Her Majesty’s Scoundrels

by Christy Carlyle

  Chapter Eleven

  “Help.” Her voice broke, cracking after hours of yelling. Soon, she would have no voice left.

  She had been such a fool. Why hadn’t she pieced together it was Mr. Amesbury all along? And to think she had saved the life of the man who murdered her brother!

  Vera sank, splashing the dirty water, no longer able to stand. Her limbs ached from exhaustion. This was it. This was how she was going to leave the world. She often wondered how, hoping it would be when she was old and sleeping.

  She shifted, falling back a little as a stone settled behind her.

  And now she was left in a well, unable to help Owen. Whatever lay at the center of the map was not worth losing two men that meant so much to her.

  Wait. She pulled back, watching as a small stream of water flowed behind the rock that moved. Curious, she stood, then bent forward, giving it a good push. The stone budged, a little at first, then fully as it fell away and revealed a black cavern behind.

  With the flare extinguished, Vera had no light to help guide her. She pushed the surrounding two stones, surprised to discover both gave way. The hole widened enough to allow her inside. She peered up to the darkening sky, then down to the black hole. She could stay in the bottom of the well or she could fight and try to find a way out.

  On hands and knees, she crawled forward into the dark, knocking away a collection of spider webs.

  Owen pressed himself against the wall as voices approached. He had extinguished his torch, but the smell of smoke still lingered. It was too late, whoever was following him would know they were no longer alone. Losing the advantage of surprise put Owen in a bad spot.

  Damn.

  It had been a short trek from town to find what appeared to move an overgrown mound of tree roots. It wasn’t without some probing and cutting with a cutlass that he discovered there was an entrance into an old stone fort. He had raced across the overgrown courtyard, running over the large limestones worn into ridges by soldiers of years past. But finding what Tom had marked off on the map was like discovering a needle in a haystack. The map ended here without any more for Owen to go off of.

  And now he was being followed.

  His hand gripped the handle of the blade at his hip, ready to strike if needed. Years of training transformed his body into a weapon, one lean and deadly. Taking a life when your own was on the line had grown from difficult to a reflex. He wasn’t worthy of even touching Vera. She deserved to love a man who didn’t have blood on his hands. She deserved a man who could be there consistently, not in between missions, certainly not if only luck was on his side. She deserved a safe and happy life in England and he needed to stay the hell away from her before he wrecked her life any further.

  She had been right, he was a bastard. He was worse than that, he was a fucking coward for ever getting near her. It had taken everything within himself to leave her once, he should have been able to leave well alone again. Instead, he’d made a grand mess of things.

  The voices grew louder. He peered around the corner, watching as their torch bobbed in the air as they surveyed the empty halls of the fort. If he remained quiet, it might be possible they wouldn’t discover him, of course that ran the risk of them finding what he had come to find. And that couldn’t happen.

  He crept closer, his steps light, before pausing. It sounded as though someone was approaching. He drew his blade in the dark, setting his shoulders. In the thick silence, a clipped inhale slice through stale air, drawing this body forward, ready. He squinted, willing a dim outline of a figure into a focus. But there was nothing in front of him, only the ghost of someone’s heavy breathing.

  Owen relaxed, standing straight, before a hand gripped his thigh. His reflexes had him on the floor holding the figure with a knife against their throat and a hand over their mouth before he could think of doing so.

  “Fucking hell,” he whispered, feeling the familiar body beneath his grips. “Ssh, now.” He gently withdrew the knife, his chest tightening as he realized how close he had been to slitting Vera’s throat. “I don’t want to know why you’re here, lass. But you’re not to move.”

  She sent her sharp elbow into his side. “You know why I’m here.”

  He pulled her closer so his lips brushed against her ear. “We’re not alone. Be quiet.” She winced, drawing back at his touch.

  “I still hate you. Trust me, I want nothing to do with you. I’m here because of Tom.”

