She groaned as Lydia swabbed the wound and applied a padding of folded handkerchiefs. It was rough, but it would have to do for the moment. All the while her mind worked furiously.
“I start to run ’way. The man heard me an’ shot, but I—” Sophie’s breathing grew reedy with the effort of speech and she gasped to a stop.
Danielle must have been trying to delay them in a bid to allow the French ship time to catch Legacy and cut off their escape.
Lydia stroked the girl’s brow and her eyes fluttered open. Bending low, Lydia hissed into her ear. “Sophie, be very quiet and still. Danielle rejoined us. I think she may have even tried to kill Lord Danbury.”
Sophie’s eyes turned fearful at the news.
“She is in my tent. We will try to take her unaware. Stay here where you will be out of danger.” She placed the girl’s hand over the padding on her wound. “Hold this in place. You’ve bled a great deal, and you must try to staunch the flow. I cannot imagine how you managed to come so far.”
Not waiting for a response, Lydia jumped to her feet. She had to find Danielle before that traitor suspected her plot was uncovered. Lydia considered going to Harting and Danbury, but they would have to be roused, booted, and armed. Instead she located the guards and briefly explained.
Stealthily they approached the tent. Lydia lifted the flap, and ducked in. A glance revealed that Danielle no longer lay curled on her blanket. Lydia left one of the guards to watch the tent and capture Danielle should she return. She sent the other guard to scout in one direction—she took the opposite.
She was still reluctant to rouse the camp. It would put the Frenchwoman on guard and she might escape or try something desperate.
The stifling darkness limited her vision. Frustration flared. This was wrong, all wrong. She couldn’t waste time wandering aimlessly. Haste was of the utmost importance. Every sense strained to pierce the gloom, to catch a hint of where the woman could be. What was she doing? What would cause them the greatest delay?
With a flash of insight she realized where Danielle would go. The throne. Abandoning her cautious circling of the camp, Lydia hastened silently to where the cart and its precious burden had been secured.
A figure crouched at the side of the cart. Lydia threw herself forward. Danielle turned as Lydia wrenched her away from the cart. The Frenchwoman clutched a knife in her hand.
Lydia gasped. The woman was diabolical. Heedless of those who might have been hurt, Danielle had been fraying the ropes securing the throne to the cart. At some point in the morning it would have tumbled to the ground.
The knife glinted wickedly as Danielle lunged at her. Lydia grabbed the arcing hand before the blade could bury itself in her flesh. But Danielle’s rush toppled them both over. Rolling on the ground they grappled for the weapon. Struggling beneath the other woman’s weight, Lydia held Danielle’s arm with all her might. The sharp metal dipped again and again, like a snake seeking to destroy her.
With a desperate shove, Lydia was free of her attacker for an instant. Now she was on top and had the upper hand. She pushed hard at Danielle, trying to force the knife from the woman’s grasp. She almost had it—almost. The Frenchwoman bucked violently. With a twist of her wrist the knife jabbed at Lydia again. She cried out. A scarlet thread blossomed and spread across her bicep, turning into a stream that washed down her arm and onto the face of the woman beneath her.
From somewhere seemingly far away, Lydia heard a shout. She could pay it no heed. Danielle’s whitened fingers were talons gripping the knife. They were on their sides in the dirt again, wrestling for their lives. It took every bit of strength Lydia possessed to keep the knife from striking again.
Men poured from their tents forming a jagged circle around the combatants. Cries pierced the night. Someone produced a torch. The light reached Danielle. She blinked and dropped the knife, which tumbled to the ground. She went limp in Lydia’s grasp. Strong arms reached in to separate them.
Harting assisted Lydia to her feet. He took her arm in gentle hands and examined the wound. She panted, unable for the moment to catch her breath. She locked her knees to keep from collapsing. Her teeth began to chatter. With her free hand she swiped at hair that hung in her face, shoving it behind her ear. Numb fingers could not seem to stop trembling.
“Sophie… hurt. By the fire…needs help,” Lydia gasped.
Emmanuel whirled towards the fire. The other men surrounded Danielle. She cursed them all roundly in French.
