Gerry hadn’t yet said anything, which was typical for Gerry.
Unfortunately, he looked vaguely wounded, which was less typical. Usually, in the presence of Lamentation, Gerry’s face evinced nothing so much as besotted happiness.
“All right,” Archer said. “All right. I’m sorry. Thank you for cleverly and uncomplainingly bringing the wine up from the cove. I don’t”—he passed his hand over his face and shoved his hair out of his eyes—“I wasn’t expecting casks, that’s all. We’ll have to figure out some way to transport them. Or decant them. Or something.”
Smuggling had been a hell of a lot easier when he’d been transporting goods that weren’t illegal. He’d had a real, actual bill of sale from Gravesmuir for the statues—along with a hell of a lot of Greek documents that Eugénie had forged—all of which had proven extremely useful every time they’d been stopped on the road between Dorset and London.
But in the two months since the Quenby scheme had dissolved, he’d been forced to pursue other avenues of financial gain. He’d taken charge of selling the illicit goods that Gill Oliphant’s men brought in surreptitiously from the Continent, and then, under Oliphant’s guidance, started to make Channel crossings with his own crew. In the preceding weeks, they’d smuggled French silk gloves sewn in the hems of their trousers and ostrich feathers in their shirtfronts. Last week, Archer had discovered that several bolt holes on theDelphiniumcould have their bolts replaced with cigars, with no obvious ill effects on his beloved tub’s ponderous progress.
On one trip, every drum of wax had been cleaned out and filled with brandy instead, a stratagem that had proven shockingly effective. The brandy had tasted a trifle odd afterward, but Archer had convinced seven different tavern keepers that it was typical of a Gascon Armagnac.
Hiding the smuggled casks of wine would be considerably more difficult. Casks tended to look a great deal like casks, no matter how one attempted to disguise them.
“Should we leave them in here?” Lamentation looked only slightly mollified. “I would’ve asked you when we started bringing them in, but we couldn’t find you.”
Archer had been down in St. Petroc’s, the tiny but bustling port village near Pomeroy House. He’d met up with Oliphant at the tavern to pay for the wine, and then spent the morning delicately ascertaining the tavern keeper’s feelings about dodgily imported alcohol at excellent bargain prices while also trying not to let the grizzled old pirate drink him under the table.
In retrospect, he’d had the morning a lot easier than Gerry and Lamentation.
“The kitchen’s fine for now,” he said. “We’re not anticipating guests.”
The lack of guests—and his powerful need for funds—had made Archer’s transformation from steward to smuggler rather easier.
Two years ago, he had become the Pomeroy House steward through the intervention of his former rear admiral, Jack Penney, with whom he still occasionally visited, even though Archer’s naval career had smashed itself to bits like a hull meeting a rock.
Penney mixed with people like the Monfalcone royals now, ever since his elevation to baronet after the war. He’d mentioned the house to Archer because he and Archer had once spent five months patrolling the south coast of Cornwall. They’d reminisced over quite a lot of expensive brandy about furious chases on cliffs, and the time Archer had surprised a bull in a patch of gorse, and the enthusiastic vicar’s widow who had taught Archer far more in one night than he would have supposed vicar’s widows to know.
Penney had mentioned the empty house and the job opening, and Archer, warm with drink, had thought:I could do that. Why not? He’d captained a ship for five years—how different could a country mansion be?
It had been because of the brandy that Archer had asked Penney to put in a good word for him. He would not, normally, have asked it. Had he been cold sober, he would not have let the thought creep across his mind—that Penney owed him a favor.
But it had. And he’d asked. And Penney had done it, and Archer had intended, for at least four or five days, to do everything by the book.
His good intentions, as usual, hadn’t lasted long.
The problem—then and now—had always been money. The Monfalcone royal family had hired him alone, and Archer, ever since the disastrous end of his naval career, came as part of a set. He had persuaded the royal family’s majordomo that he needed to hire a groundskeeper too, but he’d been afraid to ask for further auxiliary staff. No one would benefit if the Monfalcone royal family suspected that he was embezzling the Pomeroy House budget.
Which, he supposed, he was. But it was for the very good cause of keeping his crew housed and fed.
They had a safe place to live in Pomeroy House. Free from the prying eyes of strangers, Gerry and Lamentation could love each other as they had back when all of them had been together on theSwallow.
All Archer had to do was make sure the money kept flowing.
And God. He was trying.
He turned back to Lamentation and Gerry. “Have you seen Eugénie? Perhaps a fake bill of sale can save us from eager excise officers.” He rubbed at his jaw, which had grown thick with whiskers since he’d given up the Quenby scheme. “If she can write us up some receipts that say we bought the casks in Wales, we can at least avoid the import tax.”
Lamentation still looked skeptical. “Do they make wine in Wales?”
“Oh Jesus.” Archer scratched at his beard again. “I have no idea.” He peered at Gerry, who shook his head.
“Don’t look at me, Captain.” Gerry spoke rarely, and when he did, his voice was a deep bass rumble. “I’m from Shropshire.”
“It’s awfully close,” Archer said. “Do they make wine in Shropshire?”
“I think the Romans did.”
Archer blew out a breath. “Oh good. Maybe we can have Eugénie write the papers in Latin.”
