Devil’s Angel

by Marlene Suson

  “Why are you undressing?” Kitty asked.

  “So I can run faster. Now step on the train of my over- gown with both your feet. Hurry.”

  Rising from the cot, Kitty did as she was bid. Angel thrust herself forward until she heard a very satisfying ripping sound.

  “You have ruined your beautiful gown,” Kitty wailed.

  “That was my intent,” Angel said, pulling the puffed and trained overskirt away from the bodice. Hastily, she rolled the torn scarlet skirt and her discarded petticoats into a tight ball. “I can run much more easily without these,” she explained as she stuffed the skirts under the cot.

  She picked up the smelly blanket in which she had been brought to this cell. Wrinkling her nose at its foul odour, she folded it in half so that she could wrap it around her quickly when she heard the bolt on the door lifting. She hoped that, wrapped in it, the men would not notice in the murky light that much of her clothing had disappeared.

  “What if you do not succeed in getting help for me?” Kitty asked. “I cannot bear to be alone with Horace.”

  “Pretend to faint whenever he touches you,” Angel advised. “It is your best defence.”

  “I do not have to pretend,” Kitty said with revulsion. “I cannot bear his hands upon me.”

  Angel, who had never fainted in her life, begin to think that she had been wrong to hold this female weakness in contempt. She was discovering that it could be an effective weapon.

  “I wish I were brave like you,” Kitty said, sinking back on the cot. “I am so afraid.” She was trembling uncontrollably now.

  Angel sat down beside her and gathered the shaking girl to her, trying to comfort her.

  After awhile Kitty’s shivering subsided, and she said in a choked voice, “After the way I acted toward you, I am astonished that you tried to help me tonight. You have always been such a good friend to me. Vayle told me once that I was no friend of yours, and I am afraid he was right. I think I was always a little jealous of you.”

  “Dear heaven, why?” Angel could not conceive how a girl as lovely as Kitty could possibly be jealous of her.

  “You were always so good at everything you did, and you were Lady Angela while I was plain Miss Kitty.”

  “Not plain at all,” Angel said with an affectionate smile. “I was the one who was that.”

  “Perhaps, but you were always so vibrant with that wonderful smile that no one noticed.”

  The two girls clung to each other on the cot for a long time.

  Then, through the closed door of their prison, Angel heard Abe, the messenger Rupert had sent with the forged note to Vayle, reporting back: “Me waited outside like you said, and ‘e come flying outta the ‘ouse, ashoutin’‘e’d kill ‘em both. Looked like the devil ‘imself, ‘e did.”

  Angel felt as though her heart was sinking to the bottom of the Thames. Even now Lucian would be riding hell-bent for Dover in a futile search for her and Roger Peck. Her husband would never believe that she had not deliberately betrayed and cuckolded him.

  More time elapsed. Perhaps another hour. At last, she heard the bolt on the door lifting.

  Angel jumped up from the cot. As the door swung open on its creaking hinges, she wrapped the blanket around her.

  Rupert, Horace, Sam, and another man Angel had not seen before came into the room. The stranger and Sam each carried a large handkerchief and a length of rope.

  “Abe, Sam, tie their hands and gag them,” Rupert ordered.

  Angel had not bargained on that. As the man named Abe reached for her hands, she hastily tucked the blanket under her elbows to hold it around her.

  “Please,” she said, making her teeth chatter as she spoke, “I am freezing. Let me keep the blanket.”

  Abe looked to Rupert for instructions. He shrugged, and she was allowed to have the blanket.

  Abe fastened the handkerchief across her mouth first. As he knotted the rope around her wrists, Angel managed to keep the blanket about her with her elbows.

  She had never tried to run with her hands tied. It would make it more difficult, but not impossible.

  Abe tugged on the rope to lead her from the building. She followed him, desperately anchoring the blanket with her elbows.

  As Angel stepped into the moonlight, she saw that she was on a wharf. The Thames, murky in the moonlight, swirled no more than a foot or two beneath its boards. She had been right about the building’s location.

