Jenkins looks toward the captain’s quarters. “How should we do this? I am at your disposal, sir. I may not be a duelist, but I do not intend to sit back and allow you to take all the risks.”
“I will ask—”
Nicolas stops as I turn sharply. Lord Thomas has just entered the room, running through the wall.
Lord Thomas sees Jenkins, and his eyes widen. “Oh, no. Oh dear, no. This is terrible.”
I’m sure it is.
“You must tell him to leave,” Lord Thomas says. “He ought not to be here. He cannot fight, and he’ll only be injured, perhaps even killed.”
Ten minutes ago, I would have accepted his concern for what it seems to be—fear that his son-in-law will be harmed. Now I know better. He wants Jenkins gone so that he will not be caught up in this trap. Worse, as Nicolas’s ally, Jenkins might come to his aid and complicate our capture.
I wave for Nicolas to continue as I take Lord Thomas off to one side. I tell him not to fear, that we will keep Jenkins out of danger, but the poor man is determined to help. Could Lord Thomas please keep an eye on Norrington? I presume he has not arrived yet. Lord Thomas should do that while we trick Jenkins into staying safely in the cabin while we rescue Emily.
Lord Thomas agrees and flits off, and once he is gone, we begin. Nicolas has arranged the plan, and I am exceedingly pleased by it, as I am not relegated to the side where I will be safe. Nicolas understands I can do more.
I tug my hair into some disarray. Then I scoop water from the corridor to splash onto my dress. Finally, I hike up my skirts and lurch toward the captain’s quarters, stumbling about the slanted hallway.
“Hello?” I call. “Please. I heard voices. Is someone here?”
“Yes!” Emily calls. “I am—”
Anoomph, as if she is physically silenced, and my blood boils at that. The door to the captain’s quarters cracks open, and I fall heavily against the wall, as if in a half swoon.
“Oh, thank the Lord,” I pant as if catching my breath. “Please. Please, you must come help.”
The door stays open only that crack, and I lurch toward it. “Please, miss. I know I heard you in there. I went rowing this morning from Whitby. The young man I was with—” I struggle for breath. “He played me false. He offered a rowing excursion, and the children were so excited that I agreed. Yet the boat was not big enough for the ocean currents, and it has capsized. The children—my charges—oh, miss, thechildren. I dragged them to shore, but little Millie does not breathe.”
Is it a ridiculously overwrought story? Of course it is. But even the guard cannot help but open the door another crack. He’s young, perhaps younger than me.
“The children,” I stagger forward. “Please, sir! Come help the children.”
I can see Emily now, behind him, her bound hands lowered as if to hide them. Our eyes meet.
“Oh!” she exclaims. “The poor children. You must help, Rodgers. I shall remain here. Go with the poor girl and help that dying child!”
He glances over his shoulder. “You’ll stay here?”
“Yes. You go with the governess, and I will remain right here until you return.”
One long pause, and then the guard—Rodgers—awkwardly slides from the captain’s quarters while closing the door behind him, blocking me from seeing Emily is a bound captive. I pretend not to have noticed, and I wheel to lead him down the hall.
Jenkins and Nicolas are waiting down that hall. Each is inside a room. Jenkins is the closest to me, hidden behind a half-open door. Nicolas is farther down, his door open. When Rodgers passes that open door, Nicolas will swing out to confront him, and Jenkins will emerge from his hiding spot to run back and free his daughter while I help Nicolas with Rodgers.
I pass the first door where Jenkins waits. It is supposed to be half-closed. It is not. The door is open, and I catch a glimpse of a figure within.
Oh, no. We trusted Jenkins to follow the plan, and he has bungled it. Forgotten to half close the door or—worse—decided he must fight his daughter’s captor himself.
I will not look that way. I will keep going in hopes Rodgers does not glance in Jenkins’s direction. I am one step past the door when Lord Thomas flies from the woodwork, charging at me, his face contorted. I stumble. It takes that one heartbeat for me to remember he is only a ghost, but that heartbeat is enough. I fall back. Hands grab me, and a voice shouts, “He is in the next room!”
It all happens at once, a jumble of sound and sight as I’m yanked off my feet by those hands and dragged into the room my attacker sprang from.
I have made an unforgivable error. I saw the door partly open, with a figure within, and I did not look toward it, fearing I would call Rodger’s attention to Jenkins. Yet it must not have been Jenkins in that doorway at all, but another of Norrington’s men lying in wait, one who subdued Jenkins and now has me and—
That’s when I twist to fight off my attacker, and I see his face.
It is Jenkins.