Now sunlight picked out dark fire in her chestnut hair and made him wonder why he ever thought her plain under the fearsome cap and bonnet she wore the first day. The heat and her own inclination to be less buttoned up and guarded meant her hair was dressed loosely today, and the faint breeze from the sea tugged playfully at a thick tress that had worked its way out from under her hat and lay like a glowing wonder full of life and colour against her pale neck and downwards where he dare not let his fascinated gaze drift and make himself visibly aroused once again. Heat seemed to glow out of that fiery dark lock, though, and he wondered if it felt as hot to the touch as it looked from here. He began to raise his hand to find out and shook his fingers out impatiently before tucking his hand behind his back as if he was ashamed of it. He was ashamed of his masculine impulse to explore and familiarise himself with this very feminine woman who was somehow all the more appealing to the hunter in him because she usually hid feminine vulnerability behind a shield of brusque motherly efficiency and plain clothes.
‘I’m hungry,’ Aline said and sent Magnus a steady look to say she saw that betraying gesture and could read him like a book.
‘Me, too,’ Toby agreed eagerly. Magnus couldn’t let himself be sorry his sister distracted them from her beautifully observed sketches of life and the natural world, because she did it for him as well.
‘Know exactly what you wish for before you jump this time, big brother,’ Aline muttered as she moved past him to pick up a stray item of her pupil’s clothing Toby hadn’t even thought about putting back on when he hastily dressed himself. ‘A true gentleman never throws his drawers into the sea,’ she told Toby with a severe look she used to disguise her true self as well now Magnus came to think about it.
‘More than that, a gentleman actually wears his drawers, instead of throwing them where they might get washed away,’ Magnus said with mock solemnity.
‘It’s too hot to wear anything you don’t have to,’ Toby claimed airily, but Magnus was glad of every layer between him and Mrs Hetta Champion as he turned to watch the sea while they walked away from it and he muttered something about seeing them all later.
Chapter Fourteen
It was the middle of August before the Champions and Hailes were back in Devon. Magnus frowned at the road ahead and decided to forget a fantasy of Hetta always at his side to tease and plague him for his own good. He squared his shoulders and rode in the dust kicked up by the carriage horses for a few moments before dropping further back to cast a brooding gaze over the gentler curves of the south Devon landscape and calculate how long it would take to reach Isabella’s small estate in this lush county. Aline had passed on the fact Isabella had one here and felt guilty she had never visited it. Then his sister insisted they owed it to Isabella to go there and report back as they would only need to go a few miles out of their way. He would have preferred to leave them in safe lodgings and come alone, but they would not be left behind, so he supposed this was better than two stubborn women setting out alone.
‘That will teach me to use logic on a pair of females determined not to be logical,’ he told the moody-looking sky. His horse twitched its ears as if to say For goodness’ sake get on with this daft journey or take me to the nearest stable and forget about it.
Of course, he was delighted Aline and Hetta had taken to one another. He reminded himself to be pleased about it when he rode past the carriage and they didn’t even notice he was going ahead to escape swallowing Devon dust whenever he breathed in. Aline and Hetta had a habit of presenting him with fait accompli and he was certainly not happy about them. First there was a letter from Isabella asking him to visit tin mines and copper barons to find out if there were fortunes lying about for her children’s trustees to invest in. No, he could have told her so without all that effort—everything that could be got out of the land was already being wrenched away, but he knew it was only an excuse for them to stay longer when he wasted time and energy compiling a report for her.
Now Isabella obliged Hetta and his sister by agreeing he should inspect Abrah House, the small estate her brother-in-law bought when he was her guardian and trustee, if that wasn’t too much trouble? He sighed and shook his head at their blatant scheming and wondered if Hetta had any idea Aline and Isabella were doing everything they could to throw them together. If they only knew how hard it was for him to act the gentleman with this constant grind of wanting keeping him awake night after night, they might let him return to London and hand the task of guarding Master Champion and his mother back to Sir Hadrian Porter. They might, but he shook his head as he reached the conclusion, no, they would not do so especially if they knew about his driven passion for a woman who obviously didn’t want another husband, or she would have one by now. And how could Aline not know he was close to breaking point? The tension in the air when he and Hetta were even in the same room felt almost touchable to him now and he got more besotted with the glorious, complicated, somehow rather innocent, woman with every mile they travelled together, confound it.
