Page 52 of The Swan Detective (The Swan Syndicate #2)

Beckworth didn’t doubt for a minute that Leclair would be too curious not to show up.

“We stirred up McDuff’s network when Lady Swan lured him into believing she had a continuous supply of French guns.

Cheval believed her to be a threat to his partnership with McDuff.

It will be widely known by now that Cheval kidnapped Lady Swan and then ended up dead.

McDuff would have heard the rumors, and now, three months later, she shows up in London.

Barrington and Chester were already spreading rumors of the mysterious woman smuggler when rescuing me from Gemini.

It won’t take long for word of her return to London to get around.

” He stopped because Jamie would have the gist of it.

“If Stella gets a meeting with Leclair through someone from the pub, which is known to welcome French sailors, it will confirm the rumors that she has connections to French guns.” Jamie laughed. “And with Leclair connected to McDuff, they’ll have their entire network looking for her next stop.”

“And Hensley would have considered all of this.”

Jamie chuckled. “And probably two steps beyond that.”

“Are the two of you going to stand out here and personally welcome Stella and the thief to the party?” Lando’s whisper was loud enough to stop their laughter, and they straightened as if they’d been caught stealing meat pies from Mrs. Brubaker.

“It’s about time you got here.” Beckworth decided to play along. “We thought it would be another five minutes before you found us.”

Lando growled through their chuckles as he led them to the back door of the building.

S tella tapped her fingers on the table.

Her anxiety had eased with the three ales she’d drunk, but as Michelson shared stories from the Daphne ’s adventures, she considered ordering something stronger.

She paid enough attention to laugh at the appropriate times.

He knew she was barely listening, but he continued on in a soothing voice as if settling a child.

Michelson soon turned the tables on her as he asked about her first encounter with Beckworth after escaping Gemini. She relaxed as he laughed at her antics that drove Beckworth crazy until the pub door burst open for the ninth or tenth time since André had left.

This time, she was rewarded with the sight of the messenger as he stopped at the door.

He surveyed the room as if he hadn’t frequented the place in days.

After a moment, she realized he did what any other patron would have done the first time they walked into a pub.

The same thing she and Michelson had done—check for enemies and friends.

André’s gaze barely lit on her and Michelson, but he stopped on Fitz, who was speaking with a sailor, for a fraction longer. Once he seemed satisfied that all was well, he lowered his head and marched to the thief’s table. He whispered something then returned to his stool at the bar.

Michelson touched her hand and whispered. “The thief is coming over.”

She braced herself, but she wasn’t expecting a hand on her arm pulling her up. What was with all the handsy men? Michelson was up in a heartbeat, his chair tipping over with a loud crash, gaining the attention of everyone in the place, which she assumed was his intention.

“Unhand me, sir.” She tugged her arm out of his grip.

The thief’s face turned red, and based on his exceptional sneer, it wasn’t from embarrassment.

His buddy stepped up beside him and gave him a nudge.

The thief scanned the room and took a step back.

The place might be filled with sailors and mercenaries, but they apparently had a code on how to treat a lady.

He swallowed what had to be a huge lump of irritation and managed to spit out, “Apologies, my lady.”

He didn’t mean it, but Stella ignored it. If all went right, and she hoped to hell it would, the thief wouldn’t like the results of the next twenty minutes.

“Well, what is it?” Stella snapped.

The thief leaned in and lowered his voice. “If you want to see the jewelry, you need to watch your tone with me.” He glared at Michelson, but Michelson glared back.

“I need to take you to another location.” He sneered at the others in the bar, most of whom had returned to their drinking. “It’s not safe to discuss business here.”

He waved for her to go first. She didn’t waste time as she headed for the door, but stopped when she heard, “Not you.”

She spun around, hands on her hips. “I’m not going anywhere without my man at my side.”

When the thief appeared to question her decision, his buddy nudged him again. “We’re making a scene.”

