Elizabeth Powell (24 page)

“Impressive sight, isn’t it?” came the traitor’s hollow voice. “The tower, that is. I assume that’s what you were observing. You couldn’t have been searching for an escape route. I told you there was no way out of here.”

The skin at the small of Amanda’s back crawled upward
to her neck. Heavens, the man might as well be conversing over tea.

“Come, Miss Tremayne. This will be much easier for everyone if you cooperate.” Garrett stood at the top of the stairs, hands on his hips, watching her every move with dead eyes. Molehill padded up behind him, his mouth split in a wide grin.

“Cooperate?” Amanda’s lip curled in disdain. “I will not.”

The traitor sighed. “Oh, very well. Jigger, keep watch. I’m going to do this myself.”

A look of keen disappointment crossed Molehill’s—Jigger’s—rough countenance. “Do ye want me knife, guv?”

Garrett made a dismissive gesture. “No. Too quick. Our redoubtable Miss Tremayne deserves something special for her trouble. A more … personal experience.”

Amanda’s breath caught in her throat. Personal? For whom? Heavens, the man was mad. Jigger thought so too, judging from his queer expression. Amanda saw a chance to reason her way out. Jigger may be a thug, but he was an English thug. “You can’t let him do this! He works for the French—our enemy!”

Jigger shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Frogs or English—it don’t much matter to me, missy. Gold is gold, and ’e pays me well enough so’s I don’t ask questions.”

“But he’s mad! Can’t you see that? He’ll let this place burn down around us! We must get out while there’s still time.”

The ruffian hesitated and looked toward Garrett.

“Stay where you are, Jigger,” warned the traitor. “You know what will happen if you disobey me.”

Jigger paled and nodded.

So much for reason. Hungry flames popped and crackled on the warehouse floor below. Amanda’s eyes watered from the smoke.

The traitor crossed the floor in deliberate strides, seemingly unaware of the growing conflagration beneath them, untying his cravat as he came.

“What … what are you doing?” The hard lump of panic lodged in Amanda’s throat made speech difficult.

Garrett snapped the strip of linen taut between his hands. “Since I have no more bullets, I shall have to improvise.”

Amanda’s eyes saucered. “You can’t!” she gasped.

A thin smile stretched Garrett’s lips. “Did I ever tell you how much trouble your father caused me? He was far too inquisitive for his own good, a trait you seem to have inherited. Although I do admire your motives, and your exasperating determination. Few have the stomach or the intelligence to exact a proper revenge. Perhaps we are more alike than you would choose to admit.”

“I am nothing like you,” Amanda spat through clenched teeth.

The traitor sighed. “As you will.”

Still he came forward, as inexorable as the tide. Amanda retreated from him until the wall pressed against her back. Trapped. Harry was wounded, perhaps even dead. No one else knew where she was. No one would come to rescue her, like the heroines in penny fiction. Amanda stood frozen, mesmerized by Garrett’s terrible lifeless eyes, too terrified even to scream.

Everly’s heart beat a drummer’s call to arms within his chest as they neared the next row of warehouses. Rain streamed into his eyes, and he pulled his bicorne further onto his brow to shield himself against the drenching spray. The smell of smoke was much stronger on this street. They must be close.

“Ahead, sir!” cried Mr. Bingham. He pointed up the street. “The second to last warehouse in the row—that’s where the smoke is coming from.”

Everly squinted against the downpour. There’s no carriage waiting outside.”

“A bad sign,” muttered MacAllister. Another flick of the whip, and they rocketed forward.

The captain gripped the head of his cane as indecision gnawed at him. Instinct was not science; it had nothing to do with facts. If he was wrong … No. He would not
even consider the consequences. They would succeed. They must. Everly tightened his already ferocious grip, the sinews of his hand standing out beneath the taut surface of his gloves.

Sudden movement caught his eye. Through the pervasive gray curtain of rain, Everly spotted two figures emerging from the warehouse, one dragging the limp body of another. His heart gave a titanic leap as he recognized Amanda’s lieutenant—just before the man collapsed in the street.

“Whoa!” MacAllister sawed on the reins with frantic haste. The horses slipped on the slick pavement, whinnying, but the Scotsman managed to swerve them around the prone forms of the two men. He pulled the foaming, wild-eyed team to a halt.

