Mawgan had blanched at the mention of hanging.
It seemed that he had indeed been sent to Portugal to make sure Lord Barclay never came home. He had waited patiently for the war to dispose of his lordship, which it had stubbornly refused to do for more than a year. Then, when they were in the hills one day, he was out looking for firewood—he really was, he swore to it—when he was surprised by a group of French soldiers, who were scouting behind enemy lines. They realized he was English, but before they could do anything to him he told them he could lead them to a far more valuable prize in the form of a British reconnaissance officer out of uniform and on his way to perform a top-secret mission behind French lines, his head full of secrets, his wife with him. He would lead them to the pair if they would let him go. They did, on a very loose rein, and he took them to Lord and Lady Barclay and then made his escape to raise the alarm.
“I had no choice,” he said sullenly. “It was me or them, and why should it be me? I had put in more than a year of my time out there in that hell. I did not kill him for all that. You cannot putthatmurder on me.”
Percy spoke up though he was there on sufferance, he knew, not being any sort of officer of the law himself.
“You might be advised to speak the whole truth, Mawgan,” he said, “considering the high stakes for which you play.”
They all turned surprised faces his way.
“You want us to believe,” Percy said, “that foraging alone for firewood in hills that were potentially dangerous, you allowed yourself to be taken by surprise? And that your captors let you go free to lead them on what might well have been a wild goose chase?”
“May I remind you, Mawgan,” Sir Matthew said, “of the possible consequences to you of being tried for the murder of Henry Cooper.”
“I saw them,” Mawgan blurted out after a short silence. “But they were going the wrong way. It was the only real chance I had had in more than a year, short of killing him myself. I took off my shirt and tied it to my musket and held it up and showed myself. It was a breezy day.”
“You did have your musket with you, then?” Sir Matthew asked.
“Of course I did,” Mawgan said scornfully. “I went in under a flag of truce and told them what treasure I could lead them to if they would swear to let me go. Luckily two of them spoke English. They asked me why, and I told them it was personal. The rest happened as I said. I did not kill him. Lady Barclay can vouch for that.”
“Not directly,” Sir Matthew agreed, “though it might be argued that you sold him into his death. But there may be others too, Mawgan. There have been a number of deaths and maimings with obvious connections to the smuggling trade. We may very well be able to get you for murder yet. At the very least I believe you will be spending many years behind bars and set to hard labor.”
Percy let himself out of the room and closed the door behind him. He was not sure if he felt triumphant or not. Actually he felt a bit flat, he decided. He supposed he had imagined the climax as involving him in a fierce sword fight on the cliff path, himself against half a dozen cutthroat villains, and then a descent to fight off a dozen more in order to get inside the cave to rescue a trussed-up Imogen before the unusually high tide got to her first. And then a desperate climb up the cliff face, her fainting form over one shoulder, because the tide had cut off access to the path. Cheers and accolades from all and sundry. A weeping, grateful woman, himself all ardor down on one knee, proposing marriage—again—and bearing her off to the altar and happily-ever-after with church bells ringing and flowers cascading around their heads.
Sometimes, even in the privacy of his own mind, he could embarrass himself horribly. He ought to write the story and have it published by the Minerva Press—under his own name.
But therewassomething anticlimactic about this less glorious end to the business, satisfactory though it was in all essential ways. They had undoubtedly got the leaders. Ratchett, when confronted again, would find himself unable to maintain any pretense of innocence in light of his great-nephew’s confession and the evidence of the books that had been found. It did not necessarily mean that smuggling would stop in the area for all time, but it did mean he could control it on his own land, and it would be considerably weakened elsewhere if it did somehow survive.
Imogen was safe, though he would still not want her to be alone for a while yet. Not until the trials had taken place and the main players—including any who had not yet been apprehended—were behind bars for good and the sensation of it all had died down.
He felt sad that the murder of the valet, Cooper, had gone unavenged for so long and that now the decision had been made to offer Mawgan a conditional amnesty on that charge given his confession about everything else. But the decision had not been his to make. And it had worked. If Mawgan and Ratchett were not ultimately charged as accessories to the murder of Richard Hayes, Viscount Barclay, though, he would want to know why.
At the moment it was no longer his business.
And tomorrow there was a ball for which to prepare himself.
Life was an odd business.
***
Imogen was feeling as flat as a pancake, if that was a suitable image to describe the empty feeling inside she had not been able to shake since yesterday. Mr. Ratchett and James Mawgan were in custody, as well as Mr. Tidmouth, and both Percy and Sir Matthew were confident that the smuggling trade would collapse without them. There had been a few more arrests too of men high in the ranks of the gang whom James Mawgan had named, and there were others to be pursued for criminal actions that could not be ignored—the men who had broken Colin Bains’s legs, for example. But beyond that there was to be no witch hunt for the rank and file, for those who had done the smuggling work either for a little extra money or because they had had no choice. Such men were unlikely to reorganize without their leaders.
She ought to be happy, Imogen told herself as she dressed for the ball. Everyone had been exuberant yesterday when Percy returned from the village with his news. There had been cheers and laughter and even champagne. All the ladies and female cousins as well as Tilly, who had been visiting at the time, had hugged Imogen and even kissed her. Two of the uncles had hugged her too.
And so had Percy.
She did not believe he had intended to do so, but his mother had just been hugging her and had turned to lay a hand on his arm. And somehow his arms came about Imogen and hers about him and they had held each other more tightly and for a little longer than they ought. He had not kissed her, but he had raised his head and gazed deeply into her eyes for a few moments before releasing her.
Everyone around them had been beaming. His mother had had her hands clasped to her bosom and tears in her eyes. Imogen had moved away to bend over Cousin Adelaide’s chair and smile at her and kiss her cheek. Then she had patted the head of Bruce, who had exerted himself sufficiently to lumber to his feet and come sniffing at her skirts.
Everyone, without exception, had advised her for her own safety not to move back to the dower house until after she returned from Penderris Hall at the end of the month. She had, though, released Mrs. Hayes’s maid last night to sleep in her own room again.
But the maid had returned this evening, on the strict instructions of Mrs. Hayes, to dress Imogen’s hair for the ball. Smooth and elegant would simply not do, it seemed. There had to be at leastsomeswirls and curls and a few wavy wisps to trail along her neck and over her temples.
She was wearing a high-waisted, low-bosomed gown of ivory satin overlaid with a tunic of dull gold netting, which she had bought in London a couple of years ago and worn only twice there. It had always seemed too grand for the country. But tonight was a special occasion. The house was almost unrecognizable what with all the gleaming surfaces and sparkling chandeliers and the banks of spring flowers everywhere. And, flat as Imogen’s spirits were, she must rise to the occasion. It was Percy’s thirtieth birthday party, for which an impressive number of his family and friends had traveled long distances and at which all the neighbors from a wider radius than just Porthmare and its environs were to assemble to welcome the Earl of Hardford home at last.
She looked well enough, she thought as the maid clasped her pearls about her neck and she looked at herself in the pier glass. The colors were a bit muted, perhaps, but with the addition of a smile...
