by Kate Bateman
He was about to stand when a scruffy figure sidled up to the table, and he raised his brows as he recognized the newcomer. Jem Barnes wiped his nose on his sleeve and gave an eloquent sniff.
“Evenin’, all.” He nodded at Ben, Seb, and Alex, cast the briefest look at Georgie, and added, “Miss.”
Ben snorted. So much for her disguise. Nothing got past a sharp one like Jem. “What are you doing here?”
The scruffy lad hiked up his trousers, which seemed to be held up with gardener’s twine. “I been following Johnstone, just like you said, guv.”
“Then you’ll know he’s in Bow Street. I hope you don’t think you’re getting paid for telling me that.”
Jem shook his shaggy head. “No! That’s what I come to tell you. You ain’t got ’im.”
“I saw him myself in the cells,” Alex said.
“No, you ain’t. Your boys scooped up the wrong man. They arrested Fergus Johnstone, ’is cousin. He’s the coxswain. They look almost identical.”
Ben and Alex shared a glance. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I went to Bow Street meself, pretendin’ to take ’im a meal. It’s Fergus, all right.”
“So where’s Tom Johnstone, then?”
“A brothel in Covent Garden. With three of ’Ammond’s old crew.” He glanced at Benedict. “You know ’em. Shadwell, Finnegan, and Daws. They all dodged the Gravesend raid.”
Benedict cursed under his breath. Those three had been the most vicious cutthroats in the smuggling gang.
“Johnstone thinks he’s safe, seeing as you think you’ve got ’im locked up,” Jem continued. “’E’s coming to move that boat.”
“Johnstone’s on his way to launch the sub tonight?” Alex repeated.
“That’s what I said, ain’t it? You got about ’arf an hour, maybe less. They wants to catch the tide.”
Benedict blew out a breath. “Good job, Jem.”
He reached into his pocket and pressed a gold sovereign into the boy’s grubby palm. The cheeky blighter had the audacity to test it between his teeth before he slipped it into his pocket. He caught Seb’s look of astonishment and sent him a gap-toothed smile. “Can’t be too careful, can yer? Not wiv all these crooks and coiners around, eh?”
Benedict glanced at his colleagues. “Ambush?”
Two sets of eyes twinkled in anticipation. “Oh yes.”
He glanced at Georgie and his stomach pitched. Bloody hell. He’d never intended to involve her in anything so risky. He needed to get her out of here. “Perhaps we should come back another night.”
Three sets of eyes glared at him in astonishment.
“And let Johnstone get away with the submarine?” Georgie growled. She sent him a scornful look that clearly maligned his manhood. “Never. Stop worrying about me, Wylde, and let’s get in there while we still have time.”
Her cheeks were pink, her eyes flashed sparks, and he wanted to grab the back of her neck and kiss some sense into her, the stubborn, headstrong wretch. She raised her brows at him in silent challenge, and her obstinate expression was indicative of an iron will behind that velvet facade.
“I do hope you’re not going to forbid me from coming,” she said, her voice flinty. “Might I remind you that I am the only one here who knows how to sail?” She crossed her arms over her chest as if that settled the matter. Which, in truth, it did.
Alex snorted in amusement and tried to disguise it as a cough.
“Have I mentioned how much I approve of your wife, Benedict?” Seb drawled.
Georgie sent him a sunny smile.
Benedict sighed in defeat. If they worked quickly, they could be out of there before Johnstone arrived. “All right. Jem, can you act as a lookout?”
“Aye-aye.”
As the five of them crossed the road and headed for the shadowed warehouse, Ben caught Alex’s eye. “Take one more look at her arse in those breeches and I’ll flatten you,” he muttered.
Alex shot him a wicked grin. “Can’t blame a man for looking. Not when the merchandise is so appealing. I’m just appreciating your excellent taste.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. Alex clapped him on the shoulder. “Easy!” He laughed. “Jealousy does not become you, my friend.”
“Maybe one day you’ll get yourself a wife, and then we’ll see what you think of another man eyeing her up.”
Alex shuddered theatrically. “Me, a wife? Never.”
Leaving Jem at the front to keep watch, they slipped into the side alley. Seb and Alex climbed through the same window he and Georgie had used. Benedict caught her around the waist and hiked her up onto the barrel below the window. He meant to let her go, but the feel of her tiny waist beneath his hands turned his brain to mush. Driven purely by instinct, he tugged her forward, and when she planted her hands on his shoulders, he took advantage of her momentary imbalance to capture her mouth.
There was nothing sweet or chivalrous about his kiss. It was hard, brazen, lusty. An unmistakable statement of intent. After an instant of shock, she wrapped her slim arms around his neck and kissed him back greedily, as if she couldn’t get enough of him. His legs almost buckled. He craved her, when he’d never craved anyone or anything before. “Georgie,” he groaned. “You’re killing me.”
Her mouth pressed eagerly to his, warm and delicious.
A laughing cough came from inside the warehouse. “Are you two coming, or shall Alex and I do this on our own?”
He pulled away reluctantly, his legs unsteady and his heart pounding in his chest. “In you go.” She turned on the barrel—which just positioned her delectable arse tantalizingly close to his face. Pure torture. Later, he promised himself. When all this was done, he’d take her back to the Tricorn and make love to her for hours. Days. Weeks.
The warehouse smelled of sawdust and tar, turpentine—and the unmistakable tang of fresh gunpowder. Benedict frowned. He shouldn’t be able to smell that. There was no way the barrels he’d dampened could have dried out in just a few days. He strode across to the stack and flicked back the oilcloth. “Bollocks.”
Alex materialized out of the shadows, silent as a cat. “What is it?”
“Johnstone’s taken a new delivery of gunpowder. I ruined the last lot.”
“Good thing none of us smokes, then, isn’t it?” Seb added dryly.
They unlatched the double doors at the far end of the warehouse and slid them aside to reveal a slanted wooden slipway that disappeared into the dark water. The tide was fully up, lapping hungrily only a few feet from the top of the ramp. Intermittent moonlight glimmered on the murky water as the boats moored along the sides of the small harbor creaked and rocked on their ropes.
Georgie came to stand beside him. “We have a problem. The hull still hasn’t been sealed with tar. It’ll float, but the gaps between the planks will let in water.”
“How much water?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, Johnstone was obviously going to risk it. Let’s get it in there and see if it sinks.”
Benedict took hold of one of the mooring ropes attached to the boat’s hull while Alex and Seb kicked away the wooden chocks that had prevented it from running along the metal launch rails. With a wooden groan of protest, the small vessel started to move, sliding down the angled slipway exactly as it had been designed to do, gathering speed until it entered the opaque brown water with a splash.
All four of them stood and looked at it.
“It floats,” Alex said.
“I feel like we should give it a name,” Seb added. “All ships need a name, don’t they?”
Benedict smiled. “The Georgiana.” He tugged on the rope so the vessel floated parallel to the ramp and clasped Georgie’s hand. “Care to hop aboard, Mrs. Wylde?” When she nodded, he picked her up as if she were weightless and deposited her on the rocking deck. She crawled over to the hatch and peered down into the dark interior. “I can’t see anything. Can you pass me a lantern?”
Alex produced a tinder b
ox from his pocket and lit one of the paraffin lamps on the workbench.
“There’s a slow leak,” she confirmed, “but we should make it to Woolwich without sinking.” She handed the lantern back to Ben, who extinguished it.
A sudden flurry of movement had them all glancing toward the side window. Jem dropped through the casement and landed in a scruffy heap on the floor. “Time’s up, gents,” he wheezed. “Johnstone’s ’ere. Look sharp!”
Benedict beckoned him over. “Quick! Get into the sub.”
The boy shied away. “No chance. I’m like a cat, me. I ’ates the water.”
Judging from the layers of grime on his face, that statement was probably true. The boy looked like he even avoided washing with the stuff.
“Can’t you swim?”
“No.”
Ben sighed. “Well, hide yourself somewhere, then, quickly.” He secured the rope to a metal cleat on the ramp and glanced up at Georgie. “You, get inside and stay down until we’ve dealt with Johnstone.”
Chapter 40.
Georgie’s heart was hammering in alarm, but she did as she was told. She dropped through the narrow opening and landed in the shallow puddle of water that had already seeped into the boat. Unable to bear not knowing what was happening, she peered out through the tiny circular porthole at the front of the funnel.
Alex took up position by the front window. Benedict and Jem hid behind a workbench, and Seb ducked behind a pile of lumber near the stack of barrels. Footsteps crunched outside and Seb tilted his head in silent warning. To Georgie’s shock, all three of the men withdrew pistols from their clothing and exchanged nods of anticipation. Her heart lodged in her throat.
After an agonizing wait, a key scraped in the lock and the door to the warehouse swung open. Four men stepped through the narrow doorway, one holding a lantern aloft to light the way. There was a moment of ominous silence as they registered that the submarine had been launched, then murmurs of outraged disbelief.
The foremost man, a hulking figure with bushy ginger sideburns—presumably the elusive Tom Johnstone—bellowed. “O’Meara? You in ’ere?”
All four of the men peered around suspiciously. As one, they reached into their clothing and produced weapons: two pistols, two knives.
“I’m afraid not,” Alex drawled. He stood, his pistol aimed at the nearest man. “You’ll just have to make do with us.”
All four swiveled toward him, and Georgie let out an involuntary cry as a cacophony of shots rang out, seemingly from every direction. Shouts and howls echoed around the walls as the flash of muzzle fire and puffs of smoke added to the general confusion.
She could barely see anything in the shadowy darkness, but caught a glimpse of Benedict throwing down his spent pistol and launching himself at Johnstone, just as Alex pounced on another man. The four of them started punching and wrestling viciously, like the sailors she’d seen once outside a tavern in Blackwall, brawling over a tart.
She gasped as a knife blade glinted in the moonlight. The awful scuffle of grunts and thuds, the sickening sound of fists hitting flesh, made her stomach churn.
One of the men had fallen to the floor and lay ominously still, sprawled in a pile of sawdust and wood shavings. Another had dived for cover behind a stacked pile of wood, but he’d hardly crawled there when Seb loomed out of the darkness and dealt him a vicious kick to the ribs then hauled him up by the collar and punched him across the jaw. The man slumped down just as Benedict threw Johnstone against one of the workbenches with an almighty crash of metal and wood. Johnstone shouted in pain and renewed his attack, and it was then that Georgie noticed the flames.
The lamp had shattered as the first man hit the ground, and now the acrid scent of burning filled her nose. A wicked streak of flame snaked along the trickle of paraffin on the floor and set alight a bucket and paint brushes covered in tar. The whole thing caught with a wicked whoosh!
Seb rushed forward, scooped up the pail, and tossed it into the water next to the sub, but the burning paraffin had splashed liberally in several other places. Flames leapt, eagerly finding fuel in the wood shavings, oil cloth, and hemp ropes scattered around. Soon smoke, thick and black, began to fill the space, and Georgie poked her head out from the submarine in panic. “Get out of there!” she shrieked. “The gunpowder!”
Jem broke cover from behind one of the benches and darted toward the gangway, his fear of the flames apparently overcoming his dislike of the water. Georgie hauled herself out onto the deck and tried to maneuver the vessel closer to the side so the boy could climb aboard. She reached out her hand to help him just as the boat shifted away on the skittish tide.
Jem teetered on the edge of the sloping boards. He took a desperate leap toward the front of the boat but missed her outstretched hand. His fingers clawed the front of the deck, but there was nothing for him to hold on to, and with a strangled shriek, he fell into the water. Georgie threw herself flat on her stomach and reached out over the water as far as she could, trying to grab him as he splashed about. For a moment she thought she could get him, but then his head disappeared beneath the muddy water.
“Jem!” she screamed.
He surfaced a few feet from the side of the boat, and she caught sight of his face, white with terror. His arms clawed upward as if he were climbing an invisible ladder, and his mouth opened in a silent scream. Georgie stood, about to leap into the water, when Seb appeared from the smoky warehouse.
“Help him! He can’t swim!”
Seb saw Jem flailing and leapt into the water, but as soon as he got near Jem, the boy threw his arms around his neck and they both went under. Seb pushed the grasping hands away and dealt him a sharp blow across the face, and before Jem could react, he grabbed him by the collar and started towing him toward the dockside.
“Kick your legs,” he ordered harshly.
Georgie let out a sob of relief as Seb managed to drag the flailing boy to the set of wooden steps and haul him out of the water, coughing and spluttering.
Jem’s mishap had distracted her from the commotion in the warehouse. She turned, searching frantically for Benedict through the choking smoke that was now billowing out of the double doors.
“Get going!” Seb shouted. He raced down the side of the wharf to the wooden gates that opened out onto the main body of the river and started turning the handle. The iron cogs groaned against the press of the incoming tide, but the gates gradually opened and a swirl of brown water swept in, making the little vessel pitch and toss.
Georgie grabbed the knife in her boot and hacked through the rope that restrained the sub. She saw Alex drop through the side window of the warehouse and stagger down the alley, and then Benedict lumbered onto the gangway.
The sub had already floated to the middle of the dock, out of reach, drawn by the irresistible pull of the tide. Benedict shook his head and sent her a teasing smile across the eddying water that separated them. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Before she could tell him that she had no way of steering the vessel any closer, he stripped off his jacket, tossed it aside, and waded down the jetty into the water. “Bloody hell, that’s cold!”
“What are you doing, you imbecile?” she screeched.
He ignored her, and when the water was up to his thighs, he launched himself forward and began to swim toward her with strong, athletic strokes. When he reached the side of the vessel, he caught the dangling end of rope and hauled himself up. Georgie grabbed the back of his breeches and tugged until he landed, panting and sodden, on the deck. His formidable build seemed to take up most of the available space.
He rolled over onto his back and let out a breathless groan that was half laugh, half pain. “No adventures without me, Mrs. Wylde. Is that understood?”
She sent him a chiding frown for doing something so risky.
“Now, how do we sail this thing?”
Georgie sprang into action. She raised the sail and swung the boom arou
nd so the cloth caught the breeze, then took the tiller and turned the bow so they faced the open water gate. She glanced up at Benedict, who had risen to his feet and was looking back at the burning warehouse with a satisfied expression.
“Where’s Johnstone?” she asked uneasily. “Is he still in there?”
Benedict’s jaw hardened. “I don’t know. Shadwell and Daws are both dead, but Johnstone managed to slip away. I don’t know what happened to Finnegan.”
As if in answer to that, a hulking figure emerged from the rear doors of the smoking warehouse. In the blink of an eye, Georgie saw him raise a rifle to his shoulder and aim it directly at her chest. She choked out a cry of alarm at the same moment Benedict threw himself in front of her. The gun discharged with a crack. Benedict’s staggering weight almost pitched them both over the side, and he gave a grunted curse as they fell to their knees on the deck. When he pulled back, a red bloom was seeping through the white of his shirt, near his shoulder.
“Benedict, you’ve been shot!”
He clapped his hand to his arm and glanced furiously back at the warehouse. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” He pushed down hard on the back of her head. “Keep down.”
The gunman, Finnegan, had managed to reload. Georgie saw Seb sprinting back along the dock to intercept him, but Finnegan lowered his head and aimed again. The crack of another shot echoed over the water and she ducked instinctively, but it pinged against the side of the ship with a spray of wooden splinters. Seb leapt toward Finnegan and took him to the ground just as series of mighty explosions tore through the warehouse.
Windows shattered, and an enormous fireball billowed into the sky as the gunpowder barrels exploded in a chain reaction of sound. Georgie felt a flash of heat against her face and then debris rained down, splashing into the water all around them. For some bizarre reason, all she could think of was the story of Guy Fawkes and his plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
