Dani wiggled against him. The tiny settee now felt smaller. “The Prince Regent hoped to see you remade from sea captain to something like country squire?”
“Probably,” he said.
Probably?Dani repeated in her head. She was so very confused but she said nothing, hoping the silence would compel him to explain.
“I believe,” he finally said, “the transition from life at sea to life, er, on land will be so very opposite, the prince feels a wife, especially a local girl, might help settle me in this position. He wants success. For me. Here in Kent. And for this estate. That is what I believe.”
“Moresuccess, you mean? The prince wantsmore successfor you. You are, after all, a national hero.” She tried to read his face but it was impossible at such close range. She looked at his profile.
“Differentsuccess, I suppose? And the house alone was no guarantee of it. In fact, without a proper wife to help manage it, the house could overwhelm a man like me.”
She chewed her lower lip. “Forgive me, I struggle to understand why the prince would want such a dramatic shift in vocation for you. Obviously you are a talented captain or you would not be so decorated. Youdoseem ambivalent about country life, though. Now that you mention it. Why would Prince George make you forfeit the sea?”
“The misunderstanding here—and you’ll forgive me for perpetuating it—is that I am a sea captain.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s true, I do captain a ship at sea—or I did, before the thing was set on fire and sunk—but not as part of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. I am, Miss Allard, a smuggler. By trade. If smuggling can be considered a trade.” He glanced down at her.
“Asmuggler?” Dani dislodged herself from the seat and stood, squaring off with him. “But what do you smuggle, sir?”
“Guns, actually,” he said, rising beside her. “They fetch the highest price. Also, brandy. Silk. Whatever contraband is in demand.”
Dani let out a little laugh, a puff of ironic disbelief that embodied everything she was feeling—confusion, alarm, disbelief. She’d finally managed to ask her pressing question and it was answered with ten more questions.
“Smuggling distresses you?” he asked.
“I cannot say. I’ve never given smuggling the slightest bit of thought. But do you slink about under the cover of darkness? Do you evade officials and lie? Do you sell stolen goods?”
“Slink in darkness? Yes. Evade the law? Well, I evade customs officials. Steal? Smuggling might be viewed as the opposite of stealing. I am providing goods otherwise unavailable at a reasonable price. I do not steal them, I buy them. And then I sell them.”
“You steal from the Crown, then. These goods are not unavailable, they are taxed. And taxes belong to the Crown, which you do not pay, and your customers do not pay.”
“So you do know something about smuggling.”
“I know it is a hanging offense. Forgive me, I will need to...” she squeezed her eyes shut “. . . look into it. Honestly the most distressing thing is that I’m only learning this about younow. But do my parents know?”
“Probably not.”
She let out a little cry, thankful that they’d not deceived her in this—at the very least. She turned away and began to pace.
“You are cross,” he observed.
“I am foolish. And careless. Mooning over Eastwell Park without examining all that comes with it.”
“You are not foolish, Miss Allard; you are frustrated with what I’ve just revealed—and rightly so. I take full responsibility for the incredible oddness of this conversation. The betrothal has been strange for all of us. I am not accustomed to meeting proper young ladies and carrying on like a gentleman. The war-hero mantle is not only new, it’s been fastened around my neck by others. It weighs heavily and fits very uncomfortably, indeed. I did not want it, but I cannot seem to escape it. It is a burden I neither enjoy nor fully understand.”
He exhaled sharply, a man who’d sprinted to outpace a downpour. He pinned her with a hard look, at once defiant and beseeching. Dani’s traitorous stomach flipped again.
“Will you hear me out?” he asked.
“Please. I have been asking for two days to understand.”
“Although I am a smuggler, I’ve worked also as what is known as aprivateer; using my boat to run errands for the Admiralty. Is this a term you know? Privateer?”
She shook her head.
“War with France demands more of the Royal Navy than the fleet can manage. I have—or, I should say, Ihad—a very fast, very nimble boat and a skilled crew to sail it. Because of my years of smuggling, I also have an expert knowledge of the Bay of Biscay and the Celtic Sea, which is the water between England and Spain. Knowing this, the War Office began to pay me to ferry dispatches from Cornwall to Aviles. On my final—and, I should note, deadly—privateering mission, my men and I were engaged by a French lugger. I survived the attack and,” an exhale, “bobbed in the ocean for three days, along with the king’s cousin. You know the last bit.”
