These questions, compounding upon the problem with his mother, made his head throb. He could only focus on one problem at a time. That had to be saving Mother’s life.
The flirtatious barkeeper said, “I’ve checked with Pa. Your rooms are all squared away. Pa said you might have three rooms, if you’d prefer to sleep apart from your wife, my lord.”
And have this bounder join her instead? Gray gritted his teeth. “Thank you, but I prefer to share a bed with my wife.”
The young man’s smile faded as Gray pinned him beneath the same hard stare he gave misfits who joined his crew. The man tugged on his forelock. “Of course, my lord. I can show you to your rooms, if you’re ready.”
“I am.”
As he started after the innkeeper’s son, Stills asked, “Might we arrange a private room to eat supper?”
Gray exchanged a look with Charlie. They’d agreed to keep their distance from Stills, not only because they feared their suspicions about him would come into the open if they spent too much time socializing.
Gray had never been particularly adept at subterfuge—unlike the rest of his family, it seemed. If they were going to catch Stills in the act of sabotage, he had to keep his distance.
Charlie feathered her hand over Gray’s arm. “Didn’t you promise to take supper with me… alone?” She licked her lips before speaking the last word.
Throughout the day, Stills had witnessed enough intimate moments between them, mostly concocted for the benefit of keeping their suspicions secret, for him to understand why they might want privacy. Nevertheless, he seemed disapproving as Gray answered in the affirmative.
“I did give her my word. We should all turn in early, as well. It’s been a long day, and we’ll be riding hard if I can find us another horse or two.”
Stills didn’t say a word, but Charlie beamed as she took his arm and strolled with him. “That sounds like a grand idea!”
Raising his voice, Gray asked the barkeep, “Would you be able to arrange for our meals to be sent up to our rooms?”
“Of course, my lord.”
As they reached the base of the stairs, Stills smiled. “Then I suppose I’ll see you both at dawn.” If Gray hadn’t suspected him to be the orchestrator of their recent mishaps, he would have thought the warmth in his voice to be genuine.
In contrast, his answering smile felt brittle. “That we will.”
He guided Charlie up the steps to the second story, where the barkeep directed them to two rooms. When the young man held the door open for Charlie to enter, Gray caught and held his gaze. He stepped in after her and thanked the barkeeper curtly. He planted himself between the young man and Charlie until the door shut.
If she noticed his jealous behavior, she ignored it. When he turned, he found her perched on the coverlet of the bed. The quilted bedspread was of much finer quality than the last two inns at which they had stayed the night. The bed and, indeed, the room as well were larger and furnished to better suit a ducal son. Not that it mattered a whit to him, but the innkeeper must have allotted the nicest room to him and Charlie, if the intricately painted screen and carved wooden vanity were any indication.
Charlie toed off her slippers, leaving them at the foot of the bed as she drew her knees to her chest. “Now what do we do?”
He crossed to the window, opening the shutters to allow a good view of the courtyard below.
At the corner of his field of vision resided the stables, likely better visible from Charlie’s vantage on the bed. He sat next to her, bracing his palms on the bedspread to avoid the temptation of touching her. Whether Stills attempted to enter their room or abscond with their horses, Gray would be ready for him.
“Stills won’t make a move until there is certain to be no witnesses about. We’ll wait until the noise dies down below. Then we’ll have to be on our guard.”
Gray didn’t know precisely when he dozed off, but he woke as Charlie shifted her head beneath his cheek. Her soft hair brushed his skin. If his back and neck didn’t ache so much from the prolonged position, he might have considered it a perfectly pleasant way to wake up.
“Anthony, do you see that?” She spoke in a whisper, barely disturbing the silence.
He blinked hard. With all light doused in the room, his eyes adjusted rapidly to the meager moonlight drifting out of the cloud-dotted night sky. As he squinted out the window, a flicker of light danced behind a darker shadow, silhouetting a hunched figure.
