Beyond Seduction (Bastion Club 6)

Sinking his hands in his pockets, he’d watched her unbutton her jacket. “I honestly don’t know how I’ll react if you’re there—if you’re beside me in what might very well be close and dangerous fighting.”

He hadn’t meant to tell her that, but it was the simple truth.

She’d looked at him; head tilting, she’d studied him for a long moment, then she’d smiled—wry, in some indefinable way tender. “It looks like we’re going to find out.” She’d looked down, unlacing her riding skirt. “You know I have to go.”

He had known; despite the railings of his more primitive masculine self, somewhere deep inside he understood and accepted that. She’d been her “brothers’ keeper” for more than a decade; impossible to ask her to step aside—to change and become a different person, a different woman, a different lady—now, just because he couldn’t bear even the idea of her being exposed to danger. And deep inside, he valued her as she was; he couldn’t with any sincerity argue for a change.

He’d sighed, briefly closed his eyes. “Very well.”

He’d turned to go; grasping the knob, he’d heard a similar sigh from her.

“It isn’t only for Edmond that I’m going—he’s not the only one I…feel compelled to protect. If not actively defend, then at least watch over.”

He’d glanced back, but she hadn’t raised her head, hadn’t looked his way.

“I know you understand because you’re like that, too. What you might not appreciate is that some women, some ladies, feel the same. We protect, we defend—it’s what we do, who we are.” Then she glanced at him. “It’s what I am—and I can’t change that, not even for you.” She’d smiled, a swift, rather misty gesture, and looked down at her laces. “Especially not for you.”

He’d hesitated, then he’d left the door, crossed the room, swung her into his arms and kissed her—swift, urgent. Sweet.

Raising his head, he’d looked into her eyes, amazed all over again at how dazed she—his Valkyrie—became, then he’d felt his face harden; setting her on her feet, he’d nodded and turned away. “I’ll meet you at the back of the front hall.”

He had, later, and escorted her here, to wait for the boat that would carry them—her, him and Dalziel—to the beach. The smugglers brought the boat cruising in alongside the steps; Gervase caught the rope one threw him, pulled the boat in tight, expertly steadied the prow. Dalziel stepped down into the boat. He turned to assist Madeline; with his free hand Gervase steadied her as she followed, clad in her trousers and a shirt and drab jacket borrowed from a groom. The instant she was safe aboard, Dalziel moved back and sat on the rear crossbench; Madeline stepped over the fore bench and sat in the middle of the boat.

As soon as she was seated, Gervase let the rope play through his hands. He made a quick half leap into the boat as the oarsmen, with perfect timing, pushed away from the steps.

He sat and they were away, the four oarsmen pulling strongly, smoothly, through the night, through the increasingly choppy waves.

The journey around Lizard Point in the dark, with a storm blowing up and the seas rising, wasn’t one for faint hearts.

The boats pitched and dipped on the waves, but all those at helms and oars were seasoned sailors who knew these waters, knew where the currents ran, how best to use them. Spray washed over the prows, half drenching those crouched between the oarsmen. The wind strafed, knife-keen; no one had worn hats.

Had it been winter, the trip would have been impossible. As it was the summer seas, although cold, weren’t freezing, and the wind, although biting, wasn’t iced; as long as the boats steered clear of rocks, the long minutes were bearable.

They eased around Lizard Point, yard by yard making way through the surging waves.

How long the journey took, no one could guess; no one had risked carrying a timepiece. It was full dark, the sky above a roiling mass of charcoal and midnight blues, when through the spume and spray they glimpsed flares in Kynance Cove, the first cove north of Lizard Point.

“He’s there.” Dalziel leaned forward, staring across the tops of the waves; they were so big, those in the boats, bobbing up and down on the deep swell, only occasionally caught a clear view of the beach.

“No beacon.” Gervase scanned the dark where he knew the clifftops were. He glanced at Dalziel. “The wreckers must be working with him, or they’d have their beacons lit by now.”

Between them, Madeline shifted. “I’ve counted twenty-three men on the beach.”

More than they’d expected, but not so many as to jeopardize their plan. “We’ll deal with them.” Gervase swayed with the roll of the boat. Gripping her shoulder, he lightly squeezed, then caught the helmsman’s eye; with his head he indicated the rocks at the southernmost tip of the cove.

The helmsman nodded, and leaned on the rudder. As the boat swung, the oarsmen waited…then grasped their oars and bent to. Silently their boat cleaved through the waves, leaving the others in their small flotilla drifting, dipping their oars only to hold their position strung out in a line parallel to the beach.

In one, Madeline glimpsed Charles saluting them.

Gradually the rocky point drew near. On the beach proper, the retreating tide had left a ten-yard strip of reasonably dry sand at the base of the towering cliffs. Her lungs tight, nerves taut, Madeline searched the cove, scanning furiously every time the swell raised them high enough for a clear view; finding the figure she sought, she groped blindly for Gervase, found his arm and gripped, pointing. “There. Edmond.”

Her brother was a small figure made even smaller because he was sitting cross-legged close to the cliffs, between the point they were heading for and the center of the cove where, as Harry and Ben had predicted, the attention of all others on the beach was concentrated.

Flares—tall poles wrapped with oil-soaked rags—were planted in the sand in a large ring, creating a circle of light that made the shadows immediately beyond even darker. Edmond sat at the edge of the flickering glow. The awkward angle of his arms suggested his hands were tied behind him.

In the heavily lighted area ringed by the flares, many men were digging, sifting through the heavy sand. Other than one man guarding Edmond, no lookouts had been posted on the beach. All activity, all attention, was focused on the excavation; they didn’t expect to be interrupted, certainly not via the sea.

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