Of Noble Birth (49 page)

“Perhaps you should wait
in the carriage, my love,” he said to Alexandra as he descended.
“You can watch us from here.”

She nodded and kissed him
briefly. Nathaniel would have lingered in her embrace, but now that
they’d arrived, he felt the need to deal with the guns and be done
with them.

“It might be a while,” he
called, “but we’ll hurry.”

Alexandra’s drooping
ringlets gave a slight bob as she nodded her head, and he
envisioned having a daughter with the same yellow hair. His fiancée
was beautiful, he thought, the only one who could make him whole.
Strangely enough, he felt whole already, for the first time since
he could remember.

Turning away, he rounded
the warehouse and made his way to the alley behind. He easily found
the rock beneath which he had buried the key, and dug it
up.

“Would you have been able
to find it if need be?” he asked Trenton.

His friend nodded. “Aye.
The directions you gave were good ones. Shall I hire a
wagon?”

“In a moment.”

They headed back to the
front entrance together amid the crush of people along the wharves.
Nathaniel glanced about, hoping to hail a few burly chaps to help,
and thought he saw a face he recognized. When he looked again the
man had gone, but something about him stirred a memory.

He was likely one of the
blokes he’d hired to help him the last time, Nathaniel thought.
Turning the key in the lock, he pressed in on the door.

It groaned on its hinges,
then swung wide.

Nathaniel stood staring,
his jaw agape. The warehouse was empty.

“They’ve found them.” He
turned back to push Trenton away. “Let’s get out of
here.”

The two of them began to
sprint to the carriage when the familiar-looking man appeared
again, a sturdy bloke with bulging biceps. He grabbed Nathaniel by
the arm and began to haul him back, as four others separated
themselves from the crowd and stripped him of his pistol. They
shoved him and Trenton back inside the empty warehouse, and Lord
Clifton moved into the light that streamed in through the high
windows, one of which was open.

Sailors called to each
other outside as his half brother’s voice echoed within. “Looking
for something?” the marquess asked.

“Clifton, this won’t do
you any good,” Nathaniel said. “The Lord High Admiral already knows
about the guns.”

The marquess shrugged. “No
one will believe my father guilty of treason. But the guns are
quite valuable. I must say, I’m relieved to have them
back.”

The door opened and a gush
of fresh air swept into the room as Captain Montague entered with a
struggling Alexandra.

“Alexandra, how wonderful
to see you.” Lord Clifton bowed in mock courtesy. “I feared our
paths would never cross again, but fate has been kinder to me than
I deserve.”

Nathaniel’s heart began to
race. He glanced beyond the marquess, trying to sense any movement
in the shadows. How many men accompanied his half
brother?

As if six, including
Clifton, weren’t enough.

“You’re right. The only
thing you deserve is to swing at the end of a rope,” Alexandra said
breathlessly.

The marquess chuckled and
glanced above them, where a large metal hook was attached to a
pulley system designed to help move cargo around. “Funny you should
mention a rope.” He gave Nathaniel a meaningful smile, motioning
with his head to one of his men. “Charles, I do believe it would be
wise to be quick about this.”

The man named Charles
stepped forward and pulled the hook closer while two others grabbed
Nathaniel by his clothes.

“And now we see that my
prophecy comes true,” Montague said, giving Nathaniel a mocking
salute. “You will test the rope long before me, no?”

“Then I’ll see you in
hell,” Nathaniel told him.

Lord Clifton smiled at the
exchange. “I saved a few rifles for you.” He indicated one of the
familiar long, flat crates. “They can provide the stool—a bit of
irony I could not resist.”

The marquess’s men dragged
the box forward as Nathaniel’s mind flailed for something, anything
with which to gain an advantage. He could think of nothing until a
thought surfaced—a memory, really—of Alexandra telling him that his
father had syphilis and had given the disease to Clifton’s mother.
Did his half brother know? If not, would it upset him enough to buy
some desperately needed time?

“It’s a miracle you were
ever born, you know,” Nathaniel said, staring defiantly at Clifton
as another man started to force him onto the box of rifles.
“Syphilis is no small thing. With your father carrying it home from
his whores, I wonder that your mother didn’t leave him
sooner.”

