Mr. Seward faced her with a smile. “I’ll leave you to rest now, Mrs. Brennan. You make yourself comfortable. It’ll be a few hours before we send round to the Stag Inn for dinner, so you’ve plenty of time to sleep.”
“Thank you.”
As soon as he left, she flew to the one window, but it
had been nailed shut. She might succeed in breaking out the panes without being heard by the rowdy men downstairs, but even if her leg
could
handle a descent from a second-floor window, the flagstone walk below was being patrolled by an armed man.
Discouraged, she sat down at the table and drew out her pencil and the sketch paper. When she unfolded it, Daniel’s face stared up at her.
At least one thing had come of this nightmarish capture. She now knew what she wanted.
Whom
she wanted. The morning’s events had made her realize that life was too short to worry about her foolish pride. Daniel was right—she had to grab on to life, take a risk. He’d certainly managed it. Despite his parents, despite being raised by a scoundrel, he’d carved a respectable place in the world. He’d made himself into an honorable man.
If they escaped this, she’d be a fool not to marry him.
For she did love him—she knew that now. She loved the strength beneath the rascally exterior, the integrity beneath the rough manners, the tenderness beneath the bluster.
And he wanted her for his wife, after all. If he didn’t love her yet, she could wait until he did. Besides, he’d promised to be faithful, and oddly enough, she believed that he would. So she would marry him.
If she ever got the chance. Turning the sketch over, she began to draw on the back. She’d do what she could to recount these events, complete with names and places.
And pictures. Yes, lots of pictures.
Daniel sat at the table of smugglers, trying not to think of Helena alone upstairs, anxious and distraught. It had taken all his will to watch her leave, and her scent still lin
gered, fragrant with cloves and honey water. If anything happened to her…
He clenched his fists, then clenched them tighter, remembering all that Jack had revealed in the carriage. Crouch was his uncle. Christ, how had he not figured it out before? Jack was right—he should have realized that Crouch wouldn’t have taken a boy from the work house to raise in a den of smugglers several counties away.
The bitter realization that he was linked to Crouch by blood hammered in another fact he’d tried to ignore all morning: he would never escape any of this. He might manage to take Helena and Juliet out of here safely, but that wasn’t the same as escaping, not for him. Why had he thought he could struggle free of his free-trading past? Why had he fought to wrest a future from it? This was his destiny, like it or not—to be dragged down into the mire with the likes of Crouch and Wallace and all the rest. His investment concern…a marriage to Helena…they were castles in the clouds.
Well, he wouldn’t play in the clouds any longer. This was reality,
his
reality, and it was time he accepted that it would follow him all his life.
But that didn’t mean it had to be Helena’s reality, too. Once he got her out of here, he’d make damned sure it never touched her again.
“So,” he asked his companions, “which one of you rascals is Morgan Pryce?”
“Pryce ain’t here,” the young man called Ned answered. He and three others were playing cards to pass the time.
Daniel settled back against his chair, trying to appear nonchalant. “Will he be around later? I’d like to meet the man.”
“Oh, he ain’t been here in weeks.” Ned laid down a card. “He’s tied up with some private project of Crouch’s. Don’t know what it is. Jack’s keeping all mum about it.”
A surge of relief hit Daniel to realize that Jack hadn’t lied about that. “So you don’t know where Pryce is now?”
Jack answered from the doorway. “No, he don’t. None of them do.”
That didn’t stop Daniel from probing further. “How long has he been with Crouch?”
Shrugging, Jack took a seat at the table. “Awhile.”
“I hear he’s a gentlemanly sort, so why did he take up with you rough lads?”
“Boredom, I s’pose,” Jack answered. “A need for money. Who knows why a man of breeding dabbles in free trading? If you want an answer to that, you ought to ask your friend Knighton. He did it long before Pryce ever did.” Taking up a bottle, he poured some brandy into a cup and shoved it at Daniel. “But we don’t want to talk about all that. Have a drink and relax, Danny. Enjoy yourself.”
Gritting his teeth, Daniel had a drink. And another and another and another as the day dragged on. By late afternoon, he’d been handed more drinks than he could count. Thankfully, they drank smuggler’s brandy—the colorless liquor that hadn’t yet been doctored with burnt sugar to make it brown—so it was easy to water it down without anybody noticing, or pour it into the nearby chamber pot.
