How to Wed a Warrior

by Christy English

  “You’ve got spirit,” Bolton said. “I’ll give you that.”

  She had failed.

  He marched her to the street and pushed her into a hackney coach, then struck her across the cheekbone. Pru clung to the edge of the carriage door long enough to see Pemberton, bloody but alive, peering out of the window above her.

  Bolton pushed her once more, until she was sprawled on the carriage floor, her gloves blackened by coal dust and soot from countless boots. Bolton put one foot on the small of her back and rapped on the roof.

  “Drive on,” he called, and the hack lurched forward.

  * * *

  Ian had gotten word overnight that they were not the only ones hunting Pru’s brother. It seemed there was a man well known as a navigator who was also seeking him out, to the tune of hundreds of pounds in bribes. Robbie had no idea what that man might want, but he hoped that he and his would get to Albert Farthington first.

  In spite of Ian’s contacts, Robbie had made no headway so far in his morning’s efforts. Though Gregor, Davy, and Eachann were also prowling the docks, the Dutch weren’t letting anything slip about where Albert might be hiding. By eleven, he was beginning to despair of finding the benighted man at all. Had they been misled? Perhaps Albert Farthington was no longer alive.

  One warehouse gave them more trouble than the others. Ian had to push his way past two men guarding the doors while Robbie followed, laying out gold all around. It was the gold that loosened the guards’ tongues in the end, though Ian’s bulk worked in their favor.

  “There are two Englishmen in there trying to kill each other,” the first guard said.

  “Well, one’s hiding in the bales. The other has a lady with him.” The shorter one shrugged in dismissal, both of cowards and women.

  Robbie felt his stomach seize at the mention of a woman. He reminded himself that Pru was safe at home, no doubt cursing his name for leaving her behind.

  “It’s between two Englishmen,” the taller guard said. “It is really none of our affair.”

  That’s when Robbie felt his first surge of hope that he might by some miracle have stumbled on Pru’s brother at last. His hope, at war with the tension in his gut, did not last long. When he stepped into the darkened warehouse filled with bales of cotton from India, he discovered some strange man holding a gun on his wife.

  Prudence sat as pert and pretty as ever, dressed neatly in her new indigo pelisse and the bonnet that matched her eyes. Her hat was askew, and her gown rumpled, but otherwise she looked unharmed. She seemed not at all concerned by the gun in the hands of the pasty Englishman who stood over her, but had her eyes fixed between the bales of cotton as if expecting someone to emerge from them. Could she somehow know he was there? But then he heard her speak.

  “Bertie, do not come out of there, for the love of God. Lieutenant Bolton can’t shoot me, because then he has no leverage with you at all. You are my brother, and I love you. Stay hidden, and the devil take this bastard.”

  She spoke as clear and as cool as any man of action Robbie had ever known. He felt a surge of pride at her courage, as potent as his fear for her life. But Robbie took a deep breath to fight his terror and kept his mind on the business at hand—the damned Englishman’s pistol was still trained on her.

  Robbie wanted to rush the bastard then, and he would have done it, but for Ian who held him back. It was only then that he saw the two men perched high along the loft of the warehouse, each with a long rifle aimed at his wife.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Robbie said under his breath.

  Ian spoke in his ear, so low that even Robbie almost could not hear. “We have the advantage, Robbie. You take the one on the right, while I take the left. We’ll flank them, and take them down.”

  “That leaves one gun aimed at my wife,” Robbie answered.

  “Her brother is here somewhere. He’ll help.”

  “Fat lot of help he’s been up to now.”

  “I’ll save her, Robbie, or you will. But we must be quick, and silent. You remember how.”

  Robbie did indeed. He set aside his mounting fear, and the sweet sound of his wife’s voice rang in his ears as he took the outer staircase up into the shadows of the loft.

  “Bertie, stay where you are,” Pru said. “I’ve waited five years to see you and I can wait awhile more.”