Brow crumpled, Lord Danbury looked from Lydia to the other woman and back again. “What is all this?”
Chest heaving, Lydia tried to catch her breath and relate Sophie’s story at the same time. It seemed to take a long time, though it could only have been a few minutes by the clock. “I believe she meant to fray the ropes, hoping they would break sometime in the morning. She wanted to delay us long enough for the French to cut off our retreat.” Lydia’s injured arm burned. Her palm was sticky with her own blood. She wiped it against the already filthy skirt of her dress. There would be no salvaging this gown.
“Someone might have been killed.” Danbury’s hands tightened into fists.
“Sophie thinks Danielle may have killed Jeremiah,” Lydia said.
“The accident yesterday…” Shock lit Danbury’s face. “Madame Long has much to answer for.”
Two sailors had taken Danielle’s arms. She stood silent and petulant when Lord Danbury turned to her.
“What have you to say?”
“It is all lies.” She thrust up her chin in a contemptuous nod at Lydia. “Your trollop doesn’t like me because I am prettier, and you were friendly to me. She attacked me and then made up these terrible tales.”
Harting cocked his head and smiled. “Come now, Madame. We all know that is untrue. Miss Garrett is much lovelier than you. That’s why you had to settle for an old man like Mr Long.”
Rage flared in Danielle’s eyes and she showed her teeth. “There were many men who desired me. Only Long bid on me like a slave. Bien, he regrets it now, doesn’t he?”
Harting pounced. “So you did kill him.”
Caught by her own boastful pride, Danielle tried to bluster, but with no success. She crumbled in an outburst of vindictiveness. “Oui, I killed the old pig.” She turned to Lord Danbury. “And I tried to kill you. Monsieur Bonaparte restores the glory of France. We will defeat your pitiful island, and I shall dance with Le Faucon in Paris.”
Danbury turned ashen, his lips a slash in the granite of his face.
Danielle extended a hand to him, apparently deciding she ought to change tack. “I ’ad to, Monsieur. You do not know what it was like with Jeremiah. So tedious. I met Le Faucon in the village while Jeremiah delivered your message to the ship. All he desire is information. And for this, he swear to take me to France. I did not decide right away.” She said this as if it indicated her virtue. “I try to make Jeremiah to stay in the village, but he would not. I tell him I would make sure you knew the message had been delivered. But he never listened to me. I did not want to kill the old fool, but he never listened.”
“You killed him because he would not go away?” Harting asked.
“Oui. You understand. I did not want to, but he would not stay in the village. Such a stupid old man.” She glanced at the faces surrounding her.
“It sounds as if you had already made up your mind to assist Le Faucon.” Lydia eyed the traitor. She bit her lip to keep from screaming at the woman. Even as she trembled from the effort of their scuffle, she longed to lunge at her and resume the battle. She flexed the fingers of her good hand. She would rip out the woman’s hair at the roots.
Danielle slumped. It was obvious she would find no sympathetic ear among this audience. Lydia smirked, but then her heart clenched. Scheming and wicked Danielle might be, but she was also a pitiful dupe.
“Oui, I told Monsieur Le Faucon what you search for and also where your ship was being moved. He will stop you.”
Danielle sto
pped as she caught sight of Emmanuel standing at the edge of the circle of light. Her eyes grew round. The look of disgust on his face seemed to touch her as nothing else.
“You!” She turned to Harting. “This man is dangerous, an escaped slave.”
“And your paramour shot his sister.”
“He wouldn’t have had to shoot her if she weren’t sly. The stupid girl crept up on us.” An injured note crept into her voice at being so ill-used by Sophie. “Monsieur, I beg you, do not let him harm me.”
“Madame.” Hauteur oozed from Harting. “He would not descend to your level.”
Danbury nodded and gestured towards Danielle. “Bind her hands and keep a guard on her. We need to hurry. Take only the essentials. Leave the tents and everything not absolutely necessary.”
CHAPTER 27
Danbury set a couple of men to re-securing the throne to the cart and finally turned to Lydia, his manner gentling considerably. “How is your arm?”
