Page 107 of A Perilous Passion

Aunt Flora, who was dressed to go out, shifted nervously, and her reticule emitted a faint clink.

“Not one, but two bottles?” Mama inquired in frosty tones.

“But if you bought one, the second came at only two shillings,” Aunt Flora explained.

“I’m sure Aunt would be the last person to squander money unwisely,” Charlotte broke in. “Now do please sit down, Mama. Your face is quite red. You know it’s bad for you to get overwrought.” Whether or not this was true was immaterial. It was the only way Charlotte had ever discovered to successfully interrupt one of her mother’s rants.

With a quiet nod of thanks, Aunt Flora hastened out the front door while Mama subsided into a chair and put her hands up to her face. “You two will be the talk of the village.” She sighed. “Whatever am I to do with you?”

Anxious to avoid further confrontation, Charlotte promised to clean the gown immediately after breakfast.

So, in less than half an hour, she was sitting on a bench in the August sunshine with a bowl of soapy water beside her, dabbing and scrubbing at her silt-stained muslin.

If truth be told, she, too, had had a sleepless night, pondering over yesterday’s perplexing encounter. Even now, she couldn’t stop thinking about the brown-eyed stranger and the peculiar effect he’d had on her. Why hadn’t she had the sense to ask his name? Madman or no, he was the most interesting person she’d met since arriving in Portland. And the most fascinating man she’d ever encountered—apart from Justin, of course.

Too bad the stranger had been such a pill about the lace. Although nothing had been said outright, they both knew where the flounce of lace had come from, and by what nefarious means it had made its way to the English coast.

What would he say if he knew that she came from a smuggling family?

She couldn’t expect sympathy from any quarter. She hadn’t even told Justin the truth about her background. Who could possibly approve of her father’s choice of business? He was the notorious Abraham Cutler, who’d made a fortune running a string of ale houses in East Anglia, which acted as the perfect front for distributing smuggled goods from across the North Sea. But he’d made sure that Charlotte and her mother had never been involved in any of his dealings. If the hammer was ever to fall, he’d wanted it to fall upon him only.

Gazing up at the gulls circling on the wind, she reminded herself how fickle Fate could be.

Just one year ago, Papa had been taken seriously ill with a lung fever but had recovered. His brush with death, and doubtless some robust conversations with Mama, had convinced him to turn King’s Evidence—to give up the names of his associates and be rewarded with a Royal Pardon.

This proved his undoing. Before he could complete his confession, someone discovered—by fair means or foul—what he was doing, and put an end to his plan, and his life, with a garrote.

A hot tear fell on her wrist, and then slid down into the washing bowl. No wonder she’d sought solace with Justin. It had all been so utterly awful, having to grab what little they could carry and flee in the middle of the night, lest the infuriated free traders come to silence Cutler’s family, too. Mama changed their name to Allston, after a distant ancestor.

The memory of that time still made Charlotte shudder, and it was the experience of living through it that had made Mama into the termagant she was today.

She wrung out the gown and held it up to the light. Not clean yet. Knuckling the moisture from her eyes, she let her thoughts run to more recent times.

Fortunately, Mama’s younger sister, Flora, possessed a comfortable cottage in Dorset, bequeathed to her by a fiancé who’d died at sea. Charlotte and Mama had invaded her, destroyed her peace, and cluttered her simple living space with all manner of gewgaws covertly rescued from their old home. Aunt Flora now dwelled uncertainly in the midst of them, desperately trying to please her sister—and inevitably failing—but grateful, nonetheless, for a share in the monthly allowance generated by a trust fund set up by Charlotte’s father just days before his death.

Getting used to their more austere existence would have been hard, had Charlotte not met Justin Jessop.

Ah, Justin! His image was instantly before her—a pale-faced, blond young man with long, elegant fingers and an eagerness to please. He’d captured her heart with his beautiful piano playing, forlorn blue eyes, and the pocket edition of Milton’s poetry he always carried close to his heart.

She closed her eyes and scrubbed the dress harder, the muslin heavy with the weight of water. No, she absolutely would not weep at the thought of those slender fingers curled around the trigger of a rifle, the golden hair pummeled by the dismal rains of Scotland, nor that poetic soul tortured by the loud barks of command from superior officers. It was too tragic, it really was.

Bother! In her distraction she’d ripped the delicate fabric of her gown. Now she’d have to mend it. If the rent was extensive, she might be able to conceal it with some embroidery, or maybe a frill of lace.

Curse that stranger on the beach! Why had he taken the lace? It was her lace. She’d found it. Of what use would it be to a man? He couldn’t give it to anybody without first getting it cleaned, starched, and pressed, a complex process no man was likely to understand.

Which might explain his response when he’d seen it. Not that of a man coming across a treasure. The discovery had troubled him, and he’d hidden the lace away in his pocket, as if from prying eyes.

Suddenly, she gasped. He must be a smuggler himself, and feared to alert suspicion!

Not that she’d betray him. He could trust her. She knew not all smugglers were inherently evil. Ironically, as a girl she’d even dreamed of joining the adventurous profession—well before she’d learned of Papa’s involvement in it. She’d often pictured herself galloping full tilt along the shore, the wind in her hair, outrunning the revenue men with a bundle of lace bouncing against her saddle on one side, and a small keg of cognac at the other.

“Charlotte? Oh, what have you done—put a finger through your gown? I’ve never known such a clumsy child. All that money spent sending you to finishing school was a complete waste. You have fingers like a laborer’s.”

“It’s only a little hole, Mama. I can mend it.”

“Give it to me. I’ll make a better job of it than you will in a month of Sundays. Now, go out and find Flora and tell her I need her back here this instant.”

At that, Charlotte’s thoughts headed off down a different road entirely. One that most certainly did not involve Aunt Flora. Perhaps the handsome stranger was out and about. It was a lovely day, after all, not one a man would wish to waste indoors.