It only took him three blocks to detect the men clumsily following his hackney. Two were making a good go of it on foot as his coach was bogged down in a surprising amount of traffic for the little riverside town. Another man was having an easier time of it as he was mounted on remarkably expensive-looking horseflesh.
Luc might not have spotted him at all because he was dressed in equally elegant riding clothes. But the man stood out no matter how hard he tried to blend in. For one thing, he was nearly as big as the horse, which was at least seventeen hands. For another, he had the look of a pirate. Not that the man was wearing an eye patch or anything else that proclaimed him a buccaneer. He just quite simply had that dangerous look about him.
And if the monstrous man following on horseback exuded the look of a pirate by his mere size and his persona, then the man driving the old-fashioned town coach trailing them was screaming it from the yardarm. He actually had the eye patch and was wearing obvious sailor's garb. And if Luc wasn't mistaken, the man was also wearing the cutlass he himself had been wishing for earlier in the night.
He strongly suspected that someone at the assembly hall was now missing their coach. And he also suspected that someone's coachman was now nursing a headache. At least Luc hoped John Coachman was nursing a headache, and not lying dead somewhere.
Not for the first time tonight he found himself wishing he had insisted on carrying a weapon. A mistake. One he had no intention of repeating. And not just the failure to arm himself for the evening, but also for being so cavalier about tonight’s activities.
Part of that he would like to lay at the doorstep of Sir Walter and his obnoxious little assistant. After all they were the ones who had dressed him like some medieval court jester and then insisted he act jovial and roguish.
But honesty wouldn't allow him to lay the blame at their door. No, he had allowed his irritation with the two men to cloud his judgment. That and assuming the mission wouldn't really start until he was on the Coral Sea and headed to the Mediterranean. Mistakes he would not make again. And that meant acting now and not later.
Luc slid forward in his seat and rapped on the roof of the hack. Fortunately, the coachman was another of Sir Walter’s agents – as well as a sergeant in the in the army – and like Luc, temporarily assigned to the Home Office.
"We're being followed, Sergeant," Luc called up through the trap door in the coach’s roof.
"I was wondering if you had caught the scent of them yet, Captain," the man replied, then dropped a bundle on the floor at Luc’s feet. The clanging told him that it was the sword he had wished he’d had during the dance. “You might be needin’ that, Cap.”
Luc bit back the curt retort that simmered up. If the man knew they were being followed, why hadn't he been the one to warn Luc? But he was grateful that the man had remembered to bring along Luc’s weapons. Blowing out a small breath, he pressed on with the plan that was forming in his head.
"Take the next right, Sergeant. I'll slip out while the hack is between us and our tail. Once I'm away, head to the hackney stand on Lang Street."
"Right'O, Cap," the sergeant snapped out. "Will you be joining me there? Or do ye want me to meet ye somewhere?"
Luc thought about what he needed to do. If the sergeant worked for Sir Walter than he was probably an excellent soldier. But what Luc needed right now was stealth and not brawn.
"No, Sergeant," Luc said. "You are to wait until you take up another fare."
The man's face scrunched in confusion. "A fare, Cap?"
God save him from blockheaded soldiers. "Yes, Sergeant. I need for them to know I am no longer in the hackney so I can follow them back to their boss."
The man's face lit up as if Luc had imparted some kind of great secret. "Capital idea, Cap. Capital!"
"Yes," Luc sneered. The sarcasm was obviously lost on the sergeant. "I thought so, myself."
The man's head swirled to the front for a second and then came back to Luc. "Best get ready, then Cap. There's a turn coming up."
"Right," Luc said and then interjected further, "Once you have convinced these men that I am no longer in the hack, you are free to do as you please."
Judging by the smile that split the sergeant's face, he suspected that women and copious amounts of liquor were now in the sergeant's immediate future.
The hatch in the roof had barely slammed shut when Luc felt the hack begin to make its turn. He clutched his sword and pistols as he waited a moment more and then leaped from the carriage. The momentum of the hackney and his jump took him to the side of the road and into a darkened alleyway. Rubbish blocked part of the alleyway and provided a convenient hiding place.
And it was fortuitous as he had no sooner ducked behind the rubbish than the hijacked coach with the pirate at the ribbons also rolled by at a safe distance behind the now-vacant hack. He could see that it now contained the two men who had been following him on foot. Luc also noted that they too wore the loose-fitting clothes of a sailor. Then a few heartbeats later, the man on horseback rode past the entrance to the alleyway.
It appeared that Captain Chevalier and his men were not satisfied with just observing him from afar. Or with waiting for him to come to them. Of course, that begged the question of what they really wanted with him, or Captain Peri, as there was a chance the ransom had not been delivered to the ship yet.
It had not escaped his attention that the kidnappers had
demanded Captain Peri personally deliver the ransom and retrieve the earl. And that suggested that they didn’t know that Edward Hennessey had been Peri. Or it might mean that the man who had played the public face of Peri had been a part of Chevalier’s plans, and they were unaware that the actor had also been killed with the old earl.
