by Jane Ashford
“Where are we?” asked Laura.
The emotion Gavin had been holding in check burst out in sheer rage. “We are locked in a small room in a back slum, where we would not be if you were not an utter fool.”
She drew in a breath.
Gavin didn’t give her time to speak. “How could you go off alone to that scoundrel’s house? Telling no one what you meant to do, putting yourself helplessly into the hands of—”
“I sent Annalise for you!”
“Having no idea where I was or when she might find me.” She deserved the wounding sarcasm in his voice, Gavin thought. No woman—no one—had ever frightened him as she had today.
“You came alone,” she accused.
She was impossible, he thought savagely. “I have the experience to deal with such people!”
Laura looked around the room and then back at him as if to point out that they were both captives.
Gavin clenched his fists, which reminded him of the ropes that still confined him. He started to pull at one of the knots with his teeth.
“I could untie that for you,” said Laura.
“I can do it!”
“I’m sure you can, but why gnaw at it when I could do it more easily?”
If she were anyone else, he’d throttle her, Gavin decided.
“Here,” said Laura.
She was at his side in an instant, and when her fingers touched his wrists, Gavin felt as if the breath had been knocked out of him. The delicate brushes of her fingertips as she struggled with the bonds were as arousing as intimate caresses. “You seem fated to untie me,” he said a bit unevenly.
This reminder of their imprisonment on the ship brought a tinge of rose to her complexion. She kept her eyes on her task.
Gavin’s gaze followed the curve of her eyelids, with their fringe of dark lashes, and dropped to her cheek and then to her lips—slightly pursed in concentration. He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t break away. Something irresistible pulled his head down closer; he was determined to take those lips for his own.
“There.”
In the same instant, the ropes fell away from his wrists and Laura looked up. He had come so close that her lips softly brushed his, a brief galvanizing touch, like a butterfly’s wing dipped in fire. Her startled gaze met his; her lips were still tantalizingly parted.
Gavin could feel her breath on his lips. His pulse pounded in his temples. He had never wanted anything as much as he wanted her, he thought.
She took a step back, retreating from whatever she saw in his gaze.
He grasped her hands to keep her near. “I must free you,” he murmured, sliding his fingertips over hers and up to her wrists.
The quickened rise and fall of her chest gratified him amazingly. He began to work at the ropes, taking his time, letting his fingers stray over her forearms, the smooth skin of her hands. When at last the bonds fell away, he caressed the scrapes they left behind, lacing his fingers around her wrist. “Are you all right?” he whispered.
The expression she gave him was so filled with longing that he could wait no longer. He stepped close, to take what was his.
Outside the locked door, there was a hoarse, deep cough.
The sound struck Gavin like a whiplash. Of course they had left a guard, he thought. What was wrong with him? He had never, in all the years he had worked for the British government and with all the pleasant dalliances he had fitted into those years, so forgotten himself in the midst of a mission.
He stepped back, still damnably aroused but now outraged as well. Any slip would put Laura in danger, too. It wasn’t only himself he risked. Had he gone mad, to be thinking of…?
Gavin moved farther away from her. His eyes fell on the chair. Picking it up, he jammed the back under the doorknob, bracing it firmly. When he turned back, Laura was watching him. “I don’t like people entering my room uninvited,” he said. It sounded curt, Gavin thought, but he couldn’t help it.
“There is a guard.”
It wasn’t a question. He simply nodded, then went to check the windows again. It was a long fall to the street.
“How shall we escape?” Laura asked.
She had come up behind him to look over his shoulder. Gavin moved away. “I’ll think of something.”
“I must get back to Mr. Tompkins. I have figured out what—”
“You might have thought of that before you went wandering off on your own,” he cut in. She seemed to have no understanding of how hard it was to be near her.
Laura’s eyes flared. She shut her mouth firmly and went to sit on the bed.
“That is probably full of fleas,” Gavin informed her and watched her jump up again with savage satisfaction. So she wanted an adventure, did she? How would she like crawling on her belly through freezing mud, infested with a small army of such vermin, as he had done in Persia?
But the image offered him no gratification. He wanted her safe, he thought. He wanted her far away from blackguards like Slanski and vixens like Sophie Krelov. He wanted her…
Gavin turned to the door and examined it more closely. It was suspiciously sturdy for such a building. No doubt it was new. He would not be able to kick it in and overpower the man who waited outside.
“Perhaps they don’t mean to kill us after all,” said Laura. “If they keep us locked up until—”
“I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Sophie will be reluctant to kill you, at least.”
Gavin continued his survey of the walls. “Why should she be?”
“Well…when one has been…that is…when there have been such intimacies…” she stammered to a stop.
Gavin frowned at her. “What the deuce are you muttering about?”
Laura stood straighter. “Sophie mentioned…that is, she told me that you had…she was…”
“What?”
“That you were lovers!” she blurted out. “She may wish to kill me, but surely she will not—”
“Sophie cares no more for her lovers than a black widow spider.”
