by Julia Quinn
This time, her stomach heaved, but she swallowed down the bile, coughing on the acidic taste in her mouth. Her heart might be racing, she might be feeling something far beyond terror, but she had to remain strong for Blake. She stepped out onto the path and began her descent.
“Don't try any false moves,” he said. “You'd be wise to remember I've a gun pointed at your back.”
“I'm not likely to forget it,” she bit off, poking her toe out ahead of her to feel for loose rocks. Damn, but this path was treacherous at night. She'd hiked similar paths during the day, but sunlight was a powerful ally.
He jammed the barrel of the gun against her back. “Faster.”
Caroline swung her arms wildly to keep her balance. When she was satisfied that she wasn't about to tumble to her death she snapped, “I'm not going to do you a bit of good dead of a broken neck. And believe me, if I start to fall, the first thing I'm grabbing is your leg.”
That shut him up, and he didn't bother her again until they were safely on the beach.
* * *
“I'm going to kill her,” Blake said in a low voice.
“Beg pardon, but you'll have to save her first,” James reminded him. “And you might want to save your bullets for Prewitt.”
Blake shot him a look that was decidedly unamused. “I'm going to bloody well tie her to the bed-post.”
“You tried that once.”
Blake whirled around. “How can you stand there and make bloody jokes?” he demanded. “He has my wife. My wife!”
“And what, pray tell, is the usefulness of cataloguing the ways and methods of punishing her? How is that meant to save her?”
“I told her to stay put,” Blake grumbled. “She swore she wouldn't leave Seacrest Manor.”
“Perhaps she listened to you, perhaps she didn't. Either way, it doesn't make a whit of difference at this juncture.”
Blake turned to his best friend, his face holding an odd combination of fear and regret. “We have to save her. I don't care if we lose Prewitt. I don't care if the entire damned mission is ruined. We—”
James laid his hand on Blake's arm. “I know.”
Blake motioned for the other two War Office men to gather round and quickly explained the situation. They didn't have much time to plan. Oliver was already forcing Caroline down toward the beach. But Blake had long since learned that there was no substitute for good communication, and so they huddled together for a moment as they agreed on a strategy.
Unfortunately, that was the moment that Oliver's men decided to pounce.
* * *
Once on the beach, Caroline realized that the channel waters were not as calm as she'd thought—and it wasn't the wind that provided the turbulence. A small boat she recognized as Oliver's was moored close to shore, and the soft crunch of sand under feet soon proved that they were not alone on the beach.
“Where the bloody hell have you been?”
Caroline whirled around and blinked in surprise. The voice had sounded as if it belonged to a large, burly sort of fellow, but the man who had just stepped into a shaft of moonlight was slender and disturbingly elegant.
Oliver jerked his head toward the boat and began wading out into the water, dragging Caroline along with him. “I was unavoidably detained.”
The other man perused Caroline rudely. “She's quite fetching, but hardly unavoidable.”
“Not so fetching,” Oliver said derisively, “but quite married to an agent of the War Office.”
Caroline gasped and stumbled to her knees, soaking the length of her skirts.
Oliver let out a bark of triumphant laughter. “Merely a theory, my dear Caroline, and one you have just affirmed.”
She staggered back to her feet, spluttering and swearing at herself all the while. How could she have been so stupid? She knew better than to show a reaction, but Oliver had surprised her.
“Are you an idiot?” the other man hissed. “The French are paying us enough for this shipment to set us up for life. If you've compromised our chances—”
“Shipment?” Caroline asked. She'd thought that Oliver had been carrying secret messages and documents. But the word shipment seemed to indicate something bigger. Could they be smuggling ammunition? Weapons? The boat didn't look big enough to be carrying something so large.
The men ignored her. “The wife of an agent,” the stranger muttered. “Sweet hell, you're stupid. The last thing we need is attention from the War Office.”
“We already had attention,” Oliver shot back, pulling Caroline along with him into ever deeper waters. “Blake Ravenscroft and the Marquis of Riverdale are up on the bluff. They've been watching you all night. If it hadn't been for me—”
“If it hadn't been for you,” the other man interrupted, yanking Caroline against him, “we would never have been detected in the first place. Ravenscroft and Riverdale certainly didn't learn of our assignation from me.”
“You know my husband?” Caroline said, too surprised to even struggle.
“I know of him,” he replied. “And by tomorrow, so will all of France.”
“Dear God,” she whispered. Oliver must be smuggling out a list of agents. Agents who would then be targets for assassination. Agents like Blake and James.
She thought of ten different plans all at once and dismissed them all. A scream seemed useless; if Blake was watching the beach, he'd surely already have seen her and would not need to be alerted to her presence. And attacking either Oliver or the French agent would only get her killed. The only possibility was to somehow stall for time until Blake and James arrived.
But then what would happen? They would have no element of surprise. Oliver knew they were there.
She caught her breath. Oliver seemed rather unconcerned with the War Office's presence. Without thinking, she jerked her gaze up to the clifftop, but saw nothing.
