A Midsummer Night's Sin (25 page)

“It’s a rare man,” he said conversationally, “who can find something to amuse him while on his way to danger and possible death.”

“We’re betrothed,” Puck informed him, stupid with happiness, quickly removing his hand from beneath the cloak covering Gaston’s breeches and shirt…the buttons of which had somehow come open.

“My felicitations, I’m sure, and my condolences to the lady. We go on foot from here. I’ve rethought the thing now that I can see the area for myself, and
Dickie has just informed me that Hackett’s added another three guards since Henry left to report to me. I believe Regina will have to accompany us. I’ve not enough men to have you or anyone remain here with her, and I’m not sufficiently enamored of the neighborhood to allow her to stay here on her own.”

Regina immediately put her hand in Puck’s. “It’s all right. I really did want to go. I just said I didn’t because it seemed the right thing to say.”

Puck kissed her again, a hard, swift kiss, and then helped her out into the cold, slashing sheets of rain, the whipping wind. He could just barely make out their surroundings, but it would be difficult to miss the Thames rushing along a good twenty yards ahead of the horses. The wind-whipped water seemed black and deadly, whitecaps visible in the dim light.

He shot a look up at Jack, still on horseback. “The tide’s in. Will we be able to even reach these damn caves? What’s the approach look like? How close can we get before we’re spotted?”

“It’s comforting to know you can concentrate your mind on other things, Romeo,” his brother answered, wiping his face with an already filthy cloth, the rain having made a smeared and streaming mess of the lamp black. “And the answer to that is around this convenient outcropping we’re hiding behind for the moment. Clearly the caves flood at times like these. They’re bringing them out and rather quickly. They’re heading straight for us.”

Regina grabbed on to Puck’s forearm. “We actually
found them? They’re actually here? Can you see them? Is Miranda with them?”

“It’s all right, sweetings. We’ll have her soon enough.” By now, Puck had visually inspected as much of their surroundings as possible in the storm. They weren’t that far from the city, and London was slowly reaching out to claim the land; there were a few buildings here and there amid the long grasses and trees. He hadn’t asked, but from the length of the journey and the scenery around him, he assumed they were not far from Cremorne Road. He’d also noted that theirs was not the only wagon in the small clearing. “Hackett’s?” he asked Jack, indicating the wagon with a tilt of his head.

“And a driver, who is no longer of any concern to us, thanks to Dickie. It’s rather anticlimactic, actually. We just have to wait here for the women to be brought to us along the path that runs along the riverbank. Now, if you wouldn’t mind taking the high ground along with the others, where Dickie will count noses and assign quarry, hopefully we’ll be done with this and somewhere warm and dry within the hour. Regina? Hold on to Puck, please, but I might also suggest you close your eyes. Brother? May your aim be as true and steady as your heart. Henry and I are for the highest point of the bluff.”

And with that, Black Jack tipped his hat, rainwater cascading off its brim, and turned his mount toward the high, rocky outcropping that presumably separated them from the caves. He dismounted at the base of it,
tied his mount’s leads to a bush, dropped his hat and rain cloak to the ground and began climbing up the craggy rock face with an ease that told Puck this wasn’t the first time he’d attempted such a feat. The man certainly did have talents and a flair for the dramatic.

Will Browning was waving one arm commandingly, silently urging them to hurry to him. Puck grabbed Regina’s hand, the two of them running toward the outcropping, which, once the two men had helped Regina on her climb, was really not much more than a reasonably flat-topped pile of large rocks covered in brush and slippery moss.

Puck decided the caves had been man-made and the outcropping they were availing themselves of now was no more than the excavated rock and ground, arranged as a sort of wall or barrier. Sentries must have once stood here, keeping watch on the cells below. The romantic in him would like to come back another day to investigate the area at his leisure. The rest of him was just cold and wet and anxious to have this over.

