INTERIOR ARTWORK

IS LOCATED

BETWEEN CHAPTER 12 AND CHAPTER 13

and also can be accessed via the TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Daredevil Snared

The Adventurers Quartet: Volume 3

Stephanie Laurens

www.mirabooks.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-05438-6

THE DAREDEVIL SNARED

© 2016 Savdek Management Proprietary Limited

Published in Great Britain 2016

by Harlequin MIRA, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

Cover design by Savdek Management Pty. Ltd.

Cover and inside front couple photography © 2016 Period Images

Image of jungle cabin interior: photographic credit to piccaya

The name Stephanie Laurens is a registered trademark of Savdek Management Proprietary Ltd.

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Cast of Characters

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Caleb’s Sketch of the Mining Compound

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Interior Artwork

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Dear Reader

An Excerpt from Lord of the Privateers

Other Titles from Stephanie Laurens

About the Author

Responsibility knocks, and a reckless, hedonistic man responds and opens the door to love—thus is a daredevil snared.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens brings you the third installment in THE ADVENTURERS QUARTET, continuing the drama of Regency-era high seas adventure, laced with a mystery shrouded in the heat of tropical jungles, and spiced with the passionate romances of four couples and their unexpected journeys into love.

Captain Caleb Frobisher, hedonistic youngest son of a seafaring dynasty, wants to be taken seriously by his family, and understands he has to prove himself sufficiently reformed. When opportunity strikes, he seizes the next leg of the covert mission his brothers have been pursuing and sails to Freetown. His actions are decisive, and he completes the mission’s next stage—but responsibility, once exercised, has taken root, and he remains in the jungle to guard the captives whose rescue is the mission’s ultimate goal.

Katherine Fortescue has fled the life of poverty her wastrel father had bequeathed her and come to Freetown as a governess, only to be kidnapped and put to work overseeing a child workforce at a mine. She and the other captured adults understand that their lives are limited by the life of the mine. Guarded by well-armed and well-trained mercenaries, the captives have been searching for some means of escape, but in vain. Then Katherine meets a handsome man—a captain—in the jungle, and he and his crew bring the sweet promise of rescue.

The sadistic mercenary captain who runs the mine has other ideas, but Caleb’s true strength lies in extracting advantage from adversity, and through the clashes that follow, he matures into the leader of men he was always destined to be. The sort of man Katherine can trust—with her body, with her life. With her love.

The first voyage is one of exploration, the second one of discovery. The third journey brings maturity, while the fourth is a voyage of second chances. Continue the journey and follow the adventure, the mystery, and the romances to the dramatic end.

Praise for the works of Stephanie Laurens

“Stephanie Laurens’ heroines are marvelous tributes to Georgette Heyer: feisty and strong.” Cathy Kelly

“Stephanie Laurens never fails to entertain and charm her readers with vibrant plots, snappy dialogue, and unforgettable characters.” Historical Romance Reviews

“Stephanie Laurens plays into readers’ fantasies like a master and claims their hearts time and again.” Romantic Times Magazine

The Daredevil Snared

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Principal Characters:

Frobisher, Caleb – Hero, youngest Frobisher brother and captain of The Prince

Fortescue, Katherine (Kate) – Heroine, missing governess from the Sherbrook household in Freetown

In London:

Family:

Frobisher, Declan – Caleb’s older brother

Frobisher, Lady Edwina – Caleb’s sister-in-law, Declan’s wife

Frobisher, Robert – Caleb’s older brother

Hopkins, Aileen – Robert’s intended, Lt. William Hopkins’s sister

Staff in Declan & Edwina’s townhouse:

Humphrey – butler

Government:

Wolverstone, Duke of, Royce, aka Dalziel – ex-commander of British secret operatives outside England

In Aberdeen:

Frobisher, Fergus – Caleb’s father

Frobisher, Elaine – Caleb’s mother

Frobisher, Royd – Caleb’s oldest brother

In Southampton:

Higginson – head clerk, Frobisher Shipping Company Office

In Freetown:

Holbrook, Governor – Governor-in-Chief of British West Africa

Eldridge, Major – Commander, Fort Thornton

Decker, Vice-Admiral – Commander, West Africa Squadron

Winton, Major – Commissar of Fort Thornton

Babington, Charles – partner, Macauley & Babington Trading Company

Macauley, Mr. – senior partner, Macauley & Babington Trading Company

Undoto, Obo – local priest

Muldoon – the Naval Attaché

Winton – nephew of Major Winton, Assistant Commissar at the fort

At Kale’s Homestead:

Kale – slavers’ leader

Rogers – Kale’s lieutenant in the settlement

Fifteen other slavers, including “the pied piper”

In the Mining Compound:

Mercenaries:

Dubois – leader of the mercenaries, presumed French

Arsene – Dubois’s lieutenant, second-in-command, presumed French

Cripps – Dubois’s second lieutenant, English

Plus twenty-eight other mercenaries – of various ages and extractions

Captives:

Dixon, Captain John – army engineer

Hopkins, Lieutenant William – navy, West Africa Squadron

Fanshawe, Lieutenant – navy, West Africa Squadron

Hillsythe – ex-Wolverstone agent, governor’s aide

Frazier, Harriet – gently bred young woman, Dixon’s sweetheart

Wilson, Mary – shop owner-assistant, Babington’s sweetheart

Mackenzie, Ellen – young woman recently arrived in the settlement

Halliday, Gemma – young woman from the slums

Mellows, Annie – young woman from the slums

Mathers, Jed – carpenter

Plus eighteen other men – all British of various backgrounds and trades

Diccon – young boy, seven years old

Amy – young girl, six years old

Gerry – boy, ten years old

Plus sixteen other children – all British, ranging from six to ten years old

Plus five other children – all British, ranging from eleven to fourteen years old

On board The Prince:

Fitzpatrick, Lieutenant Frederick – First Mate

Wallace, Mr. – Master

Carter – Bosun, goes into the jungle but returns to the ship

Quilley – Quartermaster, goes into the jungle and remains with Caleb

Hornby, Mr. – Steward, goes into the jungle but returns to the ship

Johnson – midshipman, goes into the jungle but returns to the ship

Foster, Martin, Ellis, Quick, Mallard, Collins, Biggs, Norton, and Olsen – midshipmen and experienced seamen who go into the jungle and remain with Caleb.

On board The Raven:

Lascelle, Phillipe – Captain, privateer, longtime friend of Caleb’s

Reynaud – Bosun, goes into the jungle but returns to the ship

Ducasse – Quartermaster, goes into the jungle and remains with Phillipe

Fullard, Collmer, Gerard, Vineron – midshipmen and experienced seamen who go into the jungle and remain with Phillipe

Plus four other seamen – all of French extraction, who go into the jungle but return to the ship

CHAPTER 1

July 14, 1824

Jungle east of Freetown, West Africa

Caleb Frobisher moved steadily forward through the jungle shadows. His company of twenty-four men followed in single file. No one spoke; the silence was eerie, stretching nerves taut. Beneath the thick canopy, the humidity was so high that forging ahead felt like walking underwater, as if the heavy atmosphere literally weighed on their limbs.

“Hell’s bells,” Phillipe Lascelle, at Caleb’s heels, breathed. “Surely it can’t be much farther.”

“It’s only midmorning,” Caleb murmured back. “You can’t be wilting already.”

Phillipe snorted.

Caleb continued along the path that was little more than an animal track; they had to constantly duck and weave under and around palm fronds and low branches festooned with clinging vines.

Somewhere ahead lay the slavers’ camp they’d come to find—or so Caleb fervently hoped. Despite his determination to unwaveringly abide by the rule book throughout this mission, thus proving to all and sundry, and his family especially, that he could be trusted with such serious endeavors, sometimes instinct—albeit masquerading as reckless impulse—proved too strong to resist. His brother Robert’s hand-drawn map described the location of the slavers’ camp—Kale’s Homestead—when approached from the west. However, Caleb had studied the camp’s position and decided to come in from the north. From all he’d gleaned from Robert’s notes, the slavers would be alert to any incursion from the west; they would almost certainly have lookouts posted, making west not the wisest direction from which to approach if one’s intention was to seize the camp.

Which was, rather plainly, their purpose; why else would twenty-five strong men all armed to the gills be trooping through such a godforsaken place?

Three nights before, Caleb, in his ship, The Prince, closely followed by his old comrade-in-adventure, Phillipe, in his ship, The Raven, had slipped into the estuary on the night tide. They’d kept to the north shore, well away from the shipping lanes leading into Freetown harbor, and sailed deeper down the estuary and into Tagrin Bay, reducing the risk of detection by any naval vessels going into and out of the harbor; according to Robert’s information, the West Africa Squadron should now be in port, and Caleb would prefer to avoid having to explain himself to Vice-Admiral Decker.

They’d anchored off the southern shore of the bay at a spot Caleb judged was due north of Kale’s Homestead. According to Robert’s map, miles of jungle lay between the slavers’ camp and the ships’ positions; Caleb hadn’t known how passable that jungle would be, but his confidence had been bolstered by the intelligence they’d gained from natives living in a village nearby. Phillipe had a way with languages—another excellent reason for inviting him along—and he’d quickly established a rapport with the village elders. The villagers had known of the slavers’ camp, but, unsurprisingly, avoided it with a near-religious fervor. Sadly, they’d known nothing about any mine or similar enterprise anywhere in the vicinity, but they’d been happy to point out a narrow track that, so they’d insisted, led more or less directly to the slavers’ camp.

Unfortunately, the villagers hadn’t known the name of the slavers’ leader. Caleb clung to the hope that he and his men weren’t going to find themselves at some other slavers’ camp entirely—and trudged on. They’d set out on the previous morning, leaving skeleton crews on their ships and taking the strongest and most experienced of their men. Seizing a slavers’ camp would be no easy task, especially if there were any captives currently in the slavers’ clutches.

Turning that prospect over in his mind—wondering what he might do if it proved to be so—Caleb led the way on.

He almost didn’t trust his eyes when, through the dense curtain of trees, palms, and vines, he glimpsed a pale glow—indicating a clearing where daylight flooded in, banishing the jungle’s pervasive gloom.

Then their narrow track ended, opening onto a wider, better-maintained path, one clearly frequently used.

Caleb stopped and held up a hand; the men following halted and froze. He sent his senses questing. A rumble of male voices was faint but discernible.

Phillipe leaned close and whispered, “We’re twenty to twenty-five yards from the perimeter.”

Caleb nodded. “This wider path must be the one between the camp and the mine.”

Rapidly, he canvassed his options. Although Phillipe was the more experienced commander, he waited, silently deferring to Caleb—this was Caleb’s show. Another reason Caleb liked working with the man. Eventually, he murmured, “Pass the word—we’ll creep nearer, keeping to the jungle, and see what we can see. No reason to let them know we’re here.”

Phillipe turned to pass the order back down the line. Of their party of twenty-five, thirteen were from Caleb’s crew and ten from The Raven’s. Because of Caleb and Phillipe’s previous joint ventures, their men had worked together before; Caleb didn’t need to fear that they wouldn’t operate as a cohesive unit in what was to come.

After one last searching look around, he ventured onto the wider path, placing his feet with care. He followed the well-trodden trail, but halted just before a curve that, by his reckoning, would expose him to those in the clearing. Instead, he slipped silently sideways to his right, into the cover of the jungle. Quietly, he skirted the edge of the clearing, continuing to move slowly and with care, shifting from north to west. Eventually, he reached the western aspect; on spotting a clump of large-leafed palms closer to the clearing’s perimeter, he crouched and crept into the concealment the palms offered. A swift glance behind showed Phillipe following him, while the rest of their men hunkered down, strung out in the shadows, their gazes trained on the activity in the camp.

Caleb returned his attention to the clearing and settled to study Kale’s Homestead. He recognized the layout from Robert’s notes—the horseshoe-shaped central space with a large barrack-like hut across the head and four smaller huts, two on each side. Caleb and his men were at the open end of the horseshoe, virtually directly opposite the main barracks. According to Robert’s diagram, that meant the path from Freetown should be somewhere to their right; Caleb searched and spotted the opening. The path he and his men had briefly followed entered the clearing to the left of the main barracks, while another path—one Robert had deemed unused—straggled away into the jungle from the right of that building.

Having established that reality matched the picture of the camp he’d carried in his mind, Caleb focused on the people moving in and out of the huts and sitting about the central fire pit.

Phillipe settled alongside him, and they tuned their ears to the low-voiced, desultory chatter.

After a while, Phillipe leaned closer and whispered, “That large one—he acts like the leader, but from Robert’s description, he can’t be Kale.”

Caleb focused on the slaver in question—a heavyset man, tall, and with a swaggering gait. “I think,” Caleb murmured back, “that he must be the man who leads Kale’s men in the settlement.” After a moment, he mused, “Interesting that he’s here.”

“Useful that he’s here,” Phillipe corrected. “If we eradicate all here, chances are Kale’s operation won’t simply rise again under some other leader.”

Caleb nodded. “True.” He scanned the area and the huts. “It doesn’t look like they have any captives—the doors of the smaller huts are open, and I haven’t seen any hint there’s anyone inside.”

“I haven’t, either.”

Caleb grimaced. “Kale’s not out there. Is he here, but in the barracks, and if so, how many men are in there with him?”

Phillipe’s shoulders lifted in a Gallic shrug.

Just then, one of the men hovering about the large pot slung over the fire pit raised his head, looked toward the barracks, and yelled, “Stew’s ready!”

Seconds later, the barracks’ door opened. Caleb grinned as a slaver of medium height and wiry build, with a disfiguring scar marring his features—from Robert’s description, the man had to be Kale—emerged, followed by three more men.

“How helpful,” Phillipe murmured.

Another man emerged from the path to Freetown. Caleb nudged Phillipe and nodded at the newcomer. “They did have a lookout on that path.”

Phillipe studied the man as he joined his fellows. “It doesn’t look as if they’re seriously concerned over unexpected company—odds are there was only the one lookout.”

“That’s the way I read it, too.”

“All told, that makes thirteen.”

His eyes on the scene unfolding about the fire pit, Caleb merely nodded. Phillipe settled again, and they watched as Kale, handed a tin plate piled with stew by one of his henchmen, sat on a log and started eating. His men followed suit, sitting on the logs arranged in a rough circle around the fire.

They’d barely taken their first mouthfuls when the muted tramp of feet had everyone—Kale and his men, as well as Caleb, Phillipe, and their company—looking toward the path from the north. The path Caleb believed led to the mine—the same path they’d briefly been on fifteen or so minutes before.

Four men—slavers by their dress and Kale’s men by their composure—appeared. They hailed Kale and exchanged greetings with others in the group.

“So you got our recent guests settled, then?” Kale’s words came in a distinctive, gravelly rasp, further confirming his identity.

The man who’d led the group grinned. “Aye—and Dubois sent his thanks. That said, he made a very large point about needing more men. Emphasizing men. He says he wants at least fifteen more.”

Kale swore colorfully. “I’d be thrilled to give him more if only those blighters in the settlement would just let us do what we do best.” He grunted, then shook his head and returned his attention to his plate. “Sadly, they’re the ones who pay the piper, and they pay his highness Dubois, too, so he’ll just have to make do with those we can give him.” Kale waved the newcomers to the pot. “Sit and eat. You’ve earned it.”

The four did, gratefully settling with the rest.

Conversation was nonexistent while the men ate. Caleb would have felt hungrier had he not insisted that his party consume a decent breakfast before they broke their temporary camp that morning. He’d never favored fighting on an empty stomach, and he’d felt quietly confident that they would find Kale’s camp that day.

“That’s seventeen now,” Phillipe murmured. “Not quite so easy.” He sounded, if anything, pleased.

Caleb softly grunted. He verified Phillipe’s headcount and, again, thanked the impulse that had prompted him to invite Phillipe and his crew to join his mission. A day out of Southampton, one of The Prince’s main water kegs had sprung a leak. Determined to adhere to the maxim of “take no unnecessary risks,” Caleb had made the small detour to the Canary Islands. Before he’d even moored in Las Palmas harbor, he’d spotted the distinctive black hull of The Raven. While the keg was repaired and refilled and his men arranged for extra supplies, Caleb had spent an evening catching up with his old friend. And on discovering that The Raven, along with its experienced crew and captain, was presently unengaged, Caleb had invited Phillipe to join him on his mission. He’d made it clear there would be no payment or likely spoils, but like Caleb, Phillipe was addicted to adventure. Bored, he’d jumped at the chance of action.

Phillipe was a lone privateer, and while he’d originally sailed for the French under Bonaparte, exactly who he sailed for these days was unclear. However, the war with France was long over, and on the waves, any lingering political loyalties counted for less than longtime friendship bolstered by similar devil-may-care traits.

To Caleb’s mind, twenty-five men against seventeen was precisely the sort of numbers he needed in this place, at this time, to eradicate Kale and his operation. The slavers would fight to the death and would do anything and everything to survive. Caleb didn’t want to lose any of his men, or any of Phillipe’s, either. Twenty-five to seventeen...that should do it.

