The Pursuit of Pleasure (38 page)

But Wroxham was cautious. “Move back.”

“Oh, come Wroxham, you don’t think I’m going to try anything? I know you won’t shoot me, no matter what your mother says.” But she backed away, easing past him. If she got on the other side of him, she could douse the light and make a run for it. Sixty-two steps. First two—up to the right. She could do it.

But it must have shown in her face.

“No. Come here.” He reached out and pulled her back against his chest, with the gun tightly pressed against her temple.

Lizzie felt all the breath leave her chest. Oh, Lord. He just might do it after all.

He reached up and grasped the pebble, and then had to readjust his grip as he realized the pebble was just the placeholder for a long chain that disappeared into the wall. The heavy door began to creak upwards like a drawn portcullis. That’s exactly what it was, a miniature portcullis.

It stopped. The bottom edge was only about five inches off the dirt floor. Wroxham pulled again on the chain, yanking hard. Something on the left flashed. A tiny piece of light winked at her. Wroxham let the chain out and then pulled hard. The light winked again.

“I think …” Lizzie stopped herself. Something was jammed into the tiny crack between the portcullis and the stonewall. She saw it now. A pen—a thin brass pen tip. The expensive kind one got at a stationer’s shop, with the metal nib. It must have been Palmer’s. This must have been what Lady Wroxham meant when she said Palmer deliberately disabled the mechanism.

But if she told Wroxham about it, then they would open the door and go to the other side and he might shoot her. Or she could push the lit candle into his arm and try to wriggle under the gap at the bottom. But then she’d be on the other side of the door, trapped. She didn’t know what to do.

Wroxham pressed the muzzle more firmly into her temple. “How does it open?”

“You do realize I’ve only just discovered this place and Idon’t know a thing about it? But I think it’s jammed.” She was babbling.

“Very good.” His tone was sarcastic, but Lizzie could tell, could practically feel, he was thinking too.

“Wroxham, why did you ask me to marry you?”

“Flattered, were you? Don’t be. Because you’re rich, with all of my bastard cousin’s money, and you’re in possession of this house, the house that should have been mine, and it seemed marriage to you would solve two problems, my mother’s and mine.”

“Oh,” Lizzie nodded her understanding. “That makes sense. But I also thought you might feel something …” She turned slightly against him so the side of her breast, rather magnificently displayed in her low cut blue gown, would slide against his arm.

She felt him stiffen, both, as Maguire would say, high and low. She shifted her weight in the other direction, so the front of her breasts might brush against the arm raised to hold the chain.

“Perhaps we might … come to an understanding?”

He still seemed undecided, holding himself as stiff and still as he had this morning. But he wasn’t holding her as tightly any more, so she turned fully, so her breasts brushed right across the front of his coat and his view, as he looked down at her, was filled with a creamy expanse of flesh.

“You really do have the morals of a she-cat.” His words were full of contempt, but his body was an entirely different proposition. He was hard.

“I really do. And you’re hard. And if all this,” she leaned in close and whispered, “is about a thwarted fuck, then why don’t you open those breeches and show me what you’ve got to bargain with?”

C
HAPTER 23

W
roxham let go of the chain and reached down for the close on his breeches. Lizzie shifted back, leaning against the portcullis door with half-closed eyes. And when he looked down to free his cock, she kicked him right between the legs as hard and mean and angry as she possibly could. As he collapsed in on himself, she hit his wrist hard with the candle-holder until he dropped the gun. The candle dropped out and rolled, still lit, behind him. She kicked him again, this time in the head, and although he wavered, he still did not go down. She was too small—she’d never get by him. There was no time for anything else. She dropped to the dirt, grabbed up the gun, and scrabbled her way under the jammed door.

The first thing to hit her was the darkness. The second was the stench. It was gut-wrenchingly horrible, a dank metallic miasma that clogged up her nose and lodged in her throat. She felt as if she’d already been sick.

She moved up against the wall beside the door, out of Wroxham’s line of sight should he choose to look under the gate, and waited for her eyes to adjust to the thin light still coming from the single candle in the dirt on the other side of the door.

