The Daredevil Snared

by Stephanie Laurens

  Her eyes had widened. “I’ll tell Hillsythe and the others. That’s likely to be a real boon.”

  “We thought that when the weapons are needed, the men sent to fetch the water would be able to overpower the guards and retrieve them.”

  “I see.” She accepted the now more reasonably filled basket from Phillipe.

  Caleb reached over and relieved her of it, then gestured for her to precede him down the narrow path that led back to the track to the compound. “Diccon has wandered on. I’ll walk with you part of the way.”

  He pretended not to see Phillipe’s grin.

  Katherine inclined her head, smiled a farewell to the other men scattered about the clearing, then started off along the path.

  Caleb followed at her heels, occasionally reaching past her to hold back looping vines. They were nearly to the track when he finally gave in to the prodding of his baser self—that self who wanted to give her a reason to come out into the jungle again and spend an hour with him. “Regarding our plans, it would be helpful if Dixon and Hillsythe could confirm that you will be able to stretch the mining into September. That would take one concern off our list. But also, please ask if there’s anything we can do to assist—such as intercepting further supplies. Or will that only make matters worse?”

  She reached the track, stepped into the wider space, and turned to face him. She was frowning. “I can’t venture answers to either question as yet, but I’ll ask.” She met his gaze. “I don’t dare push Dubois by attempting to come out earlier than two days hence, but if you have any urgent message to send us, Diccon can be counted on to act as a courier.” Her smile bloomed again. “He’s quite taken with the role.”

  Caleb returned her smile.

  Swinging her basket, he walked on by her side until they reached the point where going farther would risk being spotted by the guards.

  He halted. When she halted and looked at him, he handed her the basket.

  Speaking was too risky, but as she reached for the handle, she mouthed a gently, rather shyly smiling “Thank you.”

  Her fingers brushed Caleb’s—a touch that traveled all the way to his toes, via all regions between.

  He released the basket, nodded in farewell—then he stood in the dappled shadows and watched her walk away.

  * * *

  By the time Katherine reached Dubois’s office, she felt thoroughly distracted, her mind awash with considerations of the potential obstacles likely to be encountered in stretching the mining into September, and the even more concerning—anxiety-producing—prospect of Frobisher and his men doing something to assist with that, and Dubois—fiend that he was—realizing they were there, close by in the jungle somewhere, and...

  She walked into Dubois’s office and did her level best to haul her mind from that thought.

  But Dubois was not sitting behind his desk. She glanced around and saw him at the rear of the communal area, speaking with Arsene. Although Dubois had doubtless noticed her, he gave no sign of having any interest in talking to her—which suited her to the ground.

  She walked to the desk, set the basket upon it—sent up an errant prayer that one day, Dubois would choke on one of the nuts—then turned and, without glancing his way, left the office.

  As usual, she felt his gaze on her back and steeled herself against her instinctive shudder.

  Dubois stared after Katherine Fortescue—and wondered why his instincts were pricking. She had never shown signs of intransigence or rebellion, even though she clung to her so-very-English, proper and faintly haughty façade. That had never bothered him, yet there was now something in her...what was it? Her aura? Whatever it was, it was stirring instincts he knew well enough never to ignore.

  “So if Cripps has no luck getting useful answers out of Kale,” Arsene said, summarizing their discussion to that point, “you want me to take a few men and seek out Winton directly and tap him on the shoulder, so to speak.”

  His gaze still fixed, unseeing, on the empty doorway, Dubois nodded. He started to walk to his desk—to the window behind it—knowing Arsene would follow. “We may as well try for Winton himself—a direct line to the commissariat in the fort would be most efficient.” He rounded his desk and continued to the window. “But if you can’t easily approach Winton without risking his cover, then try Muldoon—he’s easier to find alone in suitable surroundings.” Dubois halted just inside the window, where the shade cast by the overhanging thatch would conceal him from those outside. “Just remember, we mustn’t risk exposing any of them. Not while we still need them.”

  Katherine Fortescue hadn’t returned to the cleaning shed, nor to the children crouched under the awning, sorting the pile of fresh ore. She was presently waiting—he thought faintly impatiently—at the entrance to the mine.

  Unaware of Dubois’s distraction, Arsene asked, “What about the other one? The one we aren’t supposed to know of? If I can’t get to Muldoon, should I try him?”

  “No.” Dubois knew who that man was and agreed with the assessment that he should not be approached—not unless their scheme fell completely apart. “He’s too vital to this operation to risk. If you can’t get to Winton, you’ll be able to find Muldoon—just stay in Freetown until you do.”

  Arsene grunted.

  Dubois added, “Regardless, this is all speculative. We’ll wait until Cripps gets back and we learn what’s going on with Kale.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Arsene dip his head. Dubois waved, and the big man lumbered off.

  Dubois continued to watch Katherine Fortescue.

  Two minutes later, she was joined by Dixon, then a moment later, Hillsythe appeared.

  Katherine Fortescue started talking.

