by Cara Elliott
“Leave you to their mercy?” He let out a mirthless laugh as he swung her around a fallen tree. “You’ve far too sunny a view of human nature, Sophie. These men are utterly ruthless and will stop at nothing—nothing—to achieve their goals.”
Another shot rang out.
“Keep moving,” urged Cameron, slowing his pace to push and pull her through the tangled brush.
Sophie scrambled to keep up with him. Her lungs were burning, her legs were aching.
“Cam…” Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to make herself move any faster.
Twisting around, he murmured another encouragement. “That’s it, Sunbeam. I’ve got your hand, and I won’t let go.”
Her breath now coming in ragged gasps, Sophie looked up to argue.
“Cam!”
Her warning scream came a split second too late.
The oak branch smashed into the side of Cameron’s head with a sickening thud.
“Serves him bloody right.” Neddy dropped the makeshift weapon and stared down in grim satisfaction at Cameron’s crumpled form. “The impudent whelp. Even when we were bantlings, Fanning was always clinging to your skirts, looking to pull himself above his station in life.” Lifting his gaze, her erstwhile friend smiled. “Surely you see now that he’s naught but a vile weasel. He used you! Ruined you!”
Sinking to her knees, Sophie gently cradled Cameron’s head in her lap. “Lord have mercy.”
“Oh, don’t despair, Sophie—your fall from grace hasn’t changed my feelings!” assured Neddy. “I’ll have you anyway, and with the money I earn from my work here, we’ll have enough for a cozy, comfortable life together.”
Had thwarted desire had twisted his mind free from the linchpins of sanity?
“Lord have mercy not on my soul, Neddy, but on yours!” she rasped. Tears were trickling down her cheeks. “I thought you were a friend, but in truth, you’ve turned into a monster.”
“Sophie!”
Ignoring the plea, she touched the purpling bruise, and expelled a sigh on feeling Cameron stir beneath her trembling fingertips. “Oh, thank God. He’s alive.”
“But not for long.” Dead leaves crackling under his boots, Morton slithered down the slope from the shortcut trail hidden by the trees. “Well done, Wadsworth. Get him to his feet and drag him back to the house.” He twined his fingers roughly in Sophie’s loosely coiled hair. “While you—you’ll come with me.”
“W-what are you planning to do?” asked Neddy.
“Figure out the best way to dispose of these two troublemakers.” A sneering smile. “Actually I owe Dudley an apology. It was a brilliant idea to bring Miss Lawrance here. There is an old adage about killing two birds with one stone.”
“Just as there is one about he who laughs last laughs best,” whispered Sophie.
He tightened his grip and yanked back, sending a jolt of pain through her scalp. “Shut your mouth.”
“I won’t allow you to hurt Sophie,” said Neddy, glowering at Morton. “Lord Dudley promised that she would be safe from harm.”
Dudley, who had been trailing the flight from the terrace, pushed through the brush and came to an out-of-breath halt. “So I did, so I did. And be assured that my friend will be bound by my word.”
Morton locked eyes with his cohort for a moment and then gave a shrug. “Yes, of course, you’re right. A promise is a promise.”
Looking mollified, Neddy heaved Cameron to his feet and staggered off.
Promises, promises.
Sophie was not so easily deceived. She had seen the flicker of a smirk tug at Morton’s lips just before he had spoken. Well, vipers weren’t the only ones who could speak with forked tongues. Cameron claimed that the key to survival was staying alone and aloof. Every man for himself. However, she had a different strategy—she was going to fight with every weapon she had in order to keep him alive.
Pray God that my new sleight of hand has rubbed off on my tongue.
“You know, Cameron is not without high-placed friends. Lord Killingworth and Lord Haddan are aware of his plans to come here,” she warned. “They will not allow his murder to be swept under the rug, as it were.”
Forcing her up, Morton released his hold and stepped back a pace. “They would have to prove it murder,” he retorted, but the tiny spasm in his sneer did not echo the same bravado.