By the time he’d sailed into Las Palmas, he’d already discarded the notion of leaving Kale undisturbed and, instead, picking up the trail north from the “Homestead” and making directly for the mine. That was his mission, after all—to locate the mine, learn what he could of it, and then get that intelligence back to London. However, heading north to the mine with Kale and his men effectively at his back didn’t appeal in the least. More, returning to London without eliminating Kale and his crew would simply leave that task to whoever returned to complete the mission. No commander worth his salt would attempt to attack and capture the mine with Kale still in his camp, a potential source of reinforcements for whatever forces were already at the mine.

But Kale had to be removed in a way that would not immediately alert the villains behind the scheme—the “blighters” Kale had referred to—or Dubois and any others in charge at the mine. That was Caleb’s first hurdle—the first challenge on this quest.

“If we’d arrived earlier,” Phillipe murmured, “while they’re all gathered as they are, distracted with eating, would have been a good time to attack.”

Caleb shrugged. In days gone by, he might have leapt precipitously at the chance and rushed in, but for today and the foreseeable future, he was determined to adhere to the script of a reliable and responsible commander. He could almost hear the voices of his three older brothers, all of whom would lecture him to take his time and plan, and find and secure every advantage he could for his men in the upcoming skirmish, which was guaranteed to end as a bloody massacre.

He, Phillipe, and every man in their company knew and accepted that they would need to kill every slaver in Kale’s camp. That Kale and his men were engaged in trading in others’ lives—men, women, and children, too—had made the decision, the resolution, that much easier to make. The men gathered around the fire pit ranked among the lowest of the low.

Kale spooned up the last of his stew, chewed, swallowed, then looked across the fire pit at the large man Phillipe had earlier noted. “Rogers—you and your crew can rest up, then head back to the settlement midafternoon. If you don’t find a message from Muldoon waiting—no suggestion of who to grab next—use your own judgment. See if there are any more sailor-boys we can snatch. Dubois, at least, will be grateful.”

Rogers grinned and saluted. “We’ll see what we can find.”

Phillipe shifted to whisper in Caleb’s ear. “We need to attack before Rogers leaves.”

Caleb studied the group, then replied in the barest murmur, “They’ve just eaten their main meal for the day, and it was stew. Heavy.” He glanced at Phillipe. “In this heat, an hour from now, they’re all going to be half asleep.”

Phillipe blinked his dark-blue eyes once, then he grinned wolfishly and looked back at the camp.

Several minutes later, after having seen Kale retreat with three of his men into the main barracks while the rest of the slavers spread out in groups, quietly chatting, Caleb tapped Phillipe on the shoulder, then carefully crept back to where their men waited.

Phillipe followed. At Caleb’s signal, the group moved farther back, away from the camp and deeper into the concealing shadows.

They chanced upon a natural clearing big enough to hold them all. Most of the men had been hauling seabags and packs containing their tents and supplies; Caleb waited while they shed them, then at his intimation, they all hunkered down in a rough circle. He looked around, noting the expectant faces and also the confidence—in him and his leadership—conveyed by their steady gazes; all had fought under his orders before, and his own men had been with him for years. “Here’s how we’re going to approach this.”

Not recklessly but responsibly—with all due care for the safety of his men and prospective success.

Clearly and concisely, he laid out the elements of his plan—in essence a version of divide and conquer. He invited input on several aspects, and Phillipe and a number of others made inventive suggestions that he readily incorporated into the whole. In less than half an hour, they’d hammered out a solid plan, one to which everyone was ready to lend their enthusiastic support.

“Right, then.” He looked around the circle, meeting each man’s eyes. Then he nodded decisively. “Let’s get to it. Move into position and wait for my signal.”

The men melted away in twos and threes, some going west, others east, ultimately to encircle the camp.

When all others had left them, Phillipe dipped his head in wry acknowledgment. “That was well done.”

Caleb knew Phillipe wasn’t referring to how he’d made the plan but to the way he’d doubled up the less experienced, less strong fighters among their men. Five of his men and five of Phillipe’s, as well as himself and Phillipe, were well able to take care of themselves in any company—even against slavers of the ilk of Kale and his crew, all of whom would, without a doubt, prove to be vicious fighters. Vicious and desperate, for they would quickly realize that they were outnumbered. Caleb shrugged. “I just want us all to walk out of this and, given this climate, with as few cuts as possible.”

They’d brought various salves and ointments in their supplies, but in tropical climes, infection was always a danger.

“We’d better get into position.” In such close quarters, pistols would be useless—as likely to hit a friend as an enemy. The fight would be all bladework. Both Caleb and Phillipe reached for their sword hilts and loosened the blades in the scabbards, then they checked the various knives strapped about their persons.

Satisfied they were as prepared as possible, Caleb indicated the spot from which they’d earlier studied the camp. He and Phillipe had, of course, taken the most dangerous positions. They would lead the charge—as they usually did—by storming into the camp from the open end of the horseshoe-shaped space, making as much immediate impact as they could.

Two other men would attack from positions to their right and left. Others would come in from the paths flanking the main barracks and also from between the smaller huts.

Meanwhile, their bosuns, Caleb’s Carter and Phillipe’s Reynaud—both hefty men too slow on their feet to be good in a sword fight on open ground, yet as strong as any wrestlers—would prevent Kale and the three closeted with him in the main hut from immediately joining in the fight.

“So helpful of Kale to take three of them with him,” Phillipe murmured as they scuttled into position behind the large-leafed palms.

“All he needs to do is stay there for just a few minutes longer...” Caleb peered across the camp, then grinned. “Carter’s in position.”

“Reynaud, as well.” Phillipe met Caleb’s eyes. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Caleb felt his grin take on a familiar unholy edge. “Now.”

They sprang to their feet and rushed into the camp. They fell on the nearest pair of men lolling on the logs and dispatched both before they’d even struggled to their feet. No quarter, no fighting fair—not with cutthroats like this.

By then the other slavers had leapt to their feet, but before they could move to engage Caleb and Phillipe, they were distracted by, and then forced to turn and defend against, the rest of Caleb and Phillipe’s company.

Straightening, Caleb glanced over the heads and confirmed all was on track.

Long before the first shout had sounded—before Kale was alerted to the disruption—Carter and Reynaud had clambered onto the barracks’ porch and spilled their burdens of cleaned logs made from branches three and four inches thick before the door. Then they’d leapt back and put their spines to the barracks’ front wall. Two others had joined them, waiting to pounce when Kale and company emerged at a run—and pitched every which way on the rolling logs.

Caleb swore as a loose slaver made a run for him, cutlass swinging; he had to look away and miss the action on the porch.

Clang!

Caleb’s sword met the slaver’s cutlass. He threw the man back, then advanced, sword whirling.

The slaver was shorter than Caleb’s six-plus feet and scrawny to boot. Caleb’s longer reach and greater strength soon put paid to the villain. He fell, eyes rolling up. Caleb yanked his sword free of the man’s chest and turned.

Chaos filled the camp. The fighting was ferocious, every bit as desperate as Caleb had foreseen. There were more men down, but as far as Caleb could tell, all were slavers. The fighting in front of the barracks was intense, but his and Phillipe’s men now held the porch itself, an advantage in the circumstances.

But he couldn’t see Kale.

Another slaver rushed him, and he had to turn and deal with the man. That took longer than he would have liked—the man had had some training somewhere and was taller and stronger than most of his fellows. He actually managed to nick Caleb’s forearm, which reminded Caleb that he wasn’t fighting any gentleman; he lashed out with his boot, catching the slaver unawares and driving his heel into the man’s midsection. The slaver doubled up, and then he was dead.

A sudden flaring of instinct had Caleb swinging around, counting heads—almost desperately searching for something going wrong.

His gaze fell on Phillipe, who was engaged in a furious battle with the man known as Rogers.

Phillipe was tall, but had a fencer’s build—all supple wiriness. He was lethally fast with any blade. He was currently fighting with the traditional sword most captains favored; the blade flashed and gleamed as he countered Rogers’s every strike.

But Rogers was stronger, heavier, and had a longer reach—and was wielding a much heavier, wickedly curved blade. From the feverish anticipation in Rogers’s face, he believed he had Phillipe beaten. Phillipe was, indeed, hard pressed but still countering fluidly, his elegant features distorted in a snarl.

Caleb knew better than to distract his friend.

Then Phillipe gave Rogers an opening.

With a triumphant roar, Rogers swung and struck—

Empty air. Phillipe wasn’t anywhere near where Rogers had expected him to be.

Phillipe straightened behind Rogers. He slammed the hilt of his sword into Rogers’s nape, then plunged a knife that seemed to appear out of thin air into the man’s back.

Rogers gasped and collapsed. Phillipe whirled, saw Caleb watching, and snapped off a grim salute.

In concert, they turned toward the main barracks and waded anew into the fray, assisting their men as they swept on toward the porch, leaving nothing but dead slavers behind them.

Caleb tapped two of their men on their shoulders and, with a hand sign, set them to scout the edges of the fight to ensure no slaver, sensing impending doom, attempted to slip away. It was imperative that no word of Kale and his men’s fate reached Freetown.

Rogers falling had marked the turning of the tide, but Caleb and his company were too experienced to let down their guard. As Caleb and Phillipe pushed forward, their men fell in around them, forming an unstoppable wave. Together, they put paid to the last of the slavers.

All except Kale.

His back to the raised front of the barracks’ porch, the man was a dervish, keeping a semicircle of Caleb and Phillipe’s men at bay with a pair of flashing blades.

With Robert’s description of Kale’s potential menace etched in his brain, Caleb had warned their men that unless they had an easy and definitely lethal shot at Kale, they were to hem him in but not engage.

As Caleb and Phillipe joined their men, the circle drew back fractionally, leaving the pair of them standing shoulder to shoulder facing Kale.

They’d halted at a respectable—respectful—distance. Kale took stock of them, his blades now still.

The slavers’ leader was shorter than Caleb, shorter than Phillipe, but Kale was the very epitome of wiry, and the way he held himself, at ease but on the balls of his feet, poised to explode into action, with his curious twin blades—slightly curved like elongated scimitars—held firmly and perfectly balanced, but with loose, supple wrists, screamed to the initiated that he was lethally fast.

Fast, fast, fast.

There was a flatness in his wintry eyes that stated he’d killed so many times it had become all but instinctive—a part of his nature.

From the corner of his eye, Caleb saw Phillipe’s jaw set, then Phillipe reached to his other side—to Reynaud, who understood the unspoken command and placed his loaded pistol in Phillipe’s hand.

Kale had tracked the movement. He sneered. “What? No honor in your justice?” He spat the last word, but not at Phillipe. Kale’s gaze had fastened on Caleb, and the challenge was clearly directed at him.

Caleb met Kale’s gaze. In the art of manipulation, Caleb knew beyond question that he could give Kale lessons, but...that wasn’t the point here. He knew he was being goaded, that Kale wanted to fight him, believing he, Kale, would win, and that doing so would somehow win his freedom, at least from immediate dispatch. In situations such as this, for men such as Kale, surviving even an hour more meant an hour’s more chance to escape.

Or to take others with him on his journey from this world. A revenge of sorts.

If Caleb had been operating as he usually did, he would have responded immediately, and he and Kale would fight; he’d never walked away from a challenge—or from a fight—in his life. However, this time...what was right?

Head tilting, Caleb continued to regard Kale while weighing the pros and cons. He’d lectured his men against taking undue risks; shouldn’t he hold himself to the same standard regardless of Kale’s baiting?

But what of that sticky wicket called leadership? How he dealt with this situation would inevitably impinge on his standing with his men, and with Phillipe’s, too.

More, Kale had questioned—had maligned—justice. Not Caleb but the concept of justice they were there to serve.

Didn’t that demand some answer? Not just on his part but on behalf of their whole company?

Didn’t Kale’s challenge speak to and question the validity of why they were there, and more, the justification for what they had done—the lives they’d already taken that day?

Beside him, Phillipe shifted, darting a glance at his face. “Caleb...we are judge and jury here. Curs such as he have no claim to the honor of a fair fight in lieu of sentence.”

Who said I intend to fight fairly? Kale certainly won’t.

Kale’s pale gaze hadn’t left Caleb’s face. Phillipe might as well not have spoken for all the reaction Kale gave.

But Caleb’s steady regard was something Kale found more difficult to tolerate. His lip curled in a sneer. “What, son—cat got your tongue?”

Caleb smiled. “No. I’m merely debating the irony of engaging with vermin such as you over the value of justice.”

Kale blinked—then he exploded into action. Blades swinging, he launched himself at Caleb.

Phillipe cursed and stepped back, smoothly bringing the pistol to bear. Startled, all the other men leapt back.

But Caleb had seen Kale’s muscles tense. Without a blink, he’d whipped up his sword and a shorter blade and slapped Kale’s slashing swords aside.

Then it was on. Caleb could not—dared not—take his eyes from Kale’s. He tracked the man’s whirling blades by the infinitesimal shifts in Kale’s attention; Caleb didn’t fall into the trap of trying to keep both blades in view.

In less than a minute, Caleb was wishing he’d let Phillipe shoot the bastard; Kale was beyond lethal—and he was a better swordsman than Caleb. He was no slouch, but Kale was in a class of his own.

Unfortunately, the time for justice via pistol had passed. He and Kale were moving too quickly for even a marksman like Phillipe to attempt a shot.

Although Kale knew that, he also knew that with Phillipe standing just out of reach with the pistol in his hand, Kale wasn’t leaving the circle alive.

That realization was etched in Kale’s face; it infused his fighting with a snarling, animalistic fury and a nothing-to-lose strength, which, combined with his precise fluidity, made his strikes difficult to predict, much less counter.

Playing defense wasn’t Caleb’s strong suit, but he forced himself to do it—to concentrate on keeping Kale’s blades at bay and letting the man batter at him, trying to break through.

He was justice—he represented justice—and Kale could try as hard as he wished to break through his guard and triumph. But he wouldn’t. Caleb wouldn’t let him.

Caleb was taller, stronger, had a greater reach—and most telling of all, he was younger than Kale.

If Kale couldn’t break through his defense...eventually, justice would triumph.

He was watching for the moment that realization worked its way into Kale’s conscious mind. It did, and Kale blinked.

Then he lashed out with one foot, aiming for Caleb’s groin.

But Caleb had already danced aside.

He had far longer legs. Before Kale could recover, Caleb stepped in and smashed his boot into the side of Kale’s knee.

Kale screamed and teetered.

Moving like a dancer, Caleb pivoted behind Kale and ruthlessly slashed down on first one, then the other of the man’s wrists. Kale screamed again as he dropped both swords.

Caleb reached for Kale’s shoulders, intending to push the man to his knees—

“Aside!”

Caleb flung himself to the left as Phillipe’s pistol barked.

Kale crumpled, then fell.

Caleb had landed on his side; as he pushed to his feet, he saw the stiletto that had tumbled from Kale’s now-lifeless hand.

Caleb snorted. “I believe,” he said, resheathing his sword and long knife, “that justice has been served.”

Phillipe shook his head at him, then handed the pistol back to Reynaud. Then Phillipe bent, picked up Kale’s twin blades, and ceremonially presented them, hilt first across his sleeve, to Caleb. “And to the victor, the spoils.”

Caleb grinned. He reached out and closed his hand around one hilt and with his chin gestured for Phillipe to take the other. “I believe that’s the pair of us. Thank you for intervening.”

Gripping the second blade, slashing it through the air to test its balance, Phillipe lifted one shoulder. “It seemed time. You’d played with him long enough.”

Caleb laughed, then, smile fading, he looked around at their men. “Injuries?”

Unsurprisingly, there were more than a few cuts and slashes, of which Caleb and Phillipe had their share. Only three gashes were serious enough to warrant binding. They had lost no one, and for that Caleb gave mute thanks. The fire had gone out. Working together, they lifted the dead aside, then they restoked the blaze, boiled water, and tended every wound.

Once that was done, Caleb climbed to the barracks’ porch and, his hands on his hips, surveyed the camp. He grimaced. “I hate to break it to you all, but we need to clear this up.”

Phillipe had climbed to stand beside him. On the voyage to Freetown, Phillipe had read Robert’s journals and so understood Caleb’s direction. He sighed. “Sadly, I agree. We need to make Kale and his men disappear.” Phillipe gestured. “Poof—vanished without a trace.”

“With no evidence of any fight left, either.” Caleb looked at their men. They would feel the effects of the battle later, but for now, they were still keyed up with energy to spare. “Right, then. We need to leave this camp looking as if Kale and his men have just walked out and away. Here’s what we’ll do.”

It took them four hours of hard work, but finally, the camp lay neat and tidy, silent, and oddly serene, as if waiting for occupants to arrive. They’d carted the bodies into the jungle along the unused track to the east, then found a clearing a little way off the track and buried all the bodies in one large grave. Caleb had fetched Robert’s journal from his pack, along with the sketches Aileen Hopkins, who had joined Robert on his leg of the mission, had made of certain slavers; by comparing those with the dead men, Caleb felt certain that, as well as Kale, they’d removed not only the large leader of the slavers in the settlement—Rogers—but also the one Aileen had dubbed “the pied piper,” the slaver with the melodious voice who was key to luring children from their homes with promises of gainful employment. As the last body was tipped into the grave, Caleb had shut the journal. “With any luck, we’ve completely exterminated this particular nest of vermin.”

