Now he prayed that the second part of the plan would go just as smoothly and the riot would never reach them.
But he also couldn’t help a worried glance down the dark street in the direction of the square where the rioters were told to meet, knowing that Veronica was somewhere among them. She was more than capable of taking care of herself, his head knew that. But his heart… That was a different matter completely.
Marcus finished giving instructions to Colonel Anderson and rejoined Merritt and Pearce. Every inch of him exuded power and confidence. All the soldiers around them recognized it, and Merritt welcomed it. There was comfort here among the soldiers with Marcus in command, a unified purpose that had been missing from his life when he’d returned to England. Working with the other men of the Armory against Scepter had begun to fill that void, and Veronica was helping to finally ease the pain of losing Joanna. But would he ever find peace?
“There’s another blockade farther up Whitehall,” Marcus informed them with hard tugs at his gloves. That same old habit from before every battle in the wars. In a lesser man, Merritt would have said it was nerves. “It’s there in case the rioters break through this one.”
“They won’t.” Pearce frowned at the ready muskets slung over the shoulders of the Scots Guards. “They’ll be slaughtered by gunfire here first.”
“Even so, I want you there. I want to make certain the soldiers behind us don’t do something stupid like rush forward to our position and fire on the rioters.”
“Or on us,” Merritt muttered.
“That, too.” Marcus nodded at Pearce. “Go take charge at the second barricade, Brigadier.”
“Yes, sir.” Pearce saluted smartly and turned on his heel to hurry to the rear position farther down the dark street behind them, shouting out his name and rank as he went. No one wanted surprises in the darkness tonight.
“Merritt, you’ll remain with me.”
“Yes, sir.” Instead of saluting, he placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. God only knew the kind of fighting that would be required of them before dawn.
A motion at the end of the street beyond the barricade caught his attention. A handful of men carrying torches in one hand and home-fashioned weapons of clubs and cutlasses in the other stalked toward them from out of the shadows.
“Our plan didn’t work,” Merritt muttered as the number of men swelled to over two dozen. “They didn’t head north.”
“Most of them did,” Marcus corrected. “These are likely the ones that Scepter paid to lead the riot here, still carrying out their orders like the well-trained soldiers they used to be.”
The rioters quickened their pace when they saw the barricade. They shouted at the soldiers and brandished their torches and weapons as they advanced.
Behind him, Colonel Anderson called out, “Ready, men!”
Rifles raised nearly in unison as the first row of soldiers came forward to position themselves. Their muzzles pointed over the barricade’s makeshift mound of wooden boards, crates, barrels, and anything else the soldiers had found nearby. Its purpose wasn’t to stop the rioters but simply to slow them down just long enough to shoot or bayonet them.
Marcus’s sword shot into the air. “Hold fire! Fire only on my order!” He repeated in a powerful command that brooked no question of his authority, “Only on my order.”
The soldiers tensed as they switched their attention from Colonel Anderson to Marcus, but they held their position, as unmoving as statues.
“I know you want to save the rioters,” Marcus said quietly to Merritt. “But my first priority, as always, is to defend Westminster.” He slid a somber glance sideways at Merritt, his arm still straight in the air. “I will order the soldiers to fire if they charge the barricade.”
“Well then,” Merritt muttered. “Best not let it come to that.”
And it wouldn’t. The men were former soldiers who knew what it meant to confront the regiment standing here. They were paid rioters, not suicidal. They would certainly come closer, daring to wave their weapons in the air and threaten the soldiers, shout insults and threats, and perhaps even destroy the front of the buildings lining the street, but they wouldn’t attempt the barricades.
Yet the rioters hurried on fearlessly toward the barricade long after they should have stopped.
Merritt’s blood turned to ice as the horrifying realization struck him—they thought the soldiers wouldn’t fire on them because they’d been told they wouldn’t. They’d been assured that Liggett was in command and wouldn’t give the order for the soldiers to shoot, that they’d be allowed to climb over the barricades and march on toward Parliament and St James’s Palace unmolested.
Good God. The rioters had been set up for slaughter.
Merritt grabbed Marcus’s pistol from his side and leapt onto the barricade. He raised it into the air and fired. The crack of its report echoed off the stone buildings and stopped the stunned rioters dead in their steps.
“Stop this now!” he shouted at them. His voice was nearly as loud as the gunshot. “Go home. Liggett isn’t here. He’s been replaced by General Marcus Braddock, and you know his reputation. He will not hesitate to fire upon you if you attempt to cross the barricade. You will be killed.” He flung the spent pistol down onto the street. “No matter what you’ve been told about being allowed to pass into Westminster, it will not happen.”
The rioters hesitated and exchanged surprised looks as they considered his words.
But then one of them shouted back, “He’s lyin’!” The man jabbed his spade into the air to punctuate his point. “Just puttin’ on a show! They wouldn’t dare shoot us.”
More cries answered in agreement, and the crowd began to move forward. They still came toward the barricades but now with less determination and certainty than before. Several of the men in the crowd hung back to let the leaders stride on.
