What a Hero Dares

No matter how much you trust them, tell them only what they need to know and, if you can manage it, only half of that. Max had earned that lesson the hardest way possible.

“Are you regretting escaping your watchdogs in Ostend?” the Frenchman asked as he squinted through the downpour, looking up and down the pier. “Don’t you miss them?”

“I never miss them for long, unfortunately, as they’ve somehow made their way here. As far as they know, however, I’m still at my hotel, sleeping off an afternoon of melancholy drinking, just as if the place had only a front door. You’re not supposed to notice them at any rate, as my behemoths rather pride themselves on their stealth.”

“And now you’re about to leave them on the other side of the Channel. Poor fellows. Even hounds can’t follow a scent across the water.”

“They can make their own way home,” Max grumbled as they each loaded yokes holding a pair of small brandy kegs onto their shoulders and advanced up the narrow, dangerously swaying gangplank. Along with Richard, who’d obviously already found them guarding that same front door. “Damn, man, we haven’t cast off yet, and already you’re turning green. It’s only a storm, not Armageddon. Don’t worry, all we can do is drown.”

“Sometimes I do not so much like you, mon ami. French stomachs are delicate, not like those of you English, who would eat shoe leather, and probably do.”

“Only on Sundays, with quite lovely burnt carrots and turnips. Find yourself a dark corner, why don’t you, as I help the others finish the loading.”

Ten minutes later they were pushing away from the dock, and ten minutes after that Anton was leaning over the rail, alternately cursing and casting up his accounts.

At least the wind was with them, and they’d be off-shore at Redgrave Manor in a matter of hours. Unless the unknown captain’s skill faltered, in which case they’d all be at the bottom of the Channel. There was always that. Years ago, Max had been able to brag of being not only the youngest coxswain in the Royal Navy, but had been aboard the Trafalgar when the mighty Nelson was mortally struck down. But those who’d been there never spoke of that fateful day, even in whispers.

Just as he could not betray himself now by conking the inept captain over the head with a belaying pin and taking control of the ship.

Cursing the foul weather under his breath, Max leaned against a portion of lashed-together kegs as the sloop seemed to climb skyward on each wave, only for the hull to then slap down on black water turned hard as any board.

There came the sound of tearing sail high in the rigging, and Anton’s curses grew louder. A French royalist intent on defeating Bonaparte and returning the monarchy to the throne in Paris, Anton had been secretly working for the English for close to a decade, and he and Max had more than once joined ranks in ferreting out information valuable to the Crown. Worked together, gotten roaring drunk together, laughed together...mourned together.

It was only natural that he would contact Anton for his assistance, and it was Anton who’d first suggested English traitors could be making themselves at home in any of the hotels Bonaparte had ordered built to house English smugglers along the coast, many of them at Dunkirk and Gravelines. Anton had taken out a gold coin and flipped it, with him picking Gravelines when he won.

Max had seen that trick from Anton and his two-headed coin before, but had never called him on it, just as Max had some small tricks of his own. Anton had information he wasn’t sharing, and had made sure Gravelines was their destination. As long as they both knew each other’s tricks they could both pretend ignorance in certain things. It was safer that way, as long as the mission succeeded.

Which, hopefully, it was about to do.

Once in the seaside town, watching and careful listening had resulted in information about one small group of men and their borrowed ships. Their runs were infrequent, and loaded with quite singular cargo. Yes, they loaded brandy meant for England, unloaded wool that came from England. But there was something more.

“Men going to England, but not returning with the ship,” Anton had informed Max. “My contact told me it’s the damndest thing. Sometimes two, three dozen seamen sailing off along with the kegs, but only a handful returning on the next tide.”

He’d laughed then, that full-throated laugh of his that rose all the way to his pale eyes. “You don’t suppose Boney is invading a score or so at a time? Piecemeal building himself an army on English shores? I always told you, Max, these revolutionists toss words like liberté, égalité, fraternité into the dustbin every time they sniff a whiff of power. Drop a crown on their heads, like Boney, and they’re even worse, gobbling up other countries like sugar treats. Why else are you here, with the English so concerned about Bonaparte’s business, yes?”

