I continued to paddle. The sun slipped down, turning the water golden and too dazzling.
Bickley had fallen silent. I looked over my shoulder to see him slumped against the gunwale, hands wrapped in the ropes.
I opened my mouth to shout at him to stay awake, when I caught sight of a speck on the horizon beyond him. My heart banged, my throat and mouth impossibly dry, and I prayed.
The speck grew larger. I squinted against the glare to watch it, willing the thing to be what I wished.
I was rewarded when I saw the silhouette of a spread sail. It was a small ship, with only one mast, a cargo sloop, or possibly an excise cutter. Or a smuggler—but I wasn’t much bothered by that. As long as they pulled us out of this damned boat and gave us water, they could be pirates of the worst stripe for all I cared.
“Bickley.” The word grated from me, barely audible. “Take heart, my friend. There is a ship.” I dropped the board to the bottom of the boat and waved my arms. “Hey! Ahoy!”
Bickley woke with a start. I felt him moving, then he was laughing in relief, waving with me. Apparently he’d decided he wanted to live.
We shouted, arms moving rapidly, our motions nearly tipping us over. I removed my coat and stuck it on the end of the board, brandishing it like a flag.
As the ship neared us, I saw that it was too small for a cargo ship but also too clean and sleek for an excise cutter. I realized as it drew ever closer, that it was a yacht, a rich man’s pleasure boat.
I’d seen these small crafts sailing close to shore, and Grenville had told me it was popular for gentlemen sailors to ply the Solent, the water between Southampton and the Isle of Wight. Grenville had been asked many a time to join the fairly new Yacht Club, based in St. James’s in London, for gentlemen who owned such craft, but Grenville always declined with a shudder. A man who was a slave to motion sickness was not likely to hurry out and purchase a pleasure boat.
The boat drew alongside. I was worn out from shouting and had to sink down and wait. I hoped they had plenty of water and coffee—and a keg of brandy wouldn’t go amiss. I was chilled through.
The craft was lovely, the wood honed and cared for, the metalworks polished, the sails, now being furled, white and whole. A flag of the Yacht Club danced on a line.
A man appeared at the rail. Before I could appeal to him to take us aboard, he leveled a shotgun at me and fired it.
Chapter 23
Islammed myself to the bottom of the boat. Bickley, crying out, did the same.
The shot went wide, Desjardins always bad at aiming.
I ought to have known a man like Desjardins would have a pleasure craft. Or perhaps it belonged to Armitage, who liked to be the perfect aristocrat. They likely hired someone to sail it for them, but they must have used it to tow our boat out of sight of shore.
They hadn’t intended to leave us to die, I realized. Bickley and I might survive if we got ourselves untied or could be rescued by one of the excise cutters I’d first imagined this ship to be. They’d wait until we were weakened by sun and thirst, and then return to make an end to us before letting us drift into the darkness.
Desjardins leisurely reloaded the gun and fired again. He missed of course.
But it was only a matter of time before he got in a lucky shot, or before Armitage took the gun away from him and finished the deed. We were bobbing in the water with nowhere to go.
“Bloody hell,” I yelled up at him. “At least challenge me. If I kill you, you’ll go out with honor. If you killme, that will be an end to it. Let Bickley go home—you’ve already hurt him enough.”
Desjardins only fired again. I felt the scatter of that shot, hot pain in the fleshy part of my arm. My shirtsleeve showed a crimson streak.
I took up my board, disentangled my coat from it, and returned to paddling. I’d never outrun a well-rigged sloop, but the devil if I’d sit and tamely wait for Desjardins to pot me.
Lord Armitage appeared at the rail alongside his friend. He too had a fowling piece, another Purdey, I guessed, but he held it upright, waiting. When Desjardins tired of his sport, Armitage would kill us.
Desjardins chuckled, the good-natured laugh of a man enjoying himself. “We are only dispatching a murderer,” he called in French across the space. “You ran that sword through Isherwood. Took it from him and killed him.”
At the moment, I could not stop and muse whether he told the truth. I continued dipping my paddle desperately into the waves.
Armitage’s voice rumbled to me. “We witnessed it, Lacey. Someone told you he would harm your daughter in revenge for taking his wife. You went mad.”
Coldness burned my heart. What if the woman outside the pub, probably Lady Armitage—I doubted they’d risk hiring a woman—had told me this? That Isherwood had been boasting of his plans, and was now at the Pavilion, alone?
Such a threat would certainly have made me dash there and confronted Isherwood, especially if I’d not been in my right senses. Perhaps the confrontation had turned into a brawl, and I’d managed to seize Isherwood’s sword. Armitage and Desjardins would have made themselves scarce and let me condemn myself.
No memories came. However, at the moment, I did not have time to speculate. Desjardins leveled his gun and shot again.
