Her Every Pleasure (28 page)

Griff nodded. “Right. If there’s anything you need—”

“Supplies. Armaments—”

“Men?” the captain offered in an urgent tone.

“No,” Gabriel clipped out. “A smaller team will be more mobile. God only knows where this chase will lead us before we reach Albania. God willing, we will take her back before we set foot on Ali Pasha’s territory.”

“I will send word to Sultan Mahmud of what’s occurred,” Griff said. “He may be able to help from his end.”

“I can get you and your team supplied,” the captain chimed in.

Gabriel nodded. “I’ll keep you informed as opportunity permits.”

“Do what you must,” Griff murmured. “Just get her back safe.”

Gabriel gave him a steely-eyed look. “You’re damned right I will.”

No more than eight hours behind the kidnappers, he and the men rushed to the port to procure the fastest vessel they could hire. Gabriel dispatched some of the men to quickly interview sea captains and sailors, scouring the docks for any witnesses who might have noticed suspicious activity pertaining to Sophia.

Before long, Timo and Yannis found them a swift sloop whose captain said she was ready to make sail whenever they were. Gabriel was overjoyed when Markos and Demetrius located an old salt on the docks who confirmed seeing some suspicious-looking foreigners last night. They had arrived on horseback, he said, and had left at once on a frigate called
The May,
embarking in the middle of the night when most boats stayed safely harbored.

Within the hour, they were out to sea.

Gabriel stood with one foot braced on the bow with the sea foam flying around him and a spyglass to his eye, angrily searching the rolling waves. The long ends of his black wool greatcoat billowed in the cold wind as he held onto the rail to balance himself.

Somewhere out there, she was waiting for him. He could feel her. But his thoughts focused darkly on her captors.

If you harm one hair on her head…

No mercy.

Alexa had taken to her cabin with the wretched seasickness, but a hard rap on the cabin door roused her from her sickened slumber.

“On your feet, woman! Hurry up! It’s almost time to go ashore!”

Ashore?
Finally.
Alexa was eager to part ways with them. As she dragged herself up to a seated position, she found herself feeling much recovered. She still felt nauseated both in body and soul, but the severity had lessened.

The frigate’s rocking was not so violent now. They must have left the sea for the Garonne River. Britain ruled the waves, which was why the Tunisian preferred to take the overland route through France.

It was an intelligent decision, for if any of Sophia’s English allies sought to follow them, they’d find little help from the people here. The war had ended, but the traditional hostility between the French and the English was alive and well.

Alexa could hardly wait to reach land and be rid of these brutes, as they had agreed to part ways at the town of Bordeaux. But for now, she concentrated on one task at a time to keep her nerves in check, and slowly went about putting herself in order. She was not sure how long she had slept, but it was very dark.

She freshened up, then donned the veil that they required of her. With her identity concealed, she picked up her small valise stuffed with her things and some jewels to sell so she could begin her new life in France.

When she finally went topside, her cloak wrapped around her, still tightly clutching the handle of her valise, she saw lights in the distance.

Her excitement grew. The men were hard at work, angling the sails to counteract the current.

“How long till we reach Bordeaux?” she asked, but everyone ignored her.

She frowned, sensing something strange in the air. A new tension that had not been there before.

It made her uneasy. With a sudden bad feeling taking shape inside her, she tried to ask a few of the men what was happening, but they told her to shut up and wait.

She frowned, glancing around the decks. Then she spotted Her Highness, veiled like her.

Sophia was standing at the taffrail, staring back toward the distant sea. Alexa did not want to face her, but she was probably the only one who’d tell her what was going on.

Sophia did not look at her, treating her to frigid silence as Alexa crept closer. “H-how long before we reach land?” she inquired.

“Go to hell,” Sophia replied in a low cutting tone after a moment.

“Your Highness, please—”

“How dare you speak to me?” she uttered dully, turning her back on her.

Alexa stared imploringly. “They said they’d kill me if I didn’t help them.”

“Now they will kill both of us.”

“No! That was part of the bargain, you see?” Alexa whispered, wheedling and cajoling her old friend with all her skill. “I did it to protect you. They promised they won’t kill you—as long as you cooperate.”

“Oh, Alexa, you little fool.” Sophia turned at last and stared at her in scorn. “Don’t you know that promises to infidels don’t count?”

“You two, come away from there!” Kemal ordered, waving them aft with his gun. “Go sit down until we tell you it’s time to disembark.”

Sophia knew why the men were nervous: They were being followed. It was no accident, but she was not about to admit that to Alexa and give the girl a whole new chance to stab her in the back.

In the late afternoon, while Alexa had been sleeping, Kemal had spotted the smaller, faster sloop behind them, still many miles out on the horizon, but tracking their path, and gaining on them.

