“Why not?” she asked in an ominous tone.
Why not, indeed. As he opened his mouth to tell her yet another lie, Neil had an earth-shattering epiphany: Betrayal works both ways.
Chapter Twenty-four
NEIL’S HAND DROPPED AWAY from her arm.
“Because if you summon him here, I’ll kill him, and I don’t wish to do that in front of you.”
The blunt statement robbed Beth of breath. For a moment she stared at him, hoping that the words would take on some other meaning if she allowed them enough time. But they didn’t, they kept their unpalatable form, and finally she could no longer deny it and said faintly, “What?”
“I said I mean to kill Richmond.”
Under her wondering gaze, his mouth hardened into a thin, cruel line. His eyes as he looked down at her became the pitiless jet she remembered from their first meeting. His handsome face set in savage lines. His tall, muscular body seemed to expand and tighten into something truly formidable. She’d glimpsed this side of him before: the predator.
Beth felt very cold suddenly. “Why?”
“Because if I don’t, he’s going to kill me. One or the other. There’s no other way out of this.”
Breathing remained difficult. Thinking was harder. It was as though the safe, familiar landscape she’d thought she was traveling through had changed in an instant into something out of a nightmare.
Keeping her voice even cost her a considerable effort. “And what is ‘this,’ pray?”
There was a flicker in his eyes as they slid over her face.
“Something far too dark and ugly for me to sully your ears with.” His tone was curt. “Suffice it to say that I find I can no longer make you a part of it, and will drop you off at the next village or farmhouse we come to.”
Tightening his hold on the reins, he turned back to the horse, giving every indication he meant to once again mount up. Beyond him, on the road far below, Hugh and his men rounded a bend and disappeared from sight.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Beth walked several steps away before turning to scowl at him. She was very much shocked still, but her wits had recovered enough to realize that what she was hearing from him was the truth. The man she saw before her, the predator, was absolutely real, and, she had no doubt, absolutely ruthless. She also did not doubt that he meant to do exactly as he said. But she was not, she discovered, frightened of him in the least. He might look as savage as he chose, but she knew as well as she knew anything that he would never harm her. “Do you actually think you can just tell me you mean to kill my brother-in-law, and if you don’t he’s going to kill you, and that’s an end to it? No more questions, no discussion of any kind, just ‘I’ll drop you off’? ”
He was watching her, slapping the reins across his palm impatiently, his expression grim. Behind him, the horse dropped its head and began cropping at the dew-drenched grass, the homey sound an odd juxtaposition to the tension spinning out between them.
“I’m sorry for it. Believe me, I would not cause you pain if I saw any other way out. But I don’t. And if one of us has to die, I mean to make damned sure it’s Richmond and not me.”
Beth thought of Claire, and her heart lurched. “You can’t do this.”
“I have no choice.”
“Why? Forget that fustian about sullying my ears and give me a round answer. I love Hugh as dearly as any brother, and he is my sister Claire’s whole world. If you kill him, she will be destroyed. Our whole family will grieve forever.”
“Would you rather I be the one who dies instead?”
Beth’s heart lurched a second time. The world seemed to spin around her as she realized how that possibility made her feel, and then it steadied again as she faced the knowledge head-on. Her shoulders squared. Her head came up. Her eyes held his without flinching.
“No. I can’t bear that either,” she said.
He stood looking at her for a moment without saying anything more. Then he turned away, pulling the horse’s head up.
“Come.” His tone was curt as he tossed the reins over the horse’s head and swung into the saddle. Behind him, the sun was limning the horizon with gold, and casting the blackest of long shadows across the countryside below. It backlit him so that he appeared as nothing more than a big, sinister silhouette on horseback as he rode toward her. “It’s time to go.”
Beth watched his approach with growing resolve. Reaching her, he reined in, then held his hand down to her, clearly meaning to once again pull her up behind him.
Chin jutting, she backed several paces away and folded her arms over her chest.
“Oh, no. I’m not going anywhere with you. Not until we talk this out.”
“Talking pays no toll.” His voice turned harsh as he withdrew his hand. His face was the hard, expressionless mask she’d seen only once or twice before. But he didn’t set the horse to following her.
“Nevertheless, I wish to talk.”
“Do you think I can’t compel you to come with me, my girl?”
That made her bristle. “I think you’d be well advised not to try.”
“I warn you, you are beginning to test my patience.”
Her eyes flashed. “Behold me all a-quiver.”
His eyes narrowed dangerously at her. “You should be all a-quiver. If you had the sense God gave a goose, you would have been from the beginning.”
“Pooh. You don’t frighten me in the least.” She held his gaze, not backing down an inch, even as the truth broke over her like a particularly icy wave and her eyes widened at the force of it. “That’s why you came in the window. You meant to kill Richmond that night. Didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I must have been damnably in the way!”
“You were. And don’t swear.”
“Don’t swear? Don’t swear?” Her voice rose precipitously, so much so that the horse threw up its head in alarm. She was suddenly so angry at Neil she could practically feel steam rising from the top of her head. “You to tell me that, who doesn’t so much as blink at murder? I’m surprised you didn’t just kill me, too, that night. Then there would have been nothing to stop you getting to Richmond.”
