The Perils of Pleasure

by Julie Anne Long

  She’d wanted to be able to say it to him at least once while she knew him. He ought to know she thought so.

  Colin had turned to look at her, she sensed. They were quiet like this for a time, Colin staring at her, and Madeleine pretending not to notice.

  “I think I need to be kissed,” he suggested finally.

  She could oblige him: she turned, leaned forward and kissed his forehead, right between his eyes.

  Oh, God, she thought, half amused, her lips lingering between his brows. What do you do with love when you need to keep it to yourself? When nothing could ever come of it beyond a moment in time, when you could never say it aloud? When you feel like you might implode from it?

  You turn it into gratitude, she decided, and send it outward and upward in a prayer. And you kiss the person you love between the eyes.

  And then she did kiss him on the lips, because there they were, and they were such handsome and talented lips.

  Colin’s arms went around her then. Every muscle in his body still thrummed with tension. She held him hard until the tension eased from him.

  “Thank you for saving my life again,” she said.

  “You’re welcome, Mrs. Mercenary.”

  She smiled.

  “We’ve only two more days, Mad.”

  Only two more days before Colin would stop Louisa Porter, the woman he’d loved all his life, from marrying his brother, so Colin could marry her instead and live happily ever after on a farm in Pennyroyal Green.

  “Then let’s go find Horace Peele,” Madeleine said softly. “We’re almost there, Colin.”

  Chapter 20

  They’d walked only about a half mile more up the road when the sign proclaiming MUTTON COTTAGE came into view. It was carved into a chunk of driftwood and suspended from chains attached to a post, and the post was entangled with bright climbing wildflowers. The cottage itself was in decent repair, a little weathered but charming enough, and true to English form, was less a cottage than a small manor. Two stories and gabled. A spread of green led up to it, and the cottage itself backed up against a pair of soft green hills, rather like a pendant snug between a pair of breasts.

  The grass appeared to have been tended by goats rather than gardeners, and wildflowers had been left to have their way with the yard and the stone path. From the sound of things, the trees were thick with birds, who were, as usual, egalitarian about where and when they sang.

  It was a jarringly benign place to stow away the witness to one of the infamous crimes of the decade, and for bodies to stop on their trips to Scotland. But then, perhaps that was the point.

  Reflexively, Madeleine and Colin drew out their pistols.

  Almost before Madeleine could register what was happening, something black and glossy hurtled toward her from down the hill. There was an impression of glinting eyes and pink slavering tongue and she tried to scream but terror clogged her throat, and then the thing was upon her and her arm was in its mouth.

  But in moments an odd realization penetrated her terror and blunted the edge of it:

  She felt no pain. At all. Though she seemed to be gripped in the jaws of a very large dog.

  She looked down to find that the dog was, in fact, gumming her arm affectionately, as though she were a cob of corn. And grinning up at her with happy dog eyes.

  It had almost no teeth.

  The drum of her heart made her nauseous. “Thank you, but that’s enough,” she said pleasantly to it. Her voice was very faint.

  The dog apparently knew what that meant, because it released her and stood back and grinned a dog grin, and wagged the entire back part of its body. All the while balancing—hopping, actually—on its three legs.

  Madeleine covered her face in her hands, not certain whether to laugh or cry. She sank to her knees.

  This merely served to delight the dog, as she was closer in height to it now and put her face in the perfect range of a good, sloppy licking. And Madeleine now found her hands up, defending herself against a tongue, which seemed to be everywhere.

  She felt his arm around her shoulder then, and the last vestiges of fear eased from her. With Colin, everything was just another adventure, more colorful, more…everything. It occurred to her that she was getting a little too accustomed to this sort of comfort. She tensed a little.

  The arm dropped away.

  “Well, good day, Snap. We are very glad to see you.” Colin was murmuring to the dog and fondling its floppy ears. “Where’s Horace? Is he about? Is he safe?”

  “Snap! Where ’ave you got to, Snap?”

  Horace Peele’s anxious voice preceded him, and then the man himself strolled forward from behind the cottage for all the world like a country squire.

