The Angel in My Arms: A Regency Rogues Novel (31 page)

“I’ll assume then that you’ve asked after me?”

Thomas looked to deny it, and then thought better of it. “And?”

Marcus stood so that his eyes met Thomas’s. “I need your help. Now, you may not like me, but I’m inclined to believe you’ve made up your mind as to whether I’m a man who can be trusted.”

Thomas stared back, his face set in a grim mask.

“Will you help me?” Marcus pressed, his tone deadly serious.

Just then, a young boy emerged from the kitchen and tugged on his sleeve. Thomas bent down and the boy stretched up to whisper in his father’s ear.

Thomas frowned and shook his head at the boy, but the young one persisted, clutching a fistful of his shirt and whispering faster.

Thomas nodded at last, stood tall, and turned to Marcus. “Don’t say I never did nothing for ya. Come with me.”

“I’m in no mood for tomfoolery,” Marcus said, hopeful the man heard the sincerity of his tone.

“Neither am I.” Thomas’s voice was gruff, his words just as terse.

Marcus followed Thomas through the door to the kitchen, where several cooks and servers stopped working to gape at the lord.

“Mind your business,” Thomas yelled, gesturing for Marcus to follow him down a set of crude steps.

Marcus kept pace with the man despite the nagging soreness in his leg. They reached a low room where casks and barrels of flour and sugar, wine and brandy stood along all four walls.

“All right, then,” Thomas called, his deep voice loud in the silent room.

Two figures emerged from one corner. Marcus slipped from his boot the knife he’d retrieved earlier, palming it with one swift smooth movement.

“I told you this was a bad idea.”

Poised to throw, Marcus squinted into the dim light. “Sully?”

The valet stepped into the light. Behind him, dressed head to toe in boy’s clothing, was Sarah, her hair concealed beneath a cap.

Fury, red and hot, burned through Marcus. “I do
not
have time for such antics,” Marcus snarled. “Take her home, Sully.” He slid the knife back into the sheath inside his Hessian and made to turn back to the stairs.

“Please,” Sarah begged, stepping around Sully. “Listen to what we have to say.”

“This is not the time, Sarah,” Marcus ground out.

“My lord,” Sully began, his voice slow but steady, “I realize that you’re angry, but the woman knows how to find Marlowe.”

“Well, I think I do,” Sarah added, nodding at the giant tavernkeeper. “Thomas, you know the comings and goings of Charles and his men. Can you tell us where they’d be likely to hide?”

“Come now, miss, I’ve a business to run, after all.”

Sarah stepped closer to Thomas and looked up at him with honesty in her eyes. “You can trust Lord Weston.”

Thomas’s gaze shifted to Marcus and narrowed with suspicion. “Well, my lord,
can
I trust you?”

“You have my word.”

Thomas stared hard at him for a tension-charged moment. Then he muttered under his breath and threw the filthy towel he still carried in his hand onto the top of a cask. “Been talk of supplies being run out to St. Aldhelm’s Isle. Good money to be had for those who keep their mouths shut. Frenchies with deep pockets out there, some say.”

Marcus turned toward the stairs. “Sully, come with me. We’ll need a boat. Sarah, you’re to stay right here until I come for you.”

“You’re not thinking of going to the island now, are ye?” Thomas asked before Marcus reached the second step.

Marcus slammed his fist against the rough banister. “I’ve hardly time to explain myself—”

“Because you’ll not get far,” the man continued. “There’s only one spot to put ashore and it’s a hard one to find in the daylight, never mind the black of night.”

Marcus realized the man was right. Marlowe had been the Corinthian agent assigned the task of discovering where Napoleon’s men awaited the final gems, the coves and caves of the coast affording any number of possible hideouts. He hadn’t shared that information with Marcus.

“I can help.”

Marcus squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. “Sarah.”

“I’ve been to the island. I know the spot Thomas is speaking of,” she pressed. “And you’ll not find another man tonight sober enough to take my place. Those not
upstairs right now are home sleeping off the fair. You know I speak the truth.”

“Goddammit,” Marcus swore under his breath.

“Besides, it will be far easier to see to my safety with me by your side, wouldn’t you agree?” she added.

