Nicholas was alert immediately. His eyes moved to the clifftop. “What is it, Jake?” he asked.
“There were a wench snooping around the cottage,” Jake said. “Fred and me caught ’er at it.”
Nicholas’ eyes narrowed. “Snooping?’ he said. “What did you do about her?”
“Fred carried ’er down ’ere,’ Jake explained. “She’s trussed up inside' the cave, Master Nick. She won’t escape, ’ave no fear.”
Nicholas stared at him, speechless for a moment. “You have her a prisoner in the cave?” he said. “Are you mad? Who is she, in the name of all that is wonderful?”
“She’s from the ’ouse,’ Jake said a little uncertainly. He did not like the look in the eyes that gleamed through the black mask. “Mrs. Mannering, Barret says.”
Nicholas closed his eyes, relief washing over him for the first moment. Then he snapped his eyes open again. “And you have her . . . ‘trussed up,’ as you put it? And she has been there since before the boat came? Why did you not tell me this before? You had better assure me now, Jake, that neither you nor Fred has laid one violent hand on her.”
He was striding up the beach even as Jake, trotting along beside him, was assuring him that they had not harmed one hair of Mrs. Mannering’s head.
Kate was at the back of the cave behind piled boxes and kegs. Her mouth was cruelly bound, Nicholas could see as he elbowed and kneed his way past the obstructions. Her hands were tied behind her, the handkerchief that was knotted around her wrists also tied to the handle of one of the boxes. She was staring at him, her eyes growing wider ... with fury.
“All right, Katherine,” he said, kneeling in front of her and tackling the knot at the back of her head, “I shall have you free in a moment, and you may rip up at me to your heart’s content. Only quietly, please. Just don’t screech.”
“How can I screech . . . Oh!” Kate grimaced with pain as her mouth and jaw moved freely again. Her tongue felt like a dry rag in her mouth. “When my mouth has been cut to ribbons. Ouch! Oh, ouch!” This last was a response to the freeing of her wrists, which set up an almost unbearable tingling in her hands.
“Katherine,” he said. “Oh, my poor Katherine. Are you badly hurt?”
“Get away from me,” she said as he tried to take one of her hands in order to chafe her wrist and start the blood circulating again. “Don’t touch me, you blackguard, you. Highwayman. Ouch! Kidnapper. Seducer. Ooh, ow! Smuggler. And to think I risked coming out tonight to warn you of danger again. You deserve everything that will finally happen to you, Nicholas Seyton. Ohhh!” She gasped and hung her hands helplessly before her.
Men entered the cave at that moment and began to lift the boxes closest to the entrance. One or two of them peered in curiously. One of them came a little way inside and called to Nicholas in a hoarse whisper.
“What do you think, Master Nick?” he asked. “Do you want me to take care of the wench? Snooping around, she was, sir.”
“No, thank you, Fred,” Nicholas said dryly. “I think you have taken care of her well enough for tonight. Fortunately for you, my man, Mrs. Mannering is a friend and will not betray us. Otherwise you would have placed us in an awkward situation indeed.”
“I am certainly not a friend!” Kate retorted. “And I can hardly wait to get away from here so that I might inform the coast guard of just what is going on under their very noses.”
Nicholas turned toward her and grinned. “Not so loudly, love,” he said. “Some of the men might believe you.”
“Then some of the men have more sense than you,” she said.
He grinned again. “We will talk later,” he said. “Stay here, Katherine, until I come back. And please do not try any heroics. If you try to leave, one of the men will catch you and haul you back here again. And I cannot guarantee that they will do so with any more gentleness than Fred and Jake seem to have shown. Stay here please.”
He left the cave, but he did not do his share of carrying as he usually did. He merely made sure that Russ Evans was the first up the cliff path so that he could stand watch at the top and halt any movement below him if any unauthorized person happened to be within sight. And he stood and watched the line of men disappearing up the path, each laden with goods. He did not have to give directions because every man knew his job. Almost as soon as the last man reached the top of the cliff, the first was on his way back down again.
He stood there for nearly half an hour until the last of the boxes had been taken away. And then he waited for Russ to join him and they spent their usual amount of time brushing the sand of the beach so that there was no sign left of telltale footprints. He sent Russ home, promising to sweep out the sand of the cave himself. Then he went back inside.
Kate had stayed inside the cave. Not that she had done so at all meekly. But weighing the odds against her chance of escaping, she had wisely decided that she had better wait. It had seemed as if dozens of men had entered and reentered the cave, first bringing the boxes in and then taking them all out again. And they all looked like hefty brutes, with their blackened faces and wool caps pulled low over their brows. She had no wish to be caught by one of them again. And she certainly had not liked the look of that cliff path, though she admitted that it might not look quite so formidable when viewed from the right way up.
But what chiefly convinced her to stay was her need to see Nicholas Seyton face-to-face again so that she could tell him exactly what she thought of him. She was not going to miss that opportunity! So she was pacing the floor of the cave when he came back inside. Her hands had long ago recovered from the dreadfully painful pins-and-needles sensation, and her tongue felt like a tongue again. One of the men had brought her a scoop of water from goodness knew where and she had gulped it down gratefully. She was ready.
“Katherine,” Nicholas said, coming toward her with extended hands, “are you fully recovered? I seem doomed to bring you terror.”
“Terror!” Kate said with a contemptuous toss of her head. “Contempt, more like, sir. I might have guessed you would be worth no more than to be the leader of a band of ruffians. Smuggling, sir! How low can you get! And I do not doubt that you would have added murder to your crimes tonight if my identity had turned out to be any other.”
“Ah, Katherine,” he said, smiling at her, “you cannot believe that, surely. I admit that that oaf of a Fred might have placed us all in a damnably awkward situation, but there would have been no murder, my dear, We would have had to solve the problem somehow. I suspect this would have been our last such enterprise.”
“I suspect it will be anyway,” Kate said. “I have no intention of keeping my mouth shut about this, Nicholas Seyton. This is a terrible crime you are involved in.”
“Is it?” He asked quietly. “Are you quite sure of that, Katherine? Oh, I grant you that what we do is against the law and a capital offense to boot. But whom are we really harming? This is a small operation. We bring scarce and desirable goods to those families that can afford their price. We bring a little extra money to the poor families who live with the constant threat of starvation. A poor fishing season, a poor crop of vegetables, a number of other seemingly minor disasters: all these things can spell the difference between survival and starvation to many of the people living hereabouts. I have lived all my life here, Katherine. I have seen it on occasion: thin, crying children, and even worse, thin children who are too exhausted and hopeless to cry.”
“And what about you?” she accused. “Are you starving?”
