“It’s a nasty business… Making profit off the lives of others. So much can go wrong, aye? Including letters left behind that reveal far more than you are likely to be comfortable with. Names…places…past interactions.” Since Asha had resumed his vigil over the men with his pistol, Trent took the opportunity to lower his rifle and rub at the skin of his neck dramatically. “Smuggling slaves is a hanging offense, isn’t it, Asha?”
Asha nodded with a smile.
William shuffled his feet uneasily and swallowed visibly. “Nonsense. What could Ali have to say about me that would result in such impertinent actions on your part?”
Trent couldn’t help the smile that tilted his lips. “He said plenty. And we’ll let Commodore Llewellyn Cornwall determine whether my actions are impertinent or justified.” He motioned toward the aft ladder. “For now we should get you and your men settled into your quarters belowdecks.” He tilted Asha a look. “Asha, I’m thinking that they should make the trip to Cornwall’s estate in the same manner that any slaves might have been asked to travel, don’t you? Perhaps that will help them to have a little more compassion the next time, should they somehow weasel their way out of this?”
“Ye cain’t put us down there!” One of the crew protested. “There only be a meter between decks, and I get sick in tight spaces.”
“Awe! Don’t worry lad. You’ll be fine.” Trent took his arm in one hand and the nearest sailor’s in the other. “The trip to Llewellyn’s will only take a few days from here. What say you, Asha? A week?”
Asha nodded, even though Trent felt quite certain he had no idea how long the trip would actually take.
Trent continued making his point by offering the sailor a large grin. “There. You see? Certainly nothing like a cross-Pacific trip to India or China.”
RyAnne covered her mouth and chuckled.
The sailor protested loudly. “But some of the slaves don’t survive such crossings!”
Trent’s rejoinder was almost glib. “Since you are apparently of such better lineage than the people you seem happy to sell, I’m certain your hearty qualities will see you in good stead and bring you alive and well to the end of our sail. Surviving Newgate, now that’s going to be the trick.”
RyAnne was about to start laughing again, when she heard a floorboard squeak behind her. Her heart lurched, and she spun around.
Brayden stood there.
And he had a pistol in his hand.
“Hello, RyAnne.” His boyish smile tilted his lips, but there was something hard about his eyes. She’d known him long enough to recognize that.
“Brayden.” RyAnne touched her fingers to her throat, her eyes dropping to the pistol. “How did you get in here?”
His smile slanted into a look of consternation. He ignored her question, but he stepped to one side, and she could see that behind him a panel in one wall had come open. Brayden must have been the one in the storeroom below, and he’d somehow escaped into a passageway that led from that room to this.
Brayden hooked one thumb into his belt loop and kept the gun trained on her in a lazy fashion. “I heard that Anne isn’t really your mother. That the woman who bore you was a slave of your father’s. Is that true?”
RyAnne spread her hands. “‘Tis as you say.”
A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “How long have you known?”
“All my life.” She laced her fingers before her.
“All your life… And yet you let me make a fool of myself over you? As though you were not tainted? Not someone on whom I would be ashamed to waste my attentions?”
The words were like a slap in RyAnne’s face. She took a step back and came up against the cool wood of the cabin door. “I’m still me, Brayden. Still the friend you played with in the indigo fields for all those years.”
“I never would have been permitted to associate with you had your true lineage been known!” He shook his head, and his lips twisted into a sneer now. “No. You are nothing like the woman I thought you to be.”
“Simply because of a few drops of blood that flow through my veins that you didn’t know about before?”
“Cursed blood.”
RyAnne’s anger spilled over before she could think better of it. “If we are cursed, it is because of trifling-minded men like you who feel empowered to abuse simply because the color of our skin is a little different.” She stretched out one arm and yanked up her sleeve until her wrist was revealed. “Look here! What do you see that gives you so much cause to feel superior?!”
Brayden’s face transformed into a hard mask of anger. “Impertinence!” He stepped forward and grabbed her by one arm, thrusting his gun into her ribs. His fingers dug so painfully into her arm that she clenched her teeth to hold back a whimper.
