“I think, although I may be mistaken,” he said, “that you know this momentous secret and I just cannot believe that you would wish to leave me, as the new owner of The Castle, in ignorance, so that when I die the secret would be lost for ever.”
“I have not agreed that there is a secret, my Lord,” Marista protested.
“If you will not tell me,” the Earl continued, “what about all those smugglers who I understand still use the caves beneath us?”
Marista was very still.
She was well aware that when the fishermen had bad hauls at sea they slipped across the English Channel to bring back a cargo, the sale of which tided them over until they could fill their nets again.
She also suspected that many of the villagers who were always impoverished, but could ply an oar used to go with them.
She
