A Midsummer Night's Sin (24 page)

“Oh? In that case, I’m quite fond of you, too.”

“That’s good,” he told her. “Otherwise, at least for a few moments there, I would have thought you were
trying to kill me.” He drew her closer. “This may or may not reassure you, but for the moment, we’re in Black Jack’s capable hands. He’s making arrangements of some sort but warned me to be ready by five o’clock. I say we, because I’m not fool enough to ask you to remain here. You have an hour, sweetings, no more. Try to sleep.”

“If you’d said that to me when you first came into the room, I would have told you sleep was impossible. I also would be badgering you for anything you might know about your brother’s plans.”

“And now?”

Regina yawned into her hand, which was answer enough. She curled against him, her head on his chest, and closed her eyes. For just this one hour, she would leave her fate in the hands of the gods.

T
HEY STEPPED OUTSIDE
and into a fierce storm. Wind-lashed rain wet them to the skin before they could make the dash from the mansion to the mews. Lightning lit the dark like brief bolts of sunlight, and thunder boomed close behind each new white-hot streak. Puck supposed it could have been worse, but he wasn’t sure quite how. Unless there were fire-breathing dragons in the cave.

An unsmiling Baron Henry Sutton held back the flap of the covered dray wagon, and Puck was quick to lift Regina up and into it without ceremony.

As Puck made to follow, Jack grabbed his arm and took him to one side. Together they inspected the
sturdy, closed wagon Henry had unearthed from somewhere and driven into the mews behind the mansion, four stout horses in the shafts. “It’s not much for speed but hopefully we’ll be returning here with a full cargo. You’ve probably already guessed our destination.”

“The cells, yes. Anything else would have been too easy,” Puck answered, suppressing a shudder. “Dark, cold, undoubtedly damp. Rats big enough to have eaten all the bats, or at least we can hope. Am I correct?”

Jack only nodded. “I had no idea such things existed anymore. I’ve been in Blackheath Caverns, but I don’t think this is a part of them, not this far into the city. Henry believes the Romans must have housed galley slaves there at one time. The caves open right onto the river, but they’re isolated, mostly hidden by greenery. From the water, you’d never suspect the openings were there. Five of them, total, spaced out over about fifty yards of shoreline, possibly even man-made. Two guards patrolling up and down out in front, another two on the—well, let’s call it a cliff, but it’s not all that high. We can only hope the caves haven’t sunk to near tunnels over the centuries. With this storm and the tide about to turn, the damn things could flood. Hackett isn’t making this easy.”

“So you’ve already seen all of this for yourself?”

“No, just Henry and Dickie. Dickie’s still there, in case the women are moved yet again. Five caves. A true warren of hidey-holes and cells inside each, I’m sure, with the women possibly scattered, not all in the same cave. The man doesn’t take the best care of his mer
chandise. It will take some time to find them all, but we’ll work quickly. I’d suggest you and Regina remain with the wagon until we bring the women out and she’s reunited with her cousin. She shouldn’t see what she might see. Plus, frankly, she’d only be in the way.”

“As would I?”

Jack rubbed at his forehead, probably forgetting that he’d smeared lamp black all over his face as had Henry…and a third figure, standing very much at his ease some distance away, a gloved hand resting on the hilt of a sword strapped to his waist. “This is what we do, Puck, and we’re tolerably adept at it. We clean up messes for the Crown. We kill when necessary and without hesitation. You were surprisingly brilliant with Hackett earlier, but you’re too good for what’s needed now. You’ve the soul of a poet, brother mine. You’ve got a heart…and something to lose. You’re no killer. Besides, someone has to stay with Regina and the horses.”

Something to lose. And you don’t, Jack? Is that it? You have no heart? Are you so good at what you do because you don’t care if you live or die?

“I managed the tunnel in the warehouse, Jack. I’m fine. We’re fine, Regina and I both. With five caves, you’ll need all of us to do the searching. We didn’t come this far not to get to the finish line.”