Remembering Anton’s words, Max squinted into the darkness along the deck, attempting to single out bodies that didn’t belong, anyone who seemed out of place. It was impossible to recognize faces from his other crossing, save for a magnificently tall and leanly muscled man with skin the shade of wild honey and eyes the color of sand that stared straight back at him. Max acknowledged him with a ragtag salute, and the man nodded in return, then both looked away.

Friend? Foe? Interested bystander? The man would bear watching.

Other than the crew, he then counted the other men clinging to the ropes, hired from the docks to assist in the off-loading of the contraband once they reached the shoreline. Expendable bodies, like his, and Anton’s, hired to do a job of work, or drown in the process.

Except there were too many of them.

There were more than a dozen Frenchmen, four quiet men dressed as Dutchmen. A trio of Spaniards who could be dockside lingerers or hired mercenaries, but currently fully occupied with their rosaries. A short, fairly rotund fellow engulfed head-to-foot in a worse cloak than Max’s own and currently hanging over the railing next to Anton, apparently feeding the fish with whatever he’d had for supper.

Lastly, his gaze alit on a slim figure wrapped all in black: black leather trousers, black tunic, overly large black hooded cloak, black gloves, black boots, black muffler covering all but a pair of narrowly slitted eyes.

Not one of the crew. Definitely not hired to wade through the choppy waters to the beach, a brace of kegs tied over his shoulders. Which meant one thing... Max was looking at another part of the cargo, most likely a spy.

And spies could be valuable.

He spent the next three hours making and discarding plans. He knew he wasn’t returning to Gravelines; that had never been part of his plan. But now, on top of successfully stealing away from the shore on his own, he would have to lug an unwilling companion along with him.

There was no other possible conclusion: he had to enlist Anton’s help once they reached their destination.

He reminded himself yet again that he trusted Boucher. As much as he trusted any man. Or woman.

Which, Max acknowledged silently, wasn’t much. For instance, he still didn’t quite understand why Anton, such a sorry sailor, would insist upon escorting him to England in this storm when he could have vouched for him to get him on board, and then waved his farewell from the dock. That didn’t quite make sense.

The Frenchman hadn’t led him astray yet; his information had all been spot-on. But loyalties could change, especially if money was involved, just as easily as the direction of the wind now blowing toward England, at last leaving the storm behind them. Trust was at a premium in these tumultuous times. It was all too easy to end up betrayed and dead. Both Anton and Max knew that. But we don’t speak of such things. The past is the past, and the guilty one punished does not bring back the dead....

“Open the shutter, boy,” the captain suddenly commanded. “Once, then again, and watch for the all clear from shore. Ah, there it is! Lower the longboats, and be quick about it.”

It was time. His decision made, Max scrambled to his feet with the others, and headed for Anton, who was still standing at the rail.

“We part ways now, yes?” Anton whispered close beside Max’s ear, his breath foul, so that Max covered his own mouth and nose. “Me to follow our return cargo once it lands, and you to chase after those who remain on the shore. Don’t attempt to sneak away empty-handed. I think it best you heft a brace of kegs, like the others. The longboats are down. Here, let me help hoist a yoke onto your shoulders.”

Max nodded, remaining where he was, his forearms on the rail, leaning forward, straining to see the shore as Anton went to retrieve the yoke and kegs. Then Max would tell him about the possible spy.

He never got the chance.

“Anton! Another smuggler’s lantern, signaling onshore. Could be unwelcome company portside,” he said, turning toward the man, so that the belaying pin that came down on his head only grazed his skull rather than rendering him totally unconscious.

All he would ever remember after that was a hard body barreling into him with force sufficient to knock his breath from him, and helplessly falling through the air, heading for the dark water that was suddenly lit by the flash of a cannon broadside that seemed to have come out of nowhere to crash through the rigging of the sloop.

* * *

“RELEASE ME, YOU FOOL, I’m all right. Let me go!”

Zoé Charbonneau’s words were closely followed by a kick that landed in the most tender spot of her unnecessary rescuer’s pudgy anatomy. He seemed to go unconscious with the pain. Her arm was freed at once and she was up and running, stumbling, only to fall to her knees on the sharp shingle beside Maximillien Redgrave.

