Chapter Eighteen
Terror could steal breath and freeze muscle, while still setting the heart thundering.
She wanted to run, to slip back over the side of the ship and simply run. But Jones bent over, pulled a knife from his boot, and stood again—all in one movement, as if it were as natural as breathing.
Clearly, terror had not affected him.
His free hand was warm when he took hers, despite the chill of the rain. That heat stole through damp gloves to her numb fingers. He tugged gently, pulling her behind him as they moved across the deck. They crouched behind a stack of crates, but she knew it couldn’t possibly hide them.
Jones set his lips to her ear. “Stay close. We’re going to the captain’s quarters. There.” He nodded toward the stern of the ship.
Small mullioned windows stood sentinel on either side of a doorway, flanking it with glass diamonds glowing gold from the light within. Shadows moved beyond, voices little more than water lapping against the hull.
“If the watchman turns around, you run.”
“And you?” she whispered, trying to ignore the man happily guzzling ale from the tankard he’d just dunked into a barrel.
“I’ll use this.” The light from the captain’s quarters shone gold on the knife blade. Cat shuddered, but there was nothing to do but follow.
Only she didn’t follow. Jones pushed her forward, keeping himself between her and the watchman. She did not have to look to see if the knife was out, or if Jones was behind her. Both would be true.
They were out in the open now, though night was nearly upon them. Scrabbling across the decking, she led them to the cabin and crouched beneath the windows. Back against the wall, gasping, she looked out over the deck. The watchman picked his teeth with his knife between sips of ale, still oblivious to them.
“Idiot.” Disgust coated every consonant and vowel. Jones grappled in his coat for something. “Here, take this. Keep it trained on him. If he moves, shoot.”
A pistol was shoved into her hands.
“What?” She tried not to shout. As it was, the word was well above a whisper and sent her gaze toward the watchman. She fumbled the weapon, prayed she wouldn’t accidentally press the trigger, and finally held it steady.
“I need a few minutes. We’re too far for a knife throw to be deadly. At the least, the sound of a shot will give you time to get back to the docks.”
They were going to die.
“What are you doing?” Her hands were steady with the pistol and Cat counted that a boon.
“Cracking the door so we can hear.” He spun on the balls of his feet and reached for the handle. “Do you have my back?”
His eyes were dark, the planes of his face hard—but it was him. The core of Jones was here, as if someone had lit a candle to reveal his soul. Whatever and whoever he was, this man was in his element.
“I have your back, Jones.”
She pressed her body against the cabin wall and trained the pistol on the watchman. He’d yet to notice them, and she didn’t know if she should thank God, Fate, or Dionysus.
From the corner of her eye she saw Jones scurry forward, reach for the handle. There was a soft click, barely noticeable against the light breeze and the water around them. Jones pushed open the door.
A scant half inch of light speared over the deck. Gold. Bright.
Cat raised the pistol, waited for the watchman to turn. He didn’t—but words filtered through that open doorway.
“You only provided half the order.” Wycomb’s voice was low and cold, as it was when he was furiously angry.
“Aye.” Temper fueled the other man’s words. “T’was all I could get. The Indiamen were hustling it past customs.”
“My customers are unhappy.” A pause. “Shall I direct them to you?”
“Blast it, Wycomb!” A thump, a metallic rattle, as if a fist pounded on a tabletop and shook the silverware. “I did ye a favor, as his lordship asked me to. But damned if I’m going ta get mixed up in yer mess.” His voice rose to a shout, streaking through the gap in the air and across the deck.
“He’s seen us.” Cat gasped, fingers convulsing on the pistol.
“Oy!” The watchman staggered to his feet, dropping the tankard to the planks below. “What are you doing there?”
Jones made a guttural sound deep in his throat. “Run.”
She did. Back past the crates, half-boots flying over wood and rope, to the side of the ship. She was climbing up the rail, pistol still in her hand, when she realized Jones was not behind her.
He’d intercepted the watchman. Fists flew, flesh met flesh, a blade flashed—and the watchman was down. Blood spread across his shirt, a crimson flower blooming over brown worsted. Jones leaped over him and Cat didn’t hesitate. She was over the side of the ship and on the gangway before she’d thought to move.
Running on the narrow spit of wood, Cat didn’t spare a glance behind. She could hear Jones behind her, feet pounding. They flew over the wooden dock one by one, onto the cobblestone street and through the softening rain.
The shot chased them.
…
It rushed through the air only inches from his head, the ball thudding into the bricked wall of the nearest building.
“Hell.” He ducked instinctively, pulling the baroness toward him. Spinning around, he pressed her against the building so she was protected by his body.
