The Perils of Pleasure (30 page)

Reflexively, Madeleine and Colin drew out their pistols.

Almost before Madeleine could register what was happening, something black and glossy hurtled toward her from down the hill. There was an impression of glinting eyes and pink slavering tongue and she tried to scream but terror clogged her throat, and then the thing was upon her and her arm was in its mouth.

But in moments an odd realization penetrated her terror and blunted the edge of it:

She felt no pain. At
all
. Though she seemed to be gripped in the jaws of a
very
large dog.

She looked down to find that the dog was, in fact, gumming her arm affectionately, as though she were a cob of corn. And grinning up at her with happy dog eyes.

It had almost no teeth.

The drum of her heart made her nauseous. “Thank you, but that’s enough,” she said pleasantly to it. Her voice was very faint.

The dog apparently knew what that meant, because it released her and stood back and grinned a dog grin, and wagged the entire back part of its body. All the while balancing—hopping, actually—on its three legs.

Madeleine covered her face in her hands, not certain whether to laugh or cry. She sank to her knees.

This merely served to delight the dog, as she was closer in height to it now and put her face in the perfect range of a good, sloppy licking. And Madeleine now found her hands up, defending herself against a tongue, which seemed to be
everywhere
.

She felt his arm around her shoulder then, and the last vestiges of fear eased from her. With Colin, everything was just another adventure, more colorful,
more . . . everything. It occurred to her that she was getting a little too accustomed to this sort of comfort. She tensed a little.

The arm dropped away.

“Well, good day, Snap. We are very glad to see you.” Colin was murmuring to the dog and fondling its fl oppy ears. “Where’s Horace? Is he about? Is he safe?”

“Snap! Where ’ave you got to, Snap?”

Horace Peele’s anxious voice preceded him, and then the man himself strolled forward from behind the cot
tage for all the world like a country squire.

Snap bounded over to Horace, who absently and re
flexively put a hand on the dog’s head.

His expression when he got his first full look at Colin was a thing of beauty. A bit like Croker’s when he’d got a look at Madeleine.

There was the same genuine, beaming delight . . .

“Why . . . could ye
truly
be Colin Eversea? Ye’re alive, are ye, Colin? They said ye was dead! Hung!”

. . . followed by confusion . . .

“But if ye was
’ung
, ’ow could ye be standing ’ere? I didna drink much this morning.” Horace was talking to himself, reasoning it through. “And ’twas only the piss water they serve down a’ the Hare and Turtle these ways, anyhow. But ye—maybe ye’re a ghost . . . ?”

And then Horace’s eyes and mouth became great round circles as realization set it.

And that would be the terror.

Indeed, Horace turned to run.

Horace was easy to catch, however, as he was slow, older, and a bit on the rotund side. Colin reached out a hand, snagged the back of his coat and held on. It took Horace a few seconds to realize he was going nowhere.

He gave up at last and turned to look up at Colin over his shoulder.

“Dinna ’urt me, guv. I’m a Christian man, I am.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Horace, I’m not a hallucina
tion, I’m not a ghost, and I’m not here for retribution.”

“’Oo the devil is Retribution?” Horace squeaked in
dignantly. He was frantic. “’E ain’t ’ere, guv. Jus’ me an’ Snap. Now shoo!”

Colin sighed. “If I were a ghost, Horace, I couldn’t hold you by the back of your coat. I’m here to take you back to London. I need your help. You know very well I didn’t kill anyone. You’ll help a friend, will you not?”

Horace relaxed a little. “Colin? Yer really safe and alive?”

“I’m really safe and alive. You didn’t hear about my dramatic escape from the gallows?”

“No newspapers from London ’ere, guv. Not fer weeks.”

“Just wagons full of bodies?”

“Nasty business, that,” Horace agreed readily. “They do make a pound or two, though, the Resurrectionists. But ’ow the divvil did ye find me, Mr. Eversea? E’ll ’urt me if they find you ’ere!”

“I’m just clever, I suppose.”

What a very succinct way to put their journey, Mad
eleine thought.

“Will you come away to London with me, Horace? It’s urgent we leave at once.”

“Oh, I fear ’e’ll ’urt me, Mr. Eversea. Threatened t’ kill Snap, ’e did.”

“He must be a bad man,” Colin said with feeling. Though he wasn’t certain who they were speaking of yet.

“Oi, I think ye’ve the right of it, Mr. Eversea. I didna wish to see ye come to ’arm, Colin, as yer me friend, and ye nivver touched that sod Tarbell. I saw the ’ole thing. But ’e paid right well, this cove Critchley, and ’e was full of threats and money, too, and what could I say t’ that? Me mum, she needed a new roof. Sent it on to ’er, I did, the money. An’ I was taken ’ere, to this place. Told to stay or ’e’d see to it that Snap and me mum came to ’arm. Three weeks, it’s been. Not proud of it, Mr. Eversea. But I’ve been afraid.”

“I won’t let anyone hurt you or Snap, Horace, I swear to it. And we’ll buy your mum a new roof, new furni
ture, a new—could she use a mule?”

“She’d like a mule, I think.” Horace seemed pleased and surprised. The idea of a mule seemed to send him into a bit of a reverie.

“We’ll get her a mule, then. We’ll get her anything she needs for a comfortable life in . . . ”

“Upper Finster.”

“Upper Finster. Lovely town.”

Horace Peele beamed at this. “’Tis.”

Madeleine would have bet all of their money that Colin had never heard of Upper Finster in his life.

“But you need to come with us Horace, and now. It’s urgent. Please. We’re friends, are we not, Horace? I swear on everything I hold dear that no harm will come to you or yours.”

