He’d shifted her; they’d been passing through what she’d registered as a doorway before she’d truly realized.
Frantically, she’d tried to wriggle her fingers, but in a heartbeat, her moment for being recognized had been over.
The thug carrying her had walked deeper into the house, then had set her down where she presently sat.
She forced herself to listen to the slavers talk. There was nothing else to occupy her and keep her from giving in to burgeoning fear, so even though she couldn’t imagine how she might escape—couldn’t imagine not ending in the slavers’ camp, and so couldn’t imagine what good anything she heard might do anyone—nevertheless she listened for all she was worth.
Some of the men spoke English, but with varying and rather thick accents; heard all together, they were difficult to decipher, and in some cases tell apart. Other men spoke with foreign accents, and most often, those men spoke some form of pidgin. She wasn’t sure it was pidgin English and not pidgin something else. French, Dutch, German? She heard traces of all three languages.
The longer she listened, the more distinct the individual voices became. She set herself the challenge of distinguishing each speaker—a game to stop herself from dwelling on her fate. She soon realized there were significantly more men than the four she’d thought had been in the lair. She eventually identified ten, all garrulously talking.
She wished they would speak more clearly, but amid the babel, one man’s voice stood out. It was...mellifluous. Mesmerizing in quality. Undoto had a compelling voice, but this man... Whoever he was, his voice was more a hypnotic weapon than a mere means of communication.
Deep and rolling, the cadences seemed more French than English. Several times, she had to blink and shake her head to overcome the effect and shift her focus to what one of the other men said.
After an extended round of exchanging what she considered the usual male greetings, the men settled to discuss their business. Apparently, one group had been sent into the settlement to fetch supplies of some specialized sort from a man named Winter. For the most part, however, the push to seize more healthy males for whoever their current customer was consumed the slavers; from their comments, she understood that they were forbidden to simply take random European males. The men to be seized had to be selected for them. And regardless of any temporary measures, the order they were supposed to fill called for men, not women or children.
Then the tone of the men’s voices changed, and she realized they were talking about her.
She soon discovered it was possible to feel chilled while blushing. Crude jokes sounded crude regardless of any accent.
She sat unmoving, barely daring to breathe, feeling very like a blind rabbit in a room full of wolves. She tensed, expecting at any moment to feel grasping hands...
But none of the men came close enough even to touch her.
One name was repeated by several men, especially with respect to her. Dubois. Swallowing the fear that had risen in her throat, she started listening to the conversations again; as far as she could make out, she owed her unmolested state to Dubois or, more specifically, to the influence he wielded over the slavers.
That made her feel slightly better, relieving one source of her welling fear.
Was Dubois their customer? Or an agent acting for said customer?
Or was he the slavers’ true leader?
From the way the men referred to him, she didn’t think the latter was correct. She continued to listen, but the men’s attention shifted to getting ready for something—whether that was leaving with her or seizing someone else, she couldn’t discern before they moved into other rooms in the small house and the intervening walls muted their words below her ability to hear.
That left her with no effective distraction to keep her from dwelling on her fate. On her now likely, all-but-assured fate.
She attempted to reconcile herself to it; she tried to manage and rein in her fear by going over what she believed would soon happen, yet no matter how rational she tried to be, she could not bring herself to acquiesce to being taken as a captive into the jungle. Some stubborn, determined part of her continued to rebel—to insist that there had to be some way to win free, regardless of what logic suggested.
The one thing she did accept was that whatever occurred over the next few hours—between now and when the slavers carried her beyond the settlement’s boundaries—had the potential to fundamentally alter the course of her life, and it was entirely possible that the change would be irrevocable.
Being faced with that prospect opened doors in her mind she would rather have left closed.
She couldn’t stop herself from imagining the worst, that the irrevocable change threatening to engulf her would cut short her life, certainly her life as she’d imagined it would be.
Regrets fountained and washed through her.
Her parents, her brothers...but the one who stood out most clearly in her mind...
She hadn’t realized Robert Frobisher had etched himself into her consciousness to that extent.
Yet her biggest regret was, indeed, that she hadn’t had a chance to explore the unexpected, unprecedented attraction that had flared between them. Even though she hadn’t allowed herself to properly examine it, she’d recognized the potential as a once-in-a-lifetime chance—a chance no sane woman should or would turn her back on.
Connecting like that, with a man like him—for a woman like her, that was the ultimate challenge. Missing that chance...she couldn’t not see it as a failure of sorts, even if she wasn’t to blame.
Anger rose, a fire in her belly, one that countered the chill of fear.
Because of the slavers, because of whatever scheme some faceless men had put in place—undoubtedly for their own gain—she was going to miss out on the greatest and most important challenge of her life.
She would fail through never having had a chance to seize it.
The emotional wound stung; she brooded and let simmering fury ferment—so much better, so much more welcome, than fear.
Abruptly, the men’s voices changed, their comments coming quick and sharp. More like commands barked by a few of them. Not the one with the wonderful voice but others she’d heard several times.
