Argent (Hundred Days Series Book 3) (36 page)

Fortunately, the conversation between Silas and DuFresne was becoming more heated, and their respective groups of goons were eyeing each other warily. He hoped Alix got him free quickly; he could practically feel the impending violence growing.

Then the bar across his left wrist loosened, and Spencer slipped his hand free.

              “Give me the picks,” he whispered, never taking his eyes off the drama unfolding across the warehouse while going to work on his right hand. An opportunity would present itself for a weapon; he had to be ready.

              “...because
you
wish to make a game out of it!” This from DuFresne, who managed to make his words larger without actually shouting. He grabbed the creased papers from Silas's hand, turned and strode in their direction.

              Spencer let the shackles drop between his thighs and tucked hands behind his back.

              DuFresne bent his short figure in front of Alexandra, and held out the contract, producing a pen from inside his coat. “Mademoiselle. Sign the papers.”

              Alexandra met Spencer’s eyes, and he nodded. It must be nearly time for Ethan's men.

              She claimed the pen, glaring. “If you say ‘please’.”

              Thin lips bent into a predatory smile, and DuFresne nodded. “Please.”

              Alix laid the papers in her lap, looped her signature on each page and passed them back graciously.

              “See, Van der Verre?” DuFresne shook his stack of documents in the air. “Manners, with a lady.”

              Silas's jowls flushed scarlet. “That murdering, conniving whore is no lady.”

              “I'll take the woman,” DuFresne told his men, ignoring Silas's rage. “Van der Verre can do as he pleases with the vicomte.”

              He would have to kill at least two men now. Spencer groaned and scouted harder for a weapon.

              “No! Absolutely not!” Silas lunged forward, oblivious to the click of four pistols. Spencer narrowed his eyes, counting the people in the room again. The fifth member of DuFresne's retinue was absent. He had a sudden hunch, but wouldn't glance around and risk drawing attention.

              Silas drove his fist down onto a crate, eyes still trained on French pistols. “Our deal is the other way 'round, DuFresne! The woman is my matter.”

              DuFresne stopped mid-stride, raised his chin, and turned a pointed gaze at Silas through his beady spectacles. “Our arrangement is for the
ships
, and the ships only. The emperor has been more than generous on that score. As have I, given how inept you are,” he snapped. “And so if I wish something else for my trouble, I will have it.”

              “He's taking my ships!” Alexandra's protest was hushed, but she sat up with enough force that Spencer feared she would intervene.

              “Leave it. You'll get them back.”

              “If we live that long,” she hissed.

              “Have a little faith in me,” he teased. “Grayfield is working on it.”

              She nodded once and looked unconvinced.

              “If you wish to be the imbecile,” continued DuFresne, “who hangs an English lord and draws the Crown down on his head, I welcome you to it. The lady is my concern.”

              Silas sputtered, his fists clenching and unclenching. He’d turned an impressive shade of purple, and for a moment Spencer thought one of his problems might be about to resolve itself in a fatal fit of rage. He leaned in to Alix. “See all the trouble you've caused?”

              She smiled for the first time since he’d arrived, then winced at a swollen lip. “I'm not done yet.”

              The barest odor of smoke reached him, wafting lazily on damp air, and he grinned. “You may have a rival.”

              And then, all hell broke loose.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

              Alix had never believed she would live to see the day when Silas's colossal temper got the best of him. He never went toe-to-toe with anyone his own size and never went into conflict if the odds were against him. It was genuine comedy, then, when he turned his porcine physique on a comparatively small DuFresne and snatched for his beloved walking stick.

DuFresne side-stepped the blow with a dancer's grace. After dodging the stick, one of his men immediately barreled forward, driving into Silas's over-extended paunch. He folded, tumbled back and jarred the stacks of crates and his rough wood box. It slid, slamming end over and splintering, its choking stench wafting over the room. An upended lamp sputtered and bathed DuFresne's men in shadow.

              “No! No, no!” Silas screamed, flailing on his back like a stranded tortoise and clawing for his box.

              Pistols on both sides rose higher despite uneven numbers, each side bracing for inevitable fallout.

              Alix realized, drawing a steadying breath, that the smell she'd earlier mistaken for a far off chimney had grown stronger, and it was also much closer. Glancing left, she noticed gray smoke billowing from the shadows deeper in the warehouse. She nudged Spencer with an elbow.