  Instead of leading her to the coach as she had expected, Abe pulled her along the wharf to the edge, where two short burly men stood. Below them in the water, a wherry with two thickset men in it was tied to the pier.

  Angel stared down in consternation at the long, light boat curved sharply at bow and stern. Clearly the sleek vessel had been designed for speed. It had not occurred to her that they would go to Gravesend by water instead of using the coach that had brought her here. How could she escape now?

  She thought of trying to throw herself into the black water of the Thames. Thank God Papa had insisted upon teaching both her and Charlie to swim.

  But how far would she get with her hands tied? Especially when Abe, who held the other end of the rope, kept her on such a tight leash. He allowed her so little slack that she could not raise her hands above her waist. If she tried to jump, he would merely yank her back, and she would have accomplished nothing except to alert them that she was capable of taking desperate risks to escape.

  The brawny oarsmen seated on the wherry’s two centre thwarts slid to the far side of the boat. Sam scrambled awkwardly down into it, his weight causing it to rock wildly. One of the oarsmen muttered a curse.

  When the wherry was stable once more, Sam helped Rupert into it. Crowe went forward, seating himself in the narrow bow.

  Kitty, her eyes huge with terror above her gag, balked at going aboard the boat. One of the men on the dock unceremoniously lifted her off her feet and handed her down to Sam, who dumped her on the thwart behind Sir Rupert. Horace jumped down after her, settling beside her. Kitty instinctively shrank as far away from him as the narrow confines of the boat would allow.

  Angel, knowing any resistance from her would be met in the same way Kitty’s had, allowed herself to be handed aboard. She was seated aft of the centre thwarts. Sam retreated to the narrow stem while Abe boarded. He sat next to Angel, still holding the rope that bound her hands so closely that she could not raise them more than a few inches.

  The oarsmen on the pier were the last to get in the wherry, joining their companions on the two centre thwarts. Each of the four seized an oar and began to row in rhythmic unison. From the impressive size of their arms and shoulders, they had had much practice in their work.

  The boat glided toward the centre of the channel, where the current ran swifter.

  Angel looked up at the sky. From the position of the moon, she knew that it was past midnight. During the day, the river was a teeming highway full of boats and barges, wherries and lighters, ferrying people and cargo, but now it was quiet. Rupert must have been waiting until no one was about to observe his voyage down river and departure from Gravesend.

  They had reached the faster current now, and the wherry, moving with it and propelled by the oars, fairly flew over the water. It was not long before the lights of London along the shore began to recede.

  Horace pulled Kitty roughly to him and began to fondle her.

  She promptly fainted—whether in pretence or for real Angel could not tell. She instinctively leaned forward to help Kitty but the rope tether that Abe held jerked her up short.

  Horace’s father growled at him, “Leave the chit alone until you have her aboard The Golden Goose. Then you can rut the rest of the night away on her.”

  Horace apparently took this order to leave Kitty alone most seriously, for he made no effort to revive her.

  Neither did Rupert, but he kept a watchful eye on his captives even though they were both tied and gagged and one was unconscious.

  Angel shuddere
d in sympathy for poor Kitty. Being fed to the sharks might be an easier fate than being forced to spend the rest of one’s life with her horrid stepbrother.

  At least two minutes went by before Kitty revived, and Angel decided the faint had been a real one.

  As the wherry sped over the water, Angel wondered where Lucian was. On the road to Dover, no doubt, with murder in his mind and undying hatred of her in his heart. He would go all the way to Dover in search of his quarry, thinking it had somehow eluded him on the road.

  And what of poor Roger, rushing to Northumberland in the false belief that his beloved father was dying.

  When he returned to London, he would be confronted by her husband at his most deadly, accusing him of running off with her. Lucian would never believe Roger’s protestations of innocence.

  Angel had no doubt that the drama would play itself out exactly as her stepfather had intended, with Lucian calling Roger out and killing him.

  “I do not think I would be responsible for my actions if I found my trust in you was misplaced.”

