A Hazard of Hearts Read online

  “Poor Harriet,” he commiserated, “you are certainly out of luck.”

  “It will change! It will change!” the Marchioness responded angrily.

  “Do you challenge me again?”

  “Of course,” the Marchioness replied. “Do you think I am chicken-hearted?”

  “Never that, Harriet,” he replied softly. “Shall we say a little reckless? The first rule for every gambler, my dear, is never to go against your own cards.”

  “Fiddle, I tell you my luck will change.”

  “Then if you desire it,” Lord Wrotham smiled, “we will continue. Shall we put up fifty guineas, Harriet, or a mere twenty-five?”

  “Fifty! Fifty!” she said feverishly.

  It was at that moment that she was aware that somebody stood at her elbow. It was her black boy and it passed through her mind that he was bringing her a much-needed drink.

  Then his small black hand stole forward and laid something beside her. Harriet’s heart gave a sickening thump.

  For a moment the table with its money and its cards swam before her eyes. Almost automatically her hand went out towards the pack.

  Then she heard Harry Wrotham say,

  “I am sorry, Harriet.”

  There was no sorrow in his voice. She pushed what was left of her money towards him.

  “I am about thirty guineas short. I will let you have it in a few moments.”

  “No hurry, Harriet. Pray do not incommode yourself,” he said. “I can trust you!”

  Was he mocking her or being genuinely courteous? She was not certain. She rose from the table, her hand closing sharply over the small object that the black boy had laid beside her. It was only a tiny bottle of smelling salts and she felt the crystal facets cut into the flesh of her fingers.

  Only a bottle of smelling salts, but it carried a message that made her blood quicken and her heart sink in apprehension.

  She moved across the room towards the door. She appeared in no hurry and several people spoke to her as she passed. An elderly Duke, slightly the worse for drink, laid hold of her arm.

  “I want to drink to you, Harriet,” he said thickly. “The most beautiful woman in England.”

  “Thank you, Barty,” she replied and her smile was automatically flirtatious, but she disengaged herself cleverly so that for the moment he was not aware that she had left him.

  The way to the door seemed interminable. People were laughing, talking and chattering and there was the clink of money and the quiet unhurried voice here and there calling out numbers.

  At last she reached the door and now she was able to quicken her pace to speed across the marble floor of the Great Hall and run swiftly up the wide steps of the Grand Staircase. She reached her bedchamber and Martha was waiting for her with an anxious face.

  “They are here, my Lady.”

  “So I supposed.” The Marchioness opened her hand and threw the glass bottle onto the bed. “Tonight of all nights,” she murmured, “and yet, fool that I was, I might have expected it. The sea is calm.”

  “You are worried, my Lady.”

  “Worried?”

  There was no mistaking the anxiety in the tone that the Marchioness echoed the word with.

  “Where is their money, Martha?”

  The maid moved across the room and pulled open the bottom drawer in the dressing table. A canvas bag lay there. She took it up and feeling its weight with both her hands stared at it in surprise.

  “It is curiously light,” she exclaimed.

  “I know that,” the Marchioness snapped.

  “You mean, my Lady,” Martha said in tones of horror, “that you have taken some of the gold?”

  “Yes, yes, of course I have. Isn’t that obvious, you fool? I had no idea that they would come tonight. I borrowed a few guineas. I thought there would be time for me to pay it back.”

  “What will they say, my Lady?”

  “They must wait, that is all. Here, give me the bag and don’t stand there yapping.”

  The Marchioness took the bag from Martha and at the same time picked up her ivory stick with the jewelled handle, which lay on a footstool in front of the fire.

  “Shall I come with you, my Lady?” Martha asked.

  “No, of course not! Hold the door here. If anyone comes to ask for me, I shall be returning to the salon almost directly.”

  “Very good, my Lady.”

  The Marchioness looked around her wildly as if she expected help to spring from one of the shaded corners of the room.

  “Lud,” she muttered to herself, “but I am a fool,” and then she turned and hurried down the passage, the light gauze of her scarf flying out behind her like wings.

  She traversed almost the whole of the first floor of the house until she reached a small staircase in the ancient part of the building. She went down it, stopping only at the foot of the stairway to take a taper from a table that stood there and light it from a candle in the wall bracket.

  Then she felt for the secret spring in the wall opposite and the panelling opened.

  The air was damp and cold in the tunnel-like passage she found herself in. She moved briskly forward, stopping only now and then to light a candle so that the way before her was clear.

  After she had gone forward about fifty yards she came to a long flight of stone steps leading downwards. The air grew colder, there was a smell of seaweed and far away the faint sound of waves. The steps were narrow and the Marchioness moved carefully, steadying herself with her ivory stick.

  When she reached the bottom, there was still another long passage to be traversed, a passage hewn from solid rock, the floor being of earth that was both damp and dirty. There were candles held in the wall by iron brackets and the Marchioness lit them as she passed. The passage curved and there was light ahead.

  Suddenly she came out into a huge cavern where men were carrying bales and barrels up one dark passage and depositing them in another, which opened to the West and was opposite to the one that the Marchioness had come from.