“Your husband isn't going to save you,” Oliver said with cruel satisfaction. “My men are taking care of him even as we speak.”
“Then why did you bring me here?” she whispered, her heart shattering within her chest. “You didn't need me.”
He shrugged. “Whimsy. I wanted him to know I had you. I wanted him to see me give you to Davenport.”
The man he called Davenport chuckled and pulled her closer. “She may prove entertaining.”
Oliver scowled. “Before I let you make off with her—”
“I can go nowhere until the shipment arrives,” Davenport bit off. “Where the hell is she?”
She? Caroline blinked and tried not to show a reaction.
“She's coming,” Oliver snapped. “And how long have you known about Ravenscroft?”
“A few days. Perhaps a week. You are not my only means of transport.”
“You should have told me,” Oliver growled.
“You have given me no reason to trust you with anything other than the providing of a boat.”
Caroline took advantage of the two men's absorption in their argument to scan the beach and cliff for any signs of action. Blake was up there fighting for his life and there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it. She had never felt so utterly hopeless in all her life. Even with her parade of horrible guardians, she'd always held on to hope that eventually her life would turn aright. But if Blake were to be killed…
She choked on a sob. It was too awful even to contemplate.
And then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement at the bottom of the path on which she'd just descended. She fought the urge to jerk her head and stare; if it was Blake or James come to rescue her, she didn't want to ruin the element of surprise.
But as the figure crept closer, Caroline realized that it was far too small to be Blake or James, or any man for that matter. In fact, it moved in a way that was decidedly female.
Her lips parted with shock. Carlotta De Leon. It had to be. The irony was astounding.
Carlotta moved closer, quietly clearing her throat once she was in earshot. Oliver and Davenport stop
ped arguing immediately and turned to her.
“Do you have it?” Davenport demanded.
Carlotta nodded and spoke, her voice tinged by a vague, lilting accent. “It was too dangerous to bring the list. But I have committed it to memory.”
Caroline stared at the woman who was, in a way, responsible for her marriage to Blake. Carlotta was petite, with alabaster skin and black hair. Her eyes had an aged look to them, as if they belonged to someone much older.
“Who is this woman?” Carlotta asked.
“Caroline Trent,” Oliver replied.
“Caroline Ravenscroft,” she snapped.
“Ah, yes, Ravenscroft. How silly of me to forget that you are now a wife.” Oliver pulled out his pocket watch and snapped it open. “Forgive me, now a widow.”
“I'll see you in hell,” she hissed.
“Of that I have no doubt, but I do believe that you will be seeing far more interesting sights with Mr. Davenport first.”
Caroline completely forgot that the aforementioned Mr. Davenport was holding her arm, and she lunged at Oliver. Davenport held firm, but she managed to land one good punch against Oliver's stomach. He doubled over in pain but unfortunately didn't lose his grasp on his gun.
“My compliments,” Davenport said in a low, mocking voice. “I've been wanting to do that for months.”
Caroline whirled around. “Whose side are you on?”
“My own. Always.” And then he lifted his arm, displaying for the first time a dark, gleaming pistol, and shot Oliver in the head.
Caroline screamed. Her body shook with recoil of the gun, and her ears buzzed and rang from the explosion. “Oh, my God,” she whimpered. “Oh, my God.” She had no great love for Oliver; she'd even agreed to furnish the government with information that might send him to the gallows, but this…this was too much. Blood on her dress and in the foamy surf, Oliver's body floating facedown in the water…
She wrenched herself away from Davenport and threw up. When she was able to stand again, she turned to her new captor and asked, simply, “Why?”
He shrugged. “He knew too much.”
Carlotta looked at Caroline and then slowly and purposefully shifted her gaze to Davenport. “So,” she said, in that delicately Spanish accent Caroline was coming to detest, “does she.”
Blake's first thought upon hearing the shot was that his life was over.
His second thought was exactly the same, although not for the same reasons. As soon as he realized that he wasn't dead, and that James had managed to bring down the villain who'd been attempting to shoot him with a well-placed blow to the head, it occurred to him that the shot he'd heard had not been nearly loud enough to have been fired up on the cliff.
It had come from down on the beach, and that could mean only one thing. Caroline was dead. And his life was over.
His weapon slipped from his hands, and for a moment he was completely limp, unable to move. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of Prewitt's men charge toward him, and it was only at the last moment he regained enough presence of mind to whirl around and kick the man in the stomach. He went down with a grunt of pain, and Blake just stood over him, his mind still ringing with the sound of the gunshot on the beach.
Dear God, he'd never told her he loved her.
James came running to his side, a piece of rope dangling from his hands. “This is the last of them,” he said, kneeling down to tie up the fallen man.
Blake said nothing.
James didn't appear to notice his friend's distress. “We've one man down, but I think he'll live. Just a knife wound in the shoulder. The bleeding is almost under control.”
Blake saw her face, her laughing blue-green eyes, and the delicately arched upper lip that begged to be kissed. He could hear her voice, whispering words of love, words he'd never returned.
“Blake?”
James's voice pulled his mind out of its painful vise, and he looked down.
“We need to get going.”
