The Captain Claims His Lady

by Annie Burrows

  Whichever it was, she hadn’t gone far into the maze before her anger, and the determination to rescue Billy from Bolsover’s clutches, began to fade under the increasing awareness that this was the first time she’d been in this deep without Sam. And that Sam had always taken the lead. And that he’d always had those balls of twine in his pockets to make sure they could find their way out again.

  Also, they’d never entered the system from this point. Usually, they’d gone in via a false tomb in the churchyard in Lesser Peeving. They’d found their way out to the cliffs at Peeving Cove on one of their sorties. But things never looked the same when facing them from the opposite direction.

  It would be hard enough for a person with keen eyesight. But for Lizzie, who could barely make out the features of her own grandfather across the table, it was rapidly becoming a nightmare. And there was also the odd sensation, caused no doubt by an echo of her footsteps, that someone was following her.

  Her heart was beginning to beat very rapidly. And it was starting to feel hard to breathe. She could feel the weight of all the rock, overhead, pressing down on her. In spite of her lantern, the darkness was growing thicker. As thick as treacle.

  She paused as a wave of dizziness hit her. Reached out to lean her hand on the wall to steady herself. Which was worse. The moment she stood still, she got the peculiar impression that the tunnels were holding their breath. With a sort of devilish glee. As though they knew she was lost, that she would never get out. And they were relishing the prospect of swallowing her whole.

  At which point, she remembered she’d had no breakfast. That was why she felt dizzy, she told herself bracingly. She wasn’t on the verge of having hysterics just because she might be lost.

  Underground.

  She took a deep breath. She’d have to keep moving, if this was what happened when she paused to try and get her bearings. At least if she was moving, she would end up getting somewhere. It was when she stood still, that was when everything started to feel as if it was pressing down on her and her heart started beating so erratically that she had to struggle for breath, and her brain began scrabbling at nothing like a mouse behind a wainscot. And...oh, did that odd streak of white slashing from floor to ceiling look familiar? Like an arthritic finger with a rumpled nail! If she was recalling it correctly, then in five or six more paces...yes...there it was. Oh, thank heaven! Another slash of white, just before a fork in the tunnels.

  She’d reached a point east of Lesser Peeving. A section of the tunnels that was more familiar.

  She couldn’t say that she was feeling exactly confident, but at least the panic had subsided to a point where her mind was working almost rationally again. She was able to pick out the natural markers which showed her the way. And was choosing the correct fork each time with scarcely a pause.

  Which was, she was to later think, where she went wrong. The earlier spate of near panic had made her want to hurry to get out of the maze of tunnels, so she wasn’t proceeding with much caution.

  And so she had stumbled into one of the large chambers which were natural features of the maze, before checking to see if anyone was already there. Which she should have done, considering there had been a run the night before.

  The men who were huddled round a pile of barrels and bales all looked up, the moment she stepped out of her tunnel. And made a collective, growling sound.

  What she should have done, at that point, was to step forward boldly and tell them they had nothing to fear from her, because she was only looking for Billy. But, probably because she’d been on the verge of panic for such a long time already, the sight of Bolsover’s gang, en masse, startled her so much that she let out a squeak of fright. And dropped her lantern. And then darted back into the tunnel from which she’d come.

  They, naturally enough, set out in pursuit. They must have thought she’d stumbled on them by mistake.

  But worse was to follow. It turned out that she hadn’t imagined she was being followed, after all. There, looming up ahead of her in the tunnel which was her only way of escape, was some hulking great man. So tall he had to stoop so that his head didn’t strike the roof.

  It could only be Bolsover himself!

  But he was alone.

  And behind her she could hear the sound of many pairs of booted feet, echoing off the walls like a volley of gunfire.

  And she was strong.

  And her reticule contained a brass telescope. All folded in on itself.

  And he wouldn’t expect her to put up a fight.

  If she was lucky, she’d startle him enough—if she could land one really good blow in a strategic spot—that she’d be able to dart past him...

