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A Useful Affair
By Stella Cameron Center Point Large Print
Copyright © 2004 Stella Cameron
All right reserved. ISBN: 1585474398
Chapter One
Gratitude be damned. When he finally unfolded himself from the inside of this sorry coffin - ouch - when he got out of the hearse driven by his so-called rescuer, his fists would speak for him. If he got out alive.
Well, if he didn't he'd be in the right place at the right time ...
He winced in the blackness, then gritted his teeth as the wheels beneath him left the ground. The rims hit storm-torn ruts again, rattled every board and brace in the hearse - and every bone belonging to John Elliot, properly known as the Marquis of Granville.
Even inside the coffin, the ceaseless beating of rain could be heard. And wind. Wind howled as if through a tunnel and whirled about the Shillibier. Matched black horses pulled the great carriage, and their hoofs clattered and scraped over stone and mud.
The little girl curled against his chest with her hands clapped over her ears didn't ease John's miserable confinement. He must manage to save his young cousin from any injury inside the magnificent but tossing Shillibier with its rushing team. Also, he was desperate to keep her as warm as he could with both of them still wet from their near-drowning in the Channel, and to soothe her without making any noise. And he must pray that Chloe would not choose a deadlydangerous moment to find her voice and cry out.
"Chloe," he whispered into her ear. "We shall be safe." When she addressed him, the child called him
"Uncle John." He'd never considered why, but he supposed she must find it comfortable. "Stay very quiet and trust Uncle John," he murmured. Dash it all but he knew nothing of dealing with children. Would a six-year-old believe such rubbish? He had no idea if they were safe.
Cast into the sea by one cutthroat smuggler, John, together with his first cousin once removed, six-year-old Chloe Worth, had been pulled from the icy, fog-shrouded English Channel by another lawless sailor. Once ashore, this one - Albert according to the ruffians he commanded - insisted there could be no better chance of escape than by traveling as a dead man.
Tall and thin, Albert had made no sense, muttering all the time about his damnable conscience and how the Lord and someone named Snowdrop would reward him for going against the others - and "that evil old sod, Leggit" to do the right thing. Had he been alone, John would have fought for his freedom the instant he stepped ashore. As it was, he'd been unwilling to risk Chloe's safety.
The young smuggler had promised to get them away and been certain none but his "kin," the oarsmen, knew John and his charge were still alive. Their secret was safe, he'd insisted in a huge voice that would have done any highwayman proud.
A frenzied ride by wagon from the coast to an isolated inn, and John had been hustled with his charge into the funeral vehicle driven by Albert. After all, his host said, no one dared stop the dead on the way to their rest.
This casket didn't fit John at all. True, he was taller than most and strongly built, but he couldn't imagine any man of his acquaintance who wouldn't be twisted up in the thing like a bedsheet on wash day, even without a small companion. It had probably been made for a woman, he decided. A rotund woman, for the box was exceedingly deep.
The pace changed. Albert yelled and the horses seemed to dance, rocking the Shillibier in the process. They slowed down.
"Old!" "Oldisay!"
Another man's bullish and meaningless words bellowed over the roar of hoof and wheel.
So much for the sanctity of the dead.
He'd chosen to accept a promise of help from a smuggler - a criminal who swore his repentance - rather than expose Chloe to the threat of instant death.
Her chances might have been better had John chosen to run with her.
The Shillibier shuddered afresh. Wheels hammered rocks into ground that must be as furrowed as it was muddy. The horses shrieked and John imagined the inky ostrich plumes jostling as they tossed their heads, and yards of black crepe streaming in the shadowy night. Tack jangled, while John felt rolling objects thudding against the coffin - heavy objects. Casks of contraband? Damn Albert and his henchmen, they hadn't been able to resist an opportunity to move some of their spoils out of harm's way. The smugglers' weakness could scuttle what hope there was of escape.
He realized what should have been obvious. The reason the coffin was so deep was that its real purpose was to transport smuggled goods. Little wonder Albert had thought of the ruse for John and Chloe.
John knew the sound of gunshot, even over the night's cacophony. He hugged Chloe tighter and smoothed her hair.
"I told ye to 'old," the newcomer bellowed again.
"Next time I fires, it won't be past your 'ead."
"Don't you 'ave no respect for the dead?" Albert roared. "Stand off, there. Stand off, I says."
"Who's in there, then? King bloody George?"
John managed to turn Chloe and settle her face against his neck. "Hush," he told her. "Be very quiet and don't cry." She had not, in fact, made a sound since they'd been brought ashore somewhere on the southern shores of England. He had no idea where that had been, or where they were now.
"You've a perilous bad tongue, sir," Albert told the intruder. "It's a good thing the King - God save 'im - can't 'ear you all the way in his castle. They don't tell me who 'tis gone to their rest. I just drive. The grieving relations is waitin'. They'll send after me if I'm late." Following a pause, the young man continued. "If it'll satisfy you, sir, then be my guest. The box isn't 'ammered down yet. Take a look."
John smiled thinly and held his breath, admiring Albert's daring bluff, but prepared for the sound of doors being opened. He'd lost his pistol in the Channel. The only defense would be to play dead, then to "rise from the dead" with horrible howling if necessary, and hope the shock bought him some advantage.
Chloe's small fingertips opened and closed against John's linen shirtfront. He patted her hair again, awkwardly, and made what he hoped was a calming noise.
Rain pelted the draped windows of the carriage.
Boots hit the ground. "I've thought that over, and I thinks as I'll do what you suggest and pay me respects to the departed." The other man sounded even bolder than before. "Strangest funeral procession I've seen, I can tell you. No train of coaches and only a young cove still wet behind the ears in charge."
John braced himself and assumed what he prayed was a more corpselike pose. "Don't move at all," he whispered to Chloe. Not that anything would help them if his suspicions were correct and casks of liquor surrounded the coffin.
Heavy footsteps approached the Shillibier.
The handles on the back doors rattled.
Continues...
Excerpted from A Useful Affair by Stella Cameron Copyright © 2004 by Stella Cameron. Excerpted by permission.
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