To Catch An Heiress (23 page)

She chewed on her lip. Oliver wasn't going to believe that she was completely in the dark, so she said, “I don't know. Sometimes he goes out, though.”

“Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Where does he go?”

“I don't know.”

He pulled on her arm so hard she was sure her shoulder would come out of the socket.

“I don't know!” she shrieked. “Truly, I don't.”

He spun her around. “Do you know where he is right now?”

She shook her head.

“I do.”

“You do?” she choked out.

He nodded, his eyes narrowing malevolently. “Imagine my surprise when I discovered him so far afield this evening.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

He started dragging her toward the main road. “You will.” He pulled her along until they reached a small gig parked by the side of the road. The horse was peacefully chewing on grass until Oliver kicked him in the leg.

“Oliver!” Caroline said. “I'm sure that wasn't necessary.”

“Shut up.” He jammed her up against the side of the gig and tied her hands together with a rough piece of rope.

Caroline looked down at her hands and noted with aggravation that he was as good at tying knots as Blake had been. She'd be lucky if any blood reached her hands. “Where are you taking me?” she demanded.

“Why, to see your dear husband.”

“I told you, I don't know where he is.”

“And I told you, I do.”

She gulped, finding it harder and harder to keep up her bravado. “Well then, where is he?”

He shoved her up into the gig, sat down behind her, and spurred the horse into motion. “Mr. Ravenscroft is presently standing on a bluff overlooking the English Channel. He has a telescope in his hand and is accompanied by the Marquis of Riverdale and two men I do not recognize.”

“Perhaps they are out on some sort of scientific expedition. My husband is a great naturalist.”

“Don't insult me. He has his telescope fixed on my men.”

“Your men?” she echoed.

“You thought I was just another idle lackwit latching on to your money, didn't you?”

“Well, yes,” Caroline admitted before she had a chance to check her tongue.

“I had plans for your fortune, yes, and don't think I've forgiven you for your betrayal, but I've been working toward my own destiny as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ha! Wouldn't you like to know.”

She caught her breath as they rounded a corner at an unsafe speed. “It appears I'm going to know very soon, Oliver, if you insist upon abducting me this way.”

He looked at her assessingly.

“Watch the road!” she shrieked, nearly losing the contents of her stomach as they careened by a tree.

Oliver yanked too hard on the reins, and the horse, already a bit peeved about having been kicked, snorted and stopped short.

Caroline was jerked forward as they halted. “I think I'm going to be sick,” she mumbled.

“Don't think I'm going to clean the mess if you cast up your accounts,” Oliver snapped, whacking the horse with his riding crop.

“Stop hitting that poor horse!”

He whipped his head around to face her, his eyes glittering dangerously. “May I remind you that you are tied up, and I am not?”

“Your point being?”

“I give the orders.”

“Well, don't be surprised if the poor creature kicks you in the head when you're not looking.”

“Don't tell me how to treat my horse,” he roared, and then brought the crop down again on the animal's back. They resumed their movement down the road, and once Caroline was assured that Oliver was driving at a slower pace, she said, “You were telling me about your work.”

“No,” he said. “I wasn't. And shut up.”

She clamped her mouth closed. Oliver wasn't going to tell her anything, and she might as well use the time to devise a plan. They were moving parallel to the coast, edging ever closer to Prewitt Hall and the cove Oliver had written about in his smuggling reports. The very cove where Blake and James were waiting.

Dear God, they were going to be ambushed.

Something was wrong. Blake felt it in his bones.

“Where is he?” he hissed.

James shook his head and pulled out his pocket watch. “I don't know. The boat arrived an hour ago. Prewitt should have been here to meet them.”

Blake cursed under his breath. “Caroline told me that Prewitt is always punctual.”

“Could he know that the War Office is on to him?”

“Impossible.” Blake lifted his telescope to his eye and focused on the beach. A small boat had dropped anchor about twenty yards out to sea. There wasn't much of a crew—so far they had spied only two men up on the deck. One of them held a pocket watch and was checking it at frequent intervals.

James nudged him and Blake passed him the scope. “Something must have happened today,” Blake said. “There is no way he could have known he'd been detected.”

