said. He offered Julia his arm because otherwise she might trip over something in the darkness, and the woman was enough of a problem to him now without adding a sprained ankle to her list of detractions. “Oh, wait a moment more. Stand here while I get a pistol from the coach.”
“You think the sheep is armed?” Julia ignored both the offer and the order as she lifted her skirts and made her way past the horses to where Billy was standing very still in the roadway.
“Billy?” she asked, then realized that the coachman was staring quite intently, not down at the roadway but over to one side, where the marsh grasses grew waist-high.
“I’m that sorry, miss. I didn’t used to be such a looby,” Billy said, then slowly raised his hands up over his head. “He said not to do this until you came looking, miss.”
Julia’s eyes had become more accustomed to the darkness, and now the moonlight helped illuminate the scene in front of her.
She could see that Billy had shot his hands into the air because a young man kneeling in the marsh grass was holding a large, ugly pistol directed at the coachman’s chest.
The dark object in the road was really two dark objects, both of them human forms, neither of them moving. Julia went to her knees in front of the closest figure, who seemed little more than a boy.
“Lower your weapon, boy,” Chance said from somewhere behind her. “Yes, I can see you, and by the way that pistol’s shaking in your hand, I believe I’m the better shot. Billy, stop acting the looby. Lower your arms and relieve the halfling of his pistol before he hurts himself.”
“Me, sir? Begging your pardon, sir, but a pistol is a pistol, even in the hands of a boy. And this one’s cocked.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Julia said, looking first to Billy, then to the young man, who shook as he held the pistol, and lastly to Chance, who looked quite dangerous. And not at all afraid. She wished she could say the same, but she was actually terrified…which had the happy result of making her very, very angry. “We’ve got two boys bleeding to death in the road and no time to worry about who is the better shot, for clearly the best shots have already been taken. Billy, never mind the pistol. Fetch a lantern from the coach.”
“Hoppin’ right to it, miss!” Billy said, then turned and ran back toward the coach, directly disobeying Chance’s order.
Chance continued to hold out his cocked pistol, even though he knew he was too far away to do more than aim, pray and shoot, probably hitting the infuriating Miss Carruthers, who had gotten to her feet in order to walk around one body to the other. “Miss Carruthers, if you would do me the courtesy of standing still—”
But she was down on her knees again, a hint of moonlight illuminating her blond hair but not her features that remained a shadowy profile as she looked up at the third man. Boy. Very nearly boys, all three of them, not men. And one of them would never grow to manhood. “I’m so sorry. I can’t help this one, but I may be able to help the other, if you’ll let me.”
“Georgie? Georgie’s dead?” the boy said, then called out, “Georgie! Georgie, you’re not dead!”
Chance took the opportunity to advance toward the group and remove the aged pistol from the terrified boy’s hand. “Did you shoot him?”
The boy dropped the pistol and turned wild eyes on Chance, speaking between sobs. “No, sir! They shot him. Two of ’em. They shot our George and our Richard. They shot at us when we wouldn’t give ’em the tubs and Georgie told ’em to bugger off. We dropped the tubs and ran. We ran forever till we lost ’em. Then Georgie fell, right here. And Dickie, too. We never should have done it. We should have waited—what am I goin’ to tell our mam?”
Julia listened to the boy even as she pushed aside the dark blue smock on the wounded Dickie to see the even darker ugly hole in his shoulder. “Help me turn him, Mr. Becket, please,” she said, as the boy was unconscious, his breathing shallow.
“What?” Chance had lowered his pistol as he listened to the third youth’s sorry tale, not paying much attention to Miss Carruthers except to note that she certainly did seem to enjoy the role of heroine. “What the devil are you doing?”
“Trying to save this boy’s life, obviously. He’s been running and all the while bleeding like a stuck pig,” Julia said as Billy stood above her holding one of the large lanterns he’d taken down from the side of the coach. “I think the ball went straight through, but I want to be sure. Billy—hold the lantern closer while Mr. Becket and I turn Dickie and have a look. Mr. Becket? Your assistance, please?”
Was there any choice? Besides, the third youth was sitting on his haunches now, sobbing; he’d be no further trouble. Chance put down the pistol and dropped to his knees, carefully lifting the unconscious boy enough to roll him onto his side. “Well, Miss Carruthers?”
“In one side and out the other, Mr. Becket. I think he simply fainted, probably because he’s lost so much blood.”
And she was right, as Dickie roused quickly enough a few minutes later when Julia poured the contents of Chance’s flask over the wound, the boy coming up wide-eyed and yelling for his mam.
By now the second coach had caught up with them, and as Billy and Chance stood guard in case the boys had been pursued, Julia rummaged in her portmanteau for an old slip and tore some of it into strips she tied around the cleaned wound.
“Are we far from Becket Hall, Mr. Becket?” she asked as she sat back on her heels, looked up at him in the moonlight. “We need to take Dickie with us. And poor George, as well. How is John?”
“John? You mean the one over there, retching into a ditch? Clearly past managing anything at all useful. You know these boys are smugglers, don’t you?”
“Yes, I heard John mention tubs. Tea or brandy, do you suppose? Well, it’s of no matter. They came afoul of someone, didn’t they? What nonsense, to be just three of them out here on the Marsh.”
Chance smiled a not-quite-amused half smile. “I suppose when you are out smuggling, you only travel in groups of ten or more.”
“Ten? I should say not. More like dozens, Mr. Becket. Only a fool doesn’t align himself with one of the gangs. And I have not run with the freebooters, sir, although I would lie if I said I didn’t know many of them and haven’t heard their stories. Poor Georgie,” she said, looking at the body sprawled facedown in the road. “He couldn’t have been more than seventeen, could he? His poor mam.”
Chance glanced up at the moon. “And now you want me to transport all three of them to Becket Hall. Feed them, hide them, endanger my family with their presence. Has it by any chance occurred to you, Miss Carruthers, that I am a representative of the king and that the proper place for my two prisoners is Dover Castle? Dover Castle, then on to London where they will either be hanged and gibbeted or duly whipped and transported.”
Julia put a hand on Dickie’s shoulder, easing him back onto the ground. “He doesn’t mean that,” she said soothingly, then got to her feet to all but go belly to belly with Chance Becket. “If you’re quite done putting the fear of king and courts into these poor boys?”
“Oh, bloody hell,” Chance said. “Billy!” he called out, still looking at Julia. “Get the boy and have him help you load his brothers into the second coach. I want to be moving again in five minutes.”
“Ah,
