The Counterfeit Gentleman (10 page)

“You are lying,” Bethia cried out, springing to her feet
and dashing out onto the sand. “You and your partner ad
mitted quite openly that you were paid to kill me.”

The man looked at her as if she were a ghost returned
from the grave, and his face became bloodless.

Confronting the man who would have murdered her
without a qualm, Bethia was amazed to discover that he
was much smaller than she remembered him. “You will tell
me which of my cousins paid you to drown me, or these
men will not hesitate to force the truth from you.”

Goggle-eyed, whether from pain or from thinking him
self confronted by an unearthly spirit, the man could only
stare at her, his mouth agape.

Bethia was about to repeat her demands when a shot rang out and Big Davey let out a yelp of pain. The captured man
instantly wrenched himself free and was off down the
beach with the smugglers in hot pursuit.

Before Bethia fully comprehended what was happening,
she was thrown down onto the sand and a heavy weight
came down on top of her, squashing the breath out of her
body.

The voice cursing steadily in her ear she recognized as
belonging to Mr. Rendel, and she was about to demand that
he let her up, when he caught her under her arms, dragged her to her feet, and shoved her toward the cliff, which offered them protection from the assassin or assassins above
them.

Only half the curses, unfortunately, were directed toward the man on the cliff who had shot at them. The other half of the imprecations were aimed at her, and it was not hard for her to grasp the basic idea that Mr. Rendel would have infi
nitely preferred it if she were safely back in his cottage, or failing that, if she had followed his explicit orders, which
were simple enough for an idiot to comprehend, and not taken a step away from the boulder behind which he had
told her to conceal herself.

* * * *

Mr. Harcourt’s hand shook as he aimed the second duel
ing pistol. Shooting at a man, he had discovered, was much
more difficult than making a perfect score at Manton’s
Shooting Gallery. And if he missed this time ... but he
could not miss. His very life depended upon it.

Lying flat on his stomach on the top of the cliff, he waited, his sights trained on Dick Fane, who foolishly
thought he was running toward freedom, but who was actu
ally hurrying toward his own death.

Harcourt knew he would have but this one opportunity;
there would be no time to reload either of his pistols.
Should he aim at Fane’s head? It seemed at this moment a
very small target. But if he aimed at the chest, though he
might fatally wound Fane, still the man might live long
enough to speak a name—to betray who had hired him.

But on the other hand, the path Fane was now struggling
up was narrow, so that even if the bullet did not strike a
vital organ and kill him instantly, he would surely lose his footing, and the rocks below would guarantee that he died
quickly.

Taking a deep breath, then letting it partway out, the man
with the gun slowly squeezed the trigger.

Fane crumpled and fell, and even before his body struck the rocks, Harcourt was up and away, running toward his
horse, more acutely aware of his own mortality than he had ever been before. The back of his neck prickled, as if a gun
were even now being aimed at him—as if at any moment a
bullet might slam into his back, throwing him to the
ground.

Jerking the reins free, he sprang into the saddle, kicked the horse into a gallop, and was a good quarter of a mile
away from the cove before he finally managed to get his
left foot into the stirrup.

* * * *

Bethia peered around Mr. Rendel’s broad shoulders and saw that two of his men were returning. The slump of their
shoulders and the scowls on their faces made it obvious that
the assassins had escaped.

Even so, it was singularly obtuse of them not to notice
that their leader was in an unreasonable frame of mind.

“We should have left a man topside,” Big Davey said
gruffly, and Harry added weakly, “It appears the third mur
derer came on horseback.”

“So you let them both get away?” Mr. Rendel’s voice
was so fierce, Bethia was amazed that either of his men had the nerve to reply.

“Not exactly,” Big Davey said, glancing sheepishly at
Harry, as if expecting some help from that quarter. “Appar
ently the man on the cliff was not aiming at me, which is
probably why I’m still standing here with only a nicked
arm.”

There was blood on his shirtsleeve, which in Bethia’s
opinion should have elicited sympathy rather than censure.

One could hardly expect a wounded man to chase down an assassin, but apparently smugglers didn’t worry about such
trivial things as bloody arms.

“He was aiming at his hireling,” Big Davey said, and
with a terrible premonition, Bethia knew what he was going
to say before he actually said it. “The poor fool was
halfway up the path, doubtless thinking he was running to
ward someone who would save his worthless skin, when
the second shot took him right through the heart.” He ges
tured down the beach to where a second body now lay bro
ken on the rocks. “He’ll not be naming any names now, no matter how politely we ask.”

Despite their careful plans, death had found them there
on the beach—not her own death, but it could easily have
been. If her hat had fallen off and her hair had tumbled
down around her shoulders, would her cousin—for she
strongly suspected he had come in person to supervise his
minions—would he have sent the second bullet through her heart?

Or through Mr. Rendel’s heart since he had thrown him
self down on top of her?

“There’s still a chance Jem and Little Davey might be
able to track him down,” Big Davey said, but his words did not hold the weight of conviction.

