Brian and his accomplices stopped just to the right of the house at the very end of the lane. It looked an unremarkable building, with a narrow door, a window on the ground floor, and another above, beneath a sloping red-tiled roof.
Brian and the burly man were conferring, their backs to the street. Phoebe darted into the doorway of the house directly opposite where they were standing. She looked up at the window of the house and her heart did a swallow dive. Cato stood there. He was looking down but he wouldn’t see Brian and his fellows, who were pressed against the wall to either side of the door.
Would he see her if she gestured? No, how could he? Phoebe chewed her lip, conscious of her helplessness, and yet every muscle strained to seize whatever opportunity arose.
The door behind her was closed. A flowerpot bursting with geraniums stood on the windowsill beside the door. Phoebe reached around and took possession of the flowerpot. They were very pretty geraniums, pink and white striped.
She held the pot between her hands, took a deep breath, and hurled it up and across the narrow street. It fell short of the window but smashed against the stone in a discordant clatter, with shards of earthenware, black earth, and striped flowers cascading to the ground.
For a moment there was confusion. Brian and his men jumped instinctively as if they were under fire. Cato disappeared from the window. Phoebe hurled herself out of the doorway and dived under a bush at the side of the building.
“Sounds like trouble,” Walter Strickland observed in the tone of one accustomed to such inconveniences. He moved to the fireplace. “There’s a way out here.”
“No,” said Cato, making for the door.
“Man, don’t be foolhardy! What if there’s an ambush on the street?” Strickland protested.
“Maybe there is,” Cato agreed grimly. “But that’s not all that’s down there.” He drew his pistols from his belt. “Are you with me?”
Strickland looked at him in puzzlement for a moment, then shrugged. “Of course.” He drew his sword and headed for the stairs. “I’m accustomed to rather more clandestine operations,” he observed cheerfully at the head of the stairs. “I suppose you don’t care to tell me what we’re facing?”
“Apart from my wife, I can only guess, my friend,” Cato said and jumped ahead of him onto the stairs. “But at least we’ve been warned.”
Strickland shook his head in even greater puzzlement. Granville seemed to be talking in riddles. He followed, however, raising his sword. Scraps didn’t come in an agent’s way too often, but he was not averse once in a while.
They broke into the sunlit morning. Cato’s eyes met Brian’s. Cold and hard over a leveled pistol. Cato read murder in his stepson’s clear gaze and he knew that he had underestimated him. There was much more to Brian’s ambitions than politics. He and he alone was Brian’s target on this Rotterdam street. The shot came in the very instant Cato understood his stepson’s intent. Cato whirled sideways with battlefield instinct, and the ball whistled over his shoulder, embedding itself into the soft wood of the doorjamb at his back.
Cato himself had hesitated to fire. His finger was on the trigger, his aim steady as he’d looked down the barrel of Brian’s weapon, and yet against every soldier’s instinct, some deep sense of moral obligation had held his hand. But Brian had shot to kill. And now Cato was aware only of a cold determination to overcome an enemy. And there were five of them. Of Phoebe there was no sign, for which he offered a prayer of thanks. He-had to hope that wherever she was now, she would have the sense to stay there.
He swung sideways and fired both pistols at the two men who were grappling with Strickland. One of them went down with a shriek of pain, and Strickland shook himself free of the other rather like a dog ridding himself of water and jumped sideways, sword slashing.
One down. Four against two. Cato was aware of the odds even as he forced himself to forget that his adopted son and heir was intending to kill him. He cast aside his now useless pistols and drew his sword.
Phoebe was still crouched beneath the bush. She had realized belatedly that it was a hawthorn bush, and her back felt like a porcupine’s as the wicked thorns pricked with every shallow breath she took. The jarring slam and crash of steel on steel assailed her ears, but she could see little of what was happening. However, she knew the odds had to be against Cato. A boot she knew was not Cato’s pranced within her grasp. She lunged and grabbed it with both hands. Its owner went down with a yell of astounded outrage.
Emboldened, Phoebe wormed her way out of the shelter of the bush. She had lost the cabin boy’s cap in her first dive beneath the thorns, and her braids were uncoiling onto her shoulders, but her appearance was the least of her concerns now. Her anxious gaze sought Cato.
There was blood on the lane, which was now empty of all but the seven men and Phoebe. The inhabitants of the street of the cobblers had made themselves scarce at the first pistol shot.
The man Phoebe had pulled down scrambled to his feet and saw her. He leaped for her. Phoebe jumped sideways. Cato’s sword slashed, catching the man’s forearm. Phoebe saw Cato’s eyes, dark, brilliant, utterly intimidating as they seemed to look straight through her. She ducked and raced for the far side of the alley.
A hand grabbed her, dragged her back hurtfully, yanking her arm up behind her back so that she bit back a scream of pain.
And then everything stopped.
Cato dropped his swordpoint. Walter Strickland remained where he was, his own swordpoint poised.
Brian Morse hauled Phoebe closer against him, and her bent arm shrieked in agony. She closed her lips and stared at the ground, fighting the welling tears.
“Well, well,” Brian murmured, his free hand twisting into her loosened braids. This wasn’t what he would have chosen, but a man accepted opportunities as they arose. There were other women as enticing as the ramshackle Phoebe. Plenty of them, ready and willing to lie down for the new marquis of Granville.
He gave a short laugh. “Talk about where angels fear to tread! Really, Phoebe, one can’t help but pity your husband.”
He raised his eyes and looked with naked triumph at Cato “Drop your sword, my lord.” His voice was soft and smooth as he brought up his dagger, laying its edge against Phoebe’s throat. “And yours, Mr. Strickland.” He smiled at the agent. “I’m certain Lord Granville will accede to my request.”
