Chapter Thirteen #2
“Tell me, did you steal these pretty gems yourself?” Costa rasped. “You have an enemy, mi amor, if they sent you here to tempt me. Who would do such a thing?”
Diana’s eyes held Costa’s. Ian waited an eternity for them to flick to him.
And then he moved.
He whirled around and hurled the knife to take down the guard closest to him.
The second guard was so slow to react, Ian had him unconscious with one hard punch.
When he spun around again, Diana had the blade she’d kept hidden in her reticule pressed between Costa’s legs, and handed a cloth to Flora so she could smother his nose and mouth with it. Costa wheezed a muffled protest before he collapsed with a thud on the cellar floor.
“We have five, maybe ten minutes before he revives.” Diana grabbed her skirts and stepped around the bodies.
Flora muttered something incoherent around a laugh or a sob; Ian couldn’t distinguish which one. She evaluated Costa’s prone body, then flexed her fingers.
Ian made the same motion when he itched to punch something.
“We must leave,” he said forcefully.
Flora looked up with a tear-stained face. “This could be the only chance to end him.”
“It won’t end it for the others.” Ian shook his head. “He has brothers-in-arms who will take his place. When they don’t find you, they’ll claim retribution from whoever they can find. Your parents. The rest of your family. Even your close friends.”
“Come now,” Diana urged. “We must get upstairs.”
“But how will we get everyone out?” Flora asked.
Diana placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “There’s only enough time to get you and Blanca.”
“No. They have to come with us. Blanca and I can’t leave them, knowing—” Her voice cut out before she added in a whisper, “I couldn’t live with myself.”
Diana looked at Ian in silent supplication.
“You cannot help anyone if you stay here,” he said frankly but softly. “Tonight is the only chance you have to get out. Once you’re free, you’ll have more power to help them.”
“I need you to take a big breath, Flora, and try to clear your head,” Diana said. “How do we find Blanca?”
The girl blinked. She gazed down at Costa, and her chin wobbled. “There’s no time to make it upstairs. We’ll have to wait for Blanca to come down with the other girls. They’re supposed to circulate, offer dances to the gentlemen.”
“With the guards watching,” Ian rasped.
“Which we planned for,” Diana reminded him with a glare. “Flora and I will slip into the ladies’ withdrawing room and exit the window there. You will find Blanca and dance her out of the room.”
He barked a laugh. “This is insane.”
“You knew it would be.”
He murmured for Diana’s ears only, “There are others out there who will follow the emeralds.”
“That’s why we’ve given them emeralds to chase. Now go. This cretin will wake soon.”
Diana darted upstairs with Flora. Ian followed and watched them filter into the crowd before cautiously rejoining the party.
A second set of musicians had arrived, and the music became rowdy.
More wine and spirits continued to flow while a partially dressed woman on the stage performed an evocative dance.
Then two phantom Dianas swirled onto the dance floor.
Ian blinked as they drew up their skirts and began a seductive flamenco.
The crowd stirred again as scantily clad women wearing carnations behind their ears descended the central staircase. The last one to enter the room had the same thick-lashed, hazel eyes as Flora. Her head swiveled as she observed the room like a hare sniffing an open field.
Ian elbowed two men out of the way and sent a third scampering with his best devil’s glare. He made a small bow before the trembling girl. “Senorita. You have your sister’s eyes.”
Her mouth parted on a small squeak.
“Shall we dance?” Ian gently took her in his arms, thankful the music had shifted to a waltz. “Flora is outside waiting for you. Shall we go meet her?”
“I cannot l-leave.” Blanca’s voice shook.
She was smart to refuse him, but it was damned inconvenient. If he swooped her up, she might kick and scream in protest.
He cast his eyes toward the cellar door, but there was no sign of Costa.
Punters danced around him. The men without partners watched the dance floor with carnivorous gazes that made Ian’s stomach roil.
“You can come with me, Blanca. Right now, we can walk right out that door.”
“Do not tease me, senor.”
“I’m not. I’m here because your father sent me.”
“If that’s true, why didn’t he have the courage to come himself?”
Ian had wondered the same thing. He’d never allowed himself to think of a future family, but if Costa had taken his child, he’d have killed the man himself. If he hadn’t been raised with his mother’s fear of Il Corno—and known what they could do to Diana—Ian would have ended Costa tonight.
He scanned the room again to ensure the guards weren’t watching closely, and slipped Diana’s blade into Blanca’s hand.
“This is on loan. It belongs to a very lovely, very dangerous lady who would not be happy I am surrendering it. But it is yours for the time it will take us to walk out of this room and meet your sister.”
The girl’s eyes glistened as her fingers curled around it.
Behind her, the door to the cellar opened.
“Now, will you come with me, Blanca?” He strained to keep his voice steady. “We’re running short on time.”
When she finally nodded, Ian spun them around the dance floor and used the cover of two dancing Diana doppelg?ngers to escape from the room into the dim corridor. Blanca struggled to walk on her shaking legs.
Footsteps approached. Ian pressed a finger to his lips and drew them behind an open door. Two guards stood by the front entrance to the casino.