  “The feeling is mutual, lass.” He didn’t need to see to know she was rolling her eyes at him. If she only knew the words tumbling around in his brain, the desperate need to pull her close and the warring emotion of yelling some sense into her for following him instead of boarding that ship to England.

  He stood, as she gripped his thigh again, pulling herself upright. “You’re hurt?”

  She clamped her hand over his mouth, peering around him to observe the others as they roamed the empty corridor. Vera pushed off of him, holding on to the wall to stand.

  Concern laced through him. He wished more than anything that she hadn’t followed. He didn’t want her to see what was about to happen. And with her hurt—

  “Don’t move,” he whispered. “I’ll be back for you.”

  She doubted that. If anything, he had proved that he was exceedingly good at leaving.

  She had lost track of time back in the well, and after crawling and groping her way through the dark passageway to discover Owen in the hall of an unknown building, she wasn’t relieved, Vera as determined to finish the madness she began.

  With a quiet sigh, she limped behind the retreating figure of Owen, following him closer into the light. Below, Mr. Amesbury and his men scavenged through empty crates. The air smelled of gunpowder, heavy with the ominous brewing of trouble.

  How was Owen going to get them both out of this alive when there was a group of men waiting to strike with Mr. Amesbury? They could only try their hand at luck so many times without Fate demanding her hand.

  She reached forward, her heart demanding he stop and they retreat. It was safer in the shadows. But if they stopped now, she’d only have a broken heart and nothing to account for why she was robbed of Tom. If Mr. Amesbury was correct and her brother was a spy, then what did Owen know? Could he possibly be in the same line of work? How would an engineer sustain the injuries he was recovering from when they first met? He often changed the topic to something more polite. And perhaps, looking back now, to something safer.

  Vera dropped her hand. Stopping him was fruitless, just as she refused to yield. With a graceful prowl, Owen crept forward. A courtyard opened up below them. The stones were worn. A young sapling sprang up from the center of the floor. Vines covered the walls, lush green. The deep barking of howler monkeys echoed around the walls as they swung from the vines and lined the towering walls overhead. Birds chirped, a sweet innocent chorus of high notes as Owen jumped over the balustrade, landing deftly on his feet below.

  Her heart skipped in her chest as he crept closer to a man straying from the group, exploring the shadows.

  “It’s here, boys,” Mr. Amesbury called out. He swung a cutlass, cutting a large swath of vines away from the wall. Searching, hunting, no doubt blind to the fact they were being stalked.

  It was a magnificent sight to watch, to view Owen as his body became possessed with a level of deadly grace. Every move was pointed in determination and power. She grew bold, limping closer to the balustrade, her hands gripping the aged wood. The monkeys’ chorus grew louder. A few scurried along the wall above, anxious as Owen reached for the man.

  Vera gasped as the man’s body dropped without a sound into a heap and Owen wiped a bloody knife against his trousers, rushing to seek cover behind a pillar.

  “What if MacKenna already has it, sir?” another man asked, circling the courtyard with a surveying eye. “There’s nothing here.”

  “It is,” Mr. Amesbury spat. His face grew red as he stomped his foot. “It’ll bloody be here becaus
e I haven’t given everything to secure that diamond. It’s mine. We’re not leaving without it.”

  Vera searched the shadows for a door, a room, anything that might hold a stairway to the courtyard below. But the darkness stretched out before her, holding no clue to what lie ahead. She limped forward as Mr. Amesbury barked out orders, hearing the men reply with dogged comment, sharp and full of determination.

  This was man’s folly, this rabid hunt for unknown riches. And she had lost a brother to it. To the sheer foolishness of a Queen’s command and another man’s greed.

  With arms outstretched, she probed the edge of the dark hallway until she fell through, breaking away into what must be a room. She felt blindly, running her hands on unknown objects before she stumbled into something—a pile of something.

  The sound of coin scattering at her feet bounced around her. She flinched, cursing herself for the small noise.

  “Someone’s here, Amesbury,” a man said below.

