Fall from Trace Read online

  The London League

  Book Five

  by

  Rebecca Connolly

  More from Phase Publishing

  by

  Rebecca Connolly

  The Arrangements

  An Arrangement of Sorts

  Married to the Marquess

  Secrets of a Spinster

  The London League

  The Lady and the Gent

  A Rogue About Town

  A Tip of the Cap

  Coming Soon

  To Sketch a Sphinx

  The Spinster Chronicles

  The Merry L ives of Spinsters

  The Spinster and I

  Spinster and Spice

  Text copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Connolly

  Cover art copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Connolly

  Cover art by Tugboat Design

  http://www.tugboatdesign.net

  All rights reserved. Published by Phase Publishing, LLC. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  Phase Publishing, LLC first ebook edition

  February 2020

  ISBN 978-1-952103-01-8

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020900531

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.

  Acknowledgements

  To Han Solo, who is the first scoundrel I’ve ever loved, the perfect combination of charm and sarcasm, and the inspiration for so many of my action heroes. There’s a little bit of you in every man I write, because you are, at heart, a romantic. I won’t tell.

  And for my uncle Rick, who has been telling me for years that there needs to be more action and explosions in my books. This action adventure (romance) story is for you.

  Want to hear about future releases and upcoming events for Rebecca Connolly?

  Sign up for the monthly Wit and Whimsy at:

  www.rebeccaconnolly.com

  Index

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Wales, 1825

  “Torchon! Torchon!”

  A swift kick to already tender ribs made Alexander Sommerville wake with a grunt, though the sound was weak and pitiful.

  “What?” he coughed, his eyes scrunching up even though the evening light was fading.

  “Don’t you talk back!” Another kick came at him, and he tensed, moaning at the impact.

  It was incomprehensible, but the one kicking him was not even one of his captors. Most of his beaters weren’t, but beating Alex had become something of a game to the crew of the Amelie Claire, and the officers approved heartily. Had he been his old self, Alex would have taken on the lot of them and done enough damage to be considered the victor.

  Fists had always been his specialty.

  But he was not his old self. He was not even a shell of his old self. Whatever was less than that might be able to describe him as he existed now.

  He couldn’t even muster indignity at being kicked and ordered about by a fellow prisoner at this moment. Trussed as he always was when they were in port, he only let his head fall back and tried to find the emptiness in his mind that made his life bearable.

  “Torchon,” the one he only knew as Souris said again, and it struck Alex as odd that a Londoner was addressing him in French, particularly when it was obvious the man knew nothing of the language.

  But that was what he had been called almost from the very first day he’d been captured, and it was all he answered to.

  Alex rolled his head towards the voice, though it pained him too greatly to open his eyes.

  “You plan on sleeping all the way to Liverpool?” Souris asked with no small amount of derision. “Your first time off the boat since I’ve known you, and you’re too pathetic to enjoy it. Breathe in the Welsh air, Torchon. You’ll be in a Spanish frigate afore too long.”

  Off the… what?

  A sudden jolt bounced them both, causing grunts of pain as they landed once more, and Alex felt his breath begin to race as his weakened senses began to tune into his surroundings.

  He was in a wagon, not in his cramped hold. His wrists and legs were bound with rope, not chains, and they were not bound together, only to leads. The air about him was fresh and brisk, not the stale and salty stench of mildew and aged wood.

  Welsh, had he said?

  That meant they’d landed at Fishguard after his last beating, which had been more substantial than any in recent memory, and he’d been unconscious for quite some time if he’d been unloaded from the ship and dumped in this wagon. Fishguard was their only Welsh port, unless they’d made some unexpected alterations to their route. He’d seen glimpses of it through the small bullet hole in the berth in his tiny corner, and now, if Souris was correct, he was in it.

  Physically in it.

  Off the boat, and in Wales.

  No wonder he felt queasy and lightheaded, though he’d chalked that up to too many blows to the head during the recent bout. His feet hadn’t touched land in so long he’d forgotten what it felt like.

  The rumbling of the wagon wheels was music to his ears, and the jostling of the wagon itself soothed him in a way he hadn’t known in years.

  Four and a half, to be precise.

  One thousand, six hundred and fifty-eight days.

  He’d counted every single one.

  When they were in port, he’d spent every night and day in the hold of the ship. When they were at sea, he’d spent daylight hours either on deck or down below. They’d forced him into back breaking and menial labor. He’d had his arms strung up on a hook while he was lashed, stabbed, burned, or pummeled with whatever the officers had on hand. It was all he had known.

