"What do you mean?"
"Ha! Wouldn't you like to know."
She caught her breath as they rounded a corner at an unsafe speed. "It appears I'm going to know very soon, Oliver, if you insist upon abducting me this way."
He looked at her assessingly.
"Watch the road!" she shrieked, nearly losing the contents of her stomach as they careened by a tree.
Oliver yanked too hard on the reins, and the horse, already a bit peeved about having been kicked, snorted and stopped short.
Caroline .was jerked forward as they halted. "I think I'm going to be sick," she mumbled.
"Don't think I'm going to clean the mess if you cast up your accounts," Oliver snapped, whacking the horse with his riding crop.
"Stop hitting that poor horse!"
He whipped his head around to face her, his eyes glittering dangerously. "May I remind you that you are tied up, and I am not?"
"Your point being?"
"I give the orders."
"Well, don't be surprised if the poor creature kicks you in the head when you're not looking."
"Don't tell me how to treat my horse," he roared, and then brought the crop down again on the animal's back. They resumed their movement down the road, and once Caroline was assured that Oliver was driving at a slower pace, she said, "You were telling me about your work."
"No," he said. "I wasn't. And shut up."
She clamped her mouth closed. Oliver wasn't going to tell her anything, and she might as well use the time to devise a plan. They were moving parallel to the coast, edging ever closer to Prewitt Hall and the cove Oliver had written about in his smuggling reports. The very cove where Blake and James were waiting. Dear God, they were going to be ambushed.
Something was wrong. Blake felt it in his bones.
"Where is he?" he hissed.
James shook his head and pulled out his pocket watch. "I don't know. The boat arrived an hour ago. Prewitt should have been here to meet them."
Blake cursed under his breath. "Caroline told me that Prewitt is always punctual."
"Could he know that the War Office is on to him?"
"Impossible." Blake lifted his telescope to his eye and focused on the beach. A small boat had dropped anchor about twenty yards out to sea. There wasn't much of a crew-so far they had spied only two men up on the deck. One of them held a pocket watch and was checking it at frequent intervals.
James nudged him and Blake passed him the scope. "Something must have happened today," Blake said. "There is no way he could have known he'd been detected."
James just nodded as he scanned the horizon. "Unless he's dead, he'll be here. He has too much money riding on this."
"And where the hell are his other men? There are supposed to be four."
James shrugged, scope still to his eye. "Maybe they're waiting for a signal from Prewitt. He might have- Wait!"
"What?"
"Someone's coming along the road."
"Who?" Blake tried to grab the scope, but James refused to relinquish it. "It's Prewitt," he said, "coming in a gig. And he's got a female with him."
"Carlotta De Leon," Blake predicted.
James slowly lowered the scope. His face had gone utterly white. "No," he whispered, "it's Caroline."
Chapter 23
san-guine (adjective). Hopeful or confident with reference to some particular issue.
san-guin-ar-y (adjective). Attended by bloodshed; characterized by slaughter.
After this night, I shall never again confuse the words sanguine and sanguinary.
-From the personal dictionary of
Caroline Ravenscroft
Caroline squinted at the horizon, but in the dark haze of night she could see nothing. This didn't surprise her. Blake and James would never be so stupid as to use a lantern. They were probably hidden behind a rock or shrub, using the faint moonlight to spy on the activities on the shore below.
"I don't see anything," she said to Oliver. "You must be mistaken."
He turned his head slowly to face her. "You really think I'm an idiot, don't you?"
She pondered that. "No, not an idiot. Many other things, but not an idiot."
"Your husband," he said, pointing ahead, "is hiding among those trees."
"Perhaps we ought to alert him to our presence?" she asked hopefully.
"Oh, we'll alert him. Have no fear." Oliver brought the gig to a halt with a vicious yank of the reins and pushed her out to the ground. Caroline landed hard on her side, coughing, on dirt and grass. She looked up just in time to see her former guardian pull out a gun.
"Oliver..."
He pointed the weapon at her head.
She shut her mouth.
He jerked his head to the left. "Start walking."
"But that's the cliff."
"There's a path. Follow it."
Caroline looked down. A narrow path had been carved into the steeply sloping hill. It zigged and zagged its way down to the beach, and it didn't take much more than a brisk wind to send loose pebbles rolling down the incline. It didn't look safe, but it was considerably more appealing than a bullet from Oliver's gun. She decided to follow his orders.
"I'll need you to untie my hands," she said. "For balance."
He scowled, then acquiesced, muttering, "You're no good to me dead."
She started to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Yet."
Her stomach churned.
He finished untying her hands and pushed her toward the edge, musing aloud, "Actually, you might be most useful as a widow."
This time, her stomach heaved, but she swallowed down the bile, coughing on the acidic taste in her mouth. Her heart might be racing, she might be feeling something far beyond terror, but she had to remain strong for Blake. She stepped out onto the path and began her descent.
"Don't try any false moves," he said. "You'd be wise to remember I've a gun pointed at your back."
"I'm not likely to forget it," she bit' off, poking her toe out ahead of her to feel for loose rocks. Damn, but this path was treacherous at night. She'd hiked similar paths during the day, but sunlight was a powerful ally.
He jammed the barrel of the gun against her back. "Faster."
Caroline swung her arms wildly to keep her balance. When she was satisfied that she wasn't about to tumble to her death she snapped, "I'm not going to do you a bit of good dead of a broken neck. And believe me, if I start to fall, the first thing I'm grabbing is your leg."
That shut him up, and he didn't bother her again until they were safely on the beach.
"I'm going to kill her," Blake said in a low voice.
"Beg pardon, but you'll have to save her first," James reminded him. "And you might want to save your bullets for Prewitt."
Blake shot him a look that was decidedly una-mused. "I'm going to bloody well tie her to the bedpost."
"You tried that once."
Blake whirled around. "How can you stand there and make bloody jokes?" he demanded. "He has my wife. My wife!"