Chapter Two
Malmo, Sweden, 1924
Bobbie had been up for the past two days. Given that it was light all night at this time of the year in this region of Sweden, that wasn’t a tremendous problem. She urged her sled dogs onward, hoping to get to the cave in time.
There had been rumours of a Viking warlord back from the dead, and while Bobbie didn’t believe that local superstition, she wanted to find his burial site before William Calls-Himself-An-Antiquarian Petrie. Of course, the blasted fool had heard she was headed for Scandinavia and hastened on her trail. He had guessed what she was looking for, despite his profound lack of research or understanding of this entire area. That was him all over, though.
She had to get there first. An intact Viking chieftain burial site had never been discovered at this latitude, and conventional sources claimed they never lived this far north, but Bobbie was convinced it wasn’t true.
The dogs slowed to a halt as she reached the coastline, where snow became pebble beach, and she climbed off the back of the dogsled then continued on foot. There was a cave in the distance, about quarter of a mile away, and she had high hopes that it was the final resting place of Thorgar the Bloody. Thorgar the Bloody Awkward, more like, being buried this far north.
Picking her way across flat stones and trying her best to avoid rock pools, Bobbie made it to the cave and paused. The sound of absolute silence filled her ears. It was wonderful. Such a world away from the hustle and bustle of Cairo. As snow began to tumble from the sky outside, merging the white ground and clouds even more than before, she hurriedly pulled a paraffin lamp out of her kit bag and lit it. It was a little feeble, but it illuminated the cave well enough.
Sand crunched beneath her shoes as Bobbie walked further into the cave. It seemed to go on for so long, it might have led to the depths of hell. All the descriptions claimed the nether world was hot, though, and this place was damp and chilly, so probably not.
Suddenly, a strange howling filled her ears, and Bobbie jumped in fright. Embarrassed, she realized it was only the wind, and she tried to pull herself together. The lack of sleep must have had more of an effect on her than she’d thought, for she usually had nerves of iron in the face of anything unusual. Luckily, she was alone out here, so nobody saw her startle.
This deep into the cave, there were markings on the wall. Holding up the paraffin lamp, Bobbie stared at them, trying to make sense of the straight lines arranged in differing shapes, then realized with some excitement that they were runes. Runes! In the north of Sweden! In a cave! She pulled out her field notebook and began scribbling down the shapes she saw. She could read Old Norse, but she forewent the translation right now, deciding it was far more important to get a record of what she’d found.
Not long after she’d finished jotting the runes down, she heard another sound: crunching footsteps. She wasn’t alone. Patting her thigh to remind herself about the revolver, she stiffened and hastened further into the cave. It split into a fork, and she heard rushing water from one path. Choosing the other one, she continued on, hoping to find a good hiding place so she could catch Petrie unawares. The footsteps were measured, rhythmic, as they continued to follow her, and it was only when she looked down that she realized her own footprints would have been visible in the sand all the way to where she was standing, pressed against the cold cave wall.
Whatever injuries she’d imagined doing to him as she came to terms with her fury at his behaviour in Egypt, they all flew out of her mind. Now that she had the opportunity to confront him head on, she decided it would be nicer not to enter into this with her guns blazing.
The footsteps stopped. Bobbie held her breath, hoping Petrie would continue onward to try to make the discovery. When she heard the footsteps resume, she stepped out, intending to follow him and knock him out, but she was out of luck.
Someone grabbed her from behind, and then she realized the footsteps had been coming from the other direction. He’d got the jump on her good and proper. Struggling against the arms that held her, she tried to bite any part of his body, but her position wasn’t quite right.
“This is a wee bit outside your normal stomping ground,” a Scottish voice murmured silkily into her ear. She stiffened then redoubled her efforts to break free, determined that he wouldn’t take her home this time when she was so close to finding her Viking burial.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Taking you home again.”
“No. I won’t allow it. I need to find Thorgar the Bloody.”