Sophia knew it was Gabriel, as surely as she knew the sound of her own heartbeat. Never mind that she had fired him yesterday. She knew that he would come.

But she had to show him where to go.

To that end, she had found a little mirror in her cabin and had hidden it beneath the long, covering veil her captors made her wear. Coming back up on deck, she had stood at the taffrail and had flashed the mirror furtively in the bold light of sunset, praying that it would send a signal that her men could see even from this distance.

More of Leon’s tricks had surfaced in her mind. She might not be able to fight these barbarians, but she could do her best to keep her allies apprised of her location.

By now, they would already be on the hunt for her. They would have brought Gabriel back, she surmised, and, of course, they all would have realized that Alexa was a traitor and that her overtures to Gabriel yesterday had been a deliberate ruse.

Sophia felt like a fool for having walked into the trap so trustingly. Then again, she was still in a state of disbelief over her friend’s betrayal. How many years had they spent together? She wanted Alexa to tell her why, but the reason scarcely mattered now. The results were still the same. God, she could not even dwell on it or she’d break down in tears, but she needed her wits about her for whatever was to come.

Reaching the harbor, they went ashore, the women cloaked. Through her veil, Sophia read signs identifying the town as Bordeaux. Beneath the capacious sleeves of her covering robes, Sophia’s hands were tied.

Kemal hurried them toward a waiting carriage, but there, Alexa balked.

“No, it’s time for us to part ways. You said when we came to Bordeaux that I could go free.”

She could hear them arguing, though the Tunisian’s words were too low to make out.

“But you promised!” Alexa cried, backing away from him and bumping into two of the other men behind her. They took her arms.

Sophia watched in mounting concern as Alexa fought them as best she could.

“Let me go!”

“Settle down, you whore! The plan’s changed! You’re coming with us.”

“You said I wouldn’t have to!”

“Alexa!” Sophia ordered her. “Don’t fight with them.”

“You can’t tell me what to do anymore!” she shot back.

“Get in the carriage before I break your neck,” Ibrahim snarled at her.

Alexa cowered. “You don’t mean that, surely.”

Sophia watched grimly as Alexa tried out her simpering routine on these heartless assassins. Maybe it would work. They were males, after all.

“Please,” she said sweetly, trying to squirm free of them with a gingerly motion. “I don’t see why you need me anymore. I won’t tell anyone about this. Just let me go—”

“You’re not going anywhere!”

“I beg you—”

Kemal slapped her hard and sent her reeling. “No more questions!”

She fell to the ground with a shriek while Sophia started forward. “Alexa!”

A pair of passing Frenchmen saw what was happening and cried out when Alexa went falling.

“Monsieur! What are you doing?”

“Leave that lady alone!”

Kemal turned and stared at them in bristling stillness. With his back to her, Sophia could not see Kemal’s face, but she saw the two Frenchmen blanch. Whatever they read in her captors’ eyes, it frightened them away from interfering. They looked down and hurried on about their business.

Kemal laughed softly.

“Oh, God,” Alexa sobbed. Still in a heap on the ground, she glanced at Sophia with terror in her eyes, perhaps understanding at last that she had made a fatal miscalculation.

Sophia grimly hoped that those two sensible Frenchmen at least had had the wits to remember her friend’s name, for she had shouted it deliberately.

Somehow Kemal hadn’t noticed, but she knew she had better be careful. When she met his black empty stare, she doubted that the man possessed a soul.

Then Ibrahim hauled Alexa to her feet and thrust the sobbing girl into the waiting carriage.

Her turncoat friend might have been confused, but Sophia understood perfectly well why they would not let Alexa go as planned. They must have realized they could use the girl as leverage to make Sophia comply, never mind the fact that Alexa had betrayed her. Her royal duty was the same, and Alexa had always been her responsibility.

When Kemal gestured Sophia toward the large black coach, she stood there for a moment longer in simmering rage, thinking of all the ways she would’ve liked to kill them; but, knowing it was futile to try it, she kept her fury tightly in check and stepped up into the carriage.

A moment later, they were under way.

CHAPTER
         SEVENTEEN         

H
old on, love,
Gabriel thought.
I’m coming.

From the moment they had spotted the kidnapper’s vessel ahead, Gabriel did not let the ship out of his sight. His hope had soared when he had seen the glint of Sophia’s signal with the mirror, confirming their discovery.

The men had cheered, knowing it meant that she was awake and on her toes. Their brave girl had her wits about her and was ready to be rescued.

At Gabriel’s command the hearty captain of the sloop had told his crew to let out more sail than was probably wise in the cold, choppy seas of autumn. But they would not be deterred.