Panic doused him. He shot to his feet with alacrity. “Stills.” Blast. He regretted falling asleep. By the time they reached the ground floor, the man might have already done away with the horses. “Stay here. Or better yet, fetch the magistrate so we have him on hand.”
Charlie stood, crossing her arms. “The devil I will! I’m going with you. I won’t leave you to face a traitor alone.”
If Stills hurt her, Gray would never forgive himself. He’d promised her parents that he would keep her safe. Even more, he’d promised himself. However, if Stills somehow got the upper hand… He didn’t have time to scrutinize his options. Time was of the essence.
Reluctantly, Gray capitulated. “Very well. Please, Charlie, I’m trusting you not to put yourself in undue danger. If this turns physical, let me handle him.”
“Hand me your pistol.”
He frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
She held out her hand, asking again for the useless weapon. “Your pistol.”
“I haven’t got any ammunition.”
“No, but Stills might not know that. I can use it to bluff, or at the very least, I can club him over the head with it if he gets too close.”
As he handed over the weapon, Gray silently vowed not to allow the enemy close enough for her to make good on her promise. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
She didn’t argue but donned her slippers as she followed in his footsteps. He kept one hand on the hilt of his dirk, his only weapon if this came to blows. Gray hoped to find his former second-in-command in such a compromising position that the man would have no choice but to surrender to his fate. Honorably, as was done when they took prisoners of war.
Their footfalls on the wooden floorboards provided the only sound as they barreled down to the nearest exit. As he fumbled for the latch, he held up his hand to advise caution. Charlie didn’t protest, so he eased the door open.
Dew or recent drizzle glinted off the scattered weed sprouting near the wall. The packed earth was soft, not quite mud as he stepped into the courtyard. The stable loomed ahead, with the glow of the lantern out of sight. Had Stills already left, or had he heard their approach and lain in wait? Cautiously, Gray eased forward, keeping himself between the stables and Charlie as he eased along the wall of the inn. He breathed shallowly. The air was damp, with a bit of an acrid bite.
Charlie ghosted her hand over his shoulder. “Do you smell smoke?”
He cursed viciously. What had Stills lit on fire—the stables or the inn? He bolted for the stables, drawing his dirk as he dashed.
Stills crouched on the far side, muttering about the dampness of the grass as he tried to light the stable wall on fire using the lantern. Smoke curled, from here and elsewhere, given the increased bite to the air. The moment he glanced up to see Gray’s approach, Gray charged.
He slammed Stills into the wall. As the lantern toppled onto the damp grass and snuffed out, it left spots of light on his vision. Blind, he grappled with Stills for the dirk still in his hand. Instinct warred with years of memories. The man was his comrade in arms… or so Gray had thought. He wanted to avoid bloodshed if he could.
The dirk slipped out of his sweaty palm and onto the ground. He wrestled with Stills, who grunted as he groped for the weapons on his waist. Gray slammed him into the wall again to knock the breath from his opponent. An elbow in his ribs did the same to him.
“Cease your struggles, or I’ll shoot!”
Bloody hell, Charlie! What was she thinking? Her pronouncement didn’t deter Sti
lls in the least.
Voice strained with effort as he continued to fight Gray, the traitor bit off, “You wouldn’t risk shooting your lover.”
Lover. Gray’s stomach flipped at the word. Seemingly, they’d done an admirable job of convincing the enemy that they were intimately involved. If Stills got free, he could harm her. Gray fought harder, using his bulk to pin the slightly smaller man.
Heedless to the danger—or perhaps putting more faith in Gray’s abilities than she ought, given his precarious hold—Charlie shortened the distance between them until she angled the pistol from a mere foot away. “From here, I cannot miss.”
“You’re bluffing,” Stills said, even as he froze in place. “You don’t have ammunition.”
Gray tightened his hold painfully. “We procured some tonight.” The lie tasted like cold steel on his tongue.