It was too thin, and the darkness too dense. And Wroxhamwas stirring. She could hear his deep breaths as he struggled to regain himself. And then he must have picked up the candle, because the light waned.

She edged along the wall to the right. It was stone, carved out of the living rock. She reached her hand up the wall, over her head, and could feel it curve inward slightly. So the ceiling was about six feet. She pressed on, inching jerkily to the right.

Wroxham was doing something, searching for the jam in the mechanism. He must have been moving the candle up and down along the seam, because the light kept disappearing.

Her foot hit something and she bent down to search out a hard, cloth-covered bundle with her fingers. They came to a button, then another. Oh, sweet Lord above. It was a body. The stench. It was a deteriorating body.

Not Frankie Palmer’s, she was at least glad to remember. They’d fished him out of the Dart. Someone else then. She was nearly jumping out of her skin, involuntarily jerking herself up and over the body so she could continue along the wall. And then wooden boxes stacked high on her right. She followed the line of the crates. Five of them, at least, one in front of the other and stacked, she searched with her fingers, five tall. At least twenty-five crates. Of guns. Had to be. She felt around the front. Long crates. As long as a gun, yes.

The door creaked. Wroxham was moving it slightly, up and down, gaining an inch or so at a time. In another moment he’d have it open.

She could hide behind the crates, if she could find the edge of them. But they had been stacked up tight against the wall. He’d come around eventually and find her.

And she’d have to shoot him.

She’d done it before. She could do it again. It might not be her fowling piece, but it would do. She crouched at the corner of the crates and pulled the hammer back. Or would have, if the hammer mechanism hadn’t been jammed. The sand, when she’d crawled through.

Shite and damn. Of all the bloody bad luck.

She’d have to hit him. Hit him hard and get by him to go up the passage, and hope to God that Jamie or Maguire or someone had dealt with Lady Wroxham and she wasn’t lying in wait at the other end.

She scurried across the sand, low and careful lest she trip on any more bodies, and came up against the right side of the door. No, the left. His right side would be stronger, and he would most likely put the candle in his left. It would make him a little blind on his left side. And everything, all the mechanisms, everything had been to the right. He would look to his right.

She skirted around and pressed her back into the wall.

There it was again. That strange feeling of floating in icy water. Her hands were cold but slippery with nervous sweat. She wiped them on her skirts and closed them tight around the barrel of the pistol.

The door gave one more heave, and then it rolled up. Wroxham was still holding the chain, unsure. He held the candle forward, in his left hand, but didn’t step through. And then she heard the rustle of the chain as he released it. She pressed back, caving into herself, willing herself into the indentations in the rock, and making herself as small as possible.

It took forever. He moved so slowly, so cautiously, reaching out with his left hand high in front. His wrist appeared, then his elbow, followed by the long length of his upper arm, his shoulder and then, finally his upper back and his head. And just as she brought the gun butt down on the back of his skull, he swung left, his arm crashing her into the wall. But she had hit him and he was going down.

She hit him again and again, even as she fell with him, the skirts of her gown tangled with his legs. She kept her arm free and hit and hit.

A gunshot roared from down the passage past her head. Shecould hear the unearthly whiz of the bullet and feel the belch of sulfurous smoke as it passed.

Lady Wroxham had returned. She stood in the passage, holding up the branch, a tiny, hideous Medusa.

Lizzie was pinned under Wroxham’s heavy, unconscious form. She pushed at him, but her skirts were hopelessly tangled. She grabbed at the fabric pulling, tugging.

Lady Wroxham threw her spent weapon on the ground in disgust and advanced down the passage like a vengeful fury. Lizzie kept on pulling but it was useless. Lady Wroxham was already there, standing over her, breathing hard. Wax dripped off her candle and splashed onto Lizzie’s face, burning her.

She flinched away, but Lady Wroxham’s face lit with the genius of an idea.

“A Lady,” she spat, “doesn’t like to have to do for herself, but for you, I’ll make an exception.”

She reached down, and would have thrust the burning candles into Lizzie’s face, but Lizzie let go of her own skirts, grabbed the hem of Lady Wroxham’s, and yanked as strongly as she could.

Lady Wroxham went down hard. The candle branch fell back and hit the sand behind her.

