A hand caught the scruff of her cloak and hauled her upright.
Jelena, her face flecked with blood, her loosened hair dancing wildly around her head, was shouting at her, but all Arianna could hear was a dull roaring in her ears.
Damnation—where is Saybrook?
Blinking the grit from her eyes, Arianna twisted free and tried to see through the lingering swirls of smoke.
Whereishewhereishe . . .
“Bloody hell—keep running!” The words from behind her sounded strangely distorted, and yet they sent a spurt of relief through her.
Saybrook spun her around and grabbed her arm. She was vaguely aware of Wolff, his overcoat dusted with ash, skittering past her with Jelena—still clutching her bag—in tow. Drawing a ragged breath, Arianna forced her feet to move . . .
Faster, faster. Everything turned to a blur. It was all she could do to keep moving.
She had no idea how long they had been running—A minute? An eternity? Finally, Saybrook pulled her to halt and took shelter in a small cart path wedged between two building. By the surrounding stink, Arianna guessed it was used by the nightsoil men.
“Fawwgh.” Wolff covered his nose as he braced his back against the stone wall. “Couldn’t you have chosen a more salubrious spot in which to catch our breath?”
“Be grateful that your lungs—and your cojones—are still in one piece,” retorted Saybrook.
“True. I owe a debt of gratitude to you—and to your lovely wife.”
Turning to Arianna, Wolff essayed a devil-may-care smile, though the effect was somewhat marred by the fast-purpling bruise at the corner of his mouth.
“How the devil did you know they were up to no good?” he asked.
“Intuition.” She dropped her bags and rubbed at her shoulder. “I’m very good at smelling a rat.”
“Aye.” He blew out his breath. “It’s saved my skin several times in the past.”
Overhead, the clouds scudded clear of the crescent moon, and a glint of light flashed off the razored edge of the knife Saybrook drew from inside his boot.
“Don’t count on it happening again.” The steel point pressed up hard against Wolff’s throat, drawing a yelp. “Enough of your games—”
“Yes, yes. I quite agree.” Wolff gingerly put a finger to the blade and eased it aside.
A tiny bead of blood welled up, looking nearly black against the pale flesh.
“I think it’s time for me to lay my cards on the table.”
Chapter 16
“You two do know each,” said the baroness.
“We do,” confirmed Wolff. “Quite well, in fact.”
“I suspected as much,” muttered Jelena, brushing a tangled lock of hair from her lacerated cheek. “And you, Lord Saybrook? Are you part of this charade?” She grimaced. “It wouldn’t surprise me to hear you’re neither a lord nor the lady’s husband.”
“I regret to disappoint you,” answered the earl, “but I am exactly who and what I say I am.”
Her lips thinned in skepticism. “Why are you—”
“Your questions about me can wait,” interrupted Saybrook. His knife was still hovering close to Wolff’s jugular. “Right now, I’m waiting for Count von Wolfram to reveal what game he’s playing.” The blade flicked a hairsbreadth closer. “And my patience is wearing thin.”
“My dear Anna, is he always this bloodthirsty?” asked Wolff.
“Stubble the attempt at humor,” warned Arianna. “My patience with your machinations snapped the moment your operative threw a bomb at my husband and me.”
A look of mingled surprise and shock pinched at Wolff’s face. “Ye God—surely you don’t think I had anything to do with this attack?”
Saybrook coolly moved the blade a fraction closer.
“On the contrary, the circumstance all point to your guilt,” replied Arianna. “You are attacked outside a restaurant, yet barely scratched. Once inside, you conveniently strike up a friendship with someone who just happens to have a ship passing close to Elba.”
“But—”
Arianna ignored him. “And then with the man’s directions in hand, you lead us straight right into a well-laid trap.”
“Bloody hell, I was nearly killed too!” Wolff shot a beseeching look at Arianna. “Come, Anna, tell your husband my faults are many, but blind stupidity is not one of them.”
