Free The Daredevil Snared (The Adventurers Quartet Book 3) by Stephanie Laurens Page B

“Most of the children are young—less than ten or so. There are only five who are older—four boys and that fair-haired girl.”
    “I think,” Caleb said, studying the girl, “that they must be the ones Robert and Aileen had to allow to be taken.”
    Phillipe nodded grimly. “I read that in Robert’s journal.”
    After the meal, the captives dispersed. The men headed for the mine in groups, followed by most of the children. A few of the children, all girls, went to an awning-shaded work area closer to the rear of the compound—closer to the base of the cliff from which the men watched. The girls picked up small hammers and started to take rocks from one pile, tapping each, then sorting them into two piles, one much larger than the other.
    After a moment of studying them, Phillipe offered, “I think they’re sorting the raw ore into the chunks that might have diamonds and those that most likely don’t.”
    Caleb grunted.
    On quitting the fire pit, the women carried the tin plates and bowls back to the kitchen, then they retreated to a hut that sat directly behind the long central barracks that housed the mercenaries. An armed guard patrolled the area before the hut’s door, but as with all the guards, including the pair who had climbed to the tower and the fresh pair of guards who had slouched into position on the recently opened gates, he appeared utterly confident and clearly expected no threat.
    Sitting on Caleb’s other side, Norton humphed. “It’s as if the guards think they’re just there for show.”
    Miss Fortescue was the last of the women to enter the hut—the one Diccon had dubbed the cleaning shed. There was something in the way Katherine Fortescue held her head that effectively conveyed her complete disregard for the mercenaries about her. It wasn’t as overt as contempt but was a subtle defiance nonetheless.
    Regardless of his absorption with jotting down everything useful he could about the camp, Caleb had spent long minutes drinking in every aspect of the delectable Miss Fortescue. For despite the privations of her captivity, she was enchanting, with her brown hair shining and with features that, as far as Caleb could make out, were striking and fine, set in a heart-shaped face. As for her figure, not even the drab, all-but-shapeless gowns that all the women had, apparently, been given to wear could hide her nicely rounded curves.
    Regardless of the situation, his interest in Miss Fortescue was a real and vital thing—definitely there and, quite surprising to him, distinctly stronger and more compulsive than such attractions customarily were. Why a woman he’d never even met should so effortlessly capture his attention—fix his senses and hold his focus—he couldn’t explain.
    “I haven’t been able to count all the mercenaries yet,” Phillipe said, “but Diccon’s number of twenty-four in camp at the moment, plus Dubois, seems about right.”
    Reluctantly eschewing his thoughts of Katherine Fortescue, Caleb jotted the number in his notebook, then looked down at the compound once more.
    Four of the male captives—none of them the officers, all of whom had vanished into the mine—had hung back in a group to one side of the mine entrance. As Caleb watched, two mercenaries ambled out from the central barracks and, each holstering a pistol, walked to join the group.
    Nearing the four captives, one of the mercenaries waved the men to a cart parked nearby. Two large water barrels and four large cans for filling them sat on the cart. The four men fell in; they lifted the cart’s axle and started the cart rolling across the compound toward the gate.
    Caleb watched the men angle the cart through the gate, then turn in the direction of the lake. “Hmm.”
    The animal track they used to reach the rock shelf, if followed in the opposite direction, ultimately led down to the lake. On the previous day, they’d joined and later left the track halfway up the hillside and hadn’t noticed the