The Devil's Necklace (24 page)

“Andrew is my son, too. If you find him, he may be hungry or injured in some way. He might need me, Ethan. I have to go with you.”

He seemed to mull that over, then firmly shook his head. “I understand your worry, but it’s simply too dangerous. Once we get him home, Andrew is going to need his mother. What if something were to happen to you out there?”

“Please, Ethan.”

He bent and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry, Grace. I wish I could take you but I can’t. I have to do what’s best for Andrew.”

“Time to go,” Cord said. “We don’t know what kind of trouble we might run into.” With that said, he pulled a pistol from the pocket of his coat, checked the load, then returned the gun to his pocket. Ethan and Rafe did the same with their own pistols, then Cord walked over and kissed Victoria on the mouth. “We’ll be back as quickly as we can.”

“Be careful,” Tory said, reaching up to touch his cheek.

Ethan walked over to Grace. “I’m going to bring Andrew home to his mother.”

Grace just nodded. Her throat ached and her chest felt tight. “Take care of yourself.”

Ethan bent down and very gently kissed her. A few minutes later, the men disappeared out the door and Grace was left with Victoria.

Slowly Grace rose from the sofa. “If you’ll excuse me, Tory, I have to go upstairs and change.”

Tory eyed her warily. “Change? Why? Surely you aren’t expecting company.”

“I’m going to Mose’s gin shop and I don’t think I’ll fit in well in muslin and lace.”

Tory’s eyes widened. “You heard what Ethan said. You’ll just be one more person for the men to worry about.”

“They won’t worry if they don’t know I am there.”

Tory bit her lip. “I suppose that’s true enough.”

“As I told Ethan, Andrew might need me.”

Tory sighed, recognizing defeat when she saw it. “Well, I know what I would do if it were my little Jeremy, and you certainly can’t go there alone. I’m a bit overdressed for the slums. Perhaps your maid will lend me something simpler to wear.”

Grace leaned over and hugged her. “I won’t forget this, Tory.”

“Actually, after tonight, I hope I never have to think of it again.”

Her coachman, James Dory, sat atop the driver’s box of Grace’s carriage. He was a big, burly man with a long nose and kind eyes and she had come to trust him. As
the coach descended farther into the more disreputable districts of London, Grace was glad to have him along.

“This is not my favorite part of town,” Tory said, voicing Grace’s thoughts. The cobbled streets had long disappeared and the wheels rolled now through narrow muddy lanes. The buildings along the road were ramshackle, the wooden shutters broken and hanging off the windows, roofs sagging, holes in the boards on rotting front porches. A cloudy sky blocked the faint rays of a fingernail moon, leaving the city in darkness.

The carriage rounded a corner, turning down Holborn, and came upon a court that had no name, but midway down the dead-end street, Grace could see the sign for Mose’s gin shop.

“Keep going,” she instructed the driver through the speaking hole into the driver’s box, and instead of turning, the coach rolled a little ways farther down the lane. “All right, now you can pull over.”

As soon as the conveyance rolled to a stop, Grace and Tory both climbed down. Unlike the unnamed street that housed the gin shop, Holborn, in this particular section, was fairly quiet. She and Tory were dressed in drab wool gowns and warm woolen cloaks, which helped them blend into the darkness. Unconsciously, Grace fingered the strand of pearls in her pocket, the valuable pearl-and-diamond necklace. If something went wrong, if the money weren’t enough, maybe the necklace would convince the kidnappers to release her son.

The coachman walked up in front of her, hat in hand. “Ye want me ta come along, milady?”

As tempting as it was to have him with her, if they hoped to remain unseen, the fewer people the better.

“I would rather you wait for us here, Mr. Dory. We might need the coach in a hurry.”

The driver nodded grimly, obviously worried and unhappy to be left behind.

“We need to stay out of sight,” Tory said. “We don’t want to make things harder for the men.”