Once all was done, Phillipe paused beside Caleb at the edge of the now-peaceful clearing and scanned the area; they’d even groomed the dust with palm fronds, and not a hint of the fight remained. “All in all, a good day’s work.”

Caleb agreed. “So Kale has mysteriously vanished, and no one is likely to guess to where, much less why.”

After one last glance around the clearing, he turned and fell in beside Phillipe. They made their way into the jungle. No one had even suggested spending the night in the slavers’ camp. Instead, they’d set up a makeshift camp in the clearing where they’d left their packs and supplies.

Caleb walked into the clearing to find crude tents already erected and a fire burning brightly beneath the cook pot. Aromas much more enticing than the charnel scent of death rose on the steam. They all sat—all but slumped. They checked wounds, then when the meal was ready, everyone ate.

Largely in silence. There were no songs around the campfire, no tall tales told. They’d all killed that day, and while they were accustomed to an existence in which life was too often cut short, as the energy of battle ebbed and left them deflated, they each had their own consciences to tend, to appease and allay.

The fire burned low, and quietly, with nothing more than murmured good nights, they settled on their blankets and reached for sleep.

Tomorrow, they would embark on the next stage of the mission.

Tomorrow, they would take the path to the mine.

CHAPTER 2

“John told me at breakfast that he doesn’t know how much longer he can drag his heels over opening up the second tunnel.”

Katherine Fortescue glanced at her companion, Harriet Frazier; the pair of them had elected to stretch their legs in a stroll around the mining compound during their midmorning break from their work in the cleaning shed.

Of course, the real purpose of their stroll was to facilitate communication; while they walked, they could talk freely, with no one likely to overhear their exchanges.

The “John” to whom Harriet referred was her sweetheart, Captain John Dixon, the erstwhile army engineer who had been the first of their company to be kidnapped from Freetown. When Dixon had refused the mercenary leader Dubois’s invitation to plan and implement the opening of a mine to exploit a newly discovered pipe of diamonds for unnamed backers, Dubois had merely smiled coldly—and the next thing Dixon had known, Harriet had joined him in his captivity.

The threats against Harriet that Dubois had used to force Dixon to acquiesce to his demands were, quite simply, unspeakable. Harriet carried a fine scar on her cheek that Dixon still regarded with sorrow and remembered horror. But Harriet bore the mark with pride. In her eyes—indeed, in the eyes of all the captives now there—Dixon had only done what he’d had to, what he’d been forced to do to ensure he and Harriet survived.

And he and all of them continued in that vein, using that as their touchstone; if they didn’t survive, they couldn’t escape.

Despite their carefully cultivated appearance of being resigned to their lot, every man, woman, and child of their company had banded together, and all were unswervingly committed to escape.

Escape first; retribution could come later.

Katherine had long grown accustomed to keeping her features composed; she and Harriet maintained unconcerned, outwardly unperturbed expressions as they paced slowly around the well-worn clockwise circuit that would take them from the cleaning shed, where they worked at chipping heavy concretions of ore from the rough diamonds extracted from the mine that had eventually been constructed, past the eastern end of the long, central, main barracks building in which Dubois and his band of mercenaries worked and slept when they weren’t on guard, either at the gates of the compound, pacing the perimeter, escorting groups of captives to fetch water from the nearby lake, or perched in the high tower that stood at that end of the long building.

Shading her eyes, Katherine glanced up at the pair of mercenaries on lookout duty in the tower. “Given how our output from the shed has been dwindling,” she murmured, “I can—sadly—see John’s point.” She glanced at Harriet. “Let’s meet tonight and see how the others feel. There’s only so long we can put Dubois off without damaging our own position.”

The “others” were the de facto leaders of their small community—the officers who had been kidnapped, plus Katherine and Harriet. Katherine had been taken because, as a governess, she had experience managing children, but another of her skills was fine needlework, and Dubois had quickly recognized the sharpness of her eye and the quality of her work in the cleaning shed; he had effectively made her the spokesperson and leader of the women and children.

So she spoke for both groups, and Harriet was one of her deputies among the six women, most of whom had been taken for their ability to do fine work.

As she and Harriet continued their promenade, the hems of the drab, featureless gowns they’d been given to wear stirring fallen leaves, Katherine contemplated—as she was sure every one of their number did these days—the delicate balance they were striving to maintain. “I wish there was some easier—more obvious and less stressful—way we could manage this.”

Harriet grimaced, then smoothed her features into a mask of unconcern. “It’s a constant juggle. I know it weighs heavily on John.”

“And he’s doing a wonderful job—we wouldn’t have any hope if it wasn’t for him.” Katherine laid a hand on Harriet’s sleeve and lightly squeezed. “We all understand the dilemma. We have to keep giving Dubois diamonds enough to appease his masters—whoever the blackguards are—while at the same time holding back as much as we can to stave off the time when the deposit is exhausted and they decide to shut the mine.”

None of them harbored the slightest illusion about what would happen once a decision to close the mine was made. They would be killed. Lined up and shot—or worse.

Given the atrocities Dubois and his men had committed against one young girl early in the life of the mine, and the threats Dubois occasionally made when using one of the women or children to reinforce his control over the kidnapped men, worse, in this case, would be horrific. So horrific none of them dwelled on the prospect.

That was the other reason Dubois had arranged to have women and children added to the mine’s captives. Quite aside from their necessary contributions to the work, they were the perfect pawns with which to ensure the men’s compliance.

As the location of the mine dictated that Dubois’s impressed workforce had to be European and, given his source was Freetown, that meant mostly English, he’d realized he would need an effective means of controlling said workforce. Dubois was all about effectiveness and control—he was coldhearted, ruthless, and appeared to possess not a single scruple or finer feeling in his large, powerful frame.

Because the mine was located within one of the native chief’s lands, Dubois and his masters did not dare kidnap natives—not of any tribe. But the chief did not care about Europeans; in his eyes, they were not his concern. So Englishmen from Freetown it was. In addition, kidnapped English were also more useful in that all those taken had some training in skills required for the mine.

Captain John Dixon had been targeted because he was an expert sapper—an engineer skilled in the construction of tunnels. Several of the other men had carpentry skills; others were laborers used to wielding picks, and all of the women had some talent Dubois or his masters had deemed useful. The children hadn’t needed to be anything but children—quick and healthy, with small hands and keen vision.

They even had several men and women with medical and nursing experience, which had proved useful in treating the occasional injury. Mining was inherently unsafe, and accidents had occurred, but the compound contained a decently equipped medical hut.

Katherine cynically acknowledged that the one helpful aspect of Dubois’s rule—absolute and unchallengeable as it was—was that his single-minded quest for effectiveness and efficiency meant he considered keeping his workforce as hale, healthy, and able as possible to be in his and his masters’ best interests.

So regardless of his threats—which not a single one of them doubted he would carry out without a blink if they pushed him to it—he ensured that their needs were met so that they could continue to work and produce the raw diamonds his masters sought.

That was what Dubois was being very well paid to ensure—that the mine was properly exploited and the raw diamonds dispatched in secret to Amsterdam on behalf of his masters.

Just who those masters were, no one had yet learned. However, although Dubois was French and his band of mercenaries hailed from every quarter, the general consensus among the captives was that the blackguards behind the scheme were Englishmen.

Katherine dwelled on that for several seconds, then shook the thought aside. Time enough to focus on whom to blame after they’d escaped.

She and Harriet rounded the base of the tower, passing the supply hut and, beside it, the large kitchen with its wide, palm-frond-covered overhang beneath which three small fire pits with cook pots suspended above them were watched over by Dubois’s huge cook. The man was the grumpiest individual Katherine had ever met, perennially scowling at everyone—even Dubois.

They continued circling the mercenaries’ barracks, on their left passing the long barrack-like building in which all the women and children slept, followed by the compound’s double gates, as usual propped wide open with a pair of guards lounging, one to each side.

The roughly circular compound was crudely but effectively palisaded by planks lashed together with thick vines and wire. It appeared rather rickety in places and wouldn’t be impossible to break through, but if they escaped and fled, where would they go?

The simple fact that they had no real clue where they were and how far it might be to any form of safe harbor, along with the knowledge of the hideous retribution Dubois would unquestionably inflict on those left behind should any of them successfully flee, ensured that they continued apparently acquiescent in their captivity.

They were anything but, yet circumstances and Dubois had forced them to be pragmatic.

They couldn’t escape unless they got everyone out all at once and until they knew in which direction safety lay and how long it would take them to reach it.

Skirting the captives’ communal area—a circle of logs surrounding a large fire pit—Katherine and Harriet walked slowly past the long building where the men slept and on past the open maw of the mine. Unless dispatched on some other chore, all the male captives labored inside the tunnel, now more than fifty yards long, that had been hacked, inch by foot, more or less straight into the side of a steep hill that rose abruptly from the jungle floor, as if some elemental force had thrust it upward. The hillside above the mine entrance was relatively sheer.

As she and Harriet passed the mine, they both looked inside. Although lanternlight played on the walls, glinting off the roughly hewn planes, none of the men were presently visible; they would all be farther down, hacking out the remnants of the original deposit, or with Dixon supposedly examining the second pipe—a rock formation associated with diamonds—that Dixon had, thank the Lord, discovered to the right of the original find.

If he hadn’t found that second pipe, the mine would already be on its last legs, and they would be facing death.

That new deposit had given them a second wind, as it were, in that it held out the chance of surviving long enough to figure out some way to escape.

That it was up to them to save themselves was now accepted by all. Initially, they’d waited, simply surviving, in the expectation that help would arrive in the form of a rescue party sent from the settlement.

It had seemed inconceivable that this many adults, women as well as men, many with positions and connections in the community, let alone the small army of children, could be snatched from one place without any hue and cry being raised.

But weeks and then months had passed, and no rescue had come.

With their hopes dashed, for a while, they’d grown dispirited and despairing.

But they were English, after all. They’d rallied.

And grown increasingly resolute in their determination to survive and, eventually, escape.

They hadn’t yet figured out how to do it, but they would.

Katherine never wavered from that stance, because to do so would mean that there was no hope, not for her or any of the ragtag group of children she now considered as being in her care.

Part of that group lay ahead, mostly older girls crouched by a pile of ore that the boys, both younger and older, plus the few younger girls, had fetched out of the mine. That was the role the children played. The boys and young girls darted in and around the men as they worked, grubbing out and collecting all the rock pieces as they fell from the walls and loading the rock into woven baskets. They then lugged the filled baskets outside and upended them onto the pile the older girls were sorting.

The girls sat or crouched in the shade cast by a crude movable awning Katherine had persuaded Dubois to provide and steadily worked their way through the pile of ore dumped before them. The diamonds came out of the mine heavily encrusted with a mixture of ores. The girls examined each clump of broken rock, searching for the signs they’d been taught signified that a diamond lay within. They tapped the rock, listening for the sound, then searched for the lines where diamond met ore. The girls sorted and, eventually, passed the potential diamonds to the women, who more carefully cleaned each find using small chisels and hammers to tap off the encrustations, ultimately rendering the raw diamonds small enough and light enough for transport.

The captives had heard that the cleaned stones were sent to Amsterdam via ships passing through Freetown harbor.

The rocks the girls discarded they threw into another pile. Closer to the compound’s perimeter, a massive pile of discarded rocks testified to the amount the men had already hacked out of the earth, that the children had gathered and sorted.

Katherine and Harriet paused beside the girls, responding with gentle, encouraging smiles as several glanced up.

One of the older girls, fair haired and pale skinned, asked Katherine, “Will you be around later?” She pointed to the already large pile of discarded ore. “We’ll be getting through a good amount today.”

Katherine nodded; it was part of her Dubois-decreed duties to check over the discarded ore for any obvious diamonds the girls might have missed. “I’ll be back this afternoon.”

The sound of approaching footsteps had Katherine and Harriet turning to see who was coming their way. Hillsythe, a tall, loose-limbed, brown-haired man, was walking from the medical hut in company with Jed Mathers, one of the carpenters. Hillsythe was a gentleman and, regardless of the rough clothes he now wore, was a commanding figure in their small community. He was also one of those with some degree of medical training, and Jed had a bandaged wrist.

As the pair drew level with Katherine and Harriet, Hillsythe slowed, then halted. He nodded at Jed. “Avoid using that hand for at least the rest of the day. Grab one of the boys to help you.”

“Aye. I’ll do that.” Jed dipped his head respectfully to Katherine and Harriet, then continued on his way to the mine.

Hillsythe lingered. His gaze on Jed, he murmured, “We’re going to have to move forward into the second tunnel soon. There’s too little of the first deposit left.”

“So I understand,” Katherine said. “I assume the principal question remaining is how we manage output from the second pipe once Dixon opens it for mining.”

Hillsythe inclined his head, both in agreement and in unconsciously elegant farewell. “Tonight, then. As usual after dinner.”

Katherine stood with Harriet and watched Hillsythe trail Jed back to the mine. Dixon had been the only officer Dubois and his masters in the settlement who were managing the scheme had intended to snatch. Because of his expertise, Dixon had been a necessity. What the schemers hadn’t counted on was that other officers would be dispatched to find Dixon. First had come Lieutenant William Hopkins, who’d been followed by Lieutenant Thomas Fanshawe, both navy men, and finally Hillsythe—who didn’t have a rank and wasn’t army or navy, yet was transparently someone of military background.

Initially, Dubois had been exceedingly unhappy about having more officers foisted upon him; he was far from a fool—he knew danger when he saw it. However, from Dubois’s point of view, the advent of Hopkins, the first officer to arrive after Dixon, had instead proved to be an unlooked-for bonus. The disconnected rabble of other men—many sailors or navvies snatched off the docks—had recognized the authority Will Hopkins carried as naturally as a cloak. Although he was only in his late twenties, Will’s grasp of command was innate, and the men had responded.

And Will had been clever enough to see that playing to Dubois’s liking for efficiency and smooth operations would, in the short to medium term, be to the captives’ advantage.

That had been the start of the charade they’d all, bit by bit, started to play for Dubois’s benefit. Just how much of their carefully constructed façade of appeasement and acquiescence Dubois actually believed, Katherine—and the others, too—would not have wagered on, but as long as his camp ran smoothly and he met his masters’ targets, Dubois appeared content to leave them be.

According to Hillsythe, Dubois was the epitome of a successful mercenary. He wouldn’t have reached the age he had, with the absolute control over his men he transparently wielded, without knowing how to best manage an operation like this. Efficiency and effectiveness were Dubois’s watchwords; as long as the work was done as he wished, he cared not a fig for anything else.

Under Dixon, Hopkins, and Fanshawe, the male captives had come together and formed a cohesive company, divided into four units under the three officers and Hillsythe. In addition, Hillsythe acted as their strategist. It was he who, once he’d learned the ways of the camp and Dubois, had sounded the alarm over the dwindling first deposit and had suggested that Dixon excavate more widely, searching for another.

If it hadn’t been for Hillsythe’s foresight, they would already have been in dire straits.

Subsequently, when Dixon had succeeded in finding the second pipe and they’d all heaved a sigh of relief, Hillsythe had again seen opportunity and had suggested that Dixon—with the full knowledge of all the captives—become increasingly spontaneously “helpful” to Dubois in matters relating to the mine. Hillsythe had explained that a man of Dixon’s background—an engineer with a true passion for his work—might believably have his initial loyalties eroded by his excitement over exploiting a second and even more fabulous diamond pipe.

Dixon had been reluctant, but they’d all seen the potential benefit and had urged him to try it.

With Hillsythe’s guidance, Dixon had tried being “helpful” over issues that didn’t really matter to the captives.

The result was that, having now accepted Dixon’s “conversion,” increasingly, Dubois trusted what Dixon told him about the mine. That had helped enormously in dragging out the opening of the second tunnel. At this point, Dixon couldn’t tell how extensive the second deposit was, so they’d decided to stretch out the mining of the first pipe for as long as possible—as long as a supply of diamonds adequate to appease Dubois’s masters was coming out of it—before opening the second pipe for mining.

Dixon had bought them the time by claiming a need for more careful and extensive testing around the second pipe so that when they hacked into the hillside, they didn’t unnecessarily risk either damaging the pipe itself or bringing down the hillside on top of it and them. Dubois had accepted the rationale and allowed the delay.

But now that the first deposit was almost mined out, they would have to start on the second. Dubois and his masters wouldn’t countenance the output of diamonds falling too low, and no one wanted to risk Dubois receiving an order to cull their company on the grounds that such a number was no longer required.

That was the sort of horrific act of which they all knew Dubois was fully capable.

Strangely enough, while everyone else had given up any hope of rescue, Hillsythe still entertained the expectation that someone would, at some point, come for them—that relief in some guise would eventually arrive. He didn’t make any point of it and nowadays rarely spoke of it, yet Katherine sensed that his quiet, unstated confidence still survived.

Which left her wondering about something Hillsythe had never explained—namely, who had sent him after Fanshawe.

As Hillsythe vanished into the mine, a pattering of feet drew her attention to a young boy who came pelting toward her from the direction of the kitchen. She turned with a welcoming smile. “Diccon.” As he skidded to a halt before her, she reached out and finger-combed his pale golden hair back from his forehead. “Are you off, then?”