Sweat trickled down his neck. Back away, Charlie, he silently begged. The darkness likely prevented her from reading his expression, even though his eyes were starting to adjust once more.
“Surrender,” Gray commanded.
A sneer entered Stills’s voice. “I don’t recognize your authority. I’ve never been loyal to you.”
Gray fisted his hand in the man’s shirt and hauled him away from the stable wall. He kicked the back of his knees, forcing him to kneel as he wrestled the traitor’s arms behind him.
“Charlie, keep the gun trained on him, and divest him of his belt.”
She did as he asked, her movements quick and jerky as she stripped the traitor of his weapons. At Gray’s behest, she passed him the leather belt, which he used to bind Stills’s hands behind his back before he searched the man for additional weapons. He found ammunition, a smaller pistol, and a sharp knife. He stamped out the wisps of smoke against the stables during the short search. Once he had the matter under control, he stood and placed himself between Stills and Charlie.
“You’ve been my second-in-command for years.”
“Quite so,” the traitor spat. “Years of my life wasted. And for what, to keep an eye on the correspondence your brother sent? He never sent you any sensitive material. Never so much as anything in code.”
Charlie stepped abreast of Gray. “You’re a French spy. You’ve been sabotaging our efforts all along.”
Stills issued a low, mirthless chuckle. “It took you long enough to catch on. I’d say that was a compliment to my skills, but it’s been pitifully easy to keep you off course.”
“I trusted you,” Gray said, his voice hard. Beneath the surface, his conviction wavered. How could his closest comrade have been a French spy? He would have known. It couldn’t be true.
“And now we’ll finally get our revenge when your mother gets what she deserves.”
Gray’s ears rang. When they and his vision cleared, he’d pinned Stills to the stable wall by his throat. The wood still trembled from the force of the blow. “What do you know of the plot?”
Stills gasped for breath around Gray’s hand. Disgusted, Gray recoiled and dropped his arm.
After several deep breaths, the spy croaked, “Nothing. However, I knew when I heard of the plot that this was my chance to make a difference in the war. You’ll never make it in time after all I’ve done.”
Gray’s heart dropped into the soles of his boots. It can’t be. They would save Mother yet. They had to.
Charlie laid a hand on his arm. Her touch soothed him. “He’s wrong,” she said softly. “What has he done? So we’re a bit closer to London than we aimed to be. Morgan’s child is not yet four months old. Lady Graylocke will be at Tenwick Abbey with her grandson, I’m sure of it. She’s safe.”
She was safe, unless the assassin sought her out there. The information had boasted that the French wanted to prove they could touch the British spymaster anywhere, even among friends. What more intimate a place than with her family? Dear Lord, were Morgan and his child in jeopardy as well? Gray felt sick.
Charlie added, “Causing our horses to fall lame and steering us in the wrong direction will not stop us, Anthony. We will stop this plot.”
When Stills started to speak, he coughed instead. The sound was raw. After spitting to the side, he managed to force out his words. “You think that’s all I’ve done. Then you’re still blind. I was the person who dampened the map and steered us into the embankment. Ensuring the horses threw a shoe or fell lame, leading us down the wrong path—it was too simple to be truly satisfying. Not to mention, you two were pitifully easy to drug the night I stole your belongings to keep us off track. Even now, you’re far too busy contending with me to put out the fire at the other end of the stables.”
Confound it! He’d thought there was too much smoke for that one tiny fire. “Stay here and keep him under watch,” he commanded Charlie, hoping Stills was too trussed up to do her any harm. “I’ll save the horses.”
After all, they had no hope of reaching his mother in time if they didn’t have mounts.
21
Charlie’s ears still rang with cries of “Fire!” hours afterward. Anthony’s dirk rested across her knees, in case Stills lunged toward her. She aimed the empty pistol at him to keep him in line. Her arms ached from switching the pistol back and forth for nearly two hours.
