by Gaelen Foley
Merely happy that she could breathe again, she paid scant attention as they marched her past the top of the stairs, heading down the upper hallway in the opposite direction.
Before she could summon a second idea for how she might evade them, a roar from the great hall below suddenly echoed up to them, its distant reverberations booming through the minstrels’ gallery on the mezzanine.
“How dare you disobey me? Did I not make myself perfectly clear?”
The terrifying bellow froze Kate in her tracks. Wide-eyed, she looked back slowly toward the stairwell and blanched. She could not make out every thunderous word, but the Beast was clearly giving the smugglers what for.
“Waste my time . . . bring down this embarrassment on my name? Fools! I should let the hangman have the lot of you!”
The guards exchanged a worried glance, then Parker grumbled at her not to dawdle. Lifting her by her arms, his henchmen sailed her along down the dark hallway, till they came to a massive arched door.
One man opened it; the other thrust her in.
“Off you go, now. Make yourself comfortable.”
Kate stumbled into the solar, then spun around, her heart pounding. “Wait! You can’t leave me here!”
“Sorry, miss. Just following orders. His Grace will be with you shortly.”
“But I don’t—”
They shut the door in her face.
“Hey!”
“Daft chit’s conversin’ with Pharaoh,” she heard Wilkins mutter.
“Aye, well, it’s none of our affair.”
Hearing a key turn in the lock, Kate lurched forward, falling against the door. “Come back! You don’t understand!” She pounded on it. “Please! Mr. Parker! Let me out!”
No answer.
Had they already gone? She knelt quickly and peered with one eye through the keyhole.
There was only darkness. She could hear the businesslike rhythm of the Beast’s two disciplined henchmen marching away.
“Oh, God,” Kate whispered, closing her eyes and leaning her reeling head against the door. Thankfully, the solidity of its hard planks helped to steady the woozy pounding in her brain.
It was then, quite without warning, she noticed the chamber they had brought her to was . . . wonderfully warm.
Feeling was returning to her cold-numbed feet. She was still shivering, but not so violently now. She opened her eyes, lifted her head, and straightened up by cautious degrees from her spot by the keyhole.
As the sweet thaw spread through her chilled body, she slowly turned and faced the duke’s chamber.
To her uneasy surprise, it was not so bad. It wasn’t a dungeon cell. She could spy no instruments of torture. No dripping pools of blood on the floor, after all.
A cheery fire in the hearth cast a warm glow through the dark-paneled room, making it seem unexpectedly cozy.
The fire entranced her. She was drawn to it instinctively across a thick carpet woven in rich colors. She did not stop until she stood on the warmed slates before the fireplace, sighing with gratitude while the lovely heat seeped up into her through the soles of her icy feet. Warmth—at last.
Keeping her arms wrapped around herself, she glanced down at the leather armchair set before the fireplace, a luxurious white fur throw strewn across it.
It was more temptation than she could resist.
In the next instant, she was curled up on the armchair, huddled under the fur throw, and telling herself that as soon as she was fully warmed, she would rally her wits and find some way to escape.
The thought of fleeing back out into the bitter winter night made her want to weep. But for now, she would just rest here for a few minutes to regain her strength.
In a moment, she would come up with a plan . . .
What she did not realize was that the cold had been the only thing keeping her awake. It alone had been warding off the full effects of the laudanum. The warmth that now enveloped her was richly comforting, lulling her senses.
Moments passed . . . she suddenly jerked awake, having failed to notice herself falling asleep.
Disaster!
Shoving off the fur throw with an angry motion, her heart pounding, she paused for a moment, took a deep, shaky breath, and pondered the ruin that could have befallen her if she had not returned to her senses.
Good God, could she make it any easier on him? Handsome or not, she did not intend to let that man force himself on her tonight. Unsure how much time had passed, she sat up straighter and glanced around for a clock.
