I slammed myself to the bottom of the boat. Bickley, crying out, did the same.
The shot went wide, Desjardins always bad at aiming.
I ought to have known a man like Desjardins would have a pleasure craft. Or perhaps it belonged to Armitage, who liked to be the perfect aristocrat. They likely hired someone to sail it for them, but they must have used it to tow our boat out of sight of shore.
They hadn’t intended to leave us to die, I realized. Bickley and I might survive if we got ourselves untied or could be rescued by one of the excise cutters I’d first imagined this ship to be. They’d wait until we were weakened by sun and thirst, and then return to make an end to us before letting us drift into the darkness.
Desjardins leisurely reloaded the gun and fired again. He missed of course.
But it was only a matter of time before he got in a lucky shot, or before Armitage took the gun away from him and finished the deed. We were bobbing in the water with nowhere to go.
“Bloody hell,” I yelled up at him. “At least challenge me. If I kill you, you’ll go out with honor. If you kill me, that will be an end to it. Let Bickley go home—you’ve already hurt him enough.”
Desjardins only fired again. I felt the scatter of that shot, hot pain in the fleshy part of my arm. My shirtsleeve showed a crimson streak.
I took up my board, disentangled my coat from it, and returned to paddling. I’d never outrun a well-rigged sloop, but the devil if I’d sit and tamely wait for Desjardins to pot me.
Lord Armitage appeared at the rail alongside his friend. He too had a fowling piece, another Purdey, I guessed, but he held it upright, waiting. When Desjardins tired of his sport, Armitage would kill us.
Desjardins chuckled, the good-natured laugh of a man enjoying himself. “We are only dispatching a murderer,” he called in French across the space. “You ran that sword through Isherwood. Took it from him and killed him.”
At the moment, I could not stop and muse whether he told the truth. I continued dipping my paddle desperately into the waves.
Armitage’s voice rumbled to me. “We witnessed it, Lacey. Someone told you he would harm your daughter in revenge for taking his wife. You went mad.”
Coldness burned my heart. What if the woman outside the pub, probably Lady Armitage—I doubted they’d risk hiring a woman—had told me this? That Isherwood had been boasting of his plans, and was now at the Pavilion, alone?
Such a threat would certainly have made me dash there and confronted Isherwood, especially if I’d not been in my right senses. Perhaps the confrontation had turned into a brawl, and I’d managed to seize Isherwood’s sword. Armitage and Desjardins would have made themselves scarce and let me condemn myself.
No memories came. However, at the moment, I did not have time to speculate. Desjardins leveled his gun and shot again.
Our boat was no longer in his line of fire. I drove us straight at the larger craft, hugging its shadow as I turned to follow its hull.
I saw Desjardins and Armitage hurry along the rail as I made my way to the stern. There, I heaved myself up, grabbing the gunwale of the rocking sloop, and slithered over the side to the deck.
I hurt—devil take it, I hurt. I knew I’d never have the wherewithal to fight even if I could stand up, but I intended to do plenty of damage before they killed me.
The pilot in the stern gaped at me, and roaring, I charged him. He stepped determinedly from the wheel to fight me off, and I dodged around him, grabbed the wheel, and gave it a wild crank.
The ship jumped and spun hard to port, slamming straight into a rising wave. I grabbed a sheet, easily slipped its knot, and let it fly free. I did it to another line, and another, blessing those fishermen of my youth who’d taught me about ropes and sails.
Desjardins was cursing in French as he came at me, the pilot in English. Armitage, angrily silent, balanced the best he could on the rocking deck and aimed his gun at me.
I dropped into a hatch that led below as his shot echoed above me. They’d corner me down here, but I scarcely cared.
The berserker anger that had let me live after I’d been hung by my heels on a hot day in Spain, and again helped me kill a deserter who’d threatened the woman and children who’d rescued me, made me yank a chair from the floor and start breaking the windows that lined the hull. Water would flood in, and this pretty sloop and her be-damned yachtsmen would wash away.
Desjardins came below first, luckily for me. He flung aside his weapon to run at me and fight. I fended off his blows, landing a few of my own, but he was strong, and I was already flagging. My advantage was that Armitage, who more slowly descended the stairs, couldn’t shoot me without hitting Desjardins.
A deafening roar filled the cabin. Desjardins screamed and spat blood as he fell limply from my grasp.