At Merritt’s feet, the soldiers stiffened their arms as they aimed their rifles.
“Hold your fire!” Merritt yelled at the soldiers and darted to the center of the barricade to put himself directly between their guns and the rioters. As Marcus echoed the command to hold fire, Merritt drew his sword and stretched out both arms to make himself as wide a target as possible. “Does this look like a show to you?” He constantly turned between the two groups to keep watch on all of them and to keep all their attention on him. “What are you going to believe—some man who paid you to come out tonight in a mob or your own eyes?” He pointed his sword at the soldiers. “Look at them!”
The rioters stopped again, this time amid mutterings about being paid. The men demanded answers from one another now, and Merritt could clearly distinguish the men who had been paid from those who had simply been caught up in the momentum of the mob. But the mentality of violence still pulsed through them, still made their eyes glow wild, even in the dancing shadows of the torchlight.
“You were soldiers once yourselves,” Merritt called out, making his plea directly to the leaders. “You know that these men behind me will follow orders and cut you down where you stand if you dare come any closer. And for what? A handful of coins?”
“We’ve got no jobs!” one of the men yelled back. “We’re starvin’ an’ the lords in Westminster don’t give a damn about none o’ us!”
“You’re right,” Merritt countered. “They don’t give a damn about you.”
That honest reply set them muttering again with surprised and gaping expressions, as it did to the soldiers at his feet.
“They think you don’t deserve their help, that you’re nothing but a bunch of lazy, insolent bastards who’ve returned from the wars to be a blight on English society.”
Merritt didn’t have to fake his outrage. He’d felt as strongly as they had the sting of coming home to an England that he didn’t recognize and that didn’t appreciate him, that might have preferred if he’d died on th
e field in Belgium. Politicians knew how to handle dead soldiers—throw up a memorial and forget. What they couldn’t manage were those who had the audacity to survive.
He pointed the end of his sword at the chest of the man closest to him. “If you persist in this—if you attempt to cross the barricade and march on Westminster—then you will prove them right. Is that what you want? To give them proof that former soldiers are no better than vandals and criminals?”
Slowly, the rioters lowered their weapons, but they didn’t retreat. Likewise, the Guards didn’t lower their guns.
“You were soldiers once—good soldiers,” Merritt pressed. “Remember how you once gave everything you had for England, how you were willing to die for her and the liberties she gives you? But now you march against her. Are you no better than the French, wanting to strip away all that is good and right from English soil?” His heart ached as he poured out the words, desperate to make them listen. “You’ve already gotten your coins for your trouble tonight, so now take them and go home. Do not give up your lives here in this filthy street.”
The rioters said nothing but shamefully looked down at the street. No one made eye contact, least of all with him.
He lowered his sword. “Be good soldiers again and go home. There’s no shame in this retreat. You’ve done what you came here for—to bring attention to your plight. I promise you that I’ll make certain your concerns are heard in Parliament, in the law courts, in the papers. Damnation, I’ll take them to Carlton House and present them to Prinny myself!” A few uneasy laughs went up at that. “But now, go home. Go home to your families if you have them or to your favorite prostitute if you don’t—or to your favorite prostitute even if you do.” More laughs, less uneasy this time. He knew then that he’d won them over, and he blew out a hard, long breath before adding with solemn finality, “Tonight’s fight is over.”
The rioters stared at him for several more long seconds. Then they began to move slowly away, back into the dark maze of streets from where they’d emerged. Only a few took swings at the fronts of the buildings and at easy targets like doors, lamps, and posts, until they, too, vanished into the night. All thoughts of attacking Westminster disappeared with them.
Thank God.
His shoulders slumped, and his arm fell to dangle his sword at his side. Never in his entire life had so much depended upon his ability of persuasion. Never once in his entire law career.
And never did he want to go through anything like that again.
“Stand down!” Marcus ordered the soldiers, who gladly put down their rifles. Relief rippled through them that the attack had dissolved.
Relief should have streamed through Merritt, too, that their mad plan had worked and they’d stopped the massacre. That for once they’d gotten the upper hand on Scepter. But it didn’t. Because Veronica was still out there in the streets, still herding the main mob of rioters toward the north, still putting herself in danger.
He jumped down from the barricade and off into the night after the riot.
And after Veronica.
Veronica hurried through the maze of narrow streets at the rear of the riot, her pulse pounding and her muscles burning from being on alert for over an hour now. And damn that dawn was only a mere sliver of light on the distant horizon!
She’d sheathed her sword in favor of one of her knives, but thank God she’d not had to use it. Shouts and threats had been enough to keep the rioters from breaking into the buildings, from keeping innocents from accidentally being caught up in the melee—prostitutes, sellers on their way to their market stalls, dock workers making their way to the warehouses along the river…and a handful of men just like most of the rioters, who’d spent the night at a tavern drinking themselves far into their cups to escape the harsh reality of their lives. A flash of her knife and a quiet threat had been all that was necessary to keep the men in line. But the physical strain and mental fatigue were beginning to wear on her.
