The Counterfeit Gentleman

May 1818

“There, what’d I tell you,” a voice out of Bethia Pep
perell’s nightmares said. “This place is deserted.”

A second voice that had also come and gone like a will-
o’-the-wisp through her dreams replied, “So you say. I say
there could be an entire regiment of preventatives not a
hundred yards away.”

Forcing her eyes open, Bethia discovered she was half
sitting and half lying on the seat of an unfamiliar coach. Its
interior was grimy, its squabs stained and frayed. More
over, a cold fog was insinuating its damp tendrils through
the door and reaching out for her with ghostly fingers.

“If we can’t see them, then they can’t see us. Stands to
reason.”

“Well, it’s still making me nervous, so hurry up and
bring her along before the fog lifts.”

Vague memories slipped and slithered through Bethia’s mind—memories of a man who’d held her while a second
man forced her to drink wine made bitter with laudanum—
and instinctively she shut her eyes and feigned uncon
sciousness.

Unseen hands caught her and dragged her out of the
coach. Then the man slung her over his shoulder as easily
as if she were a bag of meal.

There could be no doubt that they were somewhere on
the coast, for the scent of the sea was all around her. After
they had gone only a few yards, the footsteps of the two
men began to echo hollowly. Opening her eyes just for a
minute, Bethia saw heavy wooden planks, and in the cracks
between them she could glimpse dark, murky water.

Even with her wits befuddled, it was not hard for her to
deduce that she was now being carried the length of a dock.

Her thoughts gradually became clearer, and by the time the men lowered her into a small boat, she remembered the
way the larger man had burst into her bedroom and ab
ducted her. What a fool she had been to think herself safe
behind a locked door.

Oars rattled in oarlocks, and when she felt the boat begin to move through the water, she risked opening her eyes the merest crack. The dock had already been swallowed up by the fog, and there was nothing to be seen but the dark form of a larger boat.

Soon even that ghostly shape was no longer visible, and still the man with the pocked face rowed on.

More than likely they were taking her out to a yacht
where her wicked cousin was waiting, ready to carry her to
France where she could be forced to marry him even
against her will.

Or so he doubtless thought. None of her three cousins
knew her very well, or they would have realized just how obstinate she could be when someone tried to bend her will. Moreover, although she had never thought of herself as vin
dictive, she was quite determined to make the cousin who
had instigated this abduction pay for every indignity he was causing her to suffer.

Before she could decide the best way to thwart his inten
tions, the rocking of the boat destroyed what little control
she had over her stomach. With a moan, Bethia leaned over
the edge of the boat and cast up her accounts in a most un
ladylike manner.

“The devil take her, she’s awake,” the larger man said, leaning on his oars. “We’d better give her some more lau
danum.”

“I left it in the coach,” the smaller man said, “but it
doesn’t matter—she doesn’t have enough strength to try
anything.”

“Then we oughter tie her up proper, so she can’t get
away.”

“Get away? Don’t be daft. There’s nothing she can do, so
hold your tongue and get on with it. This fog is making me
nervous.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the larger man began to row
again.

“How much longer?” the smaller man asked, voicing the same impatience that Bethia was feeling.

“If we don’t go far enough south-southeast, the current
won’t bring the body back to shore tomorrow.”

“Sometimes I don’t know why I was fool enough to
think you know what you’re doing,” his companion said, peering intently ahead, as if by sheer will power he could
see through the mist and discover how close they were to
their destination.

“You may know London like the back of your hand, but
you’d be as helpless as a newborn babe out here on the
water ‘thout me. Why, you don’t even know how to row a boat. You’d prob’ly end up going in circles, and then when
the fog lifted, you’d find yourself sitting right by the
dock—and the next thing you’d be seeing would be the
hangman’s noose.”

Much of what had happened in the last few days was still
unclear to Bethia, but one thing had now become all too
obvious: The body they were referring to was hers, and un
less she could come up with a quick and effective plan,
then when this boat was returned to its mooring, it would
be carrying two people rather than three.

If only she were strong enough to overpower one of the
men! If only she could swim! She wished, in fact, that she
were a man—wished she knew how to shoot a gun—
wished she had a gun to shoot or even a sharp knife.

But wishing was pointless; her grandfather had always
told her that. Facts must be faced squarely and difficult sit
uations met head on had been his guiding principles since
he had left home as a young man, out to seek his for
tune...

Oh, if only he had not made such a vast fortune and then died and left it all to her!

Fiercely, she banished such unproductive thoughts. She
would not—could not—meekly accept her fate. With her
last breath, she would fight for her life, even knowing it
was doubtless a futile effort.