The problem was, the more Luc thought about the inconsistencies of the mission and the players in it, the more questions he came up with, and the few answers he seemed to have.
Harris had been somewhat elusive when Luc had tried to question him about his concerns. In fact, each time Luc brought up some question, Sir Walter's health deteriorated significantly and Harris insisted that Luc stop asking so many questions. All of his questions would be answered once he was on board the Coral Sea. Luc thought the whole act was poppycock.
Oh, he didn't doubt for a minute the director had been severely injured. Luc just suspected the injuries were being used as a convenient way to not answer questions they didn't want to.
Well, he intended to get some of those answers now. He just hoped he could get them in time to still make his unofficial invitation to Lady Margaret's boudoir. So he needed to trail the pirates better than they had followed him. And hopefully, that would lead him back to their boss and the answers he needed.
It had taken the sergeant only five minutes to pick up his next fare. From his hiding place, Luc watched the huge man on horseback berating the others, whom he must have blamed for losing Luc in the traffic.
It was obvious that the huge pirate was in charge, so when they all split up to search for Luc, he was the one Luc decided to follow. And by two o’clock in the morning, he had trailed the man back to the waterfront in the shadow of Rochester Castle.
Shortly after his quarry made it to the castle, he was met by the others he had sent to look for Luc. Slipping from shadow to shadow, Luc worked his way to a position where he could hear what the men were saying. Or arguing about.
What he learned ended any hope of a midnight tryst with Lady Margaret. As he had suspected, the pirates had intended to kidnap him and forcibly take him to their pirate king. He had missed some of the heated argument between the men. In part because he got where he could hear them midway through the argument. And in part because the argument was conducted in French, English, and German.
The main gist, as best as he could grasp, was that the Boss and Captain was not going to be happy with the men for tonight's work. Whether it was for failing to capture Luc, kill him, or for trying to take him in the first place, he couldn't determine. I
ronically, and strangely, they didn’t seem to be interested in the gold, only in him. When Luc thought about it, he realized it meant that either they already had the gold, or knew how to get their hands on it.
He had decided that the Frenchman – the horse-riding mountain that had been following him — was the second-in-command of the group, and he definitely wanted Luc dead. The Englishman was convinced their captain was going to kill them for failing to capture him. And from what Luc could translate of what little he knew of German, the German sailor was convinced their captain was going to be put out that they had even tried to kidnap him.
Luc had just decided to ignore the ridiculous argument when the conversation turned in a new and much more concerning direction. They were planning on retaking the Coral Sea. And according to Harris, the ship was currently being manned by a skeleton crew of British sailors and a unit of Royal Marines. To accomplish this they intended to free the Coral Sea’s crew that was being held in the garrison at Rochester Castle. Once freed, they would board the Coral Sea and over power the few British sailors and marines currently on board the ship. This was something Luc couldn't ignore nor put off.
Chapter 9
Peggy was going to kill them.
"You lost him?" she demanded of Joc. He shrugged his massive shoulders in a dismissive way.
Peggy belted him in the chest. Joc raised his right eyebrow slightly but otherwise was unmoved by her violence. She, on the other hand, grimaced in pain and tried valiantly to hide the fact that she may have just broken her hand on her papa’s rock-hard chest.
"Don't you understand what this means? He is probably on his way to my hotel now."
Turning her back on him, Peggy watched the men they had just freed from the English prison make their way to longboats that would take them out to the Coral Sea. At least that part of tonight’s plan had gone as hoped for. A forged letter from Sir Walter and Viscount Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty, had secured their release without anyone being killed. She gingerly cradled her hand and wrist while striving hard to contain her anger.
"And why eez this mon on his way to your hotel, Peggy?"
“I told him to meet me there at three this morning,” she told him.
"Pourquoi?"
"Because I need him to take me to the ship tonight. And not with Sir Walter’s man tagging along," Peggy fumed. “Now how am I supposed to find him before Harris or one of his men do?
"Marg-ar-et Re-née Hennessey." Joc seethed from behind her.
"Don’t Margaret me, Papa. He was becoming suspicious, I had to do something to distract him," she said and defiantly lifted her chin.
“Pourquoi, Margaret? We could have taken him as he returned to his hotel."
“And you think this Sir Walter is not having both of us followed?” Peggy asked.
Joc returned her look without replying, so she nodded. “We need to set sail as soon as the tide turns. So we need this Englishman on board tonight, not in the morning.”
“Then why did you tell him your hotel?” Joc asked quietly.
Peggy drew in a breath and then let it out. Her chin dropped to her chest as she accepted that she would now have to confess her folly with the Englishman. "Because we were supposed to become lovers tonight, Jocquelin."
"Oh mon Dieu, little girl, did you learn nothin’ from Gustav?"
Peggy whirled around to confront Joc and saw the disappointment in his eyes and was sickened and enraged by it. "For the love of God, do you think I would have gone through with it? I am obviously not in my rooms, I am here with you.”
His eyes narrowed, but said nothing. To Peggy, that was worse than his yelling at her.
“Go with the men and get our ship back for us, Papa,” she told him.
