Once a Rake (Drake's Rakes) (20 page)

 Alex gave a huge grin. “If you live through the week.”

 Drake left to applause, and the others got down to planning their trip.

*  *  *

A few blocks over on Bruton Street, a young man knocked on a library door and pulled it open. The young man did not particularly like these duties. He wasn’t bred for sedition, no matter how good the cause. And he believed the cause good. England needed a change. She needed men like the self-proclaimed Lions who would not flinch before the hard tasks. And God knew this task was hard.

The secretary waited for the old man to lift his head from where he’d been perusing a folio of bird etchings. “You owe me a monkey, sir. He’s alive.”

The old man set down the glass and sat back. “Ferguson?”

“I told you he would be. Stricker was never up to his weight.”

The old man gave a frustrated huff. “The information is good?”

“Right from a letter posted to the General Post Office account used by Horse Guards for emergencies.” A ruby glinted from the young man’s signet as he rubbed his nose. “After interception, it was sent on, hopefully to whoever has been directing these operations. I’m afraid Ferguson did mention Stricker.” Which satisfied the young man. He considered Stricker a buffoon. “Ferguson asked a reply be sent to Lyme Regis.”

The old man sighed. “I expect he still has the flask. Make certain we reach him before his friends do. Alert Madame Ferrar. She can take care of Ferguson and Stricker at the same time. She should enjoy that.”

The young man had witnessed some of Madame Ferrar’s work. He swallowed hard, glad he would not need to supervise this time.

“And please,” the old man said. “Make certain that anyone who might have had contact with our Colonel Ferguson regrets their charity.”

The younger man paled.

“Well?” the old man barked.

His companion swallowed and bowed. “It will be done.”

And God help Ian Ferguson. God help them all.

Chapter 10

Two days later Ian opened the cellar door and stepped out into the early darkness. He had been in this benighted cellar for eight days now. Well, mostly the cellar. Once the fever had passed, he’d taken to walking late at night. With only the moon and starlight to light his way, he had familiarized himself with nearby terrain and built up his endurance for the moment Drake answered his summons.

Then, this afternoon Old George had appeared with some unwelcome news. Ian still held the newspaper George had brought in his hands. The
Dorsetman,
stamped with yesterday’s date and a damning headline.

SEARCH CONTINUES FOR VILLAINOUS TRAITOR

“She didn’t want me to show you,” George had said, hands in pockets. “But you need to know.”

Wasn’t it funny? Ian thought. Sitting in this blighted cellar, he’d all but forgotten how desperate his situation really was. He had actually begun to drift along on the current of Sarah’s concern, the soft lilt of her voice. The narcotic of her company.

Old George had been right. He needed to remember who he was.

…vile traitor…Scot animal…dead or alive . . .

He’d read the article three times, as if the news would change and he was no longer a wanted man. A free man to enjoy…what? No matter what happened, he had to leave soon, before he came to depend even more on the sound of Sarah Clarke stepping through that cellar door. Before he completely forgot the commitments that waited for him out in the real world.

“George,” he’d said, clenching the paper in his hand. “How would you like to help me plan an escape?”

He just had to tell Sarah when she came tonight. He just had to walk away from her, knowing that he would never see her again. Knowing he wouldn’t have the right.

Eight days. He’d known her eight days, and already parting from her was torture, the price of knowing her higher than he ever could have imagined. In one week, she’d made him question the future he’d so carefully planned.

He had such lofty goals, such promises to keep, and he’d thought his bargain reasonable. After all, he would have the chance to give voice to the people who had populated his childhood. The starving, the homeless, the orphaned and abandoned. The soldiers who had been left to the street corners with their empty-limbed uniforms and begging bowls. He would finally speak for those two starving girls he had failed.

He owed it to them. He owed it to them all, and he had made a sacred vow to repay them. Was a comfortable wife and a privileged life too great a price to pay?

Until he’d found himself hiding behind Sarah Clarke’s henhouse, he had never questioned it.