* * * *

It was a perfect morning for a smuggling run. The sea
was calm, the light fog showed no sign of lifting, and Dig
ory Rendel knew the currents along this section of the coast well enough to be sure that any cask of brandy he might be
forced to throw overboard would come ashore in Carwithian Cove with tomorrow’s tide.

Having retired from smuggling the previous year, however, he had no casks of brandy sharing the space in his
rowboat. Ostensibly spending the day fishing, he had been
on the water for over an hour and had not yet bothered to
bait his hooks. Instead, he was simply allowing his boat to
drift with the current while he contemplated the way his life was now drifting just as aimlessly.

He needed another goal—something to challenge him—
something to
—

There was a faint sound of oars splashing, and for a mo
ment his muscles tensed, before he reminded himself that he was now completely respectable, with nothing to fear
from any excise man. More than likely it was not govern
ment men anyway, but other smugglers, who were now
plying their trade in what used to be his territory.

An imp of mischief made him decide to remain still. If
he timed it just right, he might be able to scare the smug
glers into tossing their entire load overboard, which would be good for a laugh later over a pint of ale in the Blue Gull,
especially if it was his former partner, Jem, in charge of the
crew.

It was not Jem’s baritone that came across the few feet of
water separating the two boats, but rather a female voice, forced unnaturally high by fear.

“Please, please, do not do this. I will pay you any amount
you require if you will only spare my life.”

“We’ve already been paid well enough,” a man replied—a Cornishman by his accent, but not someone whose voice
Digory recognized.

“However much it is, I will double the sum—triple it
even.”

“Aye, and then where’d we be if ‘twere known that we’d
gone back on our word? Out of a job is where, because
who’d trust us with their dirty work if it got about that we took bribes? We’re honest criminals, and we’ve our reputa
tion to think about.”

“You are cold-blooded murderers is what you are.”

“But not double-dealers; that is a distinction I value.
Moreover, I’ve never taken orders from a woman, and I
don’t fancy starting now.” The second man’s English was
more cultured, as if he’d had at least a smattering of educa
tion.

Suddenly, there was a sound of scuffling, and Digory
took advantage of the men’s temporary distraction to re
move his boots and jacket, slide a knife under his belt, and roll as noiselessly as possible over the side of the boat and into the water, where he clung to the gunwales and waited for his next opportunity.

“Blast it all! I tol’ you she oughter be tied up proper
like.”

“That’s not a matter for us to decide. The gentleman who hired us was most specific. It must look like an accidental drowning, and ropes might leave suspicious marks on her skin.”

“Then you oughter’ve given her another dose of laudanum this morning, ‘cause she’s marked me right and
proper—scratched me like a little she-cat. I’ve a mind to
teach her more respect.”

“None of that, now. There’ll be no shortage of wenches for a man with the kind of money you’ll be getting.”

“So you say, but I got a hankering to try out a real lady.
More than likely she’s a virgin, too. Seems a pity to send
her to the devil ‘thout even—Owww! She bit my hand!”

There was more scuffling and then the sound of a loud
slap, and without letting his arms break the water, Digory
swam the few yards separating him from the others. As
their boat emerged from the gloom, he was relieved to see that the men’s backs were turned toward him.

Staying low in the water and as close as possible to the boat, which nudged against his shoulder every time the oc
cupants shifted position, he could only hope that the girl would keep the men’s attention firmly fixed on her.

Each of the men had a pistol stuck in his belt, and if even
one of them glanced over his shoulder, there would be two
bodies washing up on the sand with tomorrow’s tide.

“I’ll take a whip to you myself, Jacky-boy, if you don’t
settle down to business. That’s always been your prob
lem—you let yourself get distracted at the damnedest
times. If I had it to do over, I’d leave you in the gin shop
where I found you.”

“Don’t forget who knows the currents and who don’t,”
Jacky-boy said with a sneer. “Fact is you need me more
than I need you, so maybe I should have more than half the
earnings.”

For a moment it looked as if the two men were going to
have a falling out, which Digory planned to use to his advantage. But as luck would have it, the girl managed at pre
cisely the wrong moment to get one hand free. She
immediately began pounding her fist on her captor’s arm,
which distracted both men from their quarrel.

Ignoring her ineffectual blows, Jacky-boy lifted her off
her feet and swung her out over the water.

Taking a quick breath, Digory dived under the boat and
came up on the other side, almost directly under a pair of
shapely legs surrounded by billowing petticoats trimmed
with lace.

Carefully keeping the girl between himself and the men in the boat, he grasped one trim ankle firmly. At the touch
of his hand the girl began screaming hysterically and kicking wildly, but Digory only held her more tightly, knowing
that if he even momentarily lost his grip, the weight of her
clothing would pull her down, and he would have to be
lucky indeed to find her once that happened.