Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (51 page)

      
“If you had succeeded in killing my husband, I would have been the one to mete out justice,” she said through gritted teeth, reaching into the pocket of her cloak.

      
He suddenly shifted his attention from the dog to her. “Remove whatever weapons you have hidden on your person and toss them on the floor. I know better than to repeat the mistake of my hapless crew members.” His left hand leveled a pistol directly on the baby.

      
“This is all I have,” she said, throwing the pistol on the floor. “Take me, but leave my daughter here. Kasseim won't want her.” She was certain he would refuse, but she needed to get close enough to him to pull the dagger from her garter. “I'll do anything you wish,” she said in a low husky voice as she took a step nearer.

      
“I do believe you will at that,” he replied with a leer. “And the tiny colleen will insure your good behavior. Pick her up and walk quietly with me. My ship is waiting just the other side of the harbor.”

* * * *

      
Derrick arrived in Bowness by early morning.
Please,God, let me be in time
, he prayed as he had never before prayed until his desperate ride from London. The village people were not forthcoming to a stranger. At first he was met with only sullen stares and bare deference for his rank.

      
“Please, I beg you, if you've seen anything at all, tell me. All I wish is to see my family safe,” he urged one small woman, frailly thin with shoulders stooped by a harsh life and four small ones borne before she'd reached the age of twenty and widowhood.

      
”Ye might speak t' Pike. 'E's an old un, too old t' fish, but he gets up ‘fore t' sun 'n' mends nets fer t' others.”

      
Pike was a gnarled old salt whose body bore testimony to the harshness of wind, sun and cruel winter's chill. His rheumy eyes measured the earl as Derrick described his wife and explained that she had their infant daughter and a King Charles spaniel with her. He did not like the crafty glint in the old man's eyes. To save time he pulled a sack of coins from his belt and shook it, then tossed it at Pike.

      
The fisherman hefted the sack and opened it, then grunted in satisfaction. “I thought a bleedin' earl'd 'ave more blunt 'n' a damn paddy,” he said with a cackle.

      
Derrick could not restrain himself. He seized the old sailor by his frayed shirt collar, choking him. “There was an Irishman after her?” he roared.

      
“Aye, big un 'e was, w' ‘air red as sunset,” Pike answered.

      
Quinn!
“What did he do with her? Tell me everything or I'll kill you, and you won't die quickly.”

      
The threat was all the more fearsome for the sudden softness of the earl's voice. Pike explained what Quinn had paid him to do and directed him to the deserted warehouse, pleading that he knew nothing more.

      
It had been but half an hour since she'd vanished into the old building. Derrick's mount skidded on the rocky ground as he leaped from the saddle and pushed to the door. He could hear furious barking coming from inside. He jerked the Ferguson breech-loader from his saddle, holding the rifle ready as he entered. Percy strained against the heavy rope securing him to a support post in the center of the room.

      
After checking to be certain no one was about, he approached the dog, whose neck was bleeding from his futile attempt to break free of the restraint. Patting Percy's head, he spoke soothingly to calm the frantic animal as he cut the rope. “Percival, you leather-loving flea bag, if you can lead me to her, I will gladly allow you to chew every pair of boots I own, even buy you Hoby’s cobbler shop on Piccadilly!”

      
The spaniel took off in a dead run after his mistress. Derrick followed on horseback, searching the horizon for signs of Beth, his heart hammering with sheer terror. What if Percy made a mistake? What could be over the rise...except Quinn's ship! He kicked the gelding into a hard gallop and bypassed the dog. If the Irishman called for help from his crew...it did not bear thinking of.

      
Quinn heard the sounds of hoofbeats clattering up the opposite side of the hill, then the barking of that infernal dog. He should have shot it back in the village but feared the noise might have brought attention to them. Shoving Beth to the ground, he commanded, “Stay down and hold the colleen or I’ll be forced to harm her.”

