Her smile disappeared. "Good. I think I like hearing that. Court? Am I a tease? Am I…have I been chasing after you, with no notion of what to do if I ever caught you? Is that what happened back there? Is that what you're afraid of?"
"I'm not afraid of— Yes, all right, I do worry about that. Do you know something else, Callie? We have the oddest conversations. Perhaps we know each other too well."
"Or we don't really know each other at all, but just what we suppose we know," she said, looking away from him, toward the huge, faintly ugly structure that had been their shared home and haven for so many years, now looking even more the fortress on its isolated beach, surrounded with overt and concealed defenses. "Court? Look, are those soldiers?"
Court urged Poseidon ahead on the track, motioning with one arm for Cassandra to remain where she was for the moment. Even from this distance, he could see the bright scarlet of the uniform jackets of at least a dozen soldiers, most of them on horseback, a few standing beside a plain, black, closed coach. It wasn't that unusual for the Waterguard to visit Becket Hall while out on patrol, but everything that happened now was looked upon as suspicious.
Even as he and Cassandra watched, one of the large double doors of Becket Hall opened and Ainsley Becket stepped out into the sunlight, a soldier holding on to each of his bent arms, his hands tied together at the wrist.
"Christ!" Courtland exploded, digging his heels into Poseidon's flanks, racing the remaining hundred yards or more, slipping down out of the saddle almost before the stallion plunged to a halt. "Ainsley!"
Jack Eastwood had followed Ainsley down the stone steps and quickly crossed to where Courtland stood, watching in disbelief as Ainsley was pushed into the coach, the door slamming behind him. "He's been placed under arrest, Court," Jack said quietly. "Don't say anything, don't do anything. He's charged with piracy and murder, crazy as that sounds. I tried to get the bastards to say more, but Ainsley warned me off, and Rian and Spencer had their hands full trying to restrain Jacko. They're taking him to Dover Castle, for trial. He wants us to— Christ Almighty, stop her!"
Courtland bounded forward, grabbing Cassandra around the waist from behind and lifting her up off the ground, turning so that her back was to the coach.
"Let me go! Put me down! Papa!
Papa!
"
"Callie, don't!" Courtland shouted as she struggled to be free of him, somehow managing to turn herself around in his arms. She was like a wildcat, kicking and scratching to free herself from a trap, beating on him with her fists as she strained to see Ainsley as the coach began to move off down the drive. "He'll be fine. I'll fix this. I promise, sweetheart.
I'll fix this.
"
She collapsed against him at last, her entire body trembling, sobbing as if her heart would break. "It's what you were saying out there. We waited too long," she whispered brokenly against his jacket. "We waited too long to go.
Oh, Papa…
"
Courtland slipped one arm beneath her knees and lifted her into his arms, close against his chest, and carried her into the house, Jack and several residents of Becket Village following right behind him.
"In the drawing room," Jack told him. "We're all in there."
Courtland expected to walk into a madhouse of shouting men and weeping women, but the drawing room was silent, although all the Beckets save Eleanor were there, sitting or standing like statues. He put Cassandra down on the couch next to Mariah, who quickly grabbed her into a tight embrace, crooning to her as she would to one of her children.
Spencer stepped forward, a thick sheet of vellum in his hand. Courtland grabbed the thing, and could immediately see the seals marking it as an official warrant for the arrest of one Geoffrey Baskin.
"Baskin?" He looked at Spencer. "How did they— Why didn't he deny it? Tell them he's Ainsley Becket. He's been known as Ainsley Becket by everyone for nearly twenty years. They can't prove anything. Can they?"
Spencer pushed his fingers into his hair, grimacing. "We watched their approach from a good mile away. Ainsley knew. I don't know how he did, but he knew. He called us all in here, to wait, and warned us not to say a word, not a single word, no matter what happened. He…he even smiled— not a good smile, let me tell you— and said his greatest sin in life was that he'd always underestimated Edmund Beales. Jesus, Court, they're going to hang him."