“Aye.” Diccon held up the basket he carried. “And I’ll be sure to be back before the sun starts down.”

She kept her smile in place, but saw the shadow that passed through Diccon’s pale blue eyes. “I know you will. Off you go, then.”

She and Harriet stood and watched as, with a last fleeting grin, Diccon raced off toward the compound gate. Although tall for his age, he was only seven. Long and lanky, thin and bony, he’d been delivered to Dubois with a group of other children snatched from the Freetown slums. But Diccon hadn’t been able to bear the dust in the mine; he’d coughed himself into fits, and his health had quickly deteriorated.

When Dubois had contemplated killing the boy, deeming him a useless burden, Katherine had argued that Diccon wasn’t useless—he just couldn’t go into the mine. Instead, she’d pointed out that if Dubois wanted his captives to perform at their best and not fall ill unnecessarily, then all the children, and the adults, too, could do with more fruit—and there was plenty of fruit in the surrounding jungle. Fruit Diccon could fetch. Dubois had considered, then he’d agreed to let Diccon ramble for fruit every day, as long as he returned each afternoon before dusk.

Dubois had looked Diccon in the eye and had stated that if Diccon failed to return, Dubois would kill two children—Diccon’s closest friends.

That was the cause of the shadows in Diccon’s eyes. He enjoyed rambling in the jungle and had grown adept at finding fruit, berries, and nuts, but he worried all the time that something might happen to keep him from returning, and the deaths of his friends would be on his head.

It was just like Dubois to unnecessarily place such a Damocles’ sword over an impressionable boy’s head. No one in their right mind would imagine Diccon—who was by no means unintelligent—would attempt to run away. Where to? He would die in the jungle if he didn’t come back.

Her gaze on Diccon’s departing figure, Harriet sighed. “What I wouldn’t give to spend a day now and then out in the jungle.”

Katherine thought, then arched her brows. “Why don’t I ask his highness?”

Harriet glanced at her. “Do you think there’s any chance he’ll agree?”

“He might if I phrase the request correctly.” She paused, then added, “I’ve noticed he’s particularly fond of those large nuts Diccon brings in. Dubois keeps them all for himself.”

With Harriet, she turned, and they continued to the cleaning shed. It was time to return to their day’s labors. As they reached the steps that led up to the door, she made up her mind. “I can’t see any reason not to ask. I’ll suggest that one of us can accompany Diccon out each day, and that we’ll work an extra half hour each day—all of us—to make up for it.”

Harriet’s face lit. “That sounds perfect. And Lord knows, Dubois knows that none of us are fool enough to try to run away.”

Katherine pulled a face. “We don’t even know in which direction to run.”

She opened the door and went in. Harriet followed, and they resumed their places on stools about the long raised table that ran down the middle of the shed.

Mary Wilson looked up from the rock from which she was carefully chipping away aggregated ore. She flashed a smile at Katherine and Harriet, then looked back at her work. There were six women in total, all presently in the shed, and they’d banded together into a tight-knit, supportive group. They’d had to. While Katherine was the most confident and assured in dealing with Dubois, the others had backed her up on more than one occasion. Despite their disparate backgrounds—Katherine a governess, Harriet a young woman of good family searching for a position after coming out to Freetown following Dixon, Mary a shop assistant and part owner of a shop, Ellen Mackenzie another young woman who had arrived in the settlement looking for honest work, and Annie Mellows and Gemma Halliday, expert needlewomen who hailed from the slums—they’d all grown comfortable in the others’ company.

They’d come to trust each other.

A guard had come in fifteen minutes before Katherine and Harriet had left for their walk; the other women had gone for their walks, two by two, earlier. The guard was still there, leaning against one wall, bored and idly watching them.

Ten entirely uneventful minutes later, he stirred. A large male of indeterminate origin, he drawled, “Later, ladies.” Then he moved to the door and left, letting the panel slam shut behind him.

All six women looked up. Mary met Katherine’s eyes.

After a moment of straining her ears, Katherine nodded. Mary slipped from her stool, went to the door, and carefully eased it open enough to look out.

There was a grin in her voice as she reported, “He’s swaggering off to the barracks.”

They never knew when a guard might look in on them—and never quite trusted in them leaving and not hovering, hoping to hear something incriminating to report to Dubois. But this one had, as most of them did, taken himself off.

After shutting the door, Mary returned to her stool and hopped up again. She looked at Katherine. “Any news?”

“I’ve decided to ask Dubois if we—one by one, one each day—can join Diccon on his forays. Just to break up our days.”

“Ooh!” Gemma grinned. “I like the sound of that.”

They fell to discussing the pros and cons and how best to present the argument to Dubois. Katherine glanced at Harriet, but as she had, Harriet chose not to mention the issue of opening up the second tunnel.

Time enough to broach that later, after the leaders’ discussion that evening, when, no doubt, they would learn the hard facts.

* * *

Charles Babington stood on the worn planks of Government Wharf. Lounging in the shadows cast by a stack of cotton bales offloaded from some other vessel, he watched the Macauley and Babington inspector and the port’s customs officer as they peered down into the open hatch of The Dutch Princess, a merchantman bound for Amsterdam.

Impatience rode him, edged with desperation. His intended, Mary Wilson, had vanished too many weeks ago, and there seemed nothing of any substance that he could actually do. Robert Frobisher had given him hope, but Frobisher had vanished and had surely returned to England long since. Whether Frobisher had succeeded in advancing his mission—which might just result in Mary being found and returned to Charles and her uncle—Charles did not know. Short of writing to Frobisher, there was no way Charles could see to learn more.

And he had no idea where Frobisher, or even his brother Declan Frobisher, actually lived. A letter to the Frobisher Shipping Company in London or Aberdeen might, eventually, reach Robert. Perhaps.

But Charles had volunteered to do what little he could to ensure no diamonds—or gold if that was what was being mined, but his and the Frobishers’ money was on diamonds—slipped out of Freetown in some ship’s hold. He had the ability to order searches of the cargo of any ship bound for England or for ports nearby on the Continent. Amsterdam, long the home of the world’s diamond trade, was just such a port, and so together with all other Amsterdam-or Rotterdam-bound vessels, The Dutch Princess’s cargo hold was being searched by a gang of excise men.

Charles’s presence was not required—indeed, he had no real business being there—but the sense of helplessness that dogged his every waking moment had driven him to the wharf—just in case.

Just in case the search party stumbled on a cache of uncut diamonds.

The captain, a burly man who looked more English than Dutch, stood by the side of the open hold, his massive arms crossed over his broad chest. He’d been watching the searchers, but as if he’d felt Charles’s gaze, he glanced at him.

After a moment of staring, the captain uncrossed his arms, spoke to the inspector, then made for the gangplank. He swung down to the wharf and strode toward Charles.

Charles didn’t straighten from his slouch.

The captain halted in front of him. “Babington, am I right?”

Charles inclined his head. “You have the advantage of me—I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

The captain showed his teeth. “I’m the captain of the ship you’re holding up.” He glanced back at the activity on his deck, then looked out over the harbor. “Not sure I’ll get out in time now.” He brought his gaze back to Charles’s face. “So what’s this search in aid of?”

Charles’s smile was thin. He met the man’s gaze with every evidence of boredom. “It’s just routine. Macauley sometimes gets bees in his bonnet, and nothing will do but that we have to go out and catch whatever beggars he imagines are violating our license.” The Macauley and Babington Company held the exclusive license to ship goods to England from Freetown.

The captain humphed. “Bloody nuisance is what it is.” He looked toward his ship.

Charles followed the man’s gaze and saw the inspector and the customs officer walking to the gangplank, the excise men falling in at their heels.

“Finally!” The captain glanced back at Charles. “So with your permission, I’ll be on my way.”

Charles hid a grimace and nodded. “Fair weather and good winds.”

The captain tipped him a cynical salute and tramped back to his ship.

Charles watched him go and wondered, not for the first time over the past month he’d been authorizing such searches, whether Frobisher’s information had been accurate. Whether there was an illicit diamond mine in operation, or if there was, whether it might be in a very different location and not shipping its stones out of Freetown at all. Thus far, not a single search had found even a whiff of contraband.

On the deck, the captain started calling orders. Sailors jumped to the wharf and cast off the ropes. Charles saw one of the crew approach the captain, but there was nothing more to be seen or done. Pushing away from the bales, Charles straightened. Staring at the worn planking, but not really seeing it—seeing instead Mary’s sweet face—he followed the inspector from the wharf and headed back to his office.

On the deck of The Dutch Princess, now a-flurry with preparations to set sail, the captain glanced over his shoulder. He watched Babington leave the wharf, then turned with a snort.

His first mate halted beside him. “So what was that about? Anything we need to be concerned over?”

The captain hesitated, then said, “Babington made out it was just routine, but I’m not sure I buy that, not with himself being here to watch.”

The mate rocked on his heels. “Do you think they know?”

“Nope. If they did, we’d be in more trouble.” The captain glanced around, but there appeared to be no one watching them. “Not that hard to send a cutter to keep an eye on us, but I doubt they will. Keep an eye peeled, just in case.”

“Aye, aye.” The first mate debated, then asked, “So we’re still going for the pickup?”

“We most certainly are. We’ll take her out and across to the north shore. Give it a few hours for the tide to swing, and to make certain no one’s got their eye on us, then we’ll head down the estuary.”

The first mate nodded and pulled on his long nose. “Always wondered why they set it up for us to pick up the goods on our way out, given we have to turn to do it.” The mate grinned. “Guess I understand now.”

The captain grunted and headed for his wheel.

Minutes later, The Dutch Princess eased from her moorings and sailed out of Freetown harbor.

CHAPTER 3

Caleb paused to pull the neckerchief from about his throat and wipe the sweat from his brow. This was the second day of their trek along the path leading—originally, at least—north from Kale’s camp. They’d followed the well-trodden path more or less north for most of yesterday, but in the last hours before they’d halted for the night, the track had veered to the east.

Today, the path had started to climb while angling more definitely eastward. And they’d started to come upon crude traps. Phillipe had been in the lead when they’d approached the first; he’d spotted it—a simple pit—and they’d tramped around it without disturbing the concealing covering. From then on, they’d kept their eyes peeled and found three more traps, all of varying design, clearly intended to discourage the unwary, but it had been easy enough to avoid each one.

If they’d needed further confirmation that they were on the correct path, the traps had provided it. But there hadn’t been another for several miles.

Caleb glanced around and saw nothing but more jungle. His internal clock informed him it was nearing noon. He couldn’t see the sky; the damned canopy was too thick. Accustomed to the wide expanses of the open sea, he was getting distinctly tired of the closeness of the jungle and the dearth of light. And the lack of crisp fresh air.

Phillipe had been walking with Reynaud in the rear; he came forward to halt beside Caleb. “Time to take a break.” Phillipe pointed through the trees. “There’s a clearing over there.”

Caleb fell in behind his friend, and their men fell in behind him. They trudged ten yards farther along; the track remained well marked by the tramp of many feet. The clearing Phillipe had noted opened to the left of the path. Their company shuffled into it. After divesting themselves of seabags, packs, and weapons, they sprawled on the leaves or sat on fallen logs, stretching out their legs before hauling out water skins and drinking.

Luckily, water was one necessity the jungle provided in abundance. They’d also found edible fruits and nuts and carried enough dried meat in their packs to last for more than a week. If not for the stifling atmosphere, the trek would have been pleasant enough.

Phillipe lowered himself to sit beside Caleb on a fallen log. With a tip of his head, he indicated the jungle on the other side of the path. “We’ve been angling along the side of these foothills for the last hour. The path’s still climbing. I’ve been thinking that, following the inestimable Miss Hopkins’s reasoning, the mine can’t be much farther. The children who were taken—certainly the younger ones—would be dragging their feet by now.”

Caleb swallowed a mouthful of water, then nodded. “I keep wondering if we’ve missed a concealed turn-off, but the traffic on the path is as heavy as ever, and it’s still going in the same direction.”

They’d been speaking quietly, and their men had, too, but Phillipe glanced around and murmured, “I think, perhaps, that when we go on, we should keep talking to a minimum.”

Caleb restoppered his water skin. “At least until we’ve found the mine. The jungle’s so much thicker here, we could turn a corner and find ourselves there. We don’t want to advertise our presence, and we definitely don’t want to engage.”

Phillipe’s long lips quirked wryly. “No matter how much we might wish otherwise.”

Caleb grunted and pushed to his feet. Phillipe followed suit, and three minutes later, their party set off again, tramping rather more quietly through the increasingly dense jungle.

Fifteen minutes later, their caution proved critical. Caleb caught a fleeting glimpse of something pale flitting about a clearing ahead and off the path to their right. Phillipe was in the lead. His eyes glued to the shifting gleam, Caleb seized his friend’s arm and halted. Their men noticed and froze.

Phillipe shifted to stand alongside Caleb, the better to follow his gaze. The intervening boles and large-leafed palms made following anyone’s line of sight difficult.

Caleb couldn’t work out what he was seeing—a gleam of gold, a flash of...what?

Then the object of his gaze moved, and Caleb finally had a clear view. “It’s a boy,” he breathed. “A golden-haired, fair-skinned boy in ragged clothes.”

“He’s picking those berries,” Phillipe whispered. After a moment, he added, “What do you want to do?”

Caleb scanned the area. “As far as I can tell, he’s alone. I can’t see anyone else, can you?”

“No. And I can’t hear anyone else, either.”

“If we all appear, he’ll take fright and run.” Caleb considered, then shrugged off the pack he’d been carrying and handed it to Phillipe. “Keep everyone here until I signal.”

Accepting the pack, Phillipe nodded.

Caleb made his way quietly toward the boy, dodging around trees and taking care not to alert his quarry. The lad looked to be about eight, but woefully thin—all knees and elbows. He was wearing a tattered pair of dun-colored shorts and a loose tunic of the same coarse material. It had been the bright cap of his fair hair, gleaming as the boy passed through the stray sunbeams that struck through the thick canopy, that had attracted Caleb’s attention.

The boy was circling a vine that had grown into a clump, almost filling one of the small clearings created when a large tree had fallen. The bushy vine bore plump, dark-red berries that Caleb and his company had already discovered were edible and sweet. His attention fixed on his task, the boy steadily plucked berries and dropped them into a woven basket.

Despite the boy’s bare feet, the basket suggested he hailed from a group of some kind; from the features Caleb glimpsed as the boy moved about the bush, the lad was almost certainly English.

He had to be from the mine.

Caleb reached the edge of the clearing. He hesitated, then said, “Don’t be afraid—please don’t run away.”

The boy jerked and whipped around. He grabbed up the basket, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the handle.

His blue eyes wide, the boy stared at Caleb.

Caleb didn’t move other than to slowly display his hands, palms open and clearly empty, out to either side.

The boy was poised to flee.

If he did, Caleb doubted he could catch him, not in this terrain. “I’ve been sent to look for people—English people kidnapped from Freetown.” He spoke slowly, clearly, evenly. “We think they’re being used as labor for a mine. We’re searching for the mine.” He paused, then asked, “Do you know where the mine is?”

When the boy didn’t respond, Caleb remembered that the mine was conjecture and rephrased, “Do you know where the people are?”

The boy moistened his lips. “Who are you?”

He wasn’t going to run—at least, not yet. Caleb was usually relaxed with children, happy to play with them, to join in their games. When convincing children of anything, he knew the literal truth was usually advisable; they always seemed to sense prevarication. “I’ve come from London. People have been searching for those kidnapped, but we’ve had to do it bit by bit—carefully. To make sure the bad people who are behind the kidnapping don’t get wind of us coming to help.” And kill all the kidnapees. He stopped short of voicing that truth.

The boy was still staring at him, but now he was studying him, his gaze flitting from Caleb’s face over his clothes, his sword, his boots.

“I’m going to crouch down.” Moving slowly, Caleb did. If he’d stepped closer to the boy, he would have towered over him—too intimidating. And laying hands on the lad from a crouch would be that much harder.

Sure enough, as Caleb settled on his haunches, the boy noticeably relaxed. But his gaze remained sharp; although he constantly glanced back at Caleb, watching for any threat, he started scanning the shadows behind Caleb. “There are more of you, aren’t there?”

“Yes. I asked them to stay back so we didn’t frighten you.” Caleb paused, then offered, “There are twenty-four more men back on the path.”

The boy blinked at him. “So there’s twenty-five of you all together. All armed?”

Caleb nodded.

The boy frowned; he seemed to have lost his fear of Caleb. After a long moment of calculation, the boy shook his head. “That’s not going to be enough.” He met Caleb’s gaze. “There’s more mercenaries than that at the mine, and they’re all fearsome fighters.”

So there is a mine. And it is nearby. Caleb tamped down his elation. “We’re not the rescue party. We’re the advance scouts. Our mission”—and he could almost hear his eldest brother, Royd, groaning over him telling a boy, a young boy he didn’t know anything about, such details—“is to locate the mining camp and send word of it back to London. Then the rescue party will be dispatched, and they will have the numbers to put paid to the mercenaries.”

