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only property of the Crown and its captain and crew, but also the Sixth Earl of Chelfham—yes, gentlemen, the older brother of our dear departed friend Rowley— along with his lady wife and young daughter. Monstrous, just monstrous, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Rowley’s older brother?” Sir Horatio looked to Francis Roberts. “That’s how Rowley came into his title, remember? His brother was lost at sea? Damn and blast, murdered by pirates? Did you know that?”
Roberts shook his head, his gaze still concentrated on the paper in his shaking hand. “This was all so long ago. There’s…there’s proof?”
“All you might ever need,” Beales said, steepling his fingers in front of his chin. “A letter, dictated on his deathbed by one of Baskin’s outraged crew and witnessed by none other than our mutual friend Rowley himself. In fact, we may also have living evidence, much to my own astonishment, as Rowley tearfully informed my, um, my agent before his untimely suicide, that his brother’s child—the young daughter?—may still survive. My only possible conclusion is that she was either roughly abused by these horrible men at the time of the attack and then murdered, or that she remains a captive of Baskin’s all these years later, possibly living the life of a servant, poor thing. Name of Eleanor, I believe Rowley told my agent. I had dismissed the information at the time, thinking Rowley needlessly sentimental as he looked death in the face, but have since come to believe him most wholeheartedly. If you can locate her, this would help to prove our case against Baskin, yes?”
“A crime against humanity!” Sir Horatio exclaimed, his eyes gone wide. “I assure you, Mr. Beatty—that is, I assure you, sir, that I will bring the full concentration of my post to bear, to locate and prosecute these two monsters, and to rescue the wronged Lady Eleanor, if she survives.”
“Romney Marsh,” Francis Roberts said quietly. “Brings them to Dover Castle once we find them, and into my jurisdiction. That’s why you summoned— that is, happy to be of service, sir, as always. It will be a quick trial, with this Baskin and his cohort and anyone else we might find hanged in chains. You have my word on that, sir. The horror, sir. That poor child!”
“Yes, yes, a horrific tragedy, truly. And, for all of his treachery, which had to be punished, you can see why I feel I cannot be happy until these men who committed crimes against Rowley’s family—and the Crown, gentlemen, lest we forget that—are brought to the bar of justice. Before Christmas, if you please, gentlemen. You will keep me apprised of any and all developments, most especially Baskin’s location once you ascertain that, of course. Only then will I believe dear Rowley rests in peace.” Beales stood up, signaling that the meeting was over.
Once the two men were gone, Beales sat back in his chair, smiling for the first time in weeks. Ah, to see Geoff and whoever else was left alive from the old days brought to justice. What a wonderful thought. And it would be the Crown, and his hired apes, that would do the deed, all without Beales being forced to dirty his own hands. After all, why keep a dog and then bark yourself? Let his minions scuttle about, locate Geoff and the others. For his part, he would be content to visit Geoff in his cell, and make a bargain. The Empress for the lives of his now totally unprotected women.
Not that he was prepared to keep any such bargain. Why should he, once he had the Empress? The old days wouldn’t be entirely gone until every last person who could place him in the islands was also gone— breed, seed, and generation.
Beales took a small key from his pocket and used it to open a box he’d taken from a bottom drawer of Bonaparte’s desk.
He sorted through the dozens of dossiers he’d been collecting for many years, at last deciding on one in particular. Yes, the dear Reverend, and a man so generously opening his house to young orphan girls, leading them to God via nightly lessons on their knees in his bedchamber. Highly placed in the church. A fairly impressive if long-winded speaker able to rouse his audience to do his bidding. Located on the fringe of Romney Marsh, he was close enough to summon at a moment’s notice to raise the rabble against Geoff, demand a rash of executions.
After all, what was life without a little entertaining theater?
Beales continued to sort through the papers, smiling over several sheets blank save for the shaky (forgivable, as the man had been under considerable duress at the time) signature of Rowley Maddox, Earl of Chelfham, scrawled at the bottom. If necessary, Rowley might need to witness a few more deathbed confessions before Geoff was measured for the chains he’d hang in at Dover Castle.
So many dossiers, he’d soon need a larger box to keep them in. And perhaps he should organize them, as well. Alphabetically? he thought, reaching into his pocket for a few more coca leaves. By name? Or by vice?
By vice, definitely.
“To know a man’s virtues has its uses,” Beales ruminated, closing and locking the box once more. “But to know his vices is to provide the key to every door…”
He rubbed at his chest, his wound healed but still plaguing him from time to time, as Lisette had managed to nick his lung with the point of the scissors she’d used to attack him. Her own papa. He looked forward to seeing her again.
Ah, but mostly he longed to see Geoff, his old friend and partner. He longed to see him defeated, despondent, his family dead, his crew to be hanged alongside him in chains.
And the Empress, once thought lost to him? His, his alone at last, as she was meant to be.
Revenge truly was a dish best served cold. …
CHAPTER THREE
CASSANDRA SAT BUNDLED up in her heavy blue cloak on the bottom step of the stone stairs leading from the west side of the terrace, watching the large group practicing their maneuvers on the brown shingle beach. It would rain soon, as it always did in November, but they would keep on marching, their rifles on their shoulders, unheeding of the weather.
Sergeant-Major Hart’s shouts could be heard above the cries of interested gulls and the waves crashing with more than usual vigor against the beach, proof of a storm somewhere in the Channel.
Clovis Meecham marched alongside the ranks of men and women, also barking orders and, as always, a few skipping children who could not resist the fun tagging along behind him, all of them looking what they were; old men from the days on the island, young boys, mothers and even grandmothers, men more used to striding a deck at sea than parading on dry land.
But her papa had told her that the villagers wanted to keep busy, preparing themselves for possible attack.
In the harbor, the sloops, the Respite and Chance’s own Spectre, as well as the new frigate her papa had ordered were all fitted out to sail at any moment; casks of fresh water replaced weekly, extra sail stowed away, food and munitions crowding every compartment.
Becket Hall was prepared for attack, for a siege. The ships were ready in case an assault came by sea. Everyone had a single bag packed and lined up in the secret storeroom just behind her, the one accessible via several concealed inner passages her papa had designed into Becket Hall, and that led directly out onto the beach.
Plans. Plans, and more plans, all because Edmund Beales still lived. The man who had murdered her mother and so many others still walked the earth.
Nearly eighteen years of hiding, of watching over their backs, of never feeling quite safe.
It was enough to challenge one’s faith in a merciful God.
“Don’t gnaw on your thumb like that, Cassandra.”
She looked up to see Courtland walking toward her, appearing as if from nowhere, because he’d been checking the storeroom again, and had exited Becket Hall via the door that, when closed, blended completely with the dark stones.
“I’m not gnawing, Court,” she said, wishing he hadn’t caught her out indulging in the nervous habit that even she had thought she’d left behind years ago. “I was…I was thinking. I was thinking how unfair life is, to keep knocking some people down, again and again, while others sail through all of