James just nodded as he scanned the horizon. “Unless he's dead, he'll be here. He has too much money riding on this.”

“And where the hell are his other men? There are supposed to be four.”

James shrugged, scope still to his eye. “Maybe they're waiting for a signal from Prewitt. He might have—Wait!”

“What?”

“Someone's coming along the road.”

“Who?” Blake tried to grab the scope, but James refused to relinquish it. “It's Prewitt,” he said, “coming in a gig. And he's got a female with him.”

“Carlotta De Leon,” Blake predicted.

James slowly lowered the scope. His face had gone utterly white. “No,” he whispered, “it's Caroline.”

C
aroline squinted at the horizon, but in the dark haze of night she could see nothing. This didn't surprise her. Blake and James would never be so stupid as to use a lantern. They were probably hidden behind a rock or shrub, using the faint moonlight to spy on the activities on the shore below.

“I don't see anything,” she said to Oliver. “You must be mistaken.”

He turned his head slowly to face her. “You really think I'm an idiot, don't you?”

She pondered that. “No, not an idiot. Many other things, but not an idiot.”

“Your husband,” he said, pointing ahead, “is hiding among those trees.”

“Perhaps we ought to alert him to our presence?” she asked hopefully.

“Oh, we'll alert him. Have no fear.” Oliver brought the gig to a halt with a vicious yank of the reins and pushed her out to the ground. Caroline landed hard on her side, coughing on dirt and grass. She looked up just in time to see her former guardian pull out a gun.

“Oliver…”

He pointed the weapon at her head.

She shut her mouth.

He jerked his head to the left. “Start walking.”

“But that's the cliff.”

“There's a path. Follow it.”

Caroline looked down. A narrow path had been carved into the steeply sloping hill. It zigged and zagged its way down to the beach, and it didn't take much more than a brisk wind to send loose pebbles rolling down the incline. It didn't look safe, but it was considerably more appealing than a bullet from Oliver's gun. She decided to follow his orders.

“I'll need you to untie my hands,” she said. “For balance.”

He scowled, then acquiesced, muttering, “You're no good to me dead.”

She started to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Yet.”

Her stomach churned.

He finished untying her hands and pushed her toward the edge, musing aloud, “Actually, you might be most useful as a widow.”

This time, her stomach heaved, but she swallowed down the bile, coughing on the acidic taste in her mouth. Her heart might be racing, she might be feeling something far beyond terror, but she had to remain strong for Blake. She stepped out onto the path and began her descent.

“Don't try any false moves,” he said. “You'd be wise to remember I've a gun pointed at your back.”

“I'm not likely to forget it,” she bit off, poking her toe out ahead of her to feel for loose rocks. Damn, but this path was treacherous at night. She'd hiked similar paths during the day, but sunlight was a powerful ally.

He jammed the barrel of the gun against her back. “Faster.”

Caroline swung her arms wildly to keep her balance. When she was satisfied that she wasn't about to tumble to her death she snapped, “I'm not going to do you a bit of good dead of a broken neck. And believe me, if I start to fall, the first thing I'm grabbing is your leg.”

That shut him up, and he didn't bother her again until they were safely on the beach.

* * *

“I'm going to kill her,” Blake said in a low voice.

“Beg pardon, but you'll have to save her first,” James reminded him. “And you might want to save your bullets for Prewitt.”

Blake shot him a look that was decidedly unamused. “I'm going to bloody well tie her to the bed-post.”

“You tried that once.”

Blake whirled around. “How can you stand there and make bloody jokes?” he demanded. “He has my
wife
. My wife!”

“And what, pray tell, is the usefulness of cataloguing the ways and methods of punishing her? How is
that
meant to save her?”

“I told her to stay put,” Blake grumbled. “She swore she wouldn't leave Seacrest Manor.”

“Perhaps she listened to you, perhaps she didn't. Either way, it doesn't make a whit of difference at this juncture.”

Blake turned to his best friend, his face holding an odd combination of fear and regret. “We have to save her. I don't care if we lose Prewitt. I don't care if the entire damned mission is ruined. We—”

James laid his hand on Blake's arm. “I know.”