All day, they had been steadily gaining on their quarry. But then, with the telescope pressed almost constantly to his eye, Gabriel had felt his hope harden to a fresh wave of anger when he saw the frigate changing course to head toward France.

About twenty-four hours since the Greeks had found him at the coaching inn, they were slowly making their way up the Garonne River. The wide waterway was busy with boat traffic coming and going from Bordeaux Harbor.

When they finally disembarked at the quaint, bustling harbor town, Gabriel gave Markos and Demetrius a large sum of gold to buy horses and supplies, and sent the rest to search the town for any word of the visitors.

Unfortunately for him, the harbormaster saw his English passport and decided to give his Gallic prejudice free rein, detaining him with needless questions, pretending not to understand his answers and forcing him to repeat them numerous times.

Gabriel longed to throw him overboard, but instead, he finally bribed the man into cooperating. The harbormaster’s manner turned somewhat more cordial, but it took an additional sum to unlock a bit of information from him about a scuffle that had taken place last night by the docks.

The harbormaster said that two of the town’s citizens, brothers who owned a dry goods shop, had seen a strange party of several Eastern-looking men and two cloaked women come ashore. The brothers had tried to intervene when they witnessed one of the men strike one of the ladies. They had backed down from the fight, vowing that the strangers had a murderous look about them, but had reported what they had seen.

Gabriel prevailed upon the harbormaster to tell him where these two brothers could be found. The harbormaster pointed to a shop on the quay, where, even now, Gabriel could see his comrades going in to buy supplies.

Excellent.

He thanked the harbormaster, then had a few lads from the sloop’s crew row him ashore. Joining Markos and Demetrius at the dry goods store, he spoke to one of the brothers personally, and heard it from the man himself that one woman had called the other by the name Alexa. Then they got into a coach and drove away.

“The question now is which way did they go.” Markos said as they left the store.

They met the others outside and convened briefly to discuss their course, studying the detailed local maps that the men had purchased in a bookstore on the boulevarde.

“Eventually, they’ll have to decide whether to go south to the Mediterranean and try to lose us at sea again or press on due east, cut across Italy, and head straight for the Adriatic.”

“That overland journey is hard. Mountains.”

“But no danger of meeting with English warships. The Mediterranean’s crawling with them.”

“It’s a direct shot across the Adriatic to Ali Pasha’s territory,” Kosta remarked.

Gabriel nodded. “We need to catch up to them before they have to choose between these two routes. Above all, I want to avoid having to split up into two parties to pursue them. These are Janissary warriors. No trifling foe. We’re all going to have to be on hand to get her back.”

“The fact that they’re in a carriage also helps us,” Yannis chimed in. “With all the battles throughout France, they say the roads are not in as good shape as those in England. It should slow them down a bit.”

“Then let’s see what these French mounts can do.”

The others nodded, and swinging up onto their horses, soon they were off.

The main road heading east out of Bordeaux took them through southwest France, into the tranquil but dramatic beauty of the Dordogne Valley, with the snowcapped Midi Pyrenees outlined against the sky many miles to the south.

After a grueling ride of about three hours, their mounts were nearly spent. Since keeping up their hard pace was paramount, Gabriel called for a change of horses at the next posting inn with a livery stable.

But then, another glance through the telescope revealed a small splash of bright color against the dusty earth. “There’s something in the road ahead.”

“What is it?”

“Another signal from Her Highness?”

“Hard to say. Let’s go find out.” He spurred his horse’s flagging canter back into a strained gallop and went to investigate the dash of color in the road.

Because she had made it clear that she did not intend to give them any trouble, her captors had finally agreed to untie Sophia’s hands. Now she could only pray that Gabriel and her bodyguards would find the clue that she had risked her neck to leave for them.

She had made her move earlier that day, when her captors had stopped to change horses and to complete their proscribed daily prayers. She had been sitting in the carriage across from Alexa, much as they had been the night of the ambush.

With the men distracted, she had quickly opened Alexa’s valise and taken out a long, brightly colored scarf, along with Alexa’s tiny pot of rouge. Dabbing the red cosmetic onto her finger, Sophia had written a coded message on the scarf. Her men would know what it meant.

Peeking out the carriage window, she had waited for her opportunity. Moving quickly, she had laid the scarf out flat atop the carriage roof.

When the men returned from their prayers, they got back into the carriage and drove on. The breeze from their quickening pace blew the scarf silently off the carriage roof so it flew out behind them and landed, unnoticed, in the road.

That, however, had been hours and many miles ago. With the day waning, her captors turned off the sleepy country highway and headed up into the stark, gray mountains to find shelter for the night.

The already tired horses labored to climb the steep switchback road. For her part, Sophia was exhausted merely from riding all day in the bone-jarring vehicle. Its poor springs rattling over rough country roads had left her whole body sore.

