“He never has before,” the queen said. “Not even when he was first taken did he ask for help. No. Annabelle is to go with you. I have decided.”
“Madam, she will only slow me down and drag this out when we know time is growing short.” Captain Delaney voiced one more protest, a last ditch effort in a battle already lost.
I felt myself flush, holding my breath while I counted to ten. I knew my eyes must be shooting sparks, though I managed to say in an even tone, “I’m sure I don’t know what makes you think I’ll slow you down.
Why would I? Anyway, why is time short? Is he ill?”
“No,” Ethan answered. “Or not that I know of, although there are reports of typhoid running through the prison population. People say Jonathan and I are much alike, however, both in looks and in temperament. I don’t know, since we have never met. If we are alike, then I know it won’t be long before he tries to escape again.”
I pursed my lips. “Because that’s what you would do, I suppose.”
“That’s right.” Ethan smiled. “He’ll never give up. The problem is, if he does try and the escape proves unsuccessful, he’ll be put in solitary confinement for the rest of the war—or the rest of his life, whichever comes first. There is no way in the world I can get him out of solitary. No way at all.”
“Has anyone ever escaped from Dartmoor?” I asked.
He looked uncomfortable. “Not many,” he admitted.
“How many is not many? Twenty or thirty? Eight or ten?” I ignored Captain Delaney’s signals. I remembered his warning, telling me to agree with everything the queen said, a half second too late. Still, I felt that since she had asked me to join this crusade, I had the right to know if we stood any chance of success.
I felt sick when Ethan admitted only one or two escapees had gained their freedom. Escapes that had been publicized, at least.
Perhaps there had been more.
“My poor grandson.” Queen Charlotte sighed heavily, seeming to take no joy from the landscape spread before her. The serenity passed her by.
Perhaps she was thinking of the changes in her life this last year, including the loss of her daughter, and my friend, Amelia. Then came the burden of this last episode in the come and come again madness of her husband, King George III. Triggering the Regency rule of their son, the Prince of Wales, it had also instigated the hurried packing and moving from her home that was in progress at this moment. She looked so sad, so beaten and tired, that I found tears of sympathy welling in my eyes. The fate of her unknown grandson seemed the final straw.
And what price failure? What if Captain Delaney and I were caught? That was the next question I posed to the queen.
Her pointed nose tilted higher and her plump cheeks drew in. She sat very straight, her spine clearing the back of the park bench. “If necessary, I will, of course, tell the authorities you intervened in the punishment of this prisoner at my command. I believe my credit should stand good that far. Perhaps it would not be mandatory to blab Jonathan’s parentage to the entire world. I do not expect you will fail.
You, Captain Delaney, as an officer in our service—you do not go into battle expecting to lose, do you?”
Oh, touché, my queen, I thought. Good point—and one to keep in mind.
Feeling dazed, I shook my head, wishing the queen would allow me to sit. “What part do you expect me to play, Your Majesty? Oh, reporting to you is simple enough. Still… breaking a man out of a prison? I wish I knew of what use I can be.”
Captain Delaney muttered something uncomplimentary to which the queen replied, “Hush, captain. It won’t hurt you to listen to any ideas Annabelle may put forth. I believe you will find her very useful.
At any rate, I am not asking either of you. You will obey my commands, do you understand?”
There didn’t seem to be a thing left for either of us to do except acquiesce. I had the most sinking feeling that my reputation as a sad romp, earned during my carefree salad days, had followed me into spinsterhood. It was a lowering revelation. If I weren’t careful, I’d soon be known as an adventuress or worse.
“So what is the plan?” I asked, looking first at the queen and then at the captain for an answer.
She shrugged, a helpless gesture, while he looked out over the lake, stubbornly silent in his regard. My impatience grew by the moment.
“You don’t think I’m going to hold up every guard in the prison by myself, do you, while Captain Delaney rescues his cousin? Or vice versa. He holds the guards and I grab the cousin.”
