He tested the gun sights then set the rifle aside. Every piece of weaponry laid out before him had been oiled, polished, and checked.
It took some effort, but he struggled to his feet, wincing as his slowly healing chest wound protested.
Will this thing ever fully heal?
It had been six pain-filled weeks since his fellow rogue of the road, Sir Stephen Moore, had carried the badly injured Gus on board theNight Wind.
There were times he woke in the dark soaked in nightmare-induced sweat. He could only pray that eventually the memory of being held down while Captain Grey dug into his flesh with a heated blade would fade. They had saved his life, but the sound of his own screams still echoed in his head.
He rubbed at the wound. A dose of laudanum would be most welcome, but Gus didn’t like the way the drug addled his brain. Pain kept a man’s mind sharp. It reminded him of the cost of poor decisions.
Lifting his left arm, he raised it as high as the injury would allow. The bullet fired by one of the members of Vincent Marec’s gang had gone deep into the upper section of his chest, chipping off a piece of his clavicle.
There was every chance he would never again have the full use of his arm.
If I survive this next trip, I am likely going to have to retire the boat—find another way to make a living.
Over the past year or so, other members of the rogues of the road—Harry, George, and more recently, Stephen—had made the monumental decision to step away from a life of illicit dealings. All three of them were working at honest careers and had taken on wives. Only Gus and Monsale now remained embedded in their criminal endeavors, both still bachelors.
Monsale wouldn’t ever change his life for a woman.
But could I?
He wasn’t as set against marriage as his friend Stephen had once been, but it would take a rare lady to consider throwing her lot in with a smuggler. To know that every time her husband sailed from Portsmouth, he may not return. Finding a wife like that was proving to be a tall ask.
Gus was still staring at the weapons cache, unsure as to how much of the gunpowder he should take, when the partly ajar door swung fully open.
His father retired naval captain, William Jones, stepped into the room. He huffed and quickly closed the door behind him. Captain Jones pointed at the key in the lock. “You really should keep that turned. If any of the household servants stumble across this lot, they will surely run and tell your mother. And then there will be no living with her.”
Gus scowled. He couldn’t ever have the door closed, let alone locked. The attic was small; and he didn’t have a good relationship with enclosed spaces.
“You know I can’t do that, sir,” he replied.
His father hummed his obvious disapproval. “Augustus, you are a grown man. Only children are frightened of such things.”
Gus did his best to ignore the comment, having lost count of the number of times he and his father had argued over his irrational fear. It had been his main reason for not following his father into the navy. The idea of being stuck below deck with a hundred other bodies filled him with dread.
“Have you come to see me with a purpose in mind?”.
His father’s gaze roamed over the various weapons and crates of ammunition. “So, you are still determined to go to France? Damn. I was hoping you might change your mind.”
Gus could well understand his sire’s predicament. If he didn’t make it back to England alive, Captain Jones was going to be left with a lot of explaining to do.
Father and son had a private understanding of what Gus had been up to both during the war and subsequent years. And while the captain had made his thoughts on the topic of smuggling quite clear, he was not about to turn his son over to the authorities.
“I have to go. They need me. The Lamballe gang are not just some local fisherman’s collective who have decided they want a cut of the smuggling trade. From what Armand and Evangeline have told me, Marec is a skilled former French army officer. He knows how to lead.”
His father glanced at Gus’s damaged shoulder. “And his men are crack shots with a rifle.”
Gus’s hopes for hiding at the Duke of Monsale’s residence and keeping his injury secret from his family had not lasted long. Captain Jones had been on the doorstep of Monsale House within a day of the badly wounded Gus returning to London. News of his arrival into Portsmouth Harbor had passed quickly through the network of retired naval officers and all the way to his sire.
His father laid a hand on his good shoulder. “Who else is going with you?”
Blast. I was hoping to avoid that question.
He steeled himself. “No one. Just the crew. Harry’s wife is due to give birth any day. Stephen’s blushing bride gave up her wedding night when he came with me last time, so I would not dare ask him again. And George swore a vow to Jane that his days of dirty deeds were behind him. They have all officially retired from the business of being rogues.”
“And Monsale?”