  Even as the thought formed in her head, she closed her fingers round the neck of her reticule and dashed forward, swinging it in the direction of the hulking man’s face.

  ‘Lizzie? What the—?’

  Captain Bretherton’s voice! But it was too late to stop her wild swing. Sam’s telescope caught him full on the nose and he went staggering back, striking his head on the tunnel wall before slithering down into a slumped heap on the floor.

  ‘Captain Bretherton!’

  She was just about to go down on her knees, to find out how much damage she’d done him, when several pairs of hands reached out of the darkness and dragged her away. Back down the tunnel to the chamber where all those packages lay stacked up on all sides.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘Well, well, what have we here?’

  Lizzie might not be able to see very clearly, but she had no trouble recognising that voice. It was Reverend Cottam! What could he be doing here? With the smugglers? The day after what appeared to have been a highly successful run?

  And more to the point, why wasn’t he urging the two men who were holding her arms to let her go? Particularly since one of them was pressing what felt like a knife to her throat.

  ‘Miss Hutton,’ said Reverend Cottam, reproachfully. ‘Whatever can you be doing down here in these tunnels? And with your...beau?’ He added the last just as another set of smugglers emerged from the tunnel half-dragging, half-carrying the stumbling, sagging form of Captain Bretherton. They flung him roughly to the ground, where he lay utterly still.

  ‘I wasn’t with Captain Bretherton,’ she protested, since she’d always known these men would all regard him with hostility and didn’t want them to think she’d deliberately led him down here. ‘In fact, I specifically told him I did not wish to spend any time with him today.’

  ‘That’s probably true,’ said one of the men who was holding her arms. ‘When she saw him in the tunnel, she decked him.’

  ‘Oh? I assumed the state of him was your work.’

  The men who’d flung him to the floor made growls of dissent.

  ‘Got him good and proper she did.’

  Surely she hadn’t hit him that hard? Besides, he’d leaped back as she took her wild swing at him, and...oh! He’d bashed his head while dodging her. The tunnel roof was low, and rough, and he was very tall. That might account for it.

  ‘So, you didn’t lead him down here,’ said Reverend Cottam, ‘so that he could catch us all red-handed?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then would you mind very much, my dear,’ he said, stepping out of the shadows into a pool of light thrown by some lanterns, ‘explaining exactly what you were doing?’

  Lizzie swallowed nervously. Us all. He’d said that as though he was one of Bolsover’s gang, not an evangelical cleric determined to cure them of their criminal ways.

  Not that it made any difference to her reasons for coming here, which she could tell them all, with perfect honesty.

  ‘I came to find out what has happened to Billy,’ said Lizzie, lifting her chin. ‘The son of our cook. She is beside herself with worry because the boy went out last night and didn’t come home. She was convinced he must h
ave become involved in Bolsover’s activities and begged me to try to find out what became of him. And since I know these tunnels so well, I thought it would be the most discreet way to do so. Billy isn’t hurt, is he?’

  ‘Billy is not hurt, no.’ Cottam made a signal to the men holding her arms and they let her go. He then waved an arm to a stack of packages, as though inviting her to take a seat. And in spite of pretending she wasn’t scared, she found that her legs were shaking so much she was actually rather grateful for the suggestion.

  ‘He was up way past his bedtime last night, though,’ Reverend Cottam explained. ‘So we simply let him sleep in this morning. By now, he is probably back at home.’

  ‘So,’ she said, sitting down rather suddenly as her legs gave out. ‘This was all a waste of time.’

  ‘Rather more than that, Miss Hutton,’ said Reverend Cottam, sitting down beside her. ‘You see, although I am prepared to believe you did not mean to do it, you have led a navy man to the heart of our operations.’ He took her hand. ‘Even you cannot be so foolish as to believe he will keep quiet about this.’ He waved his free hand about the cave, stashed from floor to ceiling with all manner of contraband.

