“Ye’ll not leave us! Please, please!”
I won’t be taken. Just thinking about what she would endure if that happened made Beth shake like a blancmange inside. I can’t endure it. Never, never.
They were just a couple of paces from the edge of the water. She must needs kick off her shoes and untie the domino . . .
The metallic screeching from the top of the stairs was so loud now that it almost drowned out the other women’s frantic voices. Its increasing volume underlined that they had only precious minutes or even seconds left in which to escape.
The water gleamed black before her. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Mary, her mouth moving in a plea that the pounding of Beth’s pulse in her ears would no longer allow her to hear, and the faces of the others, too. Terrified faces . . .
Terrified, just as she was terrified.
Fear tasted like vinegar on Beth’s tongue. The temptation was almost overwhelming. But to leave them without any protection at all, to abandon them to their fates while she saved herself, was something she discovered she just could not do.
Swallowing, squaring her shoulders, she dug in her heels hard just one small step away from the water’s edge. When the housebreaker looked back at her inquiringly, she shook her head.
“I can’t go without them.” Her voice was hoarse, raw.
“What? Oh, yes, you can.” His hand tightened on her arm, and she realized that he was about to pull her into the water by force majeure if necessary. “When we reach safety, we can send the constable back for them. He should arrive in time to—”
“No.” Beth wrenched her arm free and leaped away from him to the accompaniment of what sounded like a collective female moan of relief. He would not leave without her, they all knew, although why that was so she wasn’t quite sure. Her thoughts flew to that stolen kiss. Was he helping her escape only to secure her for himself? She didn’t know—but he was helping her, and for now that was enough. His motive she would worry about later. Clearly the others’ fear wasn’t so much that she would leave them, but that he would. They looked at him as the best source of protection they had. She remembered the knife, flying out of nowhere to lodge in the throat of the huge man who was choking her. Remembered, too, how he had dealt so handily with William, and realized they were right. He was strong and able, handy with his fives and, if the knife was any indication, with weapons, too. But he would be so badly outnumbered . . .
“Damn it to hell and back, we’ve no time for this folly. That door will not hold forever.” The housebreaker’s ire was evident in his tone as he advanced on her. Surrounded by the others, who fell back with her, Beth backed away. Even as their voices swirled around her unheeded, she held his gaze. He was clearly angry, clearly bent on imposing his will on her. She’d had personal experience with his strength, and had no doubt that she stood little chance of withstanding him if he chose to simply pick her up and bear her off. First, though, he had to lay hands on her again.
A sudden sharp pop and a triumphant male cry punctuated the terrifying groans of metal being systematically pulled apart.
Heart in throat, Beth glanced back toward the stairs.
“They’re breaking through,” Mary gasped. Some of the others clutched at Beth, their expressions fearful.
“What do we do? What should we do?”
Making a harsh sound under his breath, the housebreaker reached Beth with a single stride that was far longer and swifter than anything she had foreseen and caught her by both arms, frowning down at her. His hands were large and incredibly strong, and he held her in a grip that this time she knew she couldn’t break. The others fell back a little, looking from one to the other of them with both fear and indecision plain in their faces.
Beth knew what they were thinking very well: Should they attack the man they hoped would help save them? From their expressions, she could see the answer was clearly no.
“Let me go.” Beth had visions of being borne away into the water willy-nilly, and scowled right back at him. “If you force me, I’ll not swim a stroke.”
“Please, sir . . . ”
“Help us.”
“Oh, please.”
“We be beggin’ ye.”
As the chorus of pleas continued disregarded around them, his eyes took on a dangerous gleam as they bored into hers. His mouth thinned and his jaw hardened to granite. His grip tightened cruelly, and he pulled her up onto her toes while Beth stared right back at him with undeterred defiance.
“I mean what I say,” she told him.