“The fact that you were in mortal danger with the rest of us is the only reason I haven’t yet slit your throat,” said the earl. “Though if my wife hadn’t raised the alarm and upset their timing, you might well have slipped away to save your own skin.”
A sheen of sweat now glazed Wolff’s brow. He wet his lips and drew in a shallow breath.
He was frightened—something Arianna had never seen, no matter how many times he had been dancing on the razor’s edge of ruin.
Good.
With his fierce sense of right and wrong now aroused, Saybrook’s chiseled features sharpened, and his dark eyes turned hard as obsidian, radiating an unyielding, implacable force of will.
Wolff had reason to be fearful. Nothing sparked her husband’s righteous anger more than an attack on those he loved.
“I admit, some of my actions may not have been aligned with the primary goals of what Grentham has tasked us to do,” said Wolff after taking a moment to compose himself. “But I’ve done nothing—nothing—to put any of you in jeopardy.”
Saybrook bared his teeth in what clearly wasn’t meant as a smile. “You’ll have to be more convincing than that.”
Wolff closed his eyes for an instant.
No doubt debating whether his powers of persuasion could foist a lie on the earl.
“Very well, very well—I confess, it was I who fiddled with the sextant, to ensure that Holden would have to put into port. Given the peril of pirates, the uncertain weather conditions at this time of year, and the fact that he was carrying important dispatches to the British observer in Elba, he couldn’t risk not knowing his exact position.”
“You bloody bastard —you did that while I was guarding the corridor for you?” demanded the baroness. “Putting me at risk of having Grentham think that I, too, had betrayed him?”
“No one would have known—”
Quick as a snake, Jelena lashed out a hand. The resounding slap must have rattled Wolff’s molars.
Arianna caught her wrist before she could strike again. “I, too, feel like knocking his teeth down his gullet, but we need to hear him out.”
“Tell us why,” said the earl.
Wincing, Wolff rubbed at his jaw. “I appear to be damned if I do and damned if I don't.” A pause. “I don't suppose it would help if I told you the people who ordered me to do it would cut my throat if I tell you.”
“Not in the least. And since I’m the one with the knife pressed up against your neck, you might want to give careful thought to who, at this moment, is the greatest of two evils . . . you did just tell us you’re not a fool.”
Wolff looked to Arianna, but seeing no quarter, he surrendered with a tight sigh. “Grentham isn't the only one to whom I owe, shall we say, a debt. And these men are even more ruthless than the minister in extracting payment.”
“Go on,” said the earl.
“I was merely asked to delay the ship’s arrival in Elba. It seemed harmless enough. They suggested several ways, included breaking the sextant, and given that Grentham had ordered me to get a look at the dispatch bag, it seemed I could kill two birds with one stone.”
“Ah. Now we are finally cutting to the chase,” remarked Saybrook, shifting his stance. “Who gave you the orders?”
“Isn’t your arm getting fatigued?” murmured Wolff. There were now several small nicks on his neck.
“If it was, I could solve the problem with one slice.”
“Perhaps you should, sir,” muttered Jelena. “Whatever he tells you will just be more lies. And what’s to keep him from betraying us again, as soon as he has the chance?”
; A good question, thought Arianna.
“I suggest you answer my husband’s question, Wolffy,” she advised. “But as a friend, I must warn you that he doesn’t suffer manipulation gladly.”
“I intend to tell you all I know,” said Wolff. “Alas, it isn’t much.” A wry grimace. “Like you, they don’t have a high opinion of my trustworthiness.” Turning to the baroness, he added, “I never lied to you, or the others. I was doing what Grentham ordered in Holden’s cabin, just as I told you. I merely omitted mention of my other entanglements. And I daresay that’s a sin of which we all are guilty.”
Averting her eyes, Jelena slumped back against the wall.
“You may enjoy playing out these dramatic moments,” said Saybrook. “But we’re wasting precious time. Talk, and do it quickly, Wolff—or I really will cut out your tongue.”
