“As for Meri, yes, I used her to bring you here. But if I hadn’t taken her, the French would have. So I acted first, knowing you’d do anything to protect her. You should be thanking me.”
“Thanking you?” A laugh strangled in her throat. He was mad!
“But you always were ungrateful when it came to me. Downright insulting, in fact.”
Her breath hitched at his menacing tone. When he took a step toward her, she reflexively stepped away, only to hit her back on the cabin wall. She gasped in fear.
“That’s the only thing I regret, Diana. That you had to make my intention to marry you so difficult.”
He took another step closer, and she flattened herself against the wall to keep from touching him.
“It would have been beneficial for both of us. Me, to marry Thaddeus Morgan’s daughter, when your father would have pulled every string he could to get me promoted and assigned to a coveted post, if only to make life easier for his daughter. And you—you should have been grateful that a man wanted to marry you at all, given your past. Let alone a man of my rank.”
When he leaned toward her, she slowly reached her hand down her skirt toward the knife.
“But you were so distant, so cold—behaving as if I wasn’t good enough for you, when all along you’d already been ruined. I could have saved you from all hints of scandal and disgrace.” He reached up to her hair, to rub a stray curl between his thumb and finger. His touch snaked revulsion through her. “Who’s going to save you now, Diana?”
As her right hand poised to grab the knife, her left fisted her skirt. She took a deep breath and resolved to pull—
“Redcoat!” A shout broke the stillness of the ship. One of the sailors who had tossed her into the cabin that morning strode toward them through the shadows.
Paxton stepped back immediately.
A ragged breath of relief escaped Diana, and she sagged back against the wall, her skirt slipping through her fingers and falling back into place. At her sides, her hands flexed open and closed at the shock of what she’d been about to do. To kill a man—and not just any man, but one she’d known for almost a decade, who practically lived inside her home and one her father considered family…
But she would have done just that if he had laid one hand on her.
“It’s time,” the sailor called out. “The boat’s ready.” He leered at her and held out a leather strap and piece of cloth to Paxton. “Ye’ll find that gag t’ be a godsend wi’ her.”
“I should use the gag and strap on you, you damned idiot!” Paxton snatched them out of the man’s hand and threw them away. He took Diana’s arm, and although she fought to keep from yanking away, she couldn’t stop a shudder of disgust. “Tell the captain to get the ship ready. I want him to raise anchor and set sail the moment I return, understand?”
He led her to the railing, where a rope ladder had been draped over the side of the ship.
“Climb down,” he ordered, helping her over the rail and onto the first rung of the ladder. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She hesitated, dropping her gaze down the ladder to the rowboat waiting below, lit by a small lamp sitting on its seat.
As if reading the daring thoughts running through her mind, he reached beneath his coat and retrieved a pistol. He handed it to the sailor. “If you do anything to try to escape, he’ll shoot you.”
The man flashed a toothy grin of glee. “Aye, sir.”
Diana trembled and held tightly to the rope as she tentatively stepped down to the next rung. Then the next, and the next…one at a time, descending into the darkness toward the little boat below.
When she’d moved far enough away that she couldn’t overhear, Paxton ordered the sailor in a low mutter, “Get Kearns. Grab weapons and come behind us in the second dinghy. I want to make certain we get away with both the diary and Miss Morgan.” He added before climbing down the ladder after Diana, “And that you kill Christopher Carlisle.”
Chapter 26
Kit stood in the main room of the old boathouse. Every inch of him was alert.
Around him, the building which had once served as a customs house was dark except for the moonlight that shined through the row of windows and lit the scarred floorboards. And silent. Only the soft lapping of waves on the lower level broke the quiet, pulsing against the wide stone ledge where ship officers used to tie up the dinghies they’d rowed to shore to record manifests and settle fees before unloading their cargo.