But there was something she had to know. “So all those times when you spoke out against slavery? Like at the ball that night? What was that?”
Brayden leaned in and spoke close to her ear. “Appearances, dear RyAnne. Appearances. We can’t hardly be suspected of smuggling when we are so outspoken against the mean practices of slavery, now can we?”
“Why would you even resort to smuggling? You certainly aren’t in need of the money!”
A look crossed his face that filled her with realization.
“That’s it, isn’t it? Something happened, and you needed the money. What was it?”
Brayden shrugged. “It wasn’t so much the need as the want. Father realized there was much greater profit in shipping slaves than indigo, yet the plantation was the perfect cover. We already had the fleet of ships so…” He shrugged again, as if to say why not?
RyAnne felt a swirl of nausea.
Brayden took in her face and chuckled, but there was no humor in the sound. “Now open the door and stay quiet. Your pretty little hide is worth quite a lot, and I’d hate to have to mar it with a bullet.”
A shiver of revulsion slipped down RyAnne’s back. How could she have been so deceived by this man? She slowly reached out and unlatched the door.
Brayden thrust her out into the sunlight, sticking fast to her side.
Trent stood several paces away, set to descend the aft ladder with two of his prisoners, William Harcourt and a sailor RyAnne didn’t recognize. Several others must have already been taken belowdecks, for RyAnne only saw two other sailors left topside, and they were both still tied to the mizzenmast. Asha also was nowhere to be seen. He had probably taken a couple of the smugglers down ahead of Trent.
“Dawson!” Brayden bellowed.
Trent jolted and spun around, his prisoners still clasped in each hand. RyAnne noted that he and Asha had taken time to gag each of the captives with a strip of sheeting. Probably to prevent them from conspiring with each other once in the hold.
Brayden waved his pistol in a quick flash before pressing it back to RyAnne’s ribs again. “I’d seriously consider letting my father and his men go. I hear you have quite a fondness for Miss Hunter here.”
Even from this distance RyAnne could see the telltale bunching of Trent’s jaw that indicated his irritation. He pinned her with a look that narrowed his gray-green eyes and demanded to know if she’d left the captain’s cabin.
She supposed she deserved his suspicion after the many times she’d disregarded his requests. Swallowing, she gave a little shake of her head. “He came through a passage in the wall.”
Trent transferred his gaze back to Brayden. Deliberately, he released the two men on either side of him. He bent forward slowly and laid his rifle on the deck and then raised his hands almost languidly.
William’s and the soldier’s hands were still bound, but they both quick-stepped several paces away from Trent. The sailor turned to watch the confrontation unfold. But William darted over to a gunnysack by the rail and kicked it forward, drawing Brayden’s attention to it with a couple grunts.
“What have we here?” Keeping his gun trained on them, Brayden took up one corner of the sack and dumped out the contents.
The
two wooden boxes that RyAnne knew would be full of Khalifa’s letters tumbled out. Brayden opened the box closest to him and pulled out one of the parchments.
RyAnne gasped, and her gaze darted to Trent. Those weren’t the hidden messages!
He nodded subtly, his face calm.
RyAnne glanced back toward the rail and saw her violin case there. And from the narrowing of Trent’s eyes, she knew all the letters must be in with her violin.
She looked down to find Brayden’s attention on her. He glanced back and forth from her to Trent and then to the violin.
RyAnne’s heart pounded. Please don’t—
Brayden strode to the violin and hefted it, still keeping them under the eye of his pistol. “Let’s see what we have in here, shall we?” He flipped the latches and dumped the contents of the case, violin and all, onto the deck.
RyAnne’s eyes fell closed as her violin, the silk cover, a bundle of letters, and a leather journal with the Harcourt insignia all tumbled to the boards.
A muscle bunched in Trent’s jaw, and he looked out toward the horizon for a moment. RyAnne saw him take a slow breath.
She had done this. It was her reaction to the fake letters that had clued Brayden in to the ruse.
RyAnne returned her focus to Brayden. He had tucked the packet of letters beneath his arm and was flipping through the logbook. What would he do with them? All their evidence against the Harcourts resided in those! Could she distract him?
