The Daredevil Snared (The Adventurers Quartet Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

meet tonight and see how the others feel. There’s only so long we can put Dubois off without damaging our own position.”
    The “others” were the de facto leaders of their small community—the officers who had been kidnapped, plus Katherine and Harriet. Katherine had been taken because, as a governess, she had experience managing children, but another of her skills was fine needlework, and Dubois had quickly recognized the sharpness of her eye and the quality of her work in the cleaning shed; he had effectively made her the spokesperson and leader of the women and children.
    So she spoke for both groups, and Harriet was one of her deputies among the six women, most of whom had been taken for their ability to do fine work.
    As she and Harriet continued their promenade, the hems of the drab, featureless gowns they’d been given to wear stirring fallen leaves, Katherine contemplated—as she was sure every one of their number did these days—the delicate balance they were striving to maintain. “I wish there was some easier—more obvious and less stressful—way we could manage this.”
    Harriet grimaced, then smoothed her features into a mask of unconcern. “It’s a constant juggle. I know it weighs heavily on John.”
    “And he’s doing a wonderful job—we wouldn’t have any hope if it wasn’t for him.” Katherine laid a hand on Harriet’s sleeve and lightly squeezed. “We all understand the dilemma. We have to keep giving Dubois diamonds enough to appease his masters—whoever the blackguards are—while at the same time holding back as much as we can to stave off the time when the deposit is exhausted and they decide to shut the mine.”
    None of them harbored the slightest illusion about what would happen once a decision to close the mine was made. They would be killed. Lined up and shot—or worse.
    Given the atrocities Dubois and his men had committed against one young girl early in the life of the mine, and the threats Dubois occasionally made when using one of the women or children to reinforce his control over the kidnapped men, worse , in this case, would be horrific. So horrific none of them dwelled on the prospect.
    That was the other reason Dubois had arranged to have women and children added to the mine’s captives. Quite aside from their necessary contributions to the work, they were the perfect pawns with which to ensure the men’s compliance.
    As the location of the mine dictated that Dubois’s impressed workforce had to be European and, given his source was Freetown, that meant mostly English, he’d realized he would need an effective means of controlling said workforce. Dubois was all about effectiveness and control—he was coldhearted, ruthless, and appeared to possess not a single scruple or finer feeling in his large, powerful frame.
    Because the mine was located within one of the native chief’s lands, Dubois and his masters did not dare kidnap natives—not of any tribe. But the chief did not care about Europeans; in his eyes, they were not his concern. So Englishmen from Freetown it was. In addition, kidnapped English were also more useful in that all those taken had some training in skills required for the mine.
    Captain John Dixon had been targeted because he was an expert sapper—an engineer skilled in the construction of tunnels. Several of the other men had carpentry skills; others were laborers used to wielding picks, and all of the women had some talent Dubois or his masters had deemed useful. The children hadn’t needed to be anything but children—quick and healthy, with small hands and keen vision.
    They even had several men and women with medical and nursing experience, which had proved useful in treating the occasional injury. Mining was inherently unsafe, and accidents had occurred, but the compound contained a decently equipped medical hut.
    Katherine cynically acknowledged that the one helpful aspect of Dubois’s rule—absolute and unchallengeable as it