“Lizzie! Lizzie!” The call came from far away, somewhere in the passage. Jamie, Jamie was coming. Thank God, Jamie was coming.

But Lizzie didn’t stop. She groped out through the sand, trying to find something, anything to use as a weapon. There was nothing. She kicked and wriggled and still, she lay trapped under Wroxham, her hands empty, full of nothing. But sand.

She fisted up a handful, and just as Lady Wroxham began to regain her wind, she pitched it in her face.

It gave her time, a few precious seconds, to pull again, and the exquisite watered peacock silk gave with a wonderful rending of fabric. She kicked her legs free.

And then there was light, and the passage was filled with people—Jamie and Mr. Tupper and even the footman, Stephen. But all she could see was Jamie. Jamie as he rushed straight over to her side.

“Lizzie.” His eyes, poring over her.

“I’m fine. Watch
her.”
Lizzie pointed at Lady Wroxham.

Jamie gathered Lizzie into his chest as the other men surrounded Lady Wroxham, who groped slowly to her feet. The light from their lanterns lit the room.

The small cavern carved into the rock held a large stack of crates, all stamped with the British Broad Arrow. British Army guns. And three dead bodies. Smugglers by the look of them. Most likely killed by Lieutenant Francis Palmer. But there was time enough to tell Jamie that later.

At the moment the only thing Lizzie wanted was to feel his arm around her waist and the weight of a fowling piece in her hand. And for some reason, Jamie was carrying it. “You left this,” was all he said.

“Thank you,” she mumbled into his chest. Only Jamie would give her a gun as if it were a jewel.

“Steady, Lizzie. Handsomely now. It’s over.” Jamie again, knowing just what to say.

The others were turning their attention to the large portcullis door on the other side of the room. It was much the same construction as the smaller one. Tupper walked over to it.

“How does it open?”

They all looked at her. “How should I know?” Just because it was her house. She scanned the walls. “Everything else was up to the right. The rings probably. The rings there, for torches or lanterns. Try them. Twist or pull. It’s bound to be one of them.”

It was. The second on the left this time, instead of the right. The iron ring, when twisted and then pulled, ran a pulley mechanism, which lifted the heavy gated door to reveal McAlden, Maguire, and young Jims, carrying three lanterns. Their bootswere wet. It must be high tide. She’d been so busy last night, she’d forgotten about the tides.

“Aunt Mary.” Jamie was speaking to his aunt.

Lady Wroxham gave him no answer. She didn’t even bother to share her contempt.

But Jamie persisted anyway. “Why? Why would you put everything you had in jeopardy?”

Her voice was incredulous with scorn. “Stupid man. Everything I had, I had because I had the brains to put it in jeopardy, to risk everything. Maguire had only a small paltry gang. They only worked when they wanted, only made a run when they thought they could sell. They needed to be led and to be told what to do. To orchestrate the shipments of the entire coast so they weren’t competing against each other. To control the market, instead of merely supplying it. Why?” She hissed her answer. “Because I
wanted
it. Because someone could be the one to take all that money from the smuggling, and I decided it should be me.”

“And you decided to betray your country for money?”

She snorted. “I’d hardly be foolish enough to do so for ideals.”

There was nothing more to be said. Maguire and McAlden took her by the arms and led her out towards the mouth of the cave.

“Don’t underestimate her,” Lizzie called. “Keep a firm hold.”

Jamie was standing over Wroxham’s crumpled, bloody form.

“Is he …?”

“Still breathing. What happened?” He reached out to take her gun, but thought better of it. He satisfied himself by leveling his own gun at Wroxham.

“Overpowered the brute,” she said with some vindictive satisfaction.

“Lizzie, are you run mad? He must weigh fourteen stone.”

“That’s why I kicked him in the cods. Hard. I didn’t care for the way he spoke to me.”

“My God, woman. Have you no idea you’re just a little bird of a woman?”

“That’s ridiculous. I’m no bird. I’m as angry as a cat. Odious man. He called me names. Bloody Oxford men, think they own the world.”

“Ah. Poor stupid bastard.” Jamie came closer and put his hand carefully along her cheek. “Made a fatal error, then, didn’t he? He underestimated you.”