Shameless

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  “Jenkins! Hawks! Run toward that—by God, look here, it be Loomis. And Fielding. Jesu, they’re all dead!”

  They were not so distant that they could not plainly hear the cry from shore as the bodies were discovered. A plethora of shouts and curses punctuated with another burst of gunfire aimed their way had Beth burying her head against the housebreaker’s hard-muscled thigh. She was ashamed to discover that she now had her arms wrapped tight around his leg. But there was nowhere else to go, nothing else to hold on to, and the bullets whizzed by in such numbers and so close, they whined like a horde of angry insects as they passed. A spray of water as one hit particularly near splattered her averted cheek with cold droplets and made her catch her breath.

  “Ah.” The housebreaker made a quick, pained sound that stopped just short of a groan, and the rhythm of his rowing faltered. Lifting her head in the teeth of the gunfire, Beth looked up at him, wide-eyed.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Nothing. Keep your head down.”

  Bullets peppered the water nearby. As one sang past her ear, she flinched reflexively, but didn’t duck. If he’d been hit . . .

  “Are you hurt?” Her eyes ran over him from head to toe, encompassing as much of him as she could see. Silhouetted by moonlight as he was, his expression was difficult to read. But his eyes were narrowed. His mouth had thinned. His jaw was set. Even as she looked him over he was already rowing strongly again, the powerful muscles of his arms and shoulders working in a steady rhythm, his leg still warm and strong and firm against her. He remained his handsome, inscrutable self, and there was no damage to him that she could see. But the darkness, which, coupled with his black frock coat, waistcoat, and pantaloons kept her from seeing any real details beyond the broad outline of his person, was most concealing, so there was no way to be certain. As far as she could tell, he was unharmed, but under the circumstances that meant little. The odd little sound he had made troubled her, as did the corresponding hiccup in his rowing. His expression as their eyes met was certainly grim, but then the situation was dire and grimness was called for. And he undoubtedly blamed her for finding himself caught up in it, because she had refused to leave the others. Refused so often he hadn’t even bothered to argue about the merits of piling so many into so small a boat, as she had half expected him to do.

  “I said, get your bloody head down.”

  “And I asked if you were hurt.”

  “If you wish to take a ball through the brains . . . ”

  “I could just as easily be hit in the back, or the side. Besides, I feel we are now out of reach of all but the luckiest of shots.”

  “Oh, setting yourself up as an expert on the range of firearms, are you? And it takes only one lucky shot, I assure you.”

  “Were you hit back there?” She put it to him directly.

  “No.”

  “You made a sound as if you were suddenly in pain.”

  “Doubtless you were squeezing my leg too tight.”

  That reminder of how she had clung to him had the potential to be mortifying, which was no doubt what he intended, but Beth, who fortunately was no longer holding on to his leg for dear life, but instead had wrapped her hands around the edge of the seat, chose not to be embarrassed.

  “That is not it and you know it.”

  His mouth tightened still more. That was his only reply as with strong strokes and in the teeth of the near-continuous barrage of gunfire—which, just as she had said, was beginning to fall short—he took them on through the mouth of the cave. Just that quick and the most immediate source of danger was left behind. The moonlit night into which they emerged seemed almost bright to Beth’s thankful eyes, and the brisk wind that blew from the sea smelled sweet and fresh as the rarest perfume. Towering above them was the castle, an enormous turreted relic with innumerable windows that glowed like narrow, malignant eyes against the night sky. Even as she looked up at it her hair got caught on an updraft and flew everywhere, streaming across her eyes, whipping into his face. Gathering it up and securing it with a couple of practiced twists, she knotted the ends into a cumbersome bun at her neck. Another volley of gunfire and threatening shouts echoed futilely in what was now the distance as the cave was slowly but surely left behind. Cloaked in the castle’s ink black shadow, the boat began to rock over the small, choppy waves of the open strait.

  “Tell me, do you ever follow orders?” He looked down at her, his tone caustic.

