Page 42 of The Cornish Widow

She nodded. “I think they probably are.”

“Is Cap’n Jack a smuggler too?”

She bit her lip. Was he? Or were they just using his ship for their clandestine activities without his knowledge? She’d not heard his voice on deck, so how was she supposed to know? She managed a shrug, difficult in the space between the bales. “I have no idea. But if this is his ship, he most likely has some idea what’s going on.”

Another short silence from Theo. “He didn’t say anything about it when I saw him this evening.”

She froze. “When you saw him this evening? What did he say? You’d better tell me everything.”

Theo shifted as though uncomfortable. “I watched it come in, and the men go off to the kiddley, but Cap’n Jack was still on board, so I walked down and said hello. He let me come on board and showed me round and wouldn’t let me climb the rigging. So I asked to see in the hold, but he said the cargo was none of my business and wouldn’t let me see in the hold. That’s why I came back.”

Her turn to digest the information. So Jack knew what was in the hold and hadn’t wanted Theo to see it. Fitz Carlyon was inordinately interested in Jack. Jack frequented the kiddley and lived only a mile up the track from the cove. He kept himself to himself. It all added up. Jack had to be a smuggler too. There was no other explanation. And they were stuck hiding on his ship, amongst a cargo that would have to be unloaded at some point, during which event they would be discovered. At least, however, it was likely to be some port, so they might not risk being thrown overboard by angry smugglers.

But then what?

Harriet held Theo closer. “Wherever we’re going, it’s going to take a long time. We might as well get some sleep. Close your eyes.”

Theo yawned, and with the resilience of youth snuggled closer to her. Probably he couldn’t imagine a future where Jack didn’t remain his hero and where their discovery heralded anything but pleasure on everyone’s parts. Harriet, however, could imagine all sorts of terrifying outcomes to being discovered, in none of which did either of them remain alive. But the rocking motion of the ship, and the comparative comfort of being squashed between soft bales of tobacco, had the effect, at last, of lulling her to sleep.

*

Jack went belowwhen his pocket watch told him it was three in the morning and woke Will up to take over command. A little groggily, Will climbed the companion way and disappeared into the starlit darkness. Jack eased his stiff shoulders. With very little room on board, and most of below decks given up to their cargo, the cabin area was not just tiny but low roofed as well. Bent almost double due to his height, he slipped his boots off and climbed into one of the hammocks, where he settled down for a short sleep. Beside him, Daniel Bussow, the bo’sun, snored contently, but Jack was used to communal sleeping arrangements and ignored him. In a few minutes he was asleep.

He woke exactly four hours later, as he’d planned, to the sounds of agitated voices on deck. The ship was rocking with renewed vigor in what must be mounting waves, but the hammock had shielded him from the worst of that movement. With a skill born of years of hammock sleeping, he extricated himself from its embrace and found his boots where the ship’s movement had sent them skidding into a corner. Having put them on, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and seized the first rung of the companion way ladder.

Above him, the hatch, that had been nearly fully closed, slid open and early morning light spilled in, hazy and gray with cloud.

Will’s anxious face peered down at him. “We’ve got a problem.”

Jack swarmed up the ladder and climbed out onto the deck. “What kind of trouble?”

Will nodded towards the now half open hatch to the hold. “We’ve got stowaways on board.”

“What?” In the plural as well. Who on earth would even have found The Fly, never mind stowed away on her? And who in their right mind would want to stowaway to France, even though Boney had been defeated and the new king put in place? It defied all logic.

Will nodded. “Harry heard’em retching.”

“Seasick stowaways?”

Will nodded again. “That’s right. And feeling a darn sight worse than I did when you got me up in the middle of the night to take the second watch, by the sound of them.”

Harry, a good-looking lad, stepped forward. “Stinks a bit down there too.”

“Who are they?” Jack asked. “And how many are there?”

Harry shrugged. “I’m not going down there in that stink to count’em. No thankee, Cap’n.”

This was a problem Jack had never faced before. Here they were, a good halfway across the English Channel on their journey to Roscoff, their hold full of the tobacco the French wanted and a cargo of brandy awaiting them, and only now they found they had extras on board.

“Better get them up,” Jack said. “See what they’re like. And being up on deck might make them less sick.”

Will nodded. “Make’em clear up the mess they’ve made more like. If any o’ that’s got on the baccy and ruined it, I’ll be more’n angry.” He grunted at his son. “Might decide to throw’em overboard. No one’d ever know we’d done it.”

Jack shook his head, not quite sure Will hadn’t been joking. “No one’s being thrown overboard on my ship. I have final say here. If you ever get stowaways on The Black Joke, you can have them thrown overboard, but not here on my ship.”

Will chuckled. “It’s too kind a heart you have, Jack me boy.”

“Who’s going down to get’em?” Harry asked, leaning forward and sniffing at the hold. On the whole, the smell of fish might have been an improvement.

“No one,” Jack snapped. “They can come up on their own.”

He too leaned forward, but not to sniff. Instead, he shouted down into the hold. “We know you’re in there. Come on out right now and show yourselves. Get up here on deck and let us see you.”