Dickie was already there, lying on his stomach, motioning for them to advance at a crawl so that their forms would not be outlined against the slowly lightening sky. He appeared to be munching on a soggy meat pie.

Regina did as she was instructed, Puck lying down just beside her, his arm protectively across her back. Together, they looked in the direction indicated by Dickie’s pointed finger.

“Where, Puck? I can’t see any—
Oh, my God…
”

They half walked, half staggered along the winding path that rose up from near blackness at the water’s edge, the long line of females, each wearing a set of ankle chains. Arms around each other, supporting each other, the near rags of their clothing whipping in the wind.

There was a single large man in the lead, and then more were positioned along the line, between the women. Two…three…five. Five men.

Behind them, the path ended just beyond the caves, this time with an outcropping that went all the way to the shoreline. There was only this one way in, this one way out of the area. The Romans had planned well if keeping their slaves where they were easily guarded was their aim, but the same couldn’t be said of the location as far as Hackett was concerned, which the man would find out soon enough.

Hackett had probably meant to move the women to the
Pride and the Prize
by longboat, but the storm had put paid to that idea. One way or another, Puck knew he and Jack between them had made enough mischief for Hackett that the man was now acting hastily and making mistakes. Puck actually smiled; he’d always known he’d find some sort of talent inside him. He should tell Regina.

Then he looked at her, saw the fear on her face and decided to let it wait for another time. He turned his attention back to the moment.

Jack and his friend Henry would take care of the two on the cliff; Puck had no thought that his brother might
fail. That still left only three against five. But add the element of surprise and their elevated position, and the odds were nearly even.

Will Browning nudged Puck with his elbow and pointed to the cliff, and Puck looked up just in time to see the lone sentry suddenly disappear as if plucked from his position by an invisible hand.

“That’s both of them now,” Will whispered, although he could have shouted for the noise of the wind howling around them. “Once they’re trussed up, Henry will make his way back here to us, and Jack will go after the last man in the line, leaving us only four to play with. Hardly even sporting, wouldn’t you say? But that’s Jack, always the show-off.”

“Yes, in fact, I’ve just now decided it’s a family trait. When do we go?” Puck asked, reaching into his boot for his knife. He had his pistols, but would the powder be dry? Could he hope to hit his target from this distance? No, the knife would be better. Quick and silent.
God, I’m thinking like Jack now. Perhaps I shouldn’t have pressed him to come to Blackthorn. We may be in company too much as it is. There’s no telling where further association could lead.

“Puck.” Regina was tugging at his arm again. “Puck, look. It’s Papa. Oh, God. He’s got Miranda. See him? Huddled just there, in the middle of the line. He has a lantern. That’s her, Puck. That’s Miranda.”

“I see her,” Puck assured her. What was Hackett doing here in the first place? Had he known the caves might flood, or had he seen through the ruse of planting
his dead henchman back at the warehouse? And why wasn’t Miranda wearing ankle chains like the others? Had he come to personally claim his most valuable property? “When do we go?” he asked the others.

“Easy…easy,” Will Browning warned. “Dickie, old friend. Perhaps you’d care to squash the fellow in the lead?”

“You promised me you wouldn’t say things like that again,” Dickie Carstairs grumbled, tossing away the last of the ruined meat pie. But he was already getting to his feet, as the first of the line of bodies below the outcropping had nearly reached them. There was a quick flash of blade as he gracefully inched his bulk toward the edge of the ledge. He looked over his shoulder at Will Browning. “Damned insulting, that’s what it is. Besides, I was hungry. Missed my dinner, drowning here. Ready?”

Puck planted a quick kiss on Regina’s mouth. “Can you make your way back down to the wagon? Help the women climb into it and keep them calm, all right? I’ll bring Miranda. I promise.” Then he turned to Will Browning. “Ready. Pick which of the others you want. The one with the lantern’s mine.”

There was a sudden commotion at the end of the line, a short, abruptly cut-off scream, quickly carried away by the wind. The women stopped, turned on the path in order to see what had happened behind them.