Thomas pulled a wool coat from its peg on the wall. “Take this,” he ordered, “and mind the pocket.”

Sarah reached for the coat and nodded in thanks.

Marcus had no other choice.

“We’ve no time to waste. Sully, go and ready the horses.”

“Oh, there’ll be no need for that,” Thomas interrupted, walking to the long row of stacked casks along the north wall and pulling first one then the other from their place, to reveal a hidden doorway.

“I told you, I have a business to run.”

Sarah huddled into Marcus’s side, the wind light but cool as it glanced off the low side of the boat and ruffled her tangled tresses.

“Why did Nigel not tell me of the tunnel that led directly from the Boot to the cove?” Marcus asked angrily of no one in particular.

Sarah pressed against him. “He did not know, I’m sure of it. We spoke at some length after you questioned him. He was terrified—too terrified to have kept such a thing secret. It does not matter now.”

Sully rowed through the blackness, his powerful strokes sending the boat slicing through the waves. The lamp of the Lulworth Cove lighthouse illuminated the surrounding area just enough to reveal the dark outline of Aldhelm’s Isle.

“Of course it does,” Marcus replied in a low tone. “You’re in danger—danger that might have been avoided had I known all of the facts.”

“I’ll be all right,” Sarah whispered to Marcus, placing a hand on his cheek. “I’m with you.”

His jaw tensed, the muscles tightening and flexing under her sensitive fingertips. “You’ve no idea what these men are capable of, do you? And I’ve put you here.”

Sully turned the boat toward the southwestern side of the island and the minuscule cove nearly hidden there.

“I do understand the danger—but you must know that I’m safest when I’m with you.”

“Fire,” Sully warned, pointing toward a small blaze on the shore.

“ ’Ello!” a man’s voice called out to the boat, the sound of the waves slapping against the vessel alerting him to their presence. “Reinforcements, then?”

Marcus shoved Sarah down and she crouched in the bottom of the boat, her head hidden below the oarlocks. “You are not to leave this boat,” he ordered.

Sarah struggled to sit up, spying the man as he waved from the shore. She knew he could not make out their faces from this distance. Still, they’d have to convince him that they meant no harm. She did the only thing she could think of.

Sarah’s voice, though high, to be sure, was passable as long as she kept her chin tucked low while singing. “Join in,” she hissed, launching into the second chorus with appropriate gusto.

Marcus and Sully took up the bawdy shanty tune as though born to do so, and Sarah had never been so glad for her unique coastal education.

The man on the shore had joined in, his lusty singing carrying on the waves. “Ready yourself,” Marcus told Sully.

“Glad to hear, I am, that you’re not those Frenchies,” the man shouted as he leapt into the water and waded toward the boat. “That smug lot hardly knew one tune among them.”

The man leaned back at the last of the chorus and bayed at the moon, stopping midway when the length of rope Sully had thrown hit him square in the face. “Patience now, you can hardly ’xpect—”

He stopped, eyeing Marcus and the others warily.

“Hey, now, what’s this all ’bout—”

Sully launched himself from the boat, his hands closing around the man’s neck, choking off his voice before the two of them disappeared beneath the waves.

Sarah gasped and Marcus shoved her hard, flattening her against the bottom of the boat. “Stay down,” he ordered, then went over the side himself.

Sarah peered into the dark water, surprised when Sully broke the surface of the water, gasping for breath.

“Are you—”

Sully made for the shore. “Stay down, woman.”

His words echoed in her ears as she saw the smuggler’s body rise to the top then gently float past.

Marcus waded through the cold salt water, the temperature numbing his leg wound. He reached the beach, pausing briefly to get his bearings. Scrubby bushes grew in thick tufts all the way to the edge of the pebbled beach, and a narrow path was visible between two of the larger bushes just in front of where Marcus stood.

He slipped his knife from his sodden boot and signaled Sully to follow him.

The sound of someone disturbing the foliage reached their ears just as they started across the beach. Marcus gestured, silently ordering Sully to flatten himself against the rocks.

Marlowe, Charles, and another man rounded the bend to the right and walked out onto the beach.