"Pounded on the door like they were announcing Prinny himself," Rian said, picking up the story as the always volatile Spencer pinched his fingers to the bridge of his nose, Courtland fairly certain the man was wiping away tears without wanting anyone to know the depth of his concern. "Jacob let them in, just as he was told to, and the Lieutenant marched in here with five of his men, demanding Geoffrey Baskin and one Jacko— no surname known. Papa stood up immediately, said he was Geoffrey Baskin. That's when Jacko started cursing and threatening, and we had to drag him away before he damn well volunteered himself, as well. Ethan?"
The Earl of Aylesford kissed his wife's hand and left her on one of the couches to cross the room. "There really wasn't anything we could do, Court, after Ainsley said that. They were armed, we weren't. I think Ainsley was doing his best to protect the rest of us. I did demand to see the warrant you're holding now, but Ainsley acted as if he already knew what was written on it. And then…" he looked at Jack for a moment "…and then they asked if there was a woman named Eleanor in residence."
"Elly? In God's name, why? Were they going to arrest her, too?" Courtland asked, realizing the lines of strain on Jack Eastwood's face weren't confined to his worry about Ainsley. "That makes no sense."
"Yes, Court, it does," Jack said, sighing. "Ethan pushed at the Lieutenant, all the arrogant, important Earl, and the man finally told us that they had good reason to suspect that, after murdering the Earl and Countess of Chelfham during an act of piracy against the Crown, Geoffrey Baskin had either murdered or taken as prize their young daughter, Eleanor. We, of course, denied Eleanor's existence. Christ, I have to go up there. What am I going to tell her?"
"I'll go," Cassandra said, getting to her feet, and Courtland looked at her, sure she couldn't manage such a delicate task, not when she was so terrified for her father. But she looked deadly calm, resolute, even as she wiped a last, single tear from her cheek. "If she sees that I'm confident, then she'll be confident, too. Papa said I was to take care of Elly and Odette, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do what Papa said. Morgan?"
Morgan immediately got to her feet, reached out a hand to Mariah, and then looked at Lisette, sitting very quietly, as if wishing to disappear. "Lisette? I think we'll need
all
of the Becket women for this one."
Lisette looked to Rian, who only nodded, and the knot of the curious parted to let them walk through, Cassandra waiting until they were all in the foyer to turn to Courtland. When she lifted her gaze to his, it was firm, sure, clear-eyed. "You said you're practical, Court, and I said I was all grown-up. So I'll be grown-up, and you be practical, because that's what Papa needs now, doesn't he?"
She turned in a full circle, eying each of the men one by one. "We'll do what we have to do here. Now you men go find some way to bring Papa home."
His brain reeling with half-formed plans, Courtland was silent until everyone else had left the drawing room before turning to his brothers, to Ethan and Jack. "Home? We already know he can never come back here, and we've got to get most everyone who came here with us from the island gone, as well, as they hang the crew, as well as the captain. Jesus! Who thought we'd ever hear the name Geoffrey Baskin again? We've got to find a way to protect Becket Hall while we're also finding a way to get Ainsley out of prison and out of the country. Quickly."
"I already know what he wants us to do," Jack said on a sigh. "The frigate is fully provisioned. He'd tell us to bring the women and children back and load everyone from Becket Village who wants to go on it and send the ship off as soon as possible to Hampton Roads. But we need a captain, as Ainsley was going to fill that role himself. Court? How about you?"
"I'm not leaving until we get him back," Court said shortly. "I agree, though, we need to get these people gone before the soldiers return with warrants for everyone who sailed on the
Black Ghost
and the
Silver Ghost.
Will Jacko do?"
Spencer shook his head. "A November crossing? He's past it, don't you think? Besides, he won't leave here without Ainsley. My God, we're all going, aren't we?"
"No. Eleanor and I are staying here, at Becket Hall," Jack said quietly, looking slightly abashed. "That's also been discussed. And several dozen of the younger ones from Becket Village will remain, as well. Ainsley has written detailed instructions in case something happened to him, and shown them to me, believing I'd be objective, simply follow orders. It's…it's as if he had some sort of premonition. I'll go get them now."