I’d been wrong. Armitage had been prepared to shoot right through his friend to get to me. Desjardins collapsed to the floor, cursing and moaning, and Armitage calmly reloaded.
A startled shout from up top made him pause, and in that second I slammed into him, fighting for control of the gun. Armitage’s hands slipped on it, but he could afford to let it go, as its shot was already spent. I brought up the gun like a club, at the same time Armitage unsheathed a long knife.
I spun away from him, but what I saw out the window as I did made me stop in amazement. The shouting from the sailors outside increased, their cries now edged with panic.
Armitage saw what I did, and his eyes widened.
Another ship, squat and thick-bodied, charged at us across the waves. No sails propelled it, but thick black smoke poured out of a metal chimney poking high behind the pilot house. The last of the evening sun touched it with red-gold light, tinging the smoke a faint pink.
Steamboats were a new phenomenon of the last dozen years, and now a few plied up and down the Thames, carrying curious passengers from dock to dock. More boats, I’d heard, moved along the Clyde and across firths in Scotland. Some steam vessels worked in harbors as tugboats, pulling in larger ships to docks or shipyards.
This was a tug, I realized, as it came closer, an interesting meld of steam power, paddle wheels, and ingenuity.
It was also heading dead for us, no swerving. It was set to ram us.
Armitage bolted. He was above and at the side, yelling at the tug, calling them bloody fools, threatening them with the law. I chuckled with wry humor at the sight of a murderer claiming the law as his ally.
I grabbed the bleeding Desjardins and hauled him up the ladder to the deck. I fell there, Desjardins half on top of me, and watched in fascinated horror as the belching tug bore down upon us.
The yacht’s pilot had caught the wheel, desperately trying to turn us. The lines I’d loosened whipped overhead, and the sails, half unfurled, jerked hard at the mast. The yacht listed heavily to port, and in that moment, the tug rammed it.
Board hit board, the pleasure craft breaking open with a tearing screech. I pulled myself up and stared at the tug as I balanced on the gunwale, and at the sturdy body of Brewster at its bow. Behind him stood Colonel Brandon, a look of grim satisfaction on his face.
That was the last I saw before I dove sideways, overboard, away from the path of the giant wheel. The small boat, with Bickley still in it, had drifted off, and I swam hard for it.
I’d never make it. My arms and legs were cramped with exhaustion, my right arm stinging where Desjardins’ shot had scraped it. Bickley, eyes wide, watched me swim, feebly holding out a board for me to grab.
The beautiful face of Donata flashed through my mind, followed by that of Gabriella and then Anne. Then Peter’s grin that transformed his rather stern countenance into a lighthearted boy’s.
I wanted to be with them one more time.
Something splashed beside me. A rope, with a loop tied in it.
I looked up at the tall side of the tug, to see Brewster, his mouth moving as he shouted at me. I could hear nothing over the roar of the engine, the waves, and the shattering boards of the sloop.
Brandon leaned next to him, and beyond Brandon, Grenville hung on to the rail with both hands. Brave man, was Grenville, to come out here in that boat.
I caught the rope and dragged it around myself and under my arms. Immediately, it tightened, and I was pulled, like a large fish, to the aft hull of the tugboat.
A ladder of rope and wood slats dropped down from the side, and I realized I was meant to climb this. I clung to the ladder, trying to move my legs to make my feet find the steps.
The rope tightened. I was half-dragged up the side as I fumbled with the ladder, until I spilled over the gunwale and landed, sodden and gasping, in a heap on the deck.
“Brewster,” I whispered, my voice a thin rasp. “Tell Denis to give you a rise in wages.”
The crowd that had gathered around me drew back in relief.
“He’s all right,” Brewster said to the others in his slow way. “Daft bastard.”
The tug was a terrible place. It stank of smoke, coal, and oil, the air inside the pilot house barely breathable.
I leaned back on a hard wooden bench, which was a long way from the elegance of the chair I’d used to bash out the window on the yacht, and thanked God for delivering me. I was out of the wind, the sun, and the water. A hot mug of coffee, laced with Grenville’s best brandy, warmed my hand.
“How is Bickley?” I asked after a few more sips of fortified coffee.
The man had been fished out of the small boat and hauled aboard. He was now in a cabin in a deck below this one.
“Ill and unhappy,” Brandon said cheerfully. He sipped deeply of the dark coffee. “But he’ll mend. He was already chattering to the magistrate about all the things Lord Armitage did and threatened to do.”
