Free Beauvallet by Georgette Heyer

Nicholas came forward. ‘Don Manuel, have you strength to descend yon ladder?’
    ‘I can essay, señor,’ Don Manuel said. ‘Bartolomeo, go before me.’ He faced Beauvallet in the shaded lamplight. ‘Señor, this is farewell. You will let me say –’
    ‘No need, señor. Let it be said anon. I shall see you safely ashore.’
    ‘Yourself, señor? Nay, that is too much to ask of you.’
    ‘Be at ease, ye did not ask it. It is my pleasure,’ Beauvallet said, and put out a strong hand to help him down the ladder.
    Don Manuel went painfully down the side with Bartolomeo watchful below him. Beauvallet turned to Dominica, and opened his arms. ‘Trust yourself to me yet again, sweetheart,’ he said.
    Without a word she went to him and let him swing her up to his shoulder. He went lightly down the side with her, let her slip to her feet in the boat below, and held her still with one supporting hand. She found a seat beside Maria, crouchedin the stern, and nestled beside her. Beauvallet left the ladder and gained the boat, stepped past the two women to the tiller behind them, and called a low order to his men. There was a casting off, long oars dipped into the heaving water; silently the boat cleaved forward towards the land.
    A crescent moon gleamed suddenly through a rift in the clouds above; Dominica looked round and saw Beauvallet behind her, holding the tiller. He was looking frowningly ahead, but as she turned he glanced down at her and smiled. She said suddenly on a sharp note of fear: ‘Ah, if there should be soldiers! A trap!’
    His white teeth shone between the black of beard and mustachio. ‘Never fear.’
    ‘Foolhardy!’ she whispered. ‘I would you had not come.’
    ‘What, and send my men into a danger I dare not face?’ he rallied her.
    She looked at him, so straight and handsome in the pale moonlight. ‘No, that is not your way,’ she said. ‘I cry pardon.’
    The clouds covered the moon's face again; Beauvallet was a dark shadow against the night. ‘I have a sword, child. Fear not.’
    ‘Rather, Reck Not,’ she said in a low voice.
    She heard the ripple of his gay laugh.
    Soon, too soon, the boat's keel grated on the beach. There were men running down to meet them now, men who caught at the boat, and held her, and questioned eagerly, in low, rough Spanish. Sir Nicholas picked his way across the baggage, and between the rowers to the nose of the boat, and sprang ashore, closely followed by his boatswain. There was the quick give and take of question and answer, a sharp exclamation, a subdued babel of voices in a long parley. Then Beauvallet came back to the boat, with the sea washing about his ankles, and gave his hand to Don Manuel. ‘All is well, señor; these worthy fellows will give you a lodging for thenight, and your man may ride into Santander tomorrow to find a coach to bear you hence.’
    A burly sailor lifted Don Manuel on to dry land; his daughter lay in tenderer arms. She was carried up the beach, held closer still for a moment. Beauvallet bent his head and kissed her. ‘Till I come again!’ he said, and set her on her feet. ‘Trust me!’

Six

    T he venture was left in Plymouth Sound, under charge of Master Culpepper, and her treasure safely stored. She was docked, and would be clean careened before she could put to sea again. Beauvallet stayed some three nights in Plymouth, where he found a sea-faring crony or two, heard what news was abroad, and saw to the bestowal of his ship. He took horse then, with Joshua Dimmock in attendance, and a hired man following hard upon them with led sumpters, and made for Alreston, in Hampshire, where he might reasonably expect to find his brother. My Lord Beauvallet had other dwellings beside this, but of all this manor of Alreston saw him the most. There was a grim hold in Cambridgeshire, built nearly two hundred years ago by the founder of the house, Simon, First Baron Beauvallet. A left-handed scion of the old house of Malvallet, Simon