“The next time the door opens, we must rush it. All of us at once. Do you hear?” Her fierce whisper brought the widening eyes of the captives swinging around to her face. Behind her back, her hands curled and twisted, her fingers probing the rope, testing the strength of the bonds. They were knotted tight.
“We dare not,” the brunette in the dun-colored dress breathed, with a frightened glance at the guards.
“They’ll catch us,” the blonde said with certainty.
“They can’t catch all of us.” Casting her own assessing glance at the guards to make sure they weren’t paying them any mind, Beth dropped her voice even lower. By now she was the focus of every eye and ear in the group. Heads bent her way. “The hall and stairs behind the platform are unguarded. We must just run past the platform, into the hall, then fly up the stairs as fast as we can. If all of us branch out into different hallways and hide ourselves, some of us will surely escape.”
“But the ones they find . . . ” The brunette shivered. “Ach, they’ll be so angry.”
“What can they do worse’n what they already intend by us? Beat us?” The black-haired maid—Mary—looked at Beth and gave a decided nod. “I’ve the stomach for a good mill, I do. I’m with you.”
“What about the rest of you? For this to have a chance, we must burst past them and flee as a group. Our only hope is in our numbers.” Still plucking futilely at her bonds—it was heartening to discover that she was no longer the only one to do so—Beth looked from one frightened face to another, and saw determination dawn in several. A few nods and murmurs of agreement led to more, until the whole group was in.
“The next time the door opens we rush it,” Beth whispered. “I—”
“No talking.” The guard who had tied Beth’s hands glared at them. “The next one to clap her lips be the next one to—”
He was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Beth’s heart lurched. It was soon—too soon. But whether it was or not, the time was at hand. Exchanging quick, frightened glances with the others, she realized that they knew it, too. She could feel the sudden agitation in the bodies pressed close around her. A collective tension shivered through the air. All eyes fastened on the door as it was thrust open.
“We be ready . . . ” the man in the hall began.
“Now,” Beth cried, leaping forward, and to her relief the others fell in, rushing the door with her, barreling toward their only hope at freedom. The guards’ heads came whipping around, but it was too late: they were charging past, through the door, knocking aside the man waiting in the hall, stampeding in a terrified, determined group past the platform toward the stairs at the back of the hall.
Chapter Eleven
NEIL ONCE AGAIN HAD A PLAN. It was a simple plan, elegant even, if he did say so himself, and virtually guaranteed to provide him with the desired result. Using the Cit’s blunt, plus the contents of another fat purse he had knicked for insurance upon arrival at the castle just in case the price for a redheaded lady-born might soar to unprecedented heights, he would blend with the crowd until she was brought out, then bid like all the rest and ultimately buy Lady Elizabeth. After that, it would be easy enough to carry her away and then within a few hours spirit her out of the castle. His plan would cause no commotion and could be accomplished with only a minimal degree of risk in the early-morning hours, which he calculated would be the best time to leave the castle and convey her back to the mainland. By then, most of the forty-odd men who were at that moment crowded into the Great Hall cheering and drinking and bidding to the skies for the right to deflower a frightened-out-of-her-mind wench could be counted on to be thoroughly jug-bit and sound asleep, and the majority of the male servants (so far he had counted nine, but he was certain there were more) would most likely be sleeping, too. Fortune only had to favor him a little to allow him to get the chit away without the slightest notice being taken of what he was about.
The more he thought it through, the more he perceived that the plan was really quite perfect. His first instinct, of course, had been to act at once, making use of as many of his considerable talents as were needed to rescue the chit by brute force. But that approach had drawbacks, including possible injury to the lady if he was not quite fast or thorough or lucky enough. Then there was the problem of leaving bread crumbs again. Word of such an assault would be bound to spread through certain circles like wildfire, and would undoubtedly come to the ears of Clapham and anyone else who might be hunting him. Having shaken his pursuers off, as he’d hoped, he was loath to give them so precise a fix on his whereabouts, to say nothing of an inkling of the existence of his prospective hostage to fortune, as it were. The less anyone knew of where he was or what he intended to do, the better.