Henhouses.
He lifted his head. What the devil? He could hear chickens. Panicked, flapping, squawking chickens. Pushing past the screening bushes that hid the cellar, he climbed up to the lip of the lawn.

It was fully dark, with the quarter moon riding low over the sea. The sky for once was clear, with the wind blowing from the east, which helped him hear the chickens. Of course, with the racket they were making, they ought to have been heard in London. Trying to stay out of sight of the house, Ian crept along the garden wall toward the coop. He could deal with a fox in the henhouse; he could not with discovery.

He needn’t have bothered. He heard a door slam open and then Sarah’s voice. “You stay here, Peg. This fox is all mine.”

Ian had to grin. Incongruously clad in a pale dinner dress that glowed like a ghost in the gloom, she made an unlikely soldier as she strode through the kitchen garden. Ian heard the gun snap shut as she made for the henhouse. Yanking open the door with a screech, Sarah ducked into the little building. Instead of running up to join her, for once he waited, perfectly happy to be the audience.

A shot cracked through the silent darkness. Ian nodded.
Good girl.
The hens set up a distressed racket, and goats bleated. Ian considered moving closer. He wanted to see the triumph on Sarah’s face when she came out of the coop.

But she didn’t come. And then…Ian tilted his head. It sounded like a scuffle. The hair went up on the back of his neck. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t question his instincts. He ran.

He was still at least a couple of hundred yards from the henhouse when he saw the door open. He stopped, relieved. He almost called out, praising Sarah’s intrepid defense of her chickens. Then he saw her and dropped straight to the ground. She wasn’t alone. A hand over her mouth, a man was dragging her out of the henhouse.

God and the Bruce. Ian froze where he was. It would do Sarah no good for him to fly off half-cocked. He went into battle mode, slowing his breathing, gathering calm. Focusing his attention on Sarah. She was fighting. He saw her stumble. Saw the man drag her across the cobbles like a sack of grain, even as she clawed at him, fists and feet and nails. Her pretty pale dress was ruined. Her assailant had pulled her hair loose. Ian figured distances, times, opportunities.

And then she whimpered. Sarah, who had faced surprises and soldiers and seditionists with aplomb, betrayed her terror. Rage hit Ian like a high tide. Battle madness swept through him. That squinty-eyed, cowardly little
mac na galla
wouldn’t survive the night.

Gaining his feet, Ian crept closer, keeping into the deeper shadows along the stable wall. He saw the red of a uniform jacket.

Bloody hell. A soldier. Probably one of that half-starved lot he’d seen the other day. Sarah was struggling in the soldier’s grip. Ian could hear an occasional grunt or curse as her elbow or foot made contact.
That’s right, lassie,
he thought, the taste of fear rancid in his mouth.
Hold him off ’til I get there.

He waited only long enough for them to reach the trees. Then, bending low, his steps silent as death, he sprinted after them. Moonlight glinted off the steel in the man’s hand. A knife. Ian knew he was running out of time. There was a small clearing about a hundred yards on. Ian had the feeling the soldier was making for it, where he would have room and no witnesses. It would be better for Ian too. Give him more room to act. He changed direction and ran faster.

“It’s not personal, miss,” Ian heard the solder say, almost conversationally. “I’m delivering a message, that’s all. The chickens was just to get y’r attention.”

Sarah answered with a kick back at his shins. Keeping his focus on Sarah’s panicked face, Ian wove through the trees like a red Indian.

Sarah must have anticipated that clearing as well. The closer they approached, the harder she fought, even as a line of blood trickled down her throat from the knifepoint. Ian could almost smell her terror.

The weasel-faced bastard who had her was smiling. “Go ahead and fight, girlie. I like my women sparky. Adds a bit of spice, it does.”

Ian could hear his own heart in his ears; his palms were wet. He’d spent his life in battle. He couldn’t remember being this afraid. He had seen what soldiers did when let loose. He couldn’t allow that to happen to Sarah. He
would
not.

