The Danger of Desire (42 page)

“I did let you down. I let us both down. But if you’ll let me, I would gladly spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

“Will you? Truly? Rest of your life?” Her smile was like the gift of a new day. “And when did you plan to begin that rest of your life.”

He pulled her roughly into his arms. “Right bloody now.”

“And not a bleeding moment too soon.”

He shut up her heathenish cheek with his mouth.

CHAPTER 28

W
ith the half-frozen condition of the roads, it was late in the evening by the time they arrived in Dartmouth. Meggs had fallen asleep for a time against Hugh’s shoulder and didn’t want to give up the comfort and warmth of his body for the raw chill of the windy quay, where he disembarked to make inquiries and ask all the sailorly things. It made him happy, giving orders and being all naval-like. Meggs elected to stay curled up in the carriage. Out the window, she could see the ship
Defiant,
moored midchannel in the River Dart, its lanterns bobbing like fireflies over the water.

She smelled him first—the pungent, brackish aroma of cloves, the scent cloying up on her tongue—before she registered the steel insistence of the knife at her neck and felt the hand over her mouth, muffling her voice and restricting her breath.

Falconer. Neither escaped to France, nor in the custody of the authorities, damn their incompetent eyes. His appearance there in Dartmouth was so improbable, so ridiculous, she disregarded the healthy, acid kick of fear in her gut and did nothing. The stench of him, so close, was overpowering. And in that moment, before she could muster herself to follow her instinct, he had her.

“You will, of course, be everything sweet and quiet, since you will like to live to see tomorrow.”

Too late she tried to scream, to create a disturbance that would bring commotion down upon his head, but the knife was instantly against her windpipe.

“I shouldn’t like to leave you here dead, since it will not give me what I need, but slitting your throat can nonetheless be so easily arranged.”

And he was dragging her out into the darkness on the far side of the coach, pushing her before him down an alleyway with the same merciless strength he had shown her in London. Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw nets and crab pots stacked against the walls. She thought to kick out at them and leave a path, a trail of destruction and noise, but his hand, gloved in black leather, gouged into her face, and the knife pressed harder at her throat until the edges of her vision began to crowd in. Falconer was not afraid to hurt her. In fact, he would take great pleasure in doing so.

And fear did have a way of sorting out priorities. So she concentrated on staying upright and keeping her hands over his to ease the pressure of the blade at her neck. But soon, he had her down a rotted stair and out of sight into a dark, damp basement somewhere along the waterfront.

“I will let you sit, without the knife at your neck, but the moment you do anything, I will slit you from ear to ear. You’ll be no trouble to me dead, so don’t think to make any, and still stay alive. You are only valuable to me so long as you make no trouble. Or sound.” He eased his cruel grip. “You understand?”

“Silent as the grave—that’s me,” she croaked, gasping in the dank, stale air.

He made a clucking sound of approval, which sounded suspiciously as if he were sucking on a clove, and maneuvered her back against an upright post, whereupon he twisted her arms painfully behind her back as he tied her wrists together with his cravat. As soon as he had made her secure he came to her side, and mindful of her feet lest she kick him—which she had every bloody intention of doing if he came close enough—he reached around and stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth as a gag.

It was surprisingly effective as such. The heavy scent and taste of cloves, which he must have kept in his pockets, along with the handkerchief, was overpowering enough to make her retch. Jesus God, but he must have one powerful toothache.

He moved away to position himself near a small window set high in the basement wall. In what little light came through the small pane, she could see Falconer looked considerably less than his usual, immaculate self. He was no longer the tidy, serious man of business. He looked hunted, disreputable, and on the run. Clearly, he wasn’t used to making do—she would have recommended a visit to a handy rag-trader. And he wasn’t used to taking prisoners, no matter his easy hand with cruelty. The gag was easy enough to dispose of. It was the work of only a moment to spit it quietly out and hide it under her feet. But all in all, she felt like the rankest amateur. Caught out flat footed, with nothing but her wits to help her—no picks, no knife, not so much as a comb down her pockets. And even her clever, agile hands were no match for the tight knots in the cravat. Already, her fingers were losing feeling.