“Three bodies will be rather difficult to explain as an accident,” she replied, sure that they intended to add Neddy to any unmarked grave. “Especially after what happened to the marquess and his family.”
“Perhaps,” countered Dudley. “But considering the stakes, it’s well worth taking a gamble.”
“And yet,” said Sophie coolly, “Cameron tells me you aren’t very good at playing games of chance.”
Dudley raised a hand to strike her, but Morton held him back. “Daggett—or Fanning—hasn’t played his cards very well, either. I can’t help but wonder why he bothered coming here. The dangers are obvious and I cannot see what he hoped to gain.”
“The answer is simple. He came to find the paper you have that implicates my father in a crime,” said Sophie.
“You expect us to believe that he’s acting out of the goodness of his heart?” exclaimed Dudley. “Ha! You have no money.”
“No.” She smiled. “But I had a rather valuable paper to offer him in exchange.”
Dudley’s pistol reappeared from inside his coat pocket. “Where—”
“Don’t bother with threats.” Sophie took a tiny steadying breath and launched into her bluff. “It’s too late for that. I’ve already given the document to him, and he’s passed it to his friend Lord Haddan, to hold for safekeeping until our bargain is complete.”
Her claim caused the two men to lock eyes.
“She may be telling the truth,” muttered Dudley. “Rumors were floating around the clubs that Wolcott’s heir was about to step forward.”
Sophie hurried to press her advantage. “You’re a clever man, Morton—surely you see that you can’t win,” she said. “Why not cut your losses and save your skin? Let us go, and flee to the Continent before any questions can be raised about Wolcott’s death. Given the lack of evidence, you’ll likely get away with that crime.” She paused to let the suggestion sink in. “However, if the new marquess is found dead, too, do you really think you will escape justice?”
She saw Dudley’s brows momentarily pinch together. “Perhaps—”
“Quiet!” Morton’s face tightened, his cheekbones looking sharp as knifeblades beneath the pale skin.
Sophie waited, feeling the tension crackling through the air.
“Move,” he said abruptly, giving her a hard shove. To Dudley he added, “They have been clever. But all is not lost. I’ve got an idea.”
“Ouch.” Cameron winced as Sophie dabbed the wet scrap of fabric to his lacerated temple.
“Lie still. This cut has to be cleaned.” She tore another strip from her skirts. “Then I must tend to your leg. Thank God it’s only a nick. Once it’s bandaged, you should feel better.”
“Yes, well, why don’t we order up some lobster patties and champagne so we can be truly comfortable,” he quipped.
She looked down at his iron-shackled wrists and chuffed a sigh. “At least I convinced them not to put manacles on your ankles.”
“You were,” he conceded, “very persuasive.”
“Would that I could have persuaded you to do my bidding. You should have run when you had the chance.”
“And leave a damsel to the mercy of vile villains and their clanking chains and dark dungeons?” They were, in fact, locked in a dank cellar room with only a single guttering lantern for light. “God forbid. Georgiana and Penelope would never have let me hear the last of it.” He winced again. “Not that my attempt at nobility did much good. Neddy Wadsworth always was a hulking brute, but he’s now even more like a Highland bull—a flea-sized brain and a elephant-sized wallop.”
“This is no jesting matter, Cam,�
�� said Sophie.
“I know, Sunbeam.” His gut had been twisted in knots since seeing her in Dudley’s clutches. “But as soon as you reach in my boot and retrieve my lockpick, I’ll have myself out of these irons and our prison door open.”
She felt gingerly at the torn leather. “It’s not here—it must have fallen out during the chase.”
“Damn.” His gaze skimmed over the stone floor and walls. Nothing, save for the puddles of brackish water left by the constant drip, drip, drip from the ceiling.
“But no harm done.” Flipping up her skirts, Sophie began to feel along one of the seams. “I brought along a spare.”
Torn between amusement and guilt, Cameron watched as she started to ease a slim length of steel from the hidden pocket. “I’ve introduced you to a number of shockingly evil habits.”
“Indeed. You’ve been a very bad influence on me,” answered Sophie, not looking up from the task. “Just a few months ago, I would never have dreamed of kissing a mysterious pirate, or breaking into a lordly estate, or drinking fire-kissed brandy.”
