She took another step back. The sand was packed firm underfoot. The high watermark seemed much higher than usual. Easier to run on….
A gull wheeled past just over Lawnton’s head and she took advantage of his momentary distraction to turn on her heels and flee.
Her abductor caught up with her quickly, throwing himself against her back. Strong arms reached around above her waist and squeezed the air from her lungs. She had the presence of mind to close her eyes and her mouth as she landed face first on the gritty sand. Lawnton’s body crashed on top of her.
She tried to scream but the sound of it was lost against the noise of the wheeling seagulls and the pounding of the surf.
Lawnton tumbled her onto her back and straddled her.
Slap!
“Where is it?”
“You’ll never find it,” she gasped. “I hid it too well.”
“You don’t bloody have it, do you?” Realization dawned on his features so clearly it was as if she could read his mind. It was all for nothing… “That’s it, you bitch,” he panted, gaining his feet and dragging her up with him, hauling her closer and closer to the roiling grey sea. “This is where you’ll know fear. I’ll watch you drown like you watched Jack drown. A fitting end for you, you bitch.”
As the waves rolled in, he pushed her head underwater. She closed her mouth and her lungs screamed in protest but, by some miracle, a wave knocked Lawnton off his feet. He lost his balance, and his grip on her neck.
She stood in knee deep water, gasping for breath. Lawnton prepared to lunge at her again.
Something rose within her. Now it was she who offered him a savage snarl.
“Kill me and you will swing,” she said. “If you really did kill someone else, then your only hope is getting Nate to take you to Ireland or France or Holland – wherever it is you want to go. But if you kill me, you’ll dance on the end of a rope!”
Lawnton growled. Instead of an open-faced slap, it was a fist. And that was the last thing Susannah saw.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nate kept a watchful eye on the sky above. He knew better than to be fooled by the glimpses of blue between the clouds.
Somewhere out in the ocean beyond, there was a monstrous storm revealing itself in the high tides and the change of air pressure that always presaged nature’s capricious mood.
He readied the Sprite to go out for one last look along the Irish coast, looking for anything that resembled the maps the spies from France had recovered. If the weather worsened as he expected, this would be the final voyage for the year – that suited him just fine.
The weather could do what it liked then. He would be married in a few weeks, and he and Susannah would savor their first Christmas together.
He smiled at the thought as he coiled a spare line and glanced over the dock then back up at the sky. Fat grey clouds were beginning to thicken there.
Adam needed to be back here soon if they were going to catch the tide.
Nate continued to tidy the boat, making sure everything was secure just in case they needed to batten down the hatches. He picked up his box of tools and headed below deck.
No sooner was he in the cabin than he heard a set of footsteps above.
“’Bout time you showed up,” he shouted with a touch of good-natured exasperation. “Loose the lines and weigh the anchor, we’re not going to have better weather than this.”
There was no response. Nate went back out onto the deck and found everything exactly as he’d left it.
He could have sworn he’d heard Adam come aboard. But there he really was, making his way along the pier at a clip. The man made the small jump from the jetty to the boat and immediately started loosening the lines. Nate shrugged and turned his attention to raising the anchor. He felt the draw of the current pull the boat away from its moorings.
“I’ve just heard back from Aunt Runella,” said Adam. “We have a more specific area to search this time – Dungarvan to Wexford.”
Nate gave his friend a look. “Just sixty miles of coastline, then?”
The man shrugged and started pulling on the line to raise the sail. “It’s a hell of a lot better than the two hundred we were looking at just a month ago.”
There were few people Nate trusted to run his boat, but Adam had quickly become one of them. They fell into a comfortable working routine to safely take the Sprite out into the increasingly choppy estuary.
Nate watched the surge of the water pushing its way through the mouth of the river but the boat sliced its way through the waves, its bow rising and falling in dramatic fashion.
He braced himself at the wheel. If the swell out at sea was as bad, they were in for a rough time, indeed. Just as long as it wasn’t as rough when they were fleeing the Frenchies.
Once they had left the estuary, the rise and fall didn’t seem as bad. Weak shafts of light pushed their way through the clouds which would help improve their visibility.
He’d rather be closer to Ireland and drop anchor overnight to give them a full morning to survey the coastline for God-knows-what. And with the wind before them, they could be back at St. Sennen before the storm bore down on them.
“Do you know where the hell we’re going?” Nate yelled.
Adam wove his way across the heaving deck with a compass in one hand and a folded map in the other. He approached the helm.
“Keep her northwest.”
Nate glanced down at the compass, then looked up at the pale white sun, its face obscured by clouds, and fought with the wheel to correct his course.
“You may as well get below and get some rest for a few hours,” called Nate. “There’s no point in the two of us being exhausted.”
Hardacre waved a hand in acknowledgement.
“I’ll relieve you for the first watch,” he answered.
Nate nodded in return.
First watch.
Nate chuckled to himself. On a boat like the Sprite he was cabin boy, seaman, bosun, and captain all at once. There were no niceties like setting a watch. It was “all hands on deck, all the time” when he was single-handedly sailing her.