It was time they moved on. It had been getting even more difficult to resist Hetta’s subtle appeal as she explored rugged shores and green and fertile valleys, bleak moorland and ancient villages that seemed to have grown in their hollows rather than been built there by human hands. She was open and joyous in Cornwall, and the more he saw of the real Hetta under her shabby disguise, the deeper he fell under her spell and she didn’t even know. At least now she was wearing a grey cotton gown for travelling—given the dust and tedium, muslin was impractical—but it was best not to think about his appalling physical state whenever he saw her fine feminine figure outlined by the wretched stuff now. These hills meant the younger passengers got out of the coach to walk while it laboured uphill with Peg and the luggage, so Hetta and Aline had to dress more practically. Magnus didn’t want Hetta gloriously unbuttoned for any stray traveller to gawk at, so he blessed the grey cambric and hoped it would rain when they reached their destination, so she would wrap herself in the deplorable cloak she had on when he’d first set eyes on her. Even that day his inner rake had enjoyed the contrast of the hidden with the obvious as Delphi had ruled the dock with the confidence of an established beauty and he’d felt guilty about noting another woman’s attractions while he tried to plead for a part in his daughter’s life.
He shivered and eyed the road ahead as he thought how far he had come since then. His attention sharpened on here and now as he saw the road narrow and deepen ahead of them. Trees grew so thickly all of a sudden that they almost touched overhead and shadows lay in gloomy pockets on the road. The suggestion of a breeze was rustling leaves and whispering of unseen eyes and waking ancient fears that prickled the hairs at the back of his neck. They were vulnerable here. He remembered the night at Hampstead when some felon had tried to steal Toby away and shivered despite the sticky heat of the enclosed valley.
Magnus had put his confidence in Sir Hadrian Porter’s talents for untangling knots that looked impossible and left him to worry about the last Earl of Carrowe’s murderer. His task was to keep Hetta and Toby, Aline and Peg safe, so he could put all this frustrated passion into making sure nobody got close enough to catch any of them and prevent Sir Hadrian doing his job. He let his thoughts linger for a snatched moment on the suspicion that his elder brother was deeper in this dark business than he wanted him to be. A cold shiver ran down his back and he was glad this wasn’t the time or place to wonder why the suspicion had haunted him all the way to Cornwall and back again. He had been avoiding the issue since they left Hampstead, but he must confront it soon although he had more important people to worry about right now.
Magnus had kept an eye out for signs they were being followed or watched when they were busy being tourists. Instinct whispered they were scrutinised by unseen eyes on Chesil Beach, but the feeling went as soon as it washed over him that foggy and uncanny seeming day and he had dismissed it as fanciful. He had no suspicion steal
thy eyes were watching again until they made their way through shadowy woodland and it intensified as they went down the deeply carved road. He held his horse steady with willpower and his knees and tied a Belcher neckcloth over his mouth and nose, then slipped back into the dust behind the carriage so he would be close enough to fight an attacker off in this confounded rat run. His sharpened senses heard the jingle of a harness and a few murmured words from coachman to guard and he knew they were uneasy as well. Jem winked at him from the roof and at least Magnus could trust him to keep a sharp eye out if he was blinded by dust.
‘You look like a highwayman, Mr Haile,’ Hetta told him when the road widened and he could ride alongside the carriage again.
‘I look a fool, Mrs Champion.’ He lowered the mask enough to speak, since most of the dust they were kicking up was behind them in a greyish cloud that could warn anyone they were coming if the trees were not so thick here they absorbed it.
