She shook her head. “No, but I know he is the one who is responsible for my father being kidnapped and held for ransom.”
Joc stepped to the side and glared down at the man. “I know of Monsieur Guerrant. What of it?”
Chevalier looked up and his black eyes turned darker. Colder. “I too know of him, capitaine. My family lived near Paris until la terreur. My whole family was guillotined by those madmen. I and my wife were the only ones to escape.”
Joc nodded and Peggy’s heart went out to him. He too had known loss because of the madness. Chevalier turned back to her and Luc.
“Over the years, my wife and I eventually moved on with our lives. We had three enfants; two girls, and one boy. But my lovely wife, she died two years ago, and I sent my children back to France so they would be safe. But they are not safe, madame. Guerrant found them and threatened to kill them if I did not do as he demanded.”
“And he demanded that you kidnap the Earl of Kiterman?” Luc asked.
“No, monsieur,” Chevalier said. “This was before Monsieur Hennessey became the earl. Guerrant demanded that I kidnap the British ambassador, Monsieur Marcus Hennessey and his family.”
Peggy saw Luc start and look at her. She kept her eyes on Chevalier. And she saw a darkness wash over him.
“No, Monsieur Stoughton. I do not speak of your wife. Guerrant demand that I kidnap Monsieur Hennessey and his wife and young son.”
“What?” Peggy snapped. To her knowledge, her father was not married, nor did he have a young son.
“Oui. Yes. Votre père has a wife and young son. Un bébé. A boy of no more than two, I think.”
Peggy gripped the table and felt her knees giving way. Luc pulled one of the chairs out and guided her to it. Once she was settled, she just studied Chevalier, trying to discern the truth. She couldn’t believe this. Her father had a family he had kept secret from her. A family he apparently loved enough to not abandon as he had Peggy.
“And you kidnapped them for this Guerrant?” Luc asked in a harsh voice.
Chevalier shook his head. “No, monsieur. I captured Monsieur Hennessey and no one else. He hides his wife and child, as he knew Guerrant wished them harm, I think. Regardless, he would not tell me where they were. And I did not ask him to divulge the location to me. But I think, Guerrant, he would have tortured votre père to find them. He eez,” Chevalier twirled his finger beside his head, “fou. Crazy. Yes?”
“And you were going to help him?” Luc demanded from beside her. He had taken her hand and was squeezing it hard. His grip was reassuring and comforting.
Chevalier looked troubled. “I had no choice, monsieur. Not while he held my family.” He turned to Peggy and fixed her with a hard stare. “But last month, I get word that Guerrant was on the way ‘ere. So I had people watching ‘em to free my children. Three days ago, I got word that they were safe.”
“And the earl?” Luc demanded.
Chevalier grinned. “Last night, someone carelessly, I think, left his cell unlocked, and Monsieur Hennessey, he slipped away.”
“And Guerrant?” Joc asked.
Chevalier glanced up at his fellow countrymen. “His ship arrived yesterday, capitaine. It is why I do not wish to be in the city when he gets to the Pasha’s le palais.”
“And my . . . father?” Peggy asked.
His eyes turned sad. “I do not know, ma chère. I suspect he is somewhere in the city. Hiding until he can find a ship out of Tripoli. And I think you are such a ship. Yes?”
“Yes, Captain Chevalier,” Luc said for her, “we are such a ship. But first we have to find the earl. And this Pasha has restricted us to the Coral Sea.”
“Yes, this I know,” Chevalier said. “It is said that you have much money on board. The fifty thousand pounds in gold Guerrant demanded. Is this not so?”
Luc refused to answer him, and Chevalier smiled. “I think it is, monsieur. And I think the Pasha wants this money. But he does not want to cross Guerrant by taking it. So, I think he intends to keep you on your ship here until Guerrant agrees to give him more than he first agreed on.” He grinned at them. “They are both very much greedy men, I think.”
“And you are not,” Peggy asked.
His grin grew. “Oh, oui, Madame Stoughton. I am also a very greedy mon.” His smile fell. “But I am not stupid either. Guerrant will soon forget about me and my family, if he does not know I helped his enemies escape him. But if I take his money, then he will not forget about me. And this, I do not want.”
