TheCharmer (34 page)

The carriage behind them was already slowing, Collis saw when he thrust his head out the window. Simon must have seen the sign as well. The coaches couldn't turn, of course, so the Liars piled out, right there on the narrow, dusty road.

"What are we doing?" Button yawned. Of all of them, Button had been the most comfortable, drowsing on Rose's shoulder. How anyone could have slept through that brutal jouncing was beyond Collis.

He took Button by one arm and Rose took the other. Together the Liars marched back down the road and up the deep U-shaped drive of the inn.

The burly leather-aproned hosteller went wide-eyed at the sight of twelve dusty and intimidating travelers marching en masse up his drive.

"We likely look like highwaymen," Collis muttered to Rose over Button's natty beaver hat.

"What do you call highwaymen who hold up ships?" she sent back with a flash of smile.

Collis grinned fiercely. "Pirates."

Whether the man was more impressed by their intimidating appearance or the pound notes waved by Dalton, the horses were brought out in very short order. Not all the Liars were experienced riders, something Collis thought Dalton ought to attend to.

Rose went up behind Collis, for "the closest I've ever been to a horse is fetching the bottles in from the milk cart."

Ethan Damont was fitted with a fine hunter, which he received with an ironic bow for the hosteller. The only horse in the establishment large enough to carry Kurt was a heavy-boned gray plow horse. Mounted on the great beast, which didn't look nearly so large with Kurt on his back, the club's premiere assassin looked like a knight of old on his destrier. "The Green Knight," Ethan said blandly when he noted Kurt's unusual pallor.

Button plunked himself behind Ethan, because, as he proclaimed, "he is the best dressed." Simon and Dalton took their own mounts, with a pale Stubbs clinging behind Simon, but there was no persuasion in the world strong enough to get Feebles on horseback.

"Sir, you can shoot me now if you like, but I won't do it. Not a bit of it. Anyway, someone orta stay here with the carriages, like."

The Sergeant looked very fine and martial on a sturdy mare, and Collis was reminded that the man had not always run a lord's house.

Rigg and Fisher were put up on careworn mounts that the hosteller assured them would simply follow the others. With a wave to the unmounted Feebles and a great whoop of, "To the river, lads!"—and a few startled cries as the horses responded—the eleven very unlikely horsemen laid a trail of dust down the road to the Thames.

A fine day, a grand mission, a fairly acceptable horse—and Rose behind him, clinging to his waist with all her supple strength. What more could a man want? Collis nearly laughed aloud at his own mawkish thoughts, yet truly, he was happy. It had been so long, he scarcely recalled the warm sensation that now grew within him.

The thundering herd—or was it horde?—passed through a few tiny river towns, which they galloped through too quickly to glimpse more than a number of startled faces and weathered alehouses. Then the hard-packed road began to follow the river itself, trailing up and down the uneven land that banked it. Barge road, Collis realized. Large barges without steam or sails were pulled by chains attached to draft horses on the banks. The hard-packed road gave the Liars' own horses excellent footing as the miles flashed by.

Along this route, the Thames seemed cleaner and less like a glorified sewer, although that might have been an impression given by the refreshingly grassy banks. Coming from London, the water itself was likely as filthy as ever.

The river stretching ahead and curving out of sight was dotted with ships and boats of all types, but the
Clarimond
was a double-topsail schooner. Ethan claimed he could spot the distinctive sails from behind the trees.

They had been racing for what seemed like hours, but surely wasn't, when Ethan raised one arm and shouted out. Ahead, just past the last slow bend before the sea, was a schooner, double topsails shining in the sun. They pushed their mounts to run up the slope to the top of the rise of the embankment that had pushed the river to such a bend.

From there they could see clearly. It was the
Clarimond
, sails full, heading for the mouth of the Thames and the open sea.

Dalton turned in the saddle and shouted, "Hurry, lads!"

The ship picked up speed even as they did and bid fair to outrace their tired mounts. Rose pounded on Collis's thigh to get his attention.

He turned his head to hear her over the pounding hoofbeats and the wind rushing past his ears.

"Is this bank too high?" she shouted. "Could we jump in and swim for it? Surely they'd notice that and stop to help."

Collis looked down at the distance from the grassy bluff at his horse's feet to the turgid river below. It wouldn't work. The crew of the
Clarimond
had their faces to the sea, busy with their sails. A man could drown waiting for them to notice.

But the bluff just ahead was even higher—

Even as the idea occurred to Collis, he acted. Without a word, Collis grabbed Rose by the waist and deposited her on the ground. She landed on her feet, staggering a little. "What—"

Collis didn't hear the rest. With a fierce jab to his poor mount's sides, he raced directly through the galloping Liars to follow the barge road down and then up the farther swell. As his horse bunched powerful haunches to push them up the steep path to the bluff, Collis wrapped the reins around his left hand and reached his right into the bag slung beside him.

The grapple hook sprung open with a simple flip of his wrist—
thank you, Forsythe
—and the rope that was knotted to it came easily from its coil in the bag.

With an unruly yank of his left arm he stopped his poor hired horse at the highest point of the bluff. Using even his mount's added hands of height, he kicked free of the stirrups and swung one leg over to sit sidesaddle.

The
Clarimond
was nearly out of range. There was no time for fine aim. He made the hardest crude throw he could manage—

The hook tangled in the rigging. He only had an instant to wind the rope around his left arm and jump clear before the speed of the ship could yank him down and drag him over the edge of the bluff. Still, terrific pain shot through his bruised shoulder as his weight came full on the rope, but his wrapped grip held.

As he swung over the brown and dirty Thames, the wind rushing into his face until his eyes watered, he thought he heard Rose's voice call out to him.

