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 seem
s 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.”