Rake Beyond Redemption (22 page)

Her fingers were sore and blistered, yet she had made not one sound of distress.

He owed her the truth. How could he not? A misplaced sense of honour and decency, she had said. It had seemed the right thing to do at the time, but times had changed and were probably running out for both of them.

‘Tell me,’ she demanded again.

Why not?

If everything worked out as he still hoped, even if it were not against all the odds, she would learn the truth soon enough. They would still part. The truth would reinstate him in her mind to some extent, but would not fully wipe out the sins of the past. She would return, grateful for her escape, to London and her life there.

And if they did not come out of this deadly mess alive—well, he would rather not go to his death—and hers—with her thinking he had tricked her and used her. Was that selfish, with death staring them in the face? To want to clear his name with her? A sudden urgency swept through him to tell her the truth. For someone to believe the best of him even though she must also see the worst.

Yes, it was selfish, but he desired it above anything.

‘I’ll tell you, Marie-Claude,’ he relented. ‘It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.’

So he told her with the candle guttering at their side. With pain ebbing and flowing as he changed his position to ease his screaming ribs. With her eyes wide and watchful. With her hands clasped gently within his with a care for her singed fingers. How impossibly dear she was to him. So he set himself to be economical with his words. No emotion. A plain telling of what he had planned—and almost carried out to perfection. But he didn’t look at her, instead focusing on the unlit lamp, not wanting to see the contempt in her face if she could not believe him, could not forgive him.

‘It was all a conspiracy to catch the Fly-By-Nights. They’ve terrorised the coast for too long. The landing here in the bay—two cutters bringing in a large consignment of silk and brandy. Some lace and tea. Worth a fortune. D’Acre negotiated the shipment. I organised the landing. I offered the use of Lydyard’s Pride with the Smugglers’ Lamp to guide them home, and the use of the double cellar. It was too good a deal for D’Acre to refuse—it would be hard to disperse so much contraband safely in one simple exercise without a good hiding place. So we set it up.’

‘That’s what you were doing with D’Acre at the Silver Boat.’

‘Yes. The final arrangements.’

‘And Captain Rodmell knew about it,’ Marie-Claude prompted as he frowned at the darkened lamp, recalling the meeting she had witnessed.

‘Yes.’ Zan blinked and continued. ‘He was in the planning from the beginning. When all the contraband had been delivered here and the smugglers engaged in stowing it—that’s when the Excise would swoop and take them and the goods together. The whole shipment and all the evidence against them complete in one place, with no chance of their sliding out of it. That’s why I offered the Pride as bait. Too easy for the gang to run and scatter if the capture was arranged on the beach. If they were here and surrounded on all sides—impossible for them to get away unless they’re willing to shoot their way out. Which we know they’ll try—but Rodmell knows the risks and will be well armed. And the result?’ He set his jaw. ‘What should have been done years ago in Rottingdean. The whole gang rounded up, taken prisoner, wiped out. D’Acre and Rackham to face
justice at last.’ He lifted his head, sensing the silence that surrounded them. ‘The Excise should already be surrounding the house, lying in wait until the given signal.’

‘That you would give?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were working against them, all the time. To lure them in and then betray them.’

‘If you put it like that—yes.’

‘I thought you were one of them.’ She sighed.

‘So did they. They had to. I had to make a solid case for my own inclusion in the gang. They had to trust me to be just as ambitious and hard-headed as they. So I’ve been working with them for…well, for some months.’

‘You could not tell me.’ A statement rather than a question.

‘The fewer that knew, the better. I dared not risk discovery—or the whole enterprise would be put in jeopardy.’ He paused. Lifted his eyes to hers. ‘Do you believe me?’ It mattered. It mattered so much.

‘Yes. It explains why I saw you talking to Captain Rodmell on the cliff top. I thought you were passing him misleading information. You weren’t, were you?’

‘No.’ He watched as she studied their linked hands. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘I destroyed all your careful planning, didn’t I?’

‘Well, you helped.’ He tried a smile, but had to acknowledge it was a poor effort. ‘You certainly made life difficult for me. I had to think on my feet. But the final nail in the coffin…’ he winced at the unfortunate analogy ‘…was the bloody Excise. Rodmell’s a good man, but his troops lack something in skill and discretion. Why could they not get into position without alerting the whole neighbourhood? Without that I think I could have carried it off.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Why should you be? I made a good case for myself as a smuggler of D’Acre’s ilk. Why should you not do what you could to stop us taking over the Pride? I would have done exactly the same, in the same circumstances.’

‘You tried to make me leave.’

‘Yes. I wanted you out of the way for your own safety.’

She was silent again. Then, ‘What now? What will happen to us?’ And she lifted her eyes directly to his, demanding that he did not dissemble.