He had to keep his wits about him, try to find out where Juliet was. If he and Helena could escape, he wanted to reach the girl quickly. Unfortunately, Jack seemed to be the only one who knew, and he seemed determined not to let the information slip.
Late in the afternoon, a timid knock sounded on the cottage door. Ned jumped up to answer, since he wasn’t
playing cards just then. “That’ll be the food from the Stag Inn. It’s about damned time. I told them to bring it for three, and it’s long past that.”
“I’ll fetch us some plates,” Jack said, disappearing through the door into what Daniel remembered was the kitchen. That’s where he’d eaten many a meal. He smiled a bit sadly. What would Bessie think to see her house so invaded?
Ned entered with a huge tray, accompanied by a spindly maidservant who kept her head down as she brought in a second tray. Since she wore the biggest poke bonnet Daniel had ever seen, he could hardly make out her features.
“They sent over a new girl,” Ned announced as he set his tray down, and the maid ducked her head even more. “Bashful thing, ain’t she?” Ned swatted her arse, and she nearly dropped her tray. Ned laughed. “You needn’t be shy of us, missy. We’re an amiable lot, aren’t we, boys?”
Her whispered response, “I’m sure you are, sir,” sounded oddly familiar, but Daniel doubted he knew any Hastings girl of her age.
She moved up next to him to set her tray on the table, and as her hand came back, something dropped into Daniel’s lap. Bloody hell, a hunting knife! He reacted instantly, sliding it hilt-first inside his coat sleeve. Then he glanced up to find the maid regarding him with a steady blue gaze.
He didn’t know whether to laugh or shake “her” senseless. Seth Atkins—Christ, was the lad insane?
Jack reappeared, and Seth turned quickly away. Jack addressed “her” offhandedly as he set down the plates. “Empty that tray there, girl.” As soon as Seth did, Jack filled a plate and put it on the tray. “Richard, you take this upstairs to Danny’s wife.”
“Aw, Jack, let Ned go. I’m about to win this hand.”
“Aye,” Ned said with a leer, “I’ll be happy to take it up to the lady.”
Daniel bristled, but Jack cast him a cautioning glance and said, “I’m not letting you anywhere near Mrs. Brennan, Ned.”
“I’ll go,” Seth whispered, playing the part of shy maiden with astonishing believability. As long as they didn’t get a good look at his face, that is. Christ, but he made an ugly girl. “I’ll take it for you, sir.”
Jack hesitated, then shrugged. “All right. The man at the top has the key to the door. He’ll let you in. Tell him I sent you up.”
Seth bobbed his head, then picked up the tray and left.
Daniel waited until he heard Seth’s steps upstairs, then stood and stretched nonchalantly. “I think I’ll take my food up and join my wife, if you fellows don’t mind. I’ve had enough of drinking rotgut for the time being.”
“Then wait until the girl comes back down,” Jack said, eyeing him with suspicion.
“Come on, Jack, my food will be cold by then.” Daniel picked up his plate and headed for the door. Ned rose to bar his way.
“P’raps I should remind you, Danny,” Jack said, “that the servants from the Stag Inn are all completely loyal to the free traders, since it relies on us for its brandy. And you wouldn’t involve some poor innocent in an attempt to escape, would you?”
“Escape?” Daniel laughed harshly. “I’ve no weapon, and my wife is lame. You’ve got ten armed men down here, not counting your guard upstairs. Do you think I’d be so foolish as to take you all on? I just want to dine with my wife is all.” He forced a wicked smile to his face. “You and your cronies rousted me out of the hay too early
for me to have my morning’s entertainment, so I thought I’d hurry the maid along and…take advantage of the wait for Crouch.”
Jack studied him a moment, but apparently remembered Daniel’s appetites well enough. He jerked his thumb toward the door. “All right, go on then. Ned, let him by, but watch him go up.”
Daniel could feel Ned’s eyes on him as he climbed the stairs. At the top was a burly man standing guard—the one they’d called Big Antony, an Italian as big as Daniel and probably twice as mean. The door next to him was open.
Daniel spoke to Big Antony as he reached it, but received only a grunt in response. Good, perhaps he didn’t speak much English. It was common enough for foreigners to work in smuggling gangs, and Crouch’s was no exception.