“Fine. The cut isn’t deep.” Lydia held the arm up for his inspection.
“She might have killed you. What were you thinking, going after her without help?”
“I did have assistance. The guards helped me search for her. I simply happened to find her first.”
“You ought to have wakened me.”
“There wasn’t time.”
He narrowed his eyes and sighed heavily. “I could have helped with the search as well. You were injured fighting with her.”
“We had to be as quiet as possible so as not to alert her, and anyone who came upon her might have been hurt—she had a knife. Not that I knew that when I started out.”
“Precisely. It was dangerous, and you should—”
“How is Sophie?”
“Sophie?” He ran a hand through his hair and looked towards the campfire. “I don’t know.”
Harting reappeared at Lydia’s elbow. “The bullet passed through her side. No vital organs seem to have been hit. She lost a lot of blood, but as long as no infection sets in…”
A bit of the tension eased from her shoulders. “I am glad. I don’t know how she made it such a long way with that wound.”
The sky lightened by smudgy degrees as they set off. Carrying his sister, Emmanuel led the way. Subdued, Danielle trailed along behind them, with her bound hands attached to the back of the cart.
Tension permeated the air with the stench of sweat and drudgery and dread—a foul odour that stung Lydia’s nose and made her stomach roil. Every eye sought signs of a French presence. But the more level terrain allowed them to make better time than they had before. No one spoke of stopping for breakfast.
They reached the sandy beach late in the morning, and caught sight of Legacy floating serenely in the little cove. Lord Danbury led the men in a hearty huzzah at the sight.
Lydia offered a whispered prayer of thanks. She had never seen anything more beautiful. The gigs were lowered with a splash. She watched as the oarsmen pulled with a will until they were near enough to hail, and then nearer still.
In a short time, the gigs were close enough that the oarsmen hopped out and pushed them the last couple of feet to ground them. Captain Campbell had chosen to come ashore. He sat majestically in the front of one of the boats until it ceased its forward motion.
“You can see we were able to make all the additional repairs.” He gestured to Legacy, bobbing calmly in the sea behind him. The captain caught sight of the enormous crate containing the throne. “You’ve found it then?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Of course not; just pleased.”
“I’m afraid your reaction will be short-lived, Captain. I have some bad news for you.” Quickly, Danbury revealed the situation.
Captain Campbell showed no visible reaction to the news. “We’d best get the throne loaded. Won’t do to dally.” With a few barked commands, he sent one of the boats back to the ship for reinforcements. They had not dared to drive the cart onto the sand. The wheels would immediately become bogged down, stranding the vehicle in a matter of moments.
“What do you think we should do?” Danbury asked the captain as he approached.
“Well now.” Campbell removed his hat, and swiped at the sweat on his broad brow with his forearm. “Looks a challenge, doesn’t it?”
Harting called from where he stood near the ox cart. “Pull up one of the skiffs. We’d have to load it in one of the boats later, and this way we won’t have to transfer the thing.”
“Brilliant,” Danbury grinned wolfishly. At his order, three sailors ran to the shore and returned, dragging the boat across the beach.
Behind her, Danielle snorted. Lydia gritted her teeth, but did not turn around.
Louis and Emmanuel drove the oxen beneath a nearby tree. The gig’s slat seats were hacked out to allow the throne to rest more snugly against the bottom. More men arrived from the ship to help.
Superfluous to the process, Lydia tried merely to stay out of the way, finding shelter beneath a coconut palm.
Catching a flash of movement from the corner of her eye, Lydia spun around to see Danielle Long attempting to scuttle away. The Frenchwoman’s hands remained bound but she had been freed from the cart. Dashing after her, Lydia snatched at Danielle, catching her by the hair.
“No you don’t.”
“Let me go, trollop!”