Grace nodded. “We’ll find someplace to hide close enough to see the alley, then stay out of sight until the money is picked up. The men will follow whoever it is and we will follow the men.”

It was a good plan and as they squirreled themselves away inside a pair of overturned crates in front of an empty building not far from the alley, Grace thought it might actually work. From where they waited they could see the gin shop, watch the drunken patrons staggering in and out the front door. In the window beneath the sign that read Mose’s, another sign read, Drunk For a Penny, Dead Drunk For Two.

Grace shivered and pulled her cloak more closely around her. Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, she felt the cool smoothness of the pearls as she pulled out a small porcelain-faced pocket watch and checked the time. Al most twelve-fifteen. They had been waiting what seemed hours.

Then she heard the crunch of gravel underfoot, betraying footfalls coming down the alley, and her shoulders tensed. She heard a rustling, someone picking something up. She assumed it was the money. Then the footfalls turned and retreated the way they had come and three shadowy figures stepped out of their hiding places.

She recognized Ethan’s lean, broad-shouldered frame, a faint hesitation in his long stride, and her heart skipped a beat. He had said that he loved her and she prayed it was so, prayed that he would find her son.

Our
son, he had said, and the words brought a lump to
her throat. Perhaps, once Andrew was home, they could truly be a family. Grace wanted that above all things.

Tory moved just then as the men disappeared around buildings on both sides of the alley, heading toward their quarry, who moved silently ahead of them. As Tory had done, Grace stepped out of her hiding place and along with Victoria, silently followed behind the men. She and Tory took the route Cord and Rafe had taken, careful to stay far enough behind that they wouldn’t be seen.

A rat scurried along the side of the building in the darkness and a shudder ran though her. The odor of rotting offal rose up and she wrinkled her nose at the awful smell. Next to her, Tory lifted her skirt up out of the way to avoid a puddle of stagnant water. They shot each other a disgusted glance and kept on walking. Grace had just reached the end of the building when she heard someone curse.

“I saw him going that way,” Cord said, pointing into the darkness, “but he darted out of sight behind that stack of barrels.”

“He isn’t there,” Rafe said, hurrying back to where Cord stood.

“Which way did he go?”

“I don’t know,” Rafe said, his expression dark.

“God’s breath, we’ve lost him.”

“Let’s just hope Ethan is still on his trail.”

His gaze searching the darkness, Cord swore an oath he never would have said if he had known the women were near. Crouched against the rough brick wall not far away, Grace looked at Tory, her insides tightening into a knot. If the men lost the courier, they might never find the kidnappers and she might never find her son.

The clouds parted for a moment, exposing the thin sliver of moon overhead, lighting the night for an instant.
“There!” Tory’s loud whisper reached her from a few feet away. “That’s the boy! Look, he’s carrying the satchel!”

“You’re right—that’s him!” Lifting her skirt out of the way, Grace started running.

“Gracie, wait! We’ve got to get the men!”

“There isn’t time!” she called back over her shoulder, and now Tory was the one who swore. Racing toward the group fanning out in search of the courier, she waved her arms and rushed toward Cord.

“W
hat the devil…?” Cord stared at the small, feminine figure running toward him through the dark. He hissed in a breath when he realized it was his wife. “Bloody hell! Victoria, what in God’s name are you doing here?”

“No time to talk!” She sucked in a lungful of air, trying to catch her breath, frantically tugging on his arm. “We have to hurry! Grace spotted the boy and went after him. We have to catch up with her before she gets too far away!”

Clenching his jaw, Cord hurriedly fell in behind as Victoria led the way back along the path she had come. “I swear when I get you home, I am going to beat you within an inch of your life.”

Tory grinned and rolled her eyes, not the least afraid. Rafe jogged along beside Cord and an instant later, Ethan ran out of the shadows.

“I lost him,” he said. “One minute he was there and the next—” He broke off as he spotted Victoria. “What the hell is your wife doing here?” A jolt hit him as he realized that if Victoria was there, Grace must be there, as well.

