Smugglers' Moon by Frances Burke

Author:Frances Burke
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: regency, gothic, adventure smugglers wreckers cornwall

She raised the glass and squinted.

Lowering it, she rubbed her eyes. The men were there again, in broad daylight!

Focussing the glass, she now had a clearer picture of their activities. Her heart gave a great lurch. There were figures lying on the sand, stiff and unmoving, like her uncle’s lead soldiers. Wreckage washed in and out, tossed by the waves, and other men waded amongst the broken timbers and floating ropes and canvas.

Clytie dropped the eye glass and sank to her knees, overcome with horror. How many poor souls had been lost from what had once been a proud ship? And had it been driven, helpless, against the razor rocks, or had it been lured there by heartless monsters? She felt ill at the thought.

Then she shook herself and rose to look once more at the scene on the beach. This was broad daylight and, of course, wreckers plied their dreadful trade by night. The men scouring the remains of the ship were surely looking for more bodies to give them Christian burial. She thought, sadly, that her uncle had been prophetic, if totally wrong about the perpetrators of this crime. There were men, perhaps living in the village or on the outlying farms, who were willing to bring death to their fellows, just for gain. They cast a shadow over the land. Evil had entered the idyllic country where Clytie hoped to make her home.

Back at the Castle, Great Uncle Jeremiah had his meanest ‘I told you so’ expression in place.

“You see, girl? You see? It is as I told you. This smuggling, house-breaking, villain is not for you. Could you lie in the arms of such a killer? Could you wait for him to return to you laden with blood-stained treasure?”

“Stop it! I will not listen. You have no proof that it was a wrecking. The ship might have come to grief for other reasons. And if the crew were lured to their deaths, it was by some other wicked creatures.” Clytie’s fingers curled into fists. She wanted to hit him and make him retract his horrible accusations.

Instead, she turned and raced up the stairs, away from temptation.

Two days later the seas had abated sufficiently to allow a boat to reach the Island.

Clytie, waiting hopefully, longing to be with Adam once more, was in two minds whether to acquaint him with Great Uncle Jeremiah’s intolerable accusations. She thought she knew her lover well enough to predict his response to the house-breaking question. He would smile and shrug it off. But the idea that he could be classed as a dastardly wrecker would infuriate him. Doubtless he would confront the Lord of Crake Isle, with possibly dire consequences. Jeremiah was a power in this part of the country; Adam was a simple man, whose lawless activities laid him open to capture and imprisonment, or worse.

Yet if she said nothing, might not Great Uncle Jeremiah still go ahead and lay information against him?

She was still undecided when she went down to lunch.

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