Undercover Cavaliere

by Judith B. Glad

  "Gabe. I remember Gabe. Nothing else." A shiver made his words come out in a stutter.

  "Let's get you out of those wet clothes. Dom, what have we got he can wear?"

  The other man, silent until now, shrugged. "Nothing. When he didn't get back to his hotel, I knew something was wrong. I didn't want to risk being seen going into his room."

  The American--they'd called him Norman--said, "There are the blankets we gave the-- There are blankets."

  "Blankets will do until we're on the boat. Get them, Dom. You're least likely to scare them."

  The young man disappeared through a door Gabe hadn't noticed before. Shortly thereafter he heard the rattle of keys, the clack of a bolt being pulled. When Dom returned, he was carrying a wad of shabby gray fabric, with one end trailing on the floor. He grinned. "They weren't too happy to be woke up."

  The redhead and Norman stripped Gabe to his underwear, working gently, but still making him gasp with pain. Both men exclaimed when they cut his torn trousers from his right leg. The American swore foully, words Gabe hadn't heard since he and some college friends had spent a night in the stews of New York one forgettable weekend. Despite the pain, he welcomed the warmth of the blankets they wrapped him in. He forced himself to relax and took a deep breath. Perhaps they really were his friends.

  A second breath brought an elusive scent to his nose, a familiar scent.

  Gina! Oh, God, Gina! He threw off the blankets and attempted to stand, with little success. His injured leg was incapable of supporting him. "Gina! Got to find her."

  His brain was fog-filled, his thoughts confused. "Gina," he said again, just before he felt the room spin around him.

  "Catch him," someone said.

  Strong arms surrounded him and lowered him gently to the floor. Someone tucked a warm cover around him.

  "She's safe," the Brit said. "Gina's safe."

  Sometime later, he woke enough to hear someone say, "Who's Gina?"

  And then the world truly did go black around him.

  * * * *

  The young man was polite as he woke them and took away two of the blankets they were using as bedding. He even apologized for inconveniencing them.

  From the meager light penetrating the cracks in the shutters, Regina surmised it was still morning, but getting close to noon. While they'd slept, someone had replenished their firewood and set a cloth-covered tray on the small stand. Clutching her blanket around her, she shuffled to the chairs before the fireplace. "Our clothes are dry," she told the girls. "We'll feel much better if we dress. Just leave your corsets off. They'll only hinder you if you have to run."

  "I won't put those smelly things on," Minerva stated, all but stamping her foot as she spoke. "Not in a hundred years."

  "Very well. That is your choice. Marcy? Pamela, are you going to exhibit better sense?"

  Marcy matter-of-factly dressed herself, turning her back, but not otherwise showing the ostentatious maidenly modesty Pamela exhibited as she tried to don her camisole without dropping the blanket.

  Regina managed to hide the grin twitching at her lips when Pamela spoke a naughty word and flung the blanket to the floor. After that she dressed quickly. The straits can't be all that dire if I can still laugh.

  Once decently, if odoriferously clothed, she lifted the cloth from the tray. More bread, more cheese. A bottle of wine lay on its side beside the round loaf of bread and beside it a corkscrew.

  "Surely they realize what a useful weapon this will be," she whispered as she lifted it. Quickly she extricated the cork form the bottle, then slipped the corkscrew into her pocket. "Luncheon is served."

  As she ate, she worried at the thought that their new captors might not be what they seemed. Were they on the side of the angels?

  Or were they simply white slavers with hearts?

  Chapter Twelve

  They ate the last of the bread and cheese when the narrow strips of sunlight shone almost horizontally through the shutters. Their honey bucket was almost full. Regina wondered if someone was going to empty it, or if they would have to live with it overflowing onto the floor. At least they now had the blankets they'd wrapped themselves in to use for bedding. The floor wouldn't feel quite so hard tonight.

