Chapter Thirty-Two

Lawrence’s hopes of negotiation with the vengeful major were destroyed by his meeting with Nat.

Looking at Nat’s empty hands, he asked, “Where are the goods?”

“They’re safe enough. You can have them after. For now, we have a job to do. There’s a cove out to get us. Seems someone survived that wreck, and he’s a man of some importance. He needs taking care of.”

Lawrence’s blood turned to ice. The wreckers must be in league with the Devil, if they were privy to such information. Lawrence had been so careful to conceal the rescue. Apparently, not careful enough.

He scanned Nat’s face for any clue the man might know of his involvement, but Nat wore his usual expression—that of a rat in a trap.

“What job do we have to do?” he asked.

“Silence him. D’ye know Oakwood Grange?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No matter. I do. The peddler told me. He knows all the farms around here.”

Barnabas? Pryce knew Barnabas? Was their association an innocent one? Knowing Barnabas, he suspected not. The peddler always had a few bits of fine gold and silver jewelry tucked into his tray. Lawrence assumed he’d done a bit of housebreaking to acquire it, but it could just as easily have come from a wreck.

But jewelry didn’t float, did it? Recalling the sight of dead sailors and their passengers being deprived of their valuables made him shudder.

“What’s up? Afraid to spill a little blood, are ye?” Nat mocked.

Lawrence shook his head. Not afraid. Reticent, maybe. It was one thing to threaten a person with a throwing knife, quite another to drive a dagger into a man’s gut.

Splendid. All the gods had deserted him, and he was now set on a path to—at best—help a hardened felon kidnap Major Wilberforce, or—at worst—murder him.

No solution presented itself. Lawrence would just have to go along with it for now and see what happened. If there was any way of saving his own neck, and the major’s, he’d do whatever had to be done.

Though it might mean him having to leave the country a good deal sooner than he’d planned.

“It’s broad daylight, Nat. Why not wait until nightfall?” That might give him time to get the major to safety. If the man wasn’t too stubborn to leave.

Nat scowled. “Don’t be an addlepate. There’s no time to lose.”

“And then what happens?”

“He goes before the lads for questioning,” Nat replied with a nasty grin. He rubbed his jaw, glowered at Lawrence, and spat noisily into the hedge. “Damn tooth still aches, you mountebank. I can’t believe there isn’t still some of it in there.”

Lawrence put his hands on his hips. “You’d rather have just walked straight into those redcoats, would you? They’d have flogged your hide from your back first, then handed you over for questioning. I saved you from a far worse pain than the one in your tooth.”

The idea of torture was hideous. But if they did capture and interrogate the major, Lawrence was dead meat.

He tried again. “How do we know this survivor isn’t already set to pounce on us? He could be in league with the soldiers. We could be walking into an ambush.” He rather hoped they would be. At least Lawrence would get out of the encounter with his skin intact.

Assuming the major recognized him.

Nat rubbed at the stubble on his chin and spat again. Whatever cogs there were inside the man’s brain were grinding very slowly.

“Nay,” the wrecker said eventually. “We’ll just have to be quick and quiet.”

“Right,” Lawrence said briskly, striding across to where Belle was tied to a field gate. “Let’s be on our way. We’ll scope the place out, see what the comings and goings are, and find the best moment to get him. There’s only two of us, so we’d best wait until the odds are on our side.”

“I can see the sense in that,” Nat replied, spitting again.

Lawrence groaned loudly. “Look, if you want an electuary for that phlegm, I can fix you up with one.”

Nat looked at him as if he’d just grown two heads. “Hellfire, no! I’ll not touch any of your quack stuff. Not after what you did to me tooth!”

Lawrence raised an eyebrow. The man was contemplating torture and cold-blooded murder, yet he was still harping on about a tooth pulling, which had, by Lawrence’s reckoning, gone exceptionally well. It wasn’t unusual for folk to get pain occasionally as if the rotten tooth remained, but that always faded over time.

Beginning to suspect that, despite his bluster, Nat was an inveterate coward, Lawrence felt a tug of hope. If he could scare the man off, it might be possible to get the major to safety.

After a moment’s examination, which told him the roadway was clear, he led Belle out, then, closely followed by Nat on his mount, they set off for Oakwood Grange to settle Major James Wilberforce’s fate.