‘D’Acre’s nervous—but it could still all come right if Rodmell keeps his wits about him and his men are up for a fight.’

She tilted her head. ‘What did D’Acre mean—a warm ending for us if the Preventives arrived to intercept the contraband?’

‘Is that what he said? I don’t recall very clearly. I’ve no idea what he meant.’

But Zan knew exactly what D’Acre had meant. And had no intention of telling her. That would be too hard a burden for her to bear. Better to wait and hope against hope that the pieces fell into place. When he drew her into his arms she did not resist, but leaned against him with a deep sigh.

‘Tell me why you decided to do it, Zan,’ she asked against his chest. ‘I know D’Acre’s evil—but why set yourself up against a fellow smuggler?’

‘You mean he’s not much worse than I am,’ he said wryly.

‘No, I did not mean that…I meant what persuaded you to put your life on the line to arrange an ambush of this magnitude?’

‘Marie-Claude…’

The silence was broken by the fast clip of ponies’ hooves. The heavy fall of booted feet. How sure the Fly-By-Nights were of their success. They had not even spent the time to muffle the ponies’ feet. Despite the rumours, they still envisaged no threat to their stowing of the contraband. Perhaps D’Acre had become careless in his old age. Zan’s lip curled. Perhaps there was hope for their rescue yet.

‘Listen…’ he whispered. ‘The contraband’s arrived.’

‘S
o it begins.’

Zan closed his arms strongly around Marie-Claude, acknowledging that he would give his life to protect her. The next hour would be crucial. His eyes narrowed on the locked door as if he might see through the barriers to the events that unfolded below them. Events that would determine either their ultimate escape or their death. He faced the latter possibility head on. Imprisoned as they were, his own strength drained and his physical abilities constrained, he could think of nothing he could do to determine the outcome in their favour if Rodmell was not there to deal the winning hand.

There was no way of knowing. Any number of mishaps could have kept Rodmell from the rendezvous. And even if the Preventive Officer was now in position, excise-men ready with their rifles trained on the doors of the Pride, who was to say that his Majesty’s forces would come off best? D’Acre’s men were always well armed and D’Acre was better than most at determining the outcome through iron-handed control. Few were
prepared to disobey their Captain. If they did, their lives were brought to a quick and bloody end.

Which presented him with a problem of vast proportions as a tremor ran through the woman held so close against his chest. To paint for Marie-Claude the possibility of death—or for her a worse ending—at D’Acre’s hands? Or to soothe and reassure with false assertions of rescue? He felt the tension in her small frame, fragile as a bird’s, in the curl of her fingers against his skin. It made the decision for him. She would, he knew, face the future unflinchingly, but he could not lay this fear on her. All they could do was wait. Whilst he brooded over his lack of freedom to dictate any outcome, they sat unmoving and listened, Zan conscious of Marie-Claude’s heightened breathing beneath his hands as the minutes ticked past. He lowered his head to press his lips against her hair.

‘What’s happening?’ Marie-Claude asked.

There was nothing here that he could not tell her. ‘The bales and barrels are arriving—that’s the noise from outside—carried on the backs of ponies or tied back and front to the smugglers and tubmen I arranged for D’Acre. The contraband will be taken down into the cellar. We won’t hear that from up here in the Tower. Gadie’s with them. He’ll open up the trapdoor to get into the lower level.’

‘Will it take long?’

‘No. Fast and efficient. Like all D’Acre’s operations.’

A pause.

‘So George Gadie knew? He too was part of this plot to bring D’Acre down?’

Zan gave a little laugh. How typical of her to pick up on this one salient point. That Gadie was not entirely ignorant of what had gone on in Old Wincomlee.

‘I’d no desire to put Gadie’s life on the line,’ he admitted. ‘But I needed another pair of trustworthy hands with this—in case there was some hitch in the operation or I was waylaid. I needed someone to open the cellar and so keep the gang fully engaged within the Pride.’

‘And he agreed.’

‘The Fly-By-Nights are not popular in this locality,’ Zan observed drily.

‘And I think George has always had a soft spot for you. I think he has never been convinced that you were as wicked as you attempted to make the world believe.’

‘Perhaps. I think it was loyalty to my mother rather than to me. He had a lot of respect for my mother.’

The clip of more ponies’ hooves outside. One voice raised, then stilled.

‘I’m afraid, Zan.’ He felt her sigh as Marie-Claude turned her face against his shoulder. Her breath was warm on his skin, teasing his senses. How foolish that her proximity should pull at him so strongly when they were faced with such danger. But it was so and he must accept it.

‘No need for fear,’ he replied, raising her chin so that he could see her face as she could see his. Her eyes were stark with a riot of emotions. But so trusting. He would not let her down, and he would trust her with his life. He might have to.