Max. Her Max. But not any longer.

She spared only a moment to look into his well-remembered face, still misbelieving what she was seeing even after staring at him for hours, before she pushed him over onto his belly with all her might, and then straddled him.

“Breathe, damn you,” she commanded, bracing her arms against him, slamming the sides of her fists into his back over and over again. “Don’t you dare die again!”

“Like this, mademoiselle,” came an unfamiliar voice from behind her.

Zoé felt herself being picked up and tossed aside like so much flotsam and looked up to see the towering Arabic man from the smuggler’s sloop. “No, don’t, I have to—”

“Many apologies. I am called Tariq, and promise you I am harmless. If you would please to turn his head to one side? His nose in the sand aids nothing.”

She did as instructed, and saw Tariq pushing on Max’s back with twice the strength she had been able to muster.

“Is he past saving?” she asked, her voice maddeningly tremulous, her hands clasped tightly together at her chest so that she wouldn’t give in to the urge to push his sodden hair back from his face.

“Only a fool would leave a young lady so eager to keep him here,” the man said, grinning, showing off a splendid set of strong white teeth. “Is your man a fool?”

Zoé shook her head, ordering herself to be calm. Hysteria aided nothing; she’d learned that long ago. Even if she were dying inside, she had trained herself to remain outwardly calm, even detached. Perhaps she’d succeeded too well, especially in these last months, and was no longer capable of feeling even what she should. But, then, how else to survive in this treacherous world she’d chosen to live in? “No, just stubborn.”

“Then he’ll live. Stubborn is good.”

As if to prove the man’s point, Max began to cough and choke, and then rise on his elbows and knees to begin vomiting up half the Channel.

Zoé immediately scrambled backward, away from him, then stood up to assess her surroundings. It would be disastrous for Max to see her, even as it would kill her to walk away.

“Take care of him please, Tariq, and then trust him to take care of you. But you never saw me, did you?”

Max’s savior winked at her. “The pale-haired angel in the devil’s clothes? Who would believe me?”

“Shukran, Tariq. Thank you,” she responded, dredging up some of her limited Arabic.

“Alla ysallmak, miss, may God keep you safe.”

“Until I get my bearings, He’ll have to, won’t He?”

There was light enough to see where she was, thanks to the bright flames shooting up from the sails of the smuggling craft, its hull slowly listing to port as a dozen or more grappling hooks thrown from a nearby ship attempted to heave it to starboard, intent on keeping it afloat until it could be dragged closer to shore.

There was yelling somewhere in the distance, pistol fire and the sound of clashing swords, but no one else was visible besides Max, Tariq and the still-unconscious stranger. Just the beach, some abandoned-looking cottages with a steep hill and darkness behind them. An impressively high, clearly impassable rock jetty jutted out into the water to her left; another grassy hill rose to her right, beyond which she could see a distant outcropping of land, dim lights telling her it was clearly home to some sort of town. Anyone attempting escape from the beach would surely head toward the lights, and most certainly be easily captured.

Which was why she knew she had one way to go: up.

Climbing. Like all trapped, desperate animals.

No, she wouldn’t think about that.

With one more assessing look toward Max, barely resisting the urge to touch him just one last time, she headed for what was possibly a path that would lead her up the faintly visible hillside behind the cottages. He could take care of himself, the man who called himself Tariq could assist him, and if Boucher still breathed, he also would have no other choice but to navigate the steep hillside in order to escape in the current chaos.

Unless he was responsible for it. No, no, that was impossible. Anton would never willingly put himself in a position of danger by ordering someone to fire on a ship while he was still aboard.

For her own safety and now Max’s, as well, she had to presume Anton’d survived the attack. More, she had to know.

It had taken her many weeks to ferret the Frenchman out, only to almost lose him earlier on the docks. If she lost track of him now, it might be years before she could locate him again, now that he was in England. Even worse if he had seen her; then he’d be the one in pursuit. Her entire future lay in finding him first. Only with him dead could she walk away, hope to begin her life anew.

Or so she’d thought when she’d first boarded the smuggling vessel.