He’d been here since nightfall, and long enough that his clothes had dried. Using the night’s first darkness for cover, he’d silently swum into the boathouse from the harbor. The sound of the waves had covered any noise as he climbed onto the ledge, collected the two pistols and a knife that he’d paid the boy to leave there for him, and made his way up the wide steps to the main floor above. Then he’d settled in to wait, marking time by the tolling of the church bell.
And thinking about Diana.
He allowed himself that small luxury of distraction when he still had several hours to wait. How could he not? He’d thought of little else but her since the night he found her at the tavern.
Oh, he’d always known how beautiful she was, how intelligent and inherently graceful, with a touch of an imperial air that had been crafted from a lifetime spent as a general’s daughter. But he’d had no idea that her outer loveliness was no match for her inner beauty, or the kindness that reached all the way down to her soul. Or how resilient she was. How utterly strong and fierce.
What still sent his head spinning, though, was that she cared about him. Him. Not the scoundrel second son he pretended to be, not even the Home Office operative he actually was. But beneath all that, she saw him as nothing more than a flawed man, yet she loved him anyway. The absolution she’d brought to him was the greatest gift he’d ever been given.
No—not absolution. Salvation. In her arms, he’d been redeemed, and he’d go to his grave a better man because of her.
But before that happened, he had one last duty to complete. He would make certain that Diana and Meri would be safe.
The sound of the water changed, and a tingle raced down his spine. His muscles tensing, he reached beneath his jacket and withdrew his pistol. Keeping it lowered at his side and pointed at the floor, he fixed his eyes on the stairs.
His ears caught the soft thud of wood against wood as oars were secured, followed by the scuffling of footsteps across the stone and the creak of the old stairs. Two dark figures appeared from the shadows.
“Paxton,” Kit called out, wanting the man to know that he was there in the darkness, expecting him. And wanting Diana to know, as well.
“Christopher!” she cried out and impulsively took a step toward him, only to be yanked back.
With one arm wrapped around her waist to hold her in front of him as a shield, Paxton pulled a knife from the scabbard at his waist and held its sharp end pointed at Diana’s chest. The blade shined in the moonlight. “One wrong move from you, Carlisle, and I will kill her.”
And Kit would shoot the man dead where he stood. His eyes not leaving Paxton, he called out to her, “Diana, are you all right?”
“Yes.” But her voice was barely above a whisper. She was terrified, and damn that bastard for making her afraid!
“Good. Just do as I say,” he assured her, “and this will all be over soon.”
She gave a jerking nod, only for Paxton to pull her back against him, drawing a gasp from her.
“You’re not surprised to see me,” Paxton mused. “You figured it out.”
Kit clenched his jaw. “Just as I discovered that you were the one who murdered James Fitch-Batten.”
“Had to. He’d learned that I’d been communicating with the French and had to be silenced, or everything I’d worked so hard to achieve would have been ruined.”
Acid formed on Kit’s tongue, and he choked down the anger rising inside him. “So you killed him before he could reveal to Whitehall that you were selling
General Morgan’s diary.”
“Oh, I was working with the French long before that,” he corrected with a dark laugh. “How do you think I knew which passage from the diary to offer them? I’ve been working with their operatives and contacts since shortly after Waterloo, along with other countries across the continent.”
“You’ve been offering up secrets to the highest bidder, you mean.”
“If there’s one thing that the wars taught me, it’s that exclusive alliances are worthless.” He smiled tightly. “Including those with England, even as part of His Majesty’s army.”
“Why do it? You were a hero in the wars.”
“I still am a hero. Just not one of ours.” He tightened his hold around Diana, and the fleeting look he darted at her when she cried out softly in fear registered exactly how much the man despised her and her family. “I did it for the same reason that Benedict Arnold switched sides in the American war.”
“Self-interest?” Kit bit out.
His jaw clenched. “Lack of recognition and no chance of being given the position I deserved. I was passed over for promotion after the Battle of Toulouse because I was a brewer’s son. But even then I still foolishly thought that I’d be recognized for my valor eventually, that I’d be given the accolades that I deserved. Then came Waterloo, yet I was rewarded with nothing. Nothing!”