The look he got in response startled him. It seemed positively despairing.
“And in any case, we were never lovers. I managed to evade that particular sacrifice for my country—barely.”
“You didn’t…?”
Something in her face dissipated all Gavin’s remaining anger. “No,” he said very clearly.
“But she told me things. She said you…” Breaking off, Laura looked at the floor.
Was it relief he saw in her expression? Sophie was a bitch, Gavin thought. But for some reason, he felt almost grateful to her in that moment. “The countess has a variety of…experience. I’m sure she was able to make up something convincing.”
“She wanted to divide us,” murmured Laura.
Gavin had to strain to hear it. She spoke as if it was a thought she had had before, but hadn’t dared believe. His pulse was speeding up again, he realized. He couldn’t afford that. “I’m certain they are only waiting for a convenient time to dispose of us. We mustn’t allow them the opportunity.”
As soon as he said it, he regretted his bluntness, but Laura simply nodded. “What shall we do? We could rip up the pallet cover and make a rope.”
“It wouldn’t be long enough.”
“Oh. No.” She looked around the room.
“It wouldn’t reach the ground,” he added meditatively.
She turned to him again.
“But it might—”
“To a lower floor!”
Her mind was remarkably quick, he thought. She was already reaching for the cloth that covered the straw of the pallet, ready to dare the fleas. Then she drew it back. “Will they hear it ripping?” she whispered.
Amazingly quick, he thought. “Can you manage it? I will distract them.”
“Ce
rtainly. I don’t suppose you have a penknife?”
“They took everything from my pockets.”
Laura nodded, and without further conversation, she lifted the dusty fabric and tore a beginning rent with her teeth.
Surprise and admiration held Gavin immobile for a moment. But when she threw him a questioning look, he went at once to the door and began to pound on it and shout, effectively covering the sound of cloth tearing. There was no other woman like her in the world, he thought.
Some minutes later, Gavin felt a tap on his shoulder. Looking back, he saw that the pallet had been reduced to a pile of dusty straw and a number of long strips of cloth. Adding a curse and a sharp kick on the door for good measure, he abandoned his distraction and went to kneel beside these materials. “We will have to wind two strips together or it won’t hold,” he murmured, beginning to do so.
Laura followed suit. “A bowline?” she asked when they were ready to be tied together.
When he gazed at her, she flushed.
“I once looked through a treatise on knots,” she said.
He couldn’t suppress a smile.
“The ones on the ship were not tied by a sailor,” she declared, her flush deepening. “They were a tangled mare’s nest.”
“A bowline would be quite suitable,” replied Gavin, a warmth that was only partly laughter swelling in his chest.
They worked quickly together, and the makeshift rope was soon finished. “Does it look long enough? I could rip up my petticoat…”
“It will do. Help me carry the bedstead over to the window. Quietly.”
He chose the side window, thinking them less likely to be spotted from the alleyway than from the street in front. Tying the rope securely to a bedpost, he pulled the bed up against the wall under the window. “I will climb down and break into the lower floor. Wait here until I come back for you.”
“But…”
“Here,” he commanded.
“What if you—?”
“You will obey me in this!”
She subsided—into obedience, Gavin hoped. He wanted to say something else, something less preemptory, but he couldn’t find the words. Instead, he put one leg over the windowsill and ducked under the open sash. He yanked on the rope to test its strength, then looked at her a final time. “I’ll be back for you,” he said and swung out over the long drop.
* * *
With a mixture of hope and foreboding, Laura watched him descend. One of her chief fears was that the rope wouldn’t hold. The cloth had been ancient and nearly rotten.
The bedstead banged against the window, then creaked with the strain of supporting Gavin’s weight. Laura braced herself against it, glancing worriedly at the door. Had their guard heard the sound?
Peering out once more, she saw that Gavin had reached the window they had spotted on the lower floor. He was working with one hand to open it—without success. After a moment, he pushed against the house with his legs, swinging out and then back, his feet smashing the panes. As he disappeared inside, Laura clenched her fists. Everyone would have heard that.
She waited, every muscle tense. There were shouts below, then a thump and a crash. What if Gavin was in trouble? she thought. What if he was overpowered? They might kill him in the fight.
The doorknob of her prison rattled. The key turned in the lock, and the door moved slightly before jamming against the chair Gavin had placed there. If it was Gavin, he would call to her, she thought. An expletive in Russian confirmed her fear. The guard was trying to get in.
There were more shouts from below. Pounding began on the door panels. Taking a deep breath, Laura pulled up her skirts and climbed over the windowsill. The drop was daunting. The thought of trusting herself to the flimsy rope made her feel ill.
She grasped the rope with both hands and eased out of the window. Swinging sickeningly over empty air, she strove to brace her feet on the rope as she had seen Gavin do; then she began the descent.
It wasn’t that far, but the climb down was frightening. The rough cloth chafed at her hands; her feet slipped. She was trembling all over by the time she came even with the lower window and was able to rest on the sill. A series of shouts and a crash drove her on immediately.