“At least I can give evidence that this was not your
fault,” Bethia said, and both of the smugglers looked at her
with strange expressions on their faces. “I am fully pre
pared to swear under oath that you did not kill these men in
cold blood,” she explained. Then she realized that what she
saw in their eyes was amusement.

Confused, she turned to Mr. Rendel for an explanation,
which he was not slow to give her. “There are certain currents that carry kegs of brandy”—or dead bodies, his eyes
added—
“
in to shore. And there are other currents that carry
whatever is tossed into the water far, far out to sea.”

That was all he said, but in his eyes Bethia could read a
smug, masculine satisfaction that he had shown her irrevo
cable proof that he came from a different world than hers,
and that he could thus never marry her.

“In that case, I shall be ... happy to do my part to dis
pose of the bodies,” she said, grimly determined to hide her squeamishness.

For a moment she thought she saw a spark of admiration
in Mr. Rendel’s eyes, but then he said flatly, “No,” and
without another word his men left them and retrieved the
rowboat, which they had hidden out of sight behind some rocks.

With an efficiency that amazed her, Big Davey and
Harry set about loading the dead men into the boat, and
soon the beach was empty of all but a few pieces of drift
wood, and the tide quickly smoothed the footprints from the sand and washed away all traces of blood. The little
cove was as peaceful as if there had never been any vio
lence to mar its serenity.

For a second time in less than twenty-four hours—so lit
tle time?—Mr. Rendel helped her back up the path to the
top of the cliff. Had he been this alert the last time also?
Had his muscles been this tense, ready at any moment for
an ambush? Had his glance continually darted from bush to stone wall to thicket, always searching for any would-be attacker?

She dared not ask him. But then she did not need him to tell her that there was no way of knowing if her cousin—
whichever one of them was trying to kill her—had fled
back to London to avoid detection, or if he was perhaps
lurking in the shadow beside that little stone barn across the
way, or if he was waiting around the next bend in the road,
his guns reloaded
...
or if he was behind them, slinking
along to see where they were headed.

The overwhelming relief Bethia felt when they reached
the little cottage only strengthened her determination to
change Mr. Rendel’s mind. She would never be safe until
she was married. Somehow she must make him understand
that he was the only man she could trust.

“Each of my cousins is accounted a good shot on the
hunting field,” she began. “And wearing boy’s clothing will
not protect me for long.”

“You must have a number of suitors,” Mr. Rendel re
sponded immediately, correctly anticipating her next argu
ment, “any one of whom will doubtless make you a better
husband than I would.” Moving a step away from her, he
pulled a pistol out from under his shirt and tossed it down
on the table. Then he bent and took a wicked-looking knife
from his boot.

He held the weapon in his hands, toying with it, then laid it down on the table, all the time watching her. With a flash
of insight, she realized he was again trying to make her
afraid of him so that she would give up her efforts to persuade him to marry her.

But
her
weapons, while of a different kind, were just as
potent. Crossing to where he stood, she looked up at him.
“Not many hours ago you told me I would be foolish to
leap blindly into marriage with a stranger who might turn
out to be a villain,” she said.

He looked away, and for a moment she understood how
a woman could die of a broken heart, but then he turned
back, and she saw that he was not unaffected, no matter
how cold and disaffected he tried to appear.

“Let us be married today,” she whispered, knowing in
her soul that he did not have the power to resist her for
long—not when he could no longer hide his feelings from
her.

But he surprised her once again. His eyes became
hooded, as if he had drawn shutters across his soul, and she was almost convinced that she had failed at the most impor
tant task in her life. What more could she do? There must
be something else she could try. There had to be.

Walking a few steps away from her, he stared down into the fire. Finally he spoke. “It will not be that easy.”

With those simple words she realized he had tacitly con
sented to do things her way, and her heart began to sing a
happy little song.

“Of course it will be easy,” she said. “We can run away
to Gretna Green, or perhaps you know of someplace closer where we can be married without banns or license.”

“And will your aunt give her permission?” he said, turning to look directly at her.

Bethia could not understand his objection. “I have al
ways heard it said that English law recognizes any marriage
contracted in Scotland,” she said faintly, taking a step to
ward him, “even if the bride is underage in England.”

“And do you wish to put it to the test?” he snapped back at her. “Suppose your cousins have me thrown into prison
for the heinous crime of seducing an heiress and luring her away from her lawfully appointed guardian?”

“I d-do not think anyone would believe that you had
taken unfair advantage of me,” Bethia said, unable to keep the doubt out of her voice.

“Or believe that you were of unsound mind when you
married me, a baseborn smuggler? Do you not realize your
cousins will seize upon any excuse to rush to the courts and
demand legal redress?—to demand that the marriage be declared null and void?—to insist that you be locked up in Bedlam for your own protection?”

“We could tell the truth—”

“That two men were hired to kill you? And when asked to produce those same two men, what will you say? That
you have no idea who they were? Do you wish to explain
how they were killed and why their bodies were cast into
the sea? All you have to do is tell nothing but the truth, and with every word you utter you will be condemning yourself
as a madwoman, driven out of her wits by her fevered
imagination.”