“But how could we have?” one of the jockeys asked. “We was on his heels—well, a few minutes behind at most—and then … he just wasn’t there.”
Frowning, Demon thought back. Shutting the spyglass, he slipped it back into the saddle pocket. “You had him in sight until he went over the rise where you stopped—the rise where we asked the other rider?”
All the jockeys nodded.
Demon knew every dip and hollow on the heath; he’d, been riding there since he was a child. He closed his eyes for a moment, envisaging … if that other rider had been mistaken, or …
Opening his eyes, he wheeled The Flynn back toward Newmarket. “Let’s head home, but we’ll spread out in a line north-south, and go at a slow canter. Yell if you see any sign.”
The horses were tiring, skittish; they needed to get back to their stable, into the warm, and be tended. The run had broken their usual routine.
Demon directed his men into a line, and they started back.
He wasn’t sure what to think. He was deep in weighing up the possibilities when Higgins, to the far south of the line, gave a hie.
“Over there! Isn’t that The Gentleman?”
Demon reined in, hauled out the spyglass, and put it to his eye.
And there was The Gentleman—with a suspicious-looking lump in the saddle. The Gentleman was well to the south, reins dragging as he lazily cropped coarse grass, then ambled on a little way, the lifeless lump on his back swaying with his gait.
Demon drew in a breath, let it out on a sigh. Stuffing the glass back in his saddlebag, he nodded. “That’s him. Let’s go.”
As one, he and his men changed course, and closed on the wandering horse.
The Gentleman’s head came up as they neared, but then he scented his stablemates and went back to his grass. The lump on his back didn’t move.
“Hold up.” Demon waved to his jockeys to rein in a little way away. Their horses sensed the wrongness of the slumped form on The Gentleman’s back and grew yet more skittish.
At a walk, Demon approached The Gentleman. The Flynn was an old hand; he would trust completely and go wherever Demon steered him.
But, yes, that was a dead body. It looked like their horse thief had met his end.
Glancing back at the restless, high-spirited horses, Demon waved them off. “Go on to the stables. I’ll be behind you. No more training this morning. They’ve had a good run. Get them inside and rubbed down.”
The younger jockeys had paled; they nodded and went. The older ones hestitated, but then nodded and headed in.
Leaving Demon to draw closer to The Gentleman, lean down and grab the trailing reins, then edge nearer and, without any real hope, check for a pulse at the side of the man’s neck. Finding none, he bent low and peered at the dead man’s face—enough to confirm that, yes, he was their horse thief.
And judging from his hands and the tanned line at his throat, until recently he’d been somewhere sunny, like India.
Straightening in his saddle, Demon frowned at the corpse. “Who the devil are you? And what the hell’s going on?”
Seventeen
Demon led The Gentleman and his grisly burden back to the stables. It took him and two of his men to lift the man free of the saddle; they laid him out in the back of a hay cart.
Carruthers came hobbling out of the tack room, where he’d been imbibing medicinal brandy. He looked down at the man, nodded. “That’s him. Cheeky, vicious sod. Not so cheeky now. Looks like retribution caught up with him pretty quick.” He glanced at Demon. “Any idea who did it?”
Demon thought of the other rider they’d seen, but could anyone slide a dagger through a man’s heart, and within minutes appear so unconcerned? He shook his head. “No idea. But he was out of our sight for a good while. No saying who he might have met up with.”
“Strange-looking dagger, that.” Carruthers eyed the hilt that protruded from the man’s chest.
“It’s ivory.” Demon bent and looked more closely at it, and any doubt this man was involved with the Black Cobra vanished. The hilt was the same as the daggers that had put paid to first Larkins, then Ferrar, whom they’d originally thought was the Black Cobra. The sound of riders approaching, followed by a shout, “Ho! Cynster!” had Demon straightening, then striding quickly out of the front doors to the area before the stable.
Logan dismounted as Demon appeared. For the first time in days, Logan grinned.
Demon’s gaze reached him and his old friend’s face lit. “Logan Monteith! Sorry—Major Monteith. You are definitely a sight for sore eyes—even if you’re half covered in … what? Soot? “
“We escaped a fire, and a few other inconveniences, hence our sorry sartorial state. But I hear you’ve grown sober.” Logan offered his hand, and it was crushed in Demon’s long-fingered grip.