  Dubois watched. He might have thought that the discussion merely concerned some aspect of the mining—such as the roster of children who scrabbled in the mine and carted rock to the ore pile. Miss Fortescue had proved to be something of a champion for the brats—which, of course, was what had got her kidnapped in the first place; she knew how to keep the blighters in line and encourage them to work.

  He might have thought she was arguing with the other two over the children or something similar—had it not been for her animation. For the way her expressive hands moved, and the energy that seemed to have infused her slender form.

  It took him several long moments of narrow-eyed scrutiny before he identified what element about Miss Fortescue was so strongly triggering his internal alarms—but finally, he had it.

  Hope. Somehow, from somewhere, for some unknown-to-him reason, Katherine Fortescue now had hope.

  Dubois didn’t like that.

  * * *

  It was midafternoon, and the heat trapped beneath the jungle’s canopy was approaching stifling, when Undoto walked into the clearing that he’d visited only once before. He’d been brought to Kale’s Homestead to be reassured that those kidnapped would not escape and carry tales of his perfidy back to the settlement.

  He hadn’t wanted to come back—to see the brutal evidence of the fate he was guilty of delivering people up to.

  But today...

  Puzzled and frowning, he halted before the fire pit and looked around. The place appeared as he remembered it, exactly as he remembered it, except with no people.

  And no sound.

  Everything looked normal—but deserted.

  His senses prickled, not in the way they would if someone was watching, if someone was there, but in mounting alarm that where he’d expected to find people, there was, in fact, no one.

  No one at all.

  His ears strained. His eyes searched—for some hint, some clue.

  There was nothing there—and nothing to explain the emptiness.

  Something was wrong. Very wrong.

  Carefully, cautiously, his senses flarin
g, he paced past the fire pit, then, placing his feet carefully, slowly climbed the steps to the porch of the main hut.

  He halted before the door. And waited. Listening.

  Nothing stirred.

  He hauled in a breath, held it, and reached out, closed his hand about the latch, lifted it, and pushed the door wide...

  He stared into the gloom. Even in the low light, it was apparent the place was empty. Swept clean and tidied.

  His senses screamed that everything was far too neat.

  He shifted, peering this way and that, then stepped to the threshold and looked further.

  Everything about the hut that had been Kale’s permanent barracks was as Undoto had expected—except it was empty. He could see no personal possessions; every surface was clear. Everywhere he looked was spick-and-span.

  Abruptly, he stepped back onto the porch. He turned away from the still-open door and looked over the camp, this time more critically surveying the scene.

  It was all too neat. Too clean. Too tidy.

  No one lived there anymore.

  No one lived.

  He was off the porch and striding for the path leading back to the settlement before he’d done more than register that thought.

  Beneath his breath, Undoto muttered a curse.

  Whatever had happened to Kale, he was no longer at his homestead.

  * * *

  Undoto didn’t slacken his pace until he was once again within the settlement. Surrounded by dwellings, by close-packed humanity. He drew a deeper breath and forced himself to calm. Yet no matter which way he considered the matter, something had gone very wrong with Kale’s enterprise.

  But that wasn’t anything to do with him.

  When the mysterious man called again, he would tell him what he’d seen. But there was nothing more he could do.

  Nothing more he would do.

  He was finished with this.

  * * *

  The following morning, Katherine settled in her usual place about the long table in the cleaning shed, picked up her favorite hammer and small chisel, selected a clump of ore from the basket in the middle of the table, and knuckled down to work.

  She’d been the first one through the door. Gradually, the other five women filed in. They greeted each other with smiles and nods, but once the first flush of comments had been exchanged, they all focused on their task, and a comfortable silence fell.

  Katherine steadily worked on a hand-sized clump of aggregate, yet even as she concentrated on chipping the mineral encrustations bit by bit off the underlying diamond, she was aware of a niggling impatience in her soul. Despite her wish to see Frobisher again—and she was in no way sure that she trusted that compulsion, that it wasn’t a symptom of some silly infatuation or obsession of which she would later feel thoroughly ashamed—she was, she told herself, grateful for the reprieve.

  She needed to work out some way to screen her interest in him—especially from him.

  Aside from all else, now was not the time for any flirtation with romance.

  Could any place be less suited to fostering gentle affection?

  Yesterday, before she’d left ostensibly to pick nuts, she’d found herself mentally bemoaning the drabness of her gown and the lack of sufficient pins to properly style her hair.

  Such idiotically missish thoughts had no place here. Not while they were stuck in this compound.

  Here, survival had to be their only thought.

  And not going out into the jungle every day was clearly the path of wisdom. She was confident she’d done nothing to alert Dubois to the presence of the group outside the palisade, but there was no need to tempt Fate by visiting too frequently.

  Besides, Dixon, Hillsythe, and the other men were still working on the answers they wanted her to take back to Frobisher.

  To Caleb.

  She frowned as she turned the name over in her mind, silently hearing it, trying it on her tongue.

  Then she realized and tried to shake the distraction away, but somehow, the name had got stuck in her mind. Stuck and attached to the feeling that enveloped her whenever she was with him, beside him, in his company.

