Swept Away (39 page)

“Wait here,” the Marquis murmured and started to close the coach door.

“If he is here, he might not believe you have come to help,” she said, hoping the tremor she could feel in her throat did not echo in her voice. “And if he is not here, I suspect Mr. Turnbull might shoot you without troubling to ask.”

Barrimore saw the logic, though only with the greatest reluctance. “Then stay close behind me and if I tell you to run back to the coach, you will run, is that quite clear?”

Anna’s face was partially hidden by the hood of the cloak, but she nodded anyway. She saw him pat the bulge beneath his jacket and knew it was where he had concealed the flintlock pistol the driver had given him earlier.

He approached the door and gave it two brusque raps with his knuckles.

Anna came up behind him, her hand lightly caressing the pocket of the cloak where she had slipped the letter opener. It was cold enough for her breath to fog the night air, damp enough to add moisture to the tiny beads of sweat already glistening at her temples.

Barrimore knocked again, this time loudly enough to startle the two mongrels away from their bone and start barking. The sound of a shout came from one of the second storey windows farther down the street, the ire directed first at the dogs, then at the third spate of heavy-fisted pounding on the tavern door.

“We be closed fer the night,” a muffled voice came through the wood slats. “Fever inside. Quench yer thirst elsewhere.”

“I am not seeking to quench my thirst,” Barrimore said, his voice low and pressed against the crack of the jamb. “I have come from London on a matter of great importance.”

There was a distinct, wary pause on the other side of the door before the disembodied voice asked, “Who might he be, and who might you be asking after him?”

“My name is hardly important. I--” Barrimore drew a clipped breath as the muzzle of a gun was pressed into the back of his neck, forcing his head roughly against the door.

Behind him, Anna barely had time to react to the shadowy intrusion before an arm was snaking around her waist, dragging her back. Another was clamped firmly over her mouth, muffling her cry of surprise. Out of the corner of her eye she could see where a third man was already climbing up into the carriage beside the driver, a cocked gun aimed squarely between the frightened man’s eyes.

“We’ll ask again,” the first man snarled against Barrimore’s ear. “Who might you be?”

“My name is of no immediate consequence, but I must warn you that the young lady you are manhandling is Miss Annaleah Fairchilde. She is here under my protection and should she suffer so much as a bruise, you will pay and pay dearly for the affront.”

The man with the gun had no chance to answer the challenge as the sound of an iron bolt scraped beneath Barrimore’s ear and the door was yanked open.

As tall as he was, the marquis had to look up into Seamus Turnbull’s face. The Irishman stared hard at Annaleah before growling to the men to bring both her and Barrimore inside. The third man nudged the driver with his gun and a moment later, the carriage pulled away.

Annaleah was hustled forward through the darkened doorway and left to stand beside Barrimore as the door was shut and bolted again behind them. At a grunt from Seamus Turnbull a pair of lamps were lit inside the taproom. One of them was brought forward and raised so the light shone on Anna’s face.

There was still a residue of silver dust on her skin and in her hair, sparkling softly in the yellow glow and the effect showed in the startled green eyes.

“What the bejesus are you doing here, Miss? How did you know where to come and who might this fancy toff be that you’ve brung along with you?”

“Is Emory here?” She asked anxiously. “Did he manage to get safely away from Carleton House?”

“He managed,” said a familiar voice from the opposite side of the room. “No thanks to a wall of thorn bushes that would have tested any man’s mettle.”

Anna turned and saw a splash of white in the corner, the blur of a full sleeved shirt, open at the throat, cinched at the waist with a wide black belt and black breeches.

“Emory!” She pushed past Barrimore and ran across the room to fling herself into Althorpe’s arms. He did not hesitate to catch her nor to swing her around, where, shielded from the prying eyes of the other men in the room, he kissed her hard and deep on the mouth. When they broke free, she gasped again and her hand went to his cheek. The skin on his face and throat was scratched in a dozen places where the thorns had cut him; one of his hands was wrapped in a length of cloth, splotched pink. “Dear God,” she gasped. “Are you all right?”

“Never mind about me. How did you get here? How did you get away from Barrimore?”

“I did not get away from him,” she said, briefly distracted by the visible stains on his shirt where other cuts, other scratches on his chest and arms had bled through. “He is here. He brought me from London.”

“He brought--?” Emory twisted around and stared at the silent figure in the doorway, the shock of recognition tightening his features. “Barrimore?”

The marquis bowed slightly. “Althorpe. You’re a difficult man to run to ground.”

“He has a gun,” Anna cried. “Under his coat. The left hand side.”

Seamus reacted to the urgency in her voice, pushing the marquis back against the wall and brushing his jacket aside to uncover the polished walnut stock of the flintlock tucked into his waist.

“It is him,” Anna said. “He is the traitor. He knows you are innocent and he has come to find the proof of his own guilt and destroy it before his own treacherous dealings are uncovered!”

Barrimore’s mouth slackened. His eyes narrowed and he momentarily forgot to be vexed at the roughness in Seamus’s hands as the rest of his clothing was searched for weapons.

“Me? Good God, Annaleah! You think that I--? You think I would--?” He stopped, clearly shocked. “Whatever put such an absurd notion into your head?”

“You all but admitted it to me in the carriage, sir, telling me you knew everything about Emory’s activities in France.” She turned to Emory. “He admitted to me that he works for Wessex and knows all about your spying missions in France. He saw the dispatches you sent. He
wrote
many of the dispatches you received, and could easily have falsified others!”

“I wrote some of them, yes,” Barrimore admitted. “But not all. Nor was I the only one who would have had access to the codes. In the hundred days after Bonaparte’s landing at Antibes, there were sometimes two and three hundred dispatches arriving daily. The sheer numbers required us to employ a dozen extra men to cull the important information from the fodder.