“Perhaps you’d like to dress up in trousers as well, Miss Winthrop, and drive the coach?” Ethan’s green eyes surveyed me with cold regard. He didn’t appreciate having me foisted upon him, I’m afraid, and wanted me to know it.
“Perhaps I would. And will you be wearing a gown?” I asked sweetly. “That will be a wonderful disguise. Goodness! You’d have to use your brain instead of brawn.”
Captain Delaney snorted, whether in disgust or amusement I couldn’t say. A one-sided grin quirked a corner of his mouth, reminding me that, when I had first bumped into him in the hall, I had thought him a most attractive man. In fact, I could hardly believe that incident had only happened this afternoon. I felt I had known him an age.
“I can imagine,” he said. “I only hope any suspicious prison guard allows time for your brain to go to work, Miss Winthrop. I really do.
For myself, not being a pretty, petite woman with big, dark eyes, I’d rather trust to my saber or a gun.”
Me? Had he meant I was pretty? At five feet and two inches, I knew myself to be rather more than petite, although I admit to having brown, almost black, eyes. I put the thought away to ponder later, especially as I discovered I liked the thought of his opinion so much that I forgot to push for an explanation of the plan he must mean to keep secret. The queen exclaimed in vexation, driving everything else out of my head.
“Sally, give me that.” Queen Charlotte snapped her fingers. The maid jumped, as if she were a puppet brought to life, and put the wooden chest she’d been lugging all over into the queen’s hands.
“I brought these for you, Captain Delaney,” she said, beckoning him closer. “There isn’t much else I can do to aid you, except see you are supplied with the best tools for the job. You have the loan of my own traveling coach and horses. I sent the spare teams forward to the posting inns this morning so you may start immediately.”
She raised the latch on the sleek mahogany chest. “My sons assure me that aside from Manton, Richards is the best gunsmith in England. I want you to have these pistols, Captain Delaney, both as an acknowledgement of my personal gratitude for taking this assignment, and as another way of making sure you have the best tools possible.”
Captain Delaney peered into the box. From his expression, I judged the guns pleased him very well. Naturally curious, I rose on tiptoe to look over his shoulder.
A shiver curled my spine, and I rocked back on my heels with a dizzy, faint feeling. How very odd. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought I recognized the brace of pistols the queen was presenting to him. I could describe the exact flare of the brass bound barrel, the set of the cock, the design on the trigger guard, the lion’s head depicted on the silver butt with its eyes picked out in gold. I could tell them the date etched on the lock plate and how the initial T. of Thomas Richard’s first name was scribed so close to the Richards it looked as though he spelled his name TRICHARDS.
How did I know? While I may have good eyesight, no one could have seen all of that, any of that, in the glance I’d had. Yet I knew.
Captain Delaney noticed first that I had gone pale, and though I shoved my hands in the fur muff dangling from a ribbon pinned to my cloak, they felt as though they would never be warm again.
“What’s wrong, Miss Winthrop. Having second thoughts regarding this adventure? You’re not chick—” He frowned, shook his head as though bewildered and started over. “—Not afraid are you?”
I knew�
��I just knew the word he’d been going to say was chicken—which was utterly stupid. And as unlikely as the word seemed in that context, I not only knew what he meant, but felt sure I’d heard the expression before. I stared at him with wide eyes.
“Annabelle? You are not ill, are you? Oh, do say you are not ill.”
Queen Charlotte surged to her feet. “I am counting on you, my dear.
“Captain, we must take her home so she may rest. Your journey will start at first light tomorrow morning. More than that, you cannot delay. I need not reiterate, I suppose, that this is to be kept secret.
Annabelle…do you hear?”
I nodded, though in truth I was barely aware of what she said. This had to be the strangest thing ever to happen to me in my entire life, and while I had scoffed and been reluctant to participate in this charade just moments before, I knew only the end of the world would keep me away now.
I had no idea what I would tell my brother, Sir Bartholomew, or my sister-in-law, Emily. Somehow, I would have to concoct a plausible story to account for my absence from home. I hadn’t the least idea how I could be ready in time and keep all a secret from my maid. None of that mattered. What did matter was Queen Charlotte’s mission, and unraveling the mystery of my sudden, strange, clairvoyance.