“That’s not how promotions work, you know that,” Diana interjected softly. “There are only so many men who can—”
He grabbed her by the hair and yanked back her head, placing the knife at her throat. He leered at her, his face close to hers. Kit saw her eyes squeeze shut as Paxton half-panted out in anger, “The wars are over. My only chance for promotion now is by buying one. But how does a man do that when he’s surviving on an officer’s salary and not a member of the aristocracy? He’s damned from the start. That was when I decided that I had to take matters into my own hands.”
“By selling information to the enemy?” she choked out.
The terror in her voice made Kit’s hand tighten around his pistol. But in the darkness, with Diana positioned in front of Paxton like that, he couldn’t shoot without risking Diana’s life. And that he would never do.
“All kinds of wonderful information, right there at my fingertips, garnered through the general and his connections to the War Department. That’s why I went with General Morgan into the damnable countryside, into self-exile at Idlewild. Even retired, he had access to so much, which meant that I had access to it by extension. When he wrote about his experiences in the Waterloo campaign, I knew they were worth their weight in gold.”
“And you’d used a little girl and a woman in the process,” Kit interjected, wanting Paxton’s attention away from Diana.
“Lots of innocent women and little girls died in the wars,” he countered, his arm sliding around Diana’s throat to hold her pressed against him. He lowered the knife to her belly. “What difference do two more make?”
“You knew us,” Diana accused. “For God’s sake! Meri loved and trusted you.”
“You didn’t.”
His reply stirred a low warning in Kit’s gut. He heard it in the man’s voice—revenge. Suddenly, this exchange had become so much more dangerous.
“The diary,” Kit called out, again bringing Paxton’s attention back to him. He reached inside his jacket with his left hand and retrieved the diary from his breast pocket. He held it up. “Release her, and you can have it.”
“Toss it here to the floor.”
“Release her first.”
Paxton laughed. “You think I’m that stupid? She’s the only thing keeping you from killing me right now.”
All amusement vanished from his face, and he jabbed the tip of the knife into her belly. Diana gave a small scream.
“Yes, she is.” Kit calmly raised his pistol, ice water churning in his veins. “So tread very carefully.”
“Toss the diary to me,” Paxton ordered. “Once I have it, I’ll back down the stairs to the landing, then release her and row away.”
Paxton pulled her back flat against his front, so close that he rested his chin on her shoulder, his cheek against hers. She shuddered with revulsion. His eyes glinted as he stared at Kit through the shadows.
“Toss it over, Carlisle. I’m done playing.”
And Kit was out of options. Clenching his jaw, he threw the diary. It landed on the floor and slid to a stop at their feet. Carefully keeping Diana in front of him, Paxton reached down to snatch it up.
“Thank you.” Then Paxton ordered, “Kill him!”
Two men rushed up the stairs from below, pistols drawn and running straight for him.
Diana screamed, “Christopher, look out!”
But he’d seen them coming. With a flash of light, his pistol fired, and the loud explosion echoed off the stone walls. The ball caught one of the men in the thigh. He collapsed to the floor with a howl of pain.
The other sailor charged forward. Kit threw his spent pistol into the man’s face, and when the attacker threw up his arms to protect himself, Kit dove to the side. He rolled and came up onto the balls of his feet, crouched low with a knife in his right hand and a second pistol in his left. The blade flashed as he slashed it into the sailor’s leg, then dropped it clattering to the floor as he tried to wrench the pistol from the man’s hand.
Paxton grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the stairs. “This way, damn you!”
Fear spilled through her. If he managed to pull her down the stairs, nothing would stop him from rowing away with her. Nothing would stop him from killing her. Or worse.
She dropped to the ground, throwing her full weight to the floor to force him to stop.