Stealth was clearly the better course.
Propping a shoulder against one of the massive pillars that supported the Great Hall’s soaring, smoke-blackened ceiling, draped in the black domino that, with its hood up, concealed all of him except the center portion of his face, which was in shadow, and the final twelve inches or so of his legs, Neil deliberately presented a picture of ease as he sipped a particularly fine Burgundy—the first decent wine he’d touched in nigh on three weeks—with real appreciation and waited for Lady Elizabeth to be brought out. His hunger had been appeased by a chicken drumstick that he had helped himself to as he passed the feast set up for the revelers in an adjoining room. His thirst he had slaked with a tankard of ale from the same source. Given that, and the wine, and the knowledge that he had only to wait and play his part to get what he had come for, no mayhem necessary, he should have been feeling relaxed as he watched the latest successful bidder count out his blunt into the hand of a genially smiling harpy with eyes harder than the stone against which he leaned, who seemed to be in charge of collecting the funds. But he was not. His anger at those who had brought Lady Elizabeth here was tamped down and carefully controlled, but it was there, no less dangerous because it had gone cold. Wariness lest he be taken unawares had become an integral part of his makeup, and it kept him completely alert. He might lounge against a pillar, but he was ready to move if necessary, if Clapham or his ilk should unexpectedly show up or, indeed, if any threat to his person or object for being in the castle arose. As a result, his nerves were stretched taut as a bowstring, although he gave no indication whatsoever of being on edge. As they always did when he was working, his senses had sharpened, attuning themselves by dint of long practice to the slightest threat. Closing his ears to the noise around him, he listened for other things: the whisper of a knife being drawn, the click of a pistol’s hammer being pulled back, the too-purposeful tramp of feet. His eyes honed in on small, quick movements that struck him as being out of place. He had been in the business of surviving for so long that he could almost smell danger, or feel it in his bones like some people felt a coming rain.
But here, inside the Great Hall of Trelawney Castle, where the most dastardly of acts were taking place all around him, he felt nothing out of the way at all.
Safe, in fact.
He had taken care to secure a spot near the stage, which was momentarily empty as the bidding on the too-thin, flaxen-haired watering pot for whom the harpy was being paid had just ended. From his position he could see the first emergence from behind the wall of each female as she was led to the stage to be sold. That Lady Elizabeth was on the premises he’d had no doubt even before he had arrived at the castle: he’d thought he had recognized the carriage that had stolen her away amongst the vehicles being held in the stable adjacent to the ferry, and had subsequently confirmed with one of the ostlers on duty (how did not matter) that a red-haired lady, insensible from the sound of it, had indeed been taken from it and transported to the castle. Not too long since, he’d spotted the lady herself being dragged by the hair toward the holding chamber, a sight that had not sat well with him. But again, he had reminded himself of his plan, which was really quite the best solution in that it allowed both of them to get away unnoticed. Th
at being the case, and knowing that the women inside that chamber must all be brought forth from it sooner or later, and with no cause for alarm in his immediate surroundings that he could perceive, he set himself to enjoying his wine.
And so it was that Neil was sipping Burgundy and idly looking over the crowd when the first inkling that yet another of his plans might go awry caused him to frown and glance to his left.
There was a disturbance in the hall where the women were kept. The shouts and laughter and jumble of conversation all around him made it difficult to be sure, but he thought he was hearing sounds of discord, a rush of many feet. He was just straightening away from the pillar in reaction when an explosion of shrieks split the air and a bevy of females burst into view, bolting out of the hallway and toward the stage in a tidal wave of flying tresses and flapping skirts. He caught a glimpse of long red hair and a yellow dress at the head of the screaming tide and recognized Lady Elizabeth with that first astounded glance before the stage blocked her from his view as she flew past it out of sight. A jumble of shrieking females racing behind her likewise vanished from his sight behind the stage, and then he beheld, three yards or so behind the pack, a trio of burly, puce-faced, pistol-waving thugs giving chase. That was enough. Trouble was clearly at hand. He thrust his glass into the hands of the surprised roue to his right, who had turned to gape in obvious confusion at the goings-on, and took off after them.