He listened to his boat. Every sound she made told him what was needed next. When he was imprisoned in France, he would dream of being on her deck and sailing her once again. He would bring to mind how the boards felt under his feet, he could feel the carved spindles of the vessel’s wheel in his hand, the fight and pull on the lines to keep the sails in trim.
Alone in the dark confines of the oubliette, he would close his eyes and feel the sun on his face and see the bright blue sky of a perfect English summer’s day. He could ignore the cold and the stench of the pit for a little while when he reached down for pleasant memories to help sustain him.
He had vowed then that he would be on the water once again with the wind and the briny air of the sea filling his lungs. Never again would he allow himself to be trapped on land for any length of time.
Ah, but that was before he met Susannah. Still waters ran deep with his beloved. He was pretty certain he could know her for a lifetime and still not plumb her depths.
When the weather improved, he would take her sailing again. He had a feeling she would take to it. And there was a secluded cove only a few hours from St. Sennen, where a stream became a waterfall and plunged directly into the sea.
He smiled at the idea of making love to her in the open air, the summer sun touching her skin as he caressed her. It was a rather nice fantasy and he happily indulged it until the chill November wind and fast ebbing daylight could no longer be ignored.
He lashed the wheel into position and set about setting a lamp or two on deck.
There was no sign of Hardacre to take his watch.
He stomped heavily over the cabin in a none-too-subtle hint.
That man could sleep like the dead. Perhaps he should go down and wake him. Instead, he merely opened the door and yelled down to him.
“Hey! Hardacre! Wakey, wakey, old man!”
&nbs
p; Satisfied he could hear a man moving about, Nate returned to the helm.
Unsteady feet climbed the steps up to the deck.
“Did you drink a bottle of rum before nap time?”
The figure emerged onto the gloomy deck and lurched awkwardly as the Sprite rolled.
“You’re drunk!” Nate laughed.
It wasn’t until the figure got closer that he saw the blade of the knife glint in the lamplight. It took another moment or two after that to realize the man, tall and broad, was not Adam Hardacre.
Nate recognized him as the stranger he’d confronted in the streets of St. Sennen on the night before Clem’s wedding. The footsteps he’d thought were Adam…
“What are you doing on my boat?”
“You’re going to take me to Holland.”
“Oh no, we’re not. We’re halfway to bloody Ireland!”
“Then turn her about!”
The knife shook in the man’s hand. Nate looked at it with contempt before casting a watchful eye on the sail before him.
“We’re all dead if you use that on me, because I’m the one sailing the boat.”
“Then I’ll just have to do it myself.”
The man surged forward and tackled Nate around the waist, pulling him to the deck. They grappled, the boat beneath them heaving in the increasing swell.
Nate managed prise the knife from the man’s hands. It skittered somewhere in the blackness, useless to him but at least now useless to the stowaway. Nate launched himself, slamming his full body weight on the man, knocking the wind out of him, and pinning him to the deck. He pressed a forearm across the man’s chest.
“Now, who the hell are you, and where the hell is Hardacre?”
“You don’t need to be worrying about him,” the man puffed. “You should be concerned for Susannah.”
Nate fought a violent urge to seek answers with his fists. “Explain yourself.”
“The little whore’s tucked away safe for now. Get me to where I want to go, and I’ll tell you where she is.”
Nate lifted the man by his shirt and slammed the back of his head on the deck.
“Where’s Susannah?”
Nate wasn’t sure if the violent shaking he was giving the man was not actually tremors in his own body.
“Get me to Rotterdam,” the man gasped. “The longer you delay, the less time you’ll have to find her.”
“Tell me now and I won’t throw you overboard.”
“If you turn us back, I’ll jump myself and save you the trouble. I am not going back to England. I’d sooner drown than face prison and the hangman’s noose.”
Something within him recognized the true desperation in the man’s words. Nate’s own smothering fear of being trapped in dark, confined spaces underground emerged to the fore and found its kin in the man beneath him.
“It’d take us four days to get to Holland under fair skies. I don’t care what kind of madman you are, but in two days I will not be out at sea with this storm bearing down on us. I’ll take you to Ireland and no further. That’s my first and final offer.”
The tension leaving the man’s body seemed to be his acceptance. Nate released his grip and rose to his feet. He needed to be at the wheel and work out where the hell they were.
“Do we have an agreement?”
The man nodded.
“Then since you’re going to be crew for the next few hours, you may as well tell me your name.”
“Lawnton,” he replied, coming gingerly to his feet. “That’s all you need to know.”
*
When Susannah awoke, her head pounded and she feared that she was frozen stiff from the cold and her wet, salt-crusted clothes. She managed to move her arms a little but found them bound; so, too, her legs. As awareness returned, she felt a gag and a covering over her eyes.
She rolled up into a sitting position. When she twisted her wrists around in the cloth binding them, she felt it slip. She tugged her wrists apart and found the knot that bound them together tightened while actually making the binding round her wrists a little more slack. It took some minutes working until one wrist was free.