  Snap bounded over to Horace, who absently and reflexively put a hand on the dog’s head.

  His expression when he got his first full look at Colin was a thing of beauty. A bit like Croker’s when he’d got a look at Madeleine.

  There was the same genuine, beaming delight…

  “Why…could ye truly be Colin Eversea? Ye’re alive, are ye, Colin? They said ye was dead! Hung!”

  …followed by confusion…

  “But if ye was ’ung, ’ow could ye be standing ’ere? I didna drink much this morning.” Horace was talking to himself, reasoning it through. “And ’twas only the piss water they serve down a’ the Hare and Turtle these ways, anyhow. But ye—maybe ye’re a ghost…?”

  And then Horace’s eyes and mouth became great round circles as realization set it.

  And that would be the terror.

  Indeed, Horace turned to run.

  Horace was easy to catch, however, as he was slow, older, and a bit on the rotund side. Colin reached out a hand, snagged the back of his coat and held on. It took Horace a few seconds to realize he was going nowhere.

  He gave up at last and turned to look up at Colin over his shoulder.

  “Dinna ’urt me, guv. I’m a Chris tian man, I am.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Horace, I’m not a hallucination, I’m not a ghost, and I’m not here for retribution.”

  “’Oo the devil is Retribution?” Horace squeaked indignantly. He was frantic. “’E ain’t ’ere, guv. Jus’ me an’ Snap. Now shoo!”

  Colin sighed. “If I were a ghost, Horace, I couldn’t hold you by the back of your coat. I’m here to take you back to London. I need your help. You know very well I didn’t kill anyone. You’ll help a friend, will you not?”

  Horace relaxed a little. “Colin? Yer really safe and alive?”

  “I’m really safe and alive. You didn’t hear about my dramatic escape from the gallows?”

  “No newspapers from London ’ere, guv. Not fer weeks.”

  “Just wagons full of bodies?”

  “Nasty business, that,” Horace agreed readily. “They do make a pound or two, though, the Resurrectionists. But ’ow the divvil did ye find me, Mr. Eversea? E’ll ’urt me if they find you ’ere!”

  “I’m just clever, I suppose.”

  What a very succinct way to put their journey, Madeleine thought.

  “Will you come away to London with me, Horace? It’s urgent we leave at once.”

  “Oh, I fear ’e’ll ’urt me, Mr. Eversea. Threatened t’ kill Snap, ’e did.”

  “He must be a bad man,” Colin said with feeling. Though he wasn’t certain who they were speaking of yet.

  “Oi, I think ye’ve the right of it, Mr. Eversea. I didna wish to see ye come to ’arm, Colin, as yer me friend, and ye nivver touched that sod Tarbell. I saw the ’ole thing. But ’e paid right well, this cove Critchley, and ’e was full of threats and money, too, and what could I say t’ that? Me mum, she needed a new roof. Sent it on to ’er, I did, the money. An’ I was taken ’ere, to this place. Told to stay or ’e’d see to it that Snap and me mum came to ’arm. Three weeks, it’s been. Not proud of it, Mr. Eversea. But I’ve been afraid.”

  “I won’t let anyone hurt you or Snap, Horace, I swear to it. And we’l
l buy your mum a new roof, new furniture, a new—could she use a mule?”

  “She’d like a mule, I think.” Horace seemed pleased and surprised. The idea of a mule seemed to send him into a bit of a reverie.

  “We’ll get her a mule, then. We’ll get her anything she needs for a comfortable life in…”

  “Upper Finster.”

  “Upper Finster. Lovely town.”

  Horace Peele beamed at this. “’Tis.”

  Madeleine would have bet all of their money that Colin had never heard of Upper Finster in his life.

  “But you need to come with us Horace, and now. It’s urgent. Please. We’re friends, are we not, Horace? I swear on everything I hold dear that no harm will come to you or yours.”

  There was something remarkably convincing about this speech. Madeleine wondered if this would have been true a mere week earlier. He was a different man now, Colin Eversea, she would warrant.

  “We’re friends, Mr. Eversea,” Horace promised fervently.

  Horace seemed to notice Madeleine only then, and he beamed, and bowed, while Snap drooled onto the stone path.

