Swept Away

by Marsha Canham

  Outwardly she looked calm enough to be convincing--there was even a hint of lift in her eyebrow. Inwardly, she was holding her breath, refusing to acknowledge the more sensible side of her conscience as it shouted at her to pick up the book and tie herself in the chair if need be.

  His dark eyes narrowed. “I grant you may be right. But what if you are wrong?”

  “If I am wrong...then you will be shot and I will be sent back to London in disgrace and we will be no better off than if we stand here and argue about it for the next hour.”

  His fingers tightened a moment on her shoulders. “As soon as we are safely out of Torquay...at the very first town...we will find a respectable hotel and leave you there.”

  “As soon as we are safe,” she countered, “I will write a note to my brother telling him that I have not been kidnapped and that all will be explained at the earliest possible convenience.”

  “Do you honestly think that will make him stop looking? And how will he know I did not force you to write the letter with a knife against your throat?”

  “I will word it in such a way that he will know that I pen it willingly and truthfully.”

  He continued to stare, to wage his own private war with his common sense, but in the end, the noise out in the streets and the determination in her eyes made him mutter an indecipherable oath. “Why do I have a feeling I am going to regret this? Hurry up then. It would not do for them to get close enough to have too good a look at you.”

  When she frowned, he smoothed a handful of tousled curls off her shoulder. “Because at the moment, you look far too thoroughly ravished to be any man’s wife,” he murmured, “and I would not want them sniffing after us for different reasons.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Annaleah was still fumbling with the buttons on her spencer when they hurried down the steps to the ground floor of the tavern. The taproom was full of thick-limbed men and blowsy women, many of whom turned, gave their neighbour a snickering nudge as Emory and Anna passed through their midst. The air was close with the smell of lamp oil and unwashed bodies and the first thing Anna did when they were out on the street was gulp at a mouthful of fresh air. The second was to expel it again in a rush, for there were soldiers not a dozen paces away, emerging from the establishment next door.

  Emory calmly cradled a hand beneath her elbow and started walking down the street in the opposite direction. Ten more paces, twenty added enough distance for them to breathe and for Emory to risk a casual glance over his shoulder. The soldiers seemed to be ignoring them, more intent upon holding their lanterns up to the faces of the three men they had brought out of the tavern with them. The trio were all tall and dark haired. One had a black patch tied over his eye and at a barked order from one of the guards, he lifted it to show a hideously puckered scar over the empty socket.

  The street itself was eerily devoid of pedestrians. The regular citizens not sidled up to a jug of ale already had scurried away into the cracks and crevices of the buildings like cockroaches at the first sound of military boots on the cobblestones. The few stragglers who were left, were either too drunk to hear anything or too belligerent to care.

  The sound of clopping horses and carriage wheels sent Emory melting into shadowy doorway now, drawing Anna after him. A carriage reined to a halt outside one of the more raucous brothels along the street and two gentlemen alighted. They tossed a coin to the driver and promised another if he would wait, then staggered up to the door and pounded good-naturedly until they were welcomed inside.

  The wheels of a second carriage echoed hollowly along the near-deserted street. It pulled around the hackney and rattled past the niche where Emory and Anna stood, the glow from its riding lamp casting a brief flare of light over their faces before leaving them in shadow again. The driver stopped where the three men were being held at musket length by the soldiers. When the door opened, a man in a dark blue uniform disembarked and paused a moment to glance both ways along the street, the light winking off his silver lapel buttons as he did so.

  “What have you found?”

  Colonel Rupert Ramsey’s voice was abrasively loud and carried easily enough for Emory and Anna to hear.

  “These two gentlemen,” said one of the soldiers with obvious sarcasm, “were attempting to scarper out the rear door when we entered. The other kicked over a bench to block our path when we gave chase.”

  Colonel Ramsey looked over all three men carefully before dismissing them with a wave of his hand. “Keep looking. The bastard is here somewhere, by God, and I intend to find him. There are another forty men on the road behind me; they should be here any minute to help you broaden the search.”