She immediately tore off her blindfold. Its removal made no difference. It was pitch dark. As she tugged away the gag across her mouth, she realized she was deep inside the smugglers’ cave.
Lawnton had used her own petticoat to bind her even though she could not see it. She could only feel the missing underskirt as she began to fumble at the knotted cloth that secured her ankles. This was more difficult. She stretched her fingers, hoping to work some warmth into them, and tried again. The longer it took the more she feared the tide of panic rising in her.
She breathed in deep, hoping the headache would ease. The air smelled musty and yet dank. While the ground she was on seemed dry, it was difficult to tell with her dress still wet.
Without light to give her an indication of the day, she didn’t know whether she worked five minutes or fifteen to untie the knot that kept her ankles bound. Once free, she gathered her arms around her knees and shivered.
She thought of Nate and his dread of confined spaces. Did he know moments of terror like this?
It was tempting to fall into the looming panic. She felt hysteria touch the edge of her consciousness. Oh, the temptation to sob uncontrollably was there, and she toyed with it, giving it the reins for a moment before pulling it back under her control. She should be grateful she was still alive.
Flashes of memory flickered vividly – Peggy’s terrified face, Tressa’s prone body, Lawnton’s demonic countenance, the beach. Her eyes still stung from their exposure to salt water and her throat ached in pain from the seawater she unwittingly swallowed.
Concentrate!
So Lawnton had taken her into the caves beneath Arthyn Hill. How far did they extend? No one seemed to know. Not even Clem who said he’d never ventured beyond the smuggler’s grotto. Some of the regulars at The Queen’s Head hinted at a labyrinth dating back to the time of King Arthur, but she had dismissed them as tall tales.
You can’t just sit here. Think!
“Hello!” she called out.
Strange, she expected to hear an echo, but she didn’t.
She wasn’t quite sure what that meant. But surely if Lawnton had brought here, then there had to be a way to get back out. She concentrated on what she could hear. A steady rush of water she guessed, but the sound was distorted in the twists and turns of the caverns.
There!
A distinct touch of moving air on her cheeks. A way out. She started to rise but only got as far as a crouch before she bumped her head. She fell again with a frustrated cry.
It was to be hands and knees then. But where had that breeze come from? Now it was still, apart from the haunting moans of wind going elsewhere through the caves. She willed the touch of air to return and it did. To her left.
This time, she crawled cautiously. Grit from sand and shells along with the hard, unyielding surface of the rock grazed her hands and knees.
Every few feet forward, she would stop and listen, and wait for the moving air to guide her.
She called out again, not so much in the hope of rescue, but rather to get a better understanding of her surroundings. If there was an echo, it would indicate a chamber; if there was not, she was somewhere else. A passage perhaps. Who could tell in the total darkness?
And the breeze lied to her.
Abruptly, she banged her head against a dead end. She screamed in frustration, pounding her fists against the rock.
Whispering voices in her mind alleged her fate was no less than she deserved for her wickedness for letting Jack drown. Her choice had hurt innocent people like Peggy and young Tressa and, as for her – she would die here alone with Nate never knowing her fate.
She wept until she felt weak and boneless, staring into the blackness.
No. I am stronger than this.
If she stopped and gave in to her exhaustion and despair, she would sleep. The dark would claim her
first and then the cold.
Despite the pounding of her head, she must not give in.
If she did not give up, there was hope, she told herself, even though every part of her ached. She would only count to thirty before moving on.
Did she hear a sound?
“Hello!”
The caves remained mute.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Sprite ploughed on through the waves. Nate used the tumultuous seas to hide the fact he was making incremental changes to his heading.
Every so often, he would glance down at the hatch to below decks. It had been more than half an hour, at a guess, since the unwelcome stowaway revealed himself and there was still no sign of Adam Hardacre.
That was not good.
So far, Lawnton hadn’t noticed the change in direction. Nate gambled that the man wasn’t a seafarer. He certainly wasn’t much of a sailor. He was subdued and never ventured too far away from the sides. Between squalls, Nate would hear the sound of retching.
Sometime later, out of the corners of his eyes, he saw a shadowy figure emerge at last from the hatch.
Adam hunkered down beside it and didn’t move for several minutes, apparently getting the lay of the land. Finally, he cautiously made his way across to the helm, making very certain to stay out of Lawnton’s eyeline.
He stopped by the mast and crouched down. Nate adjusted his position to provide additional cover.
“Nice to see you awake,” Nate muttered under the wind. “I was trying to work out what I was going to tell Olivia if your nap was a permanent one.”
Adam rubbed the back of his head and winced.
“Who’s our passenger?” he asked.
“The name’s Lawnton. He wants us to take him to Holland.”
Adam snorted. “Why haven’t you tossed him overboard already?”
“Because he says he has Susannah.”
Nate heard his friend hiss the curses he himself had uttered a half-hour before.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know, he refuses to say. He also says he’s afraid of the hangman’s noose and I’ve seen enough frightened men to believe he’s telling the truth about that.”
Spyfall Page 26