“My orders came from a consortium of wealthy merchants based in the Caribbean who’ve made a fortune supplying rum and limes to the British navy . . . along with a number of other endeavors which will prove less profitable if peace reigns on the Continent. I’ve done business with them in the past, and regrettably, I was suffering severe financial difficulties during our last endeavor and took more than my fair share of the profits.”
Wolff gingerly shifted his stance. “They're an international group—French, Dutch, German, along with God knows who else—and they have their tentacles spread throughout Europe. How they found me or knew of Grentham's hold on me, I can't say. But they did, and in no uncertain terms, made it clear that they expected their needs to outweigh those of the minister.”
“Dear God, Wolffy, you’re playing with fire,” murmured Arianna.
He blew out his breath. “Aye, I’m well aware that I’ve burned the candle at both ends one too many times, Anna.”
She thought for a long moment. Perhaps her former employer didn't deserve it, but like her husband, Arianna felt an elemental loyalty to her friends. Wolff had taken her in—a wild, angry waif—during a very stormy time in her life. Yes, he was an incorrigible rogue . . .
As had been her father, whose ill-conceived scheming and unwise choice of business partners had led to scandal and ruin. And ultimately to death in a sordid alleyway because of a betrayal among thieves.
So who am I to judge?
“There may be a way to keep you from being burned to a crisp.” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Saybrook’s quick glance, and the questioning look in his dark eyes. “But only if you’re truthful with us.”
“Ask me what you will,” responded Wolff in a tone of voice she had never heard from him before. Stripped of its sardonic armor, it held a note of raw vulnerability.
The baroness dispelled the sentimental mood with a sarcastic sniff.
As for Saybrook, he was quick to take up the offer. “Why do you think your merchant friends asked you to delay the ship?”
“I wasn’t told why. I can, of course, conjecture.” A half smile played on Wolff’s mouth. “As can you.”
“Have they asked you to perform any task for them on Elba?”
“No,” answered Wolff without hesitation.
The earl looked pensive.
“My impression,” added Wolff, “was that they didn’t think any further actions would be necessary.”
Which, realized Arianna, meant Grentham was right in thinking that time was likely their greatest enemy.
Which meant the rumors about Napoleon . . .
Saybrook looked about to say something, and then, all of a sudden, motioned for them to withdraw deeper into the slivered space and flatten themselves against the wall.
Arianna understood why a moment later as the sound of footsteps fast approaching penetrated the gloom. She held her breath. The pistol was in her pocket, but even had it been loaded, they had little chance of fighting their way out of the narrow passageway.
Moving in slow, serpentine swirls, a silvery mist from the harbor had curled its way up through the twisted streets. She ventured a look toward the opening of their hiding place and saw naught but a blur of grey-on-grey flutters as the sounds grew louder.
And then, just as quickly as they had come, the steps faded away.
Saybrook waited for a moment before moving noiselessly to the corner of the building and checking up and down the street.
“We need to move,” he whispered on returning to them. “Now.”
“But to where?” asked the baroness. “What about Basilisk? Surely we would be safe back aboard the ship.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said the earl.
Jelena bit her lip. Wolff said nothing but merely watched Saybrook intently.
Arianna knew what was coming. Sure enough, he turned his head, his eyes locking with hers. “We have only one good choice.”
Damnation. He was, of course, right. But that didn’t make it any easier. With a brusque nod, she signaled her consent.
“Gracias, my dear.”
“W-What about us?” whispered the baroness.
“We’ll stay together,” replied Saybrook. “For now.”
“Where—” asked Wolff.
But Saybrook had already disappeared into the swirling mist.
“You’ll just have to trust us,” answered Arianna as she grabbed up her bags and darted after him.
* * *
The moonlight was back to playing hide and seek with the clouds. Darkness shrouded the streets, making it hard to move quickly over the fog-damp cobbles. Arianna had lost her bearings, but Saybrook's twists and turns were taking them downward. A whiff of ocean brine and pine tar-scented the air—the harbor was getting closer.