“What is more, I have taken a huge leap of faith in
not
driving straight to the nearest garrison and leaving it up to the courts to decide guilt and innocence. Why would I do this, why would I help you and knowingly place myself at risk of being painted with the same tarred brush as Mr. Althorpe if I were the guilty party?”

Annaleah’s lungs deflated on a gust.

“Then you believe him?” she gasped weakly. “You believe Emory is innocent?”

“I am half persuaded into believing he was used as a pawn by factions on both sides of the Channel. I do not believe he is
totally
innocent of all the charges levelled against him--in particular the most recent events that exposed you to inestimable dangers!”

“But I told you, I went with him willingly. He did not really kidnap me.”

“Perhaps not,” he said quietly. “But he did a devilish good job of stealing your heart, did he not?”

Anna stared at the shadowy profile, at the starkly handsome features that were always too stern by far. Though the Marquis of Barrimore was very good at keeping his emotions under tight rein, there was no mistaking the rough note of regret in his voice and she could not help but wonder if her Aunt Florence had been right after all. Had he, indeed, been in love with her and simply too painfully proud to reveal it?

“May I assume we have come to some manner of agreement here? Do I give his lordship to Seamus to drown in a gutter, or do we let him breathe a while longer? And what, in God’s name, were you going to do with that?”

Anna followed his gaze down to where she clutched the ornate gold letter opener in her hand. She did not remember taking it out of her pocket, nor was she quite sure what to do with it now even as the grimness on the faces of the men around her began to give way to crooked smiles.

“No,” Emory said quietly. “As it happens, I am getting damned tired of running. If the papers are still there, on board the
Intrepid
, they may not only help clear my name, but might also provide a clue to the identity of the true traitor. Besides which, I have a bad feeling about what is happening in Torbay at the moment.”

“Torbay?”

“Napoleon is due to be moved to Plymouth, is he not, where he is to be transferred on board the
Northumberland
and thence taken to St. Helena?”

Barrimore’s eyes narrowed. “You’re sources are very good since that is not yet common knowledge, but yes. The captain of the
Bellerophon
is being sent orders to sail to Plymouth at his earliest convenience.”

“Then they will have to execute their plan before the ship leaves Torbay.”

“What plan? What are you talking about? And who is ‘they’?”

“They, is your real traitor and whoever else is conspiring to help Bonaparte escape his exile before the sentence is carried out.”

“Impossible. He is guarded day and night. He is on board a ship in the middle of a British port surrounded by a dozen brigantines bristling with cannon and men eager to use them.”

Emory shook his head grimly. “I have seen the port, the ships, the fairground atmosphere surrounding the
Bellerophon
, and I tell you sir, I could board her, take a stroll about the deck with Boney and the two of us leave again with no one being any the wiser.”

“The hell you say.”

“The hell I do say, yes. And to prove my point, I will sail the
Intrepid
there and do exactly that.”

“The
Intrepid
is under equally heavy guard.”

Emory quirked an eyebrow. “I intend to have her running out in open water before the morning tide comes in.”

Barrimore regarded him with a cool, assessing eye. “Do that, sir, and I will gladly stand on the foredeck alongside you.”

“We have to get on board first,” Seamus growled. “And we weren’t exactly planning to stroll down the wharf and whistle for an invitation to dine.”

Barrimore studied the big Irishman whose brow was also furrowed as he inspected the marquis’s finely tailored evening clothes. With a slight nod to acknowledge the sarcasm, Barrimore reached up and began tugging at his silk cravat to loosen it. “Provide me with more suitable attire, sir, and I would be happy to provide escort regardless of what method you use.”

Emory studied the noble lines of Barrimore’s face a moment, then nodded at Seamus. “Get him something to wear. And give him back his gun; with only seven of us, we may need all the firepower we can muster.”

“Eight,” Anna said quietly. “You have me.”

Every eye in the dingy room turned to stare. Her cloak had fallen open to reveal the veils of sparkly silk she wore beneath. Her slippers glittered with chips of crystal, her face and throat shone with stardust, and her hair, though slightly crushed and displaced from travelling, still held the tiny sprigs of flowers woven into the curls. She looked so sorely out of place, not only asking for a gun but doing so while standing in the midst of such grimy surroundings, it took a moment for anyone to react.

“I trust,” Barrimore said to Althorpe, “You find the notion as absurd as I do. Beyond absurd, in point of fact, despite her claim of having shot off someone’s hand.”

Anna arched her eyebrow at his sarcasm. “I am actually a very fine shot when not in a runaway carriage or confronted by assassins.”

Barrimore bowed. “I am certain you are, Miss Fairchilde. But I would sooner not have you put to the test. The seven of us should be adequate and there will be no further discussion on the subject. You will remain here until all matters have been resolved, even if we have to lock you in one of the rooms to enforce it.”

Whether it was the way he phrased the pronouncement, or just the fact that he assumed he still had some authority over her, Emory looked over and said, almost too casually, “Unfortunately, all the doors lock from the inside.”

“Are you suggesting she would disobey an order intended to secure her own safety?”

“I may not have had the benefit of your past history with Miss Fairchilde but I would be willing to speculate that the lock would remained locked only as long as it took us to reach the end of the street.”

Anna wanted to smile, to show Emory she was profoundly grateful he was treating her like an equal and not a nuisance to be patted on the head and moved back out of the way, but she could see by the look in his eyes that he was not the least bit happy with the situation himself. Had it been anyone but the Marquis of Barrimore attempting to intervene, she wondered if he might not have agreed out of hand.