She was glad they were stopping for the night, even if it was only to shelter in one of the large hollow caves so common in the Dordogne Valley, with all of its bizarre, sculpted rock formations in the ancient limestone.

She could certainly use the rest, but more important, any halt on their part gave Gabriel and her men a better chance of catching up.

This turn off the main road up into the mountains worried her, however. How were her friends to know they had changed course?

If she did not find some way to leave another clue for them, Gabriel might never realize that Kemal and his men had veered off the main highway. They could go riding right past the turn and end up ahead of them.

She racked her brain all the way up the long, slow drive through thick pine forest to the mountain’s crest and the cave that the men finally chose for their shelter.

How on earth was Gabriel to find her up here?

Her captors seemed very familiar with their wilderness hiding place and she realized that they’d used it before. Sophia could have despaired—except that Gabriel had spent most of his career fighting on rugged Indian frontiers full of mountains and forests. He might not know
this
ground, but he knew how to operate in this type of setting.

She kept both hope and fear under wraps as she slid out of the carriage and looked around, stretching her back with a wince of pain.

Alexa was staring dazedly at nothing, but the men had begun carrying their supplies into the wide, yawning mouth of the cave where they had stopped. When she told her captors in haughty tones that she had to use the necessary, the Tunisian gestured at one of his underlings.

“Take her into the woods.”

The woods?
Sophia curled her lip, but in this wilderness, even a royal princess had little choice.

Her armed, swarthy captor made her walk ahead of him across the dirt road from the caves into the pine forest.

“You’d better not look.”

“If you try to escape, I will shoot you.”

“I’m not stupid,” she retorted.

“Be quick about it.”

Still stewing with anger to find herself in the power of these fiends, she walked farther into the woods, her footfalls muffled by the deep bed of soft pine needles. Lord, it was much too cold for this. She kept looking for some way to signal Gabriel. All she saw was barren branches, sharp evergreen underbrush with red berries, probably poisonous.

“Hurry up!” her warden called.

“I’m trying!” she belted back. As she walked on deeper into the woods, she saw a sharp drop-off a few yards ahead.

“That’s far enough!”

“I’m still here, don’t look!”

She tiptoed toward the high ledge to try to gain a better sense of her location from atop that vantage point. When she reached the edge, she looked down and saw the winding, switchback road below.

Escape would have been nice, but it was too high to jump. On the other hand, if Gabriel was being watchful, he should be able to look up from the main road below and spot another clue from down there. What could she leave for him this time to signal where she was? She had nothing but the clothes on her back at this point.
Well…

With a quick glance over her shoulder at her captor, who was pacing as he waited for her to return, she quickly slipped off her bright white petticoat from underneath her walking dress, and threw the whole white fluffy mass of fabric over the rocky ledge, holding her breath until it landed on the mountain road below.

There.

Hopefully he’d see it when he came along.

She was going to be very cold tonight without the extra layer of clothing, but any clues she could send her rescuers was of greater value to her now. She just hoped they managed to spot it before it got much darker out.

“You must be done! Get back here or I’m coming after you now!”

“I’m coming!” When she strode back to her captor, he glared at her for making him wait.

Holding his rifle diagonally across his body, he gestured at her to go ahead of him again.

Sophia did so, measuring out a small exhalation of relief once her back was to him. She crossed the road again, but as they neared the cave, she heard a commotion from inside.

Then Alexa screamed.

Immediately, Sophia rushed toward the cave. She could not see her friend—the laughing men had Alexa on the ground and were clustered around her—but she could hear her and she could feel her terror.

“Stop it! Leave me alone! Help!”

Sophia did not know what came over her in that instant. Pure, blind rage.

The man who had escorted her into the woods was right behind her. Sensing trouble, his hand clamped down on her shoulder. Without warning, Sophia spun around and smashed the heel of her fist upward into his nose, jamming his head back and throwing him off balance.

She yanked the rifle out of his hands and ran into the cave to her fellow female’s rescue.

“Leave her alone!”

The cretins cursed and scattered; she knew not how she put herself between them and her sobbing childhood playmate, but the next thing she knew, she was in a standoff with herself and one rifle against six heavily armed Janissary warriors.

Why she was not dead in the next instant, she did not know. But for reasons known only to them, they left her alive. They all just looked at her, an ugly light gleaming in their eyes.

They exchanged uneasy glances.

“You will not touch her,” she ground out, her teeth clenched. “Stay behind me, Alexa.”

Their leader, Kemal the Tunisian, walked into the cave just then with a map in his hand. Sophia supposed he had been taking the lay of the land, but he cursed when he saw their standoff and stalked over into their midst.