“Not a bit of it!” Demon thumped him on the back and wrung his hand. “As I heard it, it’s you who’ve been getting serious these past months—and into serious danger, too.”
“Sadly, that’s true. Apropos of which …” Releasing Demon, Logan turned to the other three, who by now had dismounted and stood watching them with varying degrees of humorous understanding. “Allow me to present Captain Linnet Trevission, captain of the Esperance, out of Guernsey.”
Linnet gave Demon her hand. “A pleasure, sir.”
Grasping her fingers, Demon bowed gracefully. “The pleasure is all mine.” Straightening, he eyed Linnet’s breeches. “I warn you, my wife, Flick, will be after your tailor’s direction.”
Brows faintly arching, Linnet inclined her head, and Logan continued the introductions.
Although Demon hadn’t met Charles or Deverell before, he knew of their mission.
“So,” Logan asked, “what’s been going on?”
“You’ve heard Delborough’s through safe and sound, but sacrificed his scroll-holder in a trap we hoped might capture Ferrar, but his man, Larkins, got caught instead, and then Ferrar killed him and got clean away?”
When Logan nodded, Demon went on, “Yesterday, Hamilton came up from Chelmsford via Sudbury. The fiends, had set up an ambush outside Sudbury, but we were there in force, too, and Miss Ensworth, who’s traveling with Hamilton, managed to leave the scroll-holder and tempt Ferrar to take it, which he did. While my cousins and I dealt with the cultists at the ambush site, others”—Demon nodded at Charles and Deverell—”Wolverstone and some of your erstwhile colleagues, followed Ferrar, hoping to find his lair, but then he was murdered in the old abbey ruins at Bury St. Edmunds, and all that was found was his body.”
“Ferrar’s dead?” Logan’s face, and that of the others, showed their shock.
Grimly Demon nodded. “As of yesterday afternoon.” Shrewd blue eyes surveyed them. “I know you were expected in today from Bedford—dare I assume the reason you’re here now, so bright and early and in such sartorial straits, is because you were chasing a man, tallish, black hair, black coat, a gentleman at first glance?”
“You’ve seen him?” Logan asked.
“He’s dead, too.” Demon tipped his head toward the stable. “Come and take a look.”
Demon led them to the cart. Logan stood at the cart’s foot, Linnet by his side, and looked down at the man they’d last seen riding out of the alley in Bedford.
Charles examined the dagger, the wound. “This happened recently.”
“Less than an hour ago.” Demon told them all he knew of the man’s actions to the point where he’d found him slumped dead in his saddle.
He sent a stable lad to fetch the man’s horse. While they waited, he asked, “Incidentally, how did you know to come here? Did you actually track him this far?”
Logan shook his head. “I tracked him out of Bedford, and we got sightings on this side of Cambridge, but we lost him approaching Newmarket. But when we rode into the town, it was buzzing with the news that someone had dared steal a horse from your stable. That seemed too great a coincidence—we know these people appropriate goods, hors
es, anything they need, as they wish. People in town pointed out the way here.”
Demon waved at the black horse the stable lad led up. “The blighter left this one when he took ours.”
Logan, Deverell, and Charles studied the horse; they all nodded. “That’s the one he was riding at Bedford,” Deverell said.
“So he was riding this way,” Charles said, “not because he was fleeing us, because he thought he’d left us soon to be dead in Bedford, but for some other reason.”
“Presumably to deliver the letter he took from us to someone.” Deverell eyed the body. “He hasn’t still got it, has he?”
“Inside coat pocket,” Linnet said. “That’s where he put it.”
Deverell touched the man’s coat, then eased it open enough to feel inside while leaving the dagger in place. “Nothing there.” He patted the man’s other pockets. “Or elsewhere. It’s gone.”
Logan frowned. “I think we can assume that whoever he delivered the letter to rewarded him with that dagger.”
“We were chasing him at the time.” Demon shrugged. “He might have been killed for the same reason Larkins, and presumably Ferrar, were—sacrificed because they’d been seen, and could, almost certainly would, be taken up at some point.”