“What’s to do?” The bewildered question floated to his ears from somewhere behind him, from the not-yet-sure-what-was-happening audience.
“Is it part of the entertainment, do you think?” came the equally bewildered reply.
“By God, they’re escaping!” A sharper knife hit on the truth.
“We can’t let that happen! After them!”
“’Elp! ’elp!” a fleeing female screeched as he drew near enough to make out individual voices in the crowd he chased. “Lord a-mercy, somebody ’elp us!”
“Crikey, don’t shoot ’em, Johnson!” one of the pursuing men just ahead of him shouted to another, who was leveling his pistol at the pack. “We wants ’em caught, not dead!”
“Don’t shoot anybody! What if we hits one of the customers?”
“Run!” a female shrieked.
“Just catch ’em! Stop ’em!”
“Head for the door,” a woman cried. This voice Neil recognized: Lady Elizabeth, without the possibility of mistake.
Pulse quickening with alarm, he rounded the corner of the stage in time to see that the women were headed true as a swarm of bees toward a shadowy open doorway in the rear wall. Just as the first of them, his red-haired charmer included, were about to reach it, a man stepped into the gap, fists on hips, grinning as he blocked the way. Wearing the white shirt and leather vest that marked him as a lower-order servant, he was almost as tall and wide as the doorway. His belly was round as a barrel, and his thick legs were planted wide apart.
In Neil’s judgment, the women had about as much chance of getting past him as they did of breaking through the stone wall itself.
“Malloy, look lively! Grab ’em!” This shout from one of the men in front of him, presumably an exhortation to the behemoth in the doorway, pierced the tumult that was now so loud it echoed from the walls.
“What do we do?” Terror shivered in one woman’s cry.
“Keep going! He can’t stop all of us!” Lady Elizabeth yelled.
“Get the ginger! She be the ringleader! Grab ’er, Malloy!”
The ginger—Lady Elizabeth, without a doubt. Cold with fear for her, Neil closed the gap between himself and the three men ahead of him in a pair of bounds. Still some yards behind him ran a sea of others, the men in the audience combined with those employed at the castle in a great jostling horde, their pounding feet and shouted imprecations echoing through the vast space as loud as an oncoming army.
“Look at that! We got ’em now!”
“Hold fast there, Malloy! Troublesome gaggle o’ wenches!”
“Aye, and when we get ’em back again we’ll make ’em pay.”
Neil reached the trio ahead of him in time to overhear that panted exchange. Knowing that his plan was well and truly out the window now, along with any hope of getting out of there with Lady Elizabeth unnoticed, Neil lunged forward, caught the slowest-moving of the three by the collar, swung him around, and flattened him with a single blow.
Startled, the other two whirled.
“What the ’ell?”
“Who . . . ?”
Even as the remaining two thugs jerked up their pistols, even as the shouts behind him drew closer and the sounds of more feet, many feet, rolled over him in a thunderous wave, a fresh round of shrieks from the beleaguered flock of females distracted him.
“Miss, no! Ye can’t!”
“Keep coming! Fly past!” Lady Elizabeth cried. Then, louder, she added in what was almost a roar, “Stand aside, sirrah!”
Arrested, Neil was just in time to watch as Lady Elizabeth, her hands bound behind her, raced a little ahead of her companions. His eyes widened as she bent forward and charged the three-times-her-size man blocking the doorway like a small golden ram intent on bursting through a flimsy garden gate. Aghast, Neil could do nothing but observe as she head-butted him right in his ample gut.
“Oomph!” Clearly taken by surprise, the giant doubled over and took a staggering step back, but held fast in the doorway, grabbing for Lady Elizabeth, who’d bounced off. He caught a handful of skirt . . .
“No! Let go!”
“’Elp ’er!”
“We be trapped! We be trapped!”