  “Why, if it isn’t Mrs. Greenway!”

  Madeleine curtsied. “A pleasure to see you again, Horace.”

  “Ye used to drink at the Black Cat wi’ yer ’usband.”

  “I did at that.”

  “Where do you drink now?”

  “I’ll be drinking across the sea soon, Horace, in America. I shall be leaving England soon.”

  Colin’s head turned to her, and she was aware that his eyes were intensely green here, surrounded by all this green land, and she felt them almost as twin lights. But she didn’t turn to look at him.

  So he turned back to Horace without saying anything.

  “Ah, verra good! America! An adventure!” Horace was delighted.

  “Oh, yes. There’s nothing quite like an adventure,” Madeleine agreed wryly.

  “Well, then, shall we go? ’Tis lonely ’ere, and I canna get a good drink or a woman anywhere. Beggin’ yer pardon, Mrs. Greenway,” he added hurriedly.

  “Not at all, Horace.”

  “I’ll just go get me things then and—”

  He stopped. Because they all heard it then, or perhaps felt it: the unmistakable rumble of hooves muffled by grass and soft earth.

  Their heads swiveled, looking for the source, but it was easy enough to spot them, because it always was.

  Pouring down the hill that sloped up behind the cottage were three mounted red-coated soldiers, bayonets glinting in the sun.

  The soldiers were upon them, swiftly down from their horses, their guns cocked and aimed.

  “Lock and drop your weapon, Mr. Eversea, and kick it over to me. I shouldn’t like to shoot you, but I shan’t hesitate if you don’t cooperate. And madam, I would ask that you do the same, if you know how to do it.”

  Trust a bloody English soldier to be this polite to an escaped criminal. He sounded as if he was giving Madeleine the benefit of the doubt, thinking perhaps Colin had handed the pistol to her. Perhaps Colin, criminal that he was, was forcing her to use it.

  Colin was tempted to respond, You’d be amazed at what she knows how to do.

  But Colin stood fast. He didn’t lock his pistol, though he did lower it slowly to his side. This was difficult to do with three muskets pointed in the general vicinity of his heart.

  But Madeleine…Madeleine kept hers raised, and aimed at the sergeant.

  Oh, Mad.

  His heart jumped into his throat. If anything should happen to her…if she should…

  “Mad…” he said quietly.

  She threw him one enigmatic glance. She seemed inordinately calm, and absolutely certain, and her aim remained steady.

  “Mr. Eversea.” The soldier’s voice was a quiet warning. “Madam. If you do not lock your weapons and drop them, I fear we have orders to take Mr. Eversea dead or alive. I will give you a count of five to do it.”

  Oh, God. Not another bloody count to five.

  It couldn’t come to this. They’d come so far, unraveled so much, endured so much. It was wrong, such a wrong way to end.

  “One, Mr. Eversea…” the soldier intoned.

  They stood here, the key to his freedom standing silently next to him alongside a panting three-legged dog.

  But Colin knew that if he’d said, I’m innocent, and here’s proof, and gestured to Horace, the soldier would likely shoot him out of sheer exasperation. Everyone who went to Newgate was innocent. If you asked.

  And the soldiers might listen to his story. But they would take him nevertheless. There would be cells and darkness, long inquiries. And he simply wouldn’t go back to prison. He couldn’t bear another dark, enclosed place.

  “Two, Mr. Eversea…”

  And of course, it had been the greatest affront of all to escape from the gallows in the way he had, a spectacular humiliation for the British army. After all, the soldiers had been queued there to ensure that sort of thing didn’t happen.

  He almost wanted to trumpet to them: This woman—this astounding woman—she’s the one who did it, you fools.

  Colin had mastered the art of not blinking. And this was why he noticed an odd shadow thrown against the side of the cottage. Something made him watch it: not a bush or tree.

  Because bushes or trees couldn’t move forward like that. At least not outside of dreams.

  And this shadow was moving forward. Stealthily and steadily.