  He’d been starved when it suited them, but his wounds had been meticulously tended, with special attention to any signs of fever or illness. It wouldn’t do for their prized captive to die in their care, so they prevented that extreme with all due consideration.

  He would be of no use to them if he were dead.

  Everyone else in the world thought he already was.

  At least, he assumed that was the case. His lack of rescue had led him to that assumption. Given that he had fully intended to sacrifice himself that night on the London docks, it was an easy conjecture to make.

  He’d wished for death. Expected death. Prayed for death even, although he was not nearly as religious as he had once been.

  But death had been as elusive as a woman for him and twice as fickle. Every time he had been on the brink of that blessed relief, his tormentors brought him back to life. It was more brutal than his first year onboard, where every night, he would be woken and tortured just as he had reached the most fulfilling part of sleep.

  He hadn’t slept with any respite after that and could only vaguely recall the sensation of feeling rested.

  Or whole.

  Why they hadn’t killed him after this long was still a mystery. He hadn’t given them any useful information, and by now, he was beyond the point
of being current and relevant in what he could have told them.

  But question him they did, and torture him they did, and imprison him they did.

  All to no avail.

  Which earned him more beatings and torture and questions.

  It all blurred together in his mind, but if nothing else, he could say with certainty that he was no coward, and he was no traitor.

  He’d come damned close, though.

  But his brothers in the London League would have nothing to fear from his capture, nor would any currently active operatives in any of the branches of government.

  Past ones, on the other hand…

  It had given him a fiendish delight to occasionally spout details of old missions from decades gone by, which were already known about in certain diplomatic circles, and whose operatives and instigators were all retired, reassigned, or dead.

  Studying old missions and reports in his training and recruitment days had proven more useful than he’d thought it would.

  That life was far, far behind him now. His instincts were dull and rusted from disuse, even if his training remained. He barely recalled the one known as Trace, though his captors had called him that and Le Trace frequently enough to remind him. He was strong from the labor he’d had to endure, but not in the ways he’d once been. He’d not lost his recollection of languages, though speaking them himself was a thing of the past.

  He’d spent ages memorizing details he had learned in listening, as the smugglers interacted with various others of many nationalities. Despite most of the crew of the Amelie Claire being English, their officers were French, Spanish, and Dutch, in various shades. None of them claimed a particular nationality, and their loyalties lay with the greatest profit.

  Despite somehow being a vital prisoner to Captain Battier and the rest, they had never quite managed to mind their tongues around him. Of course, there had been no reason to, in their eyes. He would never leave their ship.

  Until now.

  “Souris,” Alex moaned, rolling a bit to face him, cracking his eyes open just a little. “Why Liverpool?”

  Souris snorted loudly, his beard collecting the spit from doing so. “Battier tired of your stench. ‘E says you’re to be questioned by sommat else and then transferred, as such, to a ship for Australia.”

  Alex nodded, the worn wood scratching his head. “And you?”

  “Dock work, I fink. Work off me debt to Battier at long last.”

  Alex stared at him for a long moment. “Remind me what your crime was.”

  “Mutiny, Torchon.” He grinned, showing all of seven full teeth and two broken ones. “No’ of Battier, but of Acosta and Janssen when we’re down Bay o’ Biscay.”

  Ah, yes, now he recollected. Three days in the hold without reprieve, and his muscles had cramped beyond belief without food or fresh water to alleviate them.

  Souris continued to talk, but Alex tuned him out, just as he had planned on doing.

  His mind churned on various details, a strategy beginning to form.

  Two drivers, probably minimally armed, carting two prisoners to a distant port. Souris was fairly worthless as a prisoner, but Alex was quite valuable. Force could be used on them, but nothing extreme. He couldn’t hear anything resembling hustle and bustle, so they had to be out of the city, probably by some miles. It would be some time before they crossed into England, depending on which road they took to Liverpool, but there wouldn’t be much by way of villages or population along the way.

  As far as he had been able to decipher over the years, no one knew his real identity. They knew he was Trace, of course, but his real name, his real title, his real life…

  That was still secret.

  Which meant no one would expect him to speak Welsh, the language of his mother, and no one would know for certain which way he would go.

  He wasn’t sure how far he’d be able to get, let alone how fast he’d get there ,considering his depleted strength, limited energy, and painfully fresh wounds, but if he could survive getting away, he knew his course.

  England. And once in England, Cheshire. And once in Cheshire, Moulton. And then…

  A sudden tremor of longing coursed through his battered frame, and he felt himself grow surprisingly emotional at the thought.