In that instant Everly leaped down from the coach, his focus riveted on the body of the lieutenant. The captain knelt by the young man’s side, horrified to see a spreading bloodstain on his soot-begrimed uniform. Harry moaned and tried to fight off Everly’s touch.

“Be still!” Everly opened the youth’s jacket and assessed the wound; the ball had struck him just below the collarbone. He thought nothing vital had been hit, but the lieutenant was losing blood at a rapid rate. The captain wadded up his handkerchief and pressed it against Harry’s shoulder to staunch the flow.

MacAllister appeared at Everly’s side and turned over the body of the second man. “Locke,” he pronounced. He felt for a pulse. “Alive, but barely.”

“Amanda,” muttered Harry. He struggled to sit up.

Everly restrained him. “What about Amanda? Where is she, Lieutenant?”

Harry raised one hand and clutched weakly at Everly’s jacket, his hazel eyes aglow with panic. “Still … inside. Trapped!”

The captain spun around and grabbed MacAllister by the sleeve. “Amanda’s inside. I’m going after her.”

“I’m going with you,” answered the Scot.

Everly grunted. “Watch your back. I’ll wager that whoever
shot Locke and the lieutenant is still in there with Amanda.”

MacAllister nodded in quick agreement, then ordered his men to get the wounded officers into the carriage.

Everly drew the pistol from his belt and hobbled to the warehouse door.

“Will you be all right, Captain?” the Scotsman asked.

A half chuckle, half growl rumbled from Everly’s throat. “Well enough for what we need to do. Look lively now, Mr. MacAllister.”

A thick, choking miasma of black smoke and a blast of infernal heat greeted the two men as they entered the warehouse itself. Everly flung an arm over his nose and mouth. Egad, this place was a veritable tinderbox! The fire had spread from the barrels at the back of the warehouse to the crates at its center, and now threatened the bales of dirty straw beneath the loft. The captain narrowed his watering eyes and peered through the dense smoke. Where could she be?

“Amanda!” he called, then coughed as he breathed in a lungful of heat and ash. His only answer was the increased roar of the hungry flames. “Amanda!”

“Any sign of her?” yelled MacAllister.

“None,” Everly shouted back.

MacAllister pulled out his pistol and disappeared between the smoking stacks of crates. Then the sound of breaking glass reached Everly’s ears. The loft! Energy surged through him, and any twinges of pain vanished as he focused on the stairs. The boards groaned beneath his booted feet as he began his ascent. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. The mere suggestion that the stairs might collapse beneath him brought back images of the
Hyperion
, of the agony he endured after crashing through the splintered deck. He shook his head and berated himself for his weakness. Amanda’s life depended on him, and he must not succumb to fear.

“Amanda!” he cried again as he reached the landing.

A slight figure appeared at the head of the stairs, wreathed in smoke. Everly’s heart leaped, then tumbled again when he realized that the figure was not Amanda,
but a grimy, evil-eyed little man. In the span of a heartbeat, the fellow whipped the knife from his belt and launched it at Everly’s chest.

The captain saw the glitter of the blade in the man’s hand and dodged aside. The knife thudded home into the wall mere inches from his shoulder, pinning his cape to the rough wood. Dismayed, the scrawny ruffian reached into his sleeve. Before the man could draw another weapon, Everly’s pistol barked a harsh reply. The thug doubled over, eyes bulging, and fell forward. Everly avoided the body as it rolled down the stairs, limbs limp and flailing. With an oath, he shrugged out of his heavy cloak.

Amanda must be in the loft; the presence of the knife-wielding ruffian made it a certainty. The crackle of the fire took on a different pitch. Looking down, Everly saw that the stacked bales of straw were now ablaze. Greedy tongues of flame licked at the boards beneath his feet. Heart scorched the soles of his Hessians. He jammed the empty pistol back into his belt and raced up to the loft.

“Amanda!”

The loft was a nightmarish inferno of haze and heat, the gloom punctuated by flickers of orange light from the blaze below. Smoke and ash clogged his nostrils. His eyes watered from the acrid fumes. He squinted through the choking miasma, but could make out no distinct shapes. No, wait—was that movement he saw in the corner?

Two figures stood, locked together in struggle. Dread knifed through Everly’s heart as he realized that the smaller of the two combatants was Amanda. And she was not fighting, she was thrashing about, trying to free herself from the grip of her attacker. She pulled at her throat. Egad, the bastard was choking her!

