Page 19 of The Duchess Games

She climbed down the hidden slipway, King Arthur at her heels and the sound of the waves as a welcome lullaby, as familiar to her as her own breath. The beach was a scatter of pebbles and large boulders tumbled together. A narrow harbour formed between them, just big enough to fit a couple of rowboats. A dark cave loomed, like a giant’s mouth waiting to swallow her whole. Soon, it would be filled with crates of tea and lace and brandy. It meant the difference between a lean, potentially deadly season of hunger and full bellies and bright eyes. Especially over the last couple of years, when the fishing was poor and the price of salt taxed to the hilt by the government. How were they to process and cure even meager hauls of pilchard fish without enough salt? And what would they then eat come winter?

She felt no guilt at all over the smuggling of illegal goods. Not when it fed her siblings and her collection of needy animals. None of them had anywhere else to go. No other recourse. She saved her guilt for other matters.

For Callum.

But not tonight. Tonight, she had to keep a weather eye out. The beach seemed deserted, the pebbles underfoot undisturbed. The strip of sand closer to the water showed no other footsteps but it would be easy enough for someone to walk in the foam, letting the waves wash away every mark. As she was doing right now, shoes in her hand.

She had to clamber around a slippery boulder, pass the spot where the village wainwright had drowned, and then climb up the cliffside to stick her hand in a crevice that housed spiders and mice and the occasional bird’s nest.

And a small glass bottle, weathered by time.

She stretched to reach it, contorting her shoulder until muscles strained and complained. King Arthur sat below her, watchful and patient. She finally climbed back down and sat next to him, catching her breath.

It took a moment to decipher the message sent in code: a round white shell, seven pebbles, and a blue bead.

Seven nights past the full moon, care of Captain Davignon who always wore a blue coat.

She had only a week to gather the men and boats. While attending a fancy house party alongside a revenue man. And stealing something valuable from a duke.

Mustn’t forget that little detail.

King Arthur pushed his cold wet nose into her palm, sensing her agitation. She smiled down at him. “Not to worry,” she said. “It will all sort itself out.”

He wagged his tail.

If only she believed her own lies as easily.

She would need landers to arrange the unloading of the cargo. She could help there or with the rowing to and from the ship. They would need tubsmen to carry any barrels of brandy to the hideouts and a batsman to protect them. She had heard stories of gangs down in Mousehole with up a to hundred men to deal with the unloading, the storage of the contraband in cellars and churches, the selling of it. Little Crumpet had Cat and roughly a dozen men on the shore, a dozen women in the village who were encouraged to watch the wall.

But she would make it work.

She took King Arthur through the edge of the village on their way home, past the Laughing Mermaid pub. The painted sign creaked in the wind, the artwork slightly disconcerting. She wasn’t sure mermaids were meant to have that many teeth.

The door was closed but a new notice had been posted to the warped wood. A Ship has been sighted in this quarter engaging in the unlawful act of Smuggling. Reward of three hundred pounds. This nineteenth day of August, 1803.

Bollocks.

She’d have to send word to Captain Davignon.

A hundred pounds was an enormous temptation.

As she’d suspected, a lantern burned behind the shuttered window. Were they even now discussing it? The village was loyal, but that sum of money might make the difference between not just empty bellies but also countless new opportunities. Damn the revenue men.

“They’ve started without you,” Granny Goodwin said from the shadows across the street. Cat tried not to jump. She consoled herself with the fact that King Arthur was entirely unbothered. He was used to Granny Goodwin. She sat out on her stoop at all manner of hours, chewing on the end of her pipe and feeding her collection of crows.

Cat envied her the murder of crows. Had done since she was a girl and Granny taught her to feed them bits of apples and cheese.

“Men will do that,” Granny continued. Of course, she knew there were plans afoot. She always knew. Not only did she live across the street from the only pub, but she had a downright supernatural ability to eavesdrop. “Best not let them, my girl.”

Right.

She was the only one with access to a captain from Guernsey willing to sail to the north of Cornwall. Everyone knew the easy beaches to land on and the established gangs were in the south. They had their own smuggler bankers, for god’s sake.

Cat had her mother’s affair with a captain over three years ago.

It would have to do.

The others would try to run roughshod over her, to convince her to pass on the location of the message drop, the code, everything.