The boy studied Caleb’s face, searching his eyes as if to determine whether he spoke the truth—then the lad smiled gloriously. “Cor—they’re never going to believe me when I tell ’em, but the others are going to be in alt! We’ve been waiting ever so long for anyone to come.”

The excitement in his voice was infectious, but... Caleb waved both hands in a “keep it quiet” gesture. “Before you tell anyone, you need to remember that our mission must remain secret. The mercenaries at the mine must not learn that we’re here.” Caleb locked his gaze on the boy’s eyes. “If the mercenaries realize rescue is coming, it could be very dangerous for all the people kidnapped.”

The boy’s delight faded, but after a second, he nodded. “All right.” He looked at Caleb, then glanced out into the jungle again. “So what’re you going to do now you’ve found us?”

“I’m hoping you can take us closer to the mine—to some place from where we can see it but not be seen ourselves. Can you do that?”

“’Course!”

“But before we get to that, I want to hear what you can tell me—us—about the mine and the encampment.” Caleb swiveled and glanced behind him, then looked at the boy. “What’s your name?”

“Diccon.”

“I’m Caleb. And if it’s all right with you, Diccon, I’d like to call my men closer, so we can all hear what you say.”

Diccon nodded.

Caleb rose—slowly—and beckoned his men to join them. They tramped through the jungle following the route he’d taken, leaving as little evidence of their passing as possible. Each man nodded at Diccon as they reached the clearing. They all sidled in, trying not to crowd Diccon despite the limited space. Several hunkered down, including Phillipe.

Caleb did, too, again bringing his face more level with Diccon’s. “Right, then. This mine—does it have a fence around it?”

That was all he had to ask to have Diccon launch into a remarkably clear and detailed description of the camp—more like a compound—that surrounded the entrance to the mine. Crude but effective outer walls, with huts for various purposes. Mention of a medical hut had Caleb and Phillipe exchanging surprised glances.

Diccon’s description wound to a close; he’d mentally walked in via the gate, then taken them on a clockwise tour describing every building they would pass.

“That’s extremely helpful,” Caleb said, and meant it. “Now—how many mercenaries are there?”

“Hmm.” Diccon’s features scrunched up. He had set down his basket, and from the way his fingers moved, he was counting. Then his face cleared. “There be twenty-four there right now, plus Dubois, and six are off taking the latest batch of diamonds to the coast for pickup.”

Caleb blinked. “So it’s definitely diamonds they’re mining.”

“Aye,” Diccon said. “Thought you knew that.”

“We’d guessed it, but until now, we couldn’t be certain.” Caleb tilted his head. “You said the mercenaries take the diamonds to the coast for pickup—not Freetown?”

“Nuh-uh. At least, we—all of us in the compound—don’t think so. Far as we’ve been able to make out, they take the strongbox toward the settlement, but the pickup is somewhere on the estuary, see? That way, no one in Freetown knows.”

Phillipe shifted, drawing Diccon’s attention. “The six who’ve gone to the coast—do they go and return via that path?” He pointed at the path they’d been following, which lay not that far away through the palms.

A pertinent point. Caleb looked at Diccon—and was relieved to see the boy shake his head.

“That path just goes to Kale’s camp.” Diccon’s eyes grew flat, and his expression shuttered. “You don’t want to go that way.”

“Kale’s not there anymore,” Caleb said. “He’s...left. Along with all his men.”

“Yeah?” Diccon studied Caleb’s face, then his eyes grew round as the implication registered.

Before he could ask the eager questions clearly bubbling on his tongue, Phillipe intervened. “Which route do the mercenaries take to the coast, then?”

“There’s another path—well, there’s several leave the compound. One goes to the lake where we get our water, and there’s this one, where all of us came in from. Then there’s another that divides into two not far from the gate. Those who go to drop off the diamonds take the northwest branch, and we reckon it also eventually leads to Freetown. They could get to Freetown through Kale’s camp, but Dubois—he’s the leader—he mostly sends his men to get ordinary things like food and stuff that we know must come from Freetown when they go to drop off the diamonds.”

Caleb nodded, a map taking shape in his brain. “You said that path divides into two—where does the other branch go?”

“Far as we know, it leads dead north. We think there’s nothing but jungle that way, all the way to the coast.” Diccon paused, then added, “Maybe some natives. There’s a chief that owns this land, see, and Dubois pays him to let the mine be. We think he—the chief—lives that way. That’s why the track’s there, but no one from the mine uses it.”

Phillipe caught Caleb’s eye. Caleb nodded fractionally. That little-used path sounded like the one they should fall back along. He refocused on Diccon. “Tell us more about the mercenaries.”

“Well, like I said, there’s thirty of them all up, including the cook and his helper, who are just as fierce as the others. And there’s Dubois. He’s in charge, and they all mind him. He has two...lieutenants, I suppose you’d say. Arsene—he’s Dubois’s second-in-command—and Cripps is the other. The mercenaries are all big and tough, and they carry swords, lots of knives, and some have pistols. The ones on the tower and the gates have muskets.”

Caleb slowly nodded. Direct observation would be best. But first... “How is it you’re allowed out by yourself? You are by yourself, aren’t you?”

Diccon’s face fell. “Aye. I’m no good in the mine, see. I just cough and cough. Dubois, he was going to kill me—he said I was useless, and he wasn’t going to waste food feeding me. But Miss Katherine spoke up for me.” Diccon straightened. “She said I wasn’t useless and that I could help fetch fruit and berries, and nuts, too, so that the cook could properly feed all us children. And the adults, too. She said that way, we’d all stay healthy and work better—and Dubois went fer it.”

Consulting his mental list of the females kidnapped, Caleb asked, “Miss Katherine—is she Miss Fortescue?”

“Aye. That’s her. But all us children call her Miss Katherine. She’s in charge of us.”

And was clearly a lioness if she’d spoken up and saved Diccon.

Diccon heaved a disconsolate sigh. “I wish I could run away, but Dubois said that if’n I ain’t back by sundown every day, he’ll kill two of me mates.” The boy’s face paled. “So I don’t even dare be late back. He’s a devil, Dubois is.”

“You believe him?” Phillipe asked the question gently.

Diccon looked him in the eye. “We all believe Dubois’s threats. Even Mr. Hillsythe. He says Dubois is one of those villains who enjoys killing, and that we none of us should ever doubt he’ll do exactly what he says.”

Caleb caught Phillipe’s eye. Hillsythe was Wolverstone’s man. If that was his assessment of Dubois, they’d be well advised to pay it due heed. “All right.” Caleb returned his gaze to Diccon. “I think it’s time we took a look at this camp—but first...” As he rose, he glanced at the assembled men, then he looked back at Diccon. “We need to find a place to camp that’s close enough to the mine for us to keep watch and study it, but far enough away that no one from the camp is likely to stumble across us. I thought perhaps somewhere along that path to the north—the one no one uses.”

Diccon nodded. “I know just the place. There’s a good-sized clearing a little way down that track.”

Caleb laid a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Can we get to it without going closer to the camp?”

“O’ course—I can lead you.” Diccon’s happy grin returned, and he swiped up his basket. “I know all the places round about. I can go where I like around the camp, and the berries and fruit and nut trees grow everywhere.”

“Is it likely anyone from the camp might hear us?” Phillipe asked.

“Nah.” As Caleb let his hand fall from Diccon’s shoulder, the boy turned and beckoned. “We’re still well out, and the trees and leaves and all keep sound in. You often can’t hear someone until they’re quite close.”

Caleb signaled to his men to follow and, with Phillipe on his heels, fell in behind Diccon.

When they reached the path from Kale’s camp, Diccon beckoned them onward. “I’ll take you through the jungle and around until we hit the other path.”

He proved as good as his word, leading them unerringly on a tacking course around jungle trees and more dense pockets of vegetation. He waved them to caution as they approached another path. When Caleb put a hand on Diccon’s shoulder and leaned down to breathe in his ear “What?” the boy tipped his head back and whispered, “This is the northwest path they use to drop off the diamonds and go to Freetown. I don’t think they’ll be on their way back yet, but...”

Caleb released his shoulder with a pat. “Good lad. Always play safe.”

They crept to the edge of the path and strained their ears, but heard nothing. Swiftly, they crossed over the beaten track and plunged back into the jungle. Ten yards on, Caleb glanced back and could see nothing but jungle foliage. Finding a guide had been a stroke of luck. Without Diccon to lead them, they would have been stumbling around—very possibly into the mercenaries’ clutches.

But Fate had smiled and sent the boy to them.

When they came upon the next path, Diccon walked confidently on to it. “That place I told you about—the nice clearing—is just along here.” He led them down what was clearly a very much less well-traveled track. There were small saplings springing up, and vines laced across the path. Phillipe muttered, then told the men to work on keeping their passing as undetectable as possible. So they avoided the saplings and ducked under the vines, all of which Diccon whisked light-footed around.

Then he turned off the path onto a narrow animal track. Fifteen yards on, it descended into a clearing that—as Diccon had promised—was perfect for their needs. Big enough to comfortably house all of them and with a tiny stream trickling past on one side.

“Here you go.” Grinning, the boy spun, holding his arms wide.

Caleb grinned back. “Thank you—this is just what we need.”

Phillipe smiled at Diccon and patted his shoulder as he passed. “You’re an excellent scout, my friend.”

The other men made approving noises as they filed into the space.

Diccon positively glowed.

It took only a moment for Caleb and Phillipe to organize the establishment of their camp, then, summoning their quartermasters—Caleb’s Quilley and Phillipe’s Ducasse—they presented themselves before Diccon.

The boy looked at them expectantly.

“First question,” Caleb said. “Have you got enough fruit in your basket to satisfy the cook?”

Diccon lifted the floppy basket, opened it, and examined the pile of fruit inside. “Almost.” He looked up and around, then pointed to a small tree with dangling yellow fruit. “If I got some more of those, I’d have enough.”

Two captains and two quartermasters dutifully gathered several handfuls of the ripe fruit.

Diccon smiled as they filled his basket, then he clamped the handles together and looked at Caleb. “More than enough.”

“Excellent. What we need next,” Caleb said, “is for you to lead us to a place where we can see into the camp, all without alerting any guards. Do you know of such a spot?”

Diccon snapped off a salute. “I know just the place, Capt’n.” He’d heard Caleb’s men using his rank.

“In that case”—Caleb gestured toward where he assumed the mine must be—“lead on.”

Diccon did. He lived up to their expectations, leading them first along the disused path again, then cutting left into the untrammeled jungle. He looked back at Caleb and whispered, “This will be safest. We’re moving away from the other paths and into the space between that northward path and the one leading to the lake. The mercenaries take some of the men to the lake to fetch water every day, but they do that in the morning. There shouldn’t be anyone at the lake now.”

Caleb nodded, and they forged on, increasingly slowly as Diccon took the order to be careful to heart.

Eventually, he halted behind a clump of palms. Using hand signals, he intimated that they should crouch down and be extra careful while following him on to the next concealing clump.

Then he slipped like an eel through the shadows.

Caleb followed and instantly saw why Diccon had urged extra caution. The compound’s palisade lay ten yards away, separated from the jungle by a beaten, well-maintained perimeter clearing—a cleared space to ensure no one could approach the palisade under cover. The compound’s double gates were five yards to their right. And the gates stood wide open with two armed guards slouched against the posts on either side. Both guards’ attention was fixed on the activity inside the camp, but any untoward noise would alert them.

Given the gates were propped open, Caleb surmised that the real purpose of the guards—and, indeed, the fence, the gates, and the guard tower in the middle of the compound—was to keep people in; the mercenaries had grown sufficiently complacent that they didn’t expect any threat to emerge from the jungle.

Well and good.

They watched in silence for more than half an hour. Caleb noticed that heavily armed guards appeared to be patrolling randomly through the compound, but the attitude of all the mercenaries was transparently one of supreme boredom. They were very far from alert; the impression they gave was that they were perfectly sure there would be no challenge to their authority.

Against that, however, he saw some of the captives—he had no idea which ones, but both male and female—walking freely back and forth. More, some met and stopped to chat, apparently without attracting the attention of the guards.

Curious.

Then he noticed Diccon peering up at the sky. The sun was angling from the west. Remembering the boy’s concern over returning in good time, Caleb tapped him on the shoulder, caught Phillipe and the other men’s eyes, then tipped his head back, into the relative safety of the area behind them.

Diccon retreated first. One by one, the rest of them followed.

They gathered again well out of hearing of the guards on the gates. Caleb dropped his hand on Diccon’s shoulder and met the boy’s gaze. “Thank you for all your help. Now, we have to tread warily. Who is the person you trust most inside the camp?”

“Miss Katherine.”

Caleb blinked. He’d expected the boy to name one of the men, but his answer had come so rapidly and definitely that there was no real way to argue with his choice. Slowly, Caleb nodded. “Very well. I want you to tell Miss Katherine all we’ve told you. Can you remember the important bits?”

Diccon nodded eagerly. “I remember everything. I’m good like that.”

Caleb had to grin. “Excellent. So tell Miss Katherine, but no one else, and see what she says. Then tomorrow, when you come out, go and look for fruit in this area—between our camp and the lake. Behave as you usually do and gather fruit, and we’ll come and find you. We’ll be waiting to hear what Miss Katherine, and any others she thinks fit to tell, say.”

Diccon’s face brightened. “So I’m like...what is it? A courier?”

“Exactly.” Phillipe smiled at the boy. “But remember—the mark of a good courier is that he tells only those he’s supposed to tell. Not a word of this to anyone else, all right?”

Diccon nodded. “Mum’s the word, except for Miss Katherine.”

“Good.” Caleb released the boy. “I would suggest you circle around and come in from some other direction.”

“I’ll go to the lake and walk in from there—that way, if you keep watching, you’ll see where that path comes out a-ways to the left.”

Caleb’s approving smile was entirely genuine. “You’re taking to this like a duck to water.” He nodded in farewell. “Off you go, then.”

With a brisk salute and a grin for them all, Diccon melted into the jungle; in seconds, they’d lost sight of him.

“He is very good.” Phillipe turned toward the gates. “But I’ll feel happier when he’s back inside where he belongs.” He waved toward their previous hideaway. “Shall we?”

They returned to the spot. Five minutes later, Diccon appeared out of the jungle to their left. He passed their position without a glance and, basket swinging, all but skipped back through the gates. He headed to the right, vanishing into an area of the compound that from their position they had no view of.

Caleb consulted his memory. “He must have gone to deliver his haul to the cook—he said the kitchen was that way.”

He’d barely breathed the words. Phillipe merely nodded in reply.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, they saw Diccon, no longer carrying the basket, cross the area inside the gates, right to left. He appeared to be scanning the far left quadrant of the compound—but then he whirled as if responding to a hail from somewhere out of their sight to the right.

Even from where they crouched, they saw his face light up. Diccon all but jigged on the spot, clearly waiting...

A young woman appeared. Brown haired, pale skinned, she moved with a grace that marked her as well bred. Smiling, she came up to Diccon and held out her hands. Diccon readily placed his hands in hers, all but wriggling with impatience and excitement.

Closing her hands about the boy’s, her gaze on his face, the woman crouched as Caleb had done.

Immediately, the boy started talking, although from the way the woman leaned toward him, he was keeping his voice down.

“Miss Katherine, obviously.” Caleb scanned all of the area around the pair that he could see, but there were no guards or, indeed, anyone else close enough to hear the exchange.

As Diccon poured out his news, Caleb saw the woman—younger than he’d expected by more than a decade; he’d had no idea a governess could be that young—start to tense. Clearly, she’d realized the import of what the boy was telling her—and she believed his tale.

That last was verified when she glanced out of the gates—not directly at them but in their direction.

Immediately, she caught herself and refocused on Diccon again.

But Caleb had seen that look, had caught her expression. However fleeting, that look had been a visual cry for help that had also held a flaring of something even more precious—hope.

By some trick of the light, of that moment in eternity, he’d felt that hope—fragile, but real—reaching out to him, something so indescribably precious he’d instinctively wanted to grasp it. To hold and protect it.

Then she’d clamped down on the emotion, but he no longer harbored the slightest concern that the adults in the camp wouldn’t believe Diccon’s tale. She—Miss Katherine—did, and even though Caleb had yet to exchange so much as a word with her, he felt certain a woman brave enough to stand up to a mercenary captain in order to save an urchin’s life would have the backbone to carry her point with the English officers in the camp.

Diccon finished his tale. Her gaze fixed firmly on his face, Miss Katherine slowly rose to her feet. Then she released one of his hands, but retained her clasp on the other. Drawing him around, she set off with a purposeful stride, heading in the direction of the mine. In just a few paces, she and Diccon had passed out of their sight.

They continued to watch for several minutes, but no alarm was raised, and there was nothing of particular interest to see.

Caleb frowned. He leaned toward Phillipe and whispered, “We need to see into the compound—we need a much more comprehensive view.”

“I was thinking the same, and it just so happens”—without raising his arm, Phillipe pointed, directing Caleb’s gaze upward—“the compound is nestled into a curve in the hillside, and if you look very closely just there...”

