The Bargain: A Port Elizabeth Regency Tale: Episode 2 by Vanessa Riley Page A

enslaved.
    She craned her neck to hear. Was that the sound of drums filling the wind, or just her nerves? Everything within her screamed something was out there.
    A party of five or six lanterns marched from the dunes to the gangplank. They must be causing the noises. But what if they weren't?
    Pacing to the lieutenant, she thought of how to alert him and not give him more fodder. It was one thing to be thought of as a harlot, but a nutty one, too? That had to be avoided.
    A cry pierced the air. It was man's death yell. The lead man of the party on the shore fell.  
    Lord Welling charged forward. "Take cover, men!"
    Another man dropped to his right, but Lord Welling kept moving until he stopped at the end of the gangplank. He seized a stick and pulled it from the first man's back. Even from this distance, the look of it, no one could survive, but her baron didn't leave him. He stayed.
    She grabbed Mr. Grossling’s arm. "Lieutenant, you have to go to the baron and help him."
    Coward, he shook his head. "I will not. The paper-pusher's not for suicide."
    Precious pivoted and saw Lord Welling's lantern go dark, and her heart nearly exploded. Suddenly, she was running to him. Just like she was a rabbit in Charleston, she bounced down the gangplank with no care for losing her balance or falling into the treacherous ocean below. She had to get to him. She had to warn him of what she sensed awaiting in the trees.  
    He couldn't die. He was too good a man for that.
    A spear flew past her side, but she ducked and tripped flat on her stomach, the air leached out of her.
    Guns belched. The air filled with the perfume of killing powder.
    Lifting her head, she could see a man on horse bearing down on the baron. He was in a leathered robe. Nothing the English wore. And he was as black as ebony. His thick forearm glistened in the moonbeams. What manner of enemy was this?
    Why didn't the baron move? What distracted him from the danger closing in?
    She leapt to her feet and ran at full force. She saw a spear launch, and jumped, arms flailing as she pushed through the air toward the baron's neck.  
    Wham ! She hit him hard, sending him backward, but he'd grabbed her, taking her with him. As they hit beach, sand flew everywhere. The wind of the spear sailed over her and lodged in the plank with a thud. He or she would have been sliced through if either stayed on the gangplank.
    Lord Welling drew her fully into his arms, tucking her deep within his jacket. The scent of gunpowder and his musk swallowed her as he rolled with her until they were partially hidden underneath the plank.
    Gunshots sounded, a bullet hitting close to their spot.  
    He drew her tighter in his arms. His low accent licked her ear. "What do you think you’re   doing? You could've been killed!"
    She held him tighter, counting the hitching of his gasps. "Savin' your life. You're welcome."  
    "Thank you. Now we'll both be killed." He tugged her underneath him, as if to shelter her from their enemy, but his weight made it difficult to breathe.  
    Feet pounded overhead. More guns roared.
    Fury overtook her. She kicked with her legs, beat on his chest. "I wouldn't have had to if you'd have moved. Why didn't you? I told you I saw people in the hills."
    "I couldn't move. The spear hit my lieutenant. I had to tell him of his wife and the child soon to come. Narvel had to know before he died."
    Precious stilled as his words crept past her anger and struck her heart. "No, not Clara's husband, not Mr. Narvel." Her poor friend. Precious's throat clogged, a sob filling the spaces between words. "I have to tell her."  
    He rolled to his side, but his heavy body blocked the way they'd come, and water was on the other side of the plank. She was trapped with Lord Welling under the gangplank until some side won. "I have to help her."
    He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Not until my men sound an all clear. Then we can tend to our friends."
    Port Elizabeth was to be a place of joy.