But Max was alive. Against all information, against all hope, Max was alive. Even disguised, she’d always known him; how he walked, the tilt of his head.

This changed everything.

Her own head felt ready to explode with questions.

She’d taken no more than a few steps before a grip very like iron closed around her arm and she was whirled about, going chest to chest with her unwanted rescuer, who apparently had more recovery power than she’d given him credit for. Again, she aimed a knee toward his crotch, but what had succeeded the first time was neatly countered this time.

“Now, lass, where do you thinking you’d be heading in such a hurry?” the older man said, twisting her arm about to bring it up behind her. “Seems to me, tossing away your cloak and leaping in after the lad and me like you did? Smacks of concern, I’d say.”

“Someone was firing on us. I was saving myself, you fool. He means nothing to me.”

“Of course you were. Of course he doesn’t. He means nothing to either of us.”

Zoé stopped struggling, knowing she didn’t have the power needed to escape this grinning old man. She hadn’t slept in days, couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She’d expended nearly all of her energy making her way to shore; she simply had nothing left to fight with. She’d have to outthink him while formulating a better plan. There was always the knife in her boot, if she could only reach it, but she’d never killed for no reason, not if her wits could save her. “After you pushed him overboard, I would imagine he means something to you.”

“Ah, but only after one of those Frenchies nearly put him to sleep with that belaying pin, and just before the cannon shot whistled through the rigging. There’s all that to consider, don’t you think? So much going on. Now, let’s go see the lad, shall we?”

Zoé felt panic rising in her throat even as her knees, already wobbly, turned to mush. “I’ll pay you to let me go. Pay you well, in English coin.”

“And there’s a pity for you and a blessing for me, as I once would have welcomed the coin but no longer need it. Tell me now, miss, before you run off—do you know where you are, where you’re heading? I’d want to know that before I traveled too far. Let me enlighten you. Behind you, the Channel, so not really a choice at all. To your left, to your right, and for as far as you can see ahead of you and leagues beyond that, is Redgrave land. All of it, more than you could imagine. And with every man-jack on it loyal to the Redgraves. Exhausted, forced to travel on foot, and with only that fetching but rather singular rig-out? Still so anxious to be off?”

“Mon dieu.” Zoé’s entire body sagged at this devastating news. But she shouldn’t have been surprised, just as she shouldn’t have been so quick to believe him dead. It was inevitable. One way or another, Max Redgrave always won.

“He’ll more than likely turn me over to be hanged now that we’re on this side of the Channel,” she said quietly as she looked Max’s way, to see him now only as a shadow sitting on the beach, his forearms resting on his bent knees, still unaware of her presence. “And it will be on your head.”

“Truly? A gentleman like Max? You must have been a very naughty girl.”

“I’m certain he believes as much. Please, if you have any compassion...”

“Fresh out, I’m afraid. But a bit of advice, young lady. Never whimper. Men loathe whimpering. Face him head-on.”

“Something to consider, I suppose.” She continued to watch as Max, with Tariq’s help, staggered to his feet, one hand held to the side of his head. Zoé wanted to turn away, not see the hate and hurt in his eyes when he at last recognized her, but she forced herself to raise her chin while praying neither that chin nor her voice would wobble. “Maximillien, my congratulations,” she dared as he drew nearer. “I thought never to see you again, but you seem to have more lives than a litter of cats.”

He halted where he was, still supported by Tariq. He looked at her for a long time, taking in her bedraggled mane of blond, seawater-stiff hair, her sodden clothing clinging tightly to her body, before holding his cold dark gaze with her own soft brown one. His answer came in a maddening drawl of disinterest. “My, my, will wonders never cease. It’s been months.”

“Has it?” she returned coolly, as if she hadn’t counted the days. There was such a hardness in his eyes as he looked at her, which was no real surprise. She felt naked standing in front of him, vulnerable, which was an unwelcome realization. Some fires clearly didn’t die, no matter how many tears you’d shed over them.

He merely shrugged, as if her words were of no matter to him. Down, but never out—that was Max. “I was told you were in prison.”

Anger, quick and hot, betrayed her. “I was told you were dead. But you’d simply walked away. As if we never existed, you and me, together.”