  Bolton struck Prudence then, and she raised one gloved hand to dab at the blood on her lip. Robbie cursed in silence, vowing to kill the bastard as soon as he got his boots back down onto the warehouse floor.

  Robbie could not think of the dead man who had just hit his wife, for he had his assassin in sight. He came up behind the rifleman, gripped his throat in one arm and drew him down, forcing his gun down with the other. The man spluttered but made no other sound. Once his air had been cut off for long enough, he dropped his gun onto Robbie’s boot. Robbie said a prayer of thanks when it did not go off, and held onto his man tighter.

  It was only two minutes more before the ruffian collapsed, passed out from lack of air. Robbie tied the bastard up with twine quickly cut from a bale nearby. He bound him tight, neck to hands to ankles, so that if the man moved, he would strangle himself. Searching him for weapons turned up four knives and two pistols. Robbie took them all and started moving back down the stairs to save his wife. He could trust Ian to take down his own gunman, and he had waited long enough for Albert to decide to act like a man.

  In that moment, a man too thin to be alive stepped out from among the bales into the feeble light.

  “I’m here, Bolton,” the thin man said. “Let Prudence go.”

  Thirty-eight

  Save for that brief moment down at the docks a week ago, Prudence had not seen her brother in over five years. If he had not called her by name, seeing him up close, she would never have known him.

  Gone was the handsome, carefree boy she had loved so well. In his place stood a man so thin he was almost starved, a man whose eyes were so hard she wanted to flinch away from them. But this was her brother, the last of her family. Whatever else he was, whatever he had done, he was hers, and she would not give him up to the vile man who had forced her there as bait to draw her brother out.

  “You’ve been a hard man to find,” Bolton said, his gun never wavering from Pru’s face. “Don’t think of any heroics, Farthington. I know how you love to play the hero. But this bullet will tear into your sister’s pretty face and exit out the back of her neck, so just stay where you are and keep your hands high.”

  “If you touch a hair on her head, I will kill you,” Bertie said.

  Pru almost wept to hear his voice. It was still the same, the long-remembered, long wished-for sound of her best friend. She blinked hard to clear her vision. She needed to keep her wits about her. She might have one chance to save them both, if she was lucky, and she had to be ready to take the chance, when and if it came.

  The man who held her at gunpoint was not as struck by sentiment as she was. He laughed in her brother’s face.

  “I’ve been living off the sale of your cargo for years, now, Bertie,” the man said. “Bertie is what she calls you, isn’t it?”

  Her brother did not answer. He did not look at her, either, but kept his gaze pinned to his adversary’s face. He must have been unarmed, or he would surely have drawn his weapon already. Pru thanked God in His Heaven that she had tucked the knife Mary Elizabeth had given her into the top of her boot.

  “I sold you to those Spanish on the express agreement that they take you to Peru and put you to work in the gold mines. I see that came to nothing.”

  “I worked their mines for a month,” Bertie said, his voice calm and even despite the horrors of those mines. “I fought my way out of there.”

  “Fought off Spaniards! Ever the hero, Farthington. It’s a good deal harder when you don’t have your father’s money or your family’s influence, isn’t i
t? I hear they’ve stripped you of your earldom. I hear that you’re about to be declared dead in Parliament.”

  “That’s my affair. Now let my sister go.”

  Bolton laughed again, his face coloring with his amusement like an overripe pomegranate as he took two steps away from her and toward her brother. “Oh, indeed, no, Bertie. I can’t have your pretty sister telling tales. She’ll die here with you, and I’ll go back to Malta to spend the rest of your money.”

  “The money you stole from my investors, you mean.”

  “Don’t split hairs, Bertie. It’s your final hour. Have you nothing more to say to me? Beg for your life, why don’t you?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “I will, no doubt, my friend. But I will send you there first.”

