They had to clamber over debris; releasing his hand, hiking the skirts of her habit high, she stepped gingerly along a rubble-strewn corridor, then Dillon drew her into the structure proper, and she saw he’d been right. The area around the stone fireplace and hearth was clear. An old table sat before the hearth, along with a rickety stool. “The table’s clean, not dusty.”
Dillon turned to look, then grunted. “There’s a constant stream of vagrants through Newmarket-some look for work, others look and move on.” He examined the rest of the area. “Someone’s been here, but whether it was your brother…” He glanced questioningly at her.
She scanned the room, let her senses absorb…when she saw the split logs stacked beside the hearth, her heart leapt. The lowest layer went one way, the next laid precisely across it, then the following layer-the three pieces remaining-sat parallel to the first. “Rus was here.”
Dillon turned to her. She pointed at the pile. “He always stacks wood like that. And this place seems too neat for an abandoned ruin.”
“Is Rus neat?”
“Neater than I am, and I don’t like clutter and mess around me.”
Dillon continued his visual search. “I see no sign of anyone staying here now.”
“No.” She could see no baggage. “I can’t imagine Rus leaving Cromarty’s without his saddlebags. He left his horse back in Ireland, so if he hasn’t a horse, where are his saddlebags? If he’s out spying, he wouldn’t be lugging them with him-” She broke off as another thought occurred.
Dillon read her mind. “I haven’t heard of any horse being stolen, and there’s a very efficient grapevine about such happenings in this town.”
Moving through the fallen beams, he peered into less clear areas of the cottage, but she could see the undisturbed dust from where she stood.
She was disappointed, but not disheartened. “Rus was here, not long ago, but he’s not staying here now. I don’t”-she wrinkled her nose-“feel him about enough for that.”
Dillon looked at her, nodded, then waved her to retreat. They made their way back out, into the afternoon sunshine.
Reaching the horses, Pris halted and faced him. “That isn’t the last place he could be-it can’t be.”
He studied her eyes, saw hope glowing strongly, lighting the emerald green. The ruined cottage was the last likely place, but…“There’s one other place, but it’s a little way to the east, and not easy to find. Itinerants rarely stumble on it.” He hesitated, then asked, “You’re sure he’s close, aren’t you?”
She nodded, the feather in her riding cap bobbing over her ear. The sight made him smile. Standing beside her mare, with a look of impatience, she motioned commandingly for him to lift her up. Smile widening, he reached for her, closed his hands about her waist-then pulled her into him and kissed her. Thoroughly.
Eventually lifting his head, he looked down into her face; her lashes fluttered, then rose. “It’s the last place-our final throw. It’s an unlikely chance, but…let’s see.”
He stepped back, lifted her to her saddle, then held her stirrup for her. By the time he swung up to Solomon’s back, she’d wheeled the mare and was urging her east, under the trees and into the fields beyond.
She had the direction right, so he fell in beside her. But once they reached the limit of Demon’s lands, the cleared paddocks and secluded glades where his prize broodmares led a pampered life, she fell back and let him lead, tacking from one bridle path to the next, leading her steadily east into the dense, old woodland of the Caxton estate.
Some of the trees were ancient; their wide boles and thick canopies enclosed the path, screening the sun. Even now in the late afternoon of a sunny day, the air beneath the branches was cool, faintly damp. The path narrowed, then dipped through a rocky streambed; urging Solomon up the opposite bank, Dillon glanced back and saw Pris guiding her mare daintily through the rocks.
It hadn’t rained recently; the leaf mold cloaking the bank wasn’t slippery. The mare would manage the steep climb safely enough…realizing the direction of his unbidden thoughts, he faced forward before Pris could look up and read his protectiveness in his face. He wasn’t even sure he approved, but the affliction seemed incurable.
A little way farther on, the path led into the clearing before their goal-an old woodcutters’ cottage buried deep in the woods. Drawing rein some yards before the door, Dillon raked the cottage. Very few people knew it existed. The woodcutters came every few years to thin the woods, to gather the dead branches and reduce them to charcoal, which they sold, mostly to the Caxton house hold.
It was too early in the season for any woodcutters to have arrived, yet scanning the ground before the door, he saw clear evidence that horses had been standing there.
Pris had followed him into the clearing; she halted the mare alongside. “More than one horse, and recently.”
Worry tinged her voice. Dillon looked up, but no smoke rose from the chimney. “We’re on Caxton lands. We own this cottage, and as you’ve just seen, it’s well hidden.”
Dismounting, he led Solomon to a post with rings set into it. Securing the gelding’s reins, he glanced at Pris, but she hadn’t waited for him to lift her down; she led her mare to the post. While she tied off her reins, he walked to the side of the cottage and checked the small lean-to-stable.
Turning back, he saw Pris watching, and shook his head. “No horse, and no sign one has been there in a good long while.”
Going to the door, she waited; joining her, he lifted the latch and pushed the door wide. The hinges creaked.
He paused on the threshold, aware of Pris crowding by his shoulder. Light streamed past them, and also through the unshuttered windows, one on either side of the door. Dust motes danced in the slanting beams illuminating the rudimentary yet solid and, for its purpose, comfortable interior.
Pris sucked in a breath. Dillon glanced at her, then followed her gaze to the wood stacked beside the hearth-laid in that distinctive crosshatch. “Your brother’s hallmark.”
Moving into the room, he glanced around; Pris did the same. As in the ruined cottage, a certain neatness prevailed-a lack of dust, the old armchairs aligned, the two stools parallel under the table. There was no evidence of a fire in the hearth, no such obvious sign that anyone was living there, but the stones had recently been swept. Rus Dalling’s mark was everywhere.
“He’s been here recently.” Pris glanced at him.
“More recently than at the ruined cottage?”
She nodded. “He’s not near at the moment, but it’s as if I’ve walked into his room at some house we’re staying at.”
He glanced around. “Let’s search. If he has those saddlebags, it’s unlikely he’s carrying them with him.”
They looked everywhere-under the narrow bed, in all the corners, on every high shelf-and found nothing. Then Dillon remembered the storeroom, built onto the cottage at the opposite end to the stable. Its door wasn’t obvious, simply a section of the planks lining the wall; crooking his fingers in the gap that served as handle, he pulled it open.
Pris pushed past him. Rough shelving ran along the outer walls. There was little light, only what seeped between the rafters and the roof, and past him as he stood in the doorway. Feeling Pris’s irritated glance, he moved father into the narrow space, reaching past her to feel along the back of the high shelves while she crouched and, despite her fear of rodents, peered and poked below the lowest shelf.
“Here!” Triumphant, she shot to her feet-courtesy of the tight space, plastering herself to him.
Something she did without the slightest hesitation, as if she barely noticed the way her breasts crushed against his chest, the way her thighs slid against his.
He sucked in a breath and flattened himself against the wall as she wrestled a pair of saddlebags up between them-only just missing doing serious damage.