  Her husband would curse her and her memory all the rest of his days.

  The night had grown damp and cloudy. It was so cold now that Angel was glad to have the blanket around her for warmth. No one spoke, and the only sounds were the rush of the current and the slap of the oars hitting with metrical precision as the wherry carried her farther and farther from all that she loved.

  More lights came into view along the shore ahead of them, but as they drew closer tendrils of fog drifted low across the water, obscuring them.

  Then a large ship, partially hidden by the mist, suddenly loomed a hundred yards beyond them.

  Rupert said, “There’s The Golden Goose, dead ahead of us.”

  The oarsmen skilfully manoeuvred the wherry alongside the ship.

  Rupert shouted up, “Jake, drop the ladder to us. As soon as we are aboard, weigh anchor and unfurl the sails.”

  “Aye, aye,” came a guttural response from high above them.

  A moment later, a rope ladder was flung down from the ship’s deck, dancing tantalizingly just beyond the reach of the wherry’s occupants as it bobbed about in the water. Finally, one of the forward oarsmen managed to grab the ladder and used it to keep the small, light boat at the side of the ship.

  Kitty’s eyes bulged with terror at the sight of the flimsy, swaying ladder and the gunwale so far above. She slumped forward in a faint.

  Sam swore. So did Rupert. Then he called up to the ship. “Quick, Jake, drop us a cargo net. We have a piece or two of troublesome baggage we need hauled up.”

  As they waited for the net, the fog, hanging low on the water, increased in density until Sir Rupert, only a few feet away in the bow, became no more than a vague shadow to Angel.

  Finally, the net was lowered. The two forward oarsmen placed the unconscious Kitty in it. Abe was so engrossed in watching this operation that his grip on Angel’s rope tether unconsciously loosened.

  Rupert gave a shout, and the net began its slow ascent with its human cargo. It disappeared almost immediately in the fog.

  One of the oarsmen turned and jabbed a finger toward Angel. “Wot about ‘er? Wanta lower it ag’in for ‘er?”

  Seeing one final possibility of escape, she jerked her bound hands up and pulled the gag away from her mouth before Abe could stop her.

  “I prefer to climb the ladder,” she said regally. “Untie my hands, and I will do so.”

  “‘Twill be easier,” Abe told her stepfather, who acquiesced.

  Hers was a truly insane scheme, but it was her only hope. She would climb part way up the ladder, then jump from it into the water. Angel ran the risk of hitting the wherry instead, but she had noted how its stem was turned at an angle from the ship. If she jumped in that direction, she just might make it.

  The fog was so thick now that she could barely see the waves lapping at the boat. She counted on it to hide her from the men in the boat after she jumped.

  Instead of taking the time to untie the knots that bound Angel’s wrists, Abe whipped out his dagger and sliced through the rope.

  “She will go up first,” Rupert instructed. “I will follow. Then Horace will come last. As soon as he starts up, the rest of you head back for land.”

  One of the oarsmen helped Angel to the ladder. Horace was only a couple of feet from her, and he was staring up at it in terror. For a moment, she wondered whether he would join Kitty in a dead faint.

  Angel let her protective blanket drop as the oarsman lifted her on to the wherry’s gunwale. She grabbed the ladder’s rope sides and clung to them as the wherry bobbed up and down beneath her. The hemp cut cruelly into her hands as she struggled to retain her balance while trying vainly to place a foot on the lowest of the dancing wooden rungs.

  A guttural voice from above called loudly, “‘Urry, damn ye ‘ides. Ain’t got all night!”

  The oarsman planted her foot on the rung, and she began her dizzying climb up the swaying ropes.

  She tried not to think about how far away land was.

  It would be a long, cold—perhaps hopeless—swim.

  But it was her only chance.

  Chapter 34

  The ghostly fog enveloped Angel like a suffocating gray cloak. The wherry and the rest of the world around her had vanished into it as though they no longer existed.

  It took every inch of willpower she possessed to force herself to continue upward through the cloying cloud.