She stepped toward him. “Brayden, please! You must reconsider what you are doing here.”
“RyAnne! Stay back!” Trent’s voice held real fear that made her heed his command.
“Not another step, nor another word!” A hard edge had crept into Brayden’s words that made RyAnne’s heart stutter in fear. His hand trembled, and if she had kept moving toward him, there was no telling what he might have done. He looked at his father, lifting the book. “That weasel Khalifa has written down everything!” He dropped the journal and the packet of letters into a nearby cauldron and withdrew a match from his front pocket.
RyAnne’s eyes dropped closed. Of course he had matches on his person. He’d just been down in the hold and had lit the lantern. Despair threatened to be her undoing. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. After all their heartache and loss, was it going to come down to this moment? Surely they weren’t just going to stand here and watch Brayden burn up all their evidence?
Brayden struck the match against the deck, and it flared to life.
RyAnne looked to Trent. What should they do? What could they do with Brayden—especially in his current state of mind—training a gun on them?
Trent shook his head at her, commanding her without a word to remain still.
Brayden dropped the match onto the pile of papers, and RyAnne felt all her hopes flag as the flame quickly spread to devour the evidence.
Next Brayden picked up both wooden drawers and dropped them on top of the fire. The flames licked greedily at the wood. When the fire had completely consumed the contents of the cauldron, Brayden resumed his position by RyAnne, with his pistol gouging into her ribs.
“There, now that is taken care of, and we can pick up where we left off.”
William was grinning from ear to ear behind his gag and looked quite pleased.
RyAnne recalled that when she’d met him on shore, he’d hesitated before he said Brayden was “not here, no.” She realized now that he meant that Brayden was aboard the ship. Why hadn’t she thought of it and warned Trent? But none of them could have known that the ship held secret passages! Another thought struck… Was Brayden even the same man that she’d seen with the lantern when she was locked up below?
“So that was you that we couldn’t find in the storeroom?” Trent’s question was the epitome of calm and proved that his thoughts were traveling the same channels as hers.
“It was.” Brayden sounded quite proud of himself.
With a jolt of admiration, RyAnne realized what Trent was doing. They’d just discovered that Brayden was working alone.
“I should have thought there might be a secret passage. Quite clever of you.”
Brayden gave a little half bow, keeping his pistol pressed firmly to her side. “Thank you!”
“Just to satisfy my curiosity… Where was the entrance to your passageway?” Trent’s voice was rather loud for the distance that stretched between them, and RyAnne realized he must be speaking for Asha’s benefit. Thank heavens he had been out of sight when she and Brayden had stepped out of the captain’s cabin.
William leaned forward and tried to say something, but his gag was doing its job quite effectively.
And Brayden grinned languidly. “Don’t worry, Father. I’ve no intention of telling him the location of the secret passage.”
William’s shoulders slumped in relief, and he grumbled something else indiscernible, but Brayden didn’t seem to notice.
RyAnne’s heart pounded with despair! If only he had told them the location, Asha might have been able to use it to help them. Now he would be no use to them, for there was no way for him to come on deck without Brayden seeing him.
Brayden was caught up in his own cleverness. “So, Dawson. It appears you are at a disadvantage. First you are going to untie my father and his crew, and then we are going to sail out of this harbor, and when we get far enough out, we are going to dump you overboard.” He laughed. “I hope you can swim?”
“And if I refuse?” Trent’s voice remained calm. He folded his arms and stuffed his fists into his armpits, looking for all the world like he planned to remain that way for quite some time.
RyAnne realized he was doing all he could to delay.
Brayden’s laugh was almost hysterical now. “You may refuse to swim, if you like.”
Trent only looked at him, allowing the moments to stretch.
Brayden stopped his cackling as suddenly as he’d begun. “Get on with untying them!”
RyAnne took a breath as Trent slowly started toward William. Trent seemed set on delay! And delaying was something she could help with. She only prayed Brayden’s gun wouldn’t go off by accident.
She felt her hands grow clammy at just the thought.
Trent would likely instruct her to keep out of it. But she could do this! And hopefully it would give Trent or Asha the time to do something.
