“One more thing, Miss Pip,” Clancy said. “There are a couple o’ guns in the dower stables. You take one f’r yourself, now, and keep it with you. I’ll get somebody to his lordship.”
They parted at the Dower House stables, where Hawkins the groom came out to collect Macha. With off-handed wishes to see each other again soon, Lizzie and Clancy went trotting back along a side path to the manor house.
Left behind, Pip was suddenly beset with dread. What if she got this wrong? What if someone were hurt, or they couldn’t prevent the guns going to their intended recipients? What if, through her own incompetence, she made things worse?
All she could do was shake her head and suck in a deep breath. Beau would be there soon.
“Two things, Hawkins,” she told the groom loaned to the Dower House as she draped that blasted skirt back over her arm. “Once Macha is groomed, I need to see you in the kitchen for a few minutes. And bring the guns that are here. In a satchel, if you would.”
The gruff, broad husband of Cook, Hawkins looked at Pip as if she had gone barmy, but he knuckled his cap and took hold of Macha. Pip turned for the house, hoping with all her heart that Clancy would get to Beau in good time. She had a lot to do in the meantime.
* * *
Beau didn’t expectNate Adams to reveal what he was doing in Dorset. Nate was one of the most close-mouthed people Beau had ever known, all the way back to Eton when they had run an informal gambling ring together. Tall, dark, sinewy, Adams might be a Rake, but he was a law unto himself. No matter how imbedded Nate was in the aristocracy, third son of a marquess whose line ran straight back to the Conqueror, Nate could fit in at any level of society like a chameleon. Right now, he sat across from Beau nursing a glass of ale, obviously acting the fisherman who might just be supplanting his income out across the Channel, his attire homespun and wool, his black hair disreputably long and his face just that unshaven.
But then, Beau didn’t look much better. The Lion and Bandit wasn’t a place to wear a morning suit and a shave. Tucked in along a cove on the coast near Chesil Beach, which had its share of clandestine trade, the inn had the look of an old man on shaky pins. The top floor where unnamed men slept and unnamed women didn’t, listed to the east from centuries of wind and creaked in protest with every footstep. There was never enough light, and the air was redolent with the smell of hops, tobacco, fish, and unwashed bodies. Beau and Nate sat in the darkest corner of a dark room.
“Old Burke, huh?” Nate asked, gazing into his glass like scrying water. “One of the Pater’s chums. That will set him on his heels.”
“Are you surprised?”
“Actually?” He looked up, offered a world-weary smile. “No. Lives quite well, does Burke. Not sure his estates support it.”
“Have you heard anything else? I was detoured to Ripton Hall at the last minute. There seems to have been some suspicious characters visiting recently.”
Nate’s smile was grim. “Oh, aye,” he said, sounding like a Dorset fisherman. “Quite a parade of queer folk seen in these parts lately. Especially up to Ripton Hall. I’m afraid the old duke might have been involved in a bit of hugger mugger that’s still playin’ out.”
“The duke?!”
Nate nodded. “Had some shipping interests, and I’ve suspected they weren’t always on the correct side of the revenue. I’m afraid I wouldn’t put it past him to have had some fingers in this pie.”
Beau was already instinctively shaking his head. “Could someone have been taking advantage of his…instability?”
Nate shrugged. “Don’t know, do I? I’d be careful all the same.”
Beau finished his ale. “I mean to be out of this nonsense in another week and back in London. In the meantime, if you learn anything, can you share it with me? I’m at the Ripton Hall Dower House.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Nate said, brightening considerably. “I’d heard there were some surprise wedding bells up there. She finally caught you, huh?”
Beau scowled. “I gave my all for king and country, lad. Show some respect.”
That earned him a delighted laugh. “Well, at least she isn’t hard to look at.”
Beau motioned to the barmaid for another round.
Just then a familiar face appeared at the door. Short, bow-legged as a jockey, with a shock of bright red hair and a face wrinkled and creased by the sun. Now, what was he doing here?
Whipping off his battered low-crowned hat, the Ripton Hall stablemaster caught sight of Beau and strode over, rolling like a sailor on a high sea.
“There you be, lad,” he said, as if talking to his own grooms. Well, at least he respected an attempt at deception. “Been lookin’ f’r ya. Need to get back. Doin’s at the house need my full staff.”
“You came all this way for me?”
“Lookin’ over a likely pair o’ plowhorses for the home farm, wasn’t I?”
Beau nodded, suddenly beset by fear. Something was very wrong.
“Well, come on then,” he said, standing and dropping some coins on the table before gathering his own cap. “Sorry, luv,” he called over to the waitress. “Work callin’.”
