Historical Romance Boxed Set (44 page)

“In a moment.”

They headed back to the front entrance together amid the crush of people along the wharves. Nathaniel glanced about, hoping to hail a few burly chaps to help, and thought he saw a face he recognized. When he looked again the man had gone, but something about him stirred a memory.

He was likely one of the blokes he’d hired to help him the last time, Nathaniel thought. Turning the key in the lock, he pressed in on the door.

It groaned on its hinges, then swung wide.

Nathaniel stood staring, his jaw agape. The warehouse was empty.

“They’ve found them.” He turned back to push Trenton away. “Let’s get out of here.”

The two of them began to sprint to the carriage when the familiar-looking man appeared again, a sturdy bloke with bulging biceps. He grabbed Nathaniel by the arm and began to haul him back, as four others separated themselves from the crowd and stripped him of his pistol. They shoved him and Trenton back inside the empty warehouse, and Lord Clifton moved into the light that streamed in through the high windows, one of which was open.

Sailors called to each other outside as his half brother’s voice echoed within. “Looking for something?” the marquess asked.

“Clifton, this won’t do you any good,” Nathaniel said. “The Lord High Admiral already knows about the guns.”

The marquess shrugged. “No one will believe my father guilty of treason. But the guns are quite valuable. I must say, I’m relieved to have them back.”

The door opened and a gush of fresh air swept into the room as Captain Montague entered with a struggling Alexandra.

“Alexandra, how wonderful to see you.” Lord Clifton bowed in mock courtesy. “I feared our paths would never cross again, but fate has been kinder to me than I deserve.”

Nathaniel’s heart began to race. He glanced beyond the marquess, trying to sense any movement in the shadows. How many men accompanied his half brother?

As if six, including Clifton, weren’t enough.

“You’re right. The only thing you deserve is to swing at the end of a rope,” Alexandra said breathlessly.

The marquess chuckled and glanced above them, where a large metal hook was attached to a pulley system designed to help move cargo around. “Funny you should mention a rope.” He gave Nathaniel a meaningful smile, motioning with his head to one of his men. “Charles, I do believe it would be wise to be quick about this.”

The man named Charles stepped forward and pulled the hook closer while two others grabbed Nathaniel by his clothes.

“And now we see that my prophecy comes true,” Montague said, giving Nathaniel a mocking salute. “You will test the rope long before me, no?”

“Then I’ll see you in hell,” Nathaniel told him.

Lord Clifton smiled at the exchange. “I saved a few rifles for you.” He indicated one of the familiar long, flat crates. “They can provide the stool—a bit of irony I could not resist.”

The marquess’s men dragged the box forward as Nathaniel’s mind flailed for something, anything with which to gain an advantage. He could think of nothing until a thought surfaced—a memory, really—of Alexandra telling him that his father had syphilis and had given the disease to Clifton’s mother. Did his half brother know? If not, would it upset him enough to buy some desperately needed time?

“It’s a miracle you were ever born, you know,” Nathaniel said, staring defiantly at Clifton as another man started to force him onto the box of rifles. “Syphilis is no small thing. With your father carrying it home from his whores, I wonder that your mother didn’t leave him sooner.”

His words acted on Lord Clifton like a douse of cold water. The marquess blinked in surprise, and the men who held Nathaniel paused uncertainly. Clifton’s brows drew close, and he bared his teeth. “I’ll not tolerate such rubbish from the likes of you. My mother might be sick, but she’s not gone mad. Her illness has nothing to do with syphilis. And my father has been well for over a year.”

“So you didn’t know.” Nathaniel shrugged, feigning a haughtiness he did not feel. “Evidently it hasn’t made itself apparent enough in either parent yet. But it will. It always does.”

The marquess’s men glanced at one another, and Nathaniel felt the hands that held him lose a bit of their tension.

At his full height Clifton was several inches shorter than Nathaniel. He had to tilt his head back to stare him in the eye, but he did so as he advanced, coming within inches. Nathaniel saw how the marquess’s nostrils flared with rage and knew he had hit his target. His half brother had been caught completely unaware.

“That’s a lie!”

