The Daredevil Snared

by Stephanie Laurens

  The women all readily agreed.

  He looked at Katherine. “Is it likely any guard will stop us, or that our coming to the cleaning shed will raise eyebrows, so to speak?”

  She shook her head. “The men—Dixon, and others, too—stop by often enough to check this or that. Or just to talk. No guard will stop you entering, but a guard occasionally patrols outside and sometimes comes inside—we can never predict when they might appear.”

  Caleb inclined his head. “Duly noted.”

  The sound of footsteps approaching from the barracks had them all turning. Dixon was striding back to the fire pit, his stride as well as his expression signaling unhappiness.

  “Excuse us.” Caleb rose.

  After nodding politely to the women, Phillipe joined him, and they returned to where the other men, who had also seen Dixon approaching, were waiting to hear his news.

  Dixon halted facing the group—Hillsythe, Fanshawe, Hopkins, and several others as well as Caleb and Phillipe—and blew out a frustrated breath. “The damned man’s learning. He’s insisted the men working the first tunnel continue as they have been, keeping up the production of ore to at least the same levels as before.” Dixon glanced at Hillsythe. “To do that, we’ll need to start feeding out ore from our stockpile.”

  Hillsythe nodded. “And?”

  “And he’s agreed that I should use Frobisher and all the newcomers to work with the carpenters and go as far as we can with opening up the second tunnel with the timber and supplies we currently have. He accepts that we’ll need more supplies to fully open the second tunnel, but he says they should arrive within five days.”

  Hopkins nodded. “Once Arsene and his boys get back.”

  “Exactly.” His hands on his hips, his expression grim, Dixon drew in a deeper breath. “In the meantime, however, rather than agreeing to shorter shifts, Dubois wants us all—or rather every pick and shovel—in use for every minute from our morning start until midnight.”

  Fanshawe softly swore.

  Hillsythe looked bleak. “He’s extending the hours—which means he’ll be expecting more diamonds.”

  “Which,” Dixon said, “will run down our stockpile that much faster.”

  Caleb frowned. “Not necessarily.” He caught Dixon’s eyes. “Did Dubois specify that all the picks and shovels should be used by those in the first tunnel, or does he also want us to use some to start opening the second tunnel?”

  Dixon’s expression grew distant as he retrod his recent conversation. Then he focused on Caleb. “He didn’t specify—not in so many words—and I could easily interpret his orders as meaning the latter.”

  Caleb grinned. “There you are, then.” He looked at Hillsythe. “We just need to ensure that the crew working on the second tunnel—an unproductive endeavor in terms of diamonds at this point—have sufficient picks and shovels in use to account for the output from the first tunnel not going up.” He looked around the circle of men. “That said, I suggest we keep overall output steady, as we’d planned. We don’t want to give Dubois or the backers reason to complain about falling output—we just need to set the scene so that it’s obvious why we won’t be giving them increased output.”

  There were murmurs of agreement all around.

  Then Hopkins said, “That solves the immediate problem, but there’s a larger prospective one raised by this change to longer hours.” He glanced around the circle. “What happens when Arsene gets back with more picks and shovels? We all know Dubois won’t reduce our hours back to what they were, so how will we account for production not escalating dramatically then?”

  Other men had come up to join them. Now more or less all the men in the compound, all of whom worked in some capacity in the mine, stood in a loose group around their leaders. Caleb took stock of the expressions on the faces of all those who had been there for months; he saw and sensed the men’s deflation and the anxiety rising beneath it. He stirred, drawing everyone’s attention, and evenly stated, “That’s where those other suggestions we discussed last night come in.” He caught and held Dixon’s gaze. “For instance, all work in the mine is under lanternlight, so what happens if the oil runs low, or even out?”

  For an instant, the company stared at him, then Hillsythe snorted and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re right. You’ll have to excuse us—I can see we’ve got into the habit of accepting reverses too tamely.” Hillsythe looked around at the men. “This is the difference a fresh pair of eyes and a different attitude makes. We’re not going to let any obstacle throw us off our path, not now—so we’ll simply find a way around whatever difficulty Dubois wishes on us.”

  Hillsythe brought his gaze back to Caleb. “In answer to your question, the lamp oil is brought in not with the mining supplies but with the mundane supplies, so it’s unlikely Arsene will bring any back with him, not on this trip. And it’s at minimum a three-day round trip for mundane supplies—food, lamp oil, that sort of thing.”

  Rapidly calculating, Caleb nodded. “So there’s no real problem for us in doing what Dubois wants now—sharing out the picks and shovels so everyone can do their part and both tunnels get worked on. We know we can cover the expected production for that amount of work. When the extra picks and shovels arrive, that will be the time for the oil to run out. Perfectly understandable given that we’ll be running lanterns for longer hours and in two tunnels where before there was only one.”

  “True.” Dixon had regained his equanimity. “You’re right. We can manage this.”

  Caleb grinned. “And we’ll just keep tacking as necessity demands.”

  As the men dispersed, heading for the entrance to the mine, the atmosphere was a great deal more settled, more confident, than when Dixon first broke his news. Along with the other women and some of the children, Katherine had waited to hear the outcome; she was glad she had.