  “Until I become a junior member of a military company, I see no need to do so, at least without thought.”

  “While you’re under my protection, you’ll do as I tell you, however.”

  “Will I, indeed?”

  “If you know what is good for you, my girl.”

  “I am not your girl—and it is precisely because I do think I know what is good for me that I do not just blindly follow orders, even when they are issued by so estimable a personage as yourself.”

  “For a young woman who is in trouble every time I see her, you seem very sure of the infallibility of your own judgment.”

  “I’ve learned to rely on my own judgment. And speaking of being in trouble, every time I’ve seen you, you’ve not exactly been a pattern-card of rectitude. Far from it, in fact.”

  “The cases are not the same.”

  Now that the need for ducking was indisputably past, she took the opportunity to look him over with more care. They were out of the shadow of the castle now, and the moon was a slim crescent soaring high overhead. By its silvery glow, his lean cheeks looked much paler than she remembered, but then, that could be an illusion caused by the vagaries of moonlight. There was a new thinness to his mouth, though, and a tension to his jaw that she did not think was caused solely by the exigencies of rowing. His eyes seemed more hooded than before, and she thought—it was impossible to be sure in the darkness—that there were lines around them that she had not previously observed. Lines of pain?

  “You were hit,” she said.

  “You know, you are beginning to be a dead bore.”

  “Now, isn’t that a coincidence? For I was just thinking exactly the same about you. And, while we are speaking of coincidences—I find it hard to believe that your being here on this night is pure chance.”

  “Pure lucky chance, as far as you’re concerned, do you mean? And you are welcome to believe what you will.”

  “Saints be praised, we be out of it!” A tremulous voice from the rear of the boat distracted Beth. His greatcoat, which had formed a kind of roof over much of the boat, as all the women who could fit under it had used it to cover their heads when the shooting started, stirred. Several cautious faces peered out.

  “We’re out of the cave!”

  “It’s all right, everyone, we’re safe.”

  “It’s safe, did you say?”

  “Oh, aye. The bullets can’t reach us, more.”

  “Cor, we be in a leaky boat on the bloody sea, and none of us save miss and ’is worship there can swim a stroke. ’Tis not what I would call safe, precisely.”

  Even as the coat was cast aside, Mary’s trenchant speech had the effect of dampening the others’ incipient giddiness as effectively as a deluge of cold water. All fell glumly silent as they sat up and looked about them at the waves of black water curling past. White-knuckled hands gripped the sides of the boat and the edges of seats and each other as they took stock of their position. Some caught their breath. One or two mouthed silent prayers. Nervous glances shot everywhere.

  “Mary, you’ve no need to call me ‘miss,’” Beth said, in an effort to turn the others’ thoughts in a direction more cheering than the prospect of imminent drowning, which now appeared to be occupying them almost exclusively. “I am Beth.”

  Mary shook her head. “I knows a member of the quality when I see’s one, and you be quality, miss. And ’is worship, too.”

  The housebreaker said nothing as he continued to row, but Beth realized that Mary had discerned something that had not until
this moment consciously registered with her. His speech, his manner, his carriage, a certain air about him that was indefinable but recognizable nonetheless, all marked him as being a man of a certain birth. Casting a curious glance at him—whether he was listening was impossible to tell from his expression, but she didn’t see how he could have missed hearing the exchange—she decided to save her questions about his origins for a later time, when they could be asked in private. Although she suspected she probably wouldn’t glean much from his answers, if he even deigned to answer at all. That he might have reasons for wishing to keep his own secrets was already abundantly clear.

  “I’m Beth,” she repeated firmly, turning her attention back to Mary. Mary shook her head, indicating her inability to address Beth so familiarly. Beth gave it up for the moment, and glanced at the apple-cheeked girl in dun who was wedged in between Mary and the aft seat. Her face was now pale as the froth on the waves, and she clutched the side of the pitching, creaking boat with both hands. “And you, what is your name?”

  “Peg.” Her name emerged between deep breaths. “Ach, I’ve no love for boats.”