He said nothing.
Her eyes widened. “You thought about it. Didn’t you?”
“I thought about it,” he admitted.
“You don’t even have the grace to lie,” she marveled.
“I’m done with lying.”
“Having lied for so long, the difficulty of that must be on the order of an alcoholic adjuring drink!” Her brow knit as she cast her mind back over various things he had told her. Then she looked at him with growing horror. “Dear Lord, you came after me for a purpose, didn’t you? You saved me from that unholy castle so that you could use me as bait to lure Richmond to you!”
Once again he sat silent. Then he said, way too calmly for her liking, “Before you attempt to slay me with any more dagger looks, I suggest you take a moment to reflect again on what your fate would have been had I not rescued you.”
“Are you looking for gratitude?”
“I’m looking for nothing. Damn it to bloody hell and back anyway, I’ve had enough of this.” With that, he swung down from the horse’s back, tossed the reins over a nearby branch, and stalked purposefully toward her.
Every self-protective instinct she possessed screamed at her to run, to put as much distance as possible between herself and this formidable man who was clearly quite capable of breaking her in two and looked like he would enjoy doing it, but then she’d never been much a one for turning tail, and anyway her temper was heating.
“I forbid you to kill Richmond. Forbid you, do you hear?” Her tone was fierce. “Just as I mean to forbid him to kill you.”
He gave a derisive laugh. “Forbid away. It will make no difference.”
Then he was upon her, towering over her most disconcertingly. Knowing him, Beth read his clear intention in his expression of putting her on the back of the horse by brute force if
necessary.
“I certainly can’t prevent you from behaving like the veriest bully, but I guarantee you’ll not keep me behind you for long. I’ll jump off the first chance I get.” Holding his gaze, she scorned to retreat so much as a step.
“I give you thanks for the warning. I see I must set you up in front of me instead.” Lip curling mockingly at her, he scooped her up with such ridiculous ease that, angry as she was, Beth was forced to acknowledge that physically she was all but helpless against his strength. Fuming silently, glowering at him, she scorned to struggle as he carried her like a babe in arms the necessary few feet and plopped her down sideways in the saddle, clearly meaning to mount behind her.
“Hah!” Taking no more than a split second to swing her leg over so that she was astride, she snatched the reins from the branch and drove her heels into the horse’s sides, then clung for dear life as the startled beast leaped forward and bounded away into the undergrowth as if a pack of wolves were nipping at its heels.
“Beth!” he roared after her, and commenced to swearing. She delighted in every profane word.
Chuckling, in full control of the horse now, Beth took her time circling back toward him, being careful to keep well out of his reach. Bathed in the rosy glow of the brightening dawn that pinkened his white shirt and cast a long shadow at his booted feet, his eyes snapping with anger, his lean cheeks flushed with it, he left off swearing as she came near in favor of fixing her with a hard stare that must, she thought, have curdled the valor of many an opponent.
Pulling the horse to a halt in the lee of a just-greening larch, she smiled at him seraphically, triumph plain in her eyes.
“Piqued, repiqued, and capoted,” she said.
“So it seems.” He was still angry, she knew he was, but he had it well in hand now and, had she not known him so well, it wouldn’t have shown. His tone was deceptively mild.
“Why must you kill Richmond, or he you?” she demanded, keeping a wary eye on the distance between them. “Unless you wish to be left to walk, you’ll tell me. The truth, mind!”
“’Tis fortunate, then, that walking suits me well enough.”
To her surprise, with that he turned his back on her and walked away, striding off into the trees along the narrow path that wound down the hill. Most unexpectedly thwarted, Beth stayed where she was, frowning after him. He kept going until his tall form was almost lost amidst the forest’s early-morning gloom.
The devil fly away with him!
Only for a moment did she consider just turning about and riding away. Abandoning him when search parties scoured the countryside hunting for him had never been what she intended. Despite everything, she had no wish to see him recaptured. A little anxious, entirely wrathful, fearing a trick, she nudged the horse forward and followed, keeping him in sight, staying carefully back. Once in the woods, it quickly grew almost as dark as though dawn had not yet broken. A wash of deep charcoal gray lay over everything. Mist rose like fingers of smoke from the ground. The air smelled of damp. The twittering of just-waking birds was punctuated only by the jingle of the bridle, and the rhythmic plodding of her mount’s hooves.
A branch, wet with dew, brushed her cheek. Ducking, she pushed it away. When she once again looked at the path, she realized that he had increased the distance between them. Or, at least, she thought he had. That was he up ahead. Wasn’t it? No, it was a thick branch half fallen across the path. Surely she hadn’t lost . . .
A flurry of movement from behind caused her eyes to widen with fright. A grunt, a rush of air, the landing of a weight heavy enough to jar her and make the horse throw up its head and lunge forward in surprise, followed before she quite knew what was happening. She barely had time to gasp and tighten her grip on the reins to steady the plunging horse before a strong arm clamped around her waist and a hard body slid into the saddle behind her and another hand—his hand—caught the reins in a steely grip that took instant control. Stunned, she realized he had leaped onto the horse from behind, and both cursed and marveled at herself for not having foreseen it.