  Vera reached down, her hands running into a pair of candlesticks, then a box smelling of sulfur. She fumbled with the box, sliding it open to discover a neat row of matches. With a strike, a bright orange light blossomed before her. Gold mounded around her and jewels, but what caught her interest peeked out beneath the riches.

  Her hands made quick work of digging out the crate buried beneath everything. She struck another match, drawing in her breath as she struck the crate. The dry wood splintered as footsteps approached. Her fingers fumbled, numbly pulling apart the crate to reveal a velvet bag. She sat back on her feet, wincing as her ankle throbbed, then poured out the contents.

  A diamond the size of her fist poured out, sitting snuggly in her outstretched palm.

  “Tom, what were you up to—”

  A scream broke out below and Vera scrambled backward, her back hitting the wall as a torch illuminated the figure of Mr. Amesbury in the doorway.

  “I really thought the well was going to be the end of you, Vera, yet here you are. Seems you proved useful after all.”

  Owen surged forward, tackling the man in front of him to the ground. He gripped the man’s shirt collar, then drew back a fist, slamming it into the man’s jaw. With a sickening crunch, the man’s head snapped to the side, then with a few twitches, his body stilled.

  Amesbury was gone. The rest of the men—no—perhaps not.

  He was pulled back to his feet and pummeled against his rib cage. The world ebbed around Owen’s focused as he breathed through the pain. He grabbed his pistol and shot the man before he could land another punch. He tossed the body aside, only pausing when he heard her scream.

  “Thank you for disposing of my men, MacKenna. You saved me a lot of work.”

  Owen remained still, his heart racing as Vera slipped, her feet kicking at the edge of the floor above.

  “More profit this way,” Amesbury finished.

  “You have to find it first,” Owen said, his voice low. He stepped forward.

  “No, no.” Amesbury shoved Vera over the balustrade. “Stay there,” he said through gritted teeth. His grip was white as Vera dangled in the air from her shirt.

  She squirmed. “Don’t listen to him, Owen. It’s not worth it.”

  “Stop moving.” He struggled to remove the panic from his voice. If Amesbury let go, she wouldn’t survive the fall. “Stay still, Vera.”

  “Boring,” Amesbury said with a laugh. “And so damn predictable. You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  Of course he was, though he was too much of a coward to admit it to her. His hands clenched at his side. “What is it you’re after, Amesbury?”

  “The same thing you were, the same as Tom. Too bad it’s going to end up with the three of you dead. You’re getting heavy to hold, dear.” The bastard loosened his grip on Vera, and she dropped down in a quick jerk.

  Owen’s heart lurched in his chest. He rushed forward. “Pull her back up, Amesbury, and you can leave without our interfering. Go on.”

  “Owen.” Vera’s voice was filled with a sad calm. “It’s not worth dying over. Stay back.”

  But she was. She was worth dying for. She was worth the bodies that lay scattered across the courtyard, lifeless. She was worth the diamond in Amesbury’s possession and more. Worlds more.

  “I need you to hand over your weapons,” Amesbury said. “I need to leave without your interference.”

  “Pull her up then and do what you must to me.” Owen stepped forward, his arms outstretched. “You have the diamond.” He unstrapped the knife at his ankle and tossed it in front of him, then reached for the second strapped at his waist. “You have what you came for.”

  “It’s only the start of what I want,” Amesbury shot back. “I haven’t spent my time this year chasing down this diamond, killing Tom Attwater, and now the both of you for nothing. The King of Belgium has promised me more than you could ever dream of if I deliver him this diamond.”

  Of course he did. King Leopold wouldn’t stop until he drained everything from the Congo Free State. “Travail et progrès.”

  “That’s right,” Amesbury said. He bent forward, adjusting his hold on Vera. “England never held anything for me. But the King of Belgium has not only promised wealth but power. And isn’t that what we’re all after?” Amesbury adjusted the Maxim gun slung across his shoulder, then drew his pistol and aimed at Owen, firing off a shot.

  Owen charged forward, pulling his pistol from his hip holster and fired as Vera fell from above. He dove, his arms catching her before Amesbury’s body collided with the stone floor.