  The night sky held no hint of blue when a rattle at the door roused her from a half-doze. She got to her feet and slid her hands into her pockets. The solid feel of the bone handle of her knife in her right hand, the wooden handle of the corkscrew in her left, gave her courage. Even if there was no chance of escape, she was no longer helpless.

  The Englishman entered, carrying a single candle in a holder. He looked around for somewhere to set it, and placed it on a chair, since the stand still held the tray and the empty wine bottle. When Regina took a step in his direction, he held up a hand. "Stand back, miss. My chum's at the door with a gun, so you'd be smart not to try anything."

  She saw a glint of light on something metallic just outside the door and believed him. Obediently she stepped back against the wall.

  He took the honey bucket out and the other man pulled the door closed behind him. "What are they going to do with us, Miss Lachlan?" Pamela said, for perhaps the hundredth time.

  "I don't know." She wished she could give the girls hope, but the longer they were captive, the less hope she had of rescue. Just because this bunch of slavers was polite and well-spoken didn't mean that their fate would be any less dire.

  In a few minutes the Englishman brought the empty honey bucket back. "Get some sleep," he told them as he gathered up the tray and the bottle. "We'll be moving you later." He flipped the napkin aside, looked more closely at the tray.

  Regina would swear she saw his lips twitch. A trick of the flickering candlelight, no doubt.

  "Who's got the corkscrew?"

  The girls didn't have to act to look innocent. Regina, remembering what she'd learned as a child, said nothing and kept her expression serene.

  The Englishman looked directly at her. "I'd hate to have to strip you, ma'am, but don't try my patience. Or maybe I should start with one of them." He jerked his chin in the direction of the three girls. "How would they take to having their clothes torn off?"

  She ground her teeth, but she pulled the corkscrew from her pocket. "Here."

  He held out his hand, forcing her to approach. She thought about striking at him, but another glint of light on blue metal at the doorway forced her to reconsider. At least she still had her knife.

  "Thank you," he said, when she'd dropped the corkscrew into his hand. "Now, then, you ladies get some more sleep if you can. We'll give you a bit of warning before we move you, so you'll have time to take care of...things."

  When he'd gone, Regina took a deep breath. Polite as he'd been, why had she had the feeling that he was a very dangerous man?

  She must have slept, because when the door opened some time later, she was startled into full consciousness. Two men entered this time, the Englishman and the Frenchman. Again someone stood at the door with a long gun.

  Working quickly, efficiently, the two men bound their wrists before them, using a fat, soft rope. Regina clenched her fists as the Frenchman wrapped the rope, until he tapped one hand. "None of that, mademoiselle. Let your hands be loose." When he was done, the rope was just as tight around her wrists as last night. It felt almost comfortable in comparison to the harsh hemp that had bruised and abraded her skin. She tested her bonds as he worked on Pamela, and found no slack, no ease.

  But my feet are still free.

  One by one the girls were led away. She heard Minerva squeal, a sound quickly cut off, as if she'd been gagged. When she was finally prodded into motion, she went along obediently, reminding herself that appearing cooperative could give them a false sense of confidence.

  They passed through a kitchen and across a small porch. When she stepped outside, she saw why Minerva had cried out. Four familiar barrels were lined up beside a big wagon.

  "No. Please. No." She hated herself for the pathetic p
lea.

  Instead of replying, the Englishman pulled her in the opposite direction, where an archway cut through the tall stone wall enclosing a large courtyard. Unable to believe she wasn't going back into a barrel, she went along without resistance. "What--"

  "Hush. Not a word. Sound carries in the night."

  The urge to scream was all but irresistible. She set her feet, so that he had a choice of dragging her or turning to face her.

  "What?" He all but breathed the word.

  "What are you going to do with us?" she whispered. "You're not acting like..."

  "Slavers? We're not. Now, will you move or will I carry you?"

  She moved, unaccountably inclined to believe him. Whatever harm this man meant to her and the girls, he wasn't intending to sell her to some Eastern pasha. More than once her pa had said that her habit of going off half cocked got her into more trouble than not. "Wait until you know what the other fellow's up to," he liked to say. "When you know that, you'll know whether to fight or to go along until you've a better chance of winning."

