Beyond Seduction

by Stephanie Laurens

  Even in the water, both men moved with their customary animalistic, predatory grace; between them, Madeline was swept effortlessly along. She barely had time to register the water’s coldness.

  They came onto the beach among the rocks; crouching, they slipped undetected into the dense shadows at the base of the cliffs. They waited, watched, but the men on the beach had no inkling they, or the boats, were there. The group’s attention remained fixed on their excavations; Edmond must have been entirely convincing.

  Her lungs tight, every nerve stretched taut, Madeline glanced back; even though she knew the boat had been there, she could no longer see it. The five smugglers had slipped out beyond the first breakers as silently as they’d slipped in.

  The oncoming storm and its elemental effects—the crash of the waves, the rising shriek of the wind—was now an advantage; it would mask their approach, the sound of their footsteps in the sand submerged beneath the unrelenting rumble and roar.

  Gervase, ahead of her, glanced back and signaled. They straightened; in single file, hugging the cliff face, they moved stealthily, steadily, closer to Edmond.

  Madeline gave thanks he was looking away from them, stoically watching the men dig. He seemed entirely unperturbed, as if he knew it would be only a matter of time before rescue arrived. A typical Gascoigne trait, that unshakable belief in his own invulnerability.

  Gervase halted less than two yards from Edmond; she halted beside him, and Dalziel halted behind her. An instant later, she felt a touch on her shoulder. She looked around as Dalziel slipped past her, then past Gervase, to take the lead.

  Dalziel’s target—the traitor, their villain—was somewhere on the beach. Madeline stared, trying to see each man clearly, but again the shifting bodies defeated her. The man in the greatcoat she’d spotted earlier had merged into the melee.

  This was their moment of greatest danger. Exposed, in the shadows yet perfectly visible if any thought to look their way, they had to wait until Charles saw them in position, then marshaled the boats for the beaching. How long that might take—

  A sudden roar reached them, one that owed nothing to wind or water. Five boats came crashing onto the beach, carried on the crest of a single large wave. In the prow of one, his black hair in tight curls, a sword flashing in his hand, Charles looked every inch a pirate. The instant the keels grated on sand, men poured over the boats’ sides, brandishing swords and long knives.

  The wreckers, momentarily stunned—long enough for all the fighters in the boats to gain the beach—abruptly came to their senses and sent up an answering roar. There was a mad scramble for weapons, then the two groups clashed; sand churned and flew.

  Madeline snapped her attention back to her own task—the sense of Gervase slipping away pulled her back. She saw him glide behind Edmond, enthralled with the battle raging before him, toward the guard, who was clearly dithering over whether to stay with Edmond or join the fray.

  Dalziel had disappeared.

  Gervase reached the guard, drew near. Sensing something, the man started to turn; Gervase struck him on the skull with his sword hilt. The man crumpled.

  Seeing Gervase, Edmond struggled to his feet. Madeline caught him by the shoulders. “No—stay down!”

  Dropping back to his knees, he turned wide eyes on her. “Maddie?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Hold still while I cut you loose.” There was, she noted, not an ounce of fright let alone terror in Edmond’s voice; he was excited, eager to join in. “Our job,” she told him, sawing through the ropes, “is to guard Gervase’s back.”

  “All right.” Edmond was all but quivering with eagerness.

  “There.” Pulling the ropes away, she stood. She waited while Edmond rubbed his wrists and got to his feet. He turned to her, and she handed him the short knife she’d used to cut the ropes. “This is for you.”

  She knew her brothers very well.

  Eyes shining, Edmond seized the knife. “Where—”

  “You and I are supposed to stay here—me a little back from Gervase’s left, you a trifle further back, on his right.” Looking at Gervase’s broad-shouldered back, Edmond shuffled back a fraction. Madeline nodded. “Yes—like that. Now we’re in position to make sure no one attacks him while he’s defending us.”

  Edmond nodded, eyes on the writhing mass of bodies, flailing and flinging themselves at each other. The clang of metal on metal sang over the waves’ roar; for a moment, Madeline felt detached, as if the pitched battle were a dream she was observing from a safe distance…then two men staggered back from the pack.