“And there’s Jack, starting it off for us. One down. Pray for panic, Miss Hackett. It’s always our best ally. For king and country, Puck, and for the joy of it,” Will
Browning said, his sword drawn as they all watched Dickie Carstairs seem to wind himself up by flailing his arms and then launch himself feetfirst at the man leading the way.

There was an audible
“Ooof!”
as he landed on the man’s back.

What followed was pandemonium; there was no other word for it. Women screamed, cried, tripped over each other in their desire to make good their escape. The two remaining guards dropped their weapons and scrambled up the side of the low cliff, intent only on their own escape.

“Henry will be so pleased, seeing them heading directly for him,” Will Browning said, grinning. “I think I’ll join him.”

All of which left Reginald Hackett and his niece nearly isolated on the path, standing stock-still, as in Puck’s mind’s eye, everything and everyone else faded away. All that was left was the sound of the wind and the rain and his own heart beating madly in his ears. Jack was wrong. He could kill Reginald Hackett if he had to. In the space of one of those loud heartbeats. And he’d feel no more remorse than if he’d stepped on a particularly ugly water bug.

Thanks to the rain, Puck’s descent to the narrow path was more slide than leap, but he landed on his feet, his knife in his left hand, blinking against the rain.

“Out of the way! Move!” he shouted to the women. “Keep moving forward! You’re safe now! Keep to the path! Head for the wagons!”

One of the young captives flung herself against him, hanging on tightly as he tried to shake himself free. “Please, sir. Take me home. My father will pay you well, I swear it! Please! Oh, God, please,
please!
”

“I’ve got her,” Dickie said, pulling the girl away. “But your man appears to be taking a flit.”

Puck turned his attention back to the path to see Hackett dragging Miranda with him as he headed back toward the caves. Why? Was there another way out? Rats always have another bolt-hole. How had they forgotten that? “Damn it!”

He started after them, pushing his way through the panicked women, slipping on the muddy path, just able to see Hackett abruptly stop, glance back over his shoulder and then look to the now-visible, dark mouths of the caves, as if measuring his chances of reaching one of the entrances before Puck was on him.

“Give it up, Hackett! It’s over! Let her go!”

Hackett hesitated and then must have weighed his options and decided the odds of making good his escape weren’t all that favorable.

So he increased them.

He dragged the screaming Miranda to the edge of the path and then roughly flung her away from him. She toppled backward, tumbling into the dark, fast-moving water of the Thames.

Puck didn’t spare so much as a look toward Hackett as that man then raced into one of the cave entrances. There was no time to launch his knife at the man’s back. No time to do more than drop that knife, throw
off his rain-soaked cloak and hat, run to the spot where Miranda had quickly disappeared beneath the surface and follow in after her.

R
EGINA HAD DONE
as Puck asked her to do, although she’d wanted more than anything to remain where she’d been, able to watch what was happening. She’d seen Miranda. She’d seen her cousin, alive. To then turn away, even knowing that Puck and his brother and the others wouldn’t let anything happen to her, had been the most difficult thing she’d ever done.

But those poor, terrified women also needed her. They needed to be told they were safe now, and to believe it. She’d barely made it to the bottom of the outcropping when the first of them appeared at the end of the path. Quickly, she wrapped her rain cloak around her, to hide her breeches. Her attire was one thing that could wait to be explained.

“You’re safe! Stop running! You’re safe! We’re here to help you!” she cried out as she ran to them, waving to indicate the wagon. “Over there, in the wagon—there’s blankets and food! Nobody is going to hurt you anymore!”

“An’ how does we know that?” the woman in the lead turned to ask her companions. “Heard that clunker afore, ain’t we, ladies? I say we keep movin’ on our own, I do.”

“Oh, give over, Madge,” another said, pushing past her, walking remarkably well considering her ankle chains. “The way I sees it, anythin’s better than them caves. Come on, everybody! Can’t move us about mor’an they already have, I say. Mayhap this time’s the charm!”