“There’s a very well-equipped bunch of chaps who will make mincemeat of you if they catch you here, and they’re headed this way,” Sean told her.
“William Petrie?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. Then it occurred to her that he probably worked for the obnoxious fraudster.
“I dinnae care.” He flipped her around easily and before she knew what was happening, he had bound her arms and legs. Putting her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing, he walked back to the fork in the cave, then the rushing water sound got louder. In the distance, she heard voices echoing down the cave’s tunnels.
“You were right!” she whispered in disbelief.
“Aye.” He put her on the ground and she realized she was surrounded by old kegs. Apparently, there had been some smuggling going on, because when Sean lifted one of the lids, the barrel was filled with large guns. Bobbie gasped.
“The men that are coming… is this why?” she asked.
Sean nodded grimly as he emptied the barrel. He gagged her with a rag and she harrumphed.
“Right, in you go,” he said, then picked her up and put her into the barrel. Before she said anything else, he had stuffed the lid on tight. In the complete darkness, she tried to breathe quietly, assuming his plan was to hide her.
A moment later, the barrel was on the move, and Bobbie was very disoriented as it rolled over and over, then she squeaked in horror as it felt like she was falling in the air. She hit water. Nothing else would make the barrel sink then pop up again, bobbing from side to side. Furiously, she wondered how long she would have to endure this, as the barrel wobbled and bobbed, throwing her this way and that. Bound and gagged, Bobbie was unable to call for help or even shift her weight properly to avoid being bumped and jostled by the hard wood of the keg.
Was it a cask or a casket? She wasn’t sure how long a person could stay sealed inside a barrel before they ran out of air. Trying her best not to panic, she gave herself over to the fact that she was utterly out of control, as the ropes held her tightly in place at the lowest point of the barrel.
After what felt like forever, the barrel seemed to stop being at the mercy of the water. Then, a scraping sound and daylight streamed in from the lid. Bobbie blinked as her eyes adjusted, then tried to focus on the man whose face looked down at her.
“Good ride?” The irritating Scotsman didn’t know when to give over. Bobbie merely glared at him, unable to answer, and waited for him to lift her out. “Perhaps I should leave you in there all the way to Stockholm; it might give you pause to think about taking a safer course of action in the future,” he mused.
She couldn’t reply, but she quickly stopped glaring. Smugglers… they probably would have done awful things with a young society woman. She’d heard of men kidnapping women of her station then demanding exorbitant amounts of money for their safe return. And that was the tip of the iceberg. Like it or not, this time, the interfering Scot had definitely saved her life.
* * *
When Sean had trailed Bobbie on her latest mishap, he had intended to at least let her make her discovery before returning her to Britain. It wouldn’t have hurt to let her complete this trip, and he thought it might make it easier for her to accept the return to her parents once more.
However, her dogsled had barely stopped at the edge of the snow, his not far behind, when he had seen a big party of men on the horizon. They could have been another antiquarian and entourage, but whoever they were, they looked like trouble, and Sean wasn’t sure they would appreciate finding a precocious young woman here. He saw at least eight dog sleds, and the tall, thin tubes sticking up behind the men’s backs, silhouetted against the white snow, made it obvious they carried rifles.
It didn’t take much poking around in some barrels beside the underground stream to discover that this cave was being used for gun running. He’d seen their type before, when he was on the front line, and he hated gun runners. The corporal in charge of the stores had been doing a roaring trade selling rifles to the Germans secretly, until he’d been caught and court-martialled, and it made Sean angry to consider how many of his team had been shot with British guns because one man had wanted to get rich quick.
Gun running was often carried out by unpleasant men with no compassion or thought for others, and Sean didn’t know what he’d do if it came to a confrontation. They were the sort of men who would do all sorts of awful things if they caught Bobbie, an English heiress. He didn’t want to kill anyone in front of Bobbie but if the situation called for it, he wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever he had to if it kept Bobbie safe.