  Suddenly, when she was about twenty feet above the water, she climbed out of the dense murk into a night that was bright with stars and moon. She was so astonished by this sudden change that for a moment she could only pause and stare.

  A few light fingers of mist still drifted around her, but above her the air was clear. When she looked down, however, the water and the wherry were hidden by a blanket of thick, fluffy cotton.

  Glancing toward land, she saw far in the distance a few blurry lights. Her heart fell at the distance. Could she possibly make it?

  Angel looked up toward the ship’s deck, and a shiver of fear went through her at the sight of a muscular giant of a man, dressed all in black, leaning over the gunwale, watching her. His face was shadowed by a hat pulled low on his forehead, but she saw that a black eye patch covered his left eye.

  One-eyed Jake, Angel thought as she forced herself to resume climbing toward him.

  With his swarthy complexion and hair as black as his eye patch, he looked the perfect pirate. He wore no coat and his shirt was half-unbuttoned. Angel could see swirls of ebony hair curling on his broad chest.

  She was nearing the deck. If she were going to jump, it would have to be now.

  She looked down but could see nothing except the fog, and she froze at how far beneath her even that seemed.

  With the wherry on the water below her, she would not be able to drop straight down but would have to swing to the side from the ladder and push herself toward its stem as she let go.

  Angel’s courage failed her.

  She was paralyzed, unable to force herself to open her hand, let go of the rope, and drop into that gray miasma beneath her.

  She tried to tell herself that the fog was her friend. It would keep the men in the boat from seeing her in the water.

  But it also prevented her from seeing the stem of the wherry below. What if it had swung back toward the ship again, and she hit the boat instead of the water?

  You must do it, she told herself.

  Stepping aboard The Golden Goose would sign her death warrant. At least if she jumped now, she would have a slim chance of surviving.

  And there were no sharks in the Thames.

  She had to do it.

  Still she could not.

  Then she thought of Lucian. She could not stand to think of him spending the rest of his life despising her. If she survived, she might be able to convince him that she had not betrayed his trust. That remote possibility fired her determination and her courage. She had to try.


  Angel grasped the right side of the ladder with both her hands. As she slipped her feet from the rung, her left hand released its grip, and she twisted her body sideways away from the ladder in the direction of the wherry’s stern. For a moment, she was hanging only by her right hand.

  As she forced herself to open her fist and drop into the fog beneath, her wrist was clamped in an iron grip. Instead of falling, she was dangling by her arm over the water.

  Her head snapped up in shock. The big, one-eyed pirate, apparently divining her intentions, had leaned far down over the gunwale and grabbed her wrist in his powerful fist.

  Slowly, inexorably he hauled her up as though he were reeling in a troublesome fish he had hooked. Dear heaven, the brute was strong as a team of oxen.

  The pirate pulled Angel none too gently over the gunwale. Then, to her shock, he crushed her so hard against his iron body that she could scarcely breathe.

  She lifted her face to look at his. His uncovered silver eye gleamed at her from beneath a black, flaring brow. His head dipped, and he kissed her as she had never thought she would be kissed again.

  Kissed her as only her husband could.

  When he set her back on her feet and released her, he tossed the pirate hat aside and ripped off the eye patch, revealing a second gleaming silver eye framed by jet lashes.

  Angel was speechless with joyous shock, unable to comprehend how Lucian could possibly be here.

  “Did the bastards hurt you, little love?”

  Her husband’s endearment brought tears to her eyes. She had thought that he would hate her. She shook her head negatively, still too stunned to speak.

  A feminine moan from a nearby bench drew her attention. It was Kitty coming out of her faint.

  Angel would have gone to her had she not recognized that the shadowy figure hovering over her friend was David Inge. Kitty’s eyes fluttered, opened, and focused on David.

  She promptly fainted again.

  David swept her up in his arms and carried her toward a nearby companionway.

  Looking about, Angel saw several other men in the shadows.

  “What the hell!” Sir Rupert exclaimed as he climbed over the gunwale onto the deck.