  Poppy.

  The only reason he had for escape, the only thing he could possibly live for now.

  He didn’t even know if she were in Moulton anymore, let alone Cheshire, but it was the only place he could look.

  Provided he could make it there.

  “How long have we been in the cart?” Alex coughed, forcing himself to sound weaker than he was, now that excitement began to thrum through him.

  Souris gave him a wry look. “Why? You have somewhere to be?”

  Alex just continued to stare at him, hoping it still had the same effect it once had.

  While Souris didn’t look in any way perturbed by the glare, he sighed and spat over the side of the cart. “Three hours, a’ least. Maybe four. You were out for a long time.”

  Technically, Alex had been in and out of consciousness, enough to register the rumble of voices and that his body was being moved, but specifics had been completely lost. And once he’d realized he was not about to be beaten again, he’d just let himself sleep.

  He closed his eyes and sighed heavily as he ran through the information.

  Three to four hours in a light cart with two horses pulling. They weren’t galloping, but the pace was fairly steady and quick. There was no way for him to know exactly how many miles they had gone, nor where exactly they were, but he could make a rough estimate, and he calculated the range of answers quickly.

  Apparently, he still remembered that from his training as well.

  They’d have to change horses soon, and the drivers would change. Night was coming on quickly, and it would be almost impossible to see him on the dark road with only their small lantern. If they avoided largely populated areas, as he suspected they would, given they had two injured and indentured men in their cart, the new horses would come from less than reputable places with less than ideal lighting.

  But he couldn’t do anything while they were stopped.

  So for now, he would just lay here and wait, moan for effect on occasion, and bide his time.

  “Did you fall asleep again, Torchon?” Souris asked, scoffing to himself. “Pathetic.”

  Alex fought the urge to smile, which was a feeling he’d almost forgotten. Pathetic, was it? Souris would see just how pathetic he was in a very short time. As soon as it was dark enough. As soon as they were far enough away. As soon as the drivers and horses hit their stride.

  The wagon suddenly jostled again, and they slowed to a stop, one of the drivers whistling loudly.

  Alex lay there in silence, eyes closed, envisioning the movements around him.

  The driver cocked a gun, which was no doubt held on himself and Souris should they have opted to try something, now that they had stopped. The other hopped down and began the process of unhitching the horses.

  Two, perhaps three others from the inn’s mews came to help, bringing fresh horses for their cart, and from the smell of things, they also had brought food, bread at least, and it remained to be seen if the drivers would let the prisoners partake in whatever sustenance had been provided.

  Alex kept his eyes closed for the whole exchange, keeping his countenance blank and appearing for all intents and purposes to be a very wounded man resting.

  Which, after all, he was.

  His head pounded with too much thinking already, and his right shoulder throbbed in a numb, tingling sort of way. He felt certain he had dislocated it yesterday.

  Or had it been this morning?

  Time had had little meaning to him in recent days, and it was hard to keep track of when various injuries were sustained.

  The cuts on his back were two days old, that much he knew.

  He could remember those.

  Couldn’t feel them as his ba
ck tended to go numb for some time after those sessions, but he remembered them.

  He heard the rattle of harnesses and the snuffle of horses as they were led away. Then, he heard the drivers taking their places on the rickety seat again. That was followed by the wagon jolting forward, sending Alex skidding just briefly on the flat wagon bed, scraping his not-so-numb back against the grain.

  He winced and groaned audibly, his breath catching at the pain. He exhaled in short bursts through his nose, praying for the numbness to return.

  “You’re still bleeding, Torchon,” Souris reminded him unnecessarily. “I can see it on your tunic.”

  Alex grunted once in response, fully aware that he was bleeding from his back, and from his feet, and probably from his chin, as well.

  Impossibly, he still bled from his injuries. Unfortunate how that didn’t stop with frequent beatings.

  “Here,” one of the drivers grunted from the seat.

  Something soft hit Alex’s left arm, but he kept his eyes shut.

  “What, no cheese?” Souris asked, picking up the item and tearing it, the sound registering to Alex as a loaf of bread.

  A thudding noise indicated Souris being thumped in the head, probably with a rifle butt.

  Alex would have loved to see that.

  Souris grumbled and set half of the bread on Alex’s chest. “Here, Torchon. First warm bread you’ve had in years, right?”

  It was, yes, but Alex wasn’t going to eat it at the moment.

  “Apple, Torchon.” An apple was suddenly placed in Alex’s limp hand at his side.