The warning must have been enough, because the thief attempted a more accommodating expression that failed at his steady, cold stare. “Fine. Let’s be quick about it.”

Michelson took Stella’s arm, and they walked out of the pub with the thief and his man trailing behind. Once on the street, the thief took the lead while his buddy followed behind them.

After turning down several streets, the thief turned down an even darker alley.

She gripped Michelson’s arm tightly while her other hand caressed her cache of swans.

Memories of the alley where she’d been kidnapped played havoc with her nerves, and she wanted to drop a swan, just in case, but the thug behind her might notice.

She’d clutched one in her fist when she noticed the tiny girl backing away into the shadows.

It had been barely a glimpse, but the urchin had been staring right at her, and a quick smile had appeared before she’d disappeared.

Stella’s shoulders relaxed, and her breathing calmed. Everything was going as planned. Although that didn’t stop her from releasing the swan and grabbing the hilt of her dagger.

The thief stopped at the door of what appeared to be another abandoned building.

He opened it and stepped aside for Michelson to go first. Not one of Chester’s people was in sight, and her nerves crept back, but as soon as Michelson disappeared into the darkness, the thief pushed Stella through the doorway.

She tripped and almost fell, but Michelson caught her before she did a face-plant.

She turned to sneer at the spot where the thief should have followed her in, but no one was there. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the low light that hadn’t been there moments before, and she noticed the boots and the body they were attached to.

The thief was spread-eagled on the floor. He rubbed his head, either unable to lift it or seeing no reason to bother. His buddy wasn’t in any better shape.

Two sailors from the Daphne stood over the men, and the knot in her chest dissipated along with the heavy stone that had been lodged in her gut. Beckworth and Lando stared down at the thief, and when the thief focused on them, he simply groaned.

The sailors hefted him up with no concern for his aching head, and two more sailors rushed in to collect his buddy.

“Tie them up nice and tight.” Lando returned his flintlock to his thigh holster and gave Stella a wry grin. “That turned out better than expected.”

“I wasn’t sure that was going to work.” Stella was more than pleasantly surprised. Their jobs, while typically successful, never seemed to go as planned. She had to remind herself that the hard part was yet to come.

“Let’s get into position.” Beckworth stepped next to her and appeared to want to hug her, but he’d keep it professional, no matter how much she could have used one. “I’m sure Leclair will send his men in first.”

She glanced around, but most of the building lay in shadows. The others were there, but all she heard was light rustling sounds that could have been rats.

Beckworth touched her cheek, his smile encouraging. “You’ll need a weapon.”

“Did you bring my pistol?” she asked.

“The little man thought you might prefer this.” Lando’s grin was eerie in the low light, and when she glanced down at what he was holding, she didn’t think she could love these men more.

Her hand shook as she grasped her crossbow with a reverent hand. It was silly and a bit macabre, but she couldn’t stop her wide smile. There was no doubt. She was certifiable. Wacko crazy. But she loved this thing.

Beckworth handed her four crossbow bolts and gave her a stern look, which did nothing to erase her grin. “Try to play nice.”

T hey left the thief hog-tied and gagged on the ground about twenty feet from the door.

His buddy was similarly confined and had been dumped in a corner.

The building was about half the size of the warehouse that overlooked the clubhouse.

The only windows were those that fronted the dark street, and two lanterns had been positioned near the entrance to keep the rear of the building in shadow.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Stella said when Jamie came up to confirm the next steps.

He tapped the scarf around his neck. “I’ll pull it up once Leclair arrives.”

“How many men do you think he’ll bring?” Stella had heard the men discuss it at length and knew the answer, but her need to chatter during a tense moment got the better of her.

Jamie rubbed his jaw. “It’s hard to say, but probably no more than six or eight. Not to worry, though. We have enough men to handle double that number.”

Beckworth agreed. “Even in this part of town, there will be one or two watchmen about who’d notice a large group of men and question it. If Leclair wants to keep his smuggling operations secret, he’ll come with a small group, but they’ll be the best he has on hand.”