"And I'll go right now to write a note to Chance, and another to Valentine. We're going to need every head we can muster to think up a miracle," Spencer said, already heading for Ainsley's study.
"Court?" Rian said as Courtland read the warrant a second time. "They'll move him from gaol to gaol, slowly, under heavy guard, giving us a couple of days, but that's all we've got. Once he's locked up in Dover Castle, it will be hell to pay to get him out."
Courtland was trying to decipher the signature at the bottom of the page. The Right Honorable Francis Roberts. Roberts? Hadn't Rian said that was one of the names Chance had mentioned? Edmund Beales had made his first move, and they were in trouble; they were all in deep, deep trouble. "Then the answer is simple, isn't it?" he said quietly, looking at his brother. "We can't let them get as far as Dover Castle."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CASSANDRA CLOSED THE door to Eleanor's bedchamber a full hour after midnight, lifting her exhausted gaze from the hallway floor to see Courtland leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, looking at her. Simply looking at her.
He appeared as tired as she felt, his hair mussed, his neck cloth askew, his eyes shadowed. She'd never needed to see him more than she did now.
Without a word, she went to him, pressed her cheek against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. Held her close.
For long moments, they didn't speak. There was no reason. They both just held on.
"How's Elly?" Courtland asked at last, guiding Cassandra down the hallway, toward her own bedchamber.
"Still angry," Cassandra told him. "She still seems to believe she somehow can make a difference, go to Dover Castle and plead Papa's case, or something like that. Jack has his hands full with her, we all do, especially once Jack pointed out that, mistake or not, misled thanks to trickery by Edmund Beales or not, Papa did sink an English ship. Did you know that Jacko killed her mother? Morgan told me when Elly was at last taking a small nap."
"Yes. I'd rather you didn't know about that, though. He had reason to do what he did, but his life's never been the same. There's not going to be a trial, in any case. We won't let it go that far."
She looked up at him hopefully. "You've decided on a plan?"
"We have a few plans, some already set in motion. But there's time for all of that in the morning. You must be exhausted."
"No, no I'm not," Cassandra lied quickly. "I'm angry, Court. I'm as angry as Elly, even more than Elly. At first…at first I just wanted to die, seeing Papa with his wrists shackled like that, being pushed into that horrible black coach. But now I'm angry. How dare they! How dare Edmund Beales be able to have the Crown do his bidding like this?"
"Money is a powerful weapon, I suppose. We'd hoped for a private war, a final settlement of old hurts, but Beales obviously didn't want that." Courtland depressed the latch, pushed open the door to her bedchamber. "How's Odette? Sheila Whiting told me she's not with Elly, that she's retired downstairs, to her own rooms."
"Oh, Court, it was terrible," Cassandra said, not entering her chamber. "She had no idea, none, for all her supposed powers. She listened to what we had to say, and then just sat in her chair, rocking back and forth, keening quietly, like a woman in mourning, I suppose. The way Madge Everett did when her little Johnny drowned. I think she's even more ill than she let Papa know."
"Damn. This poses yet another problem we hadn't thought of on our own," Courtland said, as if talking to himself. "If she's that sick, and with Elly needing her at any moment, I suppose, Odette won't be able to leave Becket Hall. Rian and Spencer and I are going to try to visit with him tomorrow at the garrison in Dymchurch. I don't know that your father will agree to leave England, though, not without first coming back here, to say his farewells to Elly, to Odette. But that's going to be dangerous."
Cassandra slipped her hand into his, drew him into her dark bedchamber, and then left him standing there, lost in thought, as she lit a few candles. He didn't seem to even notice that he'd followed her. "They aren't taking him directly to Dover Castle? Why?"
"We left that one up to Jack, who seems to know more about such things. The law moves slowly, and Ainsley will be kept in Dymchurch, and then even paraded through Hythe and Folkestone for some days before the final move to Dover Castle. Jack said each garrison enjoys showing off a captive as dangerous as a pirate or murderer, share in some of the credit. It's all meant to impress the populace with the idea that crime is never rewarded. I'm afraid we're in for a circus."
