“Use your imagination. And if you take one more step, Silas,” Sebastian added calmly as he shifted his weight to draw a small, double-barreled flintlock pistol from his pocket, “I’ll blow your bloody head off. First yours, and then the major’s.”
Silas, who had been sidling toward him along the hedge with a pitchfork gripped purposefully in his hands, froze as Sebastian pulled back both hammers with an audible click.
Weston turned a sickly shade. “That will be all, Silas,” he said, his voice wheezing. “Thank you.”
For a moment, Silas looked as if he might balk. Then he shouldered his pitchfork and turned toward the stables.
Sebastian shifted the muzzle of his pistol to the major. “Make up your mind. I don’t have all afternoon.”
Weston waited until the caretaker was out of earshot, then cleared his throat, a tic spasming the flesh beside his right eye. “I have your word as a gentleman that if I answer your questions, you won’t inform the revenue men?”
“Not unless I discover Emma Chandler was killed because of your little adventure.”
Weston licked his dry lips. “What do you want to know?”
“What night did your latest cargo arrive?”
“A week ago yesterday.”
“Sunday night?”
“Yes.”
“And you sent it on again when?”
“The next night.”
“So, Monday?”
Weston nodded, his jaw thrust forward in a way that pursed his lips.
The shipment would have been brought in from the estuary by packhorses, then reloaded here into wagons and sent on its way buried beneath grain or some other legitimate product. And Sebastian found himself thinking about Reuben Dickie’s brother, Jeb, and the shipment of timber he’d recently hauled to Wales.
“That’s the night Emma Chance was killed,” said Sebastian.
“Yes. But the one has nothing to do with the other. Absolutely nothing.”
“Emma Chance didn’t come back here again that evening and see something you didn’t want her to see?”
“Of course not. How careless do you imagine we are?”
“And you’re certain the shipment wasn’t already in the carriage house the day she came to sketch the hall?”
“No! I tell you, it arrived that night, long after she’d finished and gone away. Besides, Silas was watching her the entire time she was here, just in case she got too curious.”
“Pitchfork at the ready, one assumes.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“And the next night? What time did the wagons leave?”
“Just before dawn—so Tuesday morning, actually. Any earlier and there’s always a danger of arousing suspicions.”
“Were you here Sunday night?”
“Good God, no. You don’t seriously think I deal with any of this myself?”
“No,” said Sebastian.
Weston’s role was undoubtedly minimal and would extend little beyond supplying the critically necessary funds. Smuggling was a lucrative but capital-intensive business. Because customers paid for their smuggled goods only on delivery, the money to finance each run up front had to come from the likes of merchants and landowners—wealthy men who risked their investment but not their lives.
The real dangers were run by others: by the crews of the black-hulled cutters that plied the channel; by the fishermen who ferried the cargo ashore in their small boats; by the impoverished, starving countryfolk who served as tubmen and batsmen, or who guided ponies loaded with ankers of brandy and wine or oilskin-wrapped packets of tobacco, silk, and lace. Moving under cover of darkness from one isolated safe house to the next, they were the ones who ferried the goods inland, the hooves of their pack animals muffled with rags. They were the ones who faced death or transportation if caught.
But while their risks were high, they were paid pennies. The handsome profits generated by their labors were pocketed by men like Weston, who were seldom caught. Yes, he allowed the old hall’s carriage house to function as a way station. But if it were ever discovered, he could simply claim it was used without his permission or knowledge. The actual management of the operation would be handled by someone else—someone with the kind of skills needed to negotiate with ships’ captains and coordinate the laborers who actually moved the goods. Someone who probably didn’t even live in Ayleswick.
“What about Monday night?” said Sebastian. “Were you here then?”
“Of course not. What do you think? That I plow my own fields and shear my own sheep as well?”
“So how do you know what actually happened on either night?”
“Because I would have been told, had anything untoward occurred.”
“Silas handles everything here, does he?”
“He’s very reliable.”
“I’ve no doubt that he is,” said Sebastian. “How long have you been dabbling in the free trade?”
Weston’s jaw jutted out mulishly. “What the devil business is it of yours?”