The Angel in My Arms: A Regency Rogues Novel (32 page)

She’d watched closely as her father had instructed Nigel in the proper way to load a gun. But that occasion had been in the daylight with nary a threatening individual in sight.

With grim determination, she picked up a smaller cloth bag and poured what she hoped was the proper amount of gunpowder down the barrel.

Then she rammed a lead ball down the barrel.

The sound of Marlowe’s arms slapping the water as he swam closer reached her ears.

“Bloody, bloody hell,” she muttered. With ruthless focus, she made herself concentrate, fingers nearly steady as she sloshed a measure of gunpowder into the flintlock’s pan, snapped the frizzen into place, and fully cocked the hammer.

The boat suddenly dipped on the port side and Sarah screamed. Marlowe’s hand was visible on the gunwale.

She pointed the gun at him shakily. “I’ll shoot,” she warned again.

“Find Dixon—use it on him,” Marlowe said, tightening his grip to lift himself into the boat.

Sarah fired and the recoil knocked her flat on her back. Shaken and bruised, she pushed herself upright and scrambled toward the bow.

She peered into the water where just a moment before Marlowe had been.

He was nowhere in sight.

Swallowed by the rough sea as if he’d never been.

“Sarah,” Marcus yelled.

She looked toward the beach, where the men stood all in a row, Nigel the very last.

“Are you all right?” she demanded of her brother.

“Yes,” the boy yelled back. “And you?”

“Better than Marlowe,” she whispered, setting the gun down and returning her gaze to the deep, dark water.

“All of it—Jasper’s death, Clive, even Marlowe—for an emerald?” Sarah asked. The moonlight seemed to strike sparks that flashed and glittered, distracting her as her thumb swiped back and forth across the egg-sized gem in her palm.

Marcus pulled her in close, sheltering her against his formidable body as the guinea made its way back to the Weymouth coast. “Well, for that one—plus seven more just like it,” he answered quietly, rubbing her shoulder in comfort. “But all the same, it’s an asinine reason for dying.”

She dropped the emerald into his palm and closed his fingers around it. “Take it. I don’t ever want to see it again.”

Marcus dropped the emerald into the small pouch and pocketed it. “Are you all right?”

“No,” Sarah answered simply, “but I will be.”

She looked forward to where Nigel sat in the bow. He bent over, his shirtsleeve wet from wrist to elbow as he trailed his hand in the water. “Will he?”

“Eventually,” Marcus assured her, though he had his doubts. At twelve, Marcus had thought of nothing but the big wide world, far away from his homes in Lulworth and Inverness. Life had been full of possibility—open as far as Marcus’s imagination could carry him beyond the realities of his world.

But Nigel had seen the worst of humanity at a very
tender age. Whether his faith in humankind could be restored depended on too many variables to calculate.

“With the love of his family,” Marcus added, leaning in to press a kiss on her soft brow.

The boat rocked abruptly, sending the pistol Thomas had given her sliding to bump Sarah’s boot. She bent down and retrieved it, eyeing it wearily before flinging it into the sea. “I never want to see that again, either,” she explained. “Though I suppose Thomas will be none too happy.”

“The loss of his flintlock is the least of Thomas’s worries.” Marcus added gruffly, “You could have killed yourself with that damn pistol.”

She settled back into the crook of Marcus’s arm and laid her cheek against his chest. “I told you I was safest with you,” she chided him gently.

Marcus was beginning to agree. All the reasons he loved Sarah were the very same ones that told him she could not be trusted on her own.

And that, he realized with more than a touch of relief, suited him just fine.

He couldn’t go on living as though his future relied upon his past. He’d only hurt himself by refusing so much, taking so little—by hiding from it all until he’d hardly known who he was.

He kissed Sarah’s hair, closing his eyes as he did so. Marcus had thought himself brave, when all along he’d only taken the coward’s way out.

“Almost home now,” Sully said to Nigel as they entered Durdle Door, a massive limestone arch.

“Drat,” Sarah yelped, sitting up.