Then heavy footsteps neared. One man crouched beside her; she could smell him even through the hood and wrapping. Hands seized her reticule and she tensed, but he only stuffed it back under the wrap. Then another man—she thought it was the same brute who had carried her throughout—grabbed her shoulders and effortlessly lifted her. Again, he hoisted her trussed body over his shoulder.
She didn’t try to fight but let her body lie limply. No sense courting unnecessary bruises.
As she swayed with the man’s gait, she tried to track their route. Not out of the same door through which they’d brought her into the house but through a rear entrance.
The man went down several steps, then he lengthened his stride and went tramping down some very narrow alley; she could sense the closeness of the walls to either side.
They were taking her out of the settlement.
She hoped that, at the very least, Frobisher and his men would see and follow and would continue until they reached the slavers’ camp. At least his mission would be fulfilled.
Anger rose again, a hot wave that had the tips of her ears burning.
If fate or the deity or whatever god was listening would deign to give her another chance at living her life as she would—as she should—she swore she would seize that chance with both hands and not let go.
* * *
Nearly four hours had passed since the slavers had carried Aileen into their lair.
Lurking in the oppressive shadows cast by an overhang along the lane behind the lair, Robert fought to keep his mind from what might have happened inside the ramshackle building.
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Coleman—the lightest on his feet and the least threatening in appearance—had ghosted close to the lair’s side door and had slouched beside it for some time. He’d reported that the men inside were talking and, he thought, playing cards, and there’d been no sounds of struggle or ruckus.
Robert prayed that meant that Aileen was all right. Just the thought of what might have occurred...
He mentally swore and hauled his mind from that tack; it pushed him to the brink of madness and fractured his concentration—and he would need every ounce of that to rescue her and ensure she came to no further harm.
The past hours had been filled with plans and preparations. With ten slavers in the lair, storming it was out of the question. Regardless of whether he and his men could prevail in a fight of five against ten, the risk to Aileen, hooded and bound, was too great. With her effectively surrounded by the slavers, his hands were also tied.
It would be a different matter when the blackguards carried her out. The alleys and lanes were too narrow to allow even two men to walk abreast. With the slavers strung out in a line, picking off the guards and seizing Aileen was a plan with a decent chance of success.
His men were scattered all around. Benson, Fuller, and Coleman were, like him, watching the rear exits from the lair. Harris was keeping an eye on the front door, but as the alley at the front of the building led back to the settlement or farther up the hill, assuming the blackguards did as expected and carried Aileen into the jungle that night, they expected the slavers to leave via one of the two rear exits.
One exit gave onto the rear lane in which Robert stood. The other was the side door that opened onto a runnel that later intersected with the same lane, but also gave access to two other alleyways.
His men knew the plan; they’d helped flesh out the details. He and Harris had gone back to the inn, intending to fetch everyone’s gear, take it down to the tender, and send it out to The Trident. Once they seized Aileen, they wouldn’t be able to remain anywhere on shore. They could worry about fetching her baggage later.
Dave had been waiting—fretting and pacing—at the inn. He’d all but pounced on Robert, telling him how Aileen hadn’t been waiting when Dave had gone to fetch her from Undoto’s church that afternoon. Dave’s information had filled in several gaps. Robert had calmed the old cockney and assured him they intended to get Aileen back. Thinking ahead, he’d arranged to meet Dave at the inn the following morning—to reassure him of Aileen’s health and, possibly, to avail themselves of his services again.
Relieved and reassured, Dave had helped them load all their bags into his carriage and had driven them down to the side wharf from where they’d signaled The Trident’s tender.
When he and his men had first come ashore, Robert had ordered the tender to wait out in the harbor throughout the days and nights—ready to row in if and when needed. His quartermaster, Miller, had taken tender duty that night. A few words were all that had been required to alert the experienced Miller to the seriousness of the situation. Robert had ordered the tender back to the ship to unload the bags and alert the rest of his crew, then to return and, under cover of darkness, tie up close by the steps to Government Wharf.
Now everything was in place, and they were ready and waiting for the slavers to make a move. He was normally very good at waiting—or, at least, at feigning patience. Tonight, however, a species of fear he’d never felt before scraped along his nerves.
All around them, the slum was quietening, but with so many people crammed into such a small space, areas like this were never truly silent.
A soft cooing—like a dove’s call—floated over the roofs. Robert stiffened. That was Fuller, who was hidden close to where the runnel from the lair’s side door joined the lane.
From where he stood, Robert couldn’t see the intersection itself, just the stretch of lane leading from it.
A second later, a slouching figure came ambling down the lane. Coleman mumbled as he passed Robert, “They’re coming—three of them—and the middle one is carrying her.”
Robert pushed out of the shadows, slung an arm around Coleman, and let his shoulders sag. As they lurched along like drunkards, he whispered a few last-minute instructions. Coleman nodded. At the next intersection, they drifted apart, Coleman going left, Robert right, into a tiny cross-alley.