Instead, for the first time, she now noticed the giant bed hulking in the deep shadows on the far end of the room.
She stared at it for a long moment: the ornately carved posts of time-blackened wood, the crimson velvet hangings. A chill ran down her spine. It was to be the place of her ruin; even so, she was not immune to its instinctual pull.
The duke’s bed was the picture of warm, luxurious softness, safety: pillows, blankets. All seemed to beckon to her, even from where she sat.
No. She was not that weak. She turned forward again and shook her head, trying to clear out the cobwebs, even as the laudanum tormented her with the need for sleep.
Ignoring the bed with a will, she sank back into the armchair, drawing the fur throw back around her, still promising herself she’d look for an exit in a moment. But gazing into the fire, its dancing flames soon mesmerized her.
Nothing seemed to matter anymore.
Her mind drifted hopelessly, the drugged swaying of the room summoning childhood memories of those bygone days, the happiest in her life, when she had lived aboard her father’s ship at sea.
With a faint, drugged half smile and a heartbreaking wave of nostalgia at the bright memories, she recalled how Papa used to let her stand at the helm and play the role of his miniature bo’sun. He’d tell her what to say, and she’d repeat his orders, shouting them out to the crew in a high-pitched, child’s voice: “Ahoy, you lazy buggers! Mind the topsail! Trim the main!”
Strange how the thought of Papa could make her feel safe, even at a time like this.
Too bad he was dead and could not lift a finger to help her. She was on her own.
As usual.
Must get up. I’ve got to get out of here. Hurry. Find a way out. Before he comes . . . She tried to rise, but her body felt like lead. The dreamworld had begun to claim her in earnest this time. One more minute, begged her fading senses. I’ll just close my eyes . . .
Rohan Kilburn, the Duke of Warrington, trusted he had made his displeasure clear. The great hall still reverberated with the echoes of his wrath, but damn it, this debacle was a waste of critical time.
As one of the Order’s top assassins, he burned to be back in London hunting the deadly Promethean operative, Dresden Bloodwell, who had been spotted in Town.
Worse, one of the Order’s finest agents had been captured.
As long as Drake remained in enemy hands, all their identities were at risk as members of the ancient warrior brotherhood, the secretive Order of St. Michael the Archangel.
Unfortunately, there was no getting out of this task.
The recent shipwreck had been perpetrated by his tenants on his stretch of England’s coastline; therefore, it was his problem.
And so, here he was, with instructions from his handler back in London not to return until the smugglers’ ring had been secured.
Lucky for Caleb Doyle and his motley followers, the smugglers still remained a vital conduit for the Order’s secret communications.
For years, the Dukes of Warrington and the local smugglers’ ring had shared a cordial but clandestine symbiosis. Just like his father before him, Rohan kept the village rents low and turned a blind eye to the smugglers’ black market schemes—within reason.
In exchange, old Caleb Doyle, the smugglers’ current chief, made sure that the Order’s coded messages were delivered to various foreign ports as swiftly as the wind could carry them, no questions asked.
The bold and spee
dy smuggler captains had honed their talents at evading Customs; they were a highly useful resource, considering that the Prometheans had spies watching every port in Europe. The smugglers were able to get in and out of any harbor before the enemy even knew they were there.
The end of the war against Napoleon, however, had lifted the trade tariffs, shutting down the lucrative black market that had been the smugglers’ bread and butter for twenty years. Devil take them, how many times had he warned the fools not to squander the fortune they were raking in while the fat times lasted? To put some gold aside for later? Had they listened?
Of course not. Indeed, they had infuriated him several months ago with their outrageous plea for yet more money.
The tersely worded letter he had sent back had been the end of it, or so he had thought. Apparently, he had been wrong. Greed, ambition, desperation had driven his unruly tenants to overstep the simple boundaries he had laid down for them.
Now they had drawn themselves to the attention of the Coast Guard with their activities, and he was all that stood between them and the gallows.
