We don’t come up before Helford for three weeks, so for Christ’s sake promise me you won’t let this spoil things for you. Don’t dare tell him or he’ll never wed you!”
“You can’t stay here for three weeks,” she protested.
“’Course I can. We’ll just sit here and eat our heads off.”
Penrose grinned at her. “I’m going to offer our jailers some cider from the pub to keep us in good stead.”
“You see?” demanded Spider. “A deep draft of local cider will have us lying in the gutter every night with our toes in the air, so stop worrying about me and get on with more important business.”
She nodded. She wouldn’t tell him she’d brought money as a bribe. She didn’t want to give him false hopes if it didn’t work. She turned to seek out an officer, but before she could leave, Spider had her firmly by the wrist. “Promise me you’ll pretend all is well when you see him.”
She bit her lip and whispered, “I promise.”
“Good girl. Now I have a really lousy job for you, Cat, but you’ve got to do it.” He looked at her anxiously. “That bastard Oswald who caught us shot the bay out from under me. I don’t think the swine killed him—he just left him there on the beach. You’ll have to go and finish him off, Cat.”
Her heart flooded with anguish. What sort of swine would leave a horse to die a slow agonizing death as its lifeblood seeped away? She felt for her money and hurried to the ward room. Fate was laughing at her this night. Sergeant Oswald sneered, saying, “Well, well, if it isn’t Helford’s whore. There’s no denying it this time. I caught them with the barrels. Which one are you connected with?”
“I came on behalf of Mrs. Penrose at the tavern. You have both her husband and her son,” she said quietly.
He leered down at her, his red face sweating. “I don’t think spreading your legs will do you any good this time.”
She couldn’t get away from him fast enough. She urged the pony into a fast trot, wishing Spider had ridden this surefooted little beast who knew the cliff paths so well and probably wouldn’t have been spotted in the dark.
Back home at Roseland she carefully loaded one of the pistols, put some fresh water into a bucket, and climbed down the cliff path to the beach. Halfway down she spotted the bay lying on the shingle, his maimed body making a grotesque mound in the moonlight.
Summer prayed he was dead, but before she even got close she could hear him heaving. She knew he would be unable to eat— that’s why she hadn’t brought an apple or oats—but she knew with his lifeblood trickling from him, he would have an unbearable thirst.
She dug the bucket of water down into the sand beside his muzzle and with soft soothing words lifted his head to help him drink. He drained the bucket, his great sides heaving and quivering with the effort. “Good boy,” she whispered as she put the pistol behind his velvet ear and pulled the trigger.
It flashed and kicked in her hand, and if she hadn’t been kneeling, it would probably have knocked her off her feet. She sat quietly a long time to make sure he was dead, then when the eternal tide crept up to wash about his hooves, she arose and let the sea have him.
That night she didn’t sleep, of course. Her feelings were so intense she felt like screaming. If she could scream loudly enough, she felt that some of her tension might dissolve. She agonized over her brother, but at least she knew the Falmouth prison was no hellhole like the larger one in Plymouth. Finally she realized that Spider was right. The best way she could help him was to carry through her plans to secure her position with Ruark Helford and she had no more days or nights to waste.