What a Hero Dares (4 page)

“Yes, of course. I already proved I’m the embodiment of all things evil.”

“I believe the lady considers herself insulted, and has good reason,” the man who still held tight to her arm interrupted. “It’s one of the frogs you have to thank for the bump. Oh, and I’m the one who pushed you over the rail, so you can thank me for that.”

“Richard?” Max leaned forward, squinting in the dying light from the burning rigging, clearly seeing the other man for the first time. “How...?”

“How else could I boost you out the back door more efficiently than by so clumsily coming in through the front door dressed in all my now thoroughly ruined finery? You may be quicker than this harmless old fat man, but I’ve been around longer than you, and know more tricks. You should look behind you more often, although I admit the rain was more a boon to me than it was to you. In any event, welcome home. This young lady you’ve been glaring daggers at thinks you’re going to have her hanged. Is that right?”

They were speaking of her as if she weren’t there, listening to every word. Max looked like hell, maybe worse than hell, but was still the most handsome, compelling man she’d ever met. Her last and best lover. The man who’d held her in his arms and told her about Redgrave Manor and his own estate, about his family and how they would welcome her. The children they would have together. She’d loved him so much. She’d fallen into jagged, devastated bits on the floor of her cell when told he was dead.

“I hadn’t considered the matter, but, yes, she deserves at least that. Don’t you, Zoé? But the ladies might not approve. Perhaps we’ll put it to a vote tomorrow, over tea and cakes. Are they here, Richard, or scattered all over London and the countryside?”

“Every last one of them here, yes. As you’ve probably gathered, I was sent to fetch you, which wasn’t particularly easy. It took me two trips across the Channel to find you, as you were no longer in Ostend when I got there, and when I returned to London for more information it was to find out there’d been an attempt on— No, that can wait. What’s of first importance is that the Society is all but figuratively knocking on the Manor gates and ready to smash them down. There’s trouble, lad, deadly serious trouble, and you’re just what Trixie thinks is needed. I didn’t know our destination tonight when I invited myself onboard, but sometimes a man gets lucky, doesn’t he?”

Max looked again at Zoé, who couldn’t help but flinch under that intense gaze. “Does he?” Then he raised his head as if sniffing the air to locate the noise that still came to them on the breeze. “What in bloody hell is going on, Richard? There aren’t really pirates, are there? Somehow the family already knew about the smuggling runs? They would have saved me a mountain of trouble if someone had bothered to get a message to me.”

“If you’ll excuse me for pointing this out, I
am
the message.”

Zoé hadn’t been paying much heed to the noise still coming to them across the dark distance, or to anything but her own perilous position, and how every second that passed was taking Anton further from her reach. But Max had her attention now.

“There’s even more to this beyond a smuggling run? I should have known, with Anton aboard,” she said.

Max looked at her rather curiously, as if she’d just spoken in Greek or some such thing. “Richard, since the women are here, may I assume my brothers are the cause of that commotion we’re hearing?”

“Currently occupied on the far side of that impressive pile of rocks, yes, by now undoubtedly just finishing up their business. Oh, and there may be a few, um, gentlemen of the skull and crossbones persuasion in attendance at the party, as well, but we don’t ask questions, as it concerns a private arrangement between the marquis and his secretive friend.”

Max lifted a hand to his head once more and then took it away, looking curiously at the dark wet stain on his palm. “We’ll leave that for now, whatever in holy hell that meant, or who this marquis is. Tariq, what do you say we all make our way up the path. From there, we can look down on the beach on the other side of the jetty. It’s safest you remain with me, and I wouldn’t be averse to a helping hand.”

“No need for climbing,” Richard told him. “Follow me.”

Zoé didn’t resist as Richard let go of her arm and took hold of her hand instead as he walked her toward the jetty, grateful for his assistance over the slippery mix of sand and shingle as she attempted yet again to marshal her thoughts. Max was in some sort of trouble? His beloved family was in some sort of trouble? If he wasn’t going to immediately turn her over to the authorities in Dover to be measured for her hanging chains, perhaps she could convince him to let her help, prove she could be trusted.

