Chapter 20 #3
But Powell was not asleep. He was watching Sloan with heavy-lidded eyes. He smiled, very weakly, and shook his head. “Get … out … of here, Treveryan. Too late … for me.”
“Damn you, Powell! It’s not too late.”
“Can’t … walk.”
“You don’t need to. I’ll carry you.” Sloan reached down, lifting Robert Powell’s wasted frame and the blankets. “Can you hold me?” he asked.
Robert tried to slip his arms around Sloan’s neck. He could not. “It doesn’t matter,” Sloan said. “The wagon is outside.”
“Wait!” Robert gasped.
Sloan saw that he was trying to indicate the bedstead.
“There’s nothing we need,” Sloan began, but Robert tried so desperately to say something that Sloan paused and lowered Robert back onto the bed. He went to the drawer and opened it.
“The paper … take it!” Robert wheezed. “Please! Guardianship … for Michael.”
Sloan nodded and stuffed the paper into his coat pocket. “All right, hold on to me, we’re going,” he said as he lifted Robert once more.
Robert didn’t reply. Sloan looked into the eyes that stared at him unseeingly. “Powell?”
There was no answer. Sloan realized suddenly that the steady wheeze of Powell’s breathing had ceased. “No,” he whispered, and he clutched him more tightly. “Damn it, man, you can’t die now! You are free!”
But Robert Powell had found a freedom of his own. Sloan laid him back on the bed and frantically sought a pulse, a heartbeat, anything. “Robert Powell, damn you!” he repeated, but his words could not elicit a heartbeat or a breath.
Sloan stood back and pressed his temples miserably between his hands, caught in a turmoil of sorrow for the man who should have been his adversary.
Then he reached forward and closed the dark eyes forever.
He drew the covers over his face. He wished he could still take Robert with him, but knew that his body might hinder their escape.
“God grant you peace in heaven, friend,” he said quietly. “And God grant me your forgiveness.”
He took a long, shaky breath, and then another cleansing one, reminding himself that the night’s work had just begun. Whatever the future, whatever his own desire, he had also made promises to this man that he intended to keep.
Rikky was in front, waiting for him. Sloan hurried to the wagon. Rikky was frowning. “Go,” Sloan said.
The horses started down the street. “Where’s Powell?” Rikky asked.
“Dead,” Sloan said simply, and they continued.
Rikky left Sloan at the Salem jail and Sloan walked up to the door. Rikky had learned there would be four men on duty. Two would be the men that Sloan had already met and they would have to be trussed up.
“Can’t come in here—Oh, it’s you, Lord Treveryan!” said the middle-aged guard. The man frowned. “Late, isn’t it?”
“Aye, it is, Smithens, isn’t it?” he queried cordially. Smithens nodded. Two of the other guards were seated together in a corner, drinking ale and conversing avidly. Sloan didn’t know where the fourth might be, but it didn’t matter just yet.
“Smithens, I apologize for bothering you at this hour, but I met kin of one of your prisoners this afternoon, and swore to deliver a message.” Sloan raised a brow questioningly as he fingered his pocket and let Smithens hear the tinkle of coins.
Smithens looked over his shoulder at the other two. They were still in conversation.
“Seeing how it’s you, milord,” Smithens said slowly. He raised himself, fumbled about a wall peg for his keys, and beckoned Sloan to follow. “Who are you looking for, milord?”
“Smith, Philip Smith.”
“Come along, milord.”
Sloan followed the man through the first door, noting gladly that Smithens did not lock it behind him. Why should he? For the most part his prisoners were women and old men—and people still so stunned to find themselves accused that they would not think to fight.
It was very quiet as they moved along, for most of the prisoners were sleeping. Sloan looked out surreptitiously for the missing guard, but did not see him. Smithens stopped before a cell. “Smith—Philip Smith. You’ve a visitor.”
There was movement in the cell, Philip rising. He saw Sloan, and smiled broadly. “My Lord Treveryan. What a pleasant surprise.”
Sloan caught the constable’s hand, and stuffed it with coins, then indicated the door. “Would you mind? What I have to tell my young friend is of a very delicate nature.”
The constable shrugged and fitted the key into the lock.
Sloan pulled his pistol from his waistband and brought it quickly down.
Sloan caught the guard as he dropped, and dragged him into the cell.
Taking the coins from the limp man’s hand, he said quickly to Philip, “Get the keys, and find Brianna.”
“I know where she is,” Philip said. He looked at the other two men in his cell, who were awake now and staring at them. Both were young men from Andover. “Lord Treveryan, my, uh, companions—”
“Can come, too, as long as they’ve a mind to move quick and work aboard a ship.” The other two were up quickly.
“God forgive me,” Sloan muttered, “that I cannot clear this place of its wretches!” He gritted his teeth, heaving as he dragged the constable beneath a cot. He looked up, and Philip and the others were watching him. “Get Brianna!” Sloan whispered. He beckoned one of the other men to follow him.
He returned to the main door. Casting an eye on his youthful companion, he opened it and stuck his head out. “Excuse me, good men, but could you come back? Constable Smithens is having a bit of a problem.” He waited, smiling. The constables frowned at one another, shrugged, and came.
As soon as they entered, Sloan and the youth set upon them.
One went down with a well-aimed blow to the jaw.
The other fell with a little sigh, as if he had gone to sleep, when the youth brought his shackles slamming against his neck.
Sloan and the youth hefted them up and brought them back to the cell.
Sloan set to work tying and gagging the guards.