  She rose, shook out her drab skirts, then, with the other women, stepped over the logs and headed for the cleaning hut. The impact Caleb Frobisher was having on the captives’ morale was, quite simply, critical. Lascelle and their men understood and expected it of him. Hillsythe had realized and was standing ready to support and actively foster his influence.

  The others—Dixon, Fanshawe, Hopkins, and all the other men—had yet to fully grasp the significance of the catalyst that had appeared in their midst, but even they were moving forward.

  Under Caleb’s direction, they were, step by small step, transforming into a force that might—just might—have a real chance of surviving into September and thereafter through the action that would determine their fate.

  CHAPTER 11

  Later that afternoon, Caleb and Phillipe, who had spent most of their day helping the carpenters wrestle beams into place in the entrance to the second tunnel, were freed to take a break while the carpenters prepared more struts.

  Pausing beside Phillipe in the shadows of the mine entrance, with his neckerchief, Caleb wiped the sweat and dust from his face, then he nodded toward the cleaning shed. “I’m going to see what the ladies do. Coming?”

  Phillipe grunted and fell in beside him.

  As they crossed the compound, both instinctively scanned the area, registering the position of the pair of mercenaries ambling about the perimeter.

  Phillipe softly said, “They may look bored—I’ve no doubt they are. But they’re too well trained to be taken lightly.”

  Caleb cast a swift glance up at the tower—and saw a mercenary idly watching them, his musket held lightly in his hands. “Dubois isn’t the sort of captain to allow any but the best to join his company. And everything we’ve seen of him and of them screams ‘experienced professional.’ They are not going to be easy to overcome.”

  Several paces later, Phillipe murmured, “But we do love a challenge.”

  Caleb laughed.

  They reached
the cleaning shed. Caleb led the way up the three wooden steps, pushed open the door, and walked inside.

  Halting two paces inside the room, he blinked. Phillipe shut the door, then paused beside Caleb, their gazes drawn to the narrow glass panes set into the roof, one on either side of the ridgeline. They’d noted the long windows from the rock shelf, but the significance had, until that moment, escaped them.

  The long, narrow rectangles allowed natural light to fall along the length of the high table that ran down the middle of the rectangular shed. Around the table, the six women perched on high stools; they’d all glanced up as Caleb and Phillipe had entered, swiftly smiled, then returned to their tasks.

  Their finicky, painstaking chipping of the mineral encrustations from the raw diamonds.

  Caleb and Phillipe approached the table. Phillipe slowly circled it, studying the women’s work. Caleb halted beside Katherine.

  Katherine glanced at him to find his gaze fixed on the rock she held in her hands.

  He felt her gaze, but didn’t shift his. He nodded at the rock. “Please. Show me.”

  She returned to her task, slowly turning the raw stone until the light caught the line where ore met diamond. Holding the rock at the right angle, she positioned it in a small vise bolted to the table and cranked the vise closed. Once the rock was secured, she picked up her chisel, positioned the sharp edge with precision, then she raised a small, heavy-headed hammer and struck the head of the chisel sharply.

  Rock splintered away, leaving a section of dark, odd-appearing stone beneath.

  She heard Caleb let out the breath he’d held.

  “That’s the raw diamond?” He pointed at the dark face.

  She nodded.

  He glanced at the other women, all engaged in the same work. Looking back at her as she loosened the vise and took the stone back into her hands, he waved at the vise, chisel, and hammer. “Are these all the tools you use?”

  “Yes.” She glanced at him. His skin was grimy with dust from the mine; it coated him in a fine layer. Sweat trickled in rivulets from his hairline, yet he still looked like a god to her. A tousle-haired god with vibrant blue eyes; there was a feeling of aliveness about him she found impossible to resist. She watched his dark brows tangle in a slight frown and added, “We don’t need anything more.”

  He grimaced, glanced around, then murmured, “That makes it harder to engineer breakdowns.” He held out a hand. “Let me see that chisel.”

  She handed it over. Lascelle appeared by Caleb’s side; together they peered at the fine metal edge at the end of the chisel.

  Lascelle said, “The metal’s of reasonable quality, but it should be possible to either blunt or damage it.” He looked at the rocks they were working on. “What’s being chipped off here looks to be relatively soft or brittle. I’ll see if I can find some denser granite amid the rocks in the mine—we should be able to use that to blunt, if not chip, the chisels.”

  “A few of the other men have worked with blacksmiths,” Gemma volunteered. “Perhaps they might have some idea of how best to do it so it looks...well, natural.”

  “And not like sabotage—an excellent notion.” Caleb handed the chisel back to Katherine and picked up her hammer. He held it up and smiled. “This is easier. We should be able to loosen the head from the shaft readily enough.” He looked across the table at Harriet. “If I might borrow your hammer?”

  Eager to see what he intended, Harriet handed over her hammer. All the women watched as Caleb crouched. He and Lascelle murmured and pointed, then Lascelle held Harriet’s hammer upside down, and Caleb swung Katherine’s hammer sharply downward, striking the head of Harriet’s hammer a swift, solid blow.