With the pursuit closing off all possibility of retreat and nowhere else to go, the women were indeed well and truly trapped, Neil saw. The swarm of females bumped to a confused stop just short of the doorway where Lady Elizabeth was now being dragged shrieking and fighting into the giant’s hold. Just as Neil observed that, a pistol exploded almost in his face and a bullet whistled past his cheekbone, so close that its breeze tickled his skin. He was thus recalled instantly to the business at hand even as the shouts behind him crescendoed into what sounded like a single-throated bellow. The bullet careened over the heads of the pursuing crowd, causing the front-runners to duck and backpedal and the whole to let out a mighty yell that was loud enough to put cannon fire to shame.
“Don’t shoot ’im!” the man in front of him who had not pulled the trigger shouted to the other, who had. “Can’t you see ’e’s a bloody toff?”
Had he not dodged instinctively, he might now be dead, Neil knew, but his heightened senses had once again served him well. Angry for allowing himself to become distracted and thus nearly get killed, he fell upon his assailant, and his cohort, with controlled ferocity—he was still trying not to kill, which was what called for such careful control—and dispatched them with two swift blows. The second one was still falling unconscious to the ground as he snatched the man’s presumably loaded pistol out of the air and, thrusting it into his waistband, whirled to dash to Lady Elizabeth’s aid.
The giant now had a huge, meaty arm hooked around her waist, hauling her in as, screaming, she struggled to get free.
“Let me go! You let me go!” she cried. Kicking and squirming like a worm on a hook, she was nonetheless helpless, caught up in the giant’s grip as she was. Still, she fought for all she was worth while a few valiant females tried to come to her assistance and the rest fluttered around in a tight little group that seemed to have screaming as its main purpose. The brave few threw shoulders and knees into the fray and kicked at the man’s shins and in general did their possible to effect Lady Elizabeth’s release. For all the good their efforts appeared to be doing, they might as well have been attacking an oak. Even in the throes of warding them off, the man managed to both hold on to his prisoner and block the door.
“Push past!” Lady Elizabeth yelled to her fellow females, and buried her teeth in the thickly muscled arm nearest her.
“Ouch! Ye little besom!” the gia
nt bellowed, snatching his arm back only to grab her neck with a hamlike hand and use it to lift her clear up off her feet, shaking her like an enraged bull mastiff with an especially annoying rat. Lady Elizabeth, gasping for air, writhed desperately in an effort to escape the hand that was clearly in the process of crushing her windpipe. Just a few feet away from the shrieking knot of females now, sprinting toward them, toward the pair in the doorway, for all he was worth, Neil watched the giant bunch his free fist and draw back his arm, and he knew he was out of time: if her throat wasn’t crushed in the next second or so, the punch that was coming would likely smash every bone in the lady’s lovely face. “I’ll kill ye for that, ye bloody trollop, see iffen I don’t! I’ll beat ye bloody senseless, I will!”
“Hold her, Malloy!” a man shouted from not too far behind, giving notice that the rest of the pursuit was closing fast. “Hold yer place!”
“Let ’er go!” one of the females, a tiny black-haired mosquito of a woman, shrieked, flying at the man, while Lady Elizabeth, obviously on the verge of being rendered senseless, nevertheless struggled like a madwoman even as the big, anvil-like fist hurtled toward her face.
It never connected. Instead, the silver-handled knife Neil had snatched from his boot and thrown with a deadly accuracy that far surpassed that of any bullet found its mark, burying itself to the hilt in the giant’s neck. Eyes widening in surprise, releasing the lady to clutch at his neck, the giant staggered back a pace, then collapsed just inside the doorway, rolling onto his back and kicking convulsively before lying still. Shuddering, Lady Elizabeth crumpled, dropping to her knees and doubling over. Her face, which Neil just glimpsed before it was buried in her lap, was now utterly white. She seemed to be fighting to breathe.
Sometimes killing was the only thing that worked.
“Malloy!” The shout came from behind him. “He’s given way! Malloy!”
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