“Now there’s a smart young lady, and
charming,
as well. You’re all safe, and that’s a fact, although not dry, eh? But we’ll soon fix that,” Dickie Carstairs said as he strode forward, holding up what looked to be a large key. He had been holding a young girl’s hand but left her to approach the others. “And see what I’ve got. Who wants to be first?”

He was immediately surrounded by a wet, bedraggled throng, all loudly demanding to be first to have her ankle irons removed. All but the one Dickie had ushered into the group, a girl Regina believed to be younger than her. Small, slight and seemingly unable to do anything more but stand where she was, her hands to her mouth, and sob.

Regina hastened to the wagon to retrieve one of the blankets before going to the girl and draping it around her shoulders. “You’re safe now. I swear it. I’m Regina. What’s your name? Where do you live? Are you all right?”

“I want to go home,” was all that the girl could manage as she rocked back and forth on her heels. “Please. I want to go home. I want to go home.”

“I’ve got her, miss,” Will Browning said, appearing seemingly out of nowhere. “I think I know where this
one belongs. Her and one other. Jack commissioned me to return them both. Discreetly, of course. Better that no names are mentioned, if you take my meaning. All the way around.”

Jack and his friends were like ghosts, appearing and disappearing, and they probably wished she had never seen their faces or heard their names. “Yes. I do understand. Thank you.” She looked around the clearing, the sky having at last brightened somewhat, the rain falling away to little more than a drizzle. “Where’s Puck?”

Will Browning didn’t answer her at once, and Regina’s heart did a quick, painful leap in her chest.

“Mr. Browning? I asked you a question. Where is Puck? And where is my cousin?”

“Jack’s on the path. Jack and Henry both,” he told her even as Dickie knelt in the mud, unlocking the young girl’s ankle chains. “It’s safe to go there now.”

Regina opened her mouth to ask another question but feared the answer too much to hear it, so she just took to her heels, running toward the path and the caves. The path was more than muddy now; it was rapidly being overtaken by the rising tide, water now entering the caves. It was all she could do to keep her footing.

She saw Jack and the baron standing just outside those cave entrances, but neither of them saw her. They were intent on looking at the river.

“Jack! Jack, where’s Puck? Where’s my cousin? Where…where’s my father?”

“Will and Dickie have everything in hand here, Jack. I’ll retrieve my horse, go on ahead,” Henry Sutton said,
avoiding her eyes. “The current’s fairly swift. We’ll get to the other side of this outcrop and begin checking downstream. He could have gotten her out somewhere, Jack. Anything’s possible.” He looked at Regina and lightly tipped his hat. “Miss.”

And then he was gone, running back down the length of the muddy path.

“No,” Regina said, slowly shaking her head. “No.”

Jack reached out his hand to her. “Regina…”

She clapped her hands to her ears, slowly backing away from Puck’s brother, unwilling to listen to whatever he had to tell her.
“No!”

“He went in after her, Regina. It was either go after your father or save Miranda. It was his choice, the only one someone like Puck could have made. It’s ours not to give up hope.” He grabbed her hand. “Now, do you stand here or come with me?”

Her lips were numb. Her entire body had lost feeling. “I…I’m coming with you.”

Now she did take his hand when he held it out to her and, together, they made their way back along the overrun path. Twice, she nearly fell, but both times Jack’s strong arms pulled her upright, until at last they reached the outcrop and the wagons.

Dickie, who had been in the process of handing out food from one of the baskets at his feet, looked toward them, a half-eaten chicken leg in his hand.

“Know all about it. Will’s on about his business. I’m good here, got all these lovely ladybirds set to be
returned to their nests. Going to be a while, though. Where do we meet up?”

“Grosvenor Square!” Jack shouted, still holding on tight to Regina’s hand.

“And the bodies? Got a couple, you know.”