No. Thanks to Anton, it was too late for that.

“Give me a minute, if you please. It’s here somewhere,” Richard said, letting go of Zoé as he used his fingertips to probe at the edges of the solid rock wall now in front of them while Tariq took hold of her shoulders, anchoring her gently but firmly where she stood. “There’s one on either side. I don’t know how he discovered them, but I watched carefully as Simon showed me. Perhaps it’s too dark to— Ah, there’s the handholds.”

He stepped back as Zoé heard the scrape of rock against rock and a section of the stone in front of her somehow turned into a door that swung open as the man called Richard held out one arm in a flourish and took a bow. “Metal hinges replacing brittle, ancient leather, and liberally greased. Repeated at the other end. Amazing, isn’t it, considering it’s probably old as Caesar’s war horse.”

“A passageway through the rocks? I’ll be damned,” Max said from behind her. “I’ve fished from these beaches all of my life.... Where does it lead?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Zoé said, taking the initiative, pushing her fear of dark places behind her determination to save herself. After all, what did she have to lose? And once Max was surrounded by his family, she might find a way to gain a pistol and make her escape. She hadn’t precisely given her word she wouldn’t try.

As Tariq released his grip and she stepped through the narrow opening, she deftly gathered up her mane of betraying blond hair and twisted it into a knot, then slipped a black toque out of her trouser pocket and covered her head with it. There was a small torch burning against the wall to her right as she moved forward in what must be a cave hollowed out of the mass of jumbled rocks by the tides. The cave seemed to be heading uphill. If she just kept her head, became as inconspicuous as possible, and then slowly melted away from the others and back into the tunnel...

“Ah, I think not, Zoé,” Max growled, grabbing her arm. “For some strange reason, I’d prefer you alive for the moment, and the best way to accomplish that is for you to let me go first.”

“Perhaps I want to die, because you hate me so,” she said, shrugging her shoulders in a purely Gallic gesture she already knew would bounce off him like a dried pea dropped on a drumhead. She needed to keep him more angry than interested.

“While you love me so,” he bit out, proving her point, and then rudely shoved her behind him while Richard and Tariq forged ahead.

“You don’t know the meaning of love. And neither did I. Young and reckless, the pair of us, believing ourselves invincible. But no longer. Have you ever been in a Paris cell, Max? Have you ever been so cold and hungry you’d do most anything for a blanket and a crust of stale bread? Most
anything
.”

Max very nearly winced, but he’d never so betray himself, she knew that. “You knew what you were doing. That things didn’t work out the way you’d planned isn’t any concern of mine.”

“How very
English
of you.”

“Now’s not the time or place for this conversation.”

“Yet I’ll dare one thing more. Until I stepped on that blasted boat and saw you, I believed you dead.”

Now he was forced to look at her. “Boucher? You were following Anton? Why?”

She’d said enough to, hopefully, make him suspicious. Keep him alive. “That’s a question you might want to ask him, while you let me be on my way, which would probably bother your conscience less than turning me over to the Crown. Now, as it would seem whatever battle was raging is over, it’s time your family gets to welcome the prodigal home. Do you think they’ll all be there? Gideon, Valentine and perhaps even your darling, daring Kate? Yes, I remember all their names. How delighted they will be. Or are we to stay here in this strange damp passageway until we all drown?”

Max looked down at his booted feet and the seawater sloshing around his ankles. “Damn. Tide’s coming in. The whole other side of the beach will be underwater in an hour. Let’s go.”

“Brilliant suggestion. Do you perhaps have a white handkerchief hidden in that mass of rags you’re wearing? It would be highly embarrassing, wouldn’t it, if one of your own brothers mistook you for the enemy and shot you.”

“That won’t happen.” As if to prove his point, Max took a few more steps, and then put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. The sound seemed to bounce off the stone walls.

The same melancholy birdsong of a whistle he’d taught her, the one the two of them had employed many times in the past. She instantly remembered the lessons in whistling, and the kisses they’d shared as he showed her how to pucker her lips
just so.

Maybe she did want to die. Seeing him again, knowing what she’d gambled and lost, was so bloody hard.