“What is it?” Marcus asked, trying unsuccessfully to gather her back into his arms.

“It’s something Marlowe said—before I shot him.” Her fists balled in her lap. “He told me to ‘find Dixon.’ What do you think he meant by that?”

Marcus wasn’t entirely sure. Obviously Marlowe had been keeping information concerning Dixon from him, but the extent of the man’s involvement was still unclear.

However, there was no point in involving Sarah or Nigel any further in the case, on that point Marcus was clear. “Sarah, let us get ashore—”

Without warning, the stern of the boat was struck by something large, and the longboat turned over, throwing everyone out into the cold, dark water.

Marcus held tight to Sarah as they sank, the murky depths and dark night above obscuring his view of all but her slim hand in his.

Trained in freezing cold Scottish lochs, Marcus was an experienced swimmer, and he easily stopped their descent, reversing direction to propel them back to the surface. His head broke the water’s surface first, Sarah’s heavy wet curls following closely behind.

Bits of splintered wood from the boat floated about them, and a cask bobbed gently in the current—the very one that had destroyed the boat, presumably. Marcus looked up to where the outline of two men could be seen standing precariously atop the limestone arch.

He searched the beach and found several men waiting just at the water’s edge in the moonlight, the tall form of Dixon clearly visible as he held a lantern aloft.

“Won’t you join us?” Dixon asked, the men about him laughing.

Sully and Nigel appeared from around the cask. “What will it be?” Sully asked grimly, holding on to the barrel.

“Are you a strong swimmer?” Marcus whispered to Sarah, looking down the coastline.

Treading water, Sarah stared at the small group of men gathered on the beach. “Yes,” she answered. “I’ll make it in.”

“Not to this beach, you won’t,” he directed, pulling
her back against his chest when she made as if to set out. “I want you to swim back through the arch and come ashore at Man o’ War Bay.”

“Come in, Weston—and bring the rest with you. I’ll send my men out to fetch you, if necessary,” Dixon threatened from the beach.

Sarah squeezed Marcus’s hand tightly. “I’m safest when I’m with you, remember?” she said simply, shivers from the cold water in her voice.

“You are trying my patience,” Dixon added, his tone becoming more irate.

“Let’s not keep the man waiting any longer,” Marcus said reluctantly to the other three.

The four swam the short distance to shallower waters, wading through the surf and plodding along the wet sand until reaching Dixon and his men.

“Marlowe suggested we find you,” Sarah said fiercely, stopping just in front of Dixon. “And here you are. How kind of you to oblige.”

The man struck Sarah across the face, knocking her to her knees. “Do not take that tone with me, Sarah.”

Marcus lunged at Dixon but two burly smugglers made a grab for him and restrained him by the arms, one on each side of him.

“And to think I’d considered taking you with me,” Dixon continued, sweeping Sarah with a disgusted look. “Hardly any chance of that now, you common whore.”

Sarah rose slowly, squaring her shoulders, her spine ramrod straight. She looked Dixon in the eyes without flinching, even as a thick-bodied smuggler yanked her wrists behind her back. “I’ve already killed Marlowe tonight—don’t give me a reason to kill you.”

“Have you, now?” Dixon said snidely, reaching out to trace the neckline of Sarah’s sodden shirt with insolent familiarity. “I suppose I must thank you, then. Sticky fingers, that one. He made off with one of the emeralds,
which would have severely lessened my bargaining power. Hardly a worthy partner in all of this, just as I predicted from the start. Good help who know their place are so hard to find.”

“So you’re a traitor,” Sully interrupted with disdain, earning a punch to the stomach for his trouble.

Dixon continued to stroke Sarah’s skin with his long, thin finger. “Hardly. I’d no choice in the matter. My brother’s oldest brat will inherit the title, leaving me with hardly enough to live on,” he explained. “Smuggling brandy was not going to save me, so I began to look for other, more lucrative, endeavors.”