“And questioned.” Charles nodded. “That makes sense.”
Linnet glanced at Logan. “Do you recognize him?”
Eyes locked on the man’s face, Logan grimaced. “He looks vaguely familiar. I might have seen him in Bombay—we were there for five months. He might have been a friend of Ferrar’s. If he is, Gareth or Del would have a better chance of placing him.”
Demon nodded decisively. “We’d best get his body to Elveden, then. There’s a washroom if you’d like to tend to your accumulated wounds and wash off the worst of the smoke streaks while I get the horses put to, then we can ride on together.”
* * *
It was midmorning when the five of them rode up to the sprawling Jacobean manor house hidden away in its extensive park; they’d ridden ahead, leaving the wagon carrying the body to follow as fast as it could. Crisped by the recent frost, snow still lay in pockets beneath the trees; Demon had mentioned there’d been a heavy fall a few days before.
Emerging from the forest into the graveled forecourt, Linnet studied the rambling house with its many gables and haphazard wings, and sensed it was ancient; an aura of permanence, of long-established peace, seemed to emanate from it. Courtesy of the dull day, lamps were lit inside; through the many paned windows, the interior of the house seemed to glow with warmth and welcome.
A warmth and welcome that came tumbling out to greet them. Phoebe and Penny were already in residence; they must have been sitting in a window somewhere, for they came rushing out to embrace their husbands, disregarding residual smoke streaks and bloodstains to exclaim over various scratches and gashes, then they whirled on Linnet and embraced her, then Logan, too.
A slender yet statuesque blond, assured and serene, had followed the two ladies outside. She proved to be Minerva, the great Wolverstone’s duchess.
Introduced, Linnet would have curtsied, but Minerva prevented it, clasping both Linnet’s hands instead and smiling warmly. “Welcome to Elveden, Linnet—we tend not to stand on ceremony here, so please call me Minerva. The other ladies will be delighted to meet you. And please don’t hesitate to ask if there’s anything I can arrange to make your stay more comfortable.” She glanced back into the house as many footsteps approached. “Ah—here comes the other side of the coin.”
A small army of men appeared on the front steps, led by a man Linnet instantly identified as Wolverstone. He was tallish, although not the tallest there, black-haired and lean-cheeked, with a certain predatory cast to his austere Norman features. Power hung about him like an invisible mantle, yet, it was the look he exchanged with Minerva, one of male resignation overlaying an infinitely deep pool of affection, that settled it.
Smiling, Minerva introduced Linnet, then Logan.
Wolverstone greeted them with sincere pleasure and open approval, then insisted the whole party—which had swollen considerably as more and more gentlemen and ladies came out—adjourn to the warmth of the house.
In the large, wood-paneled hall—glancing around, Linnet thought it must originally have been the main manor hall—Wolverstone, who went by the name of Royce among friends, introduced them to the small army of others.
Two of the men, soldiers by their bearing, were among the first to greet Logan. Royce stood back as, with huge smiles, the three wrung each other’s hands and clapped shoulders, then Logan introduced the pair to Linnet. “Derek Delborough and Gareth Hamilton. You’ve heard me speak of both.”
Linnet shook hands, exchanged smiles, noting the closeness between the three men—that of long-standing brothers-in-arms, men who had fought shoulder to shoulder, back to back, whose friendship had been forged in the heat of battle.
Delborough and Hamilton were as surprised to see her as Logan was to see the ladies each of them had by their sides. “Miss Ensworth?” Logan shook the brown-haired lady’s hand. “I heard you’d traveled with Gareth, but … how did that come about?”
The lady smiled sweetly, yet Linnet instantly recognized a core of steel. “Emily, please. And it’s a long story.” She glanced at Hamilton. “We’ll tell you later.”
Hamilton arched his brows.
Delborough—Del—introduced them to the striking brunette beside him. “Deliah Duncannon. Not knowing of our mission, my aunts had arranged for me to escort Deliah north, so I had to bring her with me.”
“Not that he wanted to, of course,” Deliah said, a definite glint in her green eyes, “but then I rescued him from certain death, and he couldn’t deny me.”