As he kept watch out his little window, he amused himself by throwing a knife—a different one, thicker and heavier than the stiletto he had held to her throat—at the wooden beam above her head. It was a more effective deterrent to conversation than the gag.

But the silence weighed on him more heavily than her. Eventually, he spoke.

“Imagine my surprise when I come down to the Devon coast, to Dartmouth to make my usual arrangements to be smuggled back to France, and I see Lord Stoval’s former scullery maid rolling down the quay in a ducal traveling coach. And certainly, you don’t look like a scullery maid today. Truly, you fascinate me.”

She heard it then, not the accent, which was both precise and unremarkable, but the cadence of his speech. “You’re French.”

“Ah. Very good. Though it is nothing anyone may not know. London, indeed the whole of England, is filled with
émigrés
, just as Dartmouth is filled with smugglers.”

He seemed not to mind that she had removed her gag, so she answered. “But you are not truly an
émigré
.”

“Correct. And now, I find I have you, a bargaining chip as it were, to assist me, should I have trouble being returned to France.”

And it was there, a sort of loving reverence, when he said the word “France.” Here was the zealot. Lord Stoval might have only been in it for the money, but here was the one who paid him. Here was the one who was prepared to do her grievous harm in the name of liberty, equality, and brotherhood.

Bloody Jesus on the cross and all the martyred saints. Something could always go wrong, couldn’t it? With a zealot, she didn’t like her chances by half.

But then he spoke no more. He did not disturb himself to even ask
why
she was in Dartmouth. Perhaps, like all zealots, he could not conceive of any reason that did not involve himself. Perhaps he didn’t care. Or perhaps it simply didn’t matter why she was here, only that he could make use of her.

They sat like that—he looking out his sliver of window and she tied to the post. She had slid down the beam to sit upon the floor, but her body grew cramped and then began to go numb, though occasional bouts of pins and needles assailed her arms. She kept herself awake, alternately nursing and accepting the pain of clenching and releasing various muscles in turn, and trying to think up plans of attack and escape.

She had made and discarded several untenable plans when it came to her with clarity and certainty—she did not have to
do
anything. She was not on her own. Hugh would be looking for her. He would come. Any moment he would burst through the door and find her and take her home, because he was just that sort of man—strong and hard, and reliable as granite. Her walking tor. All she had to do was wait and keep herself ready until he did. It brought her a feeling of peaceful calm.

Finally, Falconer liked whatever he saw outside his window and he came to untie her. Meggs made a supreme effort to hold her arms and hands quietly while the blood returned, but the flood of feeling back into her limbs was excruciating.

Falconer pulled her roughly to her feet and began to retie her hands in front of her. “It is time for us to go.”

“Us? Why should you need me?”

“You are my insurance, dear girl. Should anyone come looking to interfere with me, I will have you with which to bargain.”

“Me? ’Oo’s gonna bargain fer me?”

“It is amusing, this scullery character you put on, like that hideous mobcap you left behind you in my office. You are fortunate it amuses me. But do not think I am stupid. Whoever you are, I know it was you who stole the papers and saw to it Stoval was arrested. And whoever brought you here to find me will want you back. It will be up to you how many pieces they find you in.”

She tried to laugh. “Me? I’m just his whore. He’s already paid as much for me as he’s like to, ducks.”

Falconer answered her with a vicious backhand across the mouth. Pain exploded and ricocheted around her brain. She had to close her eyes against the echoing agony.

“Again,” he instructed. “Do not think me stupid.”

So, clever girl that she was, she minded and nodded her understanding, before she asked carefully around her split lip, “Where are you taking me?”

“This will become self-evident.”

He dragged her toward the door before all the feeling had returned to her hands. Meggs tried to fight him, but she was still numb, and her hands were useless. She did manage to kick him, and in retaliation, he cuffed her again, hard. Her face felt blistered with the sting of his hand, and she couldn’t stop the feral sound growling out of her throat any more than she could keep from grasping the anger and hatred and fear to put them to better use, the way Nan had taught her. Hugh would come, but there was no reason not to help him when he did.