  “We’ll be all right,” Beth said, hoping it was so, and looked at the pair on the only available seat: the blonde in red silk, and the fair-haired girl in the ripped blue dress. With the greatcoat now wrapped around both their shoulders, they sat huddled together with their backs hunched and their arms curled around each other’s waist, their posture clearly indicating fear that an unanticipated dip or roll would send them instantly tumbling into the surging water.

  “I’m Dolly.” With a semicoquettish dip of her head, the blonde addressed the information to the housebreaker. “Dolly Ivers. From New Bingham.”

  If she was hoping for a response from that quarter, none was forthcoming. Beth, who glanced at him to check, could not detect so much as the flair of a nostril to indicate he had noticed Dolly’s unmistakable interest in him, or that he cared if he had. His eyes were hooded and dark as he looked back at the island they were leaving behind. His movements stayed strong and steady as he continued to row toward the mainland. The distance was not that great; the increasingly turbulent journey could not last much longer. To keep all their minds off the growing waves, she next turned her attention to the thin girl sheltering under the coat with Dolly.

  “And you are?”

  “Jane Meadows.” This one’s lips quivered as if she would burst into tears even as she spoke. “From D-Dover. And I’m mortal afeared of water.”

  “It will be all right,” Beth said again. “Look, we are past halfway there.”

  The remaining two were crammed into the stern. Beth looked a question at the plump girl with smooth wings of brown hair just as an errant plume of icy water sprayed over everyone, herself included, on the starboard side of the boat. The waves, she saw with dismay, were picking up.

  “I be Alyce,” she said. “I work at a weaver’s in Macclesfield. Or I did. Before.”

  Before she was snatched away to the castle was what she clearly meant. Dashing the salty droplets from her face, Beth nodded. Trying not to notice the rising waves or the increased pitching of the boat, her gaze moved on to the frizzy-haired girl in the stained white dress.

  This one was busily occupied in looking around in obvious fear at the peaking whitecaps, and didn’t speak until Alyce, beside her, elbowed her in the ribs.

  “Say your name,” Alyce hissed.

  “Eh? Oh!” She clutched her side as her attention was brought back to them and she realized everyone was looking at her. “My name’s Nan Staub.”

  Nan spoke through chattering teeth. Beth realized that now that the island no longer stood between them and the open sea, the wind could reach them at full strength, and had turned almost biting. Even wrapped in the voluminous folds of the domino as she was, she was getting cold, too.

  “My dad owned a shop in Donnington,” Nan continued. “He passed on not a fortnight since, leaving nothing but debts. Everything had to be sold. We lived over the shop, him and me, so when they took it to sell I was cast out. A gent who’d been a customer of ours heard of my troubles, and was kind enough, as I thought, to offer me a position as a companion to his old aunt. At the time, it seemed a God-send. O’ course, it turned out to be no such thing.”

  “You’re in the same case as I am, then,” Jane said. “With nothing to your name, and no place save the workhouse to go.”

  She sounded so forlorn that Beth’s heart was touched.

  “Don’t concern yourselves, any of you, with what is to befall you once we are out of this,” she told them. “We’ll see to it that you’re each restored to your homes, or if you’ve none, to a place of safety, I promise you.” A restive movement on the housebreaker’s part had her glancing up at him for endorsement. “Will we not?”

  The look he gave her fell sadly short of that which she was hoping for.

  “I don’t deal in promises.”

  A sudden, boatwide silence was the response.

  “Well, I do,” Beth said, rallying. Then, glancing around at the others, she added stoutly: “You will not be abandoned, I give you my word.”

  “’Tis a right trump you be, miss,” Mary said. Some nodded agreement, while others gave the housebreaker the same kind of nervous looks they had been casting toward the waves. It was easy to see they remembered how eager he had been to leave them behind, and drew their own conclusions from that as to his future behavior toward them.

  “It would not have hurt you to have agreed with me, you know,” Beth said with some asperity when the others’ attention was no longer on them.