She saw Luc nod then ask, “Do you know the city, Captain Chevalier?”
“Oui. Yes. I do know Tripoli very well. I have been ’ere many times. But I will not help you find this English earl, Monsieur Stoughton. My ship lies in wait some miles up the coast. I make for it and then to my family.”
Peggy started to ask him to reconsider, but he stopped her by holding up his hand. “But I have friends ‘ere, madame. Friends who do not like the Pasha, and will willing help you find votre père. For a price, of course.”
“Of course,” Joc sneered. “And what do you want for your help?”
Chevalier looked down and his face lost all of its joviality. “I ask for nothing, my friend. Except your forgiveness. It was not a good thing I was forced to do. And I pray you are able to find le père de la fille.” He glanced at Peggy and repeated in English, “the girl’s father. But I warn you, Guerrant is a bad mon. And his anger is a blood feud. I do not know what votre père do to this mon, but Guerrant, he has sworn a blood oath to destroy all of Monsieur Hennessey’s family. And that, madame, includes you,” he glanced up at Luc, “and now your husband as well.”
Chapter 34
The threat Chevalier warned them about came at first light in the form of an invitation for Captain Peri, Lady Margaret Hennessey, and Monsieur Malveaux to join the Pasha for dinner that evening. They sent back a polite refusal, saying they couldn’t join him that night, but maybe tomorrow. And so it went for the next couple of days.
The hunt for the Earl of Kiterman began that night after a royal row between Luc and his wife. “You. Are. Not. Going into the city. And that is final,” he said for the third time.
“And just how do you propose to stop me?” she shot back.
“I’ll clap you in irons and lock you in the brig, if I have to,” he hollered.
She snorted and her blue eyes shot fire at him. “As if that would work.”
He had seen how quickly she could pick a lock and knew she wasn’t being boastful. “I’ll set a guard on you.”
“Oh, please do,” she countered.
The loyalties of the crew had shifted like the changing tides on a Welsh beach. Luc suspected that most of the crew were enjoying the entertainment provided by the squabble between him and his wife too much to not interfere with any orders he tried to give them.
“Peggy, it is an Islamic city. Be reasonable. You will not have the freedom you are used to in most cities,” he said.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, husband, but which one of us has been living and working in this part of the world for the last ten years?” She rebutted.
“Bloody hell, woman. That doesn’t make a difference and you know it. Men don’t treat women in this part of the world the same way that men do in England. They don’t have the same kind of freedoms and rights.”
If possible, her face turned redder. “What do you know of a woman’s rights or freedoms? You, a lord of the realm.” She poked him in the chest. “And I’m not going dressed as a woman, you bloody fool. I’ll be dressed as a man. A Bedouin tribesman. Do you know what they look like?”
“No,” he conceded. “And I don’t see what difference that makes. You’re still a woman. If you’re discovered, do you know what they’ll do to you? If you are lucky, they will just put you in a harem.”
“Oh, for the love of God,” she swore. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last ten years?”
“Being a bloody pirate,” he yelled, becoming frustrated.
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p; “Yes,” she yelled back. “But what I’ve been doing most of the time is sneaking into places without anyone seeing me. Or realizing who I was. And that, for your information, Lord Stoughton, included impersonating a man on occasion. And I can assure you, no one ever knew I wasn’t what I pretended to be.”
He hesitated and said in a deadly calm voice. “I don’t care. You are not going with us.”
“Why?” she demanded.
He couldn’t tell her that the real reason he didn’t want her going with them was that he couldn’t bear to see her hurt, or possibly killed. Luc couldn’t. Not after what she had admitted the other day. She would think he was just saying those things as a way to keep her on board the Coral Sea.
“You don’t want me going because you are afraid I’ll kill my father if we find him,” she said in a soft voice that chilled him to the bone.
He just frowned at her. In actuality he wasn’t thinking about that possibility. But now that she had said it, it was a real concern for him. And one he’d already made a contingency plan for. However, admitting either of those truths did not seem like a good idea. Not while she was still armed.