  ‘He might...’ She’d persuaded him to stay indoors while the run had been taking place, after all.

  He patted her hand in a consoling manner. ‘I very much doubt it, Miss Hutton. But no need to worry. I shall come up with a plan to make all right.’

  ‘Thank you, Reverend,’ she said with relief. Even though he was clearly more involved with Bolsover’s operations than he ought to be, he was, after all, a man of the cloth.

  After patting her hand once more, he stood up and began to pace back and forth, his hands behind his back. ‘It all hinges, of course, on the precise moment that you realised his courtship of you was merely a ruse.’

  ‘A...a what?’

  Cottam ignored her startled exclamation and carried on pacing. ‘It must have been in the last day or so. You were seen quarrelling only last night. And this morning, you went to the Three Tuns to tell him you never wished to see him again...’

  ‘No! I didn’t, I...’

  He held up his hand for silence. One of the men who’d hauled her along the tunnel came to stand over her. And she caught the glint of light reflecting off metal. He was threatening her with a knife. At the Reverend’s instigation. It was shock that he could do such a thing, more than fear of the smuggler, that made her fall silent.

  ‘Yes, you did,’ Reverend Cottam continued, as he paced back and forth. ‘Because you’d discovered that the only reason he had come down here was to spy on me and my little...enterprise.’

  ‘Spy on...on you?’

  ‘This...’ Cottam waved his hand at the goods stashed round the cave ‘.is merely in the way of being my...warehouse. Goods come in here and depart again from all over the country. And beyond. Did you not know?’ He stopped right in front of her. ‘Ah, poor, deluded Miss Hutton. Too foolish to see what is going on right under your nose.’ He stroked one finger down the length of it. Lizzie flinched back, making Cottam laugh in a horrible, cold, malevolent manner that sent shivers down her spine.

  ‘Your Captain knew, though.’ Cottam turned in his direction. ‘Knew, but could prove nothing. Which was why he deliberately sought you out, in Bath, so that he could make you the excuse for poking around down here for an indefinite period.’ He turned to her. ‘Poor, plain, lonely Miss Hutton,’ he sneered. ‘So desperate for romance that you fell into his hands like a ripe plum.’

  Her stomach lurched. Hadn’t she known, deep down, all along, that it had been too good to be true? A man as handsome and accomplished as Captain Bretherton could never really have been so smitten with a clumsy great beanpole like her that he’d pursue her all the way to Lesser Peeving. Especially after having met her only a couple of times.

  And it certainly explained why he’d been so interested in all the locals. And why he’d been asking so many questions about them all.

  Yet it hurt so much to learn what a fool she’d been that Reverend Cottam might just as well have ordered his smuggler to plunge that knife right into her. So much that she couldn’t help letting out a cry that was half-protest, half-acceptance of the horrid truth.

  And all humiliation.

  ‘It wasn’t like that!’ she heard Captain Bretherton protest and couldn’t help turning her face in his direction, hoping he might go on to say...

  But it was no good. Before he could say anything at all there came the sickening thud of boot leather on flesh. And Captain Bretherton, who’d started to push himself up on one elbow, from what she could make out, collapsed into a large round heap, rather than the great long outline he’d made earlier. As though he’d curled into a ball.

  ‘It was exactly like that,’ Cottam spat out, going to stand over the groaning, curled-up mound of lying, cheating, hurtful...liar that was Captain Bretherton.

  ‘Rawcliffe told you all about her, didn’t he? And decided to use her, the way he’d used my own sister, to further his vendetta against me. He married her, can you believe it,’ he said, suddenly swinging round to Lizzie, ‘simply to have a plausible excuse for coming to this area. You met my sister, didn’t you, Miss Hutton? You probably thought she was very gracious and charming.’ He gave a strange, bitter laugh. ‘But she is a viper! She told her husband all about you, what easy prey you’d be for a certain type of man, and then he sent this rogue,’ he said, waving one hand in Captain Bretherton’s direction, ‘to Bath to romance you.’