As Daniel entered, he found Helena seated at a table where Seth seemed to be dawdling. She glanced up, showing by a jerk of her head that she’d already determined the “maid’s” identity. Daniel nodded. He wasn’t sure what use he could make of the lad, especially with Big Antony watching them, but he wanted at least a word with him, if only to send the bloody fool home unharmed.
Helena was drumming her fingers on the table as he set his plate down. At first, he was too intent on transferring the knife in his sleeve to his coat pocket while his back was to the guard to pay much attention. But when her drumming grew loud and he frowned at her, she slid something ever so slightly out from under the empty tray.
He saw a fragment of sketch paper and moved around the table beside her. “How are you feeling, my dear?” he asked as he bent to kiss her cheek. Seth shifted into posi
tion across the table from them, blocking the guard’s view of what was there.
Daniel scanned the writing and images she’d apparently produced on the back of the sketch she’d done of him. Then he straightened, a slow smile spreading over his face. This was good, very good indeed. Perhaps he and Helena would make it home unscathed after all. Helena pressed the pencil into his hand, and he began commenting on the food as he wrote furiously across the paper, sure that Seth’s body blocked Big Antony’s view of his hands. Then he glanced up to find the Italian watching him with narrowed eyes.
“Go distract that bloody guard,” he bent low to whisper to Helena. “I need to speak to Seth.”
She nodded and left the table. As soon as he heard her ask the guard if she could obtain cleaner linens, he folded the sketch paper, slid it across to Seth, then sidled around to stand beside him, both of them with their backs to the door. The guard was trying to make sense of Helena’s words, and she was speaking in loud English the way idiots do when faced with a foreigner who doesn’t understand.
“Will they figure out that it’s you who came here?” he murmured to Seth. He wasn’t about to risk the lives of Seth or his family.
“No, I was wearing Mum’s clothes when I showed up in Hastings.” He grinned sheepishly. “I thought they might let a girl inside if I gave ’em a clever enough tale. Then I saw the maid from the inn bringing the food. I told her that her master had sent me after her with news of her family, and that she had to go home right away. It’ll take her a while to find out nothing’s wrong.”
“Good.” Daniel only hoped it would buy them enough
time. He tapped the sketch paper with his finger as he whispered, “Take this to London—I’ve written the direction on it. Give it to Mr. Griffith Knighton if he’s there, and if he’s not, wait at Knighton House until he arrives. There’s plenty of money in it for you, I promise. I told him to pay you a hundred pounds for your service, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to give you more if you succeed.”
Seth’s low gasp at the amount was followed by a hissed protest. “I want to help you
here,
now. I couldn’t get a pistol, but I’ve got another knife and—”
“Certainly not,” Daniel bit out. When Seth drew himself up stubbornly, he added, “There’s too many of them, lad, and you might be recognized.” Not to mention that he still didn’t know where Juliet was being held, and any escape with Helena would prove difficult. “We’ll be all right, I swear, but only if you get out of here with that piece of paper. Now do as I say.”
“What you talk about?” thundered Big Antony’s voice from the doorway, and it took a second for Daniel to realize he was speaking to them and not Helena.
“Danny,” Helena said in her loftiest tone, “you had best not be flirting with the maid, or I swear you’ll sleep alone tonight.”
Following her lead, he laid his arm around Seth’s shoulders. “I’m just being friendly is all.”
“Hey!” Seth protested, then amended it to a more feminine-sounding protest, though he shot Daniel a foul look.
Daniel laughed for real and called back to Helena, “Oh, come now, love, it doesn’t mean anything. The lass here knows that. Don’t you, sweetheart?”
Daniel smacked Seth on the arse with one hand while shoving the paper into his apron pocket with the other, and Seth muttered something in a high voice that sounded
oddly like, “Bugger it all.” Thankfully, Seth’s decidedly unladylike response escaped the Italian’s notice.
Especially when Helena began bellowing her protests over Daniel’s “flirting.”
“Best go on,” Daniel said loudly to Seth and handed him the tray. “My wife’ll have your hide if you stay around here any longer.”
Seth fled past the guard, who seemed more interested in the brewing argument between Helena and Daniel than in some homely servant. Determined to draw attention from Seth long enough for the boy to make his escape, Daniel began shouting at Helena about how she was the most jealous wench this side of the Thames. She cried that he was a lecher and a rogue.