“Certainly even you can see it’s the truth, now that you know.” Nathaniel watched Clifton’s hand ball into a fist, and prepared himself for the blow. The others stood still, out of surprise or perverse interest, Nathaniel didn’t know. “Evidently, he cared little about whose thighs he parted before sharing your mother’s bed—”

The marquess’s fist slammed into his stomach and Nathaniel doubled over. For the tiniest moment the men’s grip on him slackened. Using that moment to twist violently away, he wrenched himself out of their hold.

Nathaniel wasn’t as strong as he used to be. He was still recovering from his knife wound, but he preferred to take his chances against a pistol than to swing from a rope.

Two of Clifton’s men scrambled to catch him, but with a blow to the chin and a quick kick to the groin, he sent them flailing onto their backs. He lunged for the marquess while Trenton used the sudden distraction to wrest free as well. But they both froze when the man who held Alexandra put a gun to her head.

“Such impetuous actions will surely cost you,” Lord Clifton gritted out. “Now you will watch her hang first.” He nodded to one of his thugs, who was still gasping for breath.

The surly, muscular man with a rounded paunch began to drag Alexandra toward the rope. Nathaniel’s muscles tensed. He remembered the numerous floggings on the
Retribution
, the hunger, the chafing on his ankles from the chains. He recalled the hospital ship with its sick, desperate men, the dampness, the putrid smell of vomit and sweat, and the itch of lice. The memories converged upon his mind, all mingling with each other in the same fraction of a second. The marquess was to blame for it all. And now he threatened Alexandra. “If you harm her, I’ll kill you before I die,” he vowed. “The only way to ensure that I won’t is to hang me now.”

Something akin to fear flickered in Clifton’s eyes. He ordered his men to grab Nathaniel, but Nathaniel had his long fingers about his half brother’s neck before anyone could move.

“Let her go,” he whispered harshly, squeezing until Clifton’s mouth opened and closed like that of a fish and his eyes bulged from their sockets.

Nathaniel felt a surge of strength course through his body, enabling him to squeeze tighter and tighter until the marquess’s face turned bright red. “Now! Tell them to let her go!”

The thugs backed away from Alexandra while the one who held the gun leveled it at Nathaniel’s back.

“Kill him,” Clifton wheezed, trying to wrench Nathaniel’s hand away from his throat.

The report of the gun almost deafened them all, but the bullet missed its target by a wide margin. Trenton had lunged at the man, knocking him off his feet, and the two of them were grappling with each other on the ground.

Someone shouted from outside, “They’re in here!”

Suddenly Inspector Madsen, the man from Scotland Yard who had ridden the train with them, charged into the warehouse with four constables following in his wake.

“Hold everything,” he said, drawing his pistol and pausing long enough to take in the scene.

Nathaniel slowly released the marquess. Trenton stopped fighting, and Alexandra raised her tearstained face in stunned disbelief.

“Well done, Captain Montague,” Inspector Madsen said. “You’re free to go.”

“I don’t know where you’ll have me go,
monsieur,”
Montague replied, his voice clipped. “My life is safe no more.”

“You made that choice, not I,” Madsen replied, gathering Clifton and his men-into one group.

The marquess turned to Montague. “You did this?”

Montague looked away. “I had no choice.”

Madsen quirked an eyebrow at Lord Clifton. “Captain Montague was arrested at a pub in London a few weeks ago. It seems he took a liking to a certain actress with a jealous husband. The two were involved in a scuffle, and your friend killed the man. He offered us evidence on the gun runs in exchange for leniency.”

Madsen glanced at Montague. “Perhaps it’s time to return to your homeland, Captain,” he said. Though his words were polite on the surface, Nathaniel got the distinct impression Inspector Madsen didn’t like the Frenchman.

“You’re a dead man,” the marquess whispered to Montague. “Do you hear me? No one betrays me. You can’t go far enough. When I get out of this, I’ll find you.”

“I don’t believe you’re in a position to be making threats,” Madsen said, waving Clifton and his small band toward the door.

“Wait.” Clifton pointed at Nathaniel. “What about him? He’s the pirate who’s been plaguing my father’s ships.”