  As Bolton turned the gun on her brother, Pru drew the knife from her boot and threw it, just as Mary Elizabeth had taught her. She had no time to think, barely time to aim, but it seemed that her training had taken, for the dagger she threw buried itself in her enemy’s shoulder.

  Bertie was on the man then, his fists pummeling his face. He struck him not once but three times as they struggled for the gun.

  Prudence held on to enough common sense not to scream, and kept from distracting her brother as he fought for his life. Her heart was pounding, and her breath was short. She had brought only one knife and now did not know how to help Bertie.

  The choice was taken out of her hands in the next moment as Robbie appeared at her side, pulling her off the stool she sat on. She nearly stumbled, she was so grateful to see him again. She had not known how afraid she was until he touched her and she knew she was safe.

  Robbie pushed her behind him, shielding her body so that no stray bullet might reach her. He did not look to her again, but took aim at Bolton, who was still grappling with Albert. Prudence screamed as Robbie fired off a shot without hesitating. She felt all the breath leave her lungs as Bolton crumpled. Albert gained his feet, casting Bolton’s gun aside.

  “I had him,” Bertie said.

  “He was mine,” Robbie answered. “He struck my wife.”

  Albert did not argue, but shrugged once and stayed silent.

  Ian came down from the rafters and all four of them stood and looked at Lieutenant Bolton where he lay on the warehouse floor, his lifeblood seeping into the boards. The taller Dutchman had come in at the sound of the shot, and when he saw the body, he shook his head in disgust.

  “My employer is not going to like a dead Englishman on his floor.”

  Ian stepped forward then, and Pru blinked to see him there. It was wonderful to be alive, of course, and she was grateful that her brother was, but she felt befuddled, confused, when only a moment before, when the gun had been pointed at her, all the world had seemed perfectly clear.

  “We’ll take the body with us,” Ian said. “My men will have him out of here and the place clean in an hour.”

  The Dutchman still did not look pleased until Ian drew out a purse. Pru thought that he might count some gold out of it, but he handed the entire bag over instead. The man’s frown lightened a little. “Spanish gold?” he asked.

  “Aye,” Ian answered.

  “The best kind.”

  The Dutchman tucked the money away so swiftly that Pru was not certain where he put it. Robbie’s arm supported her around her waist so that she would not fall, but her head still swam.

  “Did he interfere with trade?” the Dutchman asked.

  “He did,” Ian answered.

  The other man shrugged then, as if to say, What else could anyone expect? He left them alone then, and Albert came to her side and kissed her.

  “I am sorry, Pru. I am so sorry.”

  She reached for him but Robbie held her back. She saw then that some of Bolton’s blood was all over her brother’s clothes, soaked into his wool coat, and straight through his linen shirt.

  “I cannot thank you enough for saving my sister,” Albert said to Ian, and to Robbie. “There are no words, and no way for me to repay such a debt.”

  “You never know, English. You may raise me out of my grave one day,” Ian quipped.

  “Pru, are you all right?” Albert asked.

  “I am,” she answered. She started crying then, for no reason she could fathom. Albert patted her arm in lieu of a hug, and Robbie held her tighter.

  “I’m taking my wife home,” he said. “When you are finished here, come to the Duchess of Northumberland’s house.”

  “Pru,” Albert said, in an attempt to tease her into a smile, “you’ve come up in the world.”

  She could not stop crying even then, though she did give her brother a tremulous smile. It was Robbie who answered for her.

  “Lynwood, you have no idea.”

  * * *

  Robbie bundled his wife into a hack and got her out of there. He swore under his breath to think of her alone and friendless in that place for the second time since he’d known her. It hadn’t been ruffians with knives this time, but some English bastard with a gun. His own fear was still so fresh in his mouth that he almost choked on it. He swallowed it down and comforted his wife.

  “Now, love, you’re a brave, strong girl. You kept your head and saved your brother. You are a fine woman, and you will bear fine sons.”

  She hiccuped when she heard that, and stopped crying. “What if we have only daughters, Robbie?”