  The fort became eerily silent in the aftermath, except for Owen chasing his breath as he held Vera safely in his arms. He looked down at her as the howler monkeys started up again, jumping down from the wall to investigate the bloody bodies in the courtyard.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice rough. His hand searched her body for injury, parting her hair, running over her cheeks, looking for anything that might have happened to her because of Amesbury.

  “Don’t touch me, Owen.” She pulled away from him, attempting to sit up. “I’m only ever hurt when you’re around.”

  That was true, foolish as it was to believe otherwise.

  “Aye, I know. You aren’t hurt?”

  Her eyes searched his, her hand coming to pause above her shoulder. “No, but you...Owen, you’re shot.”

  He looked down to his shirt as blood blossomed across the linen. His eyesight began to blur as he clutched his chest, trying to stem the flow. He struggled to focus, his body growing cold. “It’s nothing,” he whispered, before the darkness reached in and claimed him.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Week Later

  RRS Bridgerton, Bound for England

  The ocean stretched on for countless miles before him. The gulls disappeared a few days ago, too far gone from land now. It was a hopeful place to be, stuck there on the deck of a ship bound to England. And yet the woman behind him had made the voyage a difficult one.

  He turned, looking over his shoulder to Vera, who sat stretched out on a deck chair. He had tucked her in so she wouldn’t catch a chill. Her face was tilted up toward the sun, her eyes shuttered. And he was struck, a man begging from crumbs from the woman he loved who no longer wanted him in her life.

  But the tide was changing there, too. Last night over dinner, she had held a polite conversation with him, even graced him with a smile over her wine glass. If Owen had one mission now, it was to win back Vera’s heart.

  He pushed back from the railing and strolled over to her, peering down at the beautiful lines of her face. Her cheeks were pink, her long blond hair perfectly coiffed Her hat sat on her lap.

  “You’re in the sun, Owen,” she said, not opening her eyes.

  He drew back, realizing he was casting a shadow over her. “I apologize. I thought—”

  Those dark eyes of her opened and she turned her head, assessing him, waiting.

  Owen sat down beside her instead. “Would you care for some t
ea?”

  He owed her his life. The shot he sustained to his chest nearly killed him. Vera had pulled him out of the jungle on a makeshift gurney, all the while with a broken ankle she had secured with branches as a brace. By the time they arrived in town, the doctor used her blood for a transfusion to save him.

  “Vera,” he said, his voice breaking from the pain of it all. He had been a bastard. He deserved this, and more. But that didn’t make it any less pleasant to endure.

  “Life is so much more complicated than I thought it would be.” Vera pushed herself up, adjusting the blanket over her legs. Her honeysuckle perfume swelled around him with the crisp ocean air. “And now that Tom is gone, I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  “What do you need me to tell you?”

  She leaned closer, her eyes sweeping over him and his mouth. “The truth, Owen. That’s all I ever wanted.”

  He scratched his jaw and inhaled, surveying the mostly empty ship deck. A couple strolled past, leaving Owen and Vera alone. He reached for her gloved hand, feeling a twist in his chest when she didn’t withdraw. With his free hand, he tugged the chair closer to hers so that they faced one another. It would appear like an inmate yet proper moment between a husband and wife, which they were on this ship. Traveling under such a lie when Owen wanted it to be truth was hell.

  “What I’m about to tell you must never...” The weight of the confession pressed against him. “I work for the Home Office, Vera. I worked with your brother.”

  She swallowed, her eyes narrowing in him. “A ...,” she lowered her voice to a hushed whispered, “spy?”

  He nodded, picking at the knee of his trousers. He thought this moment would feel better. He imagined being able to finally share such a large part of his life and feeling as though he were freed. Instead, he felt trapped. It was because of his work, he could never have Vera as his wife.

  “When we met, I was recovering from a mission in the Philippines. That is why I was home that summer in England. And when we met…” he paused as he bit his lower lips, his gazed locked onto hers. “I’ve never been the same.”