      
Beth did as he bid, hunching over Vittoria while at the same time reaching beneath her skirt to the dagger concealed in her garter. She recognized Percy's loud barking echoing over the barren landscape yet dared not hope as her eyes scanned the horizon, but there he was—Derrick! She watched her husband rein in his horse and raise his rifle to fire at Quinn's tall figure, but the Irishman was quick for a man of his size. As Derrick's shot whizzed by him, he dived to the ground, seizing the baby and knocking Beth down beside him.

      
“Drop the rifle and the pistols in your sash, Englishman! ” he yelled as Beth crawled toward him with the dagger hidden in her hand.

      
Derrick could see his daughter's small body in Quinn's big hands and tossed aside the breech-loader as Percy came racing past him. Quinn's attention was diverted to the approaching dog, and he fired one of his Miguelet-lock pistols but missed. Cursing, he withdrew another pistol from his sash and fired again. Percy went down as Beth leaped upon Quinn, grabbing for Vittoria, who was wailing loudly now as they struggled.

      
Unable to get a clear shot, Derrick rode toward them, one of his powerful stubby-barreled Clark pistols ready to fire at the first opening. He jumped from the horse, but Quinn maintained his hold on the screaming baby. “Shoot me and I'll throw her against the rocks ‘ere I go down,” he said.

      
Beth stilled at once, the dagger in her hand clutched tightly, knowing she could not inflict sufficient damage quickly enough to keep Quinn from doing as he said.
 

      
Derrick tossed both of his pistols to the ground. “You ran like a coward in London. Surely one mere Englishman does not frighten you ...or do l? “'he taunted, steeling himself to focus past the baby's cries and Beth's chalk-white face.

      
Quinn appeared to consider for a moment. They were near enough to the inlet for the shots to have carried. Selim would come to investigate. “I always welcome the opportunity to kill an Englishman,” he said with a roar of laughter, slipping an ugly curved blade with a serrated edge from his belt.

      
“Derrick, no!” Beth had seen how weakened his condition was when he'd collapsed at the Hall. Quinn would kill him with merciless glee and it was all her fault.

      
“Take Vittoria and stay back,” Derrick instructed Beth as he slipped his dagger from his boot, ready to face the Irishman.

      
“Come, take your colleen,” Quinn purred to Beth, his eyes never leaving Derrick.

      
She walked around Quinn from the back to reach out for her daughter. If she could only place the baby on the ground, then she could attack him from behind with one of her husband's pistols. But as she felt the precious weight in her hands, the Irishman spun away from her, closing with Derrick. The men began circling each other, taut as big cats ready to pounce. Beth hurried to find a safe hiding place for the baby behind a rocky outcrop a dozen yards away. Then she returned, watching for an opening in which to seize one of the discarded pistols and use it.

      
“Fate cheated me out of my pleasure when I captured her, but I intend to enjoy your lady on the long voyage back to Algiers, your lordship. Then 'twill be Kasseim's turn. She should have let him take her, not made a fool of him, drugging him. That way, perhaps he would have forgotten her,” Quinn taunted as Derrick's blade nicked his long arm, and he glided backward as if stalling for time.

      
“You're a privy-mouthed bastard, even for an Irish mercenary,” Derrick gritted out, stunned by Quinn's unwitting revelation. Why had Beth not told him the truth about them? The bitter answer to his question came instantly:
You would not have believed her if she had.

      
Beth was startled by the corsair's confession, wondering if Derrick believed him but far more concerned that the shock of Quinn's announcement would give him another advantage over her husband, who was gradually weakening. Could the Irishman see it? As she edged very carefully around the men to where her husband's discarded pistols lay, Beth watched the contest, her breath catching each time Quinn's blade came close to Derrick.

      
Derrick was tiring and he knew it. He sensed more than saw Beth moving to get his pistols and thanked God that she was a sensible American, taught to handle weapons, not an English drawing-room miss who would not have the faintest notion of how to kill a man.

