“Ah, but you have given your word.” He tipped his brow against the horse’s neck. The gin had rendered his body somewhat numb. “And my reflexes are—” He snapped back the cock on the pistol beneath his arm, the barrel pointing dead on the Scot’s chest. “—fine.”
Eads whistled through his teeth. “How do ye move with such haste, man? What sort of demon are ye?”
“Take care, Duncan. The superstitions of your ancestors are surfacing.”
“And yer the man who has no ancestors, aren’t ye? Or so ye claim.”
“Why did you relinquish your weapon after she told her story?” He tilted the pistol’s mouth aside.
“Yer unpredictable with drink in ye. Ye’d never harm me sober, but ye woudna hesitate ta nou if A drew on ye. Or if A’d truly threatened her. She means something ta ye, A think.”
“Don’t bother thinking, Duncan, old chap. You know how it wearies me.”
“Yer a conceited ass, Wyn.”
“Possibly.” He closed his eyes. The scenery and man before him were crossing, as they had by the mill—when he’d drawn on the assassin pointing a pistol at a lady with the heart of a hero—when every vein and artery in his body had shook with fear. “Tell me why, or I will in fact shoot you now. I will shoot you in the kneecap and you will spend a month in Mr. Argall’s barn whiling away the hours with that chap with the soft skull.” He leaned back into his horse, the beast’s steadiness the only solid thing in existence. “Poor fellow.”
“Who is he?”
Wyn opened his eyes, the lids heavy. His throat and tongue were dry. He needed water, but he wanted brandy. “Haven’t the foggiest. Do you?”
“A won’t let him have ye. Yer mine, Yale.”
“Yes, I am flattered. And so you see I find it remarkably interesting that you promised the lady you would not harm me. Now, do put my rampant curiosity to rest and tell me why you are granting me such a boon.” A boon. He was beginning to talk like her. Before long he would be singing songs of knights and maidens cavorting in the glade. Or not.
“ ’Twas for ma sister.”
“Which sister?” He brought the Highlander’s face into focus for an instant. “Ah. A sister who lost her way, much as the lady’s mother has lost her way, I am to guess.”
The Scot’s jaw worked. Within Wyn, so deep he almost did not feel it, some memory of compassion stirred.
“I see.” He uncocked the pistol and slid it into his traveling pack. “I wish her to believe that you remain a threat to me.”
“A do remain a threat ta ye.”
“A threat to me while she is in my company. And a threat to her.”
Eads glared. “Yer playing a deep game with this girl, Wyn.”
“Unfortunately not as deep as your depraved imagination has taken you, Duncan. But you have given your word and I anticipate your assistance.”
“A’ll be there at the end.”
“I expect you to. Once I have delivered her safely into the hands of her family, you may do with me what you will. But . . .” He turned his head to the man that he had tracked halfway across Bengal, searching for a Highland rebel only to discover a man beaten by grief and angry as a cobra to have been found. “If you would first allow me to take care of an errand, I would be much obliged.”
“A don’t owe ye anything.”
Wyn set his foot in the stirrup. “I haven’t the least idea why you are still working for Myles when you have an estate—good Lord, a title—to retrieve in Scotland.” He hauled himself into the saddle, recognizing even in his muddled state the hypocrisy of these words. “But if you truly cannot wait to kill me, then I ask only one thing.”
The Scot’s eyes narrowed.
Wyn swallowed over the desert of his throat. “If you must kill me, Duncan,” he said slowly so as to get the words just right, “don’t make it easy on me. Draw the thing out, will you?” He turned away, pressed his knees into Galahad’s sides and guided him out from beneath the trees into the slanting afternoon sunlight, toward the mill in which as a lad more than a decade ago he had worked a harvest season.
Mr. Argall did not in fact recognize him. He no longer resembled that boy who had loaded grain and hauled sacks of flour hour after hour, week after week, gaining strength in his arms, hot meals, and a few coins for his labors. That boy had been angry. Running away. But he’d not yet killed in cold blood.
Diantha had saved them both. Instead of cowering in fear and begging him to return her home, she met danger with passionate sincerity. In baring her heart to the man pointing a pistol at her, she had been braver than he’d ever been. Begging Eads to spare his life so she could save another’s. Believing he would help her.
He pinned his gaze between his horse’s ears, dead ahead to the carriage waiting on the road. Chestnut curls spilling out of her bonnet caught the light filtering through high clouds and glistened.
Once before a girl had trusted him. Chloe Martin, the Duke of Yarmouth’s terrified ward, had told him her horrifying story and he promised to help her. Just like today, he had trusted in his extraordinary abilities—his intelligence and reflexes. And, in a tragic accident, instead of saving Chloe he had killed her.
He would not help Diantha Lucas. She had put her faith in the wrong man.
Another ten miles along the narrow southerly road skirting hills that for centuries the English had called Shropshire and the Welsh theirs, the modest town of Knighton rose along a steep main street. Wyn installed the ladies in a tidy inn, arranged for their dinner to be served in a small private parlor, and saw the horses bedded in stalls with dry straw. When the ladies bid him good-night—the maiden with creased brow, the matron with suspicious eyes—and ascended to their bedchamber, he went to the taproom.
Diantha knew she oughtn’t to be standing where she was standing or contemplating what she was contemplating.
In theory, while lying restlessly in bed beside a snoring Mrs. Polley, it had seemed a reasonable enough program: knock on his door, demand that he answer her questions about Mr. Eads and the man in brown, then return to bed and finally sleep. It was not a plan in the truest sense, but it seemed the only solution to calming her nerves. She must understand better what had passed. She must understand him better. With knowledge, a woman could plan.
She lifted her fist toward the door panel and took a deep breath. Then a deeper one. Then she closed her eyes and—
“Impressive, Miss Lucas.”
She whirled around. He stood across the short corridor, at the top of the stair. A sconce in the stairwell lit him from below, casting shadows into his eyes and carving dark hollows in his cheeks. His arms were crossed loosely over his chest, one black-clad shoulder propped against the wall.
Her lungs released a little whorl of air. “Oh, there you are.”
“I wondered how long you would stand there before you mustered the courage to knock. Or the wisdom to return to your own bedchamber without knocking.” His voice sounded unfamiliar, slow. Emotionless. Without any feeling at all, like his eyes at the mill. “Not as long as I had imagined.”
She should walk over to him and make this conversation unremarkable by behaving as she always did. She could not. His unnerving stillness glued her feet to the floorboards.
“I wish to speak with you about what happened today.”
“And you could not wait until breakfast to do so, I gather?” No warmth either—the warmth that was always there beneath the teasing.
“Mrs. Polley will be with us at breakfast. I understood that you wished her to remain ignorant of our encounter with Mr. Eads today. Did I understand you incorrectly?”
He moved toward her, his steps very deliberate. A shiver of fear passed up her spine. Why she should fear him, she hadn’t any idea, unless it was the lusterless steel of his eyes in the dark corridor or the scent of cigar smoke and whiskey that accompanied him. But she was accustomed enough to the latter from parties during her visits to Savege Park. Her fear must come from the incident with the pistols earlier that day.