Then the bastard made a mistake. They had just reached the clearing. Ian had a few yards to go to reach them. Sarah kicked out again. This time the soldier grabbed her by the hair and pulled her right back against his body. Ian could see the whites of her eyes in the gloom.

“That’s right,” the soldier growled, running the flat of the knife down her cheek. “Mort’s in charge here, my sweet little cunny. Make ’im happy, an’ you can live.”

Sarah answered him by cracking the back of her head into his nose. The man cursed. She kicked. He spun her around and backhanded her so hard she flew across the clearing to slam against a tree. She tried to scramble up, but the soldier was quicker. Grabbing her again, he threw her down and then threw himself atop her.

She tried to dig her fingers into his eyes. The soldier wrapped one hand around her throat and lifted the knife with the other, ready to score it down her face. Reaching the clearing at a dead run, Ian let loose a Highlander’s yell.

Sarah shrieked. The soldier whipped around, his mouth gaping. Ian charged in like a bull elephant, leading with his shoulder. The soldier jumped up. Sarah rolled away just as Ian slammed into the man with a resounding crunch, sending them both hurtling.

“Like to terrorize women, do ya, little man?” Ian grated, punching at that chinless face. “Let’s see how you do with me.”

The soldier was no longer laughing. He fought like a street thug. He tried to gouge out Ian’s eyes, to slice the tendons at Ian’s elbows, at the backs of his knees. He even, finally, tried to run. Ian would allow none of it. He had fought on the same streets and was just as merciless, bloodying that face past recognition until the little man was lying on the ground beneath him begging for him to stop. But Ian couldn’t. He couldn’t remember such a feral need to batter a human in his life.

“Ian!” he heard behind him. “Enough!”

It wasn’t. Not quite. Rearing to his feet, he dragged the soldier with him, the man’s face unrecognizable and the fight gone out of him. Wrapping one hand around the man’s skinny throat and the other around the knife hand, Ian lifted him completely off the ground, feet kicking, gaping pale eyes at level with his own. The soldier began to babble. Ian ignored him. He twisted the knife arm. His feet dangling well off the ground, the soldier screamed. There was the terrible snap of bone and the knife fell.

Ian didn’t move. “Sarah,” he said, his voice stone calm, even as the soldier sobbed. “Are ye all right, lass?”

She tried to scramble to her feet, but didn’t make it. On her knees, she nodded, her hair tangled around her face. Her hands shook as she pushed it back to reveal her blood-stained dress. Ian wanted so desperately to go to her, pick her up, hold her in his arms until he knew she was safe. But he had to deal with this piece of vermin first.

“Now then, laddie,” he murmured in a voice that should have terrified the man. “Ye and I have some talkin’ to do.”

Blinking at Ian, the man gaped like a fish. “You’re the one.”

“I might be,” Ian agreed, then pulled the man close enough to smell the terror on him. “I’ll tell ye what else I am. I’m the Scot who shot Englishmen at Badajoz for what they were doing to the Spanish women. Imagine how much more I’ll enjoy killing ye, little man.”

The soldier began to plead. Without letting go of him, Ian bent to gently help Sarah up. Her pretty dress was ripped and her face the color of paste. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

Setting her gently on her feet, Ian brushed the tears with his free thumb and turned back to the soldier, whom he still held up with one hand. “I dinna hae any real love for an English uniform,” he said, the rage a living fire in his chest. “But still, it should nae be dishonored. You’ve just done that, laddie.” He began to squeeze the man’s throat. “Worse, ye’ve dishonored this lady.”

“Ian.”

He could barely hear her through the fury that choked him. “No, Sarah. If I let him go, he’ll just hurt another woman.”

“Ian, no.” Her voice was trembling and high, which fed Ian’s rage. “He said he was giving me a message. I need to know who the message was from.”

Ian stopped. He turned when Sarah laid a hand on his arm.

“Please,” she said with a watery smile. “Let me talk to him first. If you don’t think his answers sufficient, strangle away. But I think he has information I need.”

Ian almost dropped the soldier on his head. “Are you sure, lass?”