There was something remarkably convincing about this speech. Madeleine wondered if this would have been true a mere week earlier. He was a different man now, Colin Eversea, she would warrant.

“We’re friends, Mr. Eversea,” Horace promised fervently.

Horace seemed to notice Madeleine only then, and
he beamed, and bowed, while Snap drooled onto the

stone path.

“Why, if it isn’t Mrs. Greenway!”

Madeleine curtsied. “A pleasure to see you again, Horace.”

“Ye used to drink at the Black Cat wi’ yer ’usband.”

“I did at that.”

“Where do you drink now?”

“I’ll be drinking across the sea soon, Horace, in America. I shall be leaving England soon.”

Colin’s head turned to her, and she was aware that his eyes were intensely green here, surrounded by all this green land, and she felt them almost as twin lights. But she didn’t turn to look at him.

So he turned back to Horace without saying anything.

“Ah, verra good! America! An adventure!” Horace was delighted.

“Oh, yes. There’s nothing quite like an adventure,” Madeleine agreed wryly.

“Well, then, shall we go? ’Tis lonely ’ere, and I canna get a good drink
or
a woman anywhere. Beggin’ yer pardon, Mrs. Greenway,” he added hurriedly.

“Not at all, Horace.”

“I’ll just go get me things then and—”

He stopped. Because they all heard it then, or per
haps felt it: the unmistakable rumble of hooves muffl ed by grass and soft earth.

Their heads swiveled, looking for the source, but it was easy enough to spot them, because it always was.

Pouring down the hill that sloped up behind the cot
tage were three mounted red-coated soldiers, bayonets glinting in the sun.

The soldiers were upon them, swiftly down from their horses, their guns cocked and aimed.

“Lock and drop your weapon, Mr. Eversea, and kick it over to me. I shouldn’t like to shoot you, but I shan’t hesitate if you don’t cooperate. And madam, I would ask that you do the same, if you know how to do it.”

Trust a bloody English soldier to be this polite to an escaped criminal. He sounded as if he was giving Mad
eleine the benefit of the doubt, thinking perhaps Colin had handed the pistol to her. Perhaps Colin, criminal that he was, was
forcing
her to use it.

Colin was tempted to respond,
You’d be amazed at what she knows how to do.

But Colin stood fast. He didn’t lock his pistol, though he did lower it slowly to his side. This was diffi cult to do with three muskets pointed in the general vicinity of his heart.

But Madeleine . . . Madeleine kept hers raised, and aimed at the sergeant.

Oh, Mad.

His heart jumped into his throat. If anything should happen to her . . . if she should . . .

“Mad . . . ” he said quietly.

She threw him one enigmatic glance. She seemed inordinately calm, and absolutely certain, and her aim remained steady.

“Mr. Eversea.” The soldier’s voice was a quiet warn
ing. “Madam. If you do not lock your weapons and drop them, I fear we have orders to take Mr. Eversea dead or alive. I will give you a count of fi ve to do it.”

Oh, God. Not another bloody count to fi ve.

It couldn’t come to this. They’d come so far, unrav
eled so much, endured so much. It was wrong, such a wrong way to end.

“One, Mr. Eversea . . .” the soldier intoned.

They stood here, the key to his freedom standing silently next to him alongside a panting three-legged dog.

But Colin knew that if he’d said,
I’m innocent, and here’s proof,
and gestured to Horace, the soldier would likely shoot him out of sheer exasperation. Everyone who went to Newgate was innocent. If you asked.

And the soldiers
might
listen to his story. But they would take him nevertheless. There would be cells and darkness, long inquiries. And he simply wouldn’t go back to prison. He couldn’t bear another dark, enclosed place.

“Two, Mr. Eversea . . . ”

And of course, it had been the greatest affront of all to escape from the gallows in the way he had, a spec
tacular humiliation for the British army. After all, the soldiers had been queued there to ensure that sort of thing didn’t happen.

He almost wanted to trumpet to them:
This woman—this astounding woman—she’s the one who did it
,
you fools.

Colin had mastered the art of not blinking. And this was why he noticed an odd shadow thrown against the side of the cottage. Something made him watch it: not a bush or tree.

Because bushes or trees couldn’t move forward like that. At least not outside of dreams.

And this shadow was moving forward. Stealthily and steadily.

“Three, Mr. Eversea . . . ”

Something primal in Colin knew who it was even before it evolved from shadow into man. And when the shadow officially came into focus as a man, Colin saw he was coatless, which meant they could see, very
clearly, the mother-of-pearl buttons shining like wee moons on his waistcoat, and the long shape of a musket gripped in the shadow’s hand.

“Four, Mr. Eversea . . . ”

And behind the soldiers Marcus Eversea cocked the musket and swung it up to his shoulder, aiming it straight at their little group.

The soldiers froze, naturally. Nothing gained a soldier’s attention more quickly than the sound of a musket being cocked.

One soldier began to turn his head, then the other two began to turn.

Later, Colin had no conscious recollection of making a decision. He’d toyed with dark suspicion for weeks, and this could have suggested numerous possibilities: that Marcus was there to shoot Horace. That Marcus had been responsible for Horace’s presence there. That Marcus was there to shoot
him
.

But he remembered his dream at the inn, and his heart, not his mind, made the decision for him in an instant.

“Freeze or die,” Colin said low and coldly. “It’s your choice, officers. Turn back to face me
now
. Did you think I would be so foolish as to arrive without re
inforcements? After all, I was a soldier, too.”

The soldiers slowly complied. Finding, as they turned back, Colin pointing his pistol at them again. And Colin spoke quickly.

“Behind you, gentlemen, are three men with loaded muskets. And if you so much as move a hair again without my explicit direction or permission, one of those men will remove your head for you with a musket ball.”