I hadn’t thought I’d sleep at all with the hours until our departure too precious to spend in sleep. Yet within that time, I convinced my brother that I meant to help the queen for a few days, though she denied me the services of my maid. Sir Bart hesitated sending me off without a chaperone until I thought I’d scream at his stubbornness.
“Good God!” I said. “I am twenty-seven years old, Barty. What possible need have I of a chaperone? I’m sure I shall be surrounded by plenty of respectable persons.” Like prison guards and army officers-cum-coachmen.
“Hmm, that’s true,” he agreed at last. “I just don’t like for you to be without your maid. You, young lady, must have a care for your reputation. I don’t believe you are exactly an ape leader as yet. Twenty-seven is not so very old, and you honestly do not look a day above three-and-twenty.” He managed a laugh at himself. “Certainly Queen Charlotte must be the most respectable of guardians.”
“Unimpeachable,” I agreed. Nothing I’d said had been a lie—only the omissions left startling holes in my story.
So the scheme was managed. At some time, Bart would tell Emily I had gone to stay with the queen and Emily likely wouldn’t think anything amiss until she saw my maid, Maria, hanging around with too little to do. By then I would be long gone, away from Emily, who saw a great deal more than Bart, and away from her probing questions.
I packed a change of underwear and a fresh gown. Lotions, headache powders, the ordinary simples one usually has on hand, and strips for bandages went into a tiny portmanteau. A reticule for me to carry was filled with all of the money I had lying around plus five pounds I begged from Bart, on the excuse I’d overspent my pin money for this quarter.
At last, my preparations finished, I lay down on the bed meaning only to rest my eyes a while and perhaps ponder over the paradox Captain Delaney had turned out to be. I felt muzzy with weariness, yet an inexplicable feeling of strangeness kept my eyes from staying closed when I shut them. The bed felt too soft, as if I’d be buried in layers of down if I rolled too near the center. The sheets brushed like sandpaper against my elbows; I swear a layer of skin peeled away when I turned over one time too many. This room, home to me for many years now, had developed the air of a strange, barren hotel room in an alien city.
“Nonsense.” I spoke aloud in an attempt to drive the shadows away.
“You’ve never stayed in a hotel room in your life.” Even as I spoke, I knew my words were not true—I just didn’t know how I knew.
Perhaps the effort of trying to think of an instance when I’d stayed at a public hotel put me to sleep. Queer dreams ran across my mind, my memory, and I saw a woman, indecently dressed in a man’s trousers, sitting on a high, backless stool. She was in a cold, rather dark room and it was as if I saw her through layers of smoke. Or perhaps she was made of smoke, so shadowed and insubstantial she appeared.
I saw her hand clutching that of a man seated beside her. Hot blood pumped strongly through his veins, warming the woman. In his belt was a brace of pistols, and I gasped in astonishment because I recognized the weapons. They were the pistols I’d seen earlier today when Queen Charlotte presented them to Captain Delaney. No—that wasn’t right because I’d seen the pistols before that. I’d known them from when she opened the box. I’d known them from this, my dream.
The woman on the stool stirred, her eyes, wide and dark, fixed upon my own. She looked like me…she looked exactly like me, had I been dressed in the peculiar clothes she wore. I heard her whisper, “Belle,”
and my heart lurched, because when I thought of myself, I always called myself Belle, although everyone else called me Annabelle.
“I am Boothenay,” she said. “I am here. I am you.”
Blood pounded a wild, primitive beat in my ears, though I felt no fear. How can you be afraid of yourself? Boothenay…I know you. We are one.
I looked closely at the man whose hand she held. Of course the man was Ethan, although I knew there his name was Caleb. Hadn’t I always known? Hadn’t I promised to remember?
Through the roar of power and blood surging through my veins came a magical fusion. I am Boothenay…I am Belle.