By then, Philip was out in the hallway with Brianna. She looked white as snow in the dim light, worn and too thin. Her eyes came to his like huge blue saucers. She was trembling, but silent and calm. Sloan didn’t spare her much of a glance then.
Philip was down on his knees, working at the irons on his feet. “Have you seen the last guard?” Sloan asked him anxiously.
“No, my lord. But I found the key to the irons!” Philip whispered back with husky joy.
There was a touch on Sloan’s arm. It was Brianna. Her hands, still shackled, were lightly on his elbow. “Can we take Mathilda and Emily?”
“Who?”
“Mathilda and Emily. Sisters. My cellmates,” she whispered.
He almost groaned aloud. Two old women were staring at him anxiously from the cell. One had a trembling lower lip, the other stood very, very straight—neither looked to be the type to beg.
Or “confess,” he thought, to witchcraft.
“Aye, aye!” he muttered. “We’ll take Mathilda and Emily!”
Philip had freed himself from his irons.
He set to work on one of the other men. “Hurry!” Sloan commanded.
Holding his pistol close to his side, he eased back to the door and looked out of it.
He still could not see the fourth guard, and that worried him.
He came back down the hall, managing almost complete silence despite his heeled boots.
“Hurry!” he again commanded Philip. One of his companions was free and he had set to work on the other.
Again he felt a touch on his shoulder. He turned to find Brianna’s eyes on him again. “Do you have Robert?”
He stared down at her and hesitated just a moment too long.
“Where’s Robert?” she demanded, and her whisper rose to have the substance of sound. She backed away from him, her chains suddenly clanging on the floor. “I won’t leave without him, Sloan. I mean it. I will not leave without him.”
“Shush!” Philip warned them.
The color was completely drained from her face.
She didn’t know what was wrong, but she was backing toward her cell as if she meant to stay there until she could get an answer.
There was something very desperate about her eyes, a look that, at this moment, was very frightening.
He turned away from her and grabbed the keys from Philip.
“I’ll do this,” he said, then added coldly, “Philip, find something, gag her, and throw her over your shoulder. She’s already chained.”
He heard her gasp—but that was all—as he set to unlocking the last shackle of the second youth, and those of the two silent matrons, who weren’t about to protest his action—or even whisper out a word.
There was a little thump. Sloan turned around to see that Philip had carried out his orders—Brianna was slung over his shoulder and there was a strip of linen wrapped tightly about her mouth.
“Let’s go,” Sloan said uneasily. Damn, but he wanted to know where the last guard was. He led the way along the hall, and checked the outer room. Then he inclined his head, indicating that one of the youths should go first, then help the old women along.
Suddenly there was a strangled gasp, and a cry. Sloan turned back; the second young man had just been attacked from behind. The fourth guard.
There was a loud thud as a scuffle ensued.
Sloan swore softly and dived into it, grabbing the guard’s hair, pulling him off the youth, and sending his fist hard against his face.
He fell with a loud groan, and Sloan was not only sure that the prisoners would start awakening, but that the whole neighborhood would be up in arms.
“Go!” he commanded.
He didn’t even worry about the lot of them streaking out into the night. They ran to the wagon. Sloan helped one of the old women into the back, then he started for the front.
“My Lord Treveryan!” Philip called to him quickly.
“What?” Sloan rasped out.
“What about Brianna?”
“Leave her just as she is,” Sloan said flatly. “We’ve still got to reach the ship.”
He hopped up beside Rikky, who cast him a glance, then flipped the reins, and the horses started moving. “Slow?” Rikky asked.
“Nay—fast.”
“As you command, Treveryan!” Rikky replied. “Giddup, there!”
The horses bolted down the street, the wheels turning like spinning stars. The dull drizzle continued all around them.
Sloan closed his eyes. God help me, he prayed silently.
When he opened his eyes, he could see the wharf. And lights flashing, out on the water, coming closer and closer.
The wagon ground to a halt. Sloan hopped from his seat and hurried around to the back. Emily—or was it Mathilda?—hopped into his arms. “Bless you, dear young lord!” she murmured.
He smiled. “See those boats? Get to them!” She nodded, turned to her sister, whom Philip had just assisted, grabbed her arm, and hurried to the dockside. Sloan saw one of his men—Paddy, he thought—rise to help them. “Go on!” he told the two youths. Philip was reaching into the wagon for Brianna.
“Lord Treveryan,” Philip murmured awkwardly, “Shall I take her—or shall you?”
Sloan clenched his jaw and swallowed tightly. “You take her, Philip. Once we’re on the ship, you can free her. Tell her, tell her that I’m sorry, her husband is dead. But keep her the hell away from me tonight, understand?”
Philip didn’t look as if he understood at all. But he replied, “Aye, Lord Treveryan.”
The others were all headed to the dinghies; only Rikky stood beside him. Sloan lifted a brow slowly, then stuck out his hand. “I thank you, Lord Turnberry. I’ll be damned if I know why you did all this, but thank you.”
“Oh, I like adventure,” Rikky said negligently—but then they both frowned; they could hear the sound of horses racing toward them in hot pursuit.
“Looks like you’re coming along too,” Sloan muttered, grabbing Rikky’s elbow. They both raced for the dinghies.
“Room’s in this one, Captain!” Paddy called to Sloan.
“Coming, Paddy!” The skiff was halfway out. Paddy had had the sense to push off when he’d heard the hoofbeats.
“Oh, what the hell,” Rikky muttered, “I had a craving to visit New York anyway.”
He took a dive into the water.
Sloan actually felt a grin tug at his lip.
Then he plunged into the water after Rikky.