Chapter 19 #2
Whether Greer heard him or not, he remained focused on his task.
He pulled up, bringing Lord Fabian’s head and shoulders with him.
The desperate gasp of Lord Fabian sucking in air had Penny grimacing.
The young man struggled feebly against Greer, but what strength he had had been depleted.
Greer was able to lift him easily into his arms and carry him back to the boat, even as the wet sheet dropped away.
Penny kept his eyes pinned to the water in the space where Lord Fabian had been. There was a shadow there still, but Dalhurst didn’t emerge to gasp for breath the way Lord Fabian had.
“Hurry!” Greer shouted as he dropped Lord Fabian into the boat, then climbed in after him. “They’re coming.”
Penny nodded and pulled as hard as he could on the oars.
He had very little idea what he was doing.
The only rowing he’d ever seen had been from boats on the Thames and regatta teams. The motions seemed simple enough, but he knew his attempts to imitate what were only vague memories weren’t as effective as they could be.
Partially because all he really wanted to do was watch for Dalhurst emerging from the waves.
Except he never did emerge. Penny lost sight of the dark shape as they moved farther and farther out into the midnight ocean. The spots of light flooded out onto the shore, one making its way into the water near the spot Penny thought Dalhurst was.
“My turn,” Greer said, nudging Penny once they were out beyond the point where the waves broke as they raced to the shore.
Without question, Penny gave up his seat by the oars and shifted to check on Lord Fabian, who huddled in a ball in the back of the boat. The poor man was shaking so hard Penny was afraid he’d come apart. Penny threw his arms around him, for his own comfort as much as Lord Fabian’s.
Greer was much more competent at rowing than Penny was. He took them farther and farther away from the shore, to the point where the lanterns became little more than indistinct dots. Then he turned them toward the south and continued rowing.
They were too far from the shore to tell for certain, but Penny never saw Dalhurst emerge from the waves. “Did he drown?” he asked.
“I killed him,” Lord Fabian whispered as he turned to huddle against Penny’s chest. “I killed him. I killed him. I killed him.”
Chills raced down Penny’s back. The young lordling might have killed him at that. If he had, Penny couldn’t blame him.
Soon, they were far enough from the shore that the world actually seemed peaceful. The steady rhythm of the waves and the rush of the wind were the only sounds besides the stroke of the oars through the water. Greer kept rowing as if their lives depended on it, and they just might have.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Penny asked at one point, when Greer stopped rowing and just sat there, panting with the effort.
“We need to get to Newquay at the very least,” Greer answered. “If we’re not on the first train to London, we’re in trouble.”
Penny nodded in agreement. “Let me row for a while.”
Greer grimaced, then shifted so Penny could take his place. Penny still didn’t know what he was doing, but his clumsy attempts at rowing were better than nothing.
“I don’t ever want to see the sea again after this,” Penny said with a morbid laugh as Greer checked on Lord Fabian. “I’ll stay close to land from now on, thank you very much.”
Greer grunted, which might have been amusement or agreement. “You’re nearly frozen through,” he said, speaking to Lord Fabian.
Lord Fabian didn’t answer. He had fallen into a half-stupor once things had quieted down.
“My clothes might fit him,” Penny said breathlessly as he rowed. “Good thing we have our cases with us.”
Greer nodded and made another sound, then stretched forward, reaching past Penny to fetch one of the cases in the front of the boat.
It was all so surreal. As Penny rowed through the ocean, something he’d never imagined he’d do in his life, Greer opened his case and sorted through the clothing there.
Greer managed to dress Lord Fabian as the boat bobbed along, but with very little help from the man himself.
Whatever strength Lord Fabian had had in the moment when he’d lunged at his former tormentor and most likely drowned the man, it was gone now.
By the time the dark outline of Newquay came into view on the horizon, Penny was so exhausted he thought his arms might drop off.
He and Greer took turns rowing through the night, but neither of them had enjoyed a good meal in far too long.
As they rowed their way to a beach close to the town, but not too close, all Penny could think about was food and whether they might be able to get some.
Dawn was just beginning to break as the bow of the boat hit sand. Greer jumped out and dragged the boat the rest of the way onto land, and as soon as it was safe, Penny helped Lord Fabian out onto the sand. The young man was shaking violently at that point and still mostly insensible.
“We aren’t going to be able to walk into the train station and buy tickets in this state,” Penny said grimly once they’d hauled their cases and Lord Fabian up onto a hill near the shore.
“That’s where your skills come into play, isn’t it?” Greer asked, nodding to the small village only a few hundred yards to the side.
Penny followed Greer’s gaze to the collection of small buildings and the laundry that hung on a line, flapping in the breeze. Stealing some poor fisherman’s clothing likely wouldn’t help them once they reached the train station, but it was a solid idea.
An hour later, once the sun was up, though not very far, they’d walked to the outskirts of Newquay, where Penny liberated clean, dry clothing for the three of them, as well as handfuls of berries from obliging bushes and some milk from sleepy cows.
They managed to keep their cases with them, though the contents were likely ruined, so that by the time they reached the train station in Newquay, they only received a few strange looks instead of outright hostility.
“We’re in luck,” Greer announced as he returned from the ticket office with three tickets for a first-class compartment in his hand. “There were still seats, and we’ll have the entire compartment to ourselves.”
“Thank whatever gods still exist,” Penny sighed in relief, then helped Greer steer Lord Fabian to the waiting train.
He was almost convinced they were free and clear. Almost.
Once they had Lord Fabian tucked safely into their compartment, Greer guarding him, Penny hopped out again with a handful of coins, hoping to buy enough food to carry them all the way to London.
He had fifteen minutes until the train would depart, which was more than enough time to slip out to the street in front of the station to buy several pasties, cheese, and fruit from the vendors who had set up there.
That was where he saw Hammond and the guard from the castle.
“…a red-headed man, a gentleman with black hair, and a frail lad with blond hair,” Hammond was telling a policeman who stood near the end of the row of stalls. “They may all be soaked and in poor condition.”
“I can’t say as I have seen anyone fitting those descriptions,” the policeman said in return.
Penny tugged the cap he’d nicked along with their clothes farther over his hair. He paid the woman selling cheese, tucked all of his purchases tightly under his arm, and walked casually back toward the station. Running would have been a dead giveaway that he was up to no good.
That didn’t stop his heart from hammering as he showed a porter his ticket, then made his way to the train, which was clearly ready to depart.
“Is everything alright?” Greer asked as Penny leapt into the compartment, then immediately turned to lower the blinds on the windows.
Penny shook his head, then nodded to the sliver of window he’d left at the bottom of his window.
Greer crouched to look out, then caught his breath. “Shit,” he hissed.
Penny couldn’t have agreed more.
In a wild mission that had nearly seen them killed a time or two and where so much had depended on luck favoring them, the biggest stroke of luck they had was the train jerking, then slowly rolling forward as it left the station.
Penny pulled the blind aside to look out onto the platform along with Greer.
The last sight of Newquay Station that he saw was Hammond and the guard conversing with two of the porters.
If the porters recognized them from Hammond’s description, they could wire ahead to stations along the line to have the police waiting for them, but Penny doubted Hammond would do any such thing.
He was as guilty of crime as Penny and Greer were.
Hammond didn’t strike him as the kind who would court trouble that way.
Which meant there was a very good chance that Penny and Greer had gotten away. They’d been sent on an impossible mission, and they’d succeeded.