Caleb looked. His eyes were accustomed to reading ships’ flags at considerable distance; he quickly picked out the rock formation Phillipe had spied. “Perfect.” Caleb grinned. He glanced back at Quilley and Ducasse. “We’ve plenty of time before the light fades to find our way to that shelf.”

They did and discovered it to be the perfect vantage point from which to survey the compound. The rock shelf was wide enough for all four of them to sit comfortably, sufficiently back from the edge that the shifting leaves of trees growing up from below screened them from anyone on the ground. They spent another half hour observing the movements of the guards and the captives, thus confirming and acquainting themselves with the uses of the different structures in the compound. Diccon had given them an excellent orientation, but it seemed that most of the adult males were down in the mine and not presently available to be viewed.

There was a large circular fire pit in the space between the entrance to the mine, the barrack-like building that from Diccon’s description was the men’s sleeping quarters, and the large central barracks that housed the mercenaries. Ringed with logs for seats, the fire pit was situated well away from all three structures. A small fire burned at the pit’s center, doubtless more for light and the comfort imparted by the leaping flames than for warmth, and the women were already gathering about it. Miss Katherine sat with five others, but from the relaxed postures of the other women, she had not—yet—shared Diccon’s news. Instead, she glanced frequently toward the entrance to the mine.

“She’s waiting for the men to join them,” Phillipe said. “She’s waiting to tell whoever’s in charge.”

Caleb nodded. “I wish we could stay and identify who that is, but we should get down and back to our camp before night falls.”

Night in the jungle was the definition of black; scrambling about on an unfamiliar hillside above an encampment of hostile armed mercenaries in the dark would be the definition of irresponsible.

Phillipe pulled a face, but nodded, and the four of them rose and scrambled back onto the animal track along which they’d climbed up. Once they reached the jungle floor, despite the fading light, they skirted wide through the deepening shadows. Giving the open gates of the compound and the well-armed guards a wide berth, they made their way back to their camp.

CHAPTER 4

The next morning, Caleb, Phillipe, and two of Caleb’s men, Ellis and Norton, returned to the rock shelf as soon as it was light. Light enough to see their way, and light enough to observe the activity in the compound.

Caleb settled on the granite shelf. “Let’s see if we can establish their routine.” From the pocket of his lightweight breeches, he drew out a pencil and a small notebook.

Phillipe, not an early riser, grunted. But he sank down beside Caleb, drew up his knees, rested his chin upon them, and focused his heavy-lidded gaze on the compound far below.

Over the course of the next hours, they watched the camp come awake. The guards changed at six o’clock. Shortly after, the captives straggled out of the barrack-like huts in which they’d slept and tended to their ablutions in the lean-tos built against the sides. Some hung laundry on lines strung at the rear of the long huts. Eventually, each crossed to the awning-covered open-air kitchen on the opposite side of the compound to the mine to fetch their breakfast, then carried their plate and mug back to the large fire pit and settled on the logs to eat.

The mercenaries also breakfasted, in their case under another palm-thatched awning erected in front of the guard tower, close by the kitchen. From their position on the rock shelf above and to the rear of the compound, Caleb and his men could get no clear view of the mercenaries as they broke their fast.

Caleb grunted. “I would have liked to get a look at this Dubois and his lieutenants.” They all knew that the mercenaries they’d seen thus far were followers, not leaders.

In contrast, they were fairly certain who among the male captives were the leaders—the officers.

“That’s Hopkins—the one just joining the other three.” Caleb focused on the four men who sat together at the side of the fire pit closest to the mine. “I met his sister in Southampton. They share that same odd-colored hair.”

“I’m fairly certain,” Phillipe said, his eyes narrowed on the group, “that the lean, brown-haired one will prove to be Hillsythe. He looks like I imagine one of your Wolverstone’s men would look. Which leaves the other two as Fanshawe and Dixon.”

“That matches their bearings,” Caleb said. “From the way they hold themselves, they must be either army or navy.”

They watched, but gained no further clues as to who was whom among the captives. Caleb made a note of their number. “I make it twenty-three men all told, six women, and twenty-four children.”

Phillipe stirred. “Most of the children are young—less than ten or so. There are only five who are older—four boys and that fair-haired girl.”

“I think,” Caleb said, studying the girl, “that they must be the ones Robert and Aileen had to allow to be taken.”

Phillipe nodded grimly. “I read that in Robert’s journal.”

After the meal, the captives dispersed. The men headed for the mine in groups, followed by most of the children. A few of the children, all girls, went to an awning-shaded work area closer to the rear of the compound—closer to the base of the cliff from which the men watched. The girls picked up small hammers and started to take rocks from one pile, tapping each, then sorting them into two piles, one much larger than the other.

After a moment of studying them, Phillipe offered, “I think they’re sorting the raw ore into the chunks that might have diamonds and those that most likely don’t.”

Caleb grunted.

On quitting the fire pit, the women carried the tin plates and bowls back to the kitchen, then they retreated to a hut that sat directly behind the long central barracks that housed the mercenaries. An armed guard patrolled the area before the hut’s door, but as with all the guards, including the pair who had climbed to the tower and the fresh pair of guards who had slouched into position on the recently opened gates, he appeared utterly confident and clearly expected no threat.

Sitting on Caleb’s other side, Norton humphed. “It’s as if the guards think they’re just there for show.”

Miss Fortescue was the last of the women to enter the hut—the one Diccon had dubbed the cleaning shed. There was something in the way Katherine Fortescue held her head that effectively conveyed her complete disregard for the mercenaries about her. It wasn’t as overt as contempt but was a subtle defiance nonetheless.

Regardless of his absorption with jotting down everything useful he could about the camp, Caleb had spent long minutes drinking in every aspect of the delectable Miss Fortescue. For despite the privations of her captivity, she was enchanting, with her brown hair shining and with features that, as far as Caleb could make out, were striking and fine, set in a heart-shaped face. As for her figure, not even the drab, all-but-shapeless gowns that all the women had, apparently, been given to wear could hide her nicely rounded curves.

Regardless of the situation, his interest in Miss Fortescue was a real and vital thing—definitely there and, quite surprising to him, distinctly stronger and more compulsive than such attractions customarily were. Why a woman he’d never even met should so effortlessly capture his attention—fix his senses and hold his focus—he couldn’t explain.

“I haven’t been able to count all the mercenaries yet,” Phillipe said, “but Diccon’s number of twenty-four in camp at the moment, plus Dubois, seems about right.”

Reluctantly eschewing his thoughts of Katherine Fortescue, Caleb jotted the number in his notebook, then looked down at the compound once more.

Four of the male captives—none of them the officers, all of whom had vanished into the mine—had hung back in a group to one side of the mine entrance. As Caleb watched, two mercenaries ambled out from the central barracks and, each holstering a pistol, walked to join the group.

Nearing the four captives, one of the mercenaries waved the men to a cart parked nearby. Two large water barrels and four large cans for filling them sat on the cart. The four men fell in; they lifted the cart’s axle and started the cart rolling across the compound toward the gate.

Caleb watched the men angle the cart through the gate, then turn in the direction of the lake. “Hmm.”

The animal track they used to reach the rock shelf, if followed in the opposite direction, ultimately led down to the lake. On the previous day, they’d joined and later left the track halfway up the hillside and hadn’t noticed the proximity of the lake, but that morning, a glimmer of light off the water had flashed through the trees and drawn their collective eye. They’d made a brief detour; they hadn’t wanted to be there when the men with their guards came to fill the compound’s barrels. They’d lingered only long enough to fix the scene in their minds. The lake was fed by a stream rushing down the hillside; it was small, but from its intense color, it was reasonably deep. A short, narrow wharf jutted out along one bank, no doubt built to facilitate drawing water for the camp; on all the other banks, dense vegetation crowded the shoreline.

Caleb, Phillipe, Norton, and Ellis continued to watch the compound, but captives and mercenaries alike seemed to have settled to their morning’s duties. The only people coming and going were the children who occasionally emerged from the mine, lugging woven baskets filled with loose rocks that they added to the pile the girls were sorting, then returned to the mine.

Letting his thoughts about the lake slide to the back of his mind, Caleb spent some time drawing a detailed map of the compound, marking in all the buildings and structures and noting the position and direction of the tracks, including the animal track leading to the rock shelf, plus the location of their camp in the jungle clearing and the position of the lake.

After a moment, working from memory, he added a crude sketch of the lake itself. He studied the sketch for several minutes, then glanced at Phillipe. “Those weapons we took from Kale and his men.” They’d gathered all the weapons before burying Kale and his crew, and had searched and removed more from the buildings in the slavers’ camp, then they’d bundled the weapons up and brought them along in case of future need. “There are far more than we could ever use ourselves. What about creating a cache nearby—somewhere those in the compound could get to when the time to fight arrives?”

Phillipe lightly shrugged. “Why not? Better than just discarding them when we leave—no sense wasting good weapons.” Briefly, he studied Caleb’s eyes, then faintly smiled. “Where were you thinking of burying this cache?”

Caleb grinned. “The lake. There was a mound just beyond the end of the wharf.” He pointed on his sketch; Phillipe, Norton, and Ellis leaned closer to look. “If we buried the cache there, it would be easy for those in the compound to get to. And they only send two lackadaisical guards with four men—that’s not bad odds.”

Phillipe nodded. “That’s also an easy place to describe to those in the compound.”

“And as we’re only talking of a month,” Caleb said, “two at the most, before a rescue force arrives, then even with light wrappings, the powder should still be useable.”

Norton pointed down into the compound. “There are the men bringing back the water barrels.” They watched the men haul the now-laden cart through the gates.

“The guards have returned, too,” Phillipe noted, “so from what Diccon told us, the lake should be safe for us to visit from now through the rest of the day.”

“Perfect.” Caleb glanced at Ellis. “Go back to camp and tell Quilley to take three men, wrap up the excess weapons and ammunition, and go to the lake and bury the lot behind the mound at the end of the wharf. Go with him and make sure he chooses the right spot.”

“Tell Ducasse to take two of my men and help,” Phillipe said. “More hands and it’ll be done that much faster.”

Caleb endorsed the order with a nod.

Ellis snapped off a salute and scrambled off the ledge, heading for the track down the hillside.

Caleb, Phillipe, and Norton settled to watching the compound again.

After some time, Phillipe said, “I take it we’re watching for Diccon to leave.”

Caleb nodded. “We came upon him about noon, and he’d already half filled his basket, so I would expect him to leave fairly soon.”

“I saw him go into the kitchen,” Norton said. “He helped the women take the plates and bowls back, but he didn’t come out again.”

“Ah, but there he is now.” Phillipe sat up and nodded down at the compound.

Caleb watched as the skinny figure of Diccon, readily identified by his bright mop of hair, skipped out from under the palm-thatched overhang shielding the kitchen. He was swinging two baskets, one from either hand. But instead of heading for the gates, Diccon circled the guard tower. Caleb frowned. “Why two baskets, and where is he going?”

They had their answer in another minute. Diccon went to the cleaning shed. He climbed the steps to the door and knocked. The door opened, and he waited a moment. Then he backed down the steps, and Katherine Fortescue joined him.

Caleb blinked. He watched as Miss Fortescue took one of the baskets, then, side by side, she and Diccon headed for the gates.

The guards saw them coming and didn’t react in any way; they watched the pair walk out of the compound and into the jungle.

Caleb stared at Diccon and his Miss Katherine as, heads high, they blithely marched on. Then they disappeared from view. He frowned. “That seems just a tad too good to be true.”

Phillipe looked faintly grim. “The boy said nothing about anyone else coming out with him.”

It fell to Caleb, as commander of the mission, to weigh every factor that might prove dangerous to their men. That Miss Fortescue might have told Dubois what Diccon had told her...

He didn’t want to believe it, but...he grimaced. “Let’s watch and see if anyone else follows them.”

But no one did. No one seemed to have any interest whatever in the whereabouts of the pair who had, supposedly, gone foraging.

After thirty minutes, Caleb looked at Phillipe.

Phillipe looked back and shrugged. “I would point out that women make excellent traitors, but...who knows?”

Caleb grunted. He stuffed his notebook back into his pocket, then rolled to his feet. “I don’t see Miss Fortescue as a likely traitor, but as matters stand, I can think of only one way to find out.”

* * *

By the time Katherine had put seventeen of the large nuts she’d agreed to gather for Dubois and his men into her basket, her nerves were jumping. From the moment she’d grasped the implications of what Diccon had told her regarding who he’d met in the jungle the previous day, she’d been trapped on a peculiar seesaw of emotions—vacillating dramatically between cynically weary disbelief and the burgeoning of unexpected hope. Up, then down, almost to the rhythm of her breathing.

Despite their resolution to find some way to escape, every one of the captured adults had long ago given up all hope of rescue—of someone from outside arriving to save them. As the days, then weeks, then months had rolled past, they’d lost all faith in anyone from the settlement mounting a mission to save them from the fate they all knew would ultimately befall them.

None harbored any illusions about the end Dubois and his masters had in mind for them.

But Diccon had said that the men—the mysterious captain and his crew—had come direct from London, and if Diccon had understood correctly, they were part of a long-running push to rescue all those taken.

She’d discovered that learning of a possible route to freedom after one had believed all such possibility extinguished could be unsettling. Indeed, distinctly unnerving.

She dropped another nut into her basket. Unable to resist the impulse, she cast a searching glance around, but saw and heard no hint of anyone approaching. Diccon had insisted that they had to come to this part of the jungle—between the lake and the track north—and go about collecting fruit and nuts, and then the men would come and find them.

Yesterday, once Diccon had poured out the sum of his discovery, she’d immediately seen the potential danger and had sworn him to secrecy—only to discover that the mysterious Captain Caleb had been before her. She wasn’t sure whether to be encouraged or concerned by such foresight; had he acted for the same reason she had, or had he had some ulterior motive?

Regardless, she’d immediately wanted to take Diccon to speak with Dixon and Hillsythe, the de facto leaders of the captives, but as Diccon could not go into the mine and there’d been guards hovering by the entrance, she’d had to wait until after the evening meal before she’d been able to engineer a suitably private meeting.

Dixon and Hillsythe had listened to her condensed version of Diccon’s tale, then had called Diccon over. After she’d convinced Diccon that his Captain Caleb—the only name Diccon had been given—wouldn’t mind him repeating his story to Dixon and Hillsythe, they’d taken Diccon over his report again. Hillsythe in particular—to this day, Katherine did not understand exactly what his background was—had focused on the captain; with a sense of suppressed but building excitement, Hillsythe had asked Diccon to describe the man. Hillsythe had been well-nigh transformed by Diccon’s reply; clearly in the grip of some heightened anticipation, Hillsythe had called Will Hopkins and Fanshawe over and had Diccon repeat his description of the captain to them.

“Frobisher.” Will had breathed the name, then glanced at Fanshawe. “A Captain Caleb who looks like that and who has led a crew here on a clandestine operation...that has to be Caleb Frobisher.”

His eyes alight, Fanshawe had nodded. “And if it is he...damn. This is really happening.” Enthusiasm of a sort Katherine hadn’t heard for months had colored his tone. Fanshawe had met Hillsythe’s, then Dixon’s eyes. “There really is a rescue underway.”

Despite the excitement in his eyes, Hillsythe had swiftly said, “We need to keep this to ourselves—at least until we learn more.” He’d glanced at Diccon. “You, too, Diccon.” Hillsythe had paused, then added, “As matters stand, you’re a vital cog in this, m’lad—you’re our only way of maintaining contact with those outside.”

That had been Katherine’s cue. “Actually,” she’d said, “I asked Dubois this morning if one of the women, taking turns, couldn’t be allowed to go out with Diccon. We bargained—you know how he is. But the upshot is that he agreed as a trial to let me go into the jungle with Diccon in return for me bringing back those nuts he’s particularly fond of.”

Dixon had grinned. “It seems our luck’s finally turned. For once, matters are falling our way.”

Hillsythe had nodded. “That’s excellent—an unlooked-for advantage.” He’d looked at Diccon. “That doesn’t make your role any less important. Miss Fortescue can be our mouthpiece, the one more able to tell the captain all he needs to know, but she and we all will be depending on you to guide her to the captain and his men and get her back again, too. No one knows the jungle around about anywhere near as well as you do.”

Katherine had smiled at Hillsythe. That had been exactly the right thing to say.

They’d sent a happy Diccon back to join his friends. The four men had looked at each other, then Dixon had said, “Frobisher—assuming it’s he—said he and his men were the scouting party.” He’d looked at Katherine. “Katherine, my dear, we need you to go out and learn what the situation really is before any hopes are raised.”

She’d understood perfectly. To have lost all hope, then have it handed back, only to have it snatched away again...that would be beyond cruel. She’d nodded. “Of course. I’ll go out with Diccon tomorrow and meet with...Captain Frobisher and learn all I can.”

So here she was, collecting nuts by rote, but... “Where the devil is Frobisher?” she muttered.

She bent over to pick up yet another nut—and a frisson of awareness swept over her nape. She abruptly straightened and looked around, searching through the shadows beneath the trees.