Chapter 9
I crept down the stairs like a thief escaping into the Stygian night, dragging my portmanteau behind. Only the slightest of thumps betrayed my presence on the carpeted steps. My one candle sent shadows flickering wildly down the stair well in front of me, while an incessant rain kept daylight at bay. Though too early for the butler or the footman to be astir, I did hear Cook and one of the downstairs maids talking together in the basement kitchen. They didn’t hear me; at least neither of them came to investigate when I unbolted the door and hauled my luggage outside.
A jingle of harness traces and the smell of hot, fresh horse manure steaming in the rain greeted my arrival. Captain Delaney, or Ethan, or Caleb—I couldn’t make up my mind what to call him—loomed out of the wind-driven rain and took charge of the portmanteau.
“About time you got here,” he grumbled, as if he’d been waiting for hours. “I was just going to ring the bell.”
“And a very good morning to you, too,” I said, following along behind him to the carriage.
His back sheltered me from the worst of the rain. Happily, Queen Charlotte had kept her promise. She’d given Ethan charge of her elegant traveling coach, the one she used when the weather turned nasty—very appropriate today.
I knew I had ridden in this coach before, having sometimes traveled down to Windsor with Amelia, so as I drew closer, I noticed the plaque on the door identifying it as royal property had been turned over. The casual eye would not immediately discover the queen’s own carriage tooling along the road to Dartmoor, but only an appurtenance belonging to someone rich and influential. When the covering over the windows was let down, the identity of the passengers remained private.
Captain Delaney limped more heavily this morning. He gave an involuntary gasp when he took all his weight on the bad leg while throwing my trunk into the carriage boot. His foot slipped in a rain puddle as he stepped back and off balance, he staggered. How serious was his wound, I wondered? I didn’t have the nerve to ask. Bad, no doubt, since he’d been seconded home from the Peninsula. I imagine the cold winter rain didn’t help any.
I hoped Ethan was able to endure the rotten weather because I knew we could expect more all the way into Devon. How much worse for Captain Delaney’s cousin Jonathan, I thought, trying to work up some compassion for the man trapped in Dartmoor prison.
“Get in, Miss Winthrop, before you’re soaked,” Ethan ordered, opening the carriage door. “The rain is going to make for hard going.
The roads will be atrocious.”
“So th
ey will,” I agreed, pausing on the step. “How long until we reach Dartmoor, Captain Delaney? Any estimates?”
“I hope to make Exeter by night fall and Princeton by the morning of the third day,” he said, adding sourly, “if you will kindly stop your nattering and step inside so we can get started. You’ll be chilled standing here.”
“Only three days? Good gracious, that means—”
“Yes,” he cut me off. “Time is wasting, Miss Winthrop. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll get there.”
Insufferable man!
Ethan surprised me when he, with a gentleman’s style, handed me into the carriage. I’d thought him too surly to do more than open the door, then maybe slam it on my rear by way of hurrying me along.
The second surprise came in the canvas-wrapped bundle of hot bricks I found, placed handy for me to warm my feet. When I pushed aside the leather covering the window and peered out through the rain, I saw he had donned an oiled slicker and wore a wide brimmed hat that channeled drips away from the back of his neck. I hoped he had his own hot bricks.
Still, as some part of me knew, he was a soldier, accustomed to living outside, used to the worst the weather could throw at him. And also, given what I knew of his character, he’d bloody well never let on he was suffering even if it killed him.
The coach dipped as he climbed onto the driver’s perch. I knew when he picked up the reins, for the horses moved impatiently, stamping their hooves, fresh and eager to start the journey. He popped the whip over their backs and as though shot out of a cannon, they plunged into their harness.
At the instant the coach lurched forward, a wind-driven downpour opened up. Rain drummed like angry fingers on the roof. I dropped the leather curtain back over the window before any of the wet gusted inside and shifted to a more comfortable position on the hard seat, wishing I didn’t have the pessimistic feeling such a beastly beginning to our journey could not possibly auger well for its conclusion.
In The Service Of The Queen (The Gunsmith Book 1) Page 12