Del laughed. “That’s a long story, too, one for later. For now, it’s your story we need to catch up with.”
“Let’s finish the introductions first,” Royce said. “Then we can get down to business.”
He guided Logan and Linnet on. Within minutes, Linnet’s head was whirling. She struggled to keep track of all the additional names. Gervase and Madeline, Tony and Alicia, Letitia, Jack and Clarice, Tristan and Lenore, and Kit. Letitia’s husband Christian, and Kit’s husband, another Jack, were apparently on the east coast waiting for Rafe Carstairs to land.
While Logan spoke with the men, redheaded Kit shifted closer to Linnet and murmured, “You are not leaving this house without telling me where you got those.” She dropped bright, openly covetous eyes to Linnet’s breeches.
Madeline strolled up, smiling. “I was about to ask the same thing. They look just the thing—so practical.”
Linnet gave up trying to ignore what she had thought to be her inappropriate attire. “Not so much in the height of summer, but for most of the year, yes. They give much better protection than cloth, or even buckskin.” Linnet glanced from one to the other. “Do you know Flick—Demon’s wife?”
“Yes, indeed—and she’s another who will tie you down and torture you if you don’t tell,” Madeline said.
Linnet laughed. “I’ll tell—I’ve already told Penny. I get them from a leatherworker in Exeter.”
“We’ll extract the directions later,” Kit said. “But did I hear Royce say you captain your own ship?” When Linnet nodded, Kit vowed, “I am so deeply jealous. I’ve wanted to sail my own ship for forever, but Jack always claims the wheel. You’d think with a husband in shipping I could have just one tiny yacht of my own.”
Linnet’s brain made the connection. “Jack Hendon—of Hendon Shipping Lines?”
Kit nodded. “The very same. Why?”
“I own Trevission Ships. He’s a competitor.”
“Just wait until he hears. He’ll probably make you an offer.”
“I might just make one back,” Linnet said.
Kit hooted. “Oh, please make sure I’m there when that conversation takes place.”
There’d been a knock on the door. Demon and Wolverstone had gone to look out. Now
Wolverstone turned back to the room. “Hamilton, Delborough. If you would—there’s a body here we need you to see if you can identify.”
Naturally, within two minutes, everyone was in the forecourt again, gathered around the hay cart. Everyone looked at the body; Royce had drawn down the tarpaulin, so they could all see the dagger. Glancing at the faces, Linnet noted that while each was deadly serious, not one had paled, let alone flinched.
Returning her gaze to the dead man’s graying face, she felt a sense of shared purpose, of people coming together in pursuit of a common goal. For the first time, felt a part of that whole. She’d been committed to helping Logan, but that had been personal. Now she, too, was a part of this group devoted to seeing justice done and the Black Cobra exposed.
Royce glanced at Delborough and Hamilton. “Any idea who he is?”
“He was an associate of Ferrar’s in Bombay, but I never knew his name.” Del glanced at Gareth. “Do you know?”
Gareth stared at the man for a long moment, then said, “Thurgood. Daniel Thurgood.” He looked up at the waiting faces. “He was a friend of Ferrar, one of his circle.”
“A close friend?” Tristan asked.
Gareth grimaced. “No closer than others I could name, at least in public. In private?” Gareth shrugged. “Who’s to know?”
“Indeed.” Royce looked at the dagger. “Same type of dagger, same style of blow—from very close. He was killed by someone he trusted implicitly.”
“And that someone is still out there,” Logan said.
Royce nodded. “We haven’t yet succeeded in beheading, the Black Cobra. Whether they were a group of equals or a tiered hierarchy, the head, the real power, the most dangerous of these villains, is still at large.”
“And not far away,” Jack Warnefleet said.
Royce glanced around the circle. Many of the other men did, too. Despite the weak winter sun’s valiant attempts to break through the clouds, it was still chilly and cold, and they’d all come out without coats.
“Let’s go inside,” Royce said. “We can discuss this latest twist and hear Logan’s report in comfort. In the drawing room,” he added, as if to assure the ladies they would not be excluded.
The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt Page 114