“Grimes?” Charles bellowed.

“Where’d ye get off to?” the other yelled into the night. He glowered and half turned to look behind him. “I don’t see him, Marlowe.”

Charles looked out on the water, squinting as he caught sight of the small boat. “Is that a boat?”

Marcus and Sully rose silently to their feet.

“Christ!” the other yelled, pulling a knife from the folds of his shirt as Sully lunged at him.

And then all hell broke loose.

Marcus threw himself into the fray, attacking with a ferocity born of duty and anger.

He dispatched the armed man quickly with a swift slice to the throat, and then went after Marlowe, who’d retreated up the path the smugglers had descended.

Marcus reached a clearing and stopped abruptly.

Marlowe stood in the middle of it. He held Nigel in
front of him, one arm trapping the boy. Nigel thrashed and struggled against his hold.

“Where the hell have you been, Weston?” Marlowe demanded in a low voice. He held a pistol in his free hand, his arm at his side. “We drowned Pattinson, Stewart, and the rest hours ago.”

Marcus blinked, narrowing his gaze over Marlowe’s features with deadly precision. “It took some time to find a guide to land us in the cove, but you knew it would.”

“I’d always heard you were unstoppable, Weston,” he continued. “I must say, I’m somewhat disappointed with your performance. As for mine? Well, I think that it speaks for itself.”

“I’ve grown tired of your games, Marlowe. Give me the boy,” Marcus replied, slowly walking toward the two, his knife at the ready.

Marlowe lifted his hand, holding the pistol to Nigel’s temple—steady despite the boy’s struggles. “Do you think I’d make things so easy for you?”

Nigel went still, his face whitening, his eyes ablaze with fear.

“You’d kill an innocent boy, turn traitor to your country—all for a bit of blunt?” Marcus’s voice was lethal.

“A bit of blunt?” Marlowe’s smile flashed, white in the moonlight. “You know
nothing
. And as for killing the boy—why wouldn’t I? He’s no longer necessary.”

Before Marcus could move, Marlowe spun Nigel around then hit him squarely in the temple with the pistol. The boy staggered and collapsed. Marcus leapt but he was too late to catch the boy.

Marlowe disappeared into the underbrush and Marcus made a quick decision to attend to Nigel and let Marlowe go.

He knelt beside the fallen boy, checking for a pulse
and drawing a deep thankful breath when he felt the strong pound of blood at his throat.

“Nigel!” he said clearly, sharply tapping his cheek.

Nigel came around with a start, sucking in a deep breath and coughing as the air filled his lungs.

“Are you all right?” Marcus asked.

The boy nodded.

“Then come with me.”

Sarah waited anxiously in the boat. From her vantage point, she’d watched as Marcus disappeared down the path away from the beach and into the interior of the island while Sully dispatched his foe.

The wind picked up, and the waves grew in size, making the boat bob up and down with increased roughness. The rolling and pitching did little to calm Sarah’s nerves.

Suddenly, a figure appeared, silhouetted briefly on the cliff top before jumping over the edge and down onto the beach. Small pebbles flew as the large bulk of a man raced for the water.

Sarah squinted, narrowing her eyes in an effort to make out his identity. With sudden shock, she recognized Marlowe, just as the sea water reached his thighs and he dove forward to swim toward the boat.

“Bugger!”

Sarah stood up, only to quickly sit back down when the boat rocked alarmingly and she realized she had nowhere to run.

Frantic, she caught up the wool coat Thomas had given her before they left the Boot and began to run her hands over it. “Mind the pocket,” he’d told her.

She muttered an oath when something heavy slipped from the pocket and fell with a distinct thud to the bottom of the boat.

Sarah looked up. Marlowe was cleaving through the
rough water, making impressive progress and drawing nearer with every stroke.

She grabbed the bag and upended it into her lap, sorting swiftly through the items that fell out.

“Do not come near this boat,” she shouted at Marlowe, then noted that he continued his brisk clip as if she hadn’t spoken.

“Bollocks!”

Sarah grasped Thomas’s pistol and lifted it in both hands, half cocking the hammer. “I’m armed!” she yelled in warning, dread building in her belly.