He waited in the concealing shadows of someone’s forgotten washing and watched the slavers march past. As Coleman had said, there were only three, marching in a somewhat strung-out line. The middle one, the same hulking brute who had carried Aileen into the lair, had her once more over his shoulder. Eyes narrowed, Robert swiftly took in everything of her he could; as far as he could tell, she was trussed exactly as she had been before, wrapped in an old sail with ropes about her knees, hips, and chest.
While at one level, he was conscious of abject relief, overall, the tension of the moment was too high, its demands too fraught, to allow any part of him to relax. Nevertheless, the more analytical part of his brain found it noteworthy that she—an attractive woman despite her temper and temperament—hadn’t been molested, not to any degree. He hadn’t thought slavers so...nice in their habits.
But now wasn’t the time to ponder that oddity. With his senses focused on the little cavalcade, he slid through the shadows in its wake.
Soft coos, caws, and cheeps of doves, gulls, and sparrows—birds too common to catch anyone’s notice—tracked the slavers as they wended their way down through the slum. Robert constantly gauged their position relative to the rest of the settlement and specifically to Government Wharf.
They’d agreed that the sensible course was to allow the slavers to carry Aileen as long as they followed a tack that didn’t veer away from the wharf. Unfortunately, the path the slavers took shifted increasingly to the east, farther and farther from the settlement’s center.
When the trio of slavers swung into a lane that led directly eastward, out of the settlement, Robert signaled for his men to close in. He’d recalled Declan’s description of how he and his men had retaken Edwina in much the same circumstances; he saw no reason not to use the same maneuver, albeit with a few additions of his own.
Coleman loomed out of the shadows several yards ahead of the first slaver. The slaver slowed, as did the two at his back. As if merely ambling up the same lane, as he approached the first slaver, Coleman asked the way back to the wharf.
The slaver visibly relaxed, his hand falling from the hilt of his cutlass. He swung and pointed to the west.
And Coleman coshed him.
Before the first man hit the ground, Harris had materialized from the shadows and coshed the third.
And Fuller and Benson, who had been crouched like sacks among barrels lining the lane, leapt up and flung themselves at the man carrying Aileen.
Startled, he backpedaled. He shifted his hold on Aileen as he prepared to turn and flee.
The instant the slaver glanced back up the lane, Robert, who had silently come up behind the man, plowed his fist into the slaver’s jaw.
The huge man swayed, blinked. His hold on the canvas loosened.
Robert grabbed the bundle that was Aileen and hauled her to him.
Immediately, she started struggling.
“Be still!” He swung around, interposing his body between her and the big slaver.
She sagged in his hold.
He heard a thud as he hoisted her up against him and quickly looked around.
Benson and Fuller had dealt with the man who had carried Aileen. He now lay sprawled in the dust.
Robert’s men were trained to incapacitate rather than kill; when they were on diplomatic missions in regions not under British control, killing could lead to unhelpful complications. Although that didn’t apply here, long-standing habits were hard to break.
But all three slavers were down and out, and Ai
leen was in Robert’s hands. Their rescue had been an unqualified success.
He propped Aileen against him and was reaching for a knife to cut the ropes wound about her when the sound of rapid footsteps reached them.
Someone—some man—was pounding down the lane.
Harris, the farthest up the lane, swung to block the newcomer.
Another of the slavers rounded the last bend. He saw their shadowy figures ahead. “Hey, Joe. Wait—”
The newcomer skidded to a halt. His gaze flicked over them. Even with Harris in the way, he saw—
The slaver’s eyes widened. He turned and fled.
On the balls of his feet, Harris glanced at Robert.
His expression grim, Robert shook his head. He pulled out his knife and sawed at Aileen’s bonds. “Our best bet is to get moving as quickly as we can.”
A laudable ambition; there was just one problem. Aileen had been bound and restrained for so long she had trouble making her legs work. When Benson and he succeeded in pulling the canvas away from her, she sagged and caught his arm.
He swore and swiftly dispensed with the gag, then the black hood, while Benson cut the ropes about her ankles and Coleman freed her wrists.
Her face, finally revealed as she pushed her bedraggled bonnet back, was an unbelievably welcome sight.
She gasped, coughed, but then valiantly gathered herself, straightened, and nodded. “Thank you.” Her voice was hoarse. She glanced at his men, then looked back at him and met his eyes. “I didn’t expect... I thought—”
He grasped her hand. “Never mind that now. We need to go.”
They started toward the harbor, but she could barely stumble along.
She didn’t complain, but whispered an apology even as she hobbled as fast as she could.
He squeezed her hand reassuringly. Carrying her would only delay her recovery, and if they had to run... Clasping her hand firmly, he urged her on. “It’ll get better the farther we go.” He sincerely hoped so, because they weren’t out of the woods—in this case, the slum—yet.
A Buccaneer at Heart Page 24