Walter Strickland glanced at Cato. Lord Granville’s expression was carved in ice. Strickland’s glance asked a question, but it received no answer and the agent remained with his swordpoint raised.
“Come, sir,” Brian cajoled as the edge of his dagger pressed against Phoebe’s throat. “Lay down your weapons or she dies… right now.” He turned the dagger slightly so that she could feel the cutting edge rasp against the tender underside of her chin.
Phoebe raised her eyes and met Cato’s bleak gaze. Fear shivered down her spine, crawled over her scalp. The knife at her throat pressed harder and she knew with chill, despairing certainty that she was going to die… that Cato was not going to save her. She had forced herself into the middle of his mission, and Cato would permit nothing and no one to come between himself and his duty. She had always known it.
Brian repeated, “Lay down your arms, my lord.”
Cato regarded Phoebe with a blank stare. It seemed he was looking right through her.
“You’re more of a fool than I thought you, Brian,” Cato said harshly. “I’ve no time for sentiment. I hadn’t with your mother. Why should I have with this meddlesome chit?” He spun around, his sword catching the light as it cut, breaking the momentary spell of inaction.
The movement was so sudden, the sentiment so harshly surprising that Brian’s attention wavered for an instant. Phoebe kicked up and back at the same moment she drove her free elbow into the pit of Brian’s belly. As he bent forward, gasping with the nauseating pain wrenching his groin and stomach, she sank her teeth into the hand that now wavered at her throat.
His hold slackened and she spun away from him, delivering an almighty kick to his thigh as she went.
Cato caught her, threw her sideways out of the fray, and went for Brian. He was filled with a cold fury that had only one target. There was no room in Cato’s soul now for compassion, for remorse, for family ties. He would kill the man who had come within a breath of killing Phoebe.
Phoebe had been thrown to her knees by the side of the lane. She dragged herself to her feet, her eyes taking in the scene. Cato was fighting Brian. Cato’s friend was hard pressed by the others. A knife lay in the gutter. Phoebe picked it up, closed her eyes, and plunged it downward in the general direction of one of Walter Strickland’s assailants. It met the resistance of clothing and the flesh beneath, before penetrating the man’s shoulder.
He dropped his sword to the cobbles with a vile curse and Phoebe jumped back, leaving the knife sticking up from his back. She bent and picked up the dropped sword, holding the heavy blade effortfully with two hands clasped around the hilt. She had no idea whether she could wield it to any purpose, but she felt more useful holding it. Behind her she could hear the clash of swords as Cato’s advance inexorably forced Brian back towards the wall of the house.
Cato was a better swordsman than Brian, and on an even field the younger man had not a chance. Brian knew it. His eyes grew wild as he searched for an advantage that would overcome his stepfather’s greater skill. Only his accomplices could give it to him, but his bellows for assistance fell on deaf ears. He saw Cato’s eyes. Black as agate. Pitiless as they’d never been before. And Brian knew he was lost.
When Cato’s sword slid beneath his arm as easily as a knife through butter, Brian sighed almost with relief that it was over. He fell to one knee and then slowly dropped in a fetal curl to the ground.
The two men left standing took one glance and then with an almost comical gesture of resignation backed off and melted into the passage alongside the house, leaving their wounded comrades to fend for themselves. Unseen eyes from every window along the street watched the battleground.
Cato, his gaze unreadable, stood looking down at Brian Morse.
“Is he dead?” Phoebe asked, breathless, still hefting the great sword between both hands.
“Not quite.” Cato sheathed his bloody sword. He looked her over, a swift appraising glance. He tilted her chin and examined the skin where Brian’s knife had pressed, then he nodded as if satisfied.
“Give me that.” He took the weapon from her and walked over to the other wounded men. He regarded them unspeaking for a moment, then turned to Strickland, who was sheathing his own sword. “All well?”
“Aye,” Strickland said. “But I didn’t fancy the odds, I have to say.” He looked curiously at Phoebe, who still stood beside Brian, unsure what to say or do next. A faint grin quirked Strickland’s firm mouth. “Although they seemed to even up a little,” he added.
Cato offered no comment. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We’ll have the entire town around our ears soon.” He crooked a commanding finger in Phoebe’s direction. “Come.”
Phoebe came slowly. “Will you leave Brian?”
“I’ll not kill him if I haven’t already done so,” Cato replied. “Now come.”
The curt tone was not reassuring but Phoebe could not imagine ever being reassured by Cato again. She glanced once more at the wounded men. The street was still deserted. She could see no one but she could sense many eyes upon them.
Cato put a hand in the small of her back, urging her forward, and Phoebe, bewildered and unhappy, obeyed the pressure because she could see no alternative.
“So, who’s this?” Walter Strickland inquired, wiping his dagger on the side of his thigh. He regarded Phoebe with a degree of fascination.
“Would you believe-my wife?” Cato inquired, removing a thorn sticking out from the back of Phoebe’s jerkin.
“No,” Strickland said frankly. He examined her closely and Phoebe felt her color mount.
“Then believe it, my friend.” Cato took a fold of the jerkin between finger and thumb. “This is the most disgusting article. Where did you get it?”
“I have to give it back,” Phoebe said dully. “I only gave him a sovereign for it. And I seem to have lost the cap.”
“That wasn’t an answer to my question,” Cato commented aridly, “but I suppose I’ll make sense of it all at some point.” He shook his head with an air of mock dismay. “Is that one of my shirts you’re wearing under that revolting jerkin?”
Phoebe was too confused by this sudden change of tone to reply. He sounded amused, the curtness of a moment ago vanished. She could detect no anger in his expression, but no gratitude for her intervention either. She could make no sense of anything except the simple fact of Cato’s safety; it was all that mattered.