‘If you ride ahead, you could avoid the dust,’ she said as if she had no idea why he was staying close. He knew from her steady gaze and refusal to show fear in front of her child she was conscious how vulnerable they were.
‘I don’t think my horse is a natural leader,’ he explained as if he only came to exchange polite nothings.
‘How frustrating for you, Mr Haile.’ So, she thought he was more inclined to lead than follow, did she?
Magnus sat taller in his saddle until he remembered how he’d drifted through life since coming down from Oxford. ‘He suits me well enough,’ he said and endured another ten minutes in the dust.
‘Poor horse,’ the lady murmured when he rode back to her side of the coach when those minutes were up and they were still not clear of heavily wooded land.
‘I am quite sure he would prefer a nice cool stable and his oats, but if he had showed more spirit early in his life he would not be a nag for hire now.’
‘He seems well enough to me,’ she said as if there were double meanings behind her words as well. Did he? Was he a good enough gentleman when he forgot the sins and clumsy omissions of the past? ‘You would not have accepted him when the ostler brought him out if he didn’t have the power and endurance for a long ride.’
‘No, he has plenty of staying power and a good eye.’
‘There you are, then. Or rather here we are—nearly at the end of this gloomy wood at long last.’
‘Indeed,’ he said with a swift look round and an uneasy shiver. He could almost feel intent eyes on them as they ambled along at a pace meant to ensure this team of horses could stay the journey, since there was nothing much between them and their destination now but woods, moors and sheep.
‘I shall be very glad when we reach Abrah House,’ Aline confided from the seat with her back to the horses that she and Hetta took by rote with Peg because Toby was carriage sick if he sat that way round.
Magnus opened his mouth to say they should have let him come alone again when a shot rang out like the crack of doom. There was a startled silence and for a moment he could hear nothing at all. Then pigeons flapped into frantic flight and a pheasant exploded out of the undergrowth, squawking and scolding and threatening to push the already skittish horses into a blind panic. Even Magnus’s steady mount danced under him as time started up again. He asserted control over the spooked animal and blessed its steady common sense, but curses rang out as the coachman fought to control the panicked carriage horses. Jem and the guard glared into the thinning woodland with their guns cocked and ready to blast away at the shooter if he was reckless enough to show his face. At last Magnus had time to feel a numb sting in his upper arm and dismissed it as a pinprick. He knew how lucky he was the bullet scorched along his skin instead of finding a truer mark. It felt urgent to get them all out of this wretched wood as fast as possible and never mind worrying about the hot sting of pain until there was time to see how much damage the rogue had done. Stay around here much longer and the villain would have time to reload or aim a second weapon.
‘Whip up,’ he barked at the coachman. ‘Nothing more than a scratch,’ he reassured the man impatiently when he seemed to hesitate and wonder if Magnus was capable of following them if he did as he was bid. Magnus urged his own mount to canter and make it harder for whoever had tried to kill or maim him to try again. He hoped he was right about it being only one attacker, because if there were enough of them to be so bold a fresher horse could soon outrun a heavy travelling carriage drawn by a team picked for endurance not speed.
‘Now do you see why I wanted to come alone?’ he shouted at Hetta as they tore out of that damned valley as fast as they could go and she seemed determined to keep watching out of the window instead of crouching down to avoid being injured in their dash to safety or shot at by unseen attackers. It felt to Magnus as if the whole of nature let out a sigh of relief as well when they were over the hill and out into fresh air and moorland.
‘So, whoever that was could pick you off then come after us?’ Hetta yelled back as if she was furious with him for being out in the open when that was simply where he had to be. Hetta waved imperiously at his injured arm, as if she didn’t have the right words to scold him for getting shot. He tried not to be flattered by the fear in her eyes as she ran them over him to check he was not concealing a dreadful injury under the long tear on his sleeve and a faint stain of blood.