"Collis, you ass!"

It occurred to Collis belatedly that he had no idea where he was going to end up. Smacking into the side of the ship didn't appeal, but the pitted and stained wood grew very large in his vision—

Until he landed, or crashed really, sprawling on the deck amid men and casks and coils of thick, smelly rope.

Impact. Pain.
Ow
.

Blackness quickly faded to light and his breath filled his lungs. He'd made it! Now he must persuade the captain quickly, likely an impossible task. Rolling onto his left shoulder, he reached into his waistcoat and pulled free his pistol.

With breathtaking swiftness, he found himself the center of a thorny hedge of bristling firearms of every make and era.

Lying breathless on his back, with a riveting view up at his circle of righteously suspicious captors, Collis broke out in a gust of laughter. "Stand and deliver?"

«
^
»

The ship was halted, its anchor dropped against the river's current. After Collis had convinced the vastly disgruntled captain that his keepers were waiting onshore, Dalton and Simon had managed to convince the captain that Collis was only slightly mad and not really dangerous. In addition, they had persuaded the man to give up his cargo. With a written receipt and Lord Etheridge's personal financial guarantee, of course.

The crew wasn't so sure, especially after the Liars began to break open the crates to account for every last firearm. "Cor, what a pretty thing!" they said when the first musket was lifted to the daylight. The crewmen were obviously dazzled by the brilliant damascening and the intricate lock-plate castings. It made Rose wonder if that had been part and parcel of the plan, to make the guns irresistible to the British soldiers.

Rose thought the crew would riot in earnest when the first of the weapons hit the river, where they sank until the brilliance disappeared beneath the churning silt.

"What you do that for?" cried the most belligerent fellow. "I coulda used a pretty musket like that!"

"Bad guns, lads," growled Kurt, and that put paid to further protest, although the shocked grumblings continued until the last of the carbines and muskets went to the bottom of the Thames. Dalton held back a few random samplings from the crates for Forsythe to test and for evidence against Louis Wadsworth.

It was over. As she stood with her feet braced on the mildly rocking deck, the fresh breeze making the rigging slap and ring above her, Rose felt the burden of responsibility slip deliciously off her shoulders. For the first time since she'd recognized Louis Wadsworth's portrait, she felt the muscles of her neck relax. Her fine leaders were in charge at last, and she could go back to being an ordinary soldier. Her eyes found Collis, wanting to share the vast relief.

He was standing to one side with wind-tousled hair and his clothing much the worse for his careening impact with the grimy deck. He didn't meet her glance but stood there rubbing his shoulder with a curious expression of dismay on his face.

She was at his side in an instant. "What is it?"

He blinked at her. "I'm not sure. When I was swinging, I think I—or perhaps it was when I landed—but it hasn't been quite right since Louis beat on it…" He trailed off, then took a deep breath. "At any rate, I can't move it at all now."

There was quiet panic in his gray eyes. He made no move, but Rose could feel the terror shimmering from him. "Oh, no," she breathed.

He forced a sickly grin. "Never thought I'd wish it to be the way it was, but at least I could move it. Now—" He swallowed. "Now, they may as well cut the blasted thing off."

She wanted to reach for him, reassure him. A cry from nearby them cut her off.

"My lord! Sir Simon!" Button was scrambling up the main companionway to the deck waving a sheaf of papers in his hand. The ship's captain followed him up at a more leisurely pace.

Button ran to where Simon and Dalton stood not far from Rose and Collis. "My lord—sir! I think you need to see this!"

Dalton took the papers and flipped through them. "Copies of the manifest and shipping orders? Yes, thank you, Button. We'll add this to our evidence."

Rose started to turn back to Collis, but Button was not done.

"No, my lord—
this
!" Button extracted a sheet from the pile and thrust it beneath Dalton's nose. Dalton took it and held it a few inches farther away. Simon leaned over to peer at it.

"What is it?" Simon asked.

Dalton read it. "It looks like a special undocking dispensation for the ship to leave ahead of schedule." He looked up and grinned. "Wadsworth sped up the order. He shipped the crates as soon as possible after the break-in occurred." He looked down at the sheet again, his eyes scanning rapidly. "Oh, bloody hell," he breathed, then handed the sheet to Simon.

Rose was startled at Lord Etheridge's horrified tone of voice. Sir Simon's quiet curse wasn't reassuring. "Signed by Lord Liverpool himself," Simon said slowly.

Rose was stunned.
Liverpool
?

"Are you positive it's Liverpool's signature?" Simon asked.

Dalton rubbed his neck. "I know it like my own."

Rose couldn't believe it. She might personally find the Prime Minister ruthless and unpleasant, but she simply couldn't imagine the man as a traitor.

"What would be the point of such a thing?" she asked, stepping away from Collis.

Dalton shot her a
don't-be-presumptuous
look, but he answered all the same. "Well, we thought before that the plot might have something to do with discrediting George… but the only ones to benefit from the removal of George would be those within the British government who find him to be an obstruction."

Well, that did make sense. "Does Lord Liverpool consider him to be an obstruction?"

Dalton sent Simon a look she couldn't decipher, but she recalled the Prime Minister's very vocal doubts in the study about George's sanity. Dalton seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"If Liverpool is trying to have George declared mad," Dalton mused, "then this sort of capricious negligence might be just the sort of thing to win his case."

Rose shook her head. "But Lord Liverpool is fanatically loyal to the Crown, isn't he?"

Another one of those looks between the two men. What were they thinking? They couldn't truly suspect Lord Liverpool, could they?

"Fanatical… yes," Dalton said quietly. "Precisely."