  ‘No,’ Lizzie gasped instinctively, even though his words had the ring of truth about them. Perhaps because they had the ring of truth about them.

  ‘Yes,’ Cottam hissed. ‘He didn’t even bother to think up a new strategy. Because he’d already succeeded in duping one innocent, gullible young woman, he assumed one of his friends would be able to do the same thing.’

  ‘F-friends?’ Lizzie stammered. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It isn’t how he’s making it sound,’ Captain Bretherton just managed to grate, before the same vicious henchman kicked him again. This time, after he curled into a ball, he made horrible retching noises that made her curl her arms about her own stomach as it, too, clenched up in protest.

  ‘Then why were you living in Rawcliffe’s London house when you first returned to England?’ said Cottam sarcastically. ‘Why were you one of the men standing up with him at his wedding to my sister?’

  ‘How can you possibly know all this?’ Reverend Cottam was making it all up. He had to be.

  ‘I have people in London,’ said Cottam smugly, ‘who watch what is going on in the great houses during the Season and report back to me.’

  Captain Bretherton groaned. And since nobody had kicked him, this time, Lizzie heard it as an admission of guilt. Because even though he’d said that it wasn’t how the Reverend was making it sound, he wasn’t denying that Lord Rawcliffe was his friend, or that he’d attended his wedding.

  And he’d kept that fact from her. Which was such a peculiar thing to have done, if he’d had nothing to hide. For, when people first met, they always discussed mutual acquaintances. When he’d learned she lived near Peacombe, it would have been natural for him to have mentioned he knew someone who’d spent his honeymoon there and then she would have said, Oh, yes, I remember Lord and Lady Rawcliffe.

  But he hadn’t.

  And that was when tears of anger and humiliation began to well up in her half-blind eyes.

  ‘You have good reason to be furious with him,’ said Cottam, as she dashed them away with the back of her hand. His voice sounded almost sympathetic. Almost. But if he’d really felt anything for her predicament, then he would have warned her about Captain Bretherton’s deception. Or have mentioned his suspicions to her grandfather.

  But he hadn’t done any such thing.

  No—because that would have meant owning up
to his own part in Bolsover’s business.

  ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and so forth. Or in this case, a woman deceived and used. No wonder you lured him down into these tunnels, then struck him down...’

  ‘What? No? I didn’t lure him...’

  But Cottam had started pacing up and down again. ‘Yes, you lured him down here and then killed him.’

  ‘I didn’t! He isn’t dead!’

  Cottam waved a hand as though that point was immaterial.

  ‘You killed him and then, filled with remorse, you came to me for some reason.’ He paused. ‘To seek absolution,’ he answered himself, then carried on pacing. ‘And, because I am a man of great compassion and could not bear to see such a lovely young woman condemned for a crime that was committed in the heat of the moment, I arranged to dispose of his body in such a way that no blame could ever be laid at your door.’

  ‘Dispose of his body?’ But Captain Bretherton wasn’t dead.

  Though... Reverend Cottam was speaking of him as though he was.

  Which could only mean... She swallowed down bile as it hit her. They were going to kill him. And put the blame on her.

  ‘No!’ She leaped to her feet. He might be a lying, cheating heartbreaker, but she didn’t wish him dead. ‘You cannot mean it!’

  The man who’d been set to guard her put a meaty hand on one of her shoulders and pushed her back down.

  ‘Why not? It is the cleanest solution. Your grandfather will not wish to see you go to the gallows. He will, if not exactly applaud the action I am about to take today, exonerate me. For your sake.’

  ‘No, no, please, there must be some other way...’

  ‘I fear not. Not unless...’

  ‘Yes? What?’

  ‘You may share his fate, if you wish.’

  ‘Wh-what?’ Her blood ran cold.

  ‘Ah, dear, what a reputation this area will gain for doomed young lovers choosing to die together, rather than live apart...’