Page 109 of Counting on a Countess
“I find it difficult to believe your uncle and his wife don’t know any of this.”
“They never go into the cellar,” she answered. “Their servants are too lazy to investigate. For eight years, I’ve kept it hidden from them.”
Kit cursed. “You’ve been smuggling for eight goddamned years.” Briefly, he glanced away, as if unable to look at her. “I killed in the name of my king. I sent men to their deaths to protect my country. Yet all this time, you’ve flouted the law and made a mockery of the royal mandate. And by tying our names together, you’ve brought me into your reprehensible world, made me guilty by association.” His voice throbbed with confusion and hurt. “Why?”
He’d survived the brutality of war, and she’d wounded him. Deeply. As he’d said, he had been a damned good soldier, and she’d flouted that. Shame was a brand upon her heart.
“The cost of a war is felt by many,” she replied. “Newcombe was hit hard by taxes. There wasn’t enough to pay for food. And the fishing had tightened up so that the catches were minuscule. Jory didn’t take up my father’s work of keeping the village afloat. When I’d go into Newcombe, I’d hear all the children and babies crying from hunger, and see the sunken eyes of the men and women.” It pained her still to think of that time, as the village edged toward its demise.
“I grew up hearing stories of daring Cornish smugglers,” she continued, looking up at the night sky. “They were heroes, not criminals. It came to me one afternoon after returning home from the village. Chei Owr had a secret way to the cove from the house and the passage to the stone outbuilding. Everything fell into place.”
He said coldly, “A legal way to earn money didn’t occur to you.”
“Nothing would get the village back on its feet so fast,” she answered, her voice tight, “or with such steady profits. I discussed it with everyone, and it was agreed we’d give it a try. There was nothing to lose.”
“Except your lives,” he bit out.
“Starvation makes people desperate. With children on the verge of death, would you make a different choice?”
He was silent.
“I went to a nearby town,” she went on, “to a tavern known for being frequented by smugglers to get the operation set up. Nessa came with me.”
“Eight years ago means that you were only sixteen.”
“My parents had been dead for two years, and my father had always looked out for the village.” Pride filled her now, as it had then, to see how he had asked after everyone at the conclusion of church, and how he’d never turned a villager away whenever they asked for assistance. “So it fell to me to take care of them. My childhood had come to an end when my mother and father died,” she said without self-pity. “No one else had the means to do what had to be done. Just me.” She lifted her chin as she spoke, “So I walked into that place with a hammering heart and a knife tucked into my garter.”
Kit paced away, seemingly deep in thought. He whirled back to face her. “You married me and risked the whole operation,” he accused.
“I had to,” she said simply. “Chei Owr isn’t entailed, and Jory is making plans to sell it.” She lifted up her hands. “Without the house, we’d have no means to keep going.”
“And your plan was to do what, precisely?” His question was brittle like frost.
Seeing no way to go but forward, she continued. “Word got to our buyer that our operation here was in trouble. He backed out.” Bitterness clogged her voice. “Going to London seemed the answer to our problems. I could locate a new buyer in the biggest market in the country. There’s always a need for brandy and lace, and we had a new shipment gathering dust here in Cornwall.”
“That wasn’t all you sought in London,” he said cuttingly.
She ducked her head. “I couldn’t find a buyer, and time was running out. I needed to find myself a husband, someone with money, who could purchase the house from Jory. Everything would be taken care of.”
“You got a man who’d marry you,” Kit noted. “Did you find your buyer?”
The day in the jewelry district was still vivid in her memory—and how close she’d come to being discovered by Kit. “I did. He agreed to take the goods off my hands when they came in from Cornwall.”
Kit held up his index finger. “Hold a moment. You had smuggled goods in London? Where were they?”
“In”—she cleared her throat—“the cellar at the house on Bruton Street.”
“And the staff never suspected.”
“Mr. Stockton and two footmen had to be brought into confidence,” she confessed. “I agreed to pay them a portion of the profits if they kept quiet.”
His silence stretched on for an unbearable eternity.
Finally, he said through clenched teeth. “Nessa, the butler, the footmen. They were in on it. Everyone was—except me.”
She tried to speak, but no words made it past her lips.
He planted his hands on his hips, and his scowl was so deep, she could see it in the darkness. “Why did you not ask me directly if you could buy the house?” he pressed.