His words acted on Lord
Clifton like a douse of cold water. The marquess blinked in
surprise, and the men who held Nathaniel paused uncertainly.
Clifton’s brows drew close, and he bared his teeth. “I’ll not
tolerate such rubbish from the likes of you. My mother might be
sick, but she’s not gone mad. Her illness has nothing to do with
syphilis. And my father has been well for over a year.”

“So you didn’t know.”
Nathaniel shrugged, feigning a haughtiness he did not feel.
“Evidently it hasn’t made itself apparent enough in either parent
yet. But it will. It always does.”

The marquess’s men glanced
at one another, and Nathaniel felt the hands that held him lose a
bit of their tension.

At his full height Clifton
was several inches shorter than Nathaniel. He had to tilt his head
back to stare him in the eye, but he did so as he advanced, coming
within inches. Nathaniel saw how the marquess’s nostrils flared
with rage and knew he had hit his target. His half brother had been
caught completely unaware.

“That’s a lie!”

“Certainly even you can
see it’s the truth, now that you know.” Nathaniel watched Clifton’s
hand ball into a fist, and prepared himself for the blow. The
others stood still, out of surprise or perverse interest, Nathaniel
didn’t know. “Evidently, he cared little about whose thighs he
parted before sharing your mother’s bed—”

The marquess’s fist
slammed into his stomach and Nathaniel doubled over. For the
tiniest moment the men’s grip on him slackened. Using that moment
to twist violently away, he wrenched himself out of their
hold.

Nathaniel wasn’t as strong
as he used to be. He was still recovering from his knife wound, but
he preferred to take his chances against a pistol than to swing
from a rope.

Two of Clifton’s men
scrambled to catch him, but with a blow to the chin and a quick
kick to the groin, he sent them flailing onto their backs. He
lunged for the marquess while Trenton used the sudden distraction
to wrest free as well. But they both froze when the man who held
Alexandra put a gun to her head.

“Such impetuous actions
will surely cost you,” Lord Clifton gritted out. “Now you will
watch her hang first.” He nodded to one of his thugs, who was still
gasping for breath.

The surly, muscular man
with a rounded paunch began to drag Alexandra toward the rope.
Nathaniel’s muscles tensed. He remembered the numerous floggings on
the
Retribution
,
the hunger, the chafing on his ankles from the chains. He recalled
the hospital ship with its sick, desperate men, the dampness, the
putrid smell of vomit and sweat, and the itch of lice. The memories
converged upon his mind, all mingling with each other in the same
fraction of a second. The marquess was to blame for it all. And now
he threatened Alexandra. “If you harm her, I’ll kill you before I
die,” he vowed. “The only way to ensure that I won’t is to hang me
now.”

Something akin to fear
flickered in Clifton’s eyes. He ordered his men to grab Nathaniel,
but Nathaniel had his long fingers about his half brother’s neck
before anyone could move.

“Let her go,” he whispered
harshly, squeezing until Clifton’s mouth opened and closed like
that of a fish and his eyes bulged from their sockets.

Nathaniel felt a surge of
strength course through his body, enabling him to squeeze tighter
and tighter until the marquess’s face turned bright red. “Now! Tell
them to let her go!”

The thugs backed away from
Alexandra while the one who held the gun leveled it at Nathaniel’s
back.

“Kill him,” Clifton
wheezed, trying to wrench Nathaniel’s hand away from his
throat.

The report of the gun
almost deafened them all, but the bullet missed its target by a
wide margin. Trenton had lunged at the man, knocking him off his
feet, and the two of them were grappling with each other on the
ground.

Someone shouted from
outside, “They’re in here!”

Suddenly Inspector Madsen,
the man from Scotland Yard who had ridden the train with them,
charged into the warehouse with four constables following in his
wake.

“Hold everything,” he
said, drawing his pistol and pausing long enough to take in the
scene.

Nathaniel slowly released
the marquess. Trenton stopped fighting, and Alexandra raised her
tearstained face in stunned disbelief.