“Amanda!” he yelled, and lunged forward.

Her attacker heard him, and darted away into the smoke. Amanda’s small form crumpled to the floor by the far wall near a shattered window.

“Amanda?” The blood congealed in his veins. Dear God, she wasn’t moving. Was he too late?

Smoke swirled off to his right; he thought he heard the click of boot heels. As he spun around, the wall of inky smoke spewed forth a human shape. Everly’s sword did not have a chance to clear the scabbard. He caught a glimpse of a young man’s baleful, soot-smudged face just before the man tackled him. The impact drove them both to the floor. Everly’s forehead struck the wooden boards; his bicorne flew off, and a battery of brilliant explosions flashed before his eyes. The stranger drove a knee into his ribs. Everly’s breath left his body in a rush of pain.

Everly tried to lift his sword, to backhand the man with the hilt, but the stranger felt the movement. With a snarl, the man grabbed Everly’s wrist and smashed it against the floor. The captain’s fingers went numb. His blade skittered across the boards, out of reach.

“How good of you to join us, Captain,” panted his attacker. The man thrust his grimy face into Everly’s, his teeth bared. “Your arrival is fortuitous—Miss Tremayne was so afraid she’d have to die alone.”

Everly growled and heaved himself onto his side, trying to unseat the stranger from his back. His attacker had the advantage of position, but he was larger and stronger. He twisted and lunged upward; he would have grabbed for the cravat, but the stranger’s shirtfront was open and bare. Everly seized his attacker’s lapel, then used that leverage to thrust the man aside and flip himself over.

This move unbalanced the stranger for a moment, but only a moment. Before Everly could lift himself from his prone position, the man leaped upon him again, his knees straddling Everly’s body. Damnation—whoever this bastard was, he moved like a spider.

“I’ll not let you ruin everything I’ve worked for,” the man spat, each word dealt with a blow. “I have waited my entire life for this, and they will pay!”

Flat on his back like a turtle, Everly found himself again at a disadvantage. Blood sang through his head. In a dim corner of his awareness, he could feel the heat from the fire below them. What started as an unpleasant
warmth on his back increased to a burning. The glow from the fire intensified. Flames darted up between the floorboards, which groaned and popped beneath them. Sweat trickled down Everly’s brow, down his back. The heat pressed against his skin like a living thing. His lungs burned from the smoke.

The barrage came to a sudden halt as the young man wrapped long, slender, and surprisingly strong fingers around Everly’s throat and squeezed. “Time to join your dear little Miss Tremayne,” he grated between clenched teeth. “She died well, if that’s any consolation.”

Rage and grief sang through Everly’s blood as he tried to pry the man’s hands away from his throat. His enemy began to smile, and recognition struck the captain like a lightning bolt. He had seen this man before, on the Admiralty staff. Everything came together. This was the traitor the government had sought for so long. Traitor, and murderer. Amanda was dead. Everly’s anguished eyes looked to the small, unmoving body in the corner.

Something snapped within him, and he lashed out with his fist. The blow caught the traitor under his jaw; the man fell backward and tumbled off Everly’s body. Everly breathed deeply, filling his starved lungs—and coughed as smoke clawed its way down his throat. He struggled to his knees. Where was the traitor? There he was—a few feet away, struggling towards the stairs.

The traitor must have heard Everly’s attempted pursuit, for he looked back at the captain with narrowed eyes.

“Adieu, Captain,” he panted. “Forgive me for taking French leave.”

Amanda came awake to the sensation of her head ringing like a giant ship’s bell. Pain throbbed behind her eyes with every peal. She moaned and shifted; rough wood scraped against her cheek. What—where was she? As her eyes focused, she realized that she was lying facedown on a wooden floor, and that she felt intense heat all around her, like the inside of a great oven. Her mouth was dry, her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. A cloud of
smoke wafted into her face. She coughed, and agony exploded in her throat. With it came memory.

Garrett—the traitor—had tried to strangle her. Amanda raised a hand to her neck. The last image she remembered was the eerie glitter of pleasure in Stephen Garrett’s eyes as he tightened his cravat around her throat. She had struggled, and shattered one of the windows. Then she remembered hearing someone shouting her name. Garrett had heard it, too. His features had contorted into a mask of feral rage and he had pulled harder on the garrote.