Taking Liberties by Diana Norman Page A

mother prattled on regardless. ‘And a fine son, tew, your ladyship, though it’s me as says it as shouldn’t. Educated and on his way up, aren’t ee, Walter? Board of Customs Comptroller for this area, goin’ to root out all the dirty smugglers along the coast. And if he dew, the Lord Lieutenant’s promised as King George’ll give him a knighthood, idden that right, Walter? So us’ll soon be back to greatness, won’t us, Walter?’
    â€˜Mother,’ Captain Nicholls said, flatly.
    Mrs Nicholls clapped her hands over her mouth, but over them her eyes remained fixed on Diana’s. ‘An’ you’ll never guess, Walter, but what her ladyship’s thinkin’ of returning to T’Gallants, our mootual ancestor’s home. Ah,’twill be like Sir Walter Pomeroy come back, like Good Queen Bess’s olden times.’
    Yes, well. The Dowager bowed and made another move to leave but now it was Captain Nicholls who barred her path.
    â€˜T’Gallants?’ he asked abruptly. ‘You’re going to live at Babbs Cove?’
    The Inquisition would have had better manners. ‘I don’t know, Captain Nicholls. Whether I do or not is a matter of concern only to myself.’
    â€˜No, it isn’t.’ He darted his sentences, each as unornamented as his dress, and stared after them into her face, as if to make sure they arrived at their destination before he began another. Somewhere along the line he had discarded the Devonshire accent but his eyes were his mother’s. ‘I must have your permission to search the house before you take possession.’
    â€˜Indeed?’ He was mad; they were both mad.
    â€˜Yes. I’ve tried before. The caretaker refuses to let my men in.’
    Was this lunacy or total lack of social grace? Either would hamper his rise in his profession, yet, if his mother were telling the truth, the title of comptroller suggested fairly high authority. She suspected obsessive efficiency.
    Then she thought: Caretaker?
    He jerked out the next sentence. ‘And the local magistrate refuses me a warrant.’
    There was something childlike in his confession to being thwarted; in anyone else it might have been endearing but nobody, ever, would find this man endearing.
    She did not like him; she did not like his mother. Most certainly, she did not want him rootling in her house, whether she occupied it or not. ‘If a magistrate refuses his warrant, I fear I must withhold mine,’ she said and moved away.
    Again he blocked her, presumably to argue, but she was rescued by Admiral Edgcumbe. ‘What’s this? What’s this? We leave business at the door, Nicholls, along with our swords.’
    â€˜That gentleman appears to want to search my house,’ she said as they walked off.
    â€˜He would. Recently been made comptroller for the area. New broom sweepin’ clean. Typical blasted Customs. Hard worker, though, always looking for hidden contraband.’
    â€˜Really ? Does he think there is some at T’Gallants?’
    â€˜There probably is,’ the Admiral told her.
    â€˜Really?’ She was shocked.
    â€˜Oh yes,’ the Admiral said, without concern. ‘Smuggling’s the local industry round here. Fishing and smuggling, the two are synonymous. ’ He patted her hand. ‘No need to worry, Diana, your Devonshire smuggler’s a rogue but not a dangerous rogue. And he’ll be facing a hard time now that Nicholls has been appointed to catch him. A regular ferret, our Nicholls. And out for glory. If he can sweep the coast of smuggling, he’ll be well rewarded.’
    He sounded regretful. Diana thought he showed extraordinary laxity to a trade she knew by hearsay to be ugly; the Fortescues in Kent, with whom she’d stayed occasionally, gave blood-chilling accounts of smuggling gangs torturing and killing Revenue men sent to round them up. Not, she remembered, that such