A Gentleman 'Til Midnight. Alison DeLaine

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      “Give me the fish.” He took it from her fingers.

      “I hear him again! Please hurry!”

      James didn’t hear a bloody thing, but he went in the direction she pointed. He grabbed the lantern from the hook and finally heard a faint meow from among the cargo. A rat scurried away. Whatever Mr. Bogles was up to down here, he was not doing his job.

      “Mr. Bogles!” Anne cried.

      Meow, came an answer from the direction of a pile of large rope coils that had slid sideways with the waves. James willed himself forward, holding up the lantern. Meow! came another complaint from beneath the pile. Through a gap he saw two glowing eyes and part of a white, whiskered face.

      The ship heaved and rolled. Somehow he managed to hang the lantern and reach for a coil. His arms rebelled, buckling like wet straw, but he tried again. He shifted one coil this time, then another. The rough floor scraped his soles as he sought purchase with his bare feet. His legs burned, threatening to give out.

      “Do you have him?” Anne called from much closer than the stairwell. A glance over his shoulder showed her making her way through the cargo.

      “Anne, stop!” He barely had the strength to make himself heard. “Go back!” He stretched forward, half lying across the pile now, and shoved at another coil. More coils towered above him. With all of his strength he propped up the coil that trapped the cat, but Mr. Bogles cowered somewhere in the recesses. Blast it all, he’d dropped the dried fish.

      “Come out, damn you,” he said through gritted teeth.

      The ship heaved.

      “Anne!” Captain Kinloch’s voice shot through the hold.

      The ship crashed. James lost his grip on the rope and a white flash shot past his shoulder.

      “Mr. Bogles!” came Anne’s joyous cry.

      James fell forward, and the coils he’d moved tumbled on top of him. He grunted in pain, crumpling beneath their weight, and his hand closed around something leathery. The dried fish.

      “Anne! What are you doing down here?”

      James said goodbye to his balls and let his head fall.

      * * *

      DRENCHED FROM THE rain and waves above, Katherine flew down the stairs with her eyes fixed on Anne and swept her into a fierce hug, ignoring Mr. Bogles wiggling between them. “Anne Kinloch, I told you never to come into the hold!” She ran her hands over Anne’s face, hair, shoulders. No injury. Already she could imagine half a dozen ways she would kill Thomas Barclay when she found him.

      Farther into the hold, the lantern from her cabin swung wildly from an overhead beam. Bloody cur—this was her reward for caving to pity and hauling him aboard. “Anne, quickly,” she said, rising. “Upstairs.”

      “But the man, Mama— I think I heard him fall!”

      “Shh...we shall find him and he won’t hurt you again. I promise you that.” By God, she would kill him slowly and feed him in pieces to the fish.

      “Mama, you mustn’t be cross!” Anne shook her head frantically. “It was my fault. I couldn’t find Mr. Bogles, and I begged him! I know I shouldn’t have unlocked him, but—”

      “Unlocked him?”

      “I’m sorry, Mama. There was no one to help.” She tried to turn out of Katherine’s grasp. “Oh, why don’t I hear him? He was just here!”

      At precisely that moment, Katherine spotted a pair of bare feet sticking out from among the cargo.

      Anne’s lip trembled. “I know I shouldn’t have taken the keys from your drawer. I was so scared.”

      Katherine hugged her tightly. “I’m sorry, sweetling. I’m so sorry.” She never left Anne alone in high seas. Never. But they’d needed all hands on deck, and she’d promised herself it would just be this once, and she would come down to check...but she should have come sooner. She should never have left Anne in the first place. Wicked, wicked man, taking advantage of a little girl’s fear.

      “Do you see him, Mama?” A tear tumbled down Anne’s cheek.

      Katherine stared at his feet. “Shh...I will find him. Quickly, now, upstairs to safety. Give Mr. Bogles to me.” Sweet Anne was too innocent to know a man in Mr. Barclay’s condition did not rouse himself for the sake of a cat. Her jaw tightened. With any luck fate had already punished his attempt at insurrection, and she would no longer have to bother with him.

      With Anne and Mr. Bogles safely shut inside Philomena’s cabin, Katherine hurried back to the hold. The ship heaved and rolled as she made her way quickly through the cargo and there he was, half-buried beneath a fallen pile of rope coils. If he was alive, she would shackle him more securely this time. And hide the keys more quietly.

      She planted a boot on the pile and wrested the coils off him. “Mr. Barclay,” she called sharply. Perhaps he’d hoped to find munitions here in the hold. Distract the crew with his disappearance and gain the upper hand by threatening Anne’s life.

      It would not have worked.

      He lay sprawled on the coils with William’s tunic stretched a bit tightly across his shoulders. His tousled black hair with its silver streaks fell across his cheek and over his eyes. “Mr. Barclay.” She bent to check his pulse.

      At her touch, he groaned and tried to rise. “Bloody hell,” he said, collapsing once again into the ropes. At least she would not have to explain his death to Anne.

      “Get up! You’ve been foiled, and I haven’t the time to play nursemaid.” They needed her on deck. Punishing his foolishness would have to wait.

      “For God’s sake, cut ’em off quickly,” he mumbled into his sleeve. He was delirious again, and little wonder. His eyes opened slightly. “Anne?” he rasped.

      “Is upstairs and none of your concern. Now get to your feet— I want this lantern out of the hold before it shatters and sets my ship ablaze.” She grabbed hold of his arm and pulled. The ship rolled and he lurched to his feet, nearly toppling over. He was taller than he’d seemed. Broader. She braced herself against the water casks with his weight crushing her against them as the ship’s pitch threatened to throw them both to the floor. His breath labored near her ear and one large hand curled around the edge of a cask above her.

      “Foolish man. You haven’t the strength to carry out this kind of plan.”

      “Can’t insult a man—” he exhaled sharply when he finally found his feet “—with the truth.” He backed away from her and steadied himself against the casks. “Little bugger got free, then.” His breath came hard, as though it took all his strength to stand. “Didn’t—” he inhaled, exhaled “—take his prize, though.” He held out his other hand.

      He held a strip of Mr. Bogles’s dried fish.

      It wasn’t possible. In his condition, merely leaving her cabin would have been a feat. He would not have done this for СКАЧАТЬ