      
Quinn's reach gave him several inches' advantage over Derrick, but the Englishman had survived by speed and cunning for many years. He knew a trick or two himself. He waited until Beth reached his pistols and scooped them up, checking the primer pans to see that they would still fire after being dropped on the rocky ground. When Quinn shifted his blade for an instant, repositioning himself, Derrick glanced at Beth. The Irishman took the bait and pivoted away on the ball of one foot, certain Beth was coming at his back.

      
His mistake would have left the way clear for her to fire, but just then a shout erupted from down the hill as two of the corsair's crewmen came running toward them. Vit-toria, whose cries had quieted to breathy sobs, lay directly in their path. Beth did not hesitate as one of them nocked a quarrel in his crossbow and took aim. Slipping one of the Clarks into her pocket, she knelt on her right knee, clutching the other pistol with both hands. She rested her left elbow on her left thigh, sighted in and squeezed the trigger. The crossbowman was dead before he hit the ground. His companion dove behind a shale outcropping.

      
Derrick did not hesitate either. As Quinn divided his attention between the menace of the woman and the arrival of his men, Derrick used the opening to lunge against him, toppling the bigger man to the ground. Derrick landed on top, his blade a scant inch from Quinn's heart, Quinn's blade held just as close to Derrick's throat. Each man held the other's weapon hand immobilized as they strained back and forth, but Derrick's right arm was still weakened from the attack in London. He could not quite sink the blade into the Irishman's flesh.

      
Beth wanted desperately to use her last shot on the Irishman, but Selim—she recognized the corsair's second in command now—was moving closer, using rocks and low shrubs for cover. She turned away from their struggle and sighted in very carefully on the Musselman.
Come on, come on!
her mind screamed at Selim as she gauged her shot. When he moved out from behind the cluster of rocks, she was ready. He went down with a bullet in his chest.

      
The sweat on Quinn's brow ran into his eyes as he struggled to hold the Englishman at bay, but gravity was on Albion's side. Then the sound of Beth's shot fueled Derrick's flagging strength. All the firearms were empty. Nothing stood between his family and the corsairs but him. His right arm moved a fraction of an inch, closer, closer...then the blade bit flesh.

      
“'Tis amazing...how fragile the human body...how swiftly the blood flows...when 'tis breached,” Derrick panted as Quinn's knife dropped. Then the corsair's bright green eyes glazed over and blood bubbled on his lips.

He died cursing the English.

Chapter Twenty-eight

      
When Derrick looked up, still winded from the ordeal, Beth stood only a yard away, the small stiletto he remembered so fondly from Murat's gardens clutched in her hand. Seeing no menace on the horizon, he asked, “Quinn's men?”

      
“I shot them both,” she replied with no more ado than if she'd just swatted a fly.

      
“You are an incredible woman, puss,” he gasped out, shoving the corsair's body away so he could climb to his feet.

      
Vittoria chose that moment to begin crying lustily again. Beth turned and raced to her, picking up the infant and holding her protectively. “Shhh,” she said softly, rocking back and forth. When she felt Derrick's hand gently touch her shoulder, she turned and looked up into his eyes.
      
“You saved us from my folly, m'lord.”

      
“When it comes to folly, puss, you can claim no monopoly 'pon it,” he replied gently, aching to gather her and their daughter into his arms but hesitating, uncertain how to say what was in his heart.

      
This was a different Derrick Jamison from the indolent, charming rogue or the arrogant, angry aristocrat of the past. His eyes spoke of things she had only dreamed of before. “Derrick, I—”

      
The sound of a dog's hoarse cry interrupted her. “Percy! Quinn shot him,” she said as Derrick turned and loped shakily up the hill toward the blood-soaked dog, who was struggling to crawl to them. He knelt and examined the long furrow the Irishman's bullet had cut across the dog's head.

      
“His thick skull may have saved his life,” he called out to Beth.

      
“He found us, didn't he?” she said, dropping onto the ground beside Derrick, who was calming the dog with his hands much as he had when they'd rescued him from the
lazzaroni.

      
“I would’ve had no idea where to search if not for him,” Derrick admitted. “I'm afraid I made him some rather extravagant promises as a reward for finding you.”