Stiff with indignation, Beth didn’t even bother to struggle as he settled more comfortably into the saddle and took the reins from her unresisting hands. With his thighs pressing against hers and his wide chest supporting her back, she might as well have been sitting on his lap.
“What now, Madame Roux?” he said in her ear, with just the smallest hint of gloating in his tone.
Knowing herself bested for the moment, Beth scorned to put up what she knew would be an entirely useless fight.
“If you think you are just going to drop me off where it suits you and go off and kill my brother-in-law without any hindrance from me, you are sadly mistaken, and so I take leave to tell you,” she flung at him over her shoulder. “I will raise the mightiest outcry you have ever heard. I will scream for help until the windows shatter as far away as London! I would sooner see you recaptured than permit that.”
“Ah, but that’s because you don’t perfectly understand the case.” He continued to guide the now understandably skittish horse down the trail with an expert hand. “If I’m recaptured, I’ll be executed as close to immediately as they can manage. Without trial. On, I might add, Richmond’s orders. Or at least, with his concurrence.”
“But why?” He was telling the truth. She heard it in his voice, and her stomach tightened in fear. Her fingers clenched on the pommel. “Neil, please, I’m begging you. Whatever the truth is, I deserve to know it.”
“Believe me, you are much better off not.”
She skewed around to look at him. His eyes were inscrutable, his mouth hard. Lines she had never seen before etched his skin, and she realized that, for all he gave no outward sign of it, he must be as weary as she.
“I have developed a—fondness for you, you know,” she said, a trifle gruff. “Nothing you tell me, no matter how terrible it is, will change that.”
His arm tightened fractionally around her waist. A quick glint in his eyes was as quickly gone.
“I thought it wouldn’t be much longer before I was treated to a display of feminine wiles. The last trick in a woman’s arsenal, are they not?” His tone was light, purposefully, she believed. “Egad, you’ll be fluttering your eyelashes at me next.”
Giving him a pert grimace by way of a reply, she faced forward again. “I mean what I say. Whatever dread secret you’re harboring, I will not think the worse of you for it, I give you my word.”
He laughed, the sound utterly mirthless. “Are you so sure I care for your good opinion? That’s mighty conceited of you, my girl.”
“Yes, I think you do.”
She felt him tense. The arm around her waist went suddenly hard as iron.
“Very well, then, if you will have it. I’m an assassin.” He practically bit off the words. “A hired killer who has dispatched so many souls over the course of my career that I’ve lost count. A government-sanctioned murderer who, in one of life’s smaller ironies, now finds my own kind unleashed on me.”
The truth was terrible, but, Beth realized, not altogether surprising. It explained much.
“So where does Richmond fit into this? He is not an assassin, too.” That last wasn’t even a question. Impossible to imagine Hugh in such a role.
“What, no hysterics? Not even a delicate, maidenly shrinking at finding yourself trapped in the arms of a killer?” His tone was bitterly satirical. His arm remained hard about her waist.
“I can’t see that either would be the least use, and hysterics might further frighten the poor horse.”
Almost, she thought, he laughed. Certainly he made a quick, choked sound, and some small degree of tension in the arm around her eased.
“Thus speaks my unshakable Beth! You’ve been a rare delight to me, you know.” They reached the meadow at the bottom of the hill, and he set the horse at a canter through the mist that now glimmered in the rising sun. “Making your acquaintance has been like encountering a ray of sunshine in the darkness.”
She gripped the pommel tighter. “You say that almost as if it’s a farewell. You should know I don’t mean you to be rid of me that easily.”
“But you will be rid of me nonetheless, as soon as I can contrive to set you down somewhere safe, because I would not kill Richmond in front of you. And kill him I must, for all I own I would rather not. Afterward, I imagine the fondness you profess to feel for me will be at an end.”
Her heart clutched. “There must be some other way.”
“There isn’t. A death sentence like the one hanging over me is all but impossible to elude. The only chance I stand lies in vanishing from the face of the earth. And the only way I can do that for as many years as it will take is by resuming my true identity. I kill Richmond, then am never seen again, while the Marquis of Durham lives quite comfortably into what is hopefully a ripe old age.”
Beth took a deep breath. “Are you saying you . . . are the Marquis of Durham?”
“Do I detect skepticism in your voice, Madame Roux? I am indeed. And unfortunately for him, Richmond is the only one who knows it.”
There came the briefest of pauses. Beth thought that over, then came to a most eye-opening realization.
“No,” she said softly, “he isn’t. Because now I do, too. And even if you hadn’t told me, our paths would have crossed sooner or later, if you are who you say and you mean to take up that identity again. I would ever have recognized you.”
There was a long silence broken only by the creaking of the saddle and the horse’s muffled hoofbeats.
“I must be more tired than I had supposed. You’re quite right, of course.”
“So do you now feel compelled to kill me, too?”
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