Well, rules were rules. If he did not bring down the hammer on them and deal with them privately in his own fashion, it was going to become a public scandal, and the Order could not have that.
There was an old seaside ploy, a trick of the trade, that English smugglers had indulged in for centuries.
By the clever use of multiple large lanterns, they could simulate the signals of a lighthouse, luring unsuspecting ships to wreck on nearby rocks. This done, they would run down onto the beach, steal whatever washed ashore, and even row out and claim whatever booty they could scavenge from the wreckage.
It was a reckless, cutthroat procedure, and, of course, highly illegal. He could hardly believe the fools had done it. They clearly needed reminding of whom they answered to.
Pacing past the row of tattered ruffians lined up before him, he sent each one a glance of dark severity. He still dangled his unusual sword from his hand as casually as a dandy might swing his walking stick.
He paused to stare the largest man into submission, the one they called Ox. The sweaty mountain of a smuggler dropped his gaze.
“How many times have I warned all of you against this sort of thing?” Rohan continued, moving on. “I drew the line for you and bade you not to step over it, and yet you have the temerity to disregard my orders. Then—well!” He let out a sudden, harsh laugh that made them jump; he stopped at the end of the line and pivoted. “You bring me one of your drunken wenches—as if that’s going to get you off the hook!
“Don’t misunderstand me, she is a fine-looking lass, and I shall use her well. But if you believe that a willing harlot and a few bottles of decent brandy are going to make this go away, then you fail to grasp the seriousness of your situation. There is such a thing as consequences, gentlemen,” he added. He swept them with a fiery look, though in truth, he was making more of a show of anger than the irritation he actually felt.
Those who saw him genuinely angry rarely lived to tell about it.
“The most amusing part is that you actually imagined I wouldn’t find out. Ah, yes! You must have assumed that I was still abroad. Obviously, you were wrong.”
He had returned from his rather bloodthirsty mission to Naples months ago.
Of course, they knew nothing of that. He never explained his long absences to anyone. He let them draw their own conclusions, and usually, they believed he traveled merely to entertain himself, seeking new pastures, new populations of women he had not yet bedded.
There was, perhaps, a grain of truth to that—but a man had to vent his tensions somehow.
“I was at my London house when I received a most enlightening visit from a high-ranking Coast Guard official, come to inform me of my tenants’ mischief. Oh, yes, they know all about you,” he informed them with a cutting edge to his voice. “As a courtesy to a peer of the realm, he saw fit to warn me in advance of the raid about to be carried out on the village. You should have seen how eager he was for your blood.”
The smugglers exchanged uneasy glances.
“We all know what a thorn your gang has been in the side of the Coast Guard. Now they have witnesses, you see. Crewmen from that merchant ship you sank.”
“But Your Grace—”
“Silence!”
They cowered.
“I will not hear your excuses!” he boomed. “If even one of those sailors had drowned, I should not have intervened to save your miserable hides, I can assure you. Did I mention that the Coast Guard was even prepared to arrest your wives? Aye, and most of your young sons, as well. It’s no secret that these shipwrecks usually involve the whole village. However”—he continued pacing—“given that no lives were lost, I was able, at the cost of a large sum of gold, to bribe the Coast Guard agent into letting me deal with you privately. He agreed to a simple arrangement.
“I promised to hand over the men directly responsible for the shipwreck; these alone will face prosecution. In exchange, the rest of the village will be spared.”
He noted their looks of relief.
“Gentlemen, I know it is your great tradition to protect one another with your code of silence. While I admire your loyalty, times have changed now that the war is over,” he informed them, scanning the line of them slowly. “The Coast Guard doesn’t have to keep watch for Boney anymore. Now they’re free to concentrate on you.”
A few of them blanched.
“At any rate, the Coast Guard man consented to my proposal, and Mr. Doyle has wisely agreed to cooperate.”