Blake motioned for the other two War Office men to gather round and quickly explained the situation. They didn't have much time to plan. Oliver was already forcing Caroline down toward the beach. But Blake had long since learned that there was no substitute for good communication, and so they huddled together for a moment as they agreed on a strategy.

Unfortunately, that was the moment that Oliver's men decided to pounce.

* * *

Once on the beach, Caroline realized that the channel waters were not as calm as she'd thought—and it wasn't the wind that provided the turbulence. A small boat she recognized as Oliver's was moored close to shore, and the soft crunch of sand under feet soon proved that they were not alone on the beach.

“Where the bloody hell have you been?”

Caroline whirled around and blinked in surprise. The voice had sounded as if it belonged to a large, burly sort of fellow, but the man who had just stepped into a shaft of moonlight was slender and disturbingly elegant.

Oliver jerked his head toward the boat and began wading out into the water, dragging Caroline along with him. “I was unavoidably detained.”

The other man perused Caroline rudely. “She's quite fetching, but hardly unavoidable.”

“Not so fetching,” Oliver said derisively, “but quite married to an agent of the War Office.”

Caroline gasped and stumbled to her knees, soaking the length of her skirts.

Oliver let out a bark of triumphant laughter. “Merely a theory, my dear Caroline, and one you have just affirmed.”

She staggered back to her feet, spluttering and swearing at herself all the while. How could she have been so stupid? She knew better than to show a reaction, but Oliver had surprised her.

“Are you an idiot?” the other man hissed. “The French are paying us enough for this shipment to set us up for life. If you've compromised our chances—”

“Shipment?” Caroline asked. She'd thought that Oliver had been carrying secret messages and documents. But the word
shipment
seemed to indicate something bigger. Could they be smuggling ammunition? Weapons? The boat didn't look big enough to be carrying something so large.

The men ignored her. “The wife of an agent,” the stranger muttered. “Sweet hell, you're stupid. The last thing we need is attention from the War Office.”

“We already had attention,” Oliver shot back, pulling Caroline along with him into ever deeper waters. “Blake Ravenscroft and the Marquis of Riverdale are up on the bluff. They've been watching you all night. If it hadn't been for me—”

“If it hadn't been for you,” the other man interrupted, yanking Caroline against him, “we would never have been detected in the first place. Ravenscroft and Riverdale certainly didn't learn of our assignation from me.”

“You know my husband?” Caroline said, too surprised to even struggle.

“I know
of
him,” he replied. “And by tomorrow, so will all of France.”

“Dear God,” she whispered. Oliver must be smuggling out a list of agents. Agents who would then be targets for assassination. Agents like Blake and James.

She thought of ten different plans all at once and dismissed them all. A scream seemed useless; if Blake was watching the beach, he'd surely already have seen her and would not need to be alerted to her presence. And attacking either Oliver or the French agent would only get her killed. The only possibility was to somehow stall for time until Blake and James arrived.

But then what would happen? They would have no element of surprise. Oliver knew they were there.

She caught her breath. Oliver seemed rather unconcerned with the War Office's presence. Without thinking, she jerked her gaze up to the clifftop, but saw nothing.

“Your husband isn't going to save you,” Oliver said with cruel satisfaction. “My men are taking care of him even as we speak.”

“Then why did you bring me here?” she whispered, her heart shattering within her chest. “You didn't need me.”

He shrugged. “Whimsy. I wanted him to know I had you. I wanted him to see me give you to Davenport.”

The man he called Davenport chuckled and pulled her closer. “She may prove entertaining.”

Oliver scowled. “Before I let you make off with her—”

“I can go nowhere until the shipment arrives,” Davenport bit off. “Where the hell is she?”

She
? Caroline blinked and tried not to show a reaction.

“She's coming,” Oliver snapped. “And how long have you known about Ravenscroft?”

“A few days. Perhaps a week. You are not my only means of transport.”

“You should have told me,” Oliver growled.

“You have given me no reason to trust you with anything other than the providing of a boat.”