  The men rose. Lascelle held up Harriet’s hammer so all could see and wiggled the head; it was just a touch loose. He met Caleb’s eyes. “A few strikes and it’ll be too loose to use.”

  Caleb nodded. “So that’s a possibility, although we’ll have to make sure we make it look as if the tools are falling apart purely due to the work.” He looked at Katherine, then glanced around. “Where do you put the stones once you’ve cleaned them?”

  “The strongbox is over there.” She pointed to the wooden box lined with tin, sitting open on the bench against the shed’s rear wall.

  “They don’t lock it?” Caleb wandered over to examine the box.

  “Why bother?” Harriet replied. “It’s not as if raw diamonds will be of any use to us.”

  Caleb glanced back.

  Through the soft light spilling from above, down the length of the shed, Katherine met his gaze. “Except if we thought to hold any back.” She glanced at the door, then looked at the other women. “I was thinking that if there was some place in here where we could hide a small cache, it might help with managing the output at some point.”

  Immediately, all the women glanced around—at the floor, the walls, the roof.

  Caleb and Lascelle turned to study the bench.

  Katherine grimaced. “I’ve looked, but I couldn’t see any spot in which we might hide any stones.”

  Caleb swung about and looked at the table. He walked back to Katherine. To her surprise, he set both hands about her waist and gripped; strong fingers and palms clasping her firmly through the thin cotton of her drab dress, he lifted her from her stool as if she weighed nothing and set her gently on her feet to one side. “If I may?”

  She blinked. She would have been shocked if she hadn’t been so stunned. So distracted, her wits sent spinning, flung adrift by the warmth—the startling heat—of his touch, and by the way her skin, her flesh, had responded.

  Without waiting for an answer—for which she was infinitely grateful given she could barely breathe let alone speak—he shifted her stool aside, ducked down, swung onto his back, and stared up at the underside of the table.

  Lascelle crouched beside him and ducked his head to look under the table, too. After a moment, he grunted. “It’s the same as the bench—the construction’s too simple to hide anything there.”

  Caleb grumbled an agreement and started to wriggle out from under the table—then he stopped, reached out and seized Katherine’s stool by one of its legs, and tipped it to look underneath. A big grin split his face. He pointed to the underside of the seat. “There!”

  Lascelle fluidly rose, took the stool, and upended it.

  Caleb rolled from under the table, got to his feet, and joined his friend.

  Lascelle ran his fingertip around the roughly square space between the tops of the four legs. “A square of canvas tacked in place would work.”

  Caleb looked at the women’s tools. “You have chisels and hammers to hand—it would be a simple enough matter to ease out a tack, put stones in, then hammer the tack back into place.”

  “If we did it neatly on every stool,” Lascelle said, “as if it was a part of the construction for some reason, then even if someone spotted it, it wouldn’t immediately register as odd.”

  Caleb nodded and looked at Katherine. “Leave it with us—we’ll get the canvas patches and put them in place.”

  The sudden patter of feet up the steps of the hut heralded the arrival of two grimy urchins. They pushed through the door, then halted and grinned at everyone. “We’re ready for inspection, Miss Katherine!”

  Katherine smiled at the pair. She took care to have an encouraging smile for the children at all times; sometimes, it was difficult, but today... With Caleb and his positive ideas infusing the atmosphere, her expression was genuine as she set aside her tools. “Let’s have a look, then, shall we?”

  Annie pushed back her stool and stood; she usually helped Katherine with the chore of checking the day’s discards.

  “I’m due for a break.” Harriet set down her tools and stretched her back. “I’ll come and help.”

  “I’ll add my hands, too,”
Gemma said. She grinned at the children. “More hands make light work, as they say.”

  The children grinned back. Their gazes were openly curious as they passed over Caleb and Lascelle, but as Annie, Harriet, and Gemma approached, the pair turned and led the way out of the hut.

  Caleb swiftly strode to the door and held it open. Annie, Harriet, and Gemma left. As Katherine paused on the threshold, he asked, “Is it all right if we come, too?” With a tip of his head, he included Lascelle, who had come to stand beside him. “We’re trying to get a clear idea of every step in the process prior to the stones being taken out of the compound.”

  “Of course.” Katherine managed to keep her smile within bounds. As she passed him and stepped outside, she added, “Occasionally, some of the men stop by, just to cheer the children along.” She went down the steps, then slowed; when Caleb and Lascelle fell in beside her, she added, “Adults tend to forget how sensitive most children are—often they hide it, but they do get dragged down with worrying. We try to keep their spirits up.”

  Caleb nodded. “I’m used to children.”

  She might have doubted the comment—in her experience, most men didn’t know all that much about interacting with children—but Caleb proved a natural. Almost as if he hadn’t left his own childhood so very far behind. Or perhaps he simply retained clear memories of happy and carefree times.

  With so many willing hands and educated eyes, checking the pile of discards generated that day didn’t take long. Caleb asked, and several of the girls who worked the pile demonstrated how they distinguished the likely diamond-bearing clumps from the rest.

  Plainly genuinely intrigued, both Caleb and Lascelle tried their hands at doing the girls’ job, an endeavor that set the children giggling and left them more relaxed than Katherine had ever seen them.