But Falconer was ready for her. He pushed her up the rickety wooden steps to the cellar door, then shoved her hard against the panel. Pain and anger grew together, twin sisters looking for their revenge.

“And now, before we venture out this door, I will again make my instruction eminently clear.”

His leather-gloved hand gripped her throat again and pressed hard, ruthlessly cutting off her wind. She reached up with her tied hands to hang on his wrist and try to pry his hand away. It was to no avail. Blackness hovered at the edge of her vision.

He waved the blade back and forth before her eyes like a deadly snake and said, “You will not make so much as one tiny little peep of sound. Or I will slice your neck open like this—”

Pain ripped across her throat as he cut her. Panic welled and waned in her blood. She staggered in shock, but she managed to keep her feet. It couldn’t have been too much then—only a small cut. She was still alive and not yet bleeding to death. But there was pain—and she drew it to her like a succubus, nursing the poison it spread through her.

He brought the blade up again to dance before her eyes, with the crimson droplet of her blood still staining the cutting point. “There, you see what will happen? So you will be quiet, yes? Not one sound.”

She nodded as best she could in his vise-like grip, and gritted out, “If that’s the way you want it.” But she had never been much good at obeying commands, especially when she was frightened. Or angry. And he made her both. So she kept her hands wrapped around the hand at her neck, keeping him from moving it. And at the same time covering her own throat. When he brought the glistening blade around again, she could feel the cutting edge rest, not against her throat but against the flesh below her thumb. He couldn’t tell the difference. He would slice open her hand before he got to her throat again. Not an entirely pleasing prospect, to have her hand sliced open again, but one she could deal with far better than a slit throat.

His small mistake gave her strength. She’d serve the bastard up yet. Meggs let the anger and hatred coil through her, letting the boil of rage make her powerful and deadly. She had survived eight years alone on the streets of London on nothing more than her hands and her wits, and they would be more than enough to deal with the likes of this bastard cove. He was like all the rest of them, too sure of himself, too arrogant to figure out what he didn’t know.

Well, she knew. She only had to wait for the right moment to serve him up his share of retribution.

She breathed deep through her nose and let the air seethe through her. The alley stank of fish and brine, mud and piss, and she let herself stumble against him, fumbling with her feet close against his as he shoved her along.

He hesitated at the neck of the alley, where the cold clean wind announced their imminent arrival at the quay, looking and listening. Across the cobbles at the harbor’s edge a blazing torch revealed one lone waterman in his boat, bobbing against the steps and waiting for fares, but she took a calming breath, closed her eyes, and narrowed her focus to nothing but the man behind her and his hands.

Falconer made his final decision, nodded her in the waterman’s direction, and moved. That was when her foot came down with unerring precision upon his instep at the same time she twisted sharply, wrenching back his vulnerable thumb from her neck with one hand while she rammed her strong, sharp elbow as hard as she could into his jaw.

Now, that was going to be one hell of a toothache.

There was a deafening roar of sound and concussion that rang inside her head and knocked her flat against the cobbles. She fell hard into the slime of the gutter at Falconer’s feet. Dirt and muddy water filled her open mouth, and every other sensation faded away.

Everything sounded strange and faraway, as if she were underwater and drowning.

Oh, Jesus God. She must have been hit. And she’d never felt a thing. No pain, no anguish. Just a peaceful, quiet feeling of calm. She rolled slowly onto her back, spitting out grit, reaching over her body to find the place where she’d been shot. To stem the inevitable pulsing leak of blood.

Above her head, lights, lanterns, and blazing torches of leaping fire came and turned the night orange and gold. And there was the captain, Hugh, staring down at her, his eyes wide and nearly colorless, looking like God’s revenge against murder. Her brother, looking impossibly grown up in his naval blue coat, swam into focus behind him.