He wished he could see her eyes.
“And I never, ever would have made wild, passionate love in an exotic pleasure room of London’s most notorious brothel.”
Yet another sin on my slate. Cameron gave an inward wince. The Almighty must be running out of room to record the litany of his misdeeds.
“This is no jesting matter, Sophie.” He found himself throwing her earlier reproof back at her. “Not only have I corrupted you, but I’ve put your life in danger.” His voice tightened in self-disgust “If I were truly a gentleman—”
“Actually, you are.”
“I beg your pardon?” The wet stone and uneven angles of the roughhewn space were beginning to impart an oddly distorted echo to their words.
“Actually you are,” repeated Sophie. “A gentleman, that is.” Shadows yawed and pitched over the rough stone. “I found the proof.”
Cameron opened his mouth, but found he couldn’t think of anything suitably sardonic to say. “Oh” seemed to be the only sound he could muster.
Struggling up to a sitting position, he tried to discern her expression through the harshly drawn patterns of murk and glare.
“It was in an old cabinet in Papa’s study,” she went on. “One that hadn’t been opened in years because the key had been lost. I suppose it was the lesson on locks that stirred a vague memory, and then the other evening, I happened to be in the room…” The corners of her mouth tweaked up. “So my recently acquired bad habits have actually resulted in some good.”
He still could not find his voice. Strange, but having lived his whole life in doubt, the sudden certainty felt oddly unreal.
“There was a rather rambling note from your father to mine attached to the document.” Sophie paused to rinse her rag in the small bowl that their captors had provided. “It wasn’t very clear in explaining the details of his marriage to your mother, save to say it took place on the isle of Madeira.”
“You actually found the proof?” Cameron was feeling a little stunned by the revelation.
“Yes. Ironically enough, I was going to place a signal at the hut that I needed to see you when Dudley abducted me.”
“Irony seems to have played a great role in my life.” He drew in a harsh breath. “Or perhaps I should call it farce.”
Sophie shook her head. “It was an unfortunate twist of fate that had such an important exchange take place between two men whose minds were not quite razor-sharp.” She exhaled a sigh. “I remember my mother saying that father’s attention was already wandering in those days—he was always unworldly and never remembered the important things. And the letter that your father wrote makes it clear that illness had fuzzed his thoughts. Apparently, he was concerned about your half brother’s reaction to the marriage, and worried about your mother’s reception. But I wonder why he did not send the document to Mr. Griggs.”
“I don’t know,” said Cameron softly. “Griggs was equally puzzled as to why he never had any word from my father. He did say he always wondered whether your father had received any missive. It seems they were friends and met often to talk about Greek art and philosophy.” He made a wry face. “If only they had both not become lost in abstraction.”
“If only my mother had come across the correspondence, she would have known to forward it on to the marquess’s man of affairs,” mused Sophie. “But instead, Papa put it away in his cabinet, along with a stack of mundane bookkeeping records—and there it lay forgotten.”
“There are so many ‘if only’ moments in this whole cursed affair,” said Cameron. “If only my father had not been so ill. If only my half brother had not been so proud. If only my mother had not been so timid…”
“I confess, I have always wondered why your mother did not speak out and demand that you be acknowledged as the old marquess’s rightful child.”
“You remember Mama—she was exceedingly sweet, but she was afraid of her own shadow.” A grimace pulled at his lips. “I sometimes wonder if that is why I was born with enough recklessness for two people.”
Sophie allowed a fleeting smile.
“It was partly her background, I suppose. She was from a poor family,” Cameron went on, the explanation seeming to be as much for himself as for her. “And she feared that she would never have been believed by highborn Society. They had left the ship in Madeira and had taken up residence there, for my father had found the climate eased the inflammation in his lungs. His death was rather sudden, and so when Mama first returned to England, alone and pregnant, she went to live with her uncle, who warned her she might be prosecuted for false claims if she raised a ruckus. So she lived quietly as a widow with an infant son, content with a modest life until her uncle passed away, leaving us penniless.”