“Leave them. Time we were gone. We’re here too long as it is.”

“Fine by me. You’ll find him, Jack,” Dickie assured him. “If he’s anything like you, he’s too stubborn to drown. Where’s Hackett?”

“In the caves or gone,” Jack said as he lightly vaulted into the saddle and then had Regina take his hands so that he could lift her up, place her sideways in front of him. “Don’t wait around for him. We know how to find him.”

And then they were off, Regina holding tight to Jack’s waist. His mount’s iron shoes clanged against the wet cobblestones as he turned onto one of the streets running parallel to the river, taking them downstream for what seemed like forever but could only have been a few minutes.

“There’s some small docks where the river begins its turn ahead of Battersea Bridge,” he told her. “With luck, he’s managed to stay afloat that far.”

Regina only nodded. Jack was interrupting her prayers. Her most fervent prayers. She didn’t ask how Miranda had come to be in the river. She didn’t ask about her father. There was no time for questions. If Puck was lost to her, there would be the rest of her life
to ask questions, but by then she wouldn’t care about the answers.

There was little traffic on the streets save for wagons loaded with fresh produce coming in from the countryside and a few complaining cows being led toward Mayfair, where their owners would hawk “fresh milk, fresh milk,” and the servants of the wealthy would come outside with their pails. The city was coming alive, as it did every morning, and if Jack and Regina made an odd sight, nobody seemed to have time to take notice.

Jack at last reined in his horse and lifted Regina down to the ground. “Henry’s checking along the shoreline, but I doubt Puck could have reached the shore, not in this current and not with your cousin with him. If he’s got her.”

“He wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t let her go. Not Puck.” Regina was trembling so hard her teeth were chattering. “So what do we do now?”

“Now we search those piers ahead of us. And we pray the current didn’t push Puck too far out into the river. Do you see those trees, Regina? That higher ground? That’s where we were. If he was going to be able to save himself, the piles holding up these piers are the logical place.”

She looked around at the tumbledown buildings that lined the river here, the several long, wooden piers jutting out into the water. The docks seemed to have mostly fallen into disuse, probably when the London Docks had opened. Still, there were enough rough-
looking men about that Jack drew his pistol from his waistband as they half walked, half ran toward the pier closest to the caves, and they were left alone.

Their boots struck the boards of the narrow pier, and the structure seemed to shake on its moorings. Regina squinted upstream, praying to see two heads above the rapidly flowing water even as Jack dropped to his belly on the boards and leaned over the edge, shouting, “Puck! Damn you, Puck—where are you?”

Nothing. Only the sound of gulls wheeling overhead.

Regina cupped her hand around her mouth. “Puck! Miranda! We’re here! Where are you?”

“There!” Jack leaped to his feet, pointing to the shoreline just ahead of the docks. “See them? Down there! How did he manage to— How the devil is he holding on? Sweet Jesus!”

And then they both were running back along the length of the pier and then scrambling down the muddy bank, to the ancient stone wall that lined the shore.

Puck was smiling up at them.
Smiling!
His blond hair plastered to his face, his skin nearly blue with cold. And he was
smiling.

“Took…took you long enough,” he managed. He was holding on to the top of the wall with one hand, his arm wrapped around Miranda’s still form. “I was going to let go, hope to snag one of the moorings, but I wasn’t sure I should chance it. Not…not the best morning for a swim, I think. Probably should have left the boots behind.”

“Oh,
Puck,
” Regina said as Jack hauled Miranda’s
limp body up and over the wall and laid her in the weeds. She knelt down beside her cousin and spread her sodden cloak over her, if only to protect her modesty; it certainly wasn’t going to do much else. “Is she all right? Oh, God, she isn’t moving!”

Puck was out of the water now and on his hands and knees beside her, breathing heavily. “She kept struggling,” he told her. “I’m afraid she’s going to have a very sore jaw when she wakes up.”

