“I could speak to her for you, Ben,” Charlie urged. “Explain what really happened.”
Ben turned aghast to his sister. That was the very last thing he wanted. He’d rather be skewered by the entire British Navy than that. “I shouldn’t need my baby sister to woo a woman for me.”
“It’s not as though you’re doing well on your own.” Charlie waggled her eyebrows to take away some of the sting.
Ben sighed.Perhaps I should let her talk to Jemma. If she thinks the color of her skin is what’s kept me away, she couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve spent too many nights dreaming about running my fingers and tongue over it, exploring if it’s as smooth as it appears, wondering what she looks like beneath all those layers.
Jemma accepted an offer to dance from a local farmer, pulling Ben from his musings. He gritted his teeth anytime he watched her dance with someone else. Each man enjoyed an experience Ben wished was solely his. His misery compounded when he watched the handsome and eligible Captain EdwardPoulson ask for a dance. The man riveted his attention on Jemma as though she were the only woman in attendance.
She wore a deep sapphire gown that flattered her trim physique. The skirts spun away from her legs with each turn the couple made. She smiled at the captain, and Ben could practically hear her laughter. It made him consider slipping out to join Jemma’s brothers and begging a tipple or three of brandy from them. His stomach churned as he feared Poulson would soon ask Jemma’s father, Sir Theodore Rowe, for the privilege of courting Jemma. Ben knew Poulson frequently danced with the woman Ben wished he’d claimed years ago.
“Pedrick.”
Ben wanted to groan as the deep voice belonging to Jemma’s father reached his ears. He wasn’t at the assembly to ogle Jemma. He was there to collect casks of brandy he would transport to Portsmouth. He was one of the most successful couriers, so Theo often used him to carry goods to his wife’s sister. Sarla had married an English baronet, much like Vinita Rowe had. Her husband, William Abbington, was a former East Indiaman like Theo, and Rajesh’s deceased father, Robert.
“The syrup is ready.” It was the code word they used for brandy. Their arrangement was no secret to anyone in Lantic Bay, but it meant anyone who overheard and was later questioned by excisemen could honestly say they didn’t know they referred to smuggled brandy.
“The pepper is ready.” Gunpowder. Steven Pedrick was a scientist by training and had mastered the formula for saltpeter. The East India Company held a monopoly on the trade from Bombay. They knew Cornish and Devonian smugglers were creating their own saltpeter and selling gunpowder, but they hadn’t captured the perpetrators. The East India Company came close days after Rajesh and Charlie married, but the smugglersevaded capture. Rajesh extinguished their most imminent threat.
His intervention allowed Ben to keep his head and his family to keep their livelihood. The fishing near Bedruthan Steps long ceased generating the income families in the area needed to survive. They’d turned to an alternative source once the fish grew scarce, but the illicit goods grew plenty.
“Excellent. Between our feud with that pint-sized frog dictator and our skirmishes with the Yanks, we have plenty of demand. When can your brother finish the next batch?”
“A fortnight. He started a new soup yesterday.” Saltpeter. It was a combination of ingredients that needed stirring around the clock while in production. Men and women in Bedruthan Steps took their turns in shifts during the weeklong process. Much like in Lantic Bay, the community in Bedruthan Steps worked together for their mutual benefit. Fortunately, the volunteers were many to keep the combustible concoction from becoming too gelatinous or exploding.
“And what are you four coozing about?” Grandma Smith joined Ben, Theo, Rajesh, and Charlie as she raised her mug of eggnog in salutation. She was an integral part of Lantic Bay’s smuggling economy. She was a fount of knowledge and the hub of most transactions. She wasn’t known to forgive those who excluded her, so she wished to know about what they supposedly gossiped.
“Names for our baby,” Charlie answered. “Miles for a lad and Georgiana for a lass.”
While it was true those were names she and Rajesh considered, they’d hardly decided. However, it turned Grandma Smith’s attention to Charlie as she struck up a conversation filled with old wives’ tales. Theo and Ben exchanged a speaking glance before Ben turned toward the door. He needed to checkon his gunpowder. His cart was outside the local stables, and he’d stored the illegal explosives in a hidden cellar nearby.
Just as he moved to sweep his gaze over the crowd a final time, searching as always for Jemma, the doors burst open. A dozen men poured in with muskets held at the ready. The icy blast of December wind caught people’s attention as much as the threatening new arrivals. The weapons appeared surprisingly new and of high quality. Ben suspected the East India Company supplied them to the excisemen as an incentive and as security while tracking the gunpowder.
Lord Tobias Pencarrow, the local viscount, stepped forward. Nothing happened along his strip of coast of which he wasn’t aware since he had his hand in the smuggling ring. Beside him happened to be his longtime compatriot and former spymaster, the Duke of Harrelson, whose former nanny was Grandma Smith. Harrelson lived close to Lantic Bay, so he was a recognized presence.
While the two noblemen contended with the interruption, Ben watched Jemma slip outside, once again without a chaperone. He wondered if she headed to a secret assignation. Would she stand beneath mistletoe with some unknown suitor? Ben’s heart pounded, and he clenched his fists. It was none of his business, since he had no claim, but he couldn’t stop his feet from propelling him forward. He inched out of the door, glad to be away from the very men who could arrest him. He quickened his pace as he watched Jemma move toward the path down to the beach. She glanced back and spied him, but rather than stop, she hastened. Ben sprinted to catch her.
“Where are you going?” Ben caught her upper arm and pulled her to a stop. Her teeth already chattered in the blustery night air. She had herodhni, much like the one Charlie wore, but she hadn’t grabbed her cloak before beating a hasty retreat from the Christmas assembly.
“Home.”
“Along the beach? There are likely excisemen crawling along the shore, looking into every nook and cranny. Where were you really going?”
Jemma tugged at her arm, so Ben released it. It gave him the chance to cross his arms. He possessed an impressive physique from years of lugging and hauling heavy cargo. But when he stood as he did now, he was breathtaking. Jemma forced herself not to sweep her eyes over the length of him or to stare at his bulging arms. His expansive chest looked like the perfect place to rest her head or her lips. Both would be fine with her.
“I have nothing to say to you, Benjamin. Leave me alone.”
“To have someone snatch you? No.”
“I am not your concern. I was hoping to find a nook or cranny to hide in.”
“From the excisemen?”
“You.”
“Do you fear me, Jemma?”
“Jemima. And no. I don’t fear weak men.” It seemed like an absolute contradiction, given his size and his stance. But she’d thought him weak for years, too ensnared by public opinion to pursue the foreign-born, dark-skinned woman.