Another shot pounded into the brick beside them and the baroness let out a shriek, her body jerking so that every bit of her pressed against him. He had only an instant to register thigh and breast and hip before she moved away again.
“Who is it?” she asked, breathless.
Jones glanced over his shoulder, then back—one swift look so his face would not be recognized. Bloody hell. It was Wycomb, a pistol in each hand, running down the gangway.
“We need to hide. Now.” He dared not look behind him to see how close Wycomb was or if he were aiming again. The risk of being recognized was too great.
Spinning the baroness away from the wall, he seized her hand and started to run. He had to slow to pace her shorter frame, but the panic that caused her ragged breathing fueled her feet as well.
He knew these streets, having run here as a boy looking for cargo to steal and sell. He turned right into an alley, then left onto a street and right into another alley. A few more turns and in the moments when dark fell fully, they were well away from the docks. Eventually, Jones pulled the baroness into a shop doorway set into the bricked side of a building.
They stood side by side, panting, hands still clutched together.
“Well,” the baroness said between gasping breaths. “I don’t think I’ve run so far or fast in a long time.” Her hand gripped his hard, rubbing the bones together. “Are we safe? Is he gone?”
“Yes. He’s gone. Or—” He looked about at the street again, at the well-shod men and women passing by, then the windows above and their respectable curtains. “Or at least he’s unlikely to follow us this far.”
“Are you sure?” Her voice quavered, the tremor nearly imperceptible.
“No.” He spoke the truth, because he found he could not lie.
Her hand nearly crushed his as her head jerked up, the hood of her cloak revealing a face brilliantly white in the settling darkness. “Did he recognize me?” Her whisper was harsh, blending with the clatter of a passing carriage.
“I don’t know.”
What if he had? Jones could not send her alone into Worthington House. She would have no protection from Wycomb if the worst had happened.
He looked down at her, at the wide eyes, knowing he could have led a lamb to slaughter. He’d not brought her to the docks, but he had brought her onto the Anna Louisa. She should be sitting in a drawing room sipping tea from little porcelain cups, not running for her life.
“My apologies, my lady. I should not have—”
The hand folded in his jerked away, leaving nothing but cold, damp air in his fist. He swung his head around to look at her and found eyes bright with temper.
“You? As though my uncle did not bring me to this place?” The words were soft, but dangerous as any thunderstorm brewing behind dark clouds. “I will not allow my lands to be at risk, nor allow my uncle to participate in something immoral. No matter what it is, I will not avoid the fight. Do not think to shelter me.”
“I beg your pardon?” The ground had shifted quickly beneath him. He stepped back to find the steadiness of the cobblestones again—only it didn’t feel as though anything beneath his feet had solidified.
“You are more than a man who simply works for business gentlemen.” The night hid the color of her eyes, but not the fierce expression on her face. “I saw you on the ship. Your knife, the pistol—the watchman. Did you kill him?”
He opened his mouth, closed it. Knifing was not polite conversation. Then, “Probably not, if he receives medical care. I’ve sustained worse.”
“That is something.” She gripped his coat, pulled him closer. “Who are you? Mercenary? Soldier?”
He shook his head, casting around for an excuse. A cover.
“Spy?”
He jerked, his body moving of its own volition.
“Ah.” Full lips tipped up in satisfaction. A faint glow from a corner gas light shone over her features. She stepped forward so the space between them was no wider than the layers of cloak and coat. Her gloved hand settled on his cheek and a soft expression moved over her face. “I see.”
“My lady,” he said. “I could not tell you.”
…
“I suppose not.” Facts fell into place as the truth became clearer to her, each piece fitting together to form a single mosaic.
“You must not tell anyone, either.” His face tightened into grim lines. “There is more at stake than you know. Some of which I can tell you, but much I cannot.”
So serious, this spy, and so full of honor. Her hand dropped away but she moved even closer, suddenly craving the heat and scent of him now that the pieces of him were in place.
“I trust you, Jones.” She tipped her face up, wanting his lips to take hers. Willing them to. This tight, unbearable sensation in her belly would surely break her if he did not kiss her again.
But he didn’t. Only the London night air touched her lips, cold and quiet. His gaze fastened on hers as though committing the shape and color of her eyes to his memory. He stepped away from her in a sudden, decisive movement, his hands coming up as though warding her off.
“Forgive me.” The words were a whisper from his lips, snatched by the wind a moment later. “I should not have kissed you earlier.”
“There’s no need for forgiveness.” She looked down at her own hands, rubbed a finger over the small, neat stitches of a glove seam. She felt much less ordered than those stitches, as though someone had plucked at her and pulled her out of the prearranged line. Breathing deep, she looked up again at those dark, dark eyes. “I wanted it.”