“This isn’t a damned horse race, Puck. Nor is it a play, where you control the lines. If you were to end up face-to-face with Hackett, with Regina standing beside you to witness what happens next—could you do it? Could you shoot her father while she watched? No,
don’t say anything, because we both know the answer. You’d try to spare Regina, try to apply reason to an unreasonable position, and with a man like Hackett, that could be a fatal mistake. I meant what I said, Puck. You were brilliant with Hackett, I couldn’t have done better.” Jack clapped a hand on Puck’s shoulder and finished, not unkindly, “But now the brawn is in charge.”

So you do have something to lose, Jack. Your younger brother, whom you’ve been avoiding these past years, just as you’ve avoided Beau and our parents. What are you afraid of, Jack? What did you lose that you’d choose to stay away, isolated, rather than allow yourself to admit to any emotion at all?

“I’ll say it again. You always were an arrogant horse’s ass, weren’t you?” Puck said without heat. “Let me know when you’re done posturing, and we can get on with this. Rain’s running down my back.”

Jack’s smile was quick and brilliant in his dark face. “I really do like you, brother mine. I begin to think I missed a lot, not getting to know you and Beau better these past years.”

Puck was quick to take advantage of this slight opening his brother had given him. “It wasn’t Beau and me who avoided you, Jack, and the past isn’t the future. Once this is over, we’ll all go to Blackthorn. It has been dog years since we were all together.”

“Puck, this isn’t the time to be discussing family reunions.”

Jack was right. This wasn’t the time, and with the wind and rain nearly drowning them, neither was it the
place. But Puck knew he had a duty; perhaps it was the poet in him, as Jack had said. “He gave Beau an estate, you know. Unentailed. And me, as well, last year. You know that’s what he wants, to be sure we’re all taken care of. Let him, Jack. Let him do this. Let him make amends for not marrying our mother or whatever the hell it is he wants to do. You might have a lot of years ahead of you to regret it if you don’t.”

Jack was silent for some moments. “I’ll think about it,” he said at last. “You’re worse than a wife, do you know that?”

“There’s the insulting Jack I don’t really know but definitely would like to become better acquainted with someday. All right, I’m done now. But first, who’s our swordsman, or is that something I really don’t need to know?”

Jack glanced back over his shoulder and then smiled at Puck. “You already do know him. And as long as we’re tossing the word
arrogant
around so lightly, I believe you were planning to pink him one day this week, showing off your froggie-learned swordplay. Something I would warn against attempting, most strenuously, by the way.”

“Will Browning?” Puck asked, peering into the dimness. “Henry and Dickie introduced me at the masquerade. Don’t tell me Viscount Bradley is skulking somewhere in the shadows, as well.”

“Hardly. I think he’s afraid of his own valet. Now, unless you’d like to stay here and discuss Wellington’s strategy in his last campaign or the cunning cut of your
best waistcoat, I’d suggest we be on our way. With this storm, dawn isn’t going to be one of our problems, but the tide might be troublesome.”

“I’m in your hands, I suppose,” Puck said. Giving Will Browning a rather mocking salute, he then turned and climbed into the back of the wagon. Not a play? Didn’t Jack realize that he was the biggest actor of them all?

Once inside, Puck squinted, trying to pierce the nearly nonexistent light inside the dray wagon that smelled strongly of ale, which was probably its usual cargo, but Regina’s face remained too deep in shadow for him to see her clearly. He found her hand and squeezed it, and she returned the pressure, but neither of them spoke as the wagon lurched forward.

They were on their way. This was it, their last chance, and they both knew it. What if they didn’t find Miranda? What if the girl was somehow already dead? Or gone mad—and that was a distinct possibility. What if Hackett was at the caves and put up a fight? Regina could say she wanted her father dead, but to be there when the man died?

It must be hell inside her head right now. Hope, fear, anticipation, dread. And yet she simply sat there, holding his hand, determined to be there when Miranda needed most to see someone she knew and trusted.

God, how he loved this woman. He should have told her.

But it was too soon.

Yet too late.

He’d known her for a only few days. He couldn’t seem to remember his life without her in it. Probably because he hadn’t really been alive until the night he first saw her.

He was a poet? The hell he was. A poet would have found the words…?.

The wagon rumbled over the cobblestones, unsprung and tossing them about inside so that they had to grab on to any handholds they could find.

“Where are going?” Regina asked at last. “Is it far?”