              “Shh.” He gave a half nod, not looking the least bit concerned.

              DuFresne snapped up Silas’s discarded walking stick. “Take your blood money and your disgusting box of bones and your king-loving bastard over there, and get out of my sight.” His swing was sudden and true, catching Silas's jaw without warning.

              Silas cried out, lurched, and tore most of the papers from DuFresne's fingers, throwing them high. Silas’s men rushed forward, frantic in opposition to a slow drift of pages and DuFresne's men charged ahead in answer. Fists and feet pummeled; it seemed in an unspoken agreement not to use their pistols, neither group looking eager to endure a ball for his master.

              Despite the thickening smoke and their current predicament, Alix was stunned. Silas had always had a temper, but he’d also always been a coward.

              Grunting and straining, Silas got to his knees. Some measure of sanity must have asserted itself because he began moving between stomping feet, snatching at pages while a shuffling, stooping DuFresne mirrored him from the other side of the fray. Alix could hardly wait to see what happened when each man finished with a handful of papers, neither one with a complete set.

              Engrossed in the rapid degeneration, scuffling feet at her back startled her. She turned and swung hard, ready to bite, claw, anything to keep from being dragged away.              

A man tumbled behind the crates, groaned, and rolled to his side. “That was a hard sodding blow!”

              Whatever she’d expected to hear, that hadn’t been it. She turned, taking in the man at her feet. Handsome enough, despite a tight grimace on his face and a red blotch marking his cheek. Tall and fair, and fit enough that she indulged a thrill at having soundly clocked him. “Who…?” she asked Spencer, stealing glances at the mounting chaos behind them.

              “Major Burrell is a friend,” drawled Spencer, craning his neck in order to survey the damage to the man’s face. “At least, he
was
.”

              “Why didn't you say anything?” she demanded.

              “Ty fancies himself the shadowy sort. Prefers his activities remain clandestine.”

              Ty sat up, massaging his cheek, a pained look on his face that made her feel just the tiniest bit badly. “I'll bloody well say something next time.” He glanced from her to Spencer, then to the fight up front. Several men were down, with Silas and DuFresne raking for pages in the dark. He seemed to measure the progress of the smoke, burning her eyes now, and nodded. “Almost time. Are you ready?”

              “The fire?” she asked, wondering at his lack of concern.

              “It’s small, for now. But that won’t last,” Ty said, grinning and balancing on the balls of his feet.

              Alix rubbed her hands together, wondering if she should trust anyone so casual about a smoldering building. “What are we doing, then?”

              That earned frowns from both men.

              “I'm not an invalid!”

              Spencer opened his mouth for some retort, but the warehouse door thundering open cut their argument short. Bodies rushed in; more of DuFresne's men, by their clothes. Spencer deflated. “Well, shite.”

              More men pounded in on their heels, bellowing something in Dutch. They flowed into the melee, shouting encouragement to Abel and Dein. Silas raised a fist, sneering and hurling insults at DuFresne through the melee. They were equally matched once more, in the space of a breath. At the current rate Alix estimated the building would be full in minutes.

              Ty groaned beside her. “Why is it never
our
men?”

              She coughed in answer, pressing a hand to her mouth and eyeing a wall of haze filling the warehouse. Flaming bits of char drifted down before her eyes. Alix looked up, frozen a moment by the tongue of flame licking down the eaves. True to Ty’s word, it had spread quickly despite a slow start. Grabbing a fistful of Spencer's coat, she shook him. “We have to go.”

              Spencer, in turn, took a handful of Ty’s coat. “Goddamit. Burrell, what was the rest of the plan after you lit the place on fire?”

              Ty clasped a hand to his chest. “Don't complain to me about how long it takes the army to turn out! I am well aware.”

              “We have to scatter them now; we cannot wait for aid,” said Spencer.

              Sighing, Ty scrubbed a hand through his blond hair. “Hold here a moment. I'll see what I can do about a distraction.”

              She reached for Spencer's hand, watching Ty's retreating back. His fingers squeezed in answer.

              “En fue! En fue!” Ty called out in French, jostling and pointing through the fracas of at least twenty men. Their blood was up, and they went right on slugging; it was the masterminds who were the first to take notice.