He pinned Victoria with a glare that would have made a lesser woman shrink back in fear. “Where is she?” he demanded as the group continued forward.

Cord replied in her stead. “Grace spotted the courier and went after him.”

“God’s teeth!”

“She didn’t want to lose him,” Victoria added. “She took off that way.” She pointed toward a tangle of decrepit buildings barely visible in the shadowy darkness. Only the faint trace of moonlight filtering down through the clouds helped to light their way. “Come on! We have to hurry!”

Ethan followed Victoria into the darkness, fear for Grace making his blood run cold. Now his wife and his son were both in danger.

They reached the spot Victoria had last seen Grace, but all he saw was inky blackness. Grace was nowhere to be seen.

“Fan out,” he commanded. “We’ve got to find her.”

Cord and Victoria went left, Rafe went right and Ethan continued ahead. His heart was pounding, trying to tear a hole through his chest. He had to find her. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.

The men searched and searched and the minutes ticked past. But there was no sign of Grace or the boy she had followed.

Grace trailed after the skinny, shaggy-haired urchin in the dirty shirt and coarse brown breeches, and saw him disappear down a set of earthen stairs into what had once been a doorway. Now the wooden door lay in broken pieces on the ground. The entrance led into what appeared to be a dilapidated boardinghouse. Grace
shuddered to think what sort of tenants lived in a place like that.

She waited a moment, glancing back over her shoulder, hoping Tory and the men would appear. But she couldn’t afford to wait long. Seconds after the lad ducked through the opening, Grace followed, quietly making her way down the earthen stairs, ducking through the crumbling entrance, stepping into the shadowy interior of the basement.

It was eerily dark in there, lit only by the beam of light coming from the top of a set of rickety wooden stairs. The chamber smelled of must and mold. Spiderwebs hung from the low ceiling and brushed Grace’s face. She tried not to imagine what sort of creatures might be lying in the shadows and instead kept her gaze fixed on the boy, watching in silence as he climbed the stairs to the first floor, then disappeared.

Hurriedly, she followed, carefully placing a foot on each step, cringing every time a board creaked, certain some one would hear. At the top of the stairs, she paused, her gaze going in search of the boy. She saw him a little ways ahead, climbing a set of stairs that led up to the second story. As soon as the boy was out of sight, Grace went after him, climbing the stairs with even more trepidation than before, wishing Ethan would arrive, praying he would figure out where she was.

If the men didn’t get there soon, she told herself, she would discover the boy’s destination, then go back and get them.

A long hall stretched in front of her. Patches of torn, faded wallpaper clung to the walls and the floor was uneven, the boards old and worn. Conversation drifted toward her from one of the sleeping rooms she passed, followed by the sound of a woman’s high-pitched laughter.

At the other end of the passage, she heard a door being closed and started in that direction. She wished she had a gun or at least some sort of weapon, but she had never meant to go off on her own, only to be there when Ethan found Andrew. She prayed again that Tory was bringing the men and told herself that Ethan would appear behind her at any moment.

Instead, as she moved along the passage, a shadow rose behind her and she heard the click of a hammer as the man cocked his gun.

“Well, now, look what we got ’ere.”

Fear coiled in her stomach and the bile rose in her throat. Grace turned slowly toward the voice, seeing a small man with an ugly face and rotting teeth.

“What ya suppose a high-class bit o’ muslin like yerself be doin’ in a place like this?”

Grace straightened, determined not to let him know how frightened she was. “I came to get my son.”

“Well, now, that’s what I figured.” He motioned with the pistol for her to move ahead of him down the hall and Grace started forward. Beneath her drab wool skirt, her knees were shaking. At the end of the corridor, he opened the door to one of the sleeping rooms, then stepped back so that she could go in ahead of him.

