by Gaelen Foley
The thought swept in as though from a great distance as he stood there, his chest heaving: What the hell is she doing here?
Then the look on her face snared his attention.
The horror. The shock. The fear.
Fear of him. That was what jarred him. Aye, the woman he loved was gazing at him as though she had just realized that the real killer here wasn’t the man on the ground.
And no wonder, that. Connor had completely dominated his foe, just as he had been trained to do. The sharp, bitter taste of the threats he had uttered moments ago lingered on his tongue. Threats he may or may not have carried out; it just depended.
But Maggie must’ve heard them, and now she saw him standing astride his sprawled enemy, blade in hand, in position, if need be, to cut his throat.
He had made it his business to ensure that Flynn’s son believed that he’d better start talking if he wanted to live. Whether the dragoon had been convinced of Connor’s willingness to murder him there in the street, that remained to be seen.
But Maggie believed it.
So said the terrified look on her face.
Seeing himself through her eyes like that took Connor completely off guard, and in his fleeting hesitation, the dragoon grabbed the nearby rifle off the ground, lurched to one knee, and swung it like a club, smashing Connor in the side, where his wound from the duel was still healing.
Connor bellowed and staggered a step to the left, knocked off balance by the force of the unblocked blow, and the momentarily blinding burst of pain to feel his side split open again.
He heard Maggie cry out in alarm while the dragoon scrambled to his feet, already stumbling to a run.
“Get back here!” Connor tried to yell, but could not quite catch his breath as the man spun past him—not toward Maggie, thank God, but across the street.
Beaten half to a pulp, the blackguard ran for his life, and Connor took a few winded steps after him. Unfortunately, the fresh reinjury slowed him down.
Chasing the pain out of his mind by willpower, he snatched the rifle’s ramrod off the ground by his feet. He had removed it immediately upon capturing his enemy and tossed it aside so the man could not reload. Connor gripped the ramrod now and started after him. By God, he would skewer the bastard with it.
But then Maggie cried, “Connor, don’t!”
Again, she made him waver. He whipped a glance over his shoulder, fearing she might be in danger, that another enemy might’ve appeared, but she was just standing there as before, and by the time he looked forward again with the iron rod in his grasp and his side throbbing, Flynn’s son had reached his horse.
Damn it! Why had she interrupted?
The dragoon jumped into the saddle.
“You won’t escape me!” Connor thundered, running toward him. “I know where to find you, you son of a bitch!”
“And I know where to find her!” Flynn’s son yelled back from beneath the great tree overhanging the park fence. In the next instant, a dark horse charged out of the shadows across the street, and Connor’s would-be assassin galloped off into the night.
Connor remained standing in the middle of Park Lane, staring after his enemy until the man had disappeared.
With a curse under his breath, he tossed the ramrod down in disgust. It clattered onto the cobblestones, then he threw his head back and let out a garbled shout of frustration at the sky.
“You there! What is going on down there?” a prim female suddenly called down from some window above. “I’m warning you, I’ve sent my footman for the constable!”
“Perfect,” Connor muttered. He turned around, still panting with rage and extreme irritation. Holding his side, already hot and sticky with seeping blood, he glanced up at the opulent townhouse and saw a worried head peering out from between the curtains of an upper window. “Go back to bed! The