  She stood for a moment watching the activity going on around her. Men glanced at her as they passed laden and several of them returning, having rid themselves of their burdens, touched their forelocks, but none of them spoke.

  There was a speed, a smoothness and regularity in the appearance of the laden men and their reappearance unhampered, which bespoke good management.

  The Marchioness glanced down the passage that they were emerging from. The cold wind blowing in from the sea whipped her skirt tightly around her, fanning the warmth from her cheeks and stirring the curls arranged skilfully around her forehead.

  A man came striding into the cavern carrying nothing on his shoulders, but wearing an air of authority which belied the tattered seaman’s jersey he wore, his patched leather boots and the dirty handkerchief tied around his neck.

  “Good evening, your Ladyship.”

  He spoke politely and yet there was a strange lack of servility in his tone.

  “Good evening, Padlett. Everything all right?”

  “A fine crossing. Two hours and fifty minutes. This new boat is worth every penny your Ladyship paid for it.”

  “I am glad of that. And the cargo?”

  “Here is the list, your Ladyship, just as the Froggy gave it to me. I have checked it over and it is all correct, only a bottle of brandy can be crossed off.”

  “And why?”

  The Marchioness’s question was sharp.

  “One of the crew, my Lady. That man we took on last month. He’s a bit troublesome. He snatched a bottle when I was not watching.”

  “You know, Padlett, that I will not stand for pilferers.”

  “I am sorry, my Lady, but if we hadn’t taken him I would have been an oar short. Your Ladyship is aware that good men are hard to come by these days.”

  “Nonsense, we have never had any trouble before.”

  “Maybe, my Lady, but there’s other people offering them higher pay and bigger rewards.”

/>   “I have always paid generously,” the Marchioness remarked.

  “I am not saying your Ladyship has not been fair,” Padlett retorted. “But men desire to work for themselves. They get the money, that is true enough, but you don’t allow them anything else.”

  “They can spend their own money when they go ashore in France, but I have made it a rule from the very beginning, Padlett, not to hand out drink or materials to men who will display them in local villages and bring suspicion not only on their heads but on mine. We have discussed this often enough.”

  “Yes, I know, your Ladyship,” Padlett replied, but it was obvious that he was not convinced.

  “As it happens, I was not expecting you for at least two nights,” the Marchioness said.

  “That is true, your Ladyship. I did not think that we would be likely to get here before Thursday or Friday, but the cargo was ready for us and the weather was good.”

  “It is very clear,” the Marchioness said doubtfully, looking towards the end of the passage that the sound of waves came from. “And there is a moon for all ’tis clouded.”

  “That is so.”

  “Then why?”

  “To be frank, your Ladyship, it was Matthew, you remember him, he has been with us right from the beginning, his wife is expecting and he was mighty anxious to get home if it could be arranged.”

  The Marchioness’s lips tightened.

  “Dammit, Padlett, do you think I am concerned with the. expectations of every hen-witted clog that works for me? What do I care if his wife is having twins or triplets? The thing you have to do is to take no risks and a risk it is on a night like this.”

  “Now, now, your Ladyship,” Padlett said smoothly. “No harm’s been done as far as I can see.”

  “How much more is there to bring up?” the Marchioness asked.

  “A few more barrels of brandy, I think. I will just go and make sure, your Ladyship.”

  He turned away and Harriet stood watching him go.

  She tapped her foot impatiently on the ground and her fingers holding the ivory stick grew restless.

  She glanced at the list that Padlett had given her. It was a good cargo. There was tea, lace, brandy, tobacco and materials. She hoped that there was some velvet amongst them, for that had sold well last time. Yes, it was a good consignment.

  There was no doubt at all that she could easily get two thousand guineas for the stuff, once it had been moved to London. It must not stay long in the passages below Mandrake. There lay an added danger to that of a boat coming in unexpectedly. She must send word at dawn and tomorrow night carts would come secretly to the passage that ended beyond the walled-in Park.

  Covered with a load of turf, they would rumble their way to a small secluded inn about four miles inland. There they would be met by the London Agents and long before daybreak all the goods would be clear of Mandrake and on their way to the City.

  It was a well-thought-out and cleverly calculated organisation and hers were the profits. The Marchioness smiled a little at the thought. More than once she had been tempted by pleading or bribery to take partners, but she preferred to work single-handed.

  She wanted all the money, yes, every shilling of it, for herself.

  How worried she had been when she had purchased one of the latest guinea boats! It had cost a vast sum of money, but there was not an Excise craft in the whole length of the South Coast that could catch up with thirty-six oars. Two hours and fifty minutes! It might be a record, but unfortunately she was not able to compare the time with that done by other crews.

  It was enough, at any rate, to know that they had arrived safely. There was a risk, of course, but really it had become an almost infinitesimal one. The Coastguards were so feeble and if it came to that afraid of the smugglers as well.

  The Marchioness glanced at the great knives each man wore at his waist. The Dragoons might have firearms, but in a hand-to-hand fight she would back her own men every time.

  Despite the chill air the Marchioness felt a sudden warmth run through her veins. Her men were not afraid any more than she was afraid. She had taken the risk and how worthwhile it had been!

