Gripping the wagon’s edge for a moment, steadying himself, he nearly went arse over elbows as the wagon moved on without him.
It was good to breathe air that didn’t taste of grain dust.Orienting himself, Jonathan stood in an alley between warehouses.The smell of the river was strong here, also fish and tar, overlaid with the scent of cargo — wool, fresh cut timber, and tobacco.Meanwhile, the sun was already setting, coloring the river water with long ribbons of gold and pink.
Walking toward the waterfront, he kept his head down, trying to look purposeful but not hurried.Just a workman going about his business.Nothing to see here,he joked to himself.Certainly not an English viscount and surveyor who’d been the subject of a manhunt for weeks.
The street opened onto the wharf, and Jonathan’s spirits lifted at the sight of ships representing freedom as they bobbed against the quay.Where was the one he sought?Scanning the vessels, he saw three black sloops.Two flew a Danish flag.Only one, he noted, had the illegible scarlet word,“Ma_g_r_the.”
Moving faster in its direction, he wondered idly whether the boat’s female namesake, perhaps the captain’s own wife, looked in better condition.
Something slammed into him from the side with the force of a battering ram, spinning him before he crashed backward onto the cobblestones.His head cracked hard enough to make stars burst across his vision.A massive weight pinned him down, crushing his chest.He gasped for air and found none.
“Caught you!”
Through his swimming vision, Jonathan focused on the face above him.Recognition came with a sick lurch of his stomach.The French captain.The same bastard who’d held him captive in Lübeck, who’d searched the von Ostenfeld home, who’d threatened Lise.
How?How in God’s name had the man found him here?
The captain’s triumphant grin didn’t last long.Jonathan’s fist connected with the officer’s nose in a blow that carried three days’ worth of cramped fury behind it.The satisfying crunch of cartilage, the spray of blood, the way the captain’s head snapped back — all of it brought Jonathan a savage satisfaction.
But the punch, solid as it had been, didn’t dislodge the officer.Instead, still firmly planted on Jonathan’s rib cage, the captain leaned over, letting his blood drip onto Henrik’s borrowed coat, then the neckcloth, until finally, he felt it on his cheek.
Twisting, Jonathan tried to avoid the revolting gory rain.
In the next moment, he was staring at the barrel of the captain’s pistol.
“Did you think you could flout our Emperor?”The captain’s voice was thick with blood and rage.“Escape an entire detachment of Napoleon’s soldiers and slip back to Britain like a snake?”
“Well, yes,” Jonathan said, glibly.Stalling for time, he asked, “How did you find me?”
The captain fumbled in his uniform pocket for a handkerchief and wiped his ghastly face.At the same time, Jonathan was reaching his hand down toward his boot, slowly, carefully, out of the captain’s sight.The knife he’d brought from England, something he’d worn since his wilder days with Finch when they often wandered into the seedier pubs, was his only hope.
He hadn’t checked on it lately, had felt buoyed by the pistol that Herr von Ostenfeld had given him.Now that Jonathan was lying directly atop the weapon secured in his waistband under his coat, it was not only useless but painful, as well.
Was his sharp knife still there, stitched into its slim sheath inside the top of his boot?
How ironic if it had fallen out when he’d undressed to be with Lise.
“Why aren’t you looking for me in Hamburg?”he asked, inching his hand lower.
“Because you’re here,” the officer ground out, then spat to the side, clearing his mouth of blood.“As I guessed you would be.Fewer soldiers made the choice obvious to me.”
“How clever of you to guess correctly.I don’t suppose you’re going to return my surveying equipment, Lieutenant.”
The captain ignored the deliberate demotion.He actually grinned like a fiend, too pleased with his victory to bother correcting the insult to his rank.
“I’ve already sold it and pocketed the gain.”
“Rather enterprising of you,” Jonathan muttered, his fingers finally touching the blessed edge of the knife handle.It was there.Thank God, it was there.
The captain leaned back now, adjusting his weight and jarring Jonathan’s hand away from his knife.The officer pressed the pistol’s barrel against Jonathan’s temple.Cold metal kissed his skin, and every other sensation fell away.
This was it, then.This was how it would end — on a dock in Glückstadt, with freedom so close he could smell it on the salt air.
Faces flashed through his mind.Lise.Mother.Father.Samuel.Even Finch.
He would never see any of them again.
His heart raced with the certainty of death, hammering so hard he could feel it in his throat, his ears, even his fingertips.