  “Forty soldiers?” Anna hissed. “Should we not move away from here before they arrive?”

  Emory did not answer. He did not respond at all except to sag slightly against her shoulder.

  Keep looking! The bastard is here somewhere. He has to be. If he has drowned, I want to see the body....

  “Oh dear God,” Anna said. “Not now!”

  The water was icy cold and the salt stung his wounds, turning his back into a sheet of fire. He had opened his mouth to scream when he first fell over the side of the wharf, but the water swirled down his throat, choking off anything other than the rush of bubbles that were expelled. He sank all the way to the bottom--probably twenty feet, no more--and when his feet struck the soft ooze at the bottom, it was purely an instinctive reaction that made him bend his knees and kick off with all his strength. He came up beneath the stinking planks of the docks, only long enough to grab another breath before he sank again and swam to the next wooden pylon. In truth, it was easier moving through the water than trying to run on shore, and it was almost beautiful to look up and see the lights shimmering on the decks of the ships.

  A brighter light struck the water a dozen feet behind him, cutting streamers through the murky depths like a starburst. They were looking for him. Cipriani would be furious he had escaped. He had been looking forward to gutting him that night, showing him his own intestines as he disembowelled him inch by inch.

  Had he told Le Couteau where he put the letter? He didn’t think so. Even if he had, Seamus had already taken the Intrepid out of port. The Irish bastard must have known something had gone wrong and had had the presence of mind to save the ship and crew, to get them out before the blockade trapped them in port.

  Would he look in the strongbox, though? Would he know what to do with what he found there?

  No. No, he wouldn’t. Which meant it was still up to him to save the bloody world. Damn Wessex anyway. He never wanted to be a fucking hero! And damn Seamus for kicking the shite out of that insipid little limp wrist. Damn the king, the queen, the whole bloody country for not even letting him die in peace, without pain... If he just let go, he could sink to the bottom again. He could sink into the blackness, the peace, the silence....

  “Emory! Emory, can you hear me? Don’t you dare do this now. You have to walk. You have to put one foot in front of the other and you have to walk!”

  Emory groaned and staggered out into the street, his hands holding his head, his body doubled over in pain.

  Anna ran after him, glancing fearfully over her shoulder, hoping the soldiers were still distracted and Ramsey was back on board his coach.

  As luck would have it however, the colonel was just in the process of boarding. He had the door open, his hands on the rail and a foot on the coach step when he caught a glimpse of the commotion further along the poorly lit street.

  “What the devil...? Who is that? What is going on?”

  One of the soldiers crossed the road and stood beside Ramsey at the coach. “Looks like a gent and ‘is doxy is havin’ a go at each other.”

  The colonel raised a hand to shield his eyes against the glare from his own riding lamp. “Does that dress she is wearing look blue to you?” he said slowly. “Never mind. Fetch them both here.”

  The redcoat shrugged and shouted, “You there! Hold up. Colonel w
ants a word!”

  Anna cast another panicked glance over her shoulder as the soldier started walking toward them. She twisted her hand around the lapel of Emory’s greatcoat and gave it a violent shake. “Please,” she cried. “Emory...please speak to me!”

  He tried to push her away and in desperation, she swung up hard and fast, slapping the side of his face with her open palm. His chin jerked up and his eyes rolled a moment before snapping back into focus, but the pain was still blinding enough that he had to grasp hold of her shoulders to steady himself.

  “They’re coming,” she cried softly. “The soldiers. They have seen us and they’re coming. What should we do?”

  He blinked, squeezing his eyelids tightly together for as long as it took him to reach down and snatch up the haversack he had dropped. He took hold of Anna’s arm and started leading her swiftly away from the approaching soldier.

  “You there!”

  Anna risked a quick look over her shoulder and saw the soldier unsling his musket from his shoulder.

  “I said hold up!”