“Well done, Captain
Montague,” Inspector Madsen said. “You’re free to go.”

“I don’t know where you’ll
have me go,
monsieur,
”
Montague replied, his voice
clipped. “My life is safe no more.”

“You made that choice, not
I,” Madsen replied, gathering Clifton and his men-into one
group.

The marquess turned to
Montague. “You did this?”

Montague looked away. “I
had no choice.”

Madsen quirked an eyebrow
at Lord Clifton. “Captain Montague was arrested at a pub in London
a few weeks ago. It seems he took a liking to a certain actress
with a jealous husband. The two were involved in a scuffle, and
your friend killed the man. He offered us evidence on the gun runs
in exchange for leniency.”

Madsen glanced at
Montague. “Perhaps it’s time to return to your homeland, Captain,”
he said. Though his words were polite on the surface, Nathaniel got
the distinct impression Inspector Madsen didn’t like the
Frenchman.

“You’re a dead man,” the
marquess whispered to Montague. “Do you hear me? No one betrays me.
You can’t go far enough. When I get out of this, I’ll find
you.”

“I don’t believe you’re in
a position to be making threats,” Madsen said, waving Clifton and
his small band toward the door.

“Wait.” Clifton pointed at
Nathaniel. “What about him? He’s the pirate who’s been plaguing my
father’s ships.”

Inspector Madsen glanced
over his shoulder at Nathaniel. “Sir John told us all about him.
Your father’s magistrate friend was afraid he’d be implicated in
the gun runs as well, so it didn’t take much prodding to get to the
truth. From what I’ve heard, Mr. Kent has paid for his
crimes.”

He stopped as the
constables continued to herd the others out. “He does, however,
need evidence to prove his identity as the Duke of Greystone’s son,
I believe.” He looked to Nathaniel. “And now you have it. With a
bit of persuasion Sir John agreed to testify to what he knows of
you and your, er, father, too.”

He grinned, then winked at
Alexandra. “Oh, and congratulations again on your upcoming
marriage, miss.”

* * *

Hangings always drew a
large crowd, but today’s throng was bigger than most. The
punishment of one so high in society, combined with the heinousness
of his sin, made this execution of particular interest to layman
and nobility alike.

Shops closed at midday so
their owners and employees could attend. Nearly fifty thousand
people clogged the streets. They climbed any tree with a limb
strong enough to support the weight, leaned out windows, and sat on
rooftops all the way to Ludgate Hill along the Old Bailey, north to
Cock Lane, Giltspur Street, and Smithfield, and back to the end of
Fleet Lane. Wagons and carts teemed with people who had paid to
stand on them for a glimpse of the action. And more than a few
carriages belonging to notable public officials and members of the
aristocracy waited at the fore.

The gallows stood ready in
the Old Bailey outside Newgate Prison. A temporary roof enclosed
the east part of the stage and offered shade to two sheriffs, who
sat on either side of the stairs leading to the scaffold. Around
the north, west, and east sides were galleries for the reception of
officers and attendants, and a short distance away, the constables
waited inside a fixed, strong railing. In the middle, where the
convict would stand, the floor was raised a bit higher than the
rest of the platform.

Nathaniel stood watching
with his arm around Alexandra as two men shouted to each other,
checking and double-checking the apparatus to make certain that
everything was in working order. One tested the lever that dropped
the trapdoor from under the victim’s feet, while the other proved
the rope. Originally a notorious murderer was to be hanged today—a
man who had killed his wife and cut her into four pieces, each of
which had been discovered in a different section of London—but
Nathaniel had heard that the prison officials had decided to wait.
The execution of a nobleman was already creating quite a stir.
Important people were going to be watching, and Nathaniel didn’t
doubt that those in charge wanted everything to go as smoothly as
possible. In degree of seriousness, treason topped the list, after
all, creating the common sentiment that the perpetrator of such
deviltry deserved to die alone, center stage. It would appease the
anger of many, though it must cause the sadness of some, Nathaniel
thought, thinking of Lady Anne.