Rohan had written to the smugglers’ chief before leaving London, giving him the chance to redeem himself by rounding up the guilty party ahead of his arrival.
He cast old Caleb Doyle a dark glance. “I trust you are ready to hand them over now?”
“Aye, sir.”
Rohan gave him a curt nod. “Bring them in.”
Doyle glanced grimly at his underlings to go and fetch the prisoners, who remained under guard in the carriages outside. The smugglers retreated from the great hall, but Doyle stayed behind; when Rohan looked at him, he could not help noticing the weariness on the old man’s face, and perhaps a trace of shame.
No doubt Doyle was aggrieved, considering two of his own nephews were caught up in the scheme. Now it was either the gallows or some hell-hole penal colony for them.
What a waste. But Rohan also suspected that Doyle’s look of guilt arose from the fact that, as the smugglers’ leader, he was ultimately to blame for failing to keep his people under control.
Rohan knew that Caleb had not authorized the shipwreck. The feckless crime had been the brainchild of a handful of the younger men out to prove their mettle.
That was part of the problem. Doyle was growing older, weaker, losing his authority. It was inevitable that his role as village head would eventually be challenged by the new blood. No doubt Doyle’s pride had taken a blow in all this, but Rohan did not intend to throw him to the wolves. The old man was too valuable to lose. Though a trickster by nature, to be sure, Caleb Doyle had proved his loyalty these many years to both Rohan’s father and to him.
By now, having arranged the delivery of so many secret communiqués, the grizzled smugglers’ chief surely suspected certain things about the Warrington dukes’ longstanding involvement in secret government intrigues.
Fortunately, Caleb was too shrewd to let on how much he knew—or guessed. Indeed, part of Doyle’s genius lay in knowing what questions not to ask.
The mood in the great hall was tense as they heard Eldred get the front door for the guilty smugglers, who were about to be brought in.
Rohan took a seat on the old, thronelike chair in the center of the great hall and drummed his fingers on his sword’s hilt in kingly impatience.
After all, the sooner he finished here, the sooner he could go unwrap his little “present.” His eyes gleamed with anticipation as he permitted himself to think about her briefly. Even now, his instincts
were wide-awake with a very male awareness of a woman in his house.
Waiting for him in his bed.
He had wanted her gone from the great hall in case stronger measures were needed to remind his unruly tenants of his authority. He did not wish any female to witness his capacity for violence.
Besides, he did not need the distraction of those beautiful breasts clamoring for his attention. He’d get to know them better soon enough, every silky inch of her.
His people knew what he liked; he was decidedly pleased with their peace offering. This luscious young token of their apology left him feeling much more disposed to forgive. Indeed, the prospect of spending the next few nights in this abominable stone crypt of a castle suddenly looked a good deal more agreeable.
Coming out here to the middle of nowhere, he had expected to have to go without his daily dose of sex, a real inconvenience for a man of his elemental nature. He had a rule, after all, against poaching on the locals.
He wanted to be feared, not hated. But, hell, if they were going to offer her up on a silver platter, far be it from him to refuse such a delicious-looking morsel.
On the other hand, cynically, he couldn’t help thinking of the Trojan horse. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
No doubt the head-turning beauty sent to warm his bed was also tasked with spying on him for the smugglers’ gang. Certainly, he would not put such a scheme past sly old Caleb.
The smugglers probably reasoned that if they could get one of their girls into position close to him, she could warn them in advance of their lord’s comings and goings, the better to help them conceal from him their next round of criminal mischief.
Rohan shook his head to himself in amusement. Whatever their scheme, he wasn’t worried. In fact, it might be quite entertaining to play a little game of disinformation on his tenants if they actually thought they were clever enough to fool him.
As for his young present, he’d enjoy her all the same. Amateur spy or no, he was not about to let a little deception get in the way of his pleasure.
Watching the smugglers bring in six of their own, bound and shackled, he had some difficulty chasing the green-eyed harlot out of his mind.