Regina’s eyes went wide as she touched her hand to Miranda’s frigid cheek. Only the fact that she had seen her cousin’s chest rising with each breath had kept her from strong hysterics. Still, she knew she was mere moments away from collapsing to the ground, sobbing in relief. “You
hit
her?”

Jack hauled his brother to his feet. He held on to Puck’s shoulders for a long moment and then roughly pulled him into a quick, tight embrace. “I thought you were gone.” Then, just as quickly, he almost roughly pushed him away. “You look like hell and smell like the river. I’ll go scare up a hackney before the three of you freeze to death. Damn heroics. It’s the poet in you. I did warn you.”

“Brotherly love,” Puck said with a chuckle as he sank to his knees once more, clearly exhausted. “That took a lot out of poor old Black Jack. Is she all right? She was fighting me, pulling me under, and my boots didn’t help. I may have hit her fairly hard. I never struck a woman before, Regina… I didn’t enjoy it.”

“But she’s alive. You saved her life.” She wrapped
her arms around him, squeezing almost fiercely, because she’d thought she’d never see him again. “When I…when I realized what had happened…”

“Shh,” he told her, rocking her against his strength. “I’m the proverbial bad penny, sweetings. I always turn up again. Ah, and it would seem your cousin is waking up. Not that she’ll probably be happy about that….”

Regina looked to her cousin, who had begun making faces, squeezing her eyes shut. She moaned once, and then her eyes shot open wide, and she turned on her side, retching, bringing up half the river, it seemed, before her stomach was empty.

Regina held on to Miranda’s shoulders, trying to soothe her, telling her she was all right, she was safe…and for that sympathetic gesture was rewarded by her cousin suddenly turning toward her, arms flailing wildly, her hands drawn up into fists. “Let me go! Let me go! You
bastard!
”

“My recent blow to her face to one side, I don’t think she’s referring to me,” Puck said, grabbing Miranda’s wrists before she could hit Regina again. “Lady Miranda!” he said sharply. “You’re safe. Look—look who’s here. It’s Regina.”

Miranda slowly calmed, her panicked expression changing into one of dawning knowledge, and she finally looked at her cousin. “Reggie?
Reggie!
” And then her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fainted.

P
UCK WARMED THE SNIFTER
of brandy between his hands as he sat in the study in Grosvenor Square, the fire in
the grate more suited for a winter’s night but welcome all the same. Enough brandy, and he might succeed in getting the taste of the Thames out of his mouth.

Madness. These past few days had all been madness, with the worst of it saved for the moment he’d plunged into the dark water and somehow come up with a handful of Lady Miranda’s hair, dragging her back to the surface with him.

She’d fought him. His boots, filled with water, tried to drag them both down again. He’d been instantly freezing, instantly weak, the cold sapping his strength, the current pushing the two of them along like corks bobbing in the ocean.

He didn’t know how long they’d been in the water, but he’d known he couldn’t last much longer. His chances would have improved if he’d just let go of the girl. But that was out of the question. He’d never be able to face Regina if he did that. He’d never be able to face his own reflection in a mirror. So he’d save her, or he’d drown. Those had been his only two options: triumph or tragedy, with no middle ground. It was the damned poet in him.

The current had pushed him toward that wall, and he’d managed to fling himself high enough up out of the water to grab a tenuous handhold on the rocks. But Miranda was dead weight, and he was fast losing his grip. He’d been just about to let go, try for one of the pilings of the pier, when he’d heard Jack’s shout.

And then he’d seen Regina’s face, and suddenly he was strong again. He held on. For her. For the two of them.

It was nearly noon now, and the ladies had all been reunited, Gaston having personally driven Lady Claire and Lady Leticia back to the mansion, although he’d not been best pleased to have left the bathing of his employer up to lesser mortals. Puck had eaten something—he really couldn’t recall just what it had been—and now he was waiting impatiently for his brother to show up and fill in any details he might have about the rescued women, and one Reginald Hackett.