‘Best let them get their breath back,’ Magnus told the coachman now there was hardly enough cover for a lost sheep, let alone a hurrying assassin. ‘Take a few minutes to settle them while I see if I can spot him.’
Jem tied the reins of Magnus’s horse to the back of the carriage and insisted on scrambling after Magnus when he climbed the high bank to survey the scene behind them with a fine telescope he’d once borrowed from Hetta and conveniently forgot to return.
‘Wulf will have my hide if the rogue shoots you,’ he grumbled at Jem while he focused the powerful glass on the distant trees.
‘Not even a rifleman could get me from that far away and Mr Wulf will have mine if I let you get shot again.’
‘No need. He’s gone,’ Magnus said.
Through the scope he found a beaten-down nest of greenery, but it was empty and the oppressive feeling of invisible evil had gone as well. The wood was just a peaceful place to shade weary travellers on a hot afternoon. A few yards further on and the shooter would have been visible from horseback or the roof of a carriage. Further back the shadows would be too dark and shifting to hit a target. The villain had time to find the right spot to shoot, then melt away, and that spoke of planning as well as a ruthless sense of purpose. Magnus could count the number of people who knew where they were bound on the fingers of one hand. So, what good would killing Magnus Haile do the last Earl of Carrowe’s murderer? Deflection, he decided grimly, shutting the telescope and slipping it back into his pocket. Somebody wanted to get Sir Hadrian away from London and the scene of the crime. Magnus’s scowl went grim as he went through a mental list of who might know their destination and be desperate enough to lie in wait to kill again if it would save his own neck. A common-or-garden villain would have cut his losses and run when Sir Hadrian Porter came home, but an uncommon one might have too much to lose.
‘Travelling together was supposed to bring us safety in numbers,’ his sister told him when he and Jem had scrambled back down to the road.
‘Not a very successful strategy as it turned out,’ Magnus replied. Remembered shock in her eyes and a total lack of colour in her cheeks told him she knew how close he had been to disaster in that shadowy hollow. ‘You would have been safer in Exeter while I came here alone.’
‘You could have lain in a ditch for days before anyone found you in such a remote spot and what would become of us then?’ Hetta argued.
‘I dare say you would manage,’ he said and had enough sense to hide a grin when she raised her eyes to the heavens and held up her hands in despair.
&nb
sp; ‘Now I would like you to ride while Mr Haile comes with us, so we can attend to his arm, Jem. Lady Aline and I will feel better when we have dressed his wound and, as we will be the ones who end up nursing him if he neglects it, please ignore his protests,’ Hetta said before Magnus could reclaim his horse.
Jem grinned and Magnus realised it was quicker to do as she wanted than argue. ‘This is ridiculous,’ he protested as he was pitched forward when the driver set his horses as headlong a pace as they would go on this last stretch of road.
‘As ridiculous as pretending you are not hurt, then falling off your horse when you lose so much blood you pass out?’ Hetta challenged briskly.
Aline was waving Peg’s sewing scissors about with such intent Magnus hastily shrugged off his coat before she could ruin it completely and he didn’t have many left. ‘It’s hardly big enough to call a flesh wound,’ he grumbled as the graze along his forearm refused to bleed again for his would-be nurses, but still ached like hell. Peg nodded and left Aline and Hetta to it while she listened to Toby’s list of possible ways for a person to die of even the smallest wound, as if fascinated.
‘Next you will try to tell us someone thought you were a deer,’ Hetta challenged briskly, yet Magnus thought there were traces of shock and anger and something a little more encouraging haunting her fine eyes as she defied him to make light of this even for her son’s sake.
‘Of course not. That would be absurd,’ he countered partly to distract himself as Aline ruthlessly rolled up his shirtsleeve and peered at the graze. ‘Ouch!’ he exclaimed when his sister prodded the wound ruthlessly, then took the tweezers Peg produced from her vast bag. Magnus wondered if Peg had the contents of Pandora’s box inside it to distract himself from what his sister was doing.
A Rake to the Rescue Page 15