‘You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?’ Her lips trembled.

‘No. Not now. What would be the use? You know all the black corners in my soul.’ He smiled and trailed his fingers down the soft bloom of her cheek. Nor would he willingly deceive her. Merely tell her what had been planned and how, in a perfect world, it should work itself out. ‘Rodmell should be here, in place, by now. Too early and the Excise might spring the trap by being
seen and their movement reported back to D’Acre. Easy enough then for the smugglers to scatter the ponies, hide the cargo in temporary caches, and D’Acre’s pack will find enough holes to hide in. If Rodmell’s too late—then the birds will have flown and all the planning’s for nothing. Our efficient Riding Officer won’t risk that. He has an ambition to effect D’Acre’s capture. A real feather in his cap.’ He stroked her hair to soothe the fears that raced beneath her skin, praying that she would accept what he said without question. ‘We should hear the attack any minute, once all the cargo is delivered.’

‘No one, apart from D’Acre, knows we’re here,’ she stated.

‘No.’ It was the thought uppermost in his mind. How quick she was to see the danger in this. ‘No matter. If Rodmell does his job—and he’s the best there is along this coast—we’ll get out of here.’

The rattle of ponies’ hooves disturbed them again, departing at a fast trot, fading into the distance.

‘They’ve unloaded.’ Marie-Claude’s fingers dug into his forearm.

‘Yes.’ Unable to stop it, his breath hissed between his teeth as her hand slid down to grasp his burned wrist.

‘Zan—forgive me…’ And he knew she meant more than the sharp pain she had inadvertently inflicted.

‘It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing to forgive,’ he replied, knowing she would understand. He became aware of the shine of tears on her cheeks and brushed them away with his fingers. ‘Don’t weep, Marie-Claude.’ He touched his lips softly to hers, and when she returned the pressure of his lips so sweetly, with such trust, his heart shivered.

‘It can’t be much longer, can it?’ Her voice faltered.

‘No…’

A shout from somewhere outside the house. A shot fired. Another shout, a voice of authority, although they could hear nothing of the words.

‘There it is! Rodmell! Thank God! Go and look.’

Released, Marie-Claude sprang to her feet and ran to the window. ‘I can’t see—it’s too dark and the angle’s all wrong.’

‘Help me up, Marie. My damned ribs…’

With a hand from Marie-Claude and an elbow against the bed, Zan struggled to his feet with a string of lurid oaths as pain and nausea gripped hard. Then, as it receded, he stood to his full height and took a breath. Not as bad as it might have been. At least he’d be able to stand on his two feet if he had to face D’Acre at the end.

Outside on the cliff top the noise of violent confrontation bloomed. Shouts grew into a crescendo of orders, cries and shrieks of pain now that there was no need for secrecy on either side. Battle had commenced, full of fury, attack and counter-attack. The smugglers would, as D’Acre had so accurately predicted, fight for their lives like rats in a barrel. Zan could distinguish the military rifle fire from the answering crack of pistols. Racing feet, followed by more gunfire. All a muddle of clash and counter-clash that gave him no indication of the outcome.

He made his way to stand beside Marie-Claude at the window. ‘It’s impossible to see,’ she fretted.

‘But we know Rodmell’s here.’ He took her hand in his.

A door below slammed, followed by more shots. Lights moved within their vision, then just as quickly disappeared.

‘What if Captain Rodmell does not have enough
men?’ Marie-Claude demanded, turning her ashen face to his. He could see her struggling to control the tide of panic that threatened. She pressed her lips together to keep her fear locked tight.

‘We must trust that he will. Stay here.’ Zan left her to limp across the room and listen, head bent, at the locked door.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing yet.’ He looked up sharply, suddenly remembering. Why had he not remembered before? So much to take his mind from it, but it might prove to be the key to their survival in the end. ‘What did you do with the pistol, Marie?’

‘Here. I hid it from D’Acre.’ Darting to the bed, she pulled it from beneath the covers. ‘What will you do?’

‘We must just wait.’ He checked the priming. Not that one pistol would be of much use if D’Acre held his own against Rodmell, and came to take his revenge on the traitor in his nest—but it would be better than nothing.

‘Zan…’

He looked up, suddenly alerted by the anxiety that was sharper than before.

‘Will you promise me one thing, Zan? If D’Acre wins…’

Her accent was suddenly very pronounced. He dared not ask her to put into words what she wanted him to promise. He knew what it would be. His blood turned to ice.

‘No, Marie-Claude…not that.’