A footman noticed them waiting. “Do you need a carriage, senor?”
Above the music and the noise from the crowd further down the hall, Ian heard the faint rumble of Costa’s voice.
He cleared his throat. “No need for a coach. I think we shall walk.”
The footman nodded to confirm the signal. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small straw, which he used to expel a dart into the back of the necks of each of the guards.
A moment later, they crumbled to the floor.
Ian swept Blanca up in his arms, leaped over the prone bodies at the door, and ran out into the side alley.
“Here!” Diana called from a wagon tucked in the corner.
Blanca trembled like a leaf in his arms as Ian placed her inside, but when her sister called her name, they both dissolved into jubilant, screaming sobs.
“Hush!” Diana hissed. “Don’t breathe a word or move until the wagon stops. Someone will show you where to go next.” She covered them with a burlap blanket and knocked on the side of the wagon. It jerked forward and clattered off into the night.
Without a word, Diana reached for Ian’s outstretched hand, and they tore down the narrow lanes of the old town to the carriage.
“Did anyone spot you?” Diana huffed once they were inside.
“No immediate followers, but I heard Costa’s voice before we left. Let’s not dally.”
“The wagon will snake around the old town. We’ll follow behind.”
It was the safest way to protect against an ambush. “No problems getting Flora out?”
Diana hummed an affirmation. “My blade?”
He pressed it back into her hand. “Blanca was shaking so much she could barely hold it.”
“You were quite gentle with her. Thank you.”
The events and the emotions of the evening came upon him in a sudden flood.
He tried to sift through it all, and ultimately landed on familiar anger.
“Why must you risk your life with this…mission? There are hungry children you could feed in St. Giles. Or take the poor wretches from the workhouse and pay off their debts, give them a decent way to earn a wage.”
He heaved a ragged breath. “Why this, Diana?”
“These women are trapped,” she volleyed back. “They are abused, locked away, unable to govern their own bodies. And indentured to a life of trauma. Some of them choose death over spending one more day in that existence.”
“This won’t stop Costa and Il Corno. It only signals what you want from them.”
She scoffed. “Someone within the Stags thinks the necklace will persuade them to end their trafficking of women.”
“It won’t.”
Diana didn’t argue with him.
If she had, it would have allowed him to press his case that she needed to give it all up. Flora’s broken voice haunted him. As did the fear in Blanca’s eyes.
And the man who’d put that terror there wanted something Diana possessed.
“Your comrades dangled you like bait in front of Costa,” Ian hissed. “Why would an organization bent on saving lives consider yours any less worthy of protection?”
Her mouth curled in a protest, but as he glowered at her, she wordlessly shook her head.
The carriage pulled up to the pier. When Diana placed her hand on the carriage door, Ian stopped her. “Who asked us to put so many people in danger? You trusted me as your partner tonight. Trust me with this. Please.”
“When the cargo has left harbor safely, I’ll tell you what I can,” she replied slowly. “And you’ll tell me what you’ve been holding back about the other factions vying for the necklace.”
The blast of the ship’s horn forced him to open the door. They alighted, and he was relieved to see Birdie escorting Flora and Blanca to the Ever Hart. But before any of them had made it up the gangplank, a commotion arose further down the dock.
Next to the ship’s mooring, a small boat had taken on enough water, it was listing. Several women stood with their skirts dripping wet on the pier.
Diana ran, with Ian on her heels. At their approach, a tall woman directing the group stood protectively before the others. There was something about her silhouette that made Ian’s blood freeze.
As she stepped into the lamplight, familiar red curls cascaded down her back.
Ian blinked. It was possible he’d fallen asleep in the coach and was sleepwalking through some nightmare. With the mists rolling around them and the full moon overhead and Diana hovering out of his reach, he felt very much as if he’d lost touch with reality.
It was the best explanation he could gather for the apparition that stood before him.
“Diana! Thank God it’s you.”
The specter’s voice made Ian shudder with horror and disbelief.
When Diana threw her arms around the ghost, he stifled a cry.
“We’re all right, Di. There was a leak in the skiff. Only a few of us got wet.”
Diana made a garbled noise, and the tears in her eyes gave Ian the courage to approach and make certain that he wasn’t hallucinating.
“Beatrix?”
His voice was hoarse and threatening, which made the other women retreat from him.
“Jesus Christ, Beatrix Wilde, is that actually you?”
Before Beatrix could dart out from Diana’s embrace, Ian snagged her by the arm and pulled her into the lamplight.
And when he saw for certain what his mind told him was impossible, he barked a strangled laugh. “You have some bloody gall standing here, alive and well, while my oldest friend—one of the few truly decent men I have ever known—has mourned your death for eight years.”
Diana wedged herself in between them. “Ian, not here.”
Birdie’s shrieking whistle sounded.
“The passengers must board.” Diana’s voice climbed. “There’s no time to waste. Costa is on our trail.”
Ian’s glare shifted from Beatrix to Diana. “I’ll call for the harbor watch myself if you don’t tell me exactly what this is all about.”