And he was suddenly there, walking out from the shadows, materializing from the gloom. She swung to face him and swiftly took in all she could see—all her senses could glean. The confidence in his easy stride, his lean, clean-cut features, his square chin, and the thick, dark locks that overhung a broad brow. His relaxed expression contrasted with the sword that rode on his hip—so very comfortably, it seemed. He was at least six feet tall and broad-shouldered, all lean muscle and masculine grace, then her gaze rose to his face, and she noted the network of lines at the corners of his eyes that she’d noticed many sailors bore. Then her gaze skated down over his strong nose and fastened on his mouth.

On a pair of mobile lips that looked like they curved readily...

And there her gaze remained as he halted before her.

Stop staring!

With an effort, she managed to haul her gaze to his eyes. The lines at the corners crinkled as he smiled.

She felt her temperature rise and feared it showed in her cheeks. But great heavens! Smiles like that—on men like him—should be outlawed.

“Good morning. Miss Fortescue, I believe?”

His voice was deep, slightly rumbly, and ruffled her senses like an invisible hand.

She managed a nod. “Ah...yes.”

So eloquent! She nearly shook her head in an attempt to shake her wits back into place. Instead, she forced herself to look aside, to glance at Diccon; he’d drifted away searching for fruit and berries.

He’d heard Frobisher’s voice and came running up.

She caught the boy to her, draping a protective arm over his shoulders. “Diccon told us you had come to learn more about the camp so that a rescue could be mounted.” Reminding herself of Frobisher’s supposed purpose helped her stiffen her spine. She raised her gaze to his eyes once more. “Is that so?”

He inclined his head, but his expression hardening, he lifted his gaze from her face and scanned the vegetation about them. Then he returned his gaze to her eyes, and all trace of the lighthearted gentleman had vanished. “Forgive me for asking this, Miss Fortescue, but I must. Don’t rip up at me.” He lowered his voice. “Are you truly free of Dubois? Free to talk, free to take back what I say to your colleagues at the mine?” He paused, then, his blue gaze locked on her eyes, he asked, “Can I trust you?”

“Yes.” The word came spontaneously, and she realized she meant it on every level. How odd. She didn’t trust others all that easily. Fate and hard-won experience had taught her bitter lessons she’d never forgotten. But there was something about him—this man who had, against all hope, walked out of the jungle to meet her—that spoke to her and reassured her at some level she didn’t comprehend. She nodded and repeated, “Yes. You can trust all of us.” She gestured in the direction of the camp. “We’ve worked together for months. If we had any who might have been tempted to collude with Dubois and his men, we would have known long ago.”

She glanced at Diccon and realization dawned. “But if it’s my coming out with Diccon that has worried you, I had already asked Dubois for permission for the women, one a day in rotation, to go out with Diccon. Dubois agreed to a trial, but with only me being allowed out and that only for an hour, and only to collect these nuts”—she gestured to the contents of her basket—“that he particularly enjoys. He very likely hopes his conditions will drive a wedge between me and the other women by making me appear to be favored.” She grinned cynically and glanced up at Frobisher. “That’s how he thinks. Unfortunately for Dubois, it was another woman’s idea—I just offered to ask.”

He frowned. “I need you to tell me about Dubois—about how he manages the camp and all of you.”

She hesitated, her gaze on his face. His handsome face, but this time, she looked beyond the glamour. “First...will you tell me your name, please?”

He met her eyes, then he stepped back and swept her a bow. “Captain Caleb Frobisher, of Frobisher Shipping Company, sailing out of Aberdeen.” Despite his level tone, as he straightened, he waggled his brows at her.

She nearly laughed in surprise, threw him a mock-disapproving look instead, but the silly byplay reassured her. “Hopkins and Fanshawe thought that was who you were.”

“Ah, of course. I don’t know them personally, but they would know my older brothers.”

She peered into the shadows behind him. “Diccon said you had twenty-four men with you.”

Caleb grinned down at Diccon, who had remained beside Katherine and was staring up at Caleb with rapt attention. “That’s correct, but most are busy burying some weapons in a cache by the lake, and others are watching the compound or guarding our camp. I only brought one man with me—a friend, another captain, who I’m grateful saw fit to join me in this mission.” He returned his gaze to Katherine’s face. “With your permission?”

When she nodded, he waved to Phillipe to join them.

Phillipe walked out of the jungle. Caleb performed the introductions—and discovered he wasn’t all that happy to have to watch Phillipe bow over Miss Fortescue’s hand and press a kiss to her knuckles.

He knew it was just Phillipe’s way, yet...

But on retrieving her hand with no more than a polite smile, Miss Fortescue immediately returned her bright hazel eyes to Caleb’s face. “Weapons?”

He felt oddly mollified. “Indeed.” He looked at Diccon. “Perhaps you’d better gather more fruit so that you can go back with Miss Fortescue. She only has another twenty minutes or so left.”

Diccon flashed Caleb a swift grin. “All right. Will you still be here?”

“Yes.” Caleb looked around and spotted a fallen log; he pointed to it. “We’ll be over there.”

“Right-o!” Diccon smiled at Miss Fortescue. “There’s a big berry bush I passed yesterday nearer to the lake. I’ll be back in no time.”

“I’ll wait for you.” Miss Fortescue watched Diccon run off, then she looked at Caleb. “Sadly, there’s no need to protect him. He told us he thought that you and your men had killed Kale and his slavers. Is that correct?”

Caleb kept his gaze on Diccon’s dwindling figure. “We didn’t just kill Kale and his crew—we wiped all sign of them from this earth.” He looked back and met Miss Fortescue’s pretty hazel eyes without apology. “That’s where the weapons come from.”

Her gaze remained steady on his face. “Once that news is known in the compound, you’ll be feted as a hero. For all of us, Kale was the instigator of our captivity.”

Caleb hesitated, then said, “He might have been the one who arranged your kidnappings, but the instigators...sadly, they’re closer to home.” He saw the questions leap to her eyes, but forced himself to wave them aside—to wave her to the fallen log. “You don’t have much time, and there’s a lot of information we need, as well as news we should impart.”

She nodded and accompanied him to the log. He reached for her hand—felt the delicate bones under his larger, stronger fingers; he gripped gently and handed her to the log. She drew in her skirts and sat, with an unconscious grace that would have done credit to a ton drawing room.

Rather than sit beside her—he wasn’t at all sure that would be a good idea, Phillipe’s presence notwithstanding—Caleb sat on the ground facing her, and Phillipe fluidly sat alongside him.

The instant they’d settled, she asked, “What do you need to know?”

Caleb thought of all they’d seen and noticed about the captives. “How does Dubois run the camp?”

She held his gaze. “By intimidation.”

Phillipe frowned. “How so? We haven’t seen any sign of aggression from him toward any of those he holds.”

“He doesn’t need to convince us of anything.” Miss Fortescue’s slim fingers twined, then gripped. “Let me tell you the tale those who were the first to be brought to the compound told me.”

In an even tone, with no real inflection, she proceeded to tell them of an act of violence, of viciousness, that made them both pale under their tans and tied their stomachs in knots. Caleb literally felt nauseated.

She concluded, “That girl was the only captive lost to us.” She paused, then went on, “Dixon, Harriet Frazier, Hopkins, and Fanshawe, as well as several of the men and quite a few of the children, were here at the time. Subsequently, if there’s the slightest sign of resistance, Dubois will pick some scapegoat and make threats—quietly, calmly, and utterly cold-bloodedly. And every one of us knows he’ll carry out those threats to the letter if we give him the excuse. Beneath his outwardly controlled demeanor lurks a monster.”

Her expression bleak, she met Caleb’s gaze. “That’s how he controls us. He never threatens the one he wants to cow, but whoever he believes that person is closest to—that person’s emotional Achilles’ heel.”

“Like he threatens Diccon with his friends’ lives?” Caleb asked.

She nodded. “Exactly. So we do what we must to survive—to keep all of us alive. We do what he asks, exactly what he asks...but no more than that.” She straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not actively fighting him—we just fight in a different way.”

Caleb had to admire her quiet dignity. “How so?”

“We’ve been trying to work out a way to escape, all of us together, but how to deal with the mercenaries is a problem we’ve yet to solve. In the meantime...we let Dubois believe he manages the mine, but in reality, in that respect, we manage him. He’s truly complacent over his hold on us—and in the way he thinks of it, that’s understandable enough. He’s clever and intelligent, and used to succeeding, but like many people who are very sure of themselves, he doesn’t appreciate what he doesn’t know.”

She looked from Caleb to Phillipe, then returned her gaze to Caleb’s face. “In this case, what Dubois doesn’t know is how a mine really operates. His understanding of that is very limited. Once Hillsythe arrived...he saw it and explained how we could use Dubois’s lack of real knowledge against him and so manage how fast the diamonds are mined.” She paused and drew in a breath. “We all know that once the diamonds run out, the mine will be closed, and we’ll all be killed. Even the children understand that—they might be young, but they’re from the slums, and when it comes to survival, they’re very quick. So we manage the output from the mine with a view to eking it out for long enough for us to find some way to escape.”

Caleb nodded decisively. “That’s going to fit nicely with our mission. We’re here to learn the location of the camp and ensure that gets back to London. Whatever else we can learn of the mine, of Dubois and his men and the overall operation, will assist mightily in formulating a viable rescue mission, which, as I understand it and now fully expect, will be the next stage.”

She frowned. “This rescue force will come from London?” When Caleb nodded, she asked, “Why? Why hasn’t anyone from the settlement come to find us? Why can’t the soldiers from the fort or the men from the navy ships come to free us?”

Caleb grimaced. “That’s what I alluded to earlier—the villains closer to home. We know there are several—more than one, most likely more than two—people in positions of authority in the settlement who are actively involved in this.” He met her gaze. “Lady Holbrook was one. She’s now fled the colony, but we know there are others still in place. The naval attaché, Muldoon, plays an active part, but who his coconspirators are is at present unknown, so we can’t afford to raise a force from the settlement. By the time such a force reaches here...to be blunt, it’s likely all the captives in the compound will have been executed, any evidence in the compound destroyed, and Dubois and his men will be long gone.”

She’d paled slightly, but her expression hardened, and she nodded. “I understand. That makes sense of the silence until now.”

Caleb hurried to add, “That’s not to say that those kidnapped have been forgotten by their friends in the settlement. Rather, because of the activity of the villains and their associates, said friends have been unable to get anything done. For instance, the Sherbrooks haven’t forgotten you, but their pleas to Governor Holbrook were turned aside, Holbrook having been duped by his wife.” Concisely—and speaking ever more rapidly—he gave her a severely edited account of his brother Declan’s mission, followed by that of his brother Robert, the sum of what they’d discovered, and the conclusions that had been drawn. “So, you see, it’s imperative that we get news of the mine’s location plus as much information about Dubois’s operation as we can back to London, so that an effective rescue can be launched with all speed from there.”

She nodded. “I cannot tell you how...heartening it is to know that there are people who care and who are working to free us. That someone—some group—understands the situation and is truly committed to getting us out of this jungle alive.” She hesitated, then more quietly said, “We’d almost lost hope, but this news will give everyone heart again.”

“That’s all to the good,” Caleb said, “but please make sure everyone understands that even with us sending word as fast as any ship can go, it’s going to be weeks yet before any rescue force can reach here.”

“How long, exactly?”

He frowned. “I suspect it’ll be at least a month.”

Phillipe snorted. “Even with your family’s ships, it’ll be more like six weeks.”

Caleb caught Katherine’s gaze. “Do you think you and the others will be able to stretch the mining out that long?”

She sat straighter. “Obviously, we’ll have to. I’m sure with rescue pending, we’ll manage somehow.”

Phillipe looked at Caleb. “You should check the list of the missing.”

“Ah—yes.” Caleb drew his notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. “These are the people known to have gone missing from Freetown. Obviously, we haven’t got all the names, but by the same token, we don’t know if all these people were kidnapped for the mine.” He read down the list.

Katherine confirmed each and every name. When he came to the end, she reiterated, “All of those people are at the mine and still alive. As I said, the only one lost was that young girl. She was called Daisy. None of the others who were kidnapped know her full name. Of course, we’ve had accidents and injuries, but Dubois is motivated to keep us alive and functioning so we can continue to produce diamonds as swiftly as possible, and his current difficulty in getting more men—let alone replacements—ensures he continues to treat us well.” She lifted a shoulder. “Essentially, he can’t afford not to.”

Phillipe shot Caleb a glance. “That’s what’s behind the medical hut.”

When Katherine nodded, Caleb said, “Diccon will be back any minute. Is there anything more—any insights you can share—that will help us better understand what’s happening in the camp?”

She hesitated for only a heartbeat, then said, “There’s a stalemate of sorts operating at the moment, holding everything in check. Dubois is under increasing pressure to produce more diamonds more quickly—as we interpret it, to mine out the deposit as fast as possible, so that those behind the scheme can order us all killed and protect themselves from any risk of exposure.”

Caleb grimaced. “That’s almost certainly correct.”

“Against that, however—and you need to understand that Dubois never cares if we overhear his discussions with his men—we know he, Dubois, has been stymied in pushing ahead by a lack of more men. He’s been calling for more for weeks, but Kale hasn’t been supplying as many as Dubois needs.” Her lips curved with satisfaction. “And now, of course, Kale won’t be supplying any more at all.”

Phillipe pulled a face. “We’ll have to see how that plays out. Dubois doesn’t strike me as the sort to let Kale’s disappearance stop him for long.”

“No,” she admitted with a dip of her head. “But it will slow things down even further, which is all to our good. Dubois doesn’t dare push us—the workers he already has—too hard for fear of accidents and injuries, which will only result in lower production. So he’s caught—he has to simply wait for more men. That helps us keep production from the mine at what we hope will be a safely low level.”

Diccon appeared, sliding through the palms.

They all rose. Caleb felt a flaring impulse to reach for Katherine Fortescue’s hand; he thrust both his hands into his breeches pockets instead. “Last question—I assume all those held captive have elected a leader. Who is it?”

“We actually have two—Dixon and Hillsythe. Dixon manages the mine, and Hillsythe plots our way. The others—their lieutenants, I suppose—are Lieutenants Hopkins and Fanshawe, and I speak for the women and children.”

Caleb spared a smile for Diccon, but immediately returned his gaze to Katherine Fortescue’s face. “If there’s any way to do it, I would like reports from Dixon and Hillsythe. They’ll know what’s needed, and such reports would be invaluable.”

She nodded. “I’ll ask.” She paused, then added, “Given the reports will have to be done in secret, they will almost certainly take more than a day to prepare.” She met Caleb’s gaze. “I’ll come out again the day after tomorrow. If Dixon and Hillsythe have the reports ready, I’ll bring them then.”

“Thank you.” Caleb bent and picked up her basket. He handed it to her. “One thing—please stress to everyone concerned that at no point should they do anything to arouse suspicion.”

She nodded and turned to Diccon. She took his hand, then glanced at Caleb. “Thank you.” Her gaze moved briefly to include Phillipe, then returned to Caleb’s face. “I’ll see you in two days.”

She turned away, and she and Diccon started toward the compound.

Caleb and Phillipe watched them go, then once the pair were far enough ahead, started trailing behind.

They halted deep in the jungle shadows, well concealed from the guards on the gate, and watched Katherine Fortescue and Diccon walk stoically back into captivity.

After a moment, Phillipe stirred. “She told us quite a lot. Dubois sounds...dangerous.”

“Hmm. And this bind he’s in—more production on the one hand, no ability to achieve it on the other. That must be frustrating, yet he doesn’t seem to have lashed out.”

“Which only proves my point,” Phillipe said. “Dangerous. Any man can play the bully. A sadistic bully who can control himself...that’s something else again.”

Caleb grunted and turned away. “Let’s get back to the camp. I’d better start writing my own report, because heaven knows, these people need rescuing.”

* * *

After seeing Diccon on his way to the kitchen with his basket full of berries, Katherine reined in her giddy, rather scattered thoughts, mentally girded her loins, hefted her basket, and climbed the steps to the mercenaries’ barracks.

She walked along the narrow porch to the single door, which lay toward the left of the front of the long building and was presently propped open. Dubois’s “office” lay beyond the door in the space at the end of the single room, separated from the bunk beds by a communal area with stools and low tables where the off-duty mercenaries lounged and played cards. Out of ingrained courtesy, she tapped on the door frame, waited for a heartbeat, then calmly walked in. She spared not a glance for the other mercenaries sprawled at their ease but fixed her gaze on Dubois’s desk and the man himself, leaning back in his chair behind it.

There was a wide window set in the side wall of the barracks. Through it, Dubois could see the entrance to the mine. He appeared to be staring moodily at that sight, but as she approached, he turned to study her.

By anyone’s measure, he cut a commanding figure, with a powerful physique, thick dark hair, and even features. He had oddly pale hazel eyes; she often thought that cold steel had somehow got mixed into the hue. Hazel eyes weren’t usually chilling, but Dubois’s gaze certainly was.

“Miss Fortescue.” Dubois didn’t smile, yet she detected amusement in his tone. Much like a cat viewing a potential mouse. His gaze fell to the basket. “I take it your foraging was successful?”