  Emory stepped swiftly behind Anna’s back, hooking his hand around her waist as he made a hard turn to the right and pulled her after him. She had not even noticed the narrow throughway before he dragged her into it, and before she could cry out in disgust at the horrible spongy debris she felt beneath her one shoeless foot, they had run the length of it and emerged on the other side, onto another cobbled street. She heard shouts and the loud report of a musket behind them, then Emory was leading her down another alley, urging her to as much speed as she could muster.

  They veered left and ran half a block before the sound of shouting and pounding bootsteps turned them around mid-stride. There were more shouts off to the right and a solid wall of buildings to the left, which left them only one direction to run, up a steep and relatively well lit section of road that exposed them long enough for some of the soldiers to spill out of the alley way, spot them, and sound the alarm to the other guardsmen converging on the street.

  Anna ran as she had never run before, but she still felt as though she was being dragged along by Emory’s longer, faster strides. She was frightened, desperately short of breath; her skirts were hindering her movements, her foot was pricked raw by pebbles and jagged edges of cobblestones. She did not know how much further she could run, or if it was even fair of her to hold Emory back when he was barely winded and could probably fly like a gazelle and be away, free, before the fastest soldier reached the crest of the hill.

  “Leave me,” she gasped. “Go! Get away!”

  He glanced over at her once, but his hand only tightened on hers. “Come on. A little further. Just a little further.”

  They went a little further and heard the sound of a carriage coming up the road toward them. Just before they ran around a twist in the road, they saw the gleaming eye of a riding lamp and the black silhouette of Ramsey’s head and shoulders leaning out the window. He was shouting orders at the soldiers to move out of the way, screaming at the driver to whip the horses into more speed.

  “Leave me!” Anna cried. “You can still get away if you leave me!”

  Emory snarled and dragged her in the direction of a side street where a hackney was just about to make the turn onto the main road. He had his gun in his hand as he vaulted up into the box and pushed the startled driver off the other side. In an unbroken movement, Emory flung the haversack into the back and swung Anna into the passenger seat, then took up the reins and slapped them on the rump of the startled horse, who jumped instantly into a trot.

  Ramsey’s coach came thundering around the bend. He was still hanging out the window, still shouting orders when they drove by. He glanced quickly at Emory as the light passed over the smaller vehicle, then swivelled around again with a red-faced scream when he saw the ousted driver staggering to his feet yelling, “Thief! Thief!”

  Emory snapped the whip over the horse’s flanks, stinging it into a gallop. Many of the soldiers who had been following on foot were still pressed against the fronts of the buildings from Ramsey’s perilous dash past. Those who thought to venture boldly into the path of the oncoming vehicle dove ignobly back into their nooks and crannies when Emory took aim and fired his pistol over their heads. One or two had the presence of mind to shoulder their muskets and fire after them, but the majority were too stunned to do more than stare in disbelief at the escaping carriage.

  Holding the reins in one hand, Emory balanced precariously on the boards of the seat and swung around, using the butt of his pistol to shatter the small coach lamps that hung on either side of the hood.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I think so,” Anna gasped. “Are you?”

  “We will find out in a few minutes. Find something to hang on to. We might be in for a bit of a wild ride.”

  He flashed a devilish grin and cracked the whip in the air again. It had cost Ramsey’s heavier coach valuable time to turn around and by the time Emory saw the yellow eye of the coach lamp, he had gained three, four hundred yards. With the next crack of the whip, he turned the hackney down a narrow street on his right, pelting past dimly lit doors and swaying tavern lanterns until he came to a second, even sharper turn onto a winding lane.

  Anna clutched at the leather hand strap and held on for dear life as the carriage seemed to careen around each corner on a single wheel. There were shouts from startled pedestrians as they galloped past, and curses from men who had to scatter to one side or the other to avoid being run down. Emory was shouting as well, cracking the whip at everyone who moved too slowly to suit him. He sent frequent glances over his shoulder and each time he did, his hair blew back in the windstream, all but covering his face.

