Silken Secrets by Joan Smith Page A

and the jingle of the harness. She soon saw the gig lumbering up from the shore, heavily weighted with its cargo of silk. Fitch was hunched over the reins, urging the nag on to a faster pace. He jerked to attention when he discerned her.
    “Oh, ‘tis you, Miss Judson!” he exclaimed. “I’m just-just—”
    “I know all about it, Fitch,” she said severely, and handed him the jug of coffee. “You and Uncle should be ashamed of yourselves.”
    “Ashamed! Why, it’s an act of patriotism.”
    “I know all about your patriotism, too,” she said, and accepted a hand up into the gig. She told Fitch about the plan to put the stuff in Christian’s hut and sell it to Mr. Robertson.
    “A mask, eh?” He smiled, rather pleased with this piece of melodrama. “You don’t think Robertson would turn nasty? I mean to say, if he knows we stole the stuff, he might take it into his noggin not to pay. Plummer tells me he had a pistol when he rescued you from the Frenchies. I don’t have a pistol—not one that works.” Nothing “worked” at Horton Hall, including the master.
    “He’s a businessman. He doesn’t care who he buys his silk from. He’ll pay, never fear.”
    “But it was odd he carried a pistol,” Fitch said.
    “Yes, that was odd,” she agreed, frowning into the shadows.
    Why would a drapery merchant travel with a pistol? And, really, Mr. Robertson hadn’t at all the air of a merchant. He was very elegant, with that ease of manners more usually encountered amongst the ton. She had always thought it odd he had come racing after his silk so early, too, almost before it had time to arrive in London. Did all merchants take so active a part in the delivery of their goods? He had been out searching the neighborhood when she met him at the shepherd’s hut.
    Was it possible Mr. Robertson was something other than what he let on? But who could he be? The only other class interested in smuggling was customs men. Good God, was he a customs man sent to the coast to catch the smugglers? He had even put out notice of a ten percent reward, and that was an old customs trick.
    She remembered, too, that he had not only carried a pistol but had spoken French like a native. Was he perhaps a Frenchman in disguise—perhaps the leader of the party who had abandoned the ship? He might have been hiding out at the hut to try to capture the thief—her uncle!
    “Oh, dear,” she said in a weak voice. “Stop the horse, Fitch. I must speak to Uncle!”
    Fitch drew to a halt and she hopped down. She raced toward the Hall, her mind in turmoil at the awful imbroglio she had nearly thrown her uncle into. A minor worry was soon added to her heavier fears. The sodden grass was making a mess of her evening slippers, and with the spring assembly looming, she must preserve them. She’d have drier walking if she went home under the trees that sheltered the west side of the Hall and entered by the back door.
    She flew toward the row of beeches and scampered along, congratulating herself on this idea. The leaves were so thick, the ground under them was still dry after that downpour. It was as she made the dart toward the protection of the last tree that she heard it—the telltale clink of a harness and whickering of a horse. As she entered the dry darkness of the tree’s canopy, she nearly fell against a warm flank. The nag, in its surprise, emitted a louder sound than before.
    Her first instinctive thought was that Fitch had used Uncle’s mount and forgotten to stable it afterward. With so many things on his mind, it was no wonder. She patted the horse and began feeling for the rope to untie it. Her fingers encountered hide as smooth as silk and the firm hindquarters of a horse in the prime of life, which Uncle’s nag hadn’t been for a decade. Almost at the same moment she realized there was a second horse tethered on the other side of the tree.
    Codey! was her first awful fear. But Codey rode a rusty old cob not much better than