  She still had her knife, and her captors had no idea how well she could defend herself if she had to. What she needed was a reasonable chance of getting the girls free as well as herself.

  Outside the courtyard, another wagon waited. A black wagon, with a familiar shape.

  A hearse. Even in the dark it was unmistakable.

  "You've got a choice," the Englishman said. "You can sit with the driver and pretend to be a mourner, or you can go in a coffin. If you do that, we'll have to put two of the girls in one."

  She'd thought the hours in a closed barrel were bad. The very though of being sealed inside a coffin stole the heat from her body, the words from her mouth. All she could do was shake her head. She looked up into her captor's face, the first time she'd met his gaze. Opened her mouth to speak, and found no words. She could only make a soft mewling sound as terror paralyzed her.

  He took a shuttered lantern from where it sat on the driver's seat. Opened it enough to let a narrow sliver of light illuminate her face. After a moment's study, he nodded. "Right, then. I'll get you a veil. Up you go." He tied a length of the soft rope between her ankles, long enough for her to walk, too short for her to run, before he helped her climb onto the seat.

  He disappeared around the wagon, returned almost immediately holding a wad of fabric. "Put this on. and keep quiet. The driver will have a knife ready. One sound out of you and he'll use it."

  Regina nodded. The thought of being stabbed was almost comforting when weighed against being confined in a small space again.

  * * * *

  Much as he hated laudanum's effects, Gabe let the one who named himself Alain dose him. The pain in his leg had increased by the hour, until it consumed his whole being. Alain told him they'd get him to a doctor as soon as they could, but to do so now would endanger them all.

  Gabe hadn't been able to detach himself from the pain enough to ask why.

  He knew time was passing because whenever he drifted into consciousness, the line of sunlight across the opposite wall had moved. Twice Alain gave him more laudanum, and once he and another fellow--a Frenchman?--forced water and strong, salty broth down his throat. Later they changed his bedding, using coarse linen sheets that scratched his bare skin.

  When did they take my clothes?

  Darkness fell sometime between one dose and the next, and the next time he opened his eyes, it was to empty, echoing silence. Have they left me alone? Something told him he should care, but he didn't.

  Some time later Alain returned, carrying a lantern. "Time to go," he said. "I'm going to give you a double dose, because moving you is going to hurt like hell."

  Why? Where are we going? But the words wouldn't come out right. He heard his own formless mumble. When he opened his mouth to try again, Alain stuck a spoonful of bitter laudanum into it.

  Thirsty. He tried to make his tongue work, but it was stuck to the roof of his mouth. When he went to pull the covers off his face, he found his hands were tied. So were his... "Aarrrghhh!"

  A hand clamped tight over his mouth. "Shit! Dom, get me something to gag him with."

  Gabe heard the words but they meant nothing in comparison to the screaming red pain in his knee. When a wad of cloth was stuffed into his mouth, he didn't even try to resist, because he knew if he moved, even breathed, he'd die.

  He was lifted, moved, lowered. Something pressed against his shoulders, as if he was in a box too narrow for their width. Darkness descended, and he heard a loud banging. It ended eventually, and with silence came oblivion.

  A hundred specters haunted his dreams, a thousand devils tormented his sleep. He floated on a rocky sea of burning coal, was tossed on a tumbling landslide of flaming lava. His mouth was filled with batting, his tongue swollen and dry. He forced a croak from his throat, wondered if anyone heard.

  "Hold on, man," someone said, sometime or other. His voice was muffled, as if he spoke through a closed door. "We're almost done."

  Where? He rocked his head from side to side, the only part of him he could move. Mama? My leg hurts. I promise I won't ever climb on the roof again. Oh, please Mama... No soft hand soothed his brow. No sweet voice told him the hurt would go away. Only an unending rocking, jouncing motion that, with every jerk, sent arrows of agony from his knee to his hip, to his toes. The container he was in was tight enough to hold him fast against the motion of whatever God-be-damned contraption he was riding in and he knew he should be grateful, for he'd no strength left to protect himself from the lurching motion.