“Indeed.” She placed the basket on the desk. “Here are your nuts. I quite enjoyed my time beyond the palisade, but I confess I hadn’t expected the atmosphere beneath the trees to be quite so oppressive.” She frowned as if somewhat chagrined. “I suspect I had better not indulge again tomorrow—not so soon.” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Perhaps one of the other women might take my place and fetch nuts for you tomorrow?”

Dubois’s lips eased. He reached out and pulled the basket toward him. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I believe I will be quite content with nuts delivered every second day.” He looked steadily at her. “By you.” He paused for a beat, then stated, “Thank you, Miss Fortescue. That will be all.”

Katherine suppressed a derisive snort. She contented herself with a tiny, haughty inclination of her head, then she turned and left the room.

The man made her skin crawl. His habit of trying to bait her—and the others who were well born, too—by subtly lording it over them added another layer of grating irritation.

But they had all long ago resolved not to react—not to play the mouse to Dubois’s cat. As he enjoyed the hunt so much, he tended to let them go—the better to taunt them the next time.

Descending once more to the dust of the compound, she drew in a deep breath—and finally allowed everything she’d learned in the jungle that morning to surge to the forefront of her brain.

Rescue was on the way. They hadn’t been forgotten.

She felt hope, real hope, bubbling up inside—a startling, entirely unexpected upwelling of an emotion she’d thought excised from her soul.

She remained where she was, staring unseeing out of the gates while she considered who she should speak with first, what was most important to be communicated, and how best to achieve that.

Over and above all other considerations, she resolved that, whatever steps she and subsequently the other captives took, they would need to ensure they did absolutely nothing to jeopardize the safety of Captain Caleb Frobisher and his men—for all their sakes.

CHAPTER 5

Katherine spoke with Hillsythe that evening during dinner. By the looks Dixon cast them from where he sat across the fire pit, he was itching to join them, but Harriet had claimed the place by his side, and as Hillsythe had informed Katherine, he and Dixon had agreed that it was better for the three of them not to be too openly sharing news; the other captives would notice and expect to be told.

She certainly wasn’t about to chide the pair for their caution. They needed to handle the information she’d brought back with care.

That said, once Hillsythe had heard all she had to report, he appeared to be having as much difficulty as she in cloaking his excitement.

“I’d been hoping for something like this. Now you’ve confirmed that it is, indeed, Frobisher who’s found us...well!” Hillsythe looked at his plate to hide his enthusiasm.

Katherine searched for the words with which to ask what her curiosity wanted to know. “I have to admit that I don’t quite understand why you, and the others, too, place such confidence in a name.” When Hillsythe looked up, she widened her eyes at him. “Does ‘Frobisher’ really convey so much?”

Hillsythe grinned, a fleeting expression that took years from his apparent age; of them all, the group’s captivity—the responsibility of assisting them all to weather it—had weighed most heavily on him. “The Frobishers are well known in certain circles. Frobisher Shipping is a private company, but the family has a long—generations-long, as I understand it—association with the Crown and its more covert agencies. That’s why Fanshawe and Hopkins, being navy, recognized the name and the man, but Dixon, being army, didn’t—I explained the connection to him later.”

“You recognized the name, too.”

Hillsythe dipped his head. “Although I haven’t crossed their paths before, I’ve heard of the exploits of others of his family.”

Katherine primmed her lips. Hillsythe had never let fall—not to anyone—just what arm of government he worked for, although all the captives were sure his superiors would be found somewhere in Whitehall.

Hillsythe continued, “The crucial point about it being a Frobisher who has arrived is that the family being involved means that news of our plight has reached the highest echelons of government. He’s confirmed he’s been sent to scout out the camp and send the intelligence back to London so that an effective rescue mission can be launched—and given the level of power the Frobishers serve, that means an effective rescue will be launched.” Hillsythe sighed. “We can finally have faith that rescue is on the way.”

Katherine heard the confidence in his tone. She wanted to embrace the news as he had, yet as the hours since she’d been in Caleb Frobisher’s company had passed and the reassurance conveyed by the warmth in his blue eyes and the comforting strength of his presence had faded, she’d started to question whether believing so wholeheartedly in the abilities of him and those who had sent him to successfully rescue them all wasn’t just a touch naive.

As if sensing her doubts, Hillsythe went on, “That Caleb is the third of his brothers to collaborate in locating us is, of itself, heartening. That means those arranging this rescue mission understand the dangers—that there are, as we suspected and Caleb has now confirmed, villains in the settlement in positions of authority such that they would learn of any ‘official’ rescue and shut down the mine and dispose of us before any relief could reach us. Our would-be rescuers have acted with all due care, and as the Frobisher name attests, those would-be rescuers are people with the capabilities and resources to carry off such a mission successfully.”

Hillsythe fixed his gaze on the flames of the small fire cheerily burning in the fire pit. “Trust me—we now have every reason to believe we will be rescued. Consequently, what we need to concentrate on now is, first, giving Frobisher and his masters every assistance we can and, second, surviving until the rescue force arrives and frees us.” Hillsythe raised his gaze to look at Dixon on the other side of the circle. “I’ll tell Dixon, Fanshawe, and Hopkins. We should tell Harriet, too—can you do that?”

“Yes, of course.” Katherine hesitated, then asked, “What about the others?”

Hillsythe weighed the question, then murmured, “Let’s keep it to just the six of us—and Diccon—for now. At least until we know that the necessary intelligence is on its way to London and cannot be stopped, and we get as firm an idea as possible of how long it’ll be before rescue arrives—will it truly be six weeks, or might it take longer? Frobisher is the only one who can give us a sound estimate, and we’ll need to work on strategies to ensure that we keep the mine producing steadily for at least that long.”

“I jockeyed Dubois into decreeing that I should go out only every second day—I thought if I went out every day, as he originally trapped me into doing, then after a week passes and he sees no trouble brewing between me and the other women, he might change his mind and stop me going out altogether. Then we would have to rely on Diccon to make contact with Frobisher, and that might not be wise if we have critical information to pass back and forth.”

Hillsythe nodded approvingly. “Good thinking. And if we need to make contact on your off days, we still have Diccon as a fallback courier.” He thought, then added, “Those reports Frobisher asked for—Dixon and I will have them ready so you can deliver them on your next outing. In the meantime, we can all put our minds to thinking of what we need you to ask Frobisher. Once we get him those reports, we need him to take them back to London as soon as humanly possible.” Hillsythe’s gaze swept all those—adults as well as children—sitting on the logs about the fire pit. “We simply can’t know what might happen with the mine, so the sooner rescue arrives the better.”

Katherine merely nodded; there was nothing she could think of to add to that. Rescue—even once on its way—still had to reach them before the diamonds ran low.

“I wonder...” Hillsythe’s gaze grew distant, almost dreamy. “Caleb said two of his older brothers, Declan and Robert, had captained the earlier legs of this mission. In light of that, I wonder if the oldest Frobisher brother—Royd—will be tapped on the shoulder to lead the rescue party.”

Katherine studied Hillsythe’s expression. “Will that be a good thing?”

Hillsythe’s rare smile lifted his lips. “Very likely an excellent thing. I’ve never met Royd Frobisher, but in my circles, tales of his exploits abound. Him taking on the likes of Dubois...that would be something to see.”

It had grown late. The children had been sent off to the barracks they shared with the women, while the women gathered any plates and mugs left about the logs. Katherine stood and shook out her skirts. She felt...different. More alive, more determined to remain so—buoyed on a slowly building wave of hope.

Hillsythe rose, too. He paused to murmur, “Remember—no word to anyone but Harriet.” He glanced at the others now drifting away, and his hard-edged expression softened. “This is news for rejoicing, and I’d like to tell everyone immediately, but we shouldn’t risk it. I suppose making such judgment calls is what leadership is all about.” He met Katherine’s eyes. “Once we’ve got confirmation that the necessary information has departed these shores, that will be the time to spread the good news.”

She let her lips curve reassuringly and nodded. With a murmured good night, she went to find Harriet.

* * *

At that same moment, Caleb was sitting with Phillipe and all their men on logs arranged about the center of their camp. A small lantern, turned very low, sat on a flat rock where a fire would have been had they been able to risk lighting one. With the compound so near, even shrouded in black night, chancing a fire was too great a risk; even a faint breeze could carry the smell of smoke to the guards, and then they would come looking.

“So.” Phillipe tossed the husk of a nut to join the small pile building up around the lamp. “We will spend tomorrow observing the mine, and I will write up a report on the best way for a rescue force to approach the area, while you write one on the compound itself, those inside, and possible considerations for mounting an attack-cum-rescue. Then on the day after tomorrow, the lovely Miss Fortescue will deliver the reports from inside the camp. And then”—Phillipe glanced sidelong at Caleb—“we’ll retreat to our ships, and you and The Prince will ferry all that information back to London.”

Caleb kept his gaze fixed on the lamp, but felt his face harden as he strove to mask his distaste for that path. Yet that was the mission he’d seized and taken on.

Responsible captains abided by the rules—by the unwritten demands of their mission’s imperatives.

Responsible captains didn’t rewrite missions to suit themselves.

Yet...

Unable not to, he lifted his gaze and scanned the faces of his and Phillipe’s men. The light was dim, yet he could still plainly see their disaffection—their uncomfortableness over simply doing what they’d been sent to do and no more.

The more that they could do.

Caleb didn’t need to glance at Phillipe to know what his friend thought. In such circumstances, he could guarantee that Phillipe would think as he did. Feel as he did.

Act as he did.

In this case, Phillipe and his men as well as Caleb’s crew would all abide by whatever Caleb decided.

It was his call. His responsibility.

He closed his eyes, searching for inner guidance—and remembered some of the tales he’d heard of Royd’s exploits.

Faced with this situation, if Royd were in his shoes, what would Royd do?

Phrased like that, the answer came in the next heartbeat.

Caleb felt his features ease. He opened his eyes, swept the group, then looked at Phillipe. “Our mission is to get the information back to London. But it won’t take all of us to accomplish that task.”

Phillipe merely arched his brows, inviting Caleb to continue down that path.

Looking at his men, Caleb said, “Once we’ve collected all the information London will need, if we’re where we think we are, even going directly north to the estuary, it’ll take at least two days to get the information back to The Prince. After that, it’ll be three weeks to get to London. Then realistically, it will take another three weeks minimum for any rescue force to reach here—and that’s assuming they’re ready to set sail within days of our news reaching Whitehall.” He scanned the faces. “That’s more than six weeks, very likely more than seven, that those held captive in the compound must survive.”

Various scenarios, various arguments, flowed through his mind. “As I see it, there’s nothing—no orders or mission considerations—that require all of us to leave and escort the information to London.” He glanced at Phillipe. “The Prince is fastest, so she should take the packet, but there’s no reason The Raven has to follow.”

“No, indeed.” Phillipe’s dark eyes glinted with amused approval—and encouragement.

“Against that,” Caleb continued, “we cannot know what might happen at the mine over those crucial seven weeks. Miss Fortescue told us that Dubois is already under pressure to mine faster, to get as many diamonds out as quickly as possible, presumably so the mine can be closed and the captives eliminated, thus concealing all evidence of the scheme as well as the identities of the villains behind it.

“So”—he drew a deep breath—“given the ultimate intent of our mission is to rescue the captives, in the circumstances in which we now find ourselves, I believe our correct way forward is to send the information back to London with an escort capable of ensuring it gets through, while the rest of us remain here—in readiness should something go wrong at the mine such that the captives need us to intervene. And if nothing adverse occurs, we’ll be here, in position to join the rescue force when it arrives.”

Approving murmurs broke out all around.

Caleb cocked a brow at Phillipe.

Phillipe grinned and nodded. “An excellent summation of the current state of affairs. And as we all know, those who survive are those who adapt to changing circumstances—to what they find on the ground.”

Ducasse, Phillipe’s quartermaster, who had been talking animatedly with Carter, Caleb’s bosun, turned to Caleb. “The boy said there were only twenty-four canaille in the compound. There are twenty-five of us. Why can’t we take the compound and free the captives ourselves?”

Carter leaned forward to ask, “Do we really need to wait for the rescue force?”

Caleb sobered in a blink. “Yes. We have to wait. If it was just us against the canaille”—he used Ducasse’s highly appropriate description—“and the captives were safely screened from any clash, that would be one thing. But from everything we’ve heard about this Dubois, at the first hint of an attack, he’ll lead his men to seize the women and children. He’ll hold them as hostages and force us to surrender.” Caleb shook his head. “We can’t go that route.”

“I agree.” Phillipe met Ducasse’s eyes, then looked around the circle. “By all accounts, this Dubois is not a commander we should even poke.”

Caleb nodded. “For instance, even though it’s tempting, we will not attack this group of six who took the diamonds to the coast and have yet to return. Removing them will alert Dubois that someone is out here—that, most likely, someone knows about the mine. He will then tell his masters, and they might decide to preemptively shut down the mine—which is the opposite of what we want.”

Ducasse frowned. “But won’t it be the same later, even when the rescue force arrives?”

“Once we have more men and resources, we’ll have more options, but you’re correct in that to take the compound, we’re going to need an effective diversion—one that distracts Dubois and his men long enough for us to get between them and the captives.” Caleb pulled a face. “I’ve no idea what such a diversion might be, but that’s something we should use our time here to plan.”

“What we need to do at this point,” Phillipe stated, “is to keep things as they are, as far as possible exactly as they are, until the rescue force gets here. All we do should work toward that goal.”

“So we wait and we watch”—Caleb gave his words the weight of an order—“and we only intervene if something occurs that threatens the captives.” He looked around the circle and saw understanding and agreement in all the men’s faces. “We’ll set our initial mission on course for completion, but as many of us as possible will remain here, both to continue to scout and prepare for the eventual storming of the compound and also to act as the captives’ last line of defense—as extra protection until the rescue force arrives.”

* * *

The following morning, as they had the morning before, Caleb and Phillipe and two of their men scrambled into position on the rock shelf before the compound woke for the day.

Caleb observed the same pattern of activities; he jotted down the more relevant—such as the movements of the guards and male captives—then turned his attention to putting the finishing touches to his diagram of the compound.

More than an hour later, Phillipe jogged his elbow.

When Caleb glanced his way, Phillipe nodded toward the compound’s gate. “The boy’s leaving, but no one’s with him.”

They watched for ten more minutes, but no one—mercenary or captive—made any move to follow Diccon.

Phillipe caught Caleb’s eye. “Shall we?”

Caleb nodded, tucked away his notebook, and got to his feet. “He might have news for us.”

They found Diccon in the area between their camp and the lake. He was circling a large berry vine-cum-bush, swiftly picking berries. His face lit when he saw them. “I hoped you’d come. I didn’t want to go to your camp in case you had guards.”

Caleb smiled and ruffled the boy’s hair. “They know who you are.” He crouched and looked Diccon in the eye. “Do you have any messages for us?”

Diccon nodded. “From Capt’n Dixon and Miss Katherine. Capt’n Dixon said as he and Mr. Hillsythe would need until tomorrow to do their reports for you—they have to be careful about getting the paper to write on, but he said they’d have everything ready for you by then.”

Caleb nodded. “Good. And Miss Fortescue?”

“She said as she would bring the reports out to you tomorrow—that she’d come out with me like she did yesterday. Dubois agreed to let her collect nuts again tomorrow, but wouldn’t let any of the other women take her place today. He’s like that.”

Caleb dropped a hand on Diccon’s shoulder and rose. He exchanged a glance with Phillipe, then smiled down at Diccon. “It’s nearly noon, and there are plenty of fruit trees around our camp. Why don’t you come back with us and have something to eat?” The boy was little more than skin and bones, and they had a good supply of jerky.

Diccon grinned and nodded. He fell in between Caleb and Phillipe, and they made their way back to the camp.

Both Caleb and Phillipe settled down to finalize the reports they’d been writing, pulling together all they’d learned. Diccon flitted in and out of the camp, stopping to chat with the men who were scattered in groups, some tending weapons, others preparing various fruits to go with the dried meats they would all later eat.

After a while, Phillipe glanced up from his scribbling. He watched Diccon skip off to another fruit tree, then murmured, “Once Dubois’s men come back from the coast, from wherever they handed over the diamonds, we should try that path for ourselves. If it eventually leads to the settlement as the others suspect, we can fetch more supplies.”

Caleb grunted an agreement. “If we’re going to remain here for the next seven or so weeks, we’ll need more food, especially as we can’t light a fire and can’t hunt, either.”

Hornby, Caleb’s steward, was in charge of meals. He summoned them all to the bounty he and several others had prepared—fruit, nuts, and dried mutton.

Caleb mumbled around a mouthful of the chewy meat, “At least it doesn’t have weevils.”

Phillipe just pulled a face, but Diccon smiled sunnily and reached for another strip.

Two hours later, Diccon declared he had enough fruit in his basket, and after exchanging farewells with all the men, he wandered off to return to the compound.

Eventually, Caleb and Phillipe swapped their reports and read over each other’s efforts.

Caleb reached the end of Phillipe’s precise description of the various possible approaches a rescue force might take to reach the compound, along with the pitfalls and advantages of each route. “This is as good as it could be. I can’t see anything you’ve missed.” He placed the report on the satchel he was using to collect all the documents destined for London. “It’ll all depend on what sort of force they deploy—and if they work with Decker or not.”

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