Shameless (22 page)

“I’ve no need of a ministering angel, thank you very much.”

“That’s fortunate, because I have no wish to be one. However, you must see that if you were to bleed to death or some such thing, the rest of us would be left in a pretty fix. We don’t know the way out.”

The smallest of smiles just touched his mouth.

“And here I was thinking you were worried about me.”

“Devil a bit,” Beth replied with far more cheer than she actually felt. “However, I have no wish at all to be trapped forever in this cave, which I fear we might be if you were to die.”

That brief shadow of a smile appeared again.

“I won’t die, I assure you. It’s the merest flesh wound”—with that he seemed to read something in her expression that caused his voice to become more forceful—“which I will see to myself when it suits me.”

“You may certainly do as you please, of course.”

Dropping his hand, he looked down at it. Beth followed his gaze to discover a dark stain that was certainly blood on his broad palm. He glanced up as if he felt her gaze on him, frowned as he met her eyes, and wiped his palm on the rock.

“Perhaps this would be a good time to ask if you have any idea who bears enough of a grudge against you to have arranged to have had you kidnapped?”

Beth folded her arms over her chest. “I’ve been thinking about that, believe me. The only possibility I can come up with is William. Lord Rosen.”

“Ah, your forcefully dispatched suitor. He certainly has to be a strong candidate. Tell me, are there many others who bear you a similar grudge?”

Beth’s eyes narrowed at him. “As I don’t usually go about knocking men unconscious, the answer would be
no
.”

“William stays at the head of the list, then.”

“Are you sure you don’t wish me to do something to try to stanch the bleeding? It seems foolish to do nothing.”

“Nonetheless, nothing is what you will do.”

Clearly, there was no more to be said.

“Fine.” She glanced around. “Shouldn’t we be moving on, then? Please tell me we don’t have to get back in that benighted boat to get out of here.”

“No, we must walk out, which should take about four or five hours. But for what remains of the night, while the hunt for us is white-hot above ground, I think we are best off staying where we are.
We can get some rest and move on in the morning, in the hopes that by the time we’re topside again, the search will have died down.”

“Would you mind just pointing in the direction in which we are to go, in case you should be insensible when the time comes?” Her voice was dry.

“Head due west, away from the sea, and keep bearing right.”

“Thank you. I am now much easier in my mind.”

“You shouldn’t be. Without me, you have no chance of finding the way out.”

Her expression must have been something to see, because he laughed, only to break off with a wince, which Beth found worrisome, although nothing would have induced her to admit it. Another thought had been troubling her, and though she was almost sure she knew the unhappy answer, she posed the question to him.

“Is there the least hope of getting help back to those poor girls still imprisoned in that terrible place?”

“Information can be laid with a magistrate and a constable can be sent back to do what he can. Of course, that’s after we reach some place that has a magistrate. We have no chance of going back that way ourselves, and I wouldn’t do it if I could.” Once again he must have been able to read the expression on Beth’s face, because his own tightened impatiently. “Don’t tease yourself about it, for God’s sake. Without your intervention, none of this lot would have escaped. I’d no notion of rescuing a bevy of troublesome females when I came after you, believe me.”

“You . . . came after me?” Beth looked at him in wary astonishment. Their eyes met. His mouth twisted. Once again he looked guilty, like a small boy caught out in a misdeed.

“I did, yes.” He must have seen the question in her face, because he continued after only the shortest of pauses, “Remember the payment you promised me for the signal service I performed for you in regards to the villainous William? Though I was admittedly a few days late, I appeared in Green Park at the appointed hour to collect. I encountered your maid, who was screeching to the four winds about your having
been abducted. As I had just seen a carriage bowling away at a surprisingly fast clip, I made the connection and followed it. After a long and arduous journey, the details of which I don’t propose to bore you with, I found the castle, and you. I was just waiting to liberate you with the least amount of commotion when you”—he hesitated and gave her another of those faint smiles—“precipitated events, as it were.”

“And just how were you planning to ‘liberate’ me?”

“By that time, I had secured enough funds to be fairly confident that I could cover your purchase price.”