“And supporting Napoleon’s quest for world domination seemed worthy of your time?” Marcus taunted. He twisted, testing the grip of the smugglers who restrained him. His only hope was to free himself long enough to get to the knife in his boot. But the men holding him didn’t seem distracted by the conversation.

“Precisely,” Dixon answered, scrubbing his hands together and wincing fastidiously at the damp seawater left on his fingertips by Sarah’s shirt. He walked toward Marcus. “And do you know the best part? Hmmm?”

“Do tell me,” Marcus ground out.

“It required very little effort from me. The robberies in London were hired out. The day-to-day interaction with the smugglers themselves? Hired out. Even the murdering was left to Charles.” He looked over at Nigel, his lips twisting into a macabre caricature of a smile. “I must confess, though, I took it upon myself to do away with the Burroughs boy.”

“Bastard,” Nigel shouted, his eyes hot as he ran toward Dixon. One of the men intercepted the boy easily, pushing Nigel to the sand and planting his foot in the small of the boy’s back.

“What has become of today’s youth?” Dixon said
with an affected sigh. “I’ll be doing society a service by ridding it of one more insolent pup.”

“But you’re short two stones, are you not?” Sarah pressed, attempting to draw Dixon’s attention away from Nigel.

He turned back to her, pinning her with a lecherous gaze. “Right you are. One is due to arrive from London anytime now.”

Marcus realized that Dixon knew nothing of the Corinthians being in possession of the seventh stone, which meant that Marlowe had failed to share a most vital piece of information with him.

“And the other?” Sarah pressed.

Dixon closed the distance between them, his head lowering to align with hers. “Come now, Sarah, don’t play coy with me. If you did indeed murder Marlowe, then you’re in possession of the last emerald.”

“Funny,” Sarah spat out, “I don’t recall any emerald.”

Dixon stood his ground. “That really would be too bad. You see, Napoleon’s buyer must have all of the emeralds—nothing less.” He closed one hand around Sarah’s throat. “So, to be even one stone short is simply not acceptable.”

He squeezed, lightly, but enough to make Sarah flinch.

“I have the emerald,” Marcus drawled, tamping down his murderous rage. The bastard would pay for putting his hands on Sarah. “But you’ll have to come and get it.”

Dixon released Sarah and turned to Marcus. “Actually, I don’t have to do anything. Black,” he commanded, gesturing at one of the men holding Marcus. “Relieve Lord Weston of the emerald.”

The burly smuggler released Marcus’s arm and shoved a heavy hand into his coat pocket.

It was just the opportunity Marcus had hoped for.

He staggered sideways as if pushed off balance by the
man’s groping, slumped down, and reached into his boot, palming the knife.

No one noticed. All eyes were trained on the smuggler searching for the emerald.

“What do we have here?” the smuggler said, lifting the small pouch from Marcus’s pocket.

And with that, Marcus swung his weight around and stabbed him in the stomach, pushing his body off with his shoulder before rounding on the second smuggler and slitting his throat with one quick slice of the razor-sharp blade.

“Aye now, don’t tell me we’re late to the party.”

Marcus’s gaze flashed over Dixon’s shoulder.

Thomas and a handful of local men stood on the beach, just outside the mouth of the cave that led to the tunnel at the Boot. Some were armed with spikes and knives, others with only their scarred and well-worn fists.

Thomas smiled.

Dixon made a break for it, running toward the cliffs while a third smuggler attacked Marcus.

With the element of surprise no longer on his side, it took longer to dispatch the man than Marcus would have preferred, his rage growing until he stopped the battle with a vicious left to the man’s chin. The smuggler toppled to the beach, bleeding and unconscious.

“Sarah!” Marcus yelled, searching for her as he fought his way through the fray. He lunged and jabbed as if set upon by wild animals, his heart pounding in his ears.

At last he spotted her with Nigel, safely tucked inside the mouth of the cave.

Assured that she was unharmed and a safe distance from the fighting, he turned and ran in the direction he’d seen Dixon head.

As he looked up the chalky hillside just beyond, he
caught sight of Dixon as the man labored hard to climb the crude path.