Page 22 of A Perilous Passion

Mama—and Aunt Flora, who didn’t even know their dark secret—would be mortified.

And Charlotte would be utterly and irretrievably ruined.

Chapter Nine

Rafe peered at his fob watch in the gathering dusk. It was nearly time for his rendezvous with Goves, his contact from the War Office.

Nightingales churred loudly from the hedgerows as he pushed his way into the near-darkness of the young woodland, which had grown up around the old quarry. Thankfully, it was a fine night. To have walked the ten miles from Fortuneswell in last week’s rain would have been grim. There was an excellent riding horse in the stable at Dovehouse Farm, but no matter how remote the chance it would set off a sneezing fit, he wouldn’t take the risk during a covert meeting. As it was, his fustian breeches were knee deep in dust, and the old boots he wore were sticky with pallid dirt.

He sauntered out into the middle of the quarry, every sense alert. No sounds came back to him but the trilling of the birds and a slight breeze quivering the leaves around the stone on which he stood.

He took out a pipe, filled it, and struck a spark to the wadding in his tinderbox. Pretending to be absorbed in lighting his pipe, he waited until he saw a movement amongst the rocks above him, then removed his wide-brimmed hat, and ran a hand through his hair.

It was the agreed-upon signal. If both his contact and lookout were certain he’d not been followed, a stone would slither down the side of the quarry and land just in front of him.

As the slight click of rock on rock sounded before him, he extinguished the pipe and picked his way over the tumbled boulders to a shadowed cleft in the rock face.

Despite knowing the signal had been sent, he remained on his guard. What if some villain had intercepted his contact and tortured poor Goves into revealing all his secrets, and set up an ambush?

One hand nursing the warm pipe bowl, the other gripped round his dagger handle, he peered into the gloom and whispered, “Jennifer, beloved, are you here?”

“Jennifer” immediately responded with a throaty, distinctly masculine laugh. “Yes, my darling, I’m waiting for you.”

Relief washed over Rafe as he allowed himself a moment’s amusement at the watch phrases they’d chosen for tonight. “I should have made you wear muslin,” he remarked as Goves stepped out of the shadows and unshuttered a lantern. “That would have given a touch of authenticity to our encounter.”

Goves, a thickset man with a wiry beard, would not have looked good in a dress. “I think this is a safe enough place, my lord,” he said with a grin, revealing his uneven teeth. “Besides which, Paynter’s been watching the quarry more than two hours. The place is completely deserted.”

Paynter also worked for the War Office and was acting as Rafe’s lookout and guard.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me my lord when I’m meant to be a plain country squire,” Rafe told Goves.

“And succeeding very well at it,” remarked his companion, eyeing his dusty state.

“To business, then. It’s not safe to linger.”

“Aye. What intelligence do you have for us today, sir?”

He had much to impart. Despite the distraction of Miss Allston—Charlotte—and her friends, he’d gleaned a lot during his silent vigils close to the cave and out on the heath.

“There’s a frigate plying its way along the coast, delivering consignments of lace, gunpowder, and gold coin.”

Goves raised a thick eyebrow. “Excellent. That’s just the sort of information we need.”

“Lace is light, making it an easy cargo,” Rafe said. “It can easily be carried inland by foot. And it’s worth a good deal more than brandy these days. The gunpowder is meant for the signaling beacons they’re setting up, and the coin is to pay off the free traders and bribe children to fire the beacons.”

Goves scowled. “Children?”

Rafe clamped his jaw and explained what he’d learned in the inn from a drunken father who’d discovered a gold coin in his child’s pocket. He’d put two and two together, and come up with the grim fact that the traitor, or those in his employ, must be paying local children to set fire to the string of hidden beacons they were building all along the coast.

“Disgusting,” Goves muttered.

Rafe had to find the mastermind behind all this. The creature was entirely lacking in morals. “He’s not a Frenchman, I’m fairly certain,” he said. “I believe he’s English, someone who can pass unnoticed amongst lay and military alike without arousing suspicion.”

“A pillar of the community, eh?”

“Very likely.” Rafe was looking forward to seeing the villain hang.

“But you have no clue as to his identity?”