As she started for the door, she saw the boy she had been following busily stuffing a coin in his pocket as he headed back out of the room, passing her as he stepped into the hallway. He darted her a glance, looked at the man who held the pistol against her ribs, and bolted for the stairs at the end of the hall.

The ugly man paid him no heed and instead used the pistol to nudge her forward. “Get movin’.”

Grace swallowed and started walking. Her heart was squeezing with fear, her palms sweating. She told herself
that somehow Ethan would find her but with every step she took, it was harder to believe. The hideout was too well hidden. If none of them had seen her go in, there was no way they would be able to figure out where she was.

She braced herself. As she stepped through the door, a flicker of movement caught her eye and she realized there was another man in the shabby room. Grace gasped at the familiar face of the man who stood smiling at her from across the bare wooden floor.

“You!”

His lips curled into a ruthless half smile. “Aye, that ’tis. Willard Cox, at your service. And isn’t this a surprise? The capt’n’s doxy come to pay me a personal visit.”

Her knees wobbled. Willard Cox, second mate on the
Sea Devil.
She remembered him well. Cox was a cold, calculating, ruthless man, and because of her, he had suffered twenty-five painfully brutal lashes.

Grace forced up her chin. “Where is my baby?”

“Where is your husband?” Cox countered.

“Ethan is just outside,” she lied. “He’ll be here any minute.”

Cox just laughed. “I doubt it. I’ll wager he doesn’t even know you’re here. As I recall, you were a reckless wench. Your willful nature nearly got you killed before.”

Grace kept her gaze fixed on his face. Cox wasn’t a bad-looking man, if you could ignore the gray, unfeeling eyes. “What have you done with my baby?”

Before he had time to answer, a noise came from the room next door and she recognized the familiar sounds of an infant, little Andrew, fussing and starting to cry. Her heart leaped into her throat.

“Her soddin’ whelp is startin’ to wail again,” said
the small, ugly man. “Kept me up ’alf the bloody night with ’is bleedin’ yowlin’. I told ye we shoulda got ridda ’im!”

Grace’s chest tightened with fear. She clenched her fists so hard, her nails dug into the palms of her hands.

Cox looked down at the satchel sitting on the floor just inside the door. “Take it easy, Gillis. Now that we have the money, I don’t give a damn what you do with the babe.”

The man named Gillis actually grinned, exposing the stumps of his rotten teeth. With a look of relish, he turned toward the door between the two rooms and started walking.

“No!” Grace threw herself into his path. “Leave him alone. He’s just a baby!”

“Get outta me way!” He shoved her so hard she crashed into the wall and landed on the floor in the corner.
Ethan,
she thought,
help me save our son.

Pushing to her feet, she raced to the door between the rooms that Gillis had disappeared through. On the opposite side of the sleeping room, the baby lay on a pile of rags that served as a makeshift bed, his little blue blanket meager warmth in his chilly surroundings.

Gillis stood between her and her child. Desperate, Grace reached into the pocket of her brown wool skirt and pulled out the pearl necklace. Her hand was shaking as she offered it to the kidnapper. “You want money, take this. It’s worth a fortune. Just let me take my son and leave and the neck lace is yours.”

His dark eyes lit with excitement. He eagerly nodded. “All right. Gimme those and ye can have yer soddin’ whelp.”

She held them out and he grabbed them from her fin
gers. He stuffed them into his pocket, but instead of leaving the room, he shoved her against the wall as hard as he could and started again for the baby.

Dear God, he wasn’t going to let them go! She should have known better than to believe he might. But odds were, he meant to kill them both and she’d had to take the chance. Glancing wildly around the room, Grace searched for some kind of weapon. A worn-out broom with the straw eaten down to the nubs leaned against the wall. Grabbing it up, she dashed across the room before Gillis could reach the baby and positioned herself between the two of them.

“I won’t let you hurt him.”