But Marie-Claude in candid clear-sightedness spelled it out for him. ‘If D’Acre wins…
if
he does…and if he comes for us to punish us for setting the trap…Well, I’m not afraid to die, you understand.’ Her eyes
did not flinch from his for one moment. ‘But I am afraid of…Promise me, Zan. Promise me you won’t let him take me prisoner. I couldn’t bear that.’

‘Marie…’ He knew what she meant, what she could not in the end put into words. It broke his heart.

She continued quite calmly. ‘I know what my fate would be if he comes for us. Promise me you won’t let it happen. I would fight, but…’

‘You must not talk like that.’ The harshness in his voice surprised him.

‘I must. Raoul will be cared for by Harriette and Luke. I’ve no fear for his future if I’m not with him. But I don’t want to become a smugglers’ whore. I could not bear that. Promise me, Zan. If you love me, promise me.’

And she stretched out her hand to touch the hand that held the pistol.

‘Promise me. On your honour.’

And because he could do no other, Zan took her in his arms. ‘I promise, Marie. I’ll not let them hurt you or harm you in any way or humiliate you.’ He would make the promise. But whether he could ever keep it, he doubted. Still he would reassure her and if it came to the making of that choice—he would give his own life first if it would save her hurt and pain. ‘Whatever happens, I’ll be with you.’

‘On your honour?’

‘On the honour that I’ve spent much of my life denying. On my honour, I’ll not let them harm you.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied simply. ‘You see, I am not very courageous at all.’

‘You are magnificent. You have all my admiration. Remember that—whatever happens. Now…’ His head snapped round. ‘Hush!’ Scuffles. Booted feet close
below the Tower on the paved terrace. A shouted order followed by a sharp reply. ‘That’s Rodmell.’

‘Have they won?’

‘I’m not sure.’ He strode to the window, shading the reflections with his hand. ‘As you said, the angle’s wrong. I can’t…By God!’ A sharp explosion. ‘I can see that.’

‘What?’

There was no mistaking the faint glow of light that had begun down to their left, and was now growing. Soundless from their enclosed distance, it was still unmistakable as it danced and flickered, growing in intensity, throwing shadows across the terrace and gardens. Smoke, thick and acrid, began to billow from the burning straw.

‘Fire!’ Marie-Claude breathed.

‘Yes,’ Zan confirmed. ‘He’s fired the stables. D’Acre’s fired the stables and the house.’

‘That’s what he meant, isn’t it. A warm ending for us…’

Zan could only nod. That’s exactly what he’d meant. Retribution was the name of the game. D’Acre would fire the Pride and fry anyone within the four walls who could not escape. That was exactly what he had threatened to do.

‘And no one knows we’re here.’ Marie-Claude turned her head slowly to look at him. ‘How do we get out? Or do we just wait here until the flames reach us and reduce us to ash?’

His eyes touched on hers, marvelling at what he saw. Before, she had been afraid. Of course she had. But now faced with the imminence of a painful death she had gathered all her spirit around her like a velvet cloak. Her shoulders were firm, her spine straight, her chin raised.
She would face whatever came to them. He thought he had never loved her more.

But he was damned if he’d give in too easily.

To his amazement, overriding the pain from every part of his body, Zan felt the old excitement begin to race beneath his skin, the intoxicating thrill of facing overwhelming odds and defeating them. It was as heady as a glass of champagne and far more satisfying. Was this not one of the attractions of Free Trading—the main attraction—pitting his skill and talent against wind and wave to carry the goods from France to England, to evade the fast Revenue cutters and unload the cargo under the noses of the Excise? It was what he had done all his adult life. And, if he were honest, to him the sheer adventure was more important than the resulting wealth. The matching of mind and body against the dangers filled his blood with fire.

He turned to face Marie-Claude, confidence leaping along his veins. Ridiculous it might be, but better a fight than a cowardly retreat.

‘We’ll escape. You’ll see.’ His smile widened to a grin. ‘It’s a long way down—too far to jump—so we’ll try this instead. Fetch the candle and light the lamp, Madame Mermaid. We’re going to make a bid for rescue. We’re going to signal danger—as if a smuggling run was under threat. Today you’re going to play your part in destroying the worst gang of cutthroats on the south coast. So light the lamp, Marie-Claude!’

‘I think I’ve just been given an order and should reply
Aye, aye, sir
!’ Her breath caught.

Unshed tears shone in her eyes as her lips trembled, but she moved swiftly to collect the candle whilst Zan manhandled the shutters back into place. By the time this
was complete with severe strain on his ribs, and every other part of his body that seemed to have been dragged through the fires of hell, she had applied the candle to the wick so that the lamp was lit and burning steadily.

‘Now what?’ She surveyed him, hands on hips.

‘This is what we do. We open and close the shutters six times, counting to ten—slowly—between each closure. And then we wait—and repeat the signal again.