“You were going to
buy
me?” For a moment additional words failed her. She thought of how frightened she had been, of what she had endured, of what she still would have had to endure once she’d been forced onto that stage. The ultimate horror might have been spared her, but . . .

“It seemed easiest.” His tone was apologetic.

“Not for me!”

“Possibly not.”

Beth had been doing more thinking. “So you were not there to . . . to . . . ?” Words failed her again.

“Despoil some unfortunate girl?” he supplied. When she nodded, he shook his head. “No, I was not.”

Beth frowned. “You went to a prodigious amount of trouble, and put yourself in extreme danger besides, to rescue me. Why did you not just immediately inform my family and have done?”

“Surely, if you will cast your mind back to how we met, you will appreciate why I might have been reluctant to approach your family. Making myself known to all and sundry is really not conducive to what I do.”

“Which is?”

“Any number of things,” he said. “Just be glad I came after you, my girl. You would have been in a sad case if I hadn’t.”

“Yes, I am aware of that, and I thank you most sincerely, but—”

“So, miss and yer worship, what’s to do now?” Mary called to them. Breaking off, Beth glanced her way. Mary was perched with Peg and Alyce on a clump of nearby rocks. All three were busy wringing
out their soaked skirts. Jane and Nan, fixed on more distant rocks, were doing the same. Dolly stood near them, combing her fingers through her wet hair.

“We take what remains of the night to rest, and then we walk out.” Neil raised his voice in answer. Beth got the impression that he was glad of the interruption. “We should be above ground again before dark tomorrow.”

“So long as it does not involve a boat,” Peg said. “I be game for anything. Anything else.”

The others shudderingly agreed.

“If you could keep silent about the very slight wound I seem to have suffered, I would appreciate it,” Neil said quietly to Beth. “The prospect of six more females fussing over me is more than I can bear.”

“I am not fussing over you.” Her brows snapped together. To her surprise, he handed her a candle, and she realized that he must have retrieved it from his pocket. “But your injury is certainly yours to reveal. Or not.”

“Thank you. Pray hold still.”

A spark flared in the darkness, and he used it to light the candle. She realized that he’d kept the flint and steel from the castle in his pocket, too.

“Praise be! A light!”

“Me feet feel like dead mackerels. Could we be ’avin’ a fire while we rest, d’ye think?”

“And what would we make it with?”

“Driftwood? Won’t there be some hereabouts?”

“Wouldn’t the smoke be seen?”

“We’ll catch our deaths, without.”

“Better to catch our deaths than to be taken again.”

“Oh,
aye
.” They all agreed.

While this conversation was going on, Neil touched another taper to the one Beth held. The wick caught. This candle, the one that he had used previously, she thought, he kept himself.

“There’s another chamber beyond this one. It once held firewood,
and lanterns, and trunks containing things such as changes of clothing and blankets, as well as other necessities. In case someone, for whatever reason, should wish to pass the night, or several nights.”

Tucking his boots under his arm, he stood up. Even with him in his stocking feet, her head just cleared the top of his shoulder, Beth realized. His height alone was enough to make him intimidating, to say nothing of his broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped build, or the steely muscularity of his body, or the sudden icy opaqueness that could drop over his eyes like a curtain when he was displeased—or the fact that he had just killed seven men without a qualm, and had broken into her brother-in-law’s house besides. As clearly dangerous as he was darkly handsome, he was the kind of man that any female in her right mind should be at pains to avoid. But she wasn’t afraid of him, not in the least, and he didn’t intimidate her either. As surprising as it was, there existed a kind of affinity between them that made her feel almost comfortable in his company.

“Almost” being the operative word.

“It served as a hideout, in fact,” Beth said, for his ears alone.

“Possibly.” As they started to move toward the others, he glanced down at her. “We must just hope it is empty tonight.”

“No doubt you could deal with whoever is in there if it isn’t,” she replied. “Just as handily as you dispatched all those men back there in the castle.”

“Just as handily as I killed them, you mean.” His voice turned silky as he faced the subject she skirted around. “But had I not, I would be dead now and your fate would be something that I am sure you would rather not contemplate.”