Gillis flashed her a rotten-toothed grin. “Ye got spunk, girl. I’ll give ye that. Soon as I git rid of the brat, I’m gonna find out how much grit ye got with a man on top of ye. I’ll have me fill, then Cox can take ’is turn.”

Gillis started forward, but instead of swinging the broom as he expected her to, Grace gripped the straw end, held the stick out in front of her and charged, using the long wooden handle like a lance. She struck her target right in the belly, eliciting a pain-filled howl and knocking him completely off his feet. He slid backward several yards across the floor, swearing a string of filthy words.

Behind her, she could hear the baby crying and it spurred her on. Frantically, Grace whirled the broom around the opposite way, gripped the handle, and started whaling on Gillis with the straw end of the broom, beating him around the head and face, whipping the broom against his skinny legs, then slapping at his face again. He put up his hands to fend off the blows but she just kept pounding away. She had to save her baby. This was her only chance.

“I’ll fix ye for this, girl. I’ll beat ye good and proper then I’ll have ye.”

“You won’t touch her, you filthy scum.” The hard male voice reached her from the doorway and her head jerked toward the sound of the familiar voice. “You won’t harm anyone in my family ever again.”

A sob caught in her throat and her eyes filled with tears. “Ethan…”

He strode through the doorway looking like the pirate he had been the first time she had seen him, his jaw clamped in fury and his hands fisted. He was breathing hard, his eyes the iciest, most chilling shade of blue she had ever seen and fixed on the man who meant to harm her.

Gillis sprang to his feet and ran toward her. He jerked the broom out of her hand and hit her so hard she lost her footing and crashed against the wall. Her head spun and a wave of dizziness washed over her. She heard Ethan’s growl of fury and the sound of his fist pounding into Gillis’s body as she slipped into unconsciousness.

Ethan punched the man in the stomach so hard he doubled over. He grabbed the kidnapper’s shirt, whirled him around, and hit him a solid blow that knocked him down on the floor. Ethan jerked him up, drove a fist into his face, and his nose erupted in blood. The man swung several useless punches easily dodged, then Ethan delivered an other heavy blow that split the kidnapper’s lip. The man fought to tear himself free, but Ethan just kept hitting him, blinded by a surge of fury greater than anything he had ever known, pounding away until the man lay unconscious.

His gaze swung to Grace, crumpled on the bare wooden floor, and his heart twisted hard. As he rushed toward her, he could still see her as she had been when he had stepped through the doorway, swinging the worn-out broom like a saber, fighting like a tigress to save her son.

He had known he loved her. Until that moment, he had not known quite how much. Then he had spotted his tiny infant boy, his little face blue from the cold, his mouth screwed up as he cried out in hunger. A sweet little boy who was usually happy and smiling, a child he had come to love no matter how hard he had tried not to.

In that moment, he knew that his need for revenge was over, burned to ashes by the love he felt for his wife and child.

Praying that Grace was all right, Ethan knelt beside her, lifted her a little, and her eyes fluttered open.

“Ethan…?”

“Gracie…love.”

She reached for him, went into his arms, and for a moment he just held her. He could see the purple bruise beginning to form on her cheek and rage rolled through him again. “You’re safe. Andrew is alive.”

Behind him, the baby started to cry and he felt Grace tense.

“Andrew!”

Ethan helped her to her feet and they hurried over to check on the infant, both of them kneeling beside the pile of rags.

“Is he all right?” Ethan asked worriedly as she checked the baby over.

Grace nodded, obviously relieved. “They must have had a woman in to tend him. He is dry but he is hungry.”
She glanced over her shoulder toward the other room. “What about Cox?”

“Cox won’t be giving us any more trouble. Cord and Rafe are dealing with him now.”

She swallowed as she wrapped the small blue blanket securely around the babe, lifting him into her arms and settling him against her shoulder. A few soft words and his crying began to ease. She kissed the top of his head and the babe snuggled closer, sniffled, then went quiet.