  She remembered the first time she had sent gold to France. She could think of nothing else for the days and nights that had elapsed until the crew had returned with the cargo. She had known very little about it in those days. It was very shortly after she returned to Mandrake. She had heard people talking of smuggling and she had known that the well-to-do inhabitants of Folkestone and Dover were all making a little money on the quiet.

  An old friend had told her how easy it was. He had been abroad for a year, escaping from the consequences of a duel after which his opponent had died.

  “’Tis simple, Harriet,” he had said, “and for those who have the money behind them there are great fortunes to be made.”

  He had spoken truly. A thousand guineas in gold sent to France would more than double itself on the return journey.

  There were, of course, those who alleged that it was unpatriotic. Napoleon wanted gold desperately and it had been said even in Parliament that the gold that was smuggled to France was all collected by Bonaparte’s agents. Yet how could anyone be sure?

  Harriet had shrugged her shoulders and by the time the great outcry began she would rather have lost an arm or a leg than have forsworn her very profitable smuggling activities.

  It had been difficult lately to get hold of the gold. Justin had been tiresome. She was afraid that he was becoming suspicious that all the money he gave her was not spent on Mandrake.

  At first she had been able to bribe him into obtaining more and more money for her because she had told him that it was for the house. How he loved his home! It had been easy to inveigle him into providing her with gold when he thought it was all to be expended in beautifying the place he adored.

  “Mandrake is your mistress,” she had said to him once and he had been almost pleased at the phrase. Then she had tried being pathetic. She told him that her losses at cards had been overwhelming and that she wished to pay her doctor and her dressmaker. But to those excuses Justin had been unresponsive. No! Only for Mandrake would he make sacrifices and now she was well aware that he was becoming more and more reluctant to hand over the gold she needed so desperately.

  If only she could be more fortunate at the gaming tables! She had lost vast sums in the last three months. Madame Roxana had promised her that her luck would turn, but still she continued to lose night after night.

  That was how she had come to take the money from the canvas bag where the wages for the crew were always kept ready for their arrival. Five guineas a man! It was too much in all truth and yet Padlett had assured her more than once that the men often asked for more.

  They wanted perquisites, a bottle of brandy, tobacco or maybe a roll of cloth for their wives. Harriet set her face firmly against this. She knew how easy it was for men to talk in local inns and that a new dress on a fisherman’s wife or a child wearing a new coat would be noted and speculated about by the whole village.

  No, they could take the money and be content with that. If they did not like it, they –

  Even as she thought of an alternative, Harriet’s heart turned cold. If they did not like it, they could leave her, but she was afraid of that. One could never be certain of their loyalty as she knew she could be of the loyalty and affection of those who served her at Mandrake.

  These men were coarse and rough. Padlett himself was in a slightly better class. His father had been a man of business to a big estate, but he had lost his job, turned poacher and been hanged at the Assizes. Padlett could read and write, but the rest of the crew were educated in one thing and one thing only – to evade the law and to take what they wanted by any means, however lawless. Force was what they understood and Harriet thought sometimes that they were no better than animals.

  Once it had been possible to find fishermen who would take a risk for an extra guinea or so. They were decent chaps, most of th
em, who did it more for the fun of the thing than for greed and gain. Those days were past and the decent fellows had become frightened or been caught and, if they had escaped being hanged, had been transported for life. To do the job systematically one had to have men such as this, cruel and bestial, men prepared to take a risk and equally prepared to slit each other’s throats if it suited their purpose.

  Harriet shivered a little. In a moment or two there was something she had to say to them.

  The canvas bag in her left hand felt horribly light. She was suddenly very cold. For some minutes now she had been standing with the wind blowing full against her.

  Surely Padlett should be coming back? She looked down the dark passage towards the sea.

  How few people knew that the channel between the rocks deepened so that a boat could ride right up to the very cliff’s side and that cargoes could be unloaded at the mouth of a subterranean passage that led into the centre of Mandrake!

  It had been a secret for years. Even the old plans of the house did not show it. There was no record of it except on small private maps held only by the Head of the Family.

  Harriet had discovered her husband looking at these small maps soon after they were married and had forced him to tell her the secret and finding it momentarily amusing.

  “The passages might have been built so that spies could enter the country without being discovered,” had been his explanation, “or it may merely have been an easy way of ridding the dungeons of unwanted prisoners.”

  Harriet had been interested at the time and then had forgotten all about it. It was only when smuggling became a fashionable topic of conversation that she remembered what she had learned. How useful it had proved! How very very useful!

  Padlett was coming, the loose leather uppers of his boots slapping against his legs as he walked towards her.

  “It’s unloaded, your Ladyship,” he said. “We have finished now.”

  The last two men passed her with their backs bent, while those returning from the other passage stood around waiting.

  There were two torches stuck in holders at the sides of the cave, which cast a fierce light, showing the beads of sweat on the foreheads of the men who had been rowing with all their strength for the two hours and fifty minutes. They revealed, too, rough-cut faces, square jaws, cruel, bestial lips and crafty, calculating eyes.