“Now there’s the question I should have asked,” Puck told her, pressing a kiss against her temple. “From the sound of it, we’re heading for some ancient Roman caves located somewhere along the banks of the Thames.”

“
Caves?
Why on earth—?”

“It would seem there are some sort of cells there, probably built to hold slaves. Galley slaves or something like that. Your father may have thought he could then move them from there in the dead of night, straight out to the
Pride and the Prize,
bypassing having to return them to the docks. In any event, we know where they are, and we’ll soon have them safe if not necessarily dry. What did you tell your aunt?”

“Nothing,” Regina said, resting her head against his shoulder. “All she did was look at me when we returned from the warehouse, and then she burst into tears and ran for her chamber. She wants to tell me to stop, I know that, but she can’t bring herself to say the words. Miranda’s her daughter, and she’d sacrifice me in a
moment to have her back. We’ll none of us ever be the same when this is over, will we? Not if we fail and not if we succeed.”

There was no answer he could give her that could possibly mean anything, so he merely hugged her closer, and the wagon moved forward through the night.

Puck could now make out shapes in the darkness inside the wagon. There were blankets, at least two dozen of them, piled high in one corner. Lanterns ready to be lit for the search. Two large baskets probably filled with food and even wine. Jack had prepared for success and probably never doubted it. In fact, this same wagon had likely been hidden in an alleyway when they’d gone to the warehouse. His men might be good at what they did, as Jack said, but there hadn’t been much time to prepare for this trip to the caves.

Barely enough time, in fact, to have Hackett’s man lead them to the three possible hiding places and then garrote him and put the body where Hackett couldn’t help but find it.

Ruthless men dealing with ruthless men. How many more would die tonight?

“I want you to remain here, in the wagon,” he told Regina and then put a finger to her lips before she could mount a protest. “There’s nothing you can do to help, sweetings, not until we have the women free, at which point I promise to bring Miranda straight to you.”

Regina put her hand on top of his and moved it away so she could answer him. “I agree, Puck. Completely. I’m glad I went with you to the warehouse, that I found
that scrap of Miranda’s gown. But now I’d only be in the way.”

Puck peered at her through the darkness. “You were eavesdropping on my conversation with Jack, weren’t you?”

She cupped his cheek with her hand. “The soul of a poet. I think that’s lovely and even somewhat true. But you’d also like to knock a few people down, wouldn’t you? I think you should. No matter who that person is. I would, if I could, if I were strong enough. But I’m not. So perhaps you could knock down two of them?”

“Come here,” he said, drawing her fully into his arms as they sat huddled on the floor. “I think I love you, Regina Hackett. No, that’s wrong. I know I love you. I probably should have waited until this is over and then told you. But some things shouldn’t wait. I love you. But if you say thank-you now, I may change my mind. I might, in fact, grab Will Browning’s sword from him and fall on it.”

“Who’s— No, never mind. I love you, too, Puck. It’s all so complicated, though, isn’t it? All so wrapped in everything else. Papa would never give his blessing. But if he’s put into prison, if he’s sentenced to death, then you would be saddled with the daughter of an acknowledged monster. Even in Paris, would society do more than turn its back on me, as well it should? And what of your parents? A bastard is one thing, Puck, but the daughter of a— You
are
going to ask me to marry you, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, I was, or at least I was until you pointed
out the possible pitfalls,” he said, hiding his amusement at her sudden, almost panicked, question. “I mean, I do have my reputation as a bastard to uphold, you know. Having lived my life as the lowest of the low, the thought of marrying beneath me had never occurred. Are you proposing to me, Miss Hackett?”

Oh, how he wished he could see the expression on her beautiful face.

“I don’t know. I’m caught between the proposal and longing to box your ears.”

“In that case, I say yes to the former but no thank you to the latter. I could give a damn about my so-called reputation, but I am rather fond of my ears. You may kiss me now.”

It would seem that Regina settled on a compromise, for she grabbed hold of his ears and pulled him forward to capture his mouth with her own.

But the kiss, as was the moment, was to be short-lived, for the wagon came to a halt. Almost immediately, Jack pulled back the canvas tarp to peek inside.