Cameron’s lips thinned to a momentary pinch. “It’s then, when I was seven, that we moved to Terrington, where she threw herself on my half brother’s mercy. It seems he wanted to send her away with a flea in her ear, but Griggs intervened and forced him to provide a cottage and a small stipend. Word was put out that we were poor relations—which is what I, too, believed.” A quiver of a pause. “As you know, it wasn’t until I was fifteen that she let slip the truth. If only she had…”
“Let us not dwell on all the past mistakes,” said Sophie decisively. “Whatever the old wrongs, you can make them right.” The lantern’s lone flame caught a momentary flutter of emotion beneath her downcast lashes. “Better late than never.”
Could that possibly be an oblique hint that not all was lost between them? He dared not let hope flare to life. A sidelong glance at the present surroundings was enough to dampen any romantic notions.
At least there were no rats…so far.
“Speaking of timing, once we remove the manacles from your wrists and open this dreadful door, have you a plan for escape?”
Wrenched back from his musings, Cameron flexed his shoulders. “In situations like this, it’s a waste of time to bother making much of a plan. Things never go as you expect, so it’s best to simply improvise.”
“Improvise,” said Sophie. “I’m becoming rather familiar with that word.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’ve turned your whole steady, sensible world on its ear.”
“Or some other, more intimate part of my anatomy,” she responded, a sweetly pink blush suffusing her cheeks. “Don’t say you are sorry, Cam—I’m not. Yes, my life has been tumbling in topsy-turvy somersaults of late. But it’s been exhilarating. I feel so…alive.”
“I’d like to keep it that way,” he said, feeling his chest clench as he watched the oily flame illuminate her smile. Sophie—she had always been the light of his life. “Forget about my leg and let’s get to work on the dratted manacles. This particular model requires a hard push upward once you insert the tip of the picklock between the first two levers.”
She inserted the steel tip into the keyhole and gave a little jiggle. “You appear awfully familiar
with metal restraints.”
“Having escaped from the gaols of six different European principalities, I consider myself somewhat of an authority on the subject…Yes, yes, that’s the spot, Sunbeam, but you have to press down harder.” Cameron cocked an ear. “Harder.”
The manacle finally released with a reluctant rasp.
“Hand me the picklock.”
Sophie passed it over, but rather than remove the other iron bracelet, he tucked the tool into his undamaged boot.
“Why?” she asked.
“Options, Sunbeam, it gives us options. There is a crafty Chinese fellow who has written a book on the art of warfare, and in it, he stresses that the element of surprise is a very effective weapon.”
The echo of the assertion was suddenly amplified by the tramp of footsteps descending the spiraling cellar stairs.
Cameron quickly eased the manacle back in place around his wrist as a key rattled in the door’s lock.
“Stand back,” ordered Morton, before kicking the portal open. He entered the space, a pistol in each hand, followed by Dudley and Neddy.
Three opponents, two weapons, and little room to maneuver. He decided to wait and see what his captors had in mind. A slight shift of his body allowed him to press his knee to Sophie’s thigh.
She gave a tiny nod, acknowledging the subtle signal.
“What a touching tableau,” sneered Dudley. “The loyal maiden comforting her lover’s last hours of life.” Darting a malicious glance at Neddy, he let out a nasty cackle. “See, what did I tell you, Wadsworth? Women aren’t worth mooning over. At heart they are naught but sluts.”
Neddy wheeled around, his big head down and swinging from side to side as if he were a bull who had just been prodded with a red-hot iron. “Sophie isn’t a slut.”
“Of course she is,” taunted Dudley. “Slut. Wagtail. Slattern. Ha, ha, ha.”
“Quiet—both of you!” ordered Morton.
Seeing the cooperation between the co-conspirators was beginning to unravel, Cameron was quick to add his own razored words. “You don’t really think that these two toffs ever intended for you to live happily ever after with Sophie, do you, Neddy? More likely they’re setting up a scenario where you will take the blame for their crimes.”