  Large, heavyset, they weren’t locals. She saw them exchange a glance, a few snarled words, then they left the group and came running up the beach, churning through the sand toward her and Edmond, with Gervase ranged before them. The men targeted Gervase, focused their fury and fear on him. They looked set to fling themselves, blades flashing, on him—but in the instant before they did, he fluidly shifted; his sword swung out in a powerful arc, slicing one of the men’s upper arm.

  The man yelped; both dropped back. Their eyes gleamed as they took stock, licked their lips.

  Crouching, they circled.

  Gervase beckoned them forward. “Come on—don’t be shy.”

  Behind him, her own sword held out of sight parallel to her leg, Madeline bit her lip; he sounded entirely relaxed, tauntingly confident.

  Another man fell back from the melee in the center. He saw his two cronies, guessed their tack, and came to join them.

  “Gervase…” Madeline warned.

  “Yes. Time to change tactics.”

  That was all the warning he gave before launching a ferocious attack on the two before him, driving them back.

  But other nonlocals had now seen. Understanding their value—hers and Edmond’s as hostages—in desperation they scrambled away from the fighting and came rushing to secure what might be their only way to win free.

  She heard Gervase swear; with a swinging slash, he cut down one of the two he was engaged with, leaving him whimpering in the sand clutching his arm, and fell back. Poised with sword drawn, he stood between her and Edmond and the onrush of men.

  Charles had seen but was surrounded by heaving bodies; he couldn’t immediately come to their aid. Dalziel was far to their right; his task was to find the traitor and seize him, or, failing that, cut off all escape from the beach by taking and holding the only path up the cliff. Glancing across, she glimpsed him on the lower reaches of the path, sword slashing as he drove back men desperately seeking to flee. With nothing to lose, they redoubled their efforts, but the relentless ferocity with which he met them kept sending them reeling back.

  Looking back at the men charging toward them, fanning out to come at Gervase from multiple angles, Madeline felt her heart thud heavily; her lungs had long ago seized. She swallowed, tightened her grip on her sword, drew her long knife from her boot, and edged closer to Edmond. “Follow my lead.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Edmond nod. Like her, he was watching the men advance; unlike her, there was not an ounce of fear in his heart.

  The jackals circled, then two launched a ferocious frontal attack; Gervase met it, flung them back, but was immediately engaged by another. Meanwhile, two men slunk in, one on either side.

  Seeing them advancing, Madeline stooped, picked up a handful of sand and flung it in the face of the ogre to their left; leaving him swearing and stumbling, pawing at his eyes, she stepped across Edmond, brought up her sword and thrust at the smaller man sneaking in on Gervase’s right.

  The man leapt back, eyes wide, his expression scandalized. “The bitch has a blade!”

  Madeline wanted to follow him, but didn’t dare leave Gervase’s back unprotected—then Gervase shifted, engaging the smaller man. She pulled back, glanced to her left—in time to see the ogre lift his short sword.

  He went for Gervase.

  She got her blade up in time to deflect the thrust, gasped when the force of it reverberated up her arm
; crossing her knife with her sword, catching his blade in the V, she heaved, and sent the ogre staggering back. Mean, piggy-bright eyes fixed on her; with a roar he lifted his sword high and came at her.

  She got her crossed blades up, caught his—

  Then he yelled and toppled sideways.

  She glanced down to see Edmond—he was clutching the back of her jacket—pull his knife from the man’s beefy thigh, just above his knee. She nodded in approval; as one they whirled away, leaving the ogre howling and cursing and rolling in the sand—he was large enough to effectively block others from rushing in from that direction—and swung to protect Gervase’s other side.

  Just in time.

  Gervase had accounted for two more—all nonlocals—but three more desperate men had arrived, determined to seize them. Two had engaged Gervase, drawing him forward; the other waited, then rushed in from his left—

  Again she swung her blade, caught the man’s thrust and swung his blade over to lock between hers…but this time the man had the agility and momentum to turn with her—to shift his attack from Gervase to her.

