“What matters is that you want Kirby, and I want Miss Bennet,” Darcy said quickly. “Your nephew wants to not be a smuggler, but I returned him. Bring out Miss Bennet and end this.”
Markle’s cold eyes passed over Kirby. “Thank you for bringing him back.” Markle’s tone expressed nothing close to gratitude. “He has seen much of my business. Come here.”
Kirby trembled. He had seen many of his uncle’s more vicious crimes, and Darcy suddenly wondered if Markle wanted Kirby with him not as a smuggler but so his right-minded nephew could never present evidence against him.
Kirby had not moved, but Darcy still pressed down on his shoulder. “He is not going anywhere until I see Miss Bennet.”
Markle gestured with his head, indicating the two men with pistols behind him. “Nan understands this better than you do. If I say to do something, you do it.”
He wondered why neither Colton nor Conway had shot him yet, he wondered if Markle would try to take Kirby from him, he wondered where the hell were the excise men. While his mind jumped all over, he also wondered how to keep Markle engaged until the officers could subdue him and find Elizabeth.
“Why do you want Kirby so badly?” he asked, desperate to divert Markle. “If he does not want to be a free trader, he is more of a liability than an asset. Why not exact his promise not to discuss your business and let him go?”
“Kirbyisa liability.”
Darcy felt his breath fail as a terrible realisation came over him. This was not about wanting Kirby back because Markle felt the boy belonged to him or because he needed him in his smuggling gang. He wanted him because Kirby was a witness to his murdering the revenue man. And then Darcy feared he knew why he had not yet been shot, and why Elizabeth had not been brought out.
“You never intended to trade Miss Bennet for Kirby. You mean to kill both of them.” The lantern light wavered as his hand shook. “You want Kirby dead, and me punished for helping him.” The way to punish him was to harm Elizabeth. That she might already be dead filled his mind with horror.
Markle smiled, and it chilled him. “You cannot control everything.”
This truly was the part of the plan that was out of his control. He guided Kirby to stand behind him at the same moment that Markle opened the pocketknife in a swift motion.
“Lower your weapons!”
Mr Sullivan’s voice rang out, and the pounding of running feet told Darcy the excise men were much nearer than he hadrealised. He saw the surprise in Markle’s eyes when the officers closed in. Rather than stand down, he lunged at Kirby. Darcy sidestepped, keeping Kirby behind him, and swung the lantern down on Markle’s arm, earning him a string of curses as the knife fell from his hand.
A pistol shot rang out, followed by a loud cry. One of the excise men fell, clutching his arm, and Fitzwilliam immediately returned fire. Conway collapsed, but the curses that followed showed he was injured, not dead. Darcy watched Colton survey the officers, and he immediately bolted toward the river.
Mr Sullivan told them to stand down. “Leave him to the River Police,” he called, moving forward and keeping his pistol on Markle.
“John Markle,” Mr Sullivan called. “You are wanted for the wilful murder of excise officer Thomas McKeen, on whom you did organise a gang of men to throw into a well and then strike and beat him with rocks, thereby giving him diverse mortal wounds, blows, and fractures of the skull.”
Rage filled Markle’s cold eyes, and Darcy gave Kirby a gentle push to keep him out of Markle’s reach while five of the other officers swiftly closed in. Markle had pistols aimed at him and his arm was fractured, but Darcy would take no chances. An officer placed Markle’s wrists in irons while Mr Sullivan continued to list Markle’s crimes. Darcy supposed he should feel some relief, some sense of success, but he would only be free from anxiety when he laid eyes on Elizabeth.
“Are you unharmed?” Fitzwilliam asked him. He nodded, still watching Markle’s dead-eyed look as he listened to Mr Sullivan state the reasons he was being detained. “I hope you agree I was right to take your pistol.”
Darcy was silent, but he knew that in his tense and frightened state of mind he might very well have shot Markle during their tense conversation, and no good could have come from that.
When Mr Sullivan was done, Darcy pushed through the excited band of officers to glare at a furious-looking Markle. “Where is Miss Bennet?”
Markle smirked and said nothing.
“We will find her. He just wants to torment you,” Fitzwilliam said.
“He does that by hurting Nan,” Kirby muttered.
Fitzwilliam nodded, seeming to accept that Kirby was not an enemy. “A few of the excise men and I will search the timber yard for her.”
Two of the men went with Fitzwilliam, while two others hauled a wounded Conway to his feet and another dragged a cursing Markle down the commercial road to the wagon.
Mr Sullivan remained with them. “I heard what your uncle said, young man,” he said to Kirby. “Am I correct in suspecting you know things about his smuggling?”
Kirby nodded.
He bent down to look Kirby in the eye. “And a few things about his other crimes, too? Some of his more violent ones? Something that might have happened at a well?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
