“I sense a but,” Eliza said, hoping to be wrong.
“You aren’t going to be the one married off to Percival.”
Eliza stood, the pieces of the puzzle becoming clearer. “Over my dead body will they be taking Gabriella for their sick purposes.”
*
Before the next hour was out, forty-five men had snuck in and then out of Germaine’s townhouse and made their separate ways to the filthy docks. Anthony, it seemed, had contacts with the Bow Street runners and Trelissick had men of his own to call in. They made a ragtag crew of mostly misfits, sailors, soldiers and men paid to uphold what little law they could.
The plan was simple. James and Darius were to take a handful of men and try to determine how many opponents they would face aboard the Persephone, if indeed the vessel could be found. Once this was determined, they would then steal onto the ship and take control.
It sounded so easy in Darius’s mind. He knew it wouldn’t be. Impatience bit at his heels and made him want to run straight into the fight. But he was a captain and not a pirate, not anymore. He’d reined in the majority of his impulsiveness the day Deklin Montrose had handed him a ship to call his own.
“Five more on the starboard side by my count,” Marcus whispered, crouching next to him in the dark behind an enormous shipping crate.
Darius turned to Trelissick. “That makes only fifteen above deck.”
Trelissick agreed with a nod. “The dock master reported fifty or so had filed off some three hours ago and have not returned. He thinks he overheard one sailor say they wouldn’t be back until the wee hours of the morning.”
Darius sure hoped so. Twenty-odd men they could handle. Close to one hundred and they would be hopelessly outnumbered. His original plan had comprised only two men: he and Marcus, on a mission of stealth and murder, but Germaine wouldn’t hear it. He’d sounded rather like Eliza, who liked to point out the flaws in his plans and how ill equipped he was to carry them out. God, he already missed the way she questioned his battle prowess. Had it been a fellow, he would have knocked him on his arse for unmanning him, but with her, it had become almost endearing, in a frustrating sort of way.
Darius had argued with Germaine and Trelissick but no one wanted to listen to him. The only one thing all the men could agree on was that the women and children had to be their priority. Darius and his men would die trying to save them. Not a one would like to live with themselves if something went tragically wrong.
Germaine had been the only man to stay behind since his ankle still pained him so much. If they all died, he would tell their story to a journalist, to a gossipmonger, and then to the Regent. Anyone who would listen would be his first target if they didn’t arrive back at his home.
“So, what now?” Trelissick asked, pulling the lapels of his coat closer around his neck. His eyes seemed to search the darkness, probably for Daniella. His pregnant wife was to keep a safe distance away and shoot anyone who tried to leave the ship before the battle died down.
“You’re the army man, what do you think?” Darius only wanted to rush in with guns blazing and sharpened steel slicing through the blackguards.
Trelissick was saved a response when Marcus slashed a hand through the air for quiet. On the almost empty decks, now bobbed five lanterns held aloft by another five sailors that they hadn’t accounted for. The unmistakable figure of Wickham stood in the middle of a pool of light, conversing with a tall thin man who was accompanied by a hooded figure, shorter in stature and plumper in size although that could have been the cloak. A fine drizzle began to fall and Darius had to squint his eyes to try to make out if any more sailors stood beyond the lanterns. It was too difficult to see that far in the drizzling sleet.
As the seven newcomers gained the plank, Darius, Trelissick and Marcus shrank back further into the shadows. It seemed the lantern bearers weren’t sailors at all but were with the two strangers, and one carried a decided limp as he nearly overbalanced and fell. At once Darius recognised the fellow as the one who had been shot, one of the ones who had taken Eliza from him.
Carriage wheels pierced the night’s silence, drowning out the creaking of ships along the dockside and farther out on the water. Darius thought for a moment that they would be discovered but the carriage stopped and blocked their position. The murmur of voices came closer and then the carriage rocked. He strained to hear what was being said but then wished he hadn’t.
A man’s voice came first. “That man is an ass.”
Surprisingly, a woman’s voice followed, soft, alluring, controlled. “He has been instrumental in the past months, my love.”
“And now?” The carriage rocked again. “What say you, Mr Smith?”
A pregnant pause. “Now he has gone too far.”
As the lantern light reached the inside of the carriage, Darius could make out a couple in a lover’s embrace silhouetted against the thin curtains and clean windows.
The two kissed until the woman pushed him away. “Not here, Frederick. I want to be gone from this odious situation before that fool sinks us all into ruin.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Another pause and then a tinkle of laughter as the woman pulled the man back towards her. “Set fire to the ship. I want nothing left, no witnesses, no loose tongues or talk of any kind is to make it off those decks.”
“And the children?”
“Unfortunate casualties of this war, I’m afraid. They have nothing left now anyway. With their father gone, and then their guardian, they’ll finish up in a workhouse. They’d be better off dead.”
The man seemed to consider the