Lydia regarded her dispassionately. The desire to make her pay for her betrayal had abated. In its place lay only a small lump of pity. Danielle swore at her, kicking and bucking. Hauling on the ropes that bound her, Lydia dragged the girl to a nearby palm tree. Her breath came in short, hard gasps as she lashed the end of the rope to the nearest palm, making certain that Danielle wouldn’t be going anywhere. At last the job was done. Then she pulled out her notebook and scrawled a message in pencil relaying the details of Mr Long’s murder. She addressed it to Poiret and tacked the note high on the palm tree, where Danielle could not reach it. If there was any justice in the world, the woman would pay for her crimes.
Lydia dodged a final, furious kick and turned away. She glanced back at Danielle. Dishevelled and red-faced, the woman stood tugging against the ropes with all her might, her lips pulled back in a snarl. A shudder rippled through Lydia.
Danielle caught her gaze. “Do not pity me, you… you…” She spat on the ground, but a bit of spittle remained hanging from her chin as thin and delicate as a spider’s web.
Lydia turned away. The woman hurled abuse after her. Silent under the insults, Lydia returned to the edge of activity.
The men had reversed the process used to get the throne on the cart. The throne swung pendulously, suspended across a sturdy tree branch for a long, breathless moment. A sailor hurried the cart away, and the skiff took its place. The teams of men holding the ropes began to lower the throne into the boat. Ominous creaking issued from the tree.
“Careful, lads; careful,” said Lord Danbury as he lowered the rope hand over hand.
The others followed his example, keeping up the steady pace he dictated. The throne nestled safely in the boat. The tree seemed to moan and then with a loud popping sound the branch collapsed atop the throne with a rush. For one heart-stopping moment it seemed the throne would tip and fall beneath this onslaught, but the men rushed forward and braced the crate with their shoulders. Lydia took an involuntary step forward herself, hand outstretched, though she was too far away to add her force to the effort. The throne steadied, and she exhaled heavily.
The oxen’s lead ropes were hooked through the iron ring at the nose of the boat and then woven through the oarlocks. With the oxen securely hitched to the skiff, men took positions on each side of the boat to keep it from tipping in either direction. A couple of others lent their backs to the process, pushing while the oxen pulled.
In a few minutes they had crossed the sandy beach and the sea lapped the nose of the rowboat. The other two boats were dragged up beside the one carrying the throne and lashed securely on either side. They acted as pon
toons, balancing the central boat and providing much needed buoyancy.
Lydia approached Lord Danbury. “My Lord, I would beg a favour of you.”
He swabbed at his brow, huffing and panting, but a satisfied grin lit his features. “Name it.”
Lydia swallowed hard. “I fear for Sophie’s recovery if we leave her in this isolated spot with Danielle Long. I know you sent for Poiret and he should be coming for her soon, but in the meantime she could greatly harm the poor girl. Also, her tales of escaped slaves could bode ill for Sophie.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Would you consider allowing her to join us?”
Danbury’s jaw worked in and out for a moment. “I suspected as much.” He sighed. “Complications.”
Lydia glanced back at the trees to where Sophie lay, a tiny crumpled figure.
Danbury followed her gaze. “Oh, very well. Have you any paper?” He jotted a note to Poiret and enclosed a handful of coins to cover Sophie’s price.
Holding the small, folded package he gestured with it towards Danielle. “Would you be so kind…”
Lydia accepted the parcel and approached the Frenchwoman. Despite her thrashing, Lydia managed to get this packet secured to the tree also.
Behind her, one of the ship’s great guns boomed a harsh warning.
CHAPTER 28
Whirling to look, Lydia peered at the horizon, but could not see the source of the alarm. Coming abreast of the others, she saw the same confusion on the faces of the gentlemen as they scanned the horizon. Captain Campbell, however, was squinting at his ship.
With pulse sounding unnaturally loud in her ears, Lydia clasped her hands together to still their trembling.
“They’ve spotted a sail.” Campbell set his hat more squarely on his head.
“Go. Go!” Harting waved the men towards the boats.
Men piled into the makeshift flotilla. Emmanuel carried his sister’s small form, placing her carefully in the bow. The oxen were driven into the sea, dragging the ungainly contraption until the final bit of solid ground was left behind. The oxen were released from the boats and waded back to shore. The oars were deployed and the sailors pulled swiftly towards Legacy.
The Peacock Throne Page 20