  “They’ll be fine and strong, too,” he answered, feeling foolish. Please God, let none of them take after his sister.

  “He held me at gunpoint,” Pru said. “Or I never would have gone with him. He shot at Pemberton.”

  Robbie swallowed what he really wanted to say, that he would never let her out of his sight again, that he would keep her tied up in his family castle before he let her come to London, but he did not. They would only make her cry. Instead, he kissed her cheek, nuzzling her neck.

  “We will put Pemberton to rights,” Robbie said. “And your brother with him.”

  She kissed him, her mouth sweet under his. For a few dark moments in that warehouse, he had thought that he might never get to hold her again. He kept her close now, against his heart. He kissed her gently and stroked her back as he might a cat’s to calm her down. When that didn’t work, he held her hard against his body until she stopped shaking and had caught her breath.

  “I love you, Robbie,” she said in her soft, gentle voice, the one he heard but rarely, and then only when they were in bed.

  “And I, you, Prudence Waters,” he answered her, feeling a lump rise in his throat as it had the day he wed her. He prayed to God and all the saints that he would never see her in mortal danger again. His nerves just couldn’t take it.

  “I have a present for you,” he said. “A surprise.”

  She perked up at that, and looked up at him expectantly. “What is it?”

  “If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

  She held out her little gloved hand, as if he might hand it over then and there.

  Robbie laughed to see her do it, and kissed her soundly. “If you stay out of trouble till nightfall,” he said, “you’ll have it before we sleep tonight.”

  “Where is it?” she asked, looking him over as if she might delve into his pockets after it.

  “It’s tucked away somewhere in our room.”

  She settled back against the hard seat then, smiling to herself as they drew up before the duchess’s town house.

  “Don’t go ransacking the place, Pru. You won’t find it. Be good, don’t face down any men with guns between now and tonight, and the present is yours.”

  She looked at him wryly. “I don’t fight off men with guns for sport, Robbie. I am not Mary Elizabeth.”

  He helped her down and paid the driver before she could. “Dear God, Pru, I’m grateful for that.”

  Thirty-
nine

  Prudence had time to wash her face and change her gown before Albert and Ian came home. She could not bear to be in the same clothes she had worn at the wharf, and she had a feeling that she would never want to wear that gown and pelisse again. She tossed the bonnet into the fire, and watched it smoke before it caught. She poked it with the fire tongs until it had burned to bits of cinder and ash.

  “Well,” Robbie said. “I see I’ll be buying you a new hat.”

  “One with feathers,” she quipped.

  “As long as I don’t have to wear it.”

  She swatted his arm. He drew her close and kissed her.

  They were taking tea in the sitting room when Ian and Albert came home. She went to her brother at once, for he had changed his clothes for other, much larger ones. Clothes which had no blood on them. She held her brother close and kissed him, not certain for a moment if she could make herself let go.

  “I am sorry, Pru. Did you get my letter?”

  “John brought it,” Prudence said.

  Robbie cleared his throat as he poured them all three fingers of Islay whisky, and she amended her statement. “The Earl of Grathton was kind enough to bring it. You should not have stayed hidden,” she said. “You should have let him help you.”

  “I am too far in debt to him already,” Albert answered.

  She swatted her brother as she often swatted Robbie, gently, on the forearm. At first, her brother’s eyes grew dark, but then it was as if he was recalling some bit of himself, some part that he had almost lost, and only now was beginning to find again. Bertie smiled at her then, and kissed her.

  “I will call on him, Pru,” he said. “I will not take his money, but I will see him. If he has helped you in any way, I owe him for that, too.”

  “My Pru is none of the earl’s affair.” Robbie said it amiably enough, but Prudence could see the danger lurking just behind the blue of his eyes. She went to him then and kissed him. Though Robbie wrapped one arm about her waist and drew her down onto the settee, close to his side, he did not take his eyes from her brother.