  Safety. Support. Protection.

  A sense of being embraced by a type of care she’d never before experienced with any other man. A shield and sword freely offered.

  If he’d been a knight in shining armor and she’d been some gentle maiden, she could imagine she might have felt this way.

  She finished cleaning her first raw diamond of the day, set it aside, and reached for the next clump of ore.

  She might try to hide how she felt, might try to argue that the feeling would go away, would fade as the exigencies of their situation came to bear on them both. Yet...

  Somewhere inside, she had to own to a somewhat cynical thought that it truly was just like Fate to, after all these years, choose such fraught and difficult circumstances—with her a virtual slave in the impressed workforce of a mine in the darkest depths of an African jungle—to finally remember her existence and send love her way.

  Lips setting, she positioned her chisel in a tiny crack in the rock—and struck the head sharply with her hammer.

  * * *

  Caleb lounged on the rock shelf high above the compound and moodily stared down at the guards in the tower. The sun was westering, bathing the compound in golden light, making it relatively easy to identify each guard. He, Phillipe, and their men had started taking note of those who were more alert, more likely to react effectively to any incursion, and those who were close to somnolent.

  It was a small thing—a minor weakness—but given all they’d learned of Dubois and his command, it might well be the only weakness they and the rescue force had to exploit.

  For Dubois was proving to be an unexpectedly canny and frighteningly competent leader of mercenaries. His experience showed in many ways, such as his refusal to leap to conclusions over Kale, that he had already had other ways of both getting to Freetown and contacting people there independent of Kale, and his care in never stretching his resources—his men—too thin, even when, as far as he knew, the compound was not under any sort of threat.

  Bad enough, but Dubois’s method of managing people—through a mixture of intimidation and fear verging on terror, not for themselves but for others—marked him as being in a different class. A more dangerous enemy.

  On multiple counts, Dubois was the sort of mercenary one didn’t want to meet, much less have to defeat.

  Caleb shifted restlessly. He’d always found inactivity difficult to bear, and in the past, he would have been off searching for ways to poke at Dubois, anything to move the action along. But in seizing this mission, he’d sworn himself to a different standard—to be the epitome of responsibility and eschew all recklessness.

  Unfortunately, responsible boredom wasn’t proving any more palatable than boredom usually was.

  He sat straighter, stretched his back, then relaxed again. He refocused on the compound, on the figures moving purposefully about their business. And took a large mental step back—far enough to view the entire scheme, of which the compound was the beating heart, dispassionately.

  A few minutes later, Phillipe scrambled onto the rock ledge. He let himself down beside Caleb and focused, as Caleb was, on the scene below. “Anything happening?”

  “Nothing down there, but...it’s just occurred to me. The backers—the mysterious men who wield the power of life and death over the captives.” Caleb paused, ordering his thoughts, then went on, “Dubois used the term, and our friends in the compound picked it up. In his report, Hillsythe said that, based on Dubois’s comments, he believes the backers are not those in the settlement but another group, located elsewhere.”

  Phillipe nodded. “As you said, given the cost involved in hiring a mercen
ary of Dubois’s caliber along with his men, for an exercise like this”—he tipped his head toward the compound—“one that runs for months on end, then it’s obvious these backers must have money. Dubois would have demanded a significant initial payment in cash, as well as ongoing payments.”

  “Exactly. And of those in the settlement we know to be involved—Muldoon, a naval attaché, a man called Winter obtaining mining supplies, Lady Holbrook, now departed, Undoto, a priest, and that still-mysterious man somewhere in Holbrook’s office—not one is at all likely to have access to the necessary funds.”

  Phillipe stared down at the compound. “So what does that tell us?”

  “I’m not sure,” Caleb admitted, “but Hillsythe also wrote that the nature of the pressure being brought to bear on Dubois—demands that show no understanding of the difficulties of doing even simple things in a settlement and country like this—also suggests that the backers have no direct or personal knowledge of this region but, instead, are located far away.” He shifted, drawing his legs up. “Now we know the mine is a diamond mine, then presumably the raw stones are being shipped to Amsterdam. And thence presumably to our backers—or more likely, they’ll get the money raised when the cut and polished stones are sold.”

  “Which means the backers are most likely in Europe. And as Freetown is a British colony...”

  “What odds the backers are English?” Caleb snorted. “Indeed.” After several moments, he went on, “I’m trying to think of how we unmask the backers. And I note that everyone throughout has used the word in the plural, so let’s assume we’re trying to trace a group of wealthy—”

  “And therefore very likely powerful and influential—”

  “Englishmen.” Caleb felt his features harden. “I can’t believe they don’t know what’s being done here, that the enterprise they’ve paid to establish is using English men, women, and children as slave labor, and that when they—the backers—decide to close the mine, all those people will be killed.”

  Several seconds passed in silence, then Phillipe murmured, “It is often the case that the wealthy and powerful possess fewer morals than the common man. I have often observed it. But as wealthy and powerful as they must be, these backers will doubtless have covered their tracks—even following the trail of the diamonds and money back will almost certainly lead nowhere.”