There was a short silence, and then an answering whistle, closely followed by a shout. “Max? Max, you son of a hound! Where are you? Everyone—weapons down. My brother’s out here somewhere, damn him!”

“That’s big brother Gideon. This could prove interesting. He’ll either hug me or knock me down. Perhaps both. Richard, Tariq—you two watch her if you please, until I call the all clear. She’s rather anxious to leave us,” Max warned before running a hand through his wet, unkempt hair, and then sloshing off downhill against the rising tide, toward the end of the tunnel.

“Forgive me for overhearing, but it was rather impossible not to catch at least a few words. Echos, you understand. More than a lovers’ spat between the two of you, clearly,” Richard said, stepping forward to pull Zoé’s arm through his.

“Nonsense, sir, we’re the best of good chums, as you English say it,” she responded dully.

Behind her, Tariq chuckled softly.

“Much more than that at one time, I would think. I’m an observant man. Part of him wanted to throttle you, while part of him wanted to pull you close to his heart and cover your face with kisses, if I might be so romantical. Men can be difficult, especially where their hearts are involved.”

“His head is the problem. It’s very hard. A pig’s head.”

“I think you mean he’s pigheaded, stubborn. But you love him. You nearly maimed me to get to him when you though he’d drowned, remember?”

“We should all forget that. It was but an aberration. My mind was temporarily muddled at the shock of seeing him again.”

“I won’t argue with you. Tell me, did he ever mention Trixie to you?”

Zoé turned to peer at the man inquisitively. She’d yet to attempt to place this Richard person with Max, let alone with the rest of the Redgraves. She could easily have looked at him and dismissed him; just another pudgy white-haired old man. Except for his physical strength. Except for his quick, incisive mind. That second look made it easier for her to believe this man had survived on his wits more than once. “His grandmother? Yes, he did. Several times. To hear him tell it, she’s quite extraordinary.”

“She’s considerably more than simply extraordinary. I do believe the two of you should have a small talk. In fact, I’m quite certain she’ll demand it.”

“Why?”

“Because even on such short acquaintance, I dare to say you two may be very much alike. Just don’t lie to her, because she’ll know.”

“I may be an exemplary liar,” Zoé said, one ear open to the sounds from beyond the cave, but hearing nothing more than muffled voices.

“The ability to lie convincingly is only a minor talent. Eleanor of Aquitaine could have taken lessons in family intrigue from the dowager countess. You’d have to live another forty years for even the hope of being a patch on Trixie Redgrave, young lady. Only remember this, as the dowager countess goes, so go the Redgraves.”

She turned back to face the man, studying his features in the flickering light from the small torch. “Why are you telling me this? For all you know, I could use such information against Max, against all of you.”

“I’m not quite certain why. Perhaps it was the way you reached out your hand as if to touch him and then turned away before he might see you. Or it might have been the tears in your eyes that blinded you to my approach. You’ve both been quite interesting to watch these past minutes. When you stand at a distance, see only the gestures, without hearing the words? Sometimes, young lady, that’s when the heart hears more clearly than the ears ever will.”

Zoé looked at Richard levelly. “Your heart and eyes deceive you, sir. Max has no heart, and neither do I. We’re cold, fairly terrible people, intent only on survival.”

“And the game,” Richard added, raising one eyebrow. “I lived by my wits at the card tables for the majority of my life, young lady, traveling all of England and the Continent. Always in search of the next adventure. To win, yes, winning is always important, as one can become accustomed to regular meals and a dry bed. But it isn’t paramount for people like us. We’re different from most of the world, aren’t we? For people like us, it’s the thrill of the hunt, the chances you take. The risks that make your blood pump hot in your veins, always skating on the thin ice of detection and even death—and
feeding
off that danger.
That’s
what I see in you, in Max. Together, you must have been pure beauty to watch in action.”

A hundred memories came crashing unbidden into Zoé’s mind. “Yes, we were both quite good at what we did. Thank you, Richard, for reminding me,” she said simply before heading toward the end of the tunnel, eager to get out from beneath the crushing confinement of the boulders overhead. “I’d say it’s time to go meet the family.”