Her snort suggested she knew what he was thinking. “And yet you are allowing Joc to go with you.”
“Joc gave me his word he wouldn’t kill your father. You refused to answer when I asked you the same thing.”
The look she gave him sent a quiver down his back. “You want my word? Fine, I won’t kill my father when we find him,” she said.
“Peggy,” he replied.
“What? It’s what you asked me for. Isn’t it? So fine, I will not kill my father as soon as I see him.” She made an X over her heart. “My word of honor.” Luc glared at her. She added, “As a pirate.”
“Peg-gy,” he warned.
She battered her eyelashes at him. “What? You took Joc’s word of honor. And he’s as much a pirate as I am.”
She had a point, and he knew it. And as much as he didn’t want her involved, she knew the city and he didn’t.
“Alright,” he finally conceded. “You can come with us. We’ll work in pairs. You and me, Joc and Rodney, Edgar and Jenkins.”
“What, you don’t trust me and Joc together?” she asked.
He snorted. “No. But that’s not the reason. You and Joc know Tripoli. Rodney and I do not. It just makes sense this way.”
For the three days, each morning, just before the sun began to lighten the eastern sky, the six of them would slip over the side of the Coral Sea and make the long swim to the city. And as Peggy had boasted, no one was able to tell she was a woman. Not dressed as she was, as a Bedouin tribesman and covered head to toe in yards of silk. Including most of her face.
At first he thought she would stand out in such an outfit. But within minutes of entering the marketplace on the first day, Luc saw dozens of men dressed just like her. So he relaxed and concentrated on finding the earl.
The first two days they returned well after dark to sleep and regroup. They were able to crisscross the city a couple of times but with no luck. The only encouraging thing was that they were fairly sure that neither Guerrant nor the Pasha had found the earl either, as they too had search parties out, day and night looking for him.
Things had been going so smoothly that on the third day Luc had let down his guard a little. A huge mistake where his wife was concerned. He still thought she was being unreasonable. She thought he was being ridiculous. The end result was he was now paired with Matthew Jenkins, the Coral Sea’s young ensign. A very young ensign as far as Luc was concerned. The youth reminded him of a fresh-faced cornet in the cavalry. But he seemed competent, and he knew the city better than any of them. And he spoke the language as well as the natives. So Luc had allowed him to lead the way.
“Stay ‘ere, milord,” Matthew said under his breath. “Most of these men won’t talk if’n they sees a stranger hangin’ round. The Pasha has got them scared of reprisals. So let me go in and see if they’s seen a man fitting the earl’s description tryin’ to get out of the city.”
Luc nodded and young Matthew turned and trotted off to a cluster of colorful tents. They were about an hour outside of Tripoli on the road to Egypt. It was one of the places that caravans formed for trips to other parts of Africa. He and Peggy had checked the ones going west the day before, which was what precipitated their argument. She thought she should go into the tents to speak to the men. Luc thought he should. Peggy won since he didn’t speak Arabic and she did. So he wasn’t going to make the same mistake with Mr. Jenkins.
Matthew had just reached the first tent when a number of heavily armed men rushed out with their scimitars raised in the air. Luc didn’t even get a chance to yell out a warning when one of the men brought the long, curved sword down. Jenkins fell where he stood.
A sudden image of Peggy going into the tents yesterday flashed in Luc’s mind. It froze him for a second, then his instinct to charge into the fray kicked in, but he knew he was outnumbered and that young Matthew was already dead. He turned to disappear into the darkness but found a line of turbaned men behind him, their scimitars held across their chest as they stared at him. And in the middle of the group was a man of medium height with stark white hair and a matching mustache. And unlike the men on either side of him, he was finely turned out in European dress. Aristocratic clothes, if Luc wasn’t mistaken.
“Captain Stoughton, I presume,” the man said in a heavy French accent. “Or should I call you Captain Peri, as that was the role you were hired to play by the English Home Office? Was it not?”