Please, God, let this end soon! But she wasn’t at all certain that God was watching over them tonight or if evil had taken hold instead.
Their plan was falling apart. Instead of the riot fizzling out beneath dwindling momentum, it seemed to grow as more people joined in from the hovels and makeshift buildings erected in back alleys and courtyards where they lived in squalor. Their frustrations at their daily hand-to-mouth existence had flared, and the riot presented a good opportunity to let out their anger. But Filipe’s men were still leading them toward Farringdon and Clerkenwell, toward Saffron Hill and their home territory, where they had knowledge of the lay of the land and could gather reinforcements if necessary.
Yet they weren’t moving fast enough into that area of the city where the streets grew so narrow and mazelike that the mob would be scattered and thinned to the point that it would lose its coherence and dissipate. Even now, Filipe’s men were forced to join in with stopping the violence, which sparked fights among the rioters themselves. Parts of the riot had become a free-for-all, destructive to property and potentially deadly.
She halted in midstride. An uneasy prick of apprehension tickled at her nape and slid down her spine like droplets of ice water. Shouts were growing louder, the noise of destruction increasing, the streets becoming more and more crowded. And then she saw—
The mob had turned on itself and was moving back toward her. She was no longer at its rear. She’d been caught up in the midst of it and was surrounded.
Knowing how dangerous her position had become, she raced to the edge of the street where doorways might provide protection, where she might find a narrow alley passageway that—
A fierce blow from a club caught her square between the shoulder blades.
The air slammed from her lungs. She staggered forward to keep on her feet and spun around to face her attacker. But a second blow across her chest shoved her backward into a recessed archway, and her back slammed hard against a wooden door. The violent jolt knocked her knife from her hand. Its blade clattered uselessly against the stones at her feet.
Immediately, the attacker was upon her. He dropped his club and squeezed his hands around her throat.
She kicked with all her strength. Her foot caught the man in the groin and shot enough pain through him that he stepped back with a furious bellow. In a slant of moonlight, she saw his face.
“Danker,” she whispered, stunned.
He lunged at her again. In the narrow doorway, she had no room to escape. When she kicked again, he dodged the blow, and her foot passed through empty shadow.
“You won’t stop this riot.” He reached for her throat again, but she threw up her forearm and deflected his hands, just enough that he couldn’t squeeze her throat. With her other hand, she punched at his face. She slammed the hard heel of her hand into his cheek and the corner of his eye. He growled furiously but didn’t release her. “Bitch! I won’t let you interfere.”
What was he talking about? “But you helped me, when I came to you for information—you told me about Smathers—”
He dodged another blow to his face, grabbed her wrist, and twisted her arm down to her side so roughly that she screamed in pain. “To get out of your debt! What the hell did I care about Smathers? You think he was the only man recruiting rioters?” He grabbed her forearm and pressed it against her throat as if to crush her windpipe with her own arm. “But you didn’t end it there, you and the Home Office. You kept looking, kept digging for more—now I stop you.”
She wrenched her damaged wrist away and slashed her fingernails at his face. But she missed when he ducked his head to the side. Instead, her fingers clawed down the side of his face to his neck and pulled back his collar.
A key tattoo. A terrifying horror sickened her.
“Scepter,” she panted out as the pressure on her throat grew so fierce that her vision began to turn black and she could barely suck in enough air to keep from falling unconsc
ious. Her hand fumbled for the second knife she kept up her other forearm. “You’re one…of them… Why?”
“What better way to bring down a monarchy and put our own king in place? What better way to make a fortune from its ruins?” He lowered his face so close to hers that the hot stench of his breath fanned over her cheeks. “And you and your friends won’t be able to stop us.”
He lunged to bring his full weight to bear against her and strangle her.
With a desperate cry, she yanked the knife free. She swung her arm downward in a quick arc, then up—
The sharp blade sliced into his abdomen.
A surprised groan fell from his parted lips, and his grip around her throat instantly loosened. With a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, his face twisted in pain before he toppled against her. She shoved him back, and he crumpled to the stones. Her knife was lodged in his abdomen, all the way to its hilt.
Veronica slumped back against the wall. Her hand flew to her throat as she coughed and gasped to pull air back into her lungs. The black spots that danced before her eyes faded with each deep breath she took, and the pounding in her head subsided as the world slowly stopped rising and plunging around her.
She stared down at the dead man at her feet. She’d trusted him, as had Filipe. Her chest ached, and from more than gasping back her breath. Everything in her world had turned upside down. Who was left for her to trust?
“Veronica!”
Her eyes darted up. A man raced through the mob toward her. His face was hidden in the shadows from the yellow light of the sun rising behind him, but her heart knew…Merritt.
When he reached her, he cupped her face in his hands. He turned her head side to side as he frantically examined her for any wounds, then brushed his hands down her bruised neck to her shoulders and torso. When he found none, he seized her mouth beneath his in a blistering kiss that tasted of pure relief. He kissed her long enough to send her heart thumping for a whole new reason, to bring feeling back into her numb limbs and chase away the hollow pang of grief.
An Extraordinary Lord Page 27