Inspector Madsen glanced over his shoulder at Nathaniel. “Sir John told us all about him. Your father’s magistrate friend was afraid he’d be implicated in the gun runs as well, so it didn’t take much prodding to get to the truth. From what I’ve heard, Mr. Kent has paid for his crimes.”

He stopped as the constables continued to herd the others out. “He does, however, need evidence to prove his identity as the Duke of Greystone’s son, I believe.” He looked to Nathaniel. “And now you have it. With a bit of persuasion Sir John agreed to testify to what he knows of you and your, er, father, too.”

He grinned, then winked at Alexandra. “Oh, and congratulations again on your upcoming marriage, miss.”

* * *

Hangings always drew a large crowd, but today’s throng was bigger than most. The punishment of one so high in society, combined with the heinousness of his sin, made this execution of particular interest to layman and nobility alike.

Shops closed at midday so their owners and employees could attend. Nearly fifty thousand people clogged the streets. They climbed any tree with a limb strong enough to support the weight, leaned out windows, and sat on rooftops all the way to Ludgate Hill along the Old Bailey, north to Cock Lane, Giltspur Street, and Smithfield, and back to the end of Fleet Lane. Wagons and carts teemed with people who had paid to stand on them for a glimpse of the action. And more than a few carriages belonging to notable public officials and members of the aristocracy waited at the fore.

The gallows stood ready in the Old Bailey outside Newgate Prison. A temporary roof enclosed the east part of the stage and offered shade to two sheriffs, who sat on either side of the stairs leading to the scaffold. Around the north, west, and east sides were galleries for the reception of officers and attendants, and a short distance away, the constables waited inside a fixed, strong railing. In the middle, where the convict would stand, the floor was raised a bit higher than the rest of the platform.

Nathaniel stood watching with his arm around Alexandra as two men shouted to each other, checking and double-checking the apparatus to make certain that everything was in working order. One tested the lever that dropped the trapdoor from under the victim’s feet, while the other proved the rope. Originally a notorious murderer was to be hanged today—a man who had killed his wife and cut her into four pieces, each of which had been discovered in a different section of London—but Nathaniel had heard that the prison officials had decided to wait. The execution of a nobleman was already creating quite a stir. Important people were going to be watching, and Nathaniel didn’t doubt that those in charge wanted everything to go as smoothly as possible. In degree of seriousness, treason topped the list, after all, creating the common sentiment that the perpetrator of such deviltry deserved to die alone, center stage. It would appease the anger of many, though it must cause the sadness of some, Nathaniel thought, thinking of Lady Anne.

It was a cold day in late September, and snow had fallen through the night, leaving a thin white blanket on the ground that had quickly turned to slush. Nathaniel and Alexandra shivered with the others as they waited for the prisoner to appear, but despite the chill weather, no one left.

Nathaniel’s mood was nervous, somber. He did not want to be here, yet he couldn’t stay away. He had spent many years hating his father and brother. Now he felt empty. He could scarcely believe what the papers had reported—a wild fervor had surrounded this hanging above all others—though he knew the truth had finally been revealed.

Alexandra gave him a reassuring smile. “Are you sure you want to see this?”

Nathaniel nodded. “But you don’t have to stay, my love. I’d rather you not have to witness–”

“We’ll see it through together,” she insisted.

He could feel her love flowing through him at the slightest touch, supporting him like the wind at his back. How he admired her inherent strength and beauty. He hugged her closer to him. He had thought he didn’t know what love was, but he had proven himself wrong. He loved Alexandra with a ferocity that surprised him.

She smiled at him again, and he turned his attention away, focusing on the comments of those around him.

“He deserves what he’s getting, that he does,” a heavyset country woman said to her friend. “If it was one of us, they’d string us up in two shakes.”

The man behind her said, “But
why
did he do it? There was no call to take such a risk.”

Nathaniel had spent many long nights wondering the same thing. But he thought he finally understood—as well as he ever would, anyway.

Scanning the crowd, he searched for Lady Anne. She stood near the front, weeping uncontrollably, alone except for her maid. He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of remorse at her pain.

Finally two servants forced their way through the mass of people and escorted the duke’s daughter back to her carriage. Evidently she could not bear to watch.