Luc knew instantly who this was and why he was there. It had been inevitable with the crew of the Coral Sea, the Pasha’s men, and Guerrant’s all looking for the Earl of Kiterman that they would cross paths. He was suddenly very grateful that Peggy was not with him tonight.
“Why did you have to kill the boy?” Luc asked.
The Frenchman shrugged with indifference. “He was of no consequences. His life means nothing to me, so why should I deny my men the pleasure of his death?”
Luc clenched his jaw. He had learned a long time ago that it was useless to argue with a man like this. “What do you want?”
The Frenchman cocked his head to the side and regarded Luc closely. “You do not ask who I am. Are you not curious who holds your life in their hands?”
Luc looked him up and down and then snorted. “Does it really matter?”
The man shrugged again. “No, Captain Stoughton, it does not.”
Luc returned his stare for a second, then said, “I presume you are Monsieur Guerrant.”
Guerrant nodded his head. “Oui, you are correct, Captain Stoughton.”
Luc hesitated, then asked, “The real question, Monsieur Guerrant, is what do you want with me?”
The man grinned. “I would think that was obvious, Captain Stoughton. I want your wife, and you are my way of luring her away from the safety of her ship.”
Luc was not surprised by the answer. But he was relieved to realize that Guerrant was unaware Peggy had been roaming the city for the last three days. It meant that if she needed to slip away and escape, she could do so without this man being aware of it.
Suddenly, what the man said about Peggy hit Luc like a ton of bricks. “How did. . .”
The man laughed. “Who do you think put Monsieur Thibeau on your ship? He was supposed to delay you long enough for me to overtake you before you reached Tripoli. But he failed me. It would have made it much easier if I did not have to deal with zee Pasha ‘ere. But no matter. He eez easily controlled. He eez a greedy mon and thinks with his pénis. But my men, they did send a letter to me before you left Portugal and told me of yours and Mademoiselle Hennessey’s marriage.” He nodded. “You have my congratulations, Captain Stoughton. And my condolences, as it has made you a part of this business of mine.”
He looked Luc up and down, then grinned. “Unfortunately, zee Pasha ‘ere, he has seen the girl and now wants her for ‘emself.” His grin turned even mo
re sinister. “We are renegotiating our agreement even now. He wants more gold.” He shrugged. “And that I will not do until he recovers my lost property.”
“Your property?” Luc asked, even though he knew what he was talking about.
Some of his humor faded. “He and that fool, Chevalier, allowed Monsieur Hennessey to escape. And I will not pay ‘em until my property eez recovered.”
That answered another one of Luc’s questions. They had all wondered why the Pasha’s men had not stormed the Coral Sea and taken the gold yet. Now he knew why. The gun boats did not belong to the city’s ruler, they belonged to Guerrant.
“But enough talk, Captain Stoughton. I have a maison, a house, in the city. We will wait there for my men to recover what is mine. Then we will collect the others.”
Luc knew Guerrant wanted Peggy. And knowing Peggy and Joc as he did now, he suspected they knew it too. The question was why had they kept that information from him?
Guerrant said something in Arabic to one of the men, then strolled off to a waiting horse. Luc’s arms were jerked behind him and bound tightly. Then six of the men broke away and mounted their own horses and they followed behind as Guerrant headed back toward the city.
A long rope was looped around Luc’s neck, then he was dragged to where four more horses where tethered. One man held the rope as the other three mounted their horses. But they had no more than settled into their saddles when a dozen men dressed in desert tribesmen’s robes rushed out of the darkness and attacked the four men.
Luc had barely enough time to duck out of the way before the fight was over, and the four guards were dead. He looked up into the dark faces with soulless black eyes and wondered if he was next. Then a man stepped forward.
Cerulean blue eyes gazed at Luc. Eyes he had seen in his dreams for the last three weeks. But these were not his wife’s eyes, these were the eyes of a man. Despite Peggy’s assurances that no one would be able to see through her disguise, Luc had. But mostly because he knew her intimately. And he knew that the man standing over him with a scimitar pointed at his throat was not his wife.
To Save a Fallen Angel (The Fallen Angels series Book 2) Page 24