DuFresne caught on first, his neck craning, the dancing flames reflected in the discs of his spectacles. Alix expected him to run, but he backed into the fighting, unperturbed. When he was nothing more than a hand and papers above the swearing, straining men, DuFresne waved his prize at Silas, who swore furiously. In a final coup, DuFresne disappeared out into the night. She was torn between relief and anger that he’d got away.

              Something stung her cheek, and she looked up once more. Smoke filled space between the timbers overhead, fire roiling back on itself in a hungry inferno, then fanning lower in a spray of hot ash.

              “We can’t wait any longer!” Spencer sprang to a crouch, casting about wildly for something. “Alexandra, get behind these crates and stay put. Those bastards are both going to get away, and we
still
can't get out past this mob.”

              Nodding, Alix pressed behind the boxes and peered out just enough to follow Spencer’s path.

He ran for Ty, who was ducking and weaving the blows of a man twice his size with impressive dexterity. Watching their exchange, she grasped Spencer’s caution: if Ty tried running now, the man fighting him would give halfhearted chase, and then turn his efforts to a target closer at hand. If she ran through the fighting, men on both sides would make a grab for her, pursue her.

A groan started somewhere farther back in the warehouse, a single deep report which peaked as several shrill protests. Ships and wharves made a similar sound; it was the cry of creaking wood. The first timber crashed into shadow, a deafening noise and spray of hellish sparks flying up into the dark. She bent one leg to plant a foot on the floor, braced hands against the dirt and prepared to run. She would take her chances with the crowd, if it came to it.

The men went on fighting, ignoring the peril around them.

              Silas had a head start on Spencer, thanks to the fire. She lost sight of him well before Ty had extricated from the mob's center, before Spencer's long strides had put him at its edge. He lumbered between the crates, behind the fighting, and through their fingers.

              Heat cracked the glazing of a narrow window above where she'd earlier been kept. The explosion of glass penetrated the hoodlum’s awareness as nothing else had. Shouts went up between the men. A few hung stubbornly from each other’s necks, striking or choking, but in short order they flooded outside.

              She stood, catching Spencer's gaze and he nodded:
Time to go
. Pausing just long enough to snatch up a discarded pistol, Alix grabbed her skirts and ran.

*              *              *

              He came outside nearly shoulder to shoulder with Ty. Van der Verre and DuFresne's men were milling about in a confused mass, being herded by the very English sounding shouts of “Halt for his Majesty's army” and equally English sound of muskets being cocked. Privates had scrambled into position and a half-circle of redcoats two men deep were formed up into a choke point, forcing their adversaries to spill against one another, fold on themselves, and, finally, to surrender. Any fight they might have had in them drained at the sight of three dozen cocked muskets. Hands were already up, and iron shackles clanged from soldiers' belts as they detained both sets of men. Spencer searched the crowd as he emerged from the smoky darkness. Of course, Silas and DuFresne were nowhere to be found.

              “What did I tell you?” panted Ty, drawing up next to him. “I told you the army would be here.”

              Only Burrell could reasonably get away with jokes at a time like this. “General Webb was correct,” said Spencer. “You
do
have a keen imagination.”

              Farther down the docks, Spencer could hear a bell's anxious chime and the cries of a fire brigade, too late now to do much more than pour water on a smoking foundation. “Thank God we decided to run when we–” he turned, reaching for Alix to share his relief. There was nothing behind him but empty space, all the way to the warehouse.

              He lunged for the freight door, circled now by a hungry wreath of flame. He was an arm’s length away when it slammed shut. A rusted latch thudded from the inside while he gripped its iron handle, pulling fruitlessly. Panic gripped him. “Alexandra!” He drove a boot into the stout planks, ignoring chunks of burning wood that seared his hands and face. “Alexandra!”

Why had he run out ahead of her? A distant, rational voice reminded him that they hadn’t known that the army was waiting outside, and that sending Alix out into two groups of hostile, armed men would not have improved matters. He’d made a split second decision, and it had been wrong. If she was hurt, or worse…

Those were thoughts of his
rational
mind. His primal, animal mind, the one in charge now, hungered to maim, squeeze, crush. He fought the door, channeling his anger and fear into every wild kick.

Ty's hand gripped his coat. He expected the major to try and stop him, and started to wrestle away until Ty waved a hand. “Around the side!” Splitting the air with a whistle, Ty swirled his hand at soldiers. “Keep working on this goddamn door!”