Blake just looked back out at the sea.
“Blake? Blake? Are you all right?” James stood and began patting his friend down, searching for injuries.
“No, I—” And then he saw it. A body floating in the surf. Blood in the water. And Caroline—alive!
Blake's mind snapped back to life. So, too, did his body. “What's the best way down?” he asked curtly. “We haven't long.”
James regarded the manner in which the man and the woman holding Caroline hostage were arguing. “No,” he agreed, “we don't.”
Blake retrieved his weapon from the ground and turned to James and William Chartwell, the uninjured War Office man. “We need to get down as silently as possible.”
“There are two paths,” Chartwell said. “I surveyed the area yesterday. There is the one Prewitt used to force her to the beach, and another, but—”
“Where is it?” Blake interrupted.
“Over there,” Chartwell replied with a jerk of his head, “but—”
Blake was already off and running.
“Wait!” Chartwell hissed. “This one is steep. It will be impossible at night.”
Blake crouched at the head of the path and peered down, the moonlight affording him precious little illumination. Unlike the other path, this one was shielded from view by trees and shrubs. “This is our only hope of getting down undetected.”
“It's suicide!” Chartwell exclaimed.
Blake whirled around. “My wife is about to be murdered.” And then, without waiting to see if either of his colleagues cared to follow him, he started the slow and treacherous journey to the beach. It was agony not to be able to race headlong down the hillside. Every second was critical if he wanted to return home to Seacrest Manor with Caroline safely in his arms. But the terrain wouldn't allow anything other than the tiniest of baby steps. As it was, he had to make most of the journey sideways to keep from losing his balance.
He heard a small pebble rolling down the path and then felt it hit his ankle. The disturbance could only mean—thank God!—that James was following him. As for Chartwell, Blake didn't know the man well enough to predict what he would do, but he had enough confidence in the War Office to know that at least he would do nothing to jeopardize Caroline's rescue.
As he descended, the wind shifted and began carrying sounds from the beach. The man and the woman holding Caroline hostage were arguing. Prewitt's voice was conspicuously absent, and Blake could only assume that his was the body floating in the surf.
Then he heard a sharp cry from Caroline. Blake forced himself to calm down. She sounded more surprised than in pain, and he needed to retain a cool head if he was to make it to the bottom of the path in one piece.
He reached a small ledge and stopped to catch his breath and reassess the situation. A few seconds later, James was at his side.
“What's happening?” James asked.
“I'm not sure. She looks unharmed, but I still have no idea how we're meant to get out there and save her. Especially when they're all standing in the water.”
“Can she swim?”
“Bloody hell. I have no idea.”
“Well, she grew up near the coast, so we can hope. And—Good Lord!”
“What?”
James's head slowly swiveled to face him. “That's Carlotta De Leon.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Blake sensed that his friend had more to say. “And…?”
“And it means we're in worse trouble than we'd feared.” James swallowed. “Miss De Leon's as ruthless as they come, and a fanatic to the cause. She'd shoot Caroline in the heart with one hand and use the other to flip pages in a Bible.”
* * *
Caroline knew she was running out of time. Davenport had no pressing reasons to keep her alive. He clearly only intended to have what he considered a little sport with her. He probably thought it would be exciting to have his way with the wife of an agent of the crown.
Carlotta, on the oth
er hand, was motivated by more political reasons, most of which involved the collapse of the British Empire. And it was obvious that the woman believed passionately in her cause.
Her two captors were bickering over Caroline's fate, and she had no doubt that the argument was going to escalate into a full-scale shouting match before long. She also had no doubt that Carlotta would emerge the victor. It was a simple enough outcome to predict; Davenport could always find another woman to pester. Carlotta wasn't likely to find another country she wanted to destroy.
And that meant that Caroline would end up very dead if she didn't do something soon.
She was still held firmly in Davenport's grasp, but she twisted until she was facing Carlotta, and blurted out, “They're after you already.”
Carlotta froze, then turned slowly to Caroline. “What, precisely, do you mean?”
“They know you're in the country. They want to see you hang.”
Carlotta laughed. “They don't even know who I am.”
“Oh, yes, they do,” Caroline replied, “Miss De Leon.”
Carlotta's knuckles turned white around the handle of her gun. “Who are you?”
This time it was Caroline's turn to laugh. “Would you believe I am the woman who was mistaken for you? Amusing but true.”
“There is only one man who has ever seen me…”
“The Marquis of Riverdale,” Caroline supplied. Oliver had already said his and Blake's names, so there didn't seem much need for secrecy.
“If I might interrupt…” came Davenport's sarcastic voice.
BANG!
The force was so great, Caroline was sure she'd been shot. But then she realized two things: she felt no pain, and Davenport's grip had gone utterly slack.
She swallowed convulsively and turned around. Two bodies were now floating in the water. “Why did you do that?”
“He bothered me.”
Caroline's empty stomach churned and heaved.
“I never knew his name,” Carlotta said softly.
“Who?”
“The marquis.”
“Well, he certainly knows yours.”
“Why do you tell me this?”