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Some hours later, the door opened, but the telltale light of day was absent. Instead, a lamp provided limited illumination. Rolling to a sitting position, Rick anticipated bread and water, his stomach cramping and his mouth filling with saliva at the thought. But instead of his meager rations, the man who entered the cell—one of the Baines brothers—bent over to avoid bumping his head on the low ceiling, hauled him off the stone platform on which the foul mattress rested and onto his knees and said, “Out you come. The boat has finally arrived.”

Boat? They were going to put him on a boat? “What boat?” he asked, his voice hoarse from yelling.

He tried to resist being dragged to the door, but he was weak from lack of food and from the numerous injuries they had inflicted upon him. The man bundled him toward the entrance and forced him into a stone corridor beyond. He found he could stand upright for the first time in days and stretched his back as best he could, hampered by the manacles that linked his hands and his feet together with a length of chain. He felt his back crack and uttered a groan of relief. The man behind him, another of the big, beefy Baines boys, pushed him forward, and he stumbled over the manacles that hobbled his feet. The brother in front—the youngest of the three he thought—held up the lantern to light their way. He considered yelling but couldn’t summon the energy. If he yelled, they might stuff that gag in his mouth again and his whole body recoiled at the thought. He wondered where the eldest Baines was, and the father for that matter. Did he know what his sons were up to?

They reached the end of the passage and stepped through a door into a narrow, dark alley that stank of piss and vomit. But Rick’s nose was acclimatized to stinks by now, and he barely registered it. His escort pushed him to the left, and they emerged after a few shuffled steps onto a wider cobbled area, and Rick caught the whiff of salt air and silt of the estuary. Wherever he was, it was on the coast. But which coast? East or west?

There were shapes in the gloom up ahead of ships at dock and the creak of the wooden hulls and masts in the wind. The brothers hurried him toward one of these, and he realized that if he didn’t do something to stop them, he was going to be shoved on a ship bound for God knows where and probably incarcerated in the hull to die of dysentery or something worse.

He glanced around, looking for some means of escape. The trouble was that the manacles on his feet hobbled his ability to move with any speed. Probably his only chance was to identify himself to the crew of the ship and promise them a reward for his safe deliverance. He was just formulating a sentence to yell when they reached hearing distance of anyone who looked likely to help him, when three figures emerged from the gloom and struck.

The man behind him went down from a massive blow to the head from a large man in a mask. The younger brother in front of him, turned in alarm and got a fist up to another man, who dodged and felled him with a blow that sent him sprawling to the ground on his back. His attacker then applied two swift punches that seemed to knock him out.

This all happened so quickly, Rick barely had time to absorb its meaning let alone react. His brain was sluggish from lack of food and sleep.

The third man meanwhile searched the fallen men and found the key to Rick’s manacles. Kneeling, he unlocked the ones around his feet and then his wrists.

The big man who had attacked first pulled Rick into a quick hug and muttered, “I knew you couldn’t be dead, little brother!”

Rick hugged him back convulsively. “Ward! I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “You’re making a habit of rescuing me,” he said with an attempt at a jest, thinking again of that old rain barrel.

The other two men resolved themselves into Reynolds and James the footman, and he thanked them in a choked voice.

Reynolds just smiled his lopsided grin and said, “I’ll always be yours to command, my lord.”

James said with the excitement of youth, “It’s been a privilege, my lord. .”

All of them then hurried him away to the right, where a carriage awaited them. Rick’s legs wobbled, and he stumbled over his own feet, his head spinning. I’m a wreck! But in spite of that, joy soared in his heart. He would get to see Cecelia again and beg her to forgive him.

James mounted to the driver’s seat with Reynolds, who had the reins, and Ward helped Rick up into the carriage as it took off with a jerk. Reynolds was springing them.

Rick collapsed on the seat, his limbs shaking with shock and lack of food.

“How did you find me? And more to the point, do you have anything to eat or drink?”

“Only this,” Hereward said, holding out a flask which Rick took gratefully and unscrewing the lid took a long pull of the brandy. It flowed down his parched throat to spread warmth through his abdomen, and he groaned in bliss.

Observing this, Ward said, “We will stop at an inn as soon as it’s safe. You look appalling. What happened to you?”

“I feel appalling.” Rick took another pull on the brandy. “I was kidnapped and held prisoner for—I’m not sure how many days—”

“Seven. When you didn’t show up in London, I went to Bedfordshire to find out what happened to you. I had a creeping feeling something bad had befallen you, and it wouldn’t leave me be.”

“You’ve seen Cecelia? Is she all right? Is she safe?”

“Yes, we left Pagette with her. But she was quite distraught when she learned you hadn’t arrived in London.”

Rick slumped back against the squabs, relief washing through him. “Thank God she is safe. I’ve been so worried that whatever this was about would place her in danger.” He wiped his face. “I don’t deserve that she be concerned about me after the way I behaved.”

Hereward regarded him quizzically. “She did say that she had been angry with you. But that changed rapidly the moment she realized something had happened to you.”

“I don’t deserve that,” said Rick. “I behaved like a dick! A complete coward. I’ve done some questionable things in my life. But that was the worst. Even worse than leaving her to face the Cowpers alone at Lady Pennington’s ball. If she forgives me for this, I swear I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to her.”

“Don’t tell it to me! Say it to her.”

“I intend to.”

They stopped at an inn shortly thereafter, where Rick was able to have a wash and don the change of clothes Reynolds had thoughtfully provided. He then sat down to his first decent meal in a week. But he found he could only eat a fraction of it.