He sneaked away from the barrels, and caught Bobbie unawares. His first plan had been to get her out of the main entrance, where they could hide until the men were done, but suddenly there was no time, so he bundled her out in a barrel instead. It was less risky than being found here by arms smugglers.
Tying her up and fastening a gag around her head had made his cock stir. He contemplated why he found it so arousing to have Bobbie completely helpless, but he couldn’t make sense of it. He pushed those thoughts down, hoping they would never resurface.
He got her out of the floating wooden container as soon as it was safe. As he helped her stand, he expected her to be indignant, but she surprised him.
“Thanks awfully.” She spoke without a hint of sarcasm, which was surprising. She might have been incapable of understanding her role in life, but she had a strong sense of decency, and was sporting enough to know when she had lost… Sean arrested his train of thought as he realised he was appraising her as a potential wife.
She was hot, sure, but he didn’t want to let himself think about her that way. He was just the bodyguard, and he answered to her parents. His mission was to keep her safe at all costs, nothing more. He had a job to do, and while they weren’t exactly the prince and the pauper, his lack of a continuous income, enough properties, or any titles placed her firmly above his sights. No, he should just be happy with some local lassie. Bobbie Huntingdon-Smythe was the very definition of ideas above his station. He needed to get her home again before he made any mistakes that might call his intentions into question. It would be poor taste if he repaid her parents’ generous salary by courting Bobbie, and it would only lead to heartbreak at some point in the future when they would inevitably have to break it off in order for her to marry someone more appropriately matched.
Perhaps, if she ran away again, it would be best if someone else were left with the task of her retrieval. But Sean knew the sort of trouble she landed herself into on a regular basis. Would anyone else be capable of protecting her like he was? What would any other man have done in the cave? He was willing to bet his life that it would be hard to find anyone else who would have gotten her out of there safely.
“Young lass, I don’t want to have to come and rescue you again,” he lectured, in a poor attempt to drown out the crazy part of his brain that persistently told him they might be able to make it work, that things were changing compared to seven or eight years ago, that shoemakers married princesses these days… but he knew what her family were like. Distant with those beneath them. He could spend every day at her side, but an invisible wall would always separate them.
“Then stay in Scotland, next time,” she retorted. All right, so his tone had been harsher than it ought to have been, but it still burned to hear her say she didn’t want him here.
* * *
Oxford, England, 1925
“And then, he put me in a barrel, sealed the lid, and sent it down the river,” Bobbie finished, then took another sip of her beer. The incident in Sweden had been almost six months ago, and she’d kept a low profile ever since, with the intention of fooling everyone around her into thinking she was hanging up her party shoes.
“In a barrel? It sounds so unlikely…” Her drinking companion was an interesting chap but he did seem somewhat sceptical of a lot of things. Bobbie pegged him as some sort of academic historian.
“Yes, it was utterly preposterous,” she agreed.
“Hmm… but, I say… it would rather solve this corner I’ve written myself into. I was writing a story, you see. Just a trifling matter; nothing’s really fleshed out yet. And anyway, all the characters got stuck somewhere…”
“One chap has to stay outside, to make sure the barrels get into the water and back out again,” she noted. “So he’d have to be a jolly good swimmer.”
“Or good at putting up with ignominious situations,” the fellow mused.
“Anyway, I’m getting quite ahead of myself. Bobbie Huntingdon-Smythe. And you are?” She proffered a hand.
“Tolkien,” he replied, with no further elaboration.
Bobbie shook his hand then finished her pint. “Anyway, must dash. Next on the map is Bangkok.”
As she got to her feet, she noticed a long shadow in the corner of the pub; a little darker than the other shadows, and less well-defined. The sort of shadow that might have been a trick of the light, or it may have been someone dressed in colours intended to help them blend into the scenery. She stared into the shadow for several seconds, trying to understand what it was, then shook her head, deciding that way lay madness, and headed for Oxford train station. The Scot couldn’t possibly have been trailing her for the last however many weeks. He’d have to lack any hobbies or interests whatsoever.