The fire hadn’t grown large enough to cause a debilitating amount of damage to the stable. With the recent rain, the wood had been sufficiently damp to ward away the flames. However, the smoke was another matter. The building still hadn’t cleared of it to the satisfaction of the lead hostler. Given the way he hovered over each of the mount’s heads in turn, he worried over their continued health. A local physician examined those brave enough to have plunged into the smoky building to help.
While shouting a warning to rouse the innkeeper and his employees, Anthony had been the very first of that number. Despite his bravery, he’d waved away the physician’s attention in order to ensconce himself in a tête-à-tête with Sir Walter, the magistrate who had recently arrived. How long did it take for him to explain their situation—and their captive—to the older man?
“He doesn’t love you, no matter how he pretends.”
Cursing her inattention, Charlie turned her back on the conversation between Anthony and the magistrate. She fixed her gaze and her aim on Lieutenant Stills once more but didn’t respond.
“He’s a seaman, desperate for female company. The only thing he’s interested in resides beneath your skirts.”
Charlie gritted her teeth. “Don’t be crass.”
“Don’t be a fool. He isn’t the honorable man he pretends to be.”
You’re wrong. Charlie knew that for a fact. This would be the third night they would share a room. The last several times she’d invited him into bed with her, he’d declined and slept on the hard, uncomfortable floor. She expected no different tonight.
Anthony arrived, cutting the conversation short. Two bullish men, one with a squashed nose and the other carrying a lantern, accompanied him and Sir Walter. As they reached Charlie, Anthony offered his hand. She accepted his help to stand, her legs a bit stiff from sitting in one position for so long. Sir Walter’s men took Lieutenant Stills in hand.
The moment Charlie was on her feet, Anthony introduced her to the magistrate and thanked the man for his aid in taking charge of Lieutenant Stills.
Something about the way Anthony clipped off his words told her that he was not pleased with the outcome of this night. Charlie wondered whether it was because his closest friend had been unmasked as the enemy, or because Anthony would rather turn him over to his superiors than a country magistrate. Charlie rankled over not being able to present an enemy spy to Lord Strickland, who could extract better information than their efforts had yielded. However, they didn’t have the time or the resources to transport a prisoner themselves. They had to trust in the local branch of the law to see that justice was served.
“Forgive us,” Anthony said as he clasped her elbow. “It’s been a dreadfully long night, and we must depart early on the
morrow.”
Their mission was far from over, but as Anthony steered her into the inn and up the stairs to their shared room, Charlie’s heart pounded with excitement. She didn’t know how she would possibly sleep.
Together, they had captured a French spy. Perhaps she hadn’t played as big a role in the capture as she would have liked, seeing as the altercation had turned physical, but she preferred to think that her bluff had turned the tide of the fight. It certainly seemed to have been enough to keep Lieutenant Stills in line while she awaited the magistrate’s men. Now that they had dealt with that unexpected threat, they would be able to reach Tenwick Abbey without issue. After all, Anthony had doused the fire long before it had reached the horses.
As they reached the corridor above, Anthony dropped his palm to cradle the small of her back. The intimate touch roused a shiver up her spine. Fighting against knees that threatened to turn to jelly, she entered their room and waited for him to follow and shut the door. The moment he did, he leaned his back against it.
Had Lieutenant Stills been right in warning her that Anthony cared for no more than her body? Charlie had encountered many a man who dismissed every part of her save for her beauty. Anthony, however, did not. If he hadn’t thought her capable and strong, he would never have left her alone with a dangerous spy, even one that had been defeated.
However, at that moment, Charlie craved a bit of physical admiration. The gentle kiss he’d given her earlier that day seemed like ages ago. They were together, alone, and he had the opportunity to prove his former second-in-command correct and ravage her. The thin light wafting in from the open window made his eyes gleam with promise.
“Why don’t you strip out of your gown? It must be damp after sitting on the grass for so long. I promise not to look.”
Captivating the Captain (Scandals and Spies Book 6) Page 14