The opening was full of broken glass and the jagged remnants of the frame. Laura kicked at them before carefully lowering herself through. One of the remaining spears grazed her shoulder and left a line of blood behind.
Twisting, she landed on the floor of an empty room. With another deep breath, she straightened and went to the door. The sounds were coming from the stairs. She looked around for a weapon, but found none.
Trying to hurry and be cautious at the same time, she made her way along a hall. Gavin was there, grappling with one of Sophie’s guardsmen on the steps. As they teetered back and forth, Laura spotted a cudgel on the floor. She picked it up and approached the pair, looking for an opportunity. When Gavin saw her, he bared his teeth in a grimace that might have been encouragement or anger. But he jerked away from his opponent for a moment, and Laura brought the cudgel down sharply on the man’s head.
He went down with a crash that seemed to make the whole house shake. “I was coming for you,” panted Gavin.
Laura decided that a nod was the best response. She still couldn’t tell what emotion was animating his features. And there were sounds from above and from below. She handed him the cudgel. Gavin snatched it and started down the stairs, motioning for her to stay behind him.
The volume of sound increased as they went down. It was clear that some sort of struggle was in process on the ground floor. Gavin went more slowly. At the foot of the steps, he said, “Wait here,” and moved toward the source of the noises.
Laura followed. The scene they discovered in the front room was as unexpected as it was welcome. One giant Russian lay crumpled in the corner. Another was being held at bay by Hasan, who held a wicked-looking knife.
Gavin didn’t hesitate. He strode forward and struck the man smartly with the cudgel. “There’s another upstairs,” he said.
Indeed, Laura could hear feet pounding on the staircase.
“This way,” said Hasan, gesturing.
“I have to get…” Gavin half turned, saw Laura right behind him, and grimaced. He grabbed her arm, but Laura didn’t need any urging. All three of them ran.
Hasan led them out a rear door and then through a twisting maze of streets and alleys where poorly dressed people scattered before them. When they finally paused, Laura was breathing hard. But there was no sound of pursuit. “How did you find us?” she asked Hasan.
“I followed you,” was his reply. He looked up at his employer. He hooked a thumb in Laura’s direction. “Tandek,” he said and grinned.
Gavin looked disgruntled. Laura glanced from one to the other, trying to puzzle out what this might mean.
“Tandek,” Hasan repeated with more emphasis.
“Yes, all right,” replied Gavin. “Are we going to stand about here for the rest of the day?”
His grin widening, Hasan turned to lead them onward.
Eighteen
Half an hour later they reached Mr. Tompkins’s house. Before they could ring the bell, a figure emerged from a nearby doorway and ran toward them. Gavin and Hasan turned defensively at once, but Laura called out, “Stop. It’s Annalise.”
The girl joined them. “You are all right,” she said. She patted Laura’s arm as if to make sure. “I could not go home until I knew.”
“We escaped. You did very well, Annalise.”
She glowed. “You will tell my father what I have done for you?”
“I’ll do even better. Come.” Laura marched up the steps and rang the bell. “I’ll ask Mr. Tompkins if he has work for you.”
Gavin watched her smile at the girl, wondering that she could think of this now, when she had just endu
red experiences that would have reduced most women to hysterics. There had never been any question of that, he thought with a smile. Hysterics were not part of Miss Laura Devane’s repertoire.
He would have hated it if they were, he acknowledged. But her courage and composure were sometimes disconcerting. They severely limited a man’s opportunities to come gallantly to her rescue.
Mr. Tompkins was waiting for them in the study. Before anyone else could speak, Laura recommended Annalise to the old man as someone who might be very useful to him in Vienna.
Tompkins seemed a bit disconcerted too, Gavin saw with distinct pleasure. He was happy not to be alone in this. And the old man’s unshakable equanimity could be maddening.
“I will give the matter serious consideration,” Mr. Tompkins responded. “She certainly did well today.”
Annalise departed happily, and Gavin gave a quick report of what had happened. “If Miss Devane had condescended to inform me of her plans, she would not have been put in such jeopardy.” Surely Tompkins would see, now, that Laura could not be sent out alone, he thought.
Tompkins raised one brow. “Does Miss Devane have anything to add?”
He spoke as if he knew she did, Gavin thought.
Laura, who had been staring at the floor, raised her head. “Sophie Krelov is plotting an uprising in Ireland. She has been gathering the money for it here in Vienna, from those who oppose England’s interests. It is to begin in six days.”
Gavin gaped at her. He had to run the words through his mind a second time to make sure he had heard correctly. “What sort of a fantasy have you—?”
“Count Slanski told me some of it,” Laura continued. “He has given her money. Other parts I overheard at a reception. But the most important piece came from Sophie’s maid.”
“Maid?” exclaimed Gavin.
Laura nodded as if he had pointed out something important. “As I suspected, she is not really a maid. She has been with Sophie from the very beginning, more as a friend, I suppose. It was from her I learned that Sophie must be Irish.”