  She suddenly found herself face-to-face with a London bruiser, a heavyset man at least twice as strong as she. Her arms were braced, holding her crossed blades high, his trapped between…he’d ended standing firmly, legs apart, evenly balanced, hands locked on his sword hilt.

  He smiled cruelly, and bore down.

  Her arm muscles started to quiver, then shake.

  Madeline stared into his eyes…then shifted her feet and kicked him, hard, between his legs.

  His eyes bulged, his face contorted; uttering an inhuman shriek, he went down, dropping his sword to clutch himself—then he howled even more as Edmond darted out, stabbed him in the thigh, then darted back behind Madeline again.

  She spared her brother only a glance—enough to see his eyes were alight; he was thrilled beyond description.

  Dragging in a breath, praying her pounding heart would stay down in her chest, she checked that they were reasonably protected by the two fallen men on either side, then swung her attention forward—in time to hear Charles drawl, “Excuse me.”

  A second later, the last man facing Gervase crumpled to the sand.

  Gervase was breathing a trifle rapidly; he studied the inanimate form at his feet, then looked up at Charles. “Spoilsport.”

  Charles shrugged. “You were taking too long.” He peered around Gervase. “All well here?”

  Lowering his sword, Gervase turned around; he knew both Madeline and Edmond were all right—he’d glanced their way countless times. He’d been so aware of them the entire time, he’d had to battle to keep his eyes and instincts focused on the men fighting him—had had to force himself to trust in Madeline’s ability to defend Edmond….

  What he hadn’t counted on was her defending him.

  But she had, without hesitation. Although he’d known of each attack before she’d acted and would have done something to avert the worst, she—ably seconded by Edmond—had at the very least saved him some ugly wounds.

  He met her eyes, saw concern in hers—and more. The exhilaration of battle still rode him, familiar and potent, but tonight some other emotion was threaded through the mix. He found his lips lifting; raising an arm, he slung it about her shoulders, hauled her to him and buried his face in her hair. “Thank you.” He whispered the words into her ear, hugged her close, then eased his hold.

  Enough to look at Edmond; he nodded, still smiling. “Thank you, too—you did well. And you followed orders.”

  Edmond glowed. He brandished his knife. “We made an excellent team.”

  Gervase laughed, nodded. “That we did.” He’d never fought as a team before, but he thought he could grow used to it.

  Madeline’s hands were pressed to him, splayed over his still-damp chest. They were both sodden and sand-covered to midchest, but a slow burn of elation was rising within him, obliterating any chance of a chill.

  His arm still about her shoulders—with her apparently perfectly happy to remain tucked against his side—they turned to survey the beach.

  Charles and Abel, assisted by the fighters from the boats, were dragging and pushing the vanquished, locals and nonlocals alike, into a group a few yards from the bottom of the cliff path. None on their side looked to have sustained any mortal wound, nothing worse than slashes and cuts; some were nasty but none life-threatening. The same couldn’t be said of the wreckers; at least two of their number lay unmoving in the sand, and two others were being supported by their fellows, unable to walk unaided.

  As he, Madeline and Edmond walked toward the gathering, Gervase grew inwardly grim. There would be more deaths to come; regardless of what happened to the Londoners, the surviving wreckers would hang. Quite aside from the seriousness with which the law viewed the activity, here in Cornwall, where most families had a long association with the sea, wreckers were beyond abhorrent.

  Madeline, no surprise, had been thinking along similar lines. She murmured, “We’ll have to make sure their families don’t suffer for their acts.”

  He nodded. Even close family members usually had no idea their loved ones had turned to the heinous trade. “John Miller will be shattered.”

  Soberly, Madeline nodded.

  They circled the defeated, miserable men to come up beside Dalziel. He stood with his back to the cliff path, sword still in hand; no one had got past him. A sense of explosive, barely restrained frustration emanated from him as he studied the slumped, exhausted men.