A sailor rushed out from the back of the building. “They’ve just rounded the corner.”

Beckworth nodded as Jamie pulled up the scarf before fading into the shadows with Lando and the other sailors.

Stella took a position a couple of feet behind where the thief stirred in his bindings. Michelson stood behind her on her left, and Beckworth behind her on her right.

Nerves tingled across her skin, and with that weird feeling of expectant danger mixed with the comfort of a solid plan, she suppressed the desire to bounce on her toes.

Instead, she focused on her persona as the leader of a band of smugglers.

She pictured herself standing at the bow of a ship, a pistol strapped to her thigh.

One hand rested on her hip while the other gripped the crossbow as they bore down on another smuggler off the English coast. When she realized she’d probably gotten that image from the cover of a bodice-ripper romance novel, she couldn’t stop her grin.

And that was most likely the first thing the captain noticed when two men wrenched open the door and rushed in, hands on the pistols strapped to their legs. Behind them, a third man, oozing with confidence, stepped into the light.

He was a decent-looking man, and for a moment, she caught his dark eyes glitter with interest before they shuddered to black holes of coldness. He took in the two men behind her and then his thief, hogtied on the floor.

He strode toward her, stopping ten feet shy of the thief. After they took a moment to size each other up, he glanced down and lifted a brow.

“A crossbow?”

Stella glanced down at it and lifted it up as if seeing it for the first time.

It needed a good cleaning. Perhaps some kind of oil to nourish the wood.

She wasn’t sure, other than knowing it required better care, and she made a mental note to ask Beckworth once the mission was over.

While she might never understand why the weapon was so important to her, she would never get rid of it, so she decided to embrace it.

She shrugged and let her crazy-ass grin give emphasis to her words. “It’s become my favorite weapon. It was Cheval’s as well, or so he said while he tortured one of his sailors.” She gave him a quizzical look. “Did you know Cheval, the captain of The Horseman ?”

When the captain gave her a small nod, her gaze hardened.

“He kidnapped me in an attempt to force me to give up my contacts. You can imagine the threats he made to my body as well as my business. Trustworthy contacts, as you must be aware, are invaluable in the cargo trade. I couldn’t let his threats go unpunished.

So, I imagine either the local magistrate found his body on a beach or the fish took care of him.

” Her grin returned. “Either way, I have a lovely new crossbow. Well, a new, well-used crossbow.”

That had felt good, and for the briefest of moments, she ignored the captain, trusting Beckworth and Michelson would hold him off.

She was having a cathartic moment. She’d never spoken about the torture she’d witnessed or the bodily threats Cheval had made in his mad vendetta to take over McDuff’s network.

She’d never spoken of it to Beckworth, and she understood why he’d never asked.

But now he knew. Everyone knew. And a huge weight she hadn’t realized had been suffocating her since that day on the beach suddenly lifted.

Cheval had been a bad man. Beckworth was being strangled or drowned—it was just a matter of which happened first. And she’d killed Cheval to save him.

Jamie or Lando would have done the same thing.

Beckworth wouldn’t have hesitated had it been her lying on the sand as the tide washed in with Cheval’s hands around her throat.

And she hadn’t hesitated, either. It had to be done.

Some part of her would never forget the second life she’d taken, but the life she’d saved brought more value into the world. The scales of justice remained in balance.

She gave the captain a long perusal as he stared at her. He wasn’t horrified by her admission, though he might wonder a bit about her state of mind. He didn’t seem the least bit concerned by her actions. There was a gleam in his eyes. Excitement. The story had enthralled him.

That sliced an edge in her bravado. This man was more dangerous than Cheval. She’d have to tread carefully. When she heard Beckworth shuffle his feet, she knew he was thinking the same thing.

She straightened, and though she didn’t lower the crossbow, she relaxed her grip on it. “Perhaps we should start over. I’m Lady Swan. And who might you be?”