Her scoff was adorable as she lifted her skirts and led the way. Her slippers were soundless as she headed back up the way she’d come down, slipping off the stone staircase and onto a narrow dirt path that led along the cliff’s edge near the top of the stairs.
She paused to ascertain he’d kept up with her brisk pace—he had—and the two of them moved silently until they reached the area where the bushes rustled and low, indecipherable noises sporadically sounded.
She paused beside it and gave him a nod, a silent order if he’d ever seen one.
His little warrior was a commander in her own right. He smirked to himself. He’d been the captain of his own ship for more years than he could count, but he had no qualms at all about sharing that power so long as his co-captain was a brilliant spitfire with nerves of steel.
Which she was.
This much was obvious when she braced herself right beside him as he tore aside the brush that covered their culprit and...his lass.
A boy of no more than fifteen, if that. And the girl, who looked to be a serving wench, was just as young, her eyes wide with horror at having been caught.
Minerva gasped. “Eddleston?”
The boy blinked, his cheeks growing mottled and red as he gallantly shifted to hide the young lady he’d clearly been kissing. “Yes, miss.” His chin was held high and it took everything in Marcus not to laugh at the poor boy who was no doubt shaking in his boots at having been caught in the midst of a dalliance by his commanding officer’s daughter.
He glanced over at Minerva whose look of shock had faded into a frown. “So this was why you snuck out of the party.”
The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yes, miss.”
She glanced at Marcus askance and he shrugged. “You could not have known.”
She gave a little huff, her lower lip slipping forward in a pout that made him want to kiss her just as thoroughly as poor Eddleston here had been kissing this still-mute girl.
“Ah well,” he said, placing a hand on Minerva’s arm. “We shall still find our man—”
“But the other night,” Minerva interrupted, speaking more to herself, it seemed, than anyone else. “It fit perfectly.”
Eddleston and the girl peering over his shoulder behind him glanced at Marcus as if he might be able to explain.
He could not.
“What do you mean, Min?”
She planted her hands on her hips. “You were the one to see me go into the caves,” she said to Eddleston. “You sounded the alarm.” Suspicion was clear in her expression. “I suppose you were out here cavorting that night as well, hmm? Abandoning your watch to meet with a girl, were you?”
Eddleston shook his head quickly, his eyes so wide and panicked Marcus almost pitied the fellow.
Minerva sounded like a commander, and the thought had pride stirring in his chest, though it surely wasn’t his right. She was her own person and no one else could take the credit for her confidence and bearing. Not even her father.
He tilted his head as he studied her profile. There it was again. That nagging sense that she reminded him of someone. Before he could take the thought any further, Eddleston finally spoke up for himself. “N-no, ma’am,” he said, his hands clenching together beseechingly. “I didn’t abandon my watch, I swear it. Please don’t tell your father that, miss.”
Marcus winced. The boy was mistaken if he feared the captain more than the captain’s daughter. But he’d let the boy figure that out.
“I didn’t even see you that night, miss,” Eddleston continued. “I wasn’t the one who raised the alarm.”
Minerva didn’t so much as blink, but he felt her tense beside him. This was what she’d been after, he realized. Clever girl; she knew how to get the information she wanted. “It wasn’t you who spotted me?” she asked, her voice taut and her body too still beside him.
He shook his head quickly again. “No, ma’am.”
Marcus brought a hand to her back, a silent support as she asked her next question. “Then who raised the alarm, Officer?”
Eddleston blinked. “Why, Lieutenant Wessex, of course.”
“Roger.” The name slipped out on her exhale, and Marcus and the two young ones watched her closely. When it became clear that he’d lost her to her racing thoughts, he waved a hand toward the others. “Begone with you. And don’t tell anyone what you saw out here.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Eddleston grabbed his young lady’s hand and tugged her behind him back toward the main road.
He swung back to Minerva whose lips were pinched, her gaze distant as she asked, “Why would he lie?”
“Who?” Marcus stepped in front of her to take her cold hands in his. “Eddleston? I don’t believe he was lying, if that’s any help—”
“No, no,” she interrupted. “Not Eddleston. Roger.” She leaned in toward him and the sweet floral scent of her had him frowning as he attempted to focus. “Lieutenant Wessex,” she clarified. “He was the first one who arrived, and he walked me home that night.”
Marcus drew in a deep breath as he filled in the missing pieces. “And it was he who told you that Eddleston had spotted you. That Eddleston had raised the alarm.”
She nodded quickly, a flurry of emotions chasing across her face more quickly then he could read them.
“And this Roger fellow,” he said slowly. “Where is he now?”
Her gaze lifted to meet his and her eyes widened with more fear than he’d ever seen there before. “With Abigail.”
He moved forward, a surge of fear gripping his chest as she reached out to him, her fingers grasping at his arms as she battled terror.
“He’s with my sister. She was to keep him distracted for me, but if he’s the culprit—”
“Let’s go,” he said, already turning back to the cave. She gave a short nod, and he could all but see her tamping down her fears