  His expression was set, beyond grim. He looked up, met Gervase’s eyes, with his head indicated the clifftop behind him. “He’s not up top. The roads are blocked. Christian’s up there—he found a horse waiting and secured it. No curricle—he must have exchanged it for the horse during the afternoon.”

  Dalziel looked down at the men gathered on the sand before him, their vanquishers standing over them, awaiting orders.

  Eyes bleak, he crouched before the ogre Edmond had stabbed. The man looked into Dalziel’s face, and shrank back, small eyes flaring.

  “Your master—where is he?”

  A dark murmur rose from the group as others, along with the ogre, glanced around, and realized they’d been deserted.

  The ogre hesitated, then spat, “Don’t know—but he was here. He was pacing around, watching us dig, telling us to be careful—”

  “You’d a known him if ’n you’d seen him,” the scrawny guard piped up. “He looked just like you, a black-haired, smooth-talking devil.”

  “I saw one who looked like a gentleman,” one of their young fighters volunteered. “Glimpsed him when our boat crested a wave, before we came in, but I didn’t see him later.”

  “I saw him, too,” Madeline said. “Earlier on, before we got to the beach. He was wearing a greatcoat, but I didn’t see him later.”

  Dalziel rose. “So where is he now?”

  Everyone, including the defeated men, looked around. Beyond the area lit by the flares, the night was a black velvet shroud.

  Dalziel looked toward the northern end of the beach. “He didn’t go up the path. He didn’t reach the clifftop. What about that headland? Could he have walked, or swum, around it?”

  “No,” Gervase replied. “And he couldn’t have slipped away to the south, either.”

  “He’d be dead if he tried,” Abel opined.

  “There’s the caves.” Edmond stared up at Dalziel; he hadn’t met him before. “He might have hidden in them.”

  Swinging around, Dalziel stared at the deeply shadowed cliffs. “Can he get up to the clifftop through any of the caves?”

  Edmond, Gervase and Abel all answered no.

  Expression set, Dalziel nodded. “In that case, we search. Carefully.”

  He gave clear, concise orders, setting two of their band to hold the cliff path, and two more to watch over the villain’s defeated crew; they roughly tied those of the vanquished men who might make trouble, before, in a group, the rest of them moved off.
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  Gervase led them to the entrance of the northernmost cave.

  “We stay together, and search one cave at a time—no need to give him a chance to take any more hostages,” Dalziel said. “We’ll work our way down the beach, leaving two men outside to make sure he doesn’t try to slip past us, back to a cave we’ve already searched.”

  It took more than an hour to search every cave.

  Impossible though it seemed, their villainous traitor had somehow escaped the beach.

  Leaving the last cave, trudging back up the beach, Gervase and Charles exchanged glances. They knew how frustrated Dalziel had to be feeling.

  Reaching the bottom of the path up the cliff, Gervase stopped and straightened, stretching his spine. “What now?”

  For a long moment, Dalziel made no answer, staring out at the waves rolling in, then he drew a tight breath. “I’ll go up and join Allardyce. We’ll search the coast and cliffs going north as far as Helston.” He glanced at Gervase.

  Gervase nodded, equally grim. “We’ll head out on foot, doing the same in the other direction as far as the castle. He must have risked going around the rocks, either to the north or the south. If he’s made it to the cliffs, one side or the other, we should find him.”

  That was the simple truth, yet he had a feeling in his gut that none of them—not him, Charles or Dalziel—held out much hope. Unbelievable though it seemed, their quarry had eluded them. Yet again.

  Abel came up, saying he’d have his “boys” take their boats back up the coast to Helston, as well as returning the castle’s two boats. “The lads will scan the coves as they row past.”

  He also offered to oversee marching their vanquished foes up to the cliffs, and then to the constable in Helston. He grinned. “That’ll put me in good odor with the authorities—might as well get something from the night.”

  “You enjoyed the action, you old reprobate,” Gervase said.

  “True.” Abel’s grin grew wider. “But when you reach my age, you learn to make the most of what the good Lord sends you.” With a chuckle, he stumped off to order his “boys” to their various tasks.