It was truth. A truth she should not say, but the words could not be stopped. Something inside her had soared when he’d kissed her, and another part had become golden and warm and liquid—more, though, was a place inside her heart that had bloomed.
“I still want it, Jones.”
He was quiet for a long moment, in which time became darkness and yearning and chilled rain. “It cannot be, my lady,” he finally whispered.
“No. It cannot.” She was constrained by class and duty even for something so small as a kiss. Chained by them, with the chains of duty forged in tradition. Whatever Jones and his kisses had given life to inside her could not withstand law and custom and her father’s trust. “But I wish it could be.”
Jones said nothing, the planes of his face smoothing out until he became unreadable to her. He held her gaze, conveying nothing that soothed and everything that raked at her heart. Then he turned away, eyes examining every nook of the street.
He led her out of the hidden doorway, taking her elbow to steady her over the doorstep. “Come, we’ll find a hackney.” He scanned the street, angled toward another—then stopped, his hand tightening on her elbow. “I cannot let you return alone.”
“What choice is there?” Bitterness edged each word. “If Wycomb didn’t recognize me and I don’t return, he will send an alarm and begin a search. It is impossible for me not to return.”
“If your uncle did recognize you?” He spoke as if he knew the answer and was waiting for her to arrive at it, his focus still on the concealing shadows around them.
Cat studied his profile. His nose was strong and straight, his mouth set in resolute lines. When he raised his hand to call a hackney, the muscles of his shoulders and back shifted beneath his jacket. The tight feeling in her belly grew, spreading through her body to warm her cheeks, her thighs. He was not as elegant and refined as the men of the ton, but there was no denying his masculinity or his strength.
She knew what she must do. Taking a deep breath, Cat lifted her head and tipped her chin high. “There is only one way to find out.”
“So there is.”
A moment later they were bundled into a hackney together, he on one seat and she on the other. Their need to taste each other—and the inability to do so—sat squarely between them.
They didn’t speak as the carriage made its way to Park Lane, but she was conscious of every shift of his body, every soft breath. His gaze nearly pinned her to the carriage cushion, dark and sharp and as corporeal as the rest of him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she finally whispered.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but it makes me—”
“You haunt me, my lady. Everything about you, but most especially your eyes.” Even as his sentence trailed off, he pressed his lips together. “Forgive me. I should not have spoken.”
Her eyes. How strange. Unsure what he meant, she looked away and down at her hands, resting quietly in her lap. The supple, tan kidskin was pale against the dark cloak surrounding her.
“I will not let you enter Worthington House alone, my lady. You may need protection.”
“How can you—”
“The same way I entered your uncle’s study. It’s past sunset and approaching night. If I am quick, I will be able to enter and exit with no one the wiser.”
“And myself?” Her fingers flinched. “My uncle had planned to meet us later at a ball, after an appointment, though I suppose we know what appointment now.”
“Yes.” A wry half smile moved his lips.
“Aunt Essie will be expecting me to—oh no.” She rubbed her temples, knives and pistols fighting with gowns and curling tongs in her mind.
“What?”
“I’m late. Considerably.” Cat puffed out a breath. The carriage began to slow, and her panic to rise. “She’ll want to know where I’ve been.”
“Lie,” he answered brusquely. “Feign illness, as you did before, so that you do not go out into the ton tonight. Go to your room to rest—then, we wait.”
“For Wycomb to come for me?” To beat her, perhaps. Or kill her. Terror wove through her, though she struggled to force it out.
Until Jones spoke and the terror lodged in her chest.
“Yes.”
Jones stayed in the carriage as she descended the steps, quickly so Brown would not see who was inside. She heard Jones thump the ceiling of the carriage and the hackney moved off.
Cat swept up the steps, chin held high. She was the lady of the house, after all. Even if her insides were swirling and twisting with need for Jones and fear of Wycomb.
Aunt Essie was hovering in the hall, white hair piled high and dressed in a frilled evening gown.
“Oh, Mary Elizabeth. I was so worried!” Warm, plump arms encircled Cat, the closest to home and mother Cat could remember for some time. “Where have you been?”
“I was out. I’m not feeling well, Essie.” Cat set her hand on her aunt’s cheek. “I went for a walk and started feeling sick, ’tis all. I’ll be well enough tomorrow, I promise.”
“What of the ball?” Essie drew back, looked at Cat—and her eyes narrowed. “Very well. When my brother arrives to meet us, I shall tell him you took ill. But be careful, dear. He is not patient or forgiving.”
So Cat knew, given the pistols aimed at her that night.