Giving a little whimper, she pressed the back of one hand to her forehead, rolled her eyes up, and slumped into the best faint she could conjure. She’d never actually fainted herself. But she’d seen Mother do it a time or two.
“What the devil?!” Brayden exclaimed, clutching at her as she collapsed.
RyAnne was thankful for the resistance of his arm that had somewhat broken her fall, and also thankful to note that her person was still intact without any bullet holes.
She heard Trent’s boots thumping across the deck. He was probably set on taking advantage of Brayden while he was distracted, but in the next moment Brayden exclaimed, “Stop right there, Dawson, before I put a shot through her pretty skull!”
RyAnne felt the cold press of a muzzle against her forehead, and it was all she could do to keep herself from flinching.
“I’ve stopped! I’ve stopped. Please, just help her.” Trent’s voice sounded distraught.
A trace of guilt washed through RyAnne. Did Trent know she was pretending? She dared not open her eyes to offer him assurances. She lay as still as possible, hardly even daring to inhale.
“Is she breathing?” Trent persisted. “Please, you have to check to see if she is breathing!”
RyAnne shallowed her breaths as much as she could and forced herself to remain limp.
She felt Brayden lean over her at the same moment she heard William grunt out an exclamation.
Brayden started to pull away. “Wha—”
There was a loud hollow thunk, and then Brayden’s dead weight collapsed atop her.
RyAnne’s eyes flew open. Trent and Asha both leaned over her, peering co
ncernedly into her face. Asha held the large wooden giraffe from the captain’s cabin in his hands.
William’s cry of anguished frustration was loud despite the cloth stuck in his mouth, and RyAnne heard his footsteps slapping the deck.
Trent must have heard them too, because he stood, spun around, and, in one smooth motion, brought his fist into Harcourt’s midsection.
William squawked and bent double, coughing and wheezing through the cloth.
Trent guided the man to his knees and then eased him over till he was on his side. “Lay here and catch your breath while I tie up your son.”
William’s shoulders slumped in defeat. RyAnne could tell from his expression that he knew he’d been beaten. With his hands tied securely behind him the way they were, there wasn’t much resistance he could offer. RyAnne almost felt sorry for the man.
Trent stood and came back to her. There was a glimmer of admiration in his eyes when they met hers. “Asha, help me get Harcourt off of her, would you? Nice hit, by the way. Remind me never to come up behind you in a dark corridor.”
Asha chuckled. “Long time coming.”
Each man took one of Brayden’s arms and hauled him up and off of her. He hung limply between them, and when she sat up, she could see a large lump forming on the back of his head.
The men laid him out facedown on the deck, and while Asha set about tying him up, Trent turned back to her. He helped her sit up and then took her shoulders and peered into her face. “Trouble, RyAnne, simply has a way of sniffing you out. Are you all right?”
She nodded, even though a tremble was starting in the vicinity of her knees now that the danger was past.
Trent pulled her into a firm embrace that revealed all the fear untethering from inside him. She felt his arms shaking.
She eased back until she could look him in the eye. “I’m fine, Trent. I’m fine. But we lost all our evidence! I’m so sorry! I drew his attention to the violin.”
He shook his head and tapped his temple. “If there is one thing managing a fleet of ships with my father all my life has taught me, it’s to never put all your eggs in one basket.” He glanced over at William, who glowered back passionately. Trent lifted his shirt slowly and pulled a parchment from beneath his belt. “You see, RyAnne, it’s not really written evidence we need to convict the Harcourts in a court of law. It’s the testimony of people. And”—he flicked the paper with a smile of satisfaction—”I have all the names Khalifa mentioned written out right here! All we have to do is offer a few of them deals, and I’m sure we’ll have all the testimonial corroboration that we’ll need.” Trent stood and hauled William to his feet. “Because, you see, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years about those who live on the wrong side of the law, it’s that no one trusts each other. If all of them kept quiet… Well, then we’d have a problem. But I’m guessing tongues will be wagging before a fortnight has past.”
The Joy of the Morning: A serialized historical Christian romance. (Sonnets of the Spice Isle Book 6) Page 7