“But there never was a you and me, was there? No, don’t bother to lie. On to more important matters, if you please. It was you on the ship. That business of bad pennies and all of that. I should have known,” he said, pulling himself more upright, showing he could stand on his own two feet even if he fainted in the process, the idiot. Brave, strong, stubborn...but not always smart.

“You should have known a lot of things.” No, no. I have to stop, now. To say anything else would only make things worse. I can’t let the shock of seeing him trick me into showing him he still has the power to hurt me. “But, yes, let’s move on.”

“I suppose I have you to thank for this blasted bump on my head.”

“Yes, of course. I already proved I’m the embodiment of all things evil.”

“I believe the lady considers herself insulted, and has good reason,” the man who still held tight to her arm interrupted. “It’s one of the frogs you have to thank for the bump. Oh, and I’m the one who pushed you over the rail, so you can thank me for that.”

“Richard?” Max leaned forward, squinting in the dying light from the burning rigging, clearly seeing the other man for the first time. “How...?”

“How else could I boost you out the back door more efficiently than by so clumsily coming in through the front door dressed in all my now thoroughly ruined finery? You may be quicker than this harmless old fat man, but I’ve been around longer than you, and know more tricks. You should look behind you more often, although I admit the rain was more a boon to me than it was to you. In any event, welcome home. This young lady you’ve been glaring daggers at thinks you’re going to have her hanged. Is that right?”

They were speaking of her as if she weren’t there, listening to every word. Max looked like hell, maybe worse than hell, but was still the most handsome, compelling man she’d ever met. Her last and best lover. The man who’d held her in his arms and told her about Redgrave Manor and his own estate, about his family and how they would welcome her. The children they would have together. She’d loved him so much. She’d fallen into jagged, devastated bits on the floor of her cell when told he was dead.

“I hadn’t considered the matter, but, yes, she deserves at least that. Don’t you, Zoé? But the ladies might not approve. Perhaps we’ll put it to a vote tomorrow, over tea and cakes. Are they here, Richard, or scattered all over London and the countryside?”

“Every last one of them here, yes. As you’ve probably gathered, I was sent to fetch you, which wasn’t particularly easy. It took me two trips across the Channel to find you, as you were no longer in Ostend when I got there, and when I returned to London for more information it was to find out there’d been an attempt on— No, that can wait. What’s of first importance is that the Society is all but figuratively knocking on the Manor gates and ready to smash them down. There’s trouble, lad, deadly serious trouble, and you’re just what Trixie thinks is needed. I didn’t know our destination tonight when I invited myself onboard, but sometimes a man gets lucky, doesn’t he?”

Max looked again at Zoé, who couldn’t help but flinch under that intense gaze. “Does he?” Then he raised his head as if sniffing the air to locate the noise that still came to them on the breeze. “What in bloody hell is going on, Richard? There aren’t really pirates, are there? Somehow the family already knew about the smuggling runs? They would have saved me a mountain of trouble if someone had bothered to get a message to me.”

“If you’ll excuse me for pointing this out, I am the message.”

Zoé hadn’t been paying much heed to the noise still coming to them across the dark distance, or to anything but her own perilous position, and how every second that passed was taking Anton further from her reach. But Max had her attention now.

“There’s even more to this beyond a smuggling run? I should have known, with Anton aboard,” she said.

Max looked at her rather curiously, as if she’d just spoken in Greek or some such thing. “Richard, since the women are here, may I assume my brothers are the cause of that commotion we’re hearing?”

“Currently occupied on the far side of that impressive pile of rocks, yes, by now undoubtedly just finishing up their business. Oh, and there may be a few, um, gentlemen of the skull and crossbones persuasion in attendance at the party, as well, but we don’t ask questions, as it concerns a private arrangement between the marquis and his secretive friend.”

Max lifted a hand to his head once more and then took it away, looking curiously at the dark wet stain on his palm. “We’ll leave that for now, whatever in holy hell that meant, or who this marquis is. Tariq, what do you say we all make our way up the path. From there, we can look down on the beach on the other side of the jetty. It’s safest you remain with me, and I wouldn’t be averse to a helping hand.”