Free Revenge of the Barbary Ghost by Donna Lea Simpson Page A

I’m not dead sure, y’see. We’ve had our troubles, have Johnny and I since his mother died. He blames me, y’see, sayin’ she worked herself to death. She weren’t well, and that’s a fact, but I tried to keep her abed. Made her feel useless, she said, and she wouldn’t stop, but ’e don’t see it that way.”
    “What can I do to help?”
    A sweep of relief covered the older man’s face, and Darkefell realized that until that moment, Quintrell had been tense, waiting to see if his risk in telling the marquess would result in disaster.
    “Find out,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “Find out how my Johnny’s involved, what ’e does for Micklethwaite, and mebbe how we can get ’im out.”
    Darkefell thought about Anne’s spying on the smugglers. This gave him an added reason to find out what was going on, and put a stop to this smuggling gang and the danger to young Johnny Quintrell. Quintrell had not worked for his family for many years now, but still … Darkefell’s opinion was that loyalty ran both ways with him and his. He clapped the other man on the shoulder and said, “Stop worrying. I’ll do whatever I can to extricate your son. If he’s anything like you, he’s a good fellow at heart, though perhaps in a little over his head.”
    Tears welled in Quintrell’s eyes and he nodded, but Darkefell uneasily considered that he had no idea how he was going to do it, or even if he could. His own motives for watching the smugglers were in line with Quintrell’s fatherly concern, though, and he had full confidence that he could help.
    Starting that very night.

Five
     
    Anne was muddled and angry, unable to even think about bed. She paced her bedroom floor, and as it was a small room, that required much turning; her long dark hair was unbound and swung out at each turn, frizzing wildly in the damp sea air. Ever since Darkefell had left, she had been working herself up into a stew at his presumption in first trying to tell her what to do, and then kissing her in the open like that! Once Marcus had left to join his regiment, Pamela had demanded answers. All afternoon, and through a quiet dinner, she asked questions about the marquess, and even through the evening as they sat quietly, mending their spring bonnets.
    Lolly, sitting with them and sewing, had listened with wide eyes but an amazingly closed mouth. Perhaps Anne shouldn’t have confessed so much about her relationship with the marquess in front of her companion, but even if her mother did find out how far the relationship had gone, she could not force Anne to marry the man.
    Though she’d probably try.
    And now Anne was so worked up she couldn’t sleep, regretting saying so much, frustrated by her life, feeling hemmed in on every side by her mother, her grandmother, her companion and society.
    Mary came in to Anne’s bedchamber from the attached dressing room, where she and her son slept, and closed the door quietly behind her. “That is one weary wee boy,” she said, softly, making her way around the room, tidying as she went, her full skirts softly rustling. “He spent all day on the seashore, and bathing too, even though the water was dreadful cold,” she said, dusting some spilled powder from the dressing table and then cleaning hair from a brush. “I was that worrit aboot him, dashing in and oot o’ the waves like he does. I didna take my eyes off him for one second. Your puss is curled up in his bed; it’s a precious sight.”
    “What does he mean by following me here, Mary? Why is he plaguing me so?” Anne, still pacing, did not need to say who or what she meant, for they had already spoken of the marquess at some length.
    As she put away some sheets of paper into Anne’s traveling desk and closed the lid, Mary gently said, “A man in love will do many a strange thing, milady.”
    “He’s not in love with me,” Anne declared, contemptuously, though her maid’s words sent an odd thrill through her. “He