Three Times a Lady (Drake's Damsels Book 3) by Eileen Dreyer

Author:Eileen Dreyer [Dreyer, Eileen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oliver Heber Books
Published: 2023-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

11

When Pip and Theo had imagined scenarios like this, the capture of the criminals had been easy. Pip would be brilliant and calm. Theo showed up just in time to protect her. There would be all manner of weapons and spirited horses available, and Pip and Theo—and sometimes Beau—there to use them faultlessly. And Perfect Pamela would have been shamed and exiled.

All right, Pip admitted. Maybe not that last part, although the imagery was very satisfying. The rest wouldn’t even be close to the frustration and challenge she did face.

In the real world, she had a staff of six she had to get safely away from the Dower House. She had Beau to reach, and she had possible traitors in her cellars that she had to keep corralled until help could come.

First things first.

“Leave Macha and me off at the dower stables,” she told Clancy as they turned their horses into the Dower House drive. She couldn’t help watching for watchers. “Can you get to Beau at the Lion and Bandit? We shall need him and whoever he can gather. And we need weapons, Clancy. We need them quickly, and we need to get them without Lord Burke and Pamela Smythe-Smith realizing it. Without them realizing anything. You don’t officially know this, but they are very possibly part of a plot to overthrow the throne.”

Clancy gave a lazy shake of his head. “The things people get up to.”

“There are also watchers out there between the Dower House and the manor. Can they be…er, shall we say, quietly put somewhere safe? Or at least watched to see what they do? So far, they look more like senior house staff than thugs or lords.”

“What about you, Miss Pip?”

“I need to get my staff safely away. I’m hoping I can direct them to the Fairy Steps so they can get to the manor unseen. Then I need to see if there is a way to lock that second cellar from the house without being caught and secure the other end of that tunnel. I wish I could figure a way to collapse it in on itself. I imagine that would be more likely in a book, though, wouldn’t it?”

“It would.”

“And I need to find a way to protect Robbie Evans. The smugglers have him in that cellar.”

For the first time she saw real emotion in Clancy’s eyes. She would not want to be those smugglers when he met them.

“Fairy Steps ain’t far from where the Dower tunnel should be,” was all he said. “I can have men there to keep it watched all quietlike. Keep ’em bottled up ’til help arrives, if need be. They won’t hurt the Evans boy. They need him for their bargaining chip.”

She nodded, knowing that Clancy would never endanger the boy. Although that might be unavoidable. “And remember. No word about any plots. It’s just strange smugglers.”

“I shall inform mother,” Lizzie said. “She is amazingly underhanded when she wants to be. And she knows who to trust.”

“Make sure the girls are somewhere safe,” Pip reminded her.

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