  “But I don’t agree with you. And, apparently unlike you, I have no power to predict the future. Circumstances may very well dictate that this lot will have to fend for themselves before this folly reaches its conclusion.”

  “You would leave them?”

  “Easily.”

  “And I suppose you would abandon me, too?”

  “No, not you.”

  “And why is that?” Beth demanded, incensed at the evident unfairness of it.

  He didn’t reply. His face was unreadable.

  He was once again looking back the way they had come. Beth, following his gaze, saw why: a jumble of bobbing lights raced away from the castle toward what she thought must be the jetty where the ferry was docked. She had been conscious only briefly when she’d been carried onto the island, but she was good with direction and she was almost certain that the jetty was where they had come ashore. Just as she was almost certain that the lights were lanterns, and the reason they were bobbing and moving so fast was because they were being held by men on horseback who were racing toward the ferry. That being so, she had little doubt of their object: to cross the strait in time to cut the escapees off.

  Her head swung around and she measured the distance they still had to go before they reached shore. They were now about two-thirds of the way across.

  The chase was still on. If the horsemen reached their destination before they did . . .

  Her now-comprehending gaze met the housebreaker’s. From his expression, it was clear that he had been aware of the danger long before she spotted those bobbing lanterns. Probably from the time they had left the cavern behind.

  If the others hadn’t seen, or realized—and there was no reason to think they had, because this was not a group that held silence to be a virtue—Beth saw no point in worrying them with the news.

  “Sir, what should we call you?” The bold voice served to return her attention to the group. The look the blonde—Dolly—gave the housebreaker was unmistakably coquettish this time. And once again, he appeared to fail to notice her interest. Indeed, it wasn’t clear that he even heard the question.

  “I would know, too,” Beth said softly.

  The ensuing pause was so long that Beth thought he wasn’t going to reply. As the answer interested her exceedingly, though, she was, like the others, looking at him with expectation by the time he did, with a glance down at her as s
he curled at his feet.

  “My name is Neil.”

  There was something about his voice—was it starting to sound more labored than before?—that Beth found concerning. Rowing in such conditions was exhausting, she had no doubt, but he was an exceptionally fit and strong man. Despite his denial, she was almost sure that he had been at least grazed by a bullet. Perhaps he was losing blood, and weakening as a result?

  The thought was so alarming that her heart beat faster.

  “Are you all right?” she asked almost under her breath, so that only he could hear.

  Their eyes met. His were now as remote as the night-dark sky.

  “Leave it alone,” he said.

  “Water is coming in back here right through the wood,” Alyce cried in obvious fright. “ ’Tis rotten, I fear.”

  Instantly diverted, Beth saw that Alyce was looking down at something between herself and the side of the boat, her face a study in horror.

  “Indeed, she is right. The pair of us are already awash.” Beside Alyce, Nan scrambled onto her knees, holding on to the far side of the boat for support, her eyes wide as she glanced at the rolling waves surrounding them. The boat rocked ominously at this shift in weight, and several cried out and clutched at each other and anything else they could grab hold of.

  “Sit down and stay still,” Neil said. “You’ll swamp us else. And bail. Use your cupped hands to throw the water out.”

  “We will drown,” Jane cried, while Nan, her arm having been caught by Alyce, sank down again, although her terrified expression did not change. Already it was apparent that the boat was starting to sink lower in the back. Although she was positioned well forward, Beth could see the dark gleam of water as it climbed incrementally higher inside the stern. Alyce and Nan, in the rear, began frantically bailing with their cupped hands. There was nothing any of the rest of them could do. Shifting around in an effort to help might well overset them all.

  “How big is the hole?” Neil demanded, rowing more strongly than ever. The shore was growing nearer, Beth saw with a frantic glance around. But not, she feared, near enough. Seeking out the bobbing lanterns, she saw that the lights were now rolling in unison rather than bobbing about individually. That, and their position, told her that those chasing them were now on the ferry, and already more than halfway across.