A sudden, steep zig-zag made the footing more treacherous. Slipping, sliding, they skidded through one turn and then another. And then suddenly the flickering oil lamps lighting the wharves came into view.
Saybrook reached out and drew them into the recessed loading dock of a warehouse. “Wait here. I’ll go make the first query.”
Arianna was happy to cede the task to him. It stuck in her craw to beg this particular favor. But given the circumstances, pride was a selfish sentiment. It must give way to pragmatism.
Wolff had taken a seat on the low stone step and was toying with one of the brass buttons on his overcoat. Jelena sank down next to him. Slumping forward, she pressed her fingertips to her temples and let out a shuddering sigh.
Neither said a word.
Her nerves too on edge to join them, Arianna paced back to the corner of the warehouse and peeked out at the harbor. Despite the lateness of the hour, the wharves jutting out into the dark water were alive with bobbing lanterns, their crisscrossing beams of light illuminating a scrabbling of sailors loading last-minute supplies to the ships tied to the slatted walkways.
The tide, not the clock, ruled the rhythms of the sea. At least a half dozen merchant vessels were readying to set sail when the current changed.
She was trying to spot Saybrook through the tangle of mooring lines and rigging when the baroness finally broke the silence.
“I have been thinking, Count. If you did as your merchant friends asked, why would they want to kill you? And even more importantly, why would they want to kill us?”
“That, my dear Lady Plessy-Moritz, is exactly the question I’m asking myself.”
“Seeing as you are rarely at a loss for answers,” said Arianna, “why don’t you hazard a guess?”
His fingers ceased their play with the button.
Because his mind was busy polishing up more shiny lies to distract them from the truth?
Arianna felt a sharp clench in her chest. She had always known Wolff had his weaknesses, but had always believed that, at heart, he still had a core of honor.
Perhaps she was more naïve than she wished to admit. After all, she had chosen to see the dark aureole framing her father’s deceit and greed in a much brighter light, excusing the worst of his wrongs by blaming them on the manipulation of his evil partners . . .
Arianna forced her eyes away from
her old friend.
Do we all delude ourselves when it’s too uncomfortable to do otherwise?
Her uneasy soul-searching was interrupted by Saybrook’s return.
“On your feet, everyone.” He looked at Arianna and gave a tiny nod. “Keep your heads down and move quickly.”
Wolff offered no clever quip.
The earl chose a roundabout way to the wharves, threading a path through the rows of crates and barrels waiting to be loaded on the departing ships. The hustle and bustle of the sweating stevedores and clattering carts covered their approach to the American frigate.
Jelena’s eyes widened as the earl signaled for them to hurry up the gangplank, but she held her tongue. Wolff let out a low whistle as he quickened his steps to come abreast of Arianna.
“It seems your husband is even cleverer than I imagined. Or could it be that . . .” His words cut off as he spied Captain Hamilton standing in the shadow of the mizzenmast shrouds.
“Well, well, Anna,” he murmured. “It seems I’m not the only one whose past misdeeds have come calling.”
Chapter 17
Dawn touched the horizon and the wind freshened, setting off snaps of canvas as it filled the sails. The timbers grumbled as the ship picked up speed, the sea whooshing and gurgling against the oak-planked hull.
Abandoning her tossing and turning, Arianna eased out of her bunk and made her way up to the main deck, hoping the slap of chill air would help clear the fugue of worries from her head.
Past misdeeds. She stared out at the iron-dark water, watching the foam fly up from the waves. God only knew she had made more than her share of bad choices. But since her marriage, Arianna had slowly been making her peace with them.
The ghosts had faded to hazy specters. But it seemed they had come back to life with a vengeance . . .
“You still have trouble sleeping?”
She turned in response to the low-pitched voice, the unmistakable New England drawl stirring a pebbling of gooseflesh on her arms.
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