  The accursed vehicle stopped a year or two later. Shortly thereafter he felt motion again, as if the container in which he rode was being lifted, carried. Even though he had his eyes open, he could see nothing but impenetrable darkness. He was tilted, turned, dropped a short distance. More banging, and screeches of tortured wood, and then he saw dim light above him. The wad of cloth was pulled away, but his mouth was so dry that his tongue couldn't form the questions that hovered at the edge of his mind. He tried to make sense out of the moving shadows around him, but then something was laid over him, stiff yet flexible. It stank of...tar? He heard voices. Distorted by his covering and the fog in his head, the words they spoke made no sense to him.

  The pain receded somewhat, and he tried to think. Where was he? And why? Names cascaded through his mind, and they all felt like his. Who am I?

  "When are you going to stop playing your silly spy games?" The voice spoke only in his mind, yet he could swear he had heard someone--a woman--speak those works. Somewhere. Somewhen.

  Spy games?

  * * * *

  How the silent driver knew his route was a complete mystery to her. The night was dark, with overcast sky, and the narrow streets they wound through had no illumination. Regina had counted to five thousand and forty-two when the wagon entered the dark maw of a looming structure and stopped.

  She looked to her left to see a gleam of eyes, a flash of teeth, in a face only slightly lighter than the darkness behind.

  "Down you go," the driver said.

  Her legs were stiff and cramped. With a wince or two and a bitten back curse, she slowly descended from the high seat and stood, holding onto the front wheel with her bound hands, because her shaking legs threatened to collapse under her. The Englishman stepped out of the gloom and took her arm.

  How he could see where he was going was a mystery. She stumbled along beside him, knowing that an escape attempt here and now would fail. Besides, she couldn't abandon the girls.

  The end of the building opposite the tall doors held matching doors. Above them was a second floor stretching all the way across the structure. An open stairway against the left wall led to a landing.

  He motioned her to go ahead of him. The hobbles made ascending the stairs difficult but not impossible. She was breathing deeply when they paused on the landing.

  "Mind the third step. It's split."

  At the top a door stood open, revealing a long, narro
w room, perhaps twelve feet wide and extending all the way across the warehouse. Light streamed in narrow bands through vertical louvers near the ceiling on the long side. Curiously, all four walls were thus ventilated. If the room had once been an office, it must have been a miserable place to work in the winter.

  "Wait here," her escort said. He left her standing alone in the middle of the empty room. Regina waited, reminding herself that her apparent cooperation would benefit the girls more than if she were recalcitrant.

  Thumps and curses announced the approach of the others.

  "Turn the bloody thing sideways," the Englishman commanded.

  "Merde. It does not fit."

  "Hold on there. Dom, can you lift that end?"

  More thumps. More curses.

  Much as she wanted to see what they were doing, Regina decided staying where she was made more sense.

  Eventually four of them manhandled a coffin into the room.

  "Careful now. Don't drop him."

  They lowered it carefully to the floor.

  Him? Where are the girls? A chill went through her, despite the stuffy, stale heat in the room.

  The five men encircled her. "Do you know anything about nursing? Setting bones and the like?"

  The Englishman's question was so unexpected that it rendered her speechless.

  "Well?"

  "I... Ah, yes. I've had some experience. Who--"

  "Never mind. All you need to know is that he's hurt. We've got a lot to do before... Never mind." With a jerk of his chin, he dismissed the others.

  Once they'd gone, he said, "I know you've no reason to love us, but we're desperate. If I give my word that you and the others will come to no harm at our hands, will you see what you can do for him?" His gesture indicated the coffin.

  "You'll turn us loose?"

  "When it's safe to do so. Until then, no."

  She tried to read truth in his eyes, but the room was too dim to show more than their gleam. Holding up her still-bound hands, she said, "Will you untie me? Feet too?"