The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(92)

“Your wife’s a bloody genius,” Dorian marveled.

Moncrieff’s chest began to heave behind her. “Salt?” he hissed through a disbelieving breath.

“To the Romans, this cave would have been more valuable than if the walls had been made of pure gold,” she revealed. “And it makes sense why, back then, even seafarers with cargo ships could not have taken the treasure back with them. They hadn’t the wherewithal to mine the mineral from this cave. And Emperor Claudius died before he was able to return for it.”

“Fucking … salt?” Her captor, it seemed, was having a difficult time moving past one point, and she could tell how it affected him by how close his thick arm inched toward her throat.

“It could still be a rather lucrative find,” she said, lifting an ineffectual hand to pull at the muscle pressing on her windpipe. “Salt isn’t worth its weight in gold, granted, but it’s still worth a fortune.”

“If a pirate is going to mine a mineral, it will be weighed in karats,” he said with a sneer. “And it won’t have the propensity to dissolve in water.”

Lorelai couldn’t form an answer through the pressure of his arm on her throat. She clawed at it, still sucking gasps of air.

“Give her to me,” Ash demanded, a crack in his voice belying the chill in his tone.

“Did you know about this the entire time?” Moncrieff said, ignoring the order. “Tell me, after all we’ve been through, were you lying to us about the dragon tattoo just to get to her?”

“I never lied about the Claudius Cache. I thought, as you did, that trunks of gold and gems were contained here.” Ash’s voice fractured against the ceiling, making it impossible to tell from which direction he spoke. “But she is the only treasure I came to find.”

A tendril of pleasure thrilled through her at his words. At least she might die knowing he’d cared for her.

“Then why are you not in Marseilles?” Moncrieff snarled.

“Because I saw your boat leave the estuary from the widow’s walk, and spied Lorelai upon it.” Veronica’s lovely lilt sounded from where she took refuge from behind the stone wall of the cave mouth. “I told Lord Southbourne immediately.”

At the sound of her voice, Moncrieff’s hold on Lorelai’s neck slackened. Conversely, his entire body constricted and—she squirmed to find—hardened.

Was the villain keen on Veronica?

“You followed me here, Countess? Bravely done.” The deeper, huskier inflection betrayed his desire.

“I assumed, at first, you were helping Lorelai escape, as you did for us on the ship,” Veronica said. “I thought that perhaps you had altruistic purposes, but I see now you’re nothing but a mercenary cad.”

“Sorry to disappoint, Countess.” And, for a moment, it truly sounded as though he were in earnest.

“If you let her go, I’ll let you leave with your life,” Ash bargained once more.

“We both know you better than that. Only one of us leaves this cave alive.” Moncrieff stepped into the light. “But if it’s you, Captain, you leave this cave alone, just as you deserve.” The pistol kissed her temple, and Lorelai squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the end.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Moncrieff.” Ash stepped into the beam, looking like the very devil he claimed to be swathed in an angelic pillar of light. He appeared as he had that first day in the coach. Cold, ruthless, his sinister aspect unadorned by sentiment as though calculating his next kill. “I’ve remembered something infinitely important in the past few hours…”

“That you are a poxy pretender with a weakness for delicate strumpets?”

“No … I learned I had brothers. I’ve never truly been alone. And that is its own kind of strength.”

The sound of a rifle being cocked paralyzed the entire cavern, and Ash glanced up toward the breach in the cave ceiling.

Moncrieff followed suit, and cursed as the pistol left her temple to angle upward.

A shot exploded into the cave at the exact time Lorelai was wrenched from Moncrieff’s grip and swept across the entire cavern, only to end up crushed against a smooth salt cave wall by more than two hundred pounds of panicking pirate king.

With a detached sort of wonder, she watched as Chief Inspector Morley, who’d stood above in a strategic placement so as not to cast his shadow upon them, stowed his rife, slid through the opening, and lowered himself until he only held on to the ledge by his fingertips. He then dropped to the soft sand floor below with the sleek grace of a cat.

How he didn’t break something, she’d never know.

Dorian and Morley now stood over a felled Moncrieff, who groaned as he applied pressure to his shoulder, all but blown apart by a high-powered rifle.

“You missed,” Dorian accused, retrieving the pistol Moncrieff had dropped upon being shot.

“No I didn’t,” Morley argued.

“You were supposed to shoot him in the head.” The Blackheart of Ben More levered the pistol right between the former first mate’s eyes.

Morley pressed Blackwell’s arm down. “Well, Lady Veronica made an excellent point earlier on the boat across to the island,” he said. “Moncrieff is technically an earl, and would be an excellent boon for Scotland Yard to have found, and arrested, as a pirate under the notorious Rook.”