Brandon gestured with his cup to the portly magistrate, Sir Reginald Pyne, huddled on a bench in the stern. He looked as miserable as Grenville. Grenville manfully sat across from me at the table, holding on to said table while he imbibed directly from his brandy flask.
We were now clanking and bumping toward shore. The wind tore at the boat, and the waves heaved her, but the tug moved unwaveringly.
“Desjardins?” I asked after a time. I’d not seen anyone brought up but Bickley and the yacht’s pilot.
“Bleeding from a nasty wound.” Brandon’s delight was unnerving. “Surgeon’s sewing him up. He’ll be fine, in my opinion, and soon sent back to France, leaving all his money and assets here. He’s safe to live there again—unless the French king objects to him trying to aid Bonaparte.”
“Desjardins is not very bright,” I remarked, drawing warmth from the coffee cup. “But he has managed to grow wealthy and influential on cunning. Perhaps he’ll learn to do that in France as well.”
“No matter what, he’ll be leaving our shores,” Brandon said, his delight turning to determination. “I’ll make certain of it. Poxy bastard made that damned war harder on us, and we lost good men.”
“Where is Armitage?” I asked. “Cowering next to Desjardins? Or washing his hands of the fellow?”
Grenville lowered his flask. “He’s dead, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” I thought of fighting the man, how strong he’d been, how he’d nearly killed me. He’d seemed indestructible. “Drowned? Or run down by the tug?”
“Killed hisself, didn’t he?” Brewster broke in. He too had a flask, no diluting his spirits with coffee. He stood near the front of the cabin, watching the land come at us.
“Killed himself?” I blinked. “How on earth did he do that?”
Brewster turned, taking a pull of his flask. “Had a knife. Plunged it right into his own throat. Bled fast, dead before we pulled him out of the water.”
I gaped. “Good Lord.”
“A swifter and easier death than he’d have been given as a traitor and a murderer,” Colonel Brandon said. “He’d have faced ignominy and then execution, his lands and title taken back by the crown. He knew it.”
“He’d have to be tried first,” I argued. “Easy for him to claim he was falsely accused. Isherwood is dead, Desjardins is a foreigner. Even Bickley’s testimony could be dismissed as one of a grieving man. We can’t prove orders Isherwood might or might not have given seven years ago. I know bloody well Armitage killed Bickley’s son, to eliminate another witness, but there is no proof. Why did he not believe he’d have a chance?”
“Because he’d be tried in the Lords,” Grenville said, his voice calm and quiet to my angry one. “And so many lords can’t stick him. Armitage went over heads to gain that posting to Austria, and the rumor that he killed his own brother is credible. He’d have been convicted, I’m willing to wager. He’s made himself that many enemies.”
“His wife had better claim complete ignorance and innocence,” Brandon said. “Or she’ll be dragged down herself.”
“I could pretend I remember that it was Lady Armitage who assailed me outside the pub and tricked me into going to the Pavilion.” I thought of what Desjardins and Armitage had claimed—that it had been my hand that had dealt Isherwood the fatal blow. Was it the truth? Or the pair still trying to shift the blame for their deeds? Unless my memory returned, I could never know. I sighed and returned to my coffee. “But I’d have to swear that in court, and I am not very good at lying.”
“You aren’t that,” Brewster agreed.
I ignored this. “How did you find me?” I asked the general company.
“Went to the cottage you’d been summoned to,” Brewster answered. “You weren’t there when I arrived, and none had seen you go. But then I spotted a gentry cove’s sailing ship putting out to sea, towing a little boat behind. I nabbed a spyglass from a bloke and had a butcher’s. Couldn’t see anything, but I wagered it were you out there.”
“So you commandeered a steamboat?”
“His Nibs did. I ran back and told him. He went down to the docks himself. Had to finagle, and the colonel here had to help, but His Nibs paid a large amount of money for the tug captain to set off after the boat. It were slow, but finished the task.”
“You plowed it into a yacht owned by a count,” I said, impressed. “Or a viscount if it’s Armitage’s.”
Brewster wiped his mouth. “Accidents do happen at sea.”
“Indeed they do.” James Denis had seen to that.
The shore came up fast, as did the jetties that stuck out from below West Street and Middle Street. Just as I swore we’d run straight into them, the engine stopped, and in silence, we glided gently to the dock.
“Much easier than a sailing ship,” Brewster said as the world ceased rocking. “It belches like a stevedore, but it moves as sweet as kiss your arse.”