His eyebrows snapped together and he growled. “And where are you goin’, little girl?”
She whirled on him and poked him in the chest. “Stop callin’ me that. You made me captain of the Coral Sea. And whether you like it or not, that makes me in charge.” Although, she didn’t want to be in charge but knew if she was going to get the revenge she wanted, then she had no choice in the matter.
“And I am still your guardian,” Joc countered.
“I don’t need a guardian, Papa. I need a first mate,” she replied less heatedly.
They frowned at each other in silence, then Joc relaxed his stance and stepped away. “Then as your first mate, I ask you, Captain Peri, where are you going? We need to set sail before dawn.”
She eyed him casually, then said as confidently as she could, “I am going to go find the Englishman.”
He shook his head and said, “I tell you, we do not need this Englishmon. We dress up one of zee other men to look like Captain Peri.”
"No!" Peggy said too violently and then calmed her voice to reason with her first mate. "None of the men can pass as Peri up close, and you know it. And we need for him to pass up close if we are to get to my father. Chevalier said he will not reveal where he is hiding my father to anyone but Captain Peri."
"I have told you, once we have zee English gold, finding your father will not be a problem," Joc argued and then quickly held up his hand to forestall her. "I know, you do not agree. So it will be as you order, Capitaine."
The tension in Peggy’s stomach relaxed and allowed herself a breath. "Try not to kill any of the English sailors, Joc."
"Why?" he asked. "They are of no concern to us."
She raised her own eyebrow at her first mate. "We want this Captain Stoughton to willingly go with us to Tripoli. If we kill his countrymen, do you think he will do so?”
He smiled at her in a way that she knew what he was going to say. “We will not torture him, unless there is no other choice.”
His smile grew. “We will see. We will see.”
Exasperated with Joc, she turned back to the matter at hand. "Get my ship back for me, Papa, and prepare her for sea on the morning tide. I will return with this Captain Stoughton by first light. We'll weigh anchor as soon as I return and be out to sea before these English even know we are gone."
"Oui, Capitaine," her papa responded and strolled off to join the other men in the long boats.
Peggy finished putting on her cutlass and matching pistols as she watched one of the two men who had helped raise her set out to retake her ship. She'd disappointed them by falling in love with Gustav. She would not disappoint the one still alive by falling for this arrogant Englishman.
However, that didn't preclude her from having a little fun with the man before cutting him loose at the end of their voyage. But first she had to keep the idiot from getting them all caught by causing a scene at the hotel.
The escaped pirates had piled into a number of longboats, and then rowed down the shore until they were out of sight of the city. And then they had stopped, as if they were waiting for something, or more likely, someone. Luc started to go to the garrison and ask for help. But as there had been no alarm by the prison guards as the pirates walked out, he figured they had used some kind of ruse to gain release. And if they had, he would lose valuable time convincing the guards to go after the pirates.
So that meant he was on his own. And that also meant getting to the Coral Sea and warning the crew on board about the impending attack, before the pirates made it to the ship.
Fifteen minutes later Luc was sure he was going to get himself killed before this mission even got started. Taking on an entire crew of angry pirates was never a good idea. Doing it by one's self was the height of stupidity. Something he had been accused of more than once by his brother during their time together. It was why he had made such an excellent officer. Rushing in where others dare not tread had been the motto of their unit. A fitting motto of the grenadiers, as they were always the first into battle. One he embodied, as he liked to be the first into any fray.
But he had no intentions of allowing these barbarians to take his ship away from him. Since learning he would be the commander of the vessel, Luc had become quite attached to
the Coral Sea, despite having never laid eyes on the thing until tonight. But he had always been a very possessive man. And since being told he would be the ship’s master, he had started thinking of the Coral Sea as his.
After all, he just had to sneak past the pirates, make it out to the ship before them, and steal aboard his own ship without being seen by the cutthroats. Then, of course, he had to convince the loyal British sailors on board that he was her new sailing master. And all this before the pirates reached the ship and overpowered them. Simple, really. But fraught with danger and a high likelihood of failure.
He bent to the oars and pulled with all his might. His stomach roiled in equal measure, and he allowed the boat to glide through the gentle waves. The little dinghy he had borrowed was barely bigger than him, and ineffective at keeping out the water that lapped less than an inch below its prow. But it had done its job as he was now within shouting distance of his ship and was only a little green from the violent rocking of the rowboat. He was grateful that he had not bothered to eat supper the night before. If it came to a battle to keep his ship, he would hate to vomit in the middle of a sword fight.
The question now was had he indeed beaten the pirates to his ship? And if he had, did he take a chance and hail the night watch, requesting permission to board? Even if he had beaten the pirates, as he hoped, sound carried a long way on the open water. And the night was eerily quiet. The last thing he wanted to do was alert the pirates to his presence, arguing with the watch over whether or not they would allow him to board his own vessel.
That left the obvious course of action to boarding his ship without alerting the watch, the pirates, or any of the others present on the Coral Sea. Admittedly, there was one huge problem with his plan. Luc had never been near a ship like this in his life, much less contemplating finding a way to board one undetected.
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