Barely pausing in his stride, he grabbed her arm and jerked her back up to her feet, but her skirt caught on the toe of her shoe. It ripped up past her knees. With one hand, he shoved her skirt out of the way and hauled her forward, half-dragging her across the floor.
“I’d rather die than go with you!” she bit out, reaching for her leg.
As she rose upward, she slipped the knife free of its scabbard and sliced it into his arm. The metal blade cut through his coat and shirtsleeve beneath, then sank deep into his flesh.
Bellowing in pain, he released her with a shuddering jerk, and his hand reached for the bloody wound on his arm. “You bitch!”
He kicked her. The toe of his boot landed hard in her stomach, and her breath ripped from her lungs. The knife fell from her hand and clattered to the floor, beyond her grasping fingers.
His face twisted into a maniacal expression in the moonlight as he reached for her again, his teeth clenched and bared. Still desperately gulping back her breath, she didn’t have the strength to stop him this time from jerking her to her feet and pulling her toward the stairs. She stumbled helplessly beside him. Every gasping breath sent an incapacitating pain jarring straight through her, from her ribs to her spine.
“Paxton!” Kit shouted.
As he spun around to face Kit, the major pulled her in front of him, once more placing her between him and Kit’s pistol. His forearm returned to her throat to hold her still, while his other hand dove beneath his coat to pull out a gun. Instead of pointing it at Kit, he placed the tip of the barrel against her temple, and she cried out breathlessly in fear.
The two men stared at each other across the room, frozen in place. The two sailors now lay unmoving on the floor.
“Move, and I’ll kill her,” Paxton warned.
She barely heard the threat beneath the blood pounding in her ears with every heartbeat. But she saw Kit stiffen as his muscles tightened, ready to spring.
“Then I’ll kill you before you reach the stairs.”
He swung the gun toward Kit. “Not if I kill you first.”
A dark smile stretched across his face as he said quietly, “I’m already dead.”
“No,” Diana whispered, finding an untapped resolve deep inside her heart. She’d lost one man whom she’d loved. She would not
lose another.
She lowered her mouth and sank her teeth into Paxton’s wounded arm.
He howled, and his arm jerked from the fresh pain.
Diana shoved herself out of his grasp. She ran forward, desperate to reach Kit and the safety of his embrace. She looked back to see Paxton raise the pistol with an animalistic snarl, his face distorted with fury and hatred.
Arms went around her, spinning her in a fast circle—Christopher. He shielded her with his body, twisting at the waist to raise his gun and point it back at Paxton.
Two gunshots ran out in rapid succession.
Before Diana could scream, the boathouse erupted around them. The windows smashed in a shower of glass and splintered wood as half a dozen men crashed through them. The door flung open, hitting the stone wall behind it with such force that it twisted on its hinges. Lanterns blazed to light, and from all around them came the metallic click of cocking pistols.
Paxton stood frozen in place, his white face contrasting against the scarlet blood dripping onto the boards at his feet. He sank to his knees, then fell forward onto his face. Dead.
Behind him at the top of the stairs stood Garrett. Smoke curled from the end of his spent pistol.
“But there were two shots.” In confusion, Diana turned toward Kit and placed her hand on his upper arm, the same arm from which he held his pistol, still loaded and unfired. “If you didn’t shoot, who did?”
Then she felt it…a sticky, wet warmth spreading beneath her fingertips as she clutched his arm. She stared up at him, her lips parting in sudden panic.
His face was hard, but his color was paling. Beads of perspiration broke out across his forehead.
“Diana,” he whispered, dropping the pistol to the floor with a clatter.
“Christopher!”
Her arms went around him as he began to sway, catching him as his knees buckled. Using all of her strength, she lowered him gently to the floor. The blood from his arm blossomed like a red flower through his jacket sleeve.
“He’s been shot,” she cried out to Garrett as he rushed forward. “Send for a surgeon—now!”
After the Spy Seduces Page 25