  “Three, Mr. Eversea…”

  Something primal in Colin knew who it was even before it evolved from shadow into man. And when the shadow officially came into focus as a man, Colin saw he was coatless, which meant they could see, very clearly, the mother-of-pearl buttons shining like wee moons on his waistcoat, and the long shape of a musket gripped in the shadow’s hand.

  “Four, Mr. Eversea…”

  And behind the soldiers Marcus Eversea cocked the musket and swung it up to his shoulder, aiming it straight at their little group.

  The soldiers froze, naturally. Nothing gained a soldier’s attention more quickly than the sound of a musket being cocked.

  One soldier began to turn his head, then the other two began to turn.

  Later, Colin had no conscious recollection of making a decision. He’d toyed with dark suspicion for weeks, and this could have suggested numerous possibilities: that Marcus was there to shoot Horace. That Marcus had been responsible for Horace’s presence there. That Marcus was there to shoot him.

  But he remembered his dream at the inn, and his heart, not his mind, made the decision for him in an instant.

  “Freeze or die,” Colin said low and coldly. “It’s your choice, officers. Turn back to face me now. Did you think I would be so foolish as to arrive without reinforcements? After all, I was a soldier, too.”

  The soldiers slowly complied. Finding, as they turned back, Colin pointing his pistol at them again. And Colin spoke quickly.

  “Behind you, gentlemen, are three men with loaded muskets. And if you so much as move a hair again without my explicit direction or permission, one of those men will remove your head for you with a musket ball.”

  Behind him, Marcus gave his head a half-rueful shake and arched a brow: three men? Two might have been enough. Ah, but not for Colin. Marcus was conservative, for an Eversea, but he wouldn’t be Colin Eversea if he didn’t take that risk. Or give it a bit of flare.

  It was good to be an Eversea.

  And with that thought, in came a rush of confidence, fresh as oxygen.

  Three pairs of resentful, furious, cautious eyes stared back at Colin above spotless red coats. Three soldiers thwarted in their mission, and all breathing hard now in fear or anger; the youngest-looking one, who had doubtless never seen war, had gone so pale the spots on his face were as vivid as his coat.

  “Are we understood?” Colin snapped.

  A hesitation. Then a curt nod from the sergeant, an indication for all of them.

  “Lock your weapo
ns, lower them, and put your hands up over your heads,” Colin ordered. “Now. Again, any untoward movements will see one of your body parts summarily removed by a musket ball. Neither I nor the lady have any compunction about using our pistols, and if anything, she’s a better shot than I, and damned quick. I would hate to prove it, then again I’ve never been adverse to showing off a bit. I won’t need to do either, as long as you do as I say. So do it, gentlemen. Keep your movements slow, broad, and obvious.”

  Horace, for his part, had gone mute, and his eyes were nearly the size of billiard balls. Snap observed the proceedings with impartial, doggie eyes, rooted by some instinct to Horace’s side, not inclined either to lick or gum a soldier. And apart from the steady huhuhuh of Snap’s panting and all those warbling birds, a taut quiet ensued, distinctly at odds with the bucolic surroundings.

  At last, taking their cue from the sergeant, the soldiers did as told. Gingerly, slowly, and with a reluctance so pronounced it nearly rayed out from them, they locked and then lowered their weapons. Their three muskets lay in a row on the ground like fallen comrades.

  Then they all straightened and slowly lifted their hands above their heads. It was a peculiar, languid ballet.

  “Very good,” Colin approved. “Now, keeping your hands up where I can see them, you will take five large steps backward as I count.”

  Bloody hell, but Colin hoped a day came when he would never need to count anything off again. Then again, he supposed it was a good thing to be in charge of the count.

  “I got the idea for the count from you,” he whispered almost cheerily, as an aside to Madeleine.

  She stared at him, her mouth quirked up at the edge, and shook her head a little, rather like Marcus had. She was getting used to his perverse impulse toward whimsy when guns were being pointed at them.

  And so Colin counted to five. And this time, instead of shuffling past soldiers on his way to be hung by the neck until dead, he watched soldiers taking wide steps back from him.

  At five, they were halfway between Marcus Eversea’s aimed musket and too far away from their own weapons to risk a lunge for them.