“Yes, you are lucky you arrived before the rain came,” Gabe said. It was going to be a slippery expedition; the slope contained several small mudslides. Gabe was glad he hadn’t worn his good boots.
“Mama was very angry with the captain of the boat. She wanted him to take her to Lulworth Cove buthe took no notice!”
Gabe repressed a grin. “Good heavens!”
“Papa would have had him flogged. Mama explained to me on the beach that they did not know who we—” He broke off with a guilty expression. “Oh.”
“What was that?” Gabe said. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
“Nothing.” Nicky relaxed.
Gabe was intrigued. Who was she, that her son should be so astounded that the captain of a boat—even a smuggling boat—would refuse to obey an order from his mother?
“I can’t see the portmanteau, but I think that’s the trail it made when it fell—do you see?” He pointed to where some of the scrubby vegetation clinging to the rock had been recently broken and rocks disturbed. I’ll climb down and have a look. I hope it hasn’t been buried under mud.”
“Look! That’s Mama’s slipper.” Nicky pointed excitedly.
Sure enough there it was, a small scrap of blue, wedged against an outcrop of jagged rocks softened by a menacing froth of waves.
“That can stay there,” Gabe decided.
“Oh, but they were Mama’s favorite slippers.”
“No, it’s too dangerous. All that rain last night will have washed away some of the earth holding the rocks in place—that’s what those mudslides are.” Gabe enjoyed taking risks, but he didn’t see the point of making such a perilous climb for a slipper.
He slipped over the edge and began the descent toward the portmanteau. A small avalanche of pebbles behind him made him look back. Nicky was coming, too. “No, you stay there,” Gabe ordered.
“I want to come.”
“You can’t, it’s too dangerous.”
“I can do it. And it’smyportmanteau.”
“Don’t argue with me, boy! Stay there.” It was a miracle the child had made it up the dangerous path. Climbing down again with such a bad leg—and after a night of rain had softened the dirt—was asking for trouble.
“I apologize. I just wanted to help,” Nicky said in a small, stiff voice.
Oh God, he’d hurt the child’s feelings. Too late, Gabe remembered his half brother’s hatred of his weak leg, Harry’s refusal to have it allowed for, his determination to do whatever any other boy did.
“You can help. You can—” He tried to think of a task. “You can mind Trojan.”
Nicky looked mulish. “Trojan is tied up. And last night he was free but when you whistled, he came.”
Gabe was not used to people questioning his orders. But he couldn’t bark at a child of seven in the same way as he would a rebellious recruit. “Yes, but that was at night,” he said. “In daylight there are more people around. He’s a very valuable animal and I need you to guard him from, er, from horse thieves.”
“Horse thieves?”
“Yes, horse thieves. Very dangerous men, horse thieves. Hordes of them roam the countryside, looking for valuable horses. They’re not interested in boys,” he added hastily, “only horses. So if you see any sinister-looking men coming this way, you must call down to me at once. As loudly as you can. Is that clear, Nicky?”
The boy clicked his heels in a military manner. “Yes, sir! I will guard the horse.”
“Good lad!” Gabe recommenced his descent, slipping and sliding in places where the rocks gave way to mud. It really was quite dangerous.
“Whatcher doin’?”
Nicky was so startled he nearly fell over the cliff. He’d been leaning out, watching. He raised a fist as he turned, but instead of a horde of sinister men, there was just one ragged boy a little older than himself, with a sharp face and bold, dark eyes. He was pulling a rickety two-wheeled handcart.
“Who are you?” He clutched Trojan’s reins defensively.