  Anna did not have to look through the tiny rear window to know their pursuers were gaining. The sudden hail of musket fire told the tale.

  “Hold on,” he shouted again and pulled the reins, commanding the horse to take a hard left. The body of the coach pitched sickeningly to the right, slamming Anna against the far side and nearly ripping her arm out of its socket.

  “Do you know how to load a gun?”

  Oh dear God, she thought! “Yes. Yes, I know how.”

  “There is powder and shot in the haversack,” he shouted, leaning back to hand her the spent flintlock, “as well as a second pistol. Load them both for me if you can.”

  “What are you going to do? You cannot possibly shoot them all!”

  “I don’t particularly want to shoot any of them,” he said. “Just scare them back a little. Quickly now. Another turn coming up on the right.”

  Anna ground her teeth, clutched the strap in one hand and clamped the other around the gun in her lap while the coach roared around another impossibly abrupt turn in a road never built for breakneck chases. When the wheels settled again she groped at her feet for the haversack and found the round tin powder horn, the canvas sack of shot and thin strip of silk wadding. She loaded both pistols and was about to call out to Emory when a wooden curlicue at the upper corner of the carriage hood disintegrated in a shower of wooden splinters. A second shot thudded into the back of the carriage alarmingly close to Anna’s head.

  Emory reached around. “Give me the guns!”

  But Anna was already on her knees, aiming the snout of one pistol out the narrow window above her seat. She thumbed the hammer into full cock and squeezed the trigger, shutting her eyes tight against the flare of powder igniting in the pan and the almost instantaneous kick and blast from the gun as it discharged. The recoil sent her sprawling in a painful heap against the back of the driver’s seat, where she might have remained wedged if Emory did not reach down and haul her up by a fistful of crushed blue silk.

  “You little fool! Give me the other gun!”

  “You just drive, dammit,” she cried, climbing back onto the seat. She snatched up the second gun, cocked, aimed and fired it, this time braced for the sparks, the pooft of acrid smoke, the explosion and recoil. The shot did not come within twenty feet
of the following coach, but it did zing off the side of a wrought iron rail and ricochet back into the street, where it found the arm of one of the soldiers clinging to the boot of Ramsey’s coach. The unlucky fellow screamed and lost his grip, falling to the side of the road and rolling in a blur of red and white in the coach’s wake.

  “I need time to reload,” Anna gasped.

  Under any other circumstances, Emory might have laughed at the irony of a kidnapped heiress loading and firing guns to keep her rescuers at bay. But all he could see was Anna’s pale face and huge dark eyes, and he knew he would never laugh again if so much as a hair on her head was harmed on his account.

  “Get down on the floor,” he commanded. “Wedge yourself against the seat.”

  “Why? What are you--?”

  “Just do it!”

  Anna caught a glimpse of his grim expression and asked no more questions. She did as she was told without a second to spare as he sent the carriage slewing sideways off the road and onto the manicured green of a park. Clods of dirt and sod flew out from behind the spinning wheels. Without regard for the rows of flowers and neatly planted gardens, Emory steered the horse through the fragrant beds, blazing a new trail across the soft earth, aiming as near as Anna could see for a solid black line of trees. Her mouth dropped open and her stomach lurched into her throat as the carriage hurled toward what looked like certain doom at breakneck speed.

  But Emory had seen what she could not: a paler shading of black that indicated what he hoped might be--in daylight--a riding path, the entrance marked by a stone archway. He had to slow the charging beast by a hair until he could be reasonably certain, but a glance back at Ramsey’s coach told him he could not afford to veer away and look for a more plausible route. The bigger vehicle had followed them onto the parkland, the two horse team gaining ground as their hooves found greater traction on the earth. Moreover the soldiers were reloading, firing as soon as they were able, and Emory heard whoops of triumph as someone on board guessed that they had trapped the fleeing carriage against the trees.