As they passed them, the others got to their feet and, talking amongst themselves, fell in behind them in a ragged procession.

“That is very true,” Beth admitted. “And once again I thank you for the rescue. But . . . ”

Her voice trailed off.

“Again with one of those troubled ‘but’s of yours. What is it?”

“You seem extremely skilled at killing.”

“I am skilled at any number of things.”

Out of nowhere, Beth remembered the kiss he had pressed on her. His lips had been warm and firm, and in retrospect really quite expert. Was that, perhaps, another of the things he considered himself skilled at? The thought was so bothersome that she was once again temporarily silenced.

A breath of fresh air made his candle flicker, and he put up a hand to shield it. The whisper of it on her face promised that somewhere ahead of them was indeed access to the outside. Shielding her own candle and lifting it high, Beth observed that they had reached another fissure in the granite wall of the cave. This one served as a door into an adjoining chamber, she saw as she followed him through it. Irregularly shaped, festooned in shadowy darkness, which the flickering candlelight barely penetrated, it had stalactites and stalagmites reaching toward each other like the teeth of a feral cat. The ceiling was lower and more rounded than the soaring cathedral peaks of the chamber they had just left. Shelves of flat stone that reminded her of agricultural terraces ascended partway up the walls. The ground was stone, worn smooth and almost shiny by the passage of many feet over the years. Trunks and barrels and stacks of firewood, amongst other miscellaneous items, were piled against one wall. Deep in the gloom at the far end of the chamber, the glint of moving water caught Beth’s gaze.

“Is that freshwater?” she asked, for the stickiness of drying salt on her skin had already begun to bother her.

“A spring-fed stream. ’Tis safe to drink. And if—just if, mind you—I should be insensible when the time comes, you may follow it all the way out.”

That made her laugh. “I will remember.”

Then the others joined them, and for some time afterward they were occupied with the minutiae of setting up a makeshift camp.

By the time a fire had been built, a barrier consisting of the domino and Neil’s greatcoat had been strung between stalagmites to protect the women’s privacy, and they had stripped to the skin, rinsed out their clothes, and bathed, Beth was exhausted. It did not help to reflect that
she had now been missing from her home for above three days, and her family would be frantic with anxiety even as they searched for her. Dwelling on the possibility of ruin paid even less toll, so with some effort she dismissed both from her mind. She was snuggled in a rough wool blanket over a man’s too-large shirt, which was the only piece of dry clothing she had managed to secure for herself when the contents of the trunks, which contained very few garments and all of them men’s, were parceled out. With her clothes steaming on rocks near the fire along with everyone else’s, and her shoes filled with hot rocks and placed rather closer to the blazing embers in the probably vain hope that they would dry by the time she had to put them back on, she was seated on a stone shelf raking her fingers through her hair, which was loose and wet and curling sadly as it dried, when Peg, who sat beside her, nudged her with an elbow.

“A right baggage that one is and no mistake.” Peg inclined her head toward Dolly, who was wrapped like the rest in a blanket and stood with her back to them at the makeshift barrier. From her posture, it was clear that she was peeping at something beyond it. “I’ve little doubt what she be lookin’ at.”

“Ogling ’is worship, is she?” Sitting on the ground nearby, swathed to her chin in a blanket as she pulled on the pair of mismatched wool stockings she had claimed as her share of the booty from the trunks, Mary shook her head. “Well, she’ll catch cold at that. ’Tis plain as the nose on your face that ’e wants no part of ’er. ’E only ’as eyes for miss.”

“Beth,” Beth corrected automatically, frowning as Dolly was joined by Nan. Both peeked around the barrier and giggled softly. “And he does not have ‘eyes’ for me, Mary. It is just that we were acquainted
before
.”

Mary made a skeptical sound.

“He be a fine figger of a man,” Peg said. “But he gives me the shivers, and not in a good way. His eyes be—be
cold
.”

Although she was conscious of a strong desire to, Beth could not in good conscience argue with that. She had encountered that deadly look of his herself, more than once. Fortunately, it never lasted long.