Caroline took advantage of the two men's absorption in their argument to scan the beach and cliff for any signs of action. Blake was up there fighting for his life and there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it. She had never felt so utterly hopeless in all her life. Even with her parade of horrible guardians, she'd always held on to hope that eventually her life would turn aright. But if Blake were to be killed…

She choked on a sob. It was too awful even to contemplate.

And then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement at the bottom of the path on which she'd just descended. She fought the urge to jerk her head and stare; if it was Blake or James come to rescue her, she didn't want to ruin the element of surprise.

But as the figure crept closer, Caroline realized that it was far too small to be Blake or James, or any man for that matter. In fact, it moved in a way that was decidedly female.

Her lips parted with shock. Carlotta De Leon. It had to be. The irony was astounding.

Carlotta moved closer, quietly clearing her throat once she was in earshot. Oliver and Davenport stopped arguing immediately and turned to her.

“Do you have it?” Davenport demanded.

Carlotta nodded and spoke, her voice tinged by a vague, lilting accent. “It was too dangerous to bring the list. But I have committed it to memory.”

Caroline stared at the woman who was, in a way, responsible for her marriage to Blake. Carlotta was petite, with alabaster skin and black hair. Her eyes had an aged look to them, as if they belonged to someone much older.

“Who is this woman?” Carlotta asked.

“Caroline Trent,” Oliver replied.

“Caroline Ravenscroft,” she snapped.

“Ah, yes, Ravenscroft. How silly of me to forget that you are now a wife.” Oliver pulled out his pocket watch and snapped it open. “Forgive me, now a widow.”

“I'll see you in hell,” she hissed.

“Of that I have no doubt, but I do believe that you will be seeing far more interesting sights with Mr. Davenport first.”

Caroline completely forgot that the aforementioned Mr. Davenport was holding her arm, and she lunged at Oliver. Davenport held firm, but she managed to land one good punch against Oliver's stomach. He doubled over in pain but unfortunately didn't lose his grasp on his gun.

“My compliments,” Davenport said in a low, mocking voice. “I've been wanting to do that for months.”

Caroline whirled around. “Whose side are you on?”

“My own. Always.” And then he lifted his arm, displaying for the first time a dark, gleaming pistol, and shot Oliver in the head.

Caroline screamed. Her body shook with recoil of the gun, and her ears buzzed and rang from the explosion. “Oh, my God,” she whimpered. “Oh, my God.” She had no great love for Oliver; she'd even agreed to furnish the government with information that might send him to the gallows, but this…this was too much. Blood on her dress and in the foamy surf, Oliver's body floating facedown in the water…

She wrenched herself away from Davenport and threw up. When she was able to stand again, she turned to her new captor and asked, simply, “Why?”

He shrugged. “He knew too much.”

Carlotta looked at Caroline and then slowly and purposefully shifted her gaze to Davenport. “So,” she said, in that delicately Spanish accent Caroline was coming to detest, “does she.”

Blake's first thought upon hearing the shot was that his life was over.

His second thought was exactly the same, although not for the same reasons. As soon as he realized that he wasn't dead, and that James had managed to bring down the villain who'd been attempting to shoot him with a well-placed blow to the head, it occurred to him that the shot he'd heard had not been nearly loud enough to have been fired up on the cliff.

It had come from down on the beach, and that could mean only one thing. Caroline was dead. And his life was over.

His weapon slipped from his hands, and for a moment he was completely limp, unable to move. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of Prewitt's men charge toward him, and it was only at the last moment he regained enough presence of mind to whirl around and kick the man in the stomach. He went down with a grunt of pain, and Blake just stood over him, his mind still ringing with the sound of the gunshot on the beach.

Dear God, he'd never told her he loved her.

James came running to his side, a piece of rope dangling from his hands. “This is the last of them,” he said, kneeling down to tie up the fallen man.

Blake said nothing.

James didn't appear to notice his friend's distress. “We've one man down, but I think he'll live. Just a knife wound in the shoulder. The bleeding is almost under control.”

Blake saw her face, her laughing blue-green eyes, and the delicately arched upper lip that begged to be kissed. He could hear her voice, whispering words of love, words he'd never returned.