After a brace of seconds in which the issue hung in the balance, some of the hardness left his eyes and his mouth twisted into a wry sort of grimace. His grip eased. He glanced around at the women, who were now gathered in a circle around them both. One tugged at his sleeve, another laid a beseeching hand on his arm; all implored him with their eyes as well as their voices. Watching his face, Beth got the impression that he was, at the very least, wishing them all at Jericho.
“God save me from all bloody women.” His tone was harsh, but Beth recognized the words as capitulation and felt a rush of relief. His hold on her loosened enough so that she was once again standing flat on the beach. She smiled at him. He did not smile back. It didn’t matter. Though he was obviously less than pleased with the prospect, she knew he would do what he could to help them withstand their pursuers, who were, from the sound of it, in the last stages of tearing the door from the wall. But would it be enough? Not likely. He was only one man, after all. But if they all worked together, perhaps . . .
“We can help you fight them off,” she said, and the others chimed in eagerly.
“There be rocks . . . ”
“We can throw sand in their eyes when they gets close.”
“Sand? I’ll scratch their bleedin’ eyes out for ’em, I will.”
“Rocks and sand against guns? We must—”
“No.” He sent a quelling glance around. “If you lot want to help, then you’ll do what I damned well tell you. Nothing more, nothing less.” His eyes gleamed blacker even than the nearby water as he looked down at Beth again. As she met them she was suddenly, forcefully put in mind of a predator. “That goes especially for you, my girl. Do I have your word that you’ll do exactly as I say?”
“Yes,” she promised.
There was a change in him that she couldn’t quite pinpoint. It was too dark for her to read the fine points of his expression, but he seemed now to emanate a savage energy that spoke more of beast than man. His hands had tightened on her arms again, and she was perfectly sure that unless he chose to release her, she wouldn’t be able to get away.
“Then hide, damn it. All of you. Now. Get down behind the rocks and stay there. Keep your heads down. Do not make a sound. Do not come out until I come for you. Do you understand?” His eyes were on Beth.
“Yes.” Beth answered along with the rest.
“Go, then.” Releasing her, he made an imperious gesture that sent them rushing away.
Beth ran with the others toward the clumps of rocks that rose perhaps hip-high from the sand. Even as the women split up into groups of different sizes to accommodate the sizes of the rocks they crouched behind, another sharp pop followed by a victorious yell and, within seconds, the dull thud of boots pounding on stone told Beth that their pursuers had broken through at last, and were rushing down the stairwell toward them.
Oh, no.
Her heart leaped into her throat. Her gaze fastened on the mouth of the stairwell.
“Ayee.” The soft cry came from the apple-cheeked brunette, who immediately clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle further utterance. Along with Mary, she was hunkered down with Beth. No one else made a sound, but the fear in the air was as palpable as the smell of the sea.
Swallowing hard, Beth searched the shadowy darkness for the housebreaker. There he was, running flat-out toward the stairwell. Her eyes widened in disbelief. What was he thinking, to race straight toward a charging force that was bot
h numerically superior and presumably well armed? Beth’s stomach tightened in fear and guilt. Were it not for her refusal to leave the others, he would be well on his way to safety now. He alone faced death if they were overrun. She had not realized until now that her actions were putting him so dreadfully at risk.
Please, God . . . She sent a hasty prayer for his safety winging skyward.
“There ’e is!” a man shouted as the group burst from the stairwell in an untidy knot. “Shoot ’im! Shoot ’im!”
The sharp bang of a pistol caused them all to duck. Beth swallowed a cry. She suspected the others did, too.
Then the cave exploded into a firestorm of gunfire. Cowering behind the rock, Beth covered her head with her arms. Shouts and screams of pain and the sounds of running feet mingled with the gunfire, the whole so loud that it was almost impossible to discern any individual sound. Heart racing, occasionally peeking around the rock because she absolutely could not help herself, Beth saw dark shapes racing about and bright flashes as the pistols were fired, and little more. It was a battle of shadows veiled by night, and the fine points of it were impossible to discern.
But she was sore afraid that she knew what the outcome had to be.
Glancing compulsively over her shoulder at the water as the battle raged, she recognized something lowering about herself: if the moment were truly at hand, if it came to the point where they were to be retaken, she would save herself after all, plunging into the water and swimming for all she was worth.
I am a coward.
But she couldn’t help it. The other prospect was too dreadful to be borne.
Silence, when it fell, was absolute. Suddenly there was nothing at all beyond the ringing in her ears.
After a moment or so of this, the women stirred restively. Beth felt the brush of nervous movement on either side even as she dared raise her head above the rock for another quick look. It was so dark. She could see nothing—nothing moving—at all. Her heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest as she strained to see through the dark.
“Wot’s ’appened?”
“Do ye see ought?”
The other women, she saw with a glance, were peering around the rocks, too.
“I can’t see anything.” Beth squinted as she searched the shadows near the stairwell. Where were their pursuers? Where was he? She could see no one at all, not a single solitary soul, and that was growing increasingly terrifying. “We must stay hidden, and be very quiet until we—”
A footstep crunched behind them. Gasping, head whipping toward the sound, Beth jumped like she’d been shot.
The housebreaker stood there. A tall, imposing figure in his long greatcoat, he thrust a pistol into his waistband and looked up as her gaze found him. His face was in shadow, but the savage energy she had sensed in him earlier seemed to have lessened.
Beth felt a flood of relief.
“You’re alive.” Standing, she hurried toward him. That she was glad showed in her voice and the beaming smile with which she met his narrowed gaze.
“Did you doubt I would be?” He caught her arms again, his hands warm and strong but surprisingly gentle now as they curled just above her elbows. His eyes slid over her face.
“Perhaps. Just a trifle,” she admitted, still smiling up at him. Her hands came to rest on his chest, and she absently noted the smooth texture of the waistcoat he wore, and the width of his chest in relationship to her hands. “Though I’m very glad to be wrong, of course.”
“Are you indeed?” His voice was dry.
The others reached them in a flurry of footsteps, swishing skirts and questions.
“Did they hare off, then?”
“Wot ’appened?”
“Be we saved?”
“Is there a way out?”
“What do we do now?”
“Where’d the buggers go?”
“Never tell us you’ve single-handedly slain the lot?” The tone of Beth’s question was less than serious, because she didn’t see how that could be possible. What was likely, in her opinion, was that their pursuers had fled upon encountering determined opposition.
A twist of his lips was her only reply.
“We’ve not much time.” He glanced around the group. “The gunshots will have been heard, you may be sure, and someone will come to investigate. Did one of you say you saw a boat inside the cellar?”
“I did.” The speaker was the girl with fuzzy brown ringlets in the stained white dress. “It was lying against the wall in the last chamber before we came down the stairs.”
“We must needs fetch it.” Releasing Beth, he turned away, speaking over his shoulder. “As quickly and quietly as we can. I may require your help to get it down the stairs.”
They all rushed after him. As they ran toward the stairwell, Beth spied a dark shape in the sand that hadn’t been there before, and recognized it for what it was with a quiver of dismay: a man, lying prone. Not a foot away lay another. This one was on his back. Yet another lay curled on his side, a growing dark circle spreading through the sand around his head. None of them so much as twitched a finger.
“Be they dead, d’ye think?” Mary asked, her voice low. She was at Beth’s elbow.
“I don’t know,” Beth replied.
“They look dead to me,” the apple-cheeked girl murmured from Beth’s other side.
“Cor, ’e did for ’em all,” Mary breathed, awe in her tone. “All by ’is lonesome, like.”
Glancing around, following the direction of Mary’s gaze, Beth saw that she appeared to be right. Three more bodies were scattered around the curve of the inlet. Until now, they had been hidden by the dark. That meant six motionless bodies in all lay on the beach.
Dead? If some amongst them were not, from the look of them they were close enough as to make no difference.
Beth’s breath caught in her throat. A cold little thrill of horror snaked all the way down her spine from her nape to her toes. Widened and wary, her eyes sought the housebreaker’s broad-shouldered form as he disappeared into the stairwell. She could not be sorry she and the others were saved, of course, but it was terrible to realize he had indeed almost certainly killed six men. Plus the giant above stairs.
Seven. Single-handedly. Without apparent compunction.
What manner of man is this?
That was the appalled thought that twisted through her mind even as she and the others ran after him up the stairs.
Chapter Fourteen
THE BOAT WAS a small open rowboat, probably intended to be occupied only by two and certainly no more than four. It was old and creaky, and looked barely seaworthy, but it had oars and it floated under all their weight, which as far as Beth was concerned was all that was required of it. Piling aboard under the housebreaker’s terse direction, they managed to cram themselves in. Pulling off his boots and greatcoat and thrusting them at Beth for safekeeping, he pushed them out and then jumped aboard himself. Now he sat in the forward seat facing them as he rowed, sopping wet from the knees down, his long legs in their black pantaloons and white stockings stretching out almost to the aft seat. The rest of them crowded together, filling the boat to overflowing, wincing at every dip of the bow and groan of the wood. They were huddled on the floor of the boat, crammed together on the aft seat, wedged in at the stern, in quarters so tight that it was almost impossible to move. The boat rode dangerously low in the water, but with the inlet as smooth as it was their progress was swift. The housebreaker worked the oars with a will. They had almost reached the mouth of the cave when another band of men spilled out of the stairwell.
Beth heard them before she saw them. The hum of excited voices, the drumbeat of running feet, were loud enough to be audible even over the slap of the oars and the disjointed conversations and rustling movements around her. Her heart, which had been slowing down to a near-normal pace, recommenced thumping wildly. Curled in a cold puddle in the bottom of the boat beside the housebreaker’s left leg (Mary was crunched near his right leg,
and his boots, standing upright, took pride of place between his knees), Beth felt him stiffen even as she cringed at the unmistakable sounds of the chase being taken up anew. With fresh fear in her eyes, she glanced back at the beach they were steadily leaving behind just in time to watch as a running clump of men burst into view.
“Hell and the devil.” The housebreaker’s muttered imprecation told her that he saw them, too. The muscles of the thigh against which she leaned tightened, and he began to row with even more vigor than before.
There were indrawn breaths and murmurs of fright and warning as the others saw the men. Beth could not tell how many there were. Only that a number of faceless pursuers were now on the beach—and had spotted the small boat scudding through the mirrorlike water toward the mouth of the cave.
One pointed. “Look at that!”
“There they go!”
“Don’t let ’em get away!”
Their shouts made her shiver.
A pistol spat toward them with a bright yellow flash. The sound exploded off the walls of the cave, the volume amplified by the enclosed space. That shot was immediately followed by another and yet a third. Beth saw a white spurt in the dark water as a ball skimmed the surface not a yard off the starboard side, and ducked, pulling the silken folds of the domino closer around her as if the garment could somehow protect her.
“Keep down!” the housebreaker roared, but they needed no warning. Huddled into a frightened mass now, holding on to each other and the boat for dear life, those at the rear sheltering under his greatcoat, which they shared, the women got as low as they could as a volley of gunfire rattled down around them. Beth could feel the tension in his muscles as he feverishly worked the single set of oars. Fear stabbed her as she realized that he could not follow his own advice and still row. Whatever he was—and she was still trying to reconcile her instinctive trust of him with the fact that he had so easily and without apparent remorse killed so many, and broken into her brother-in-law’s house for an unknown but certainly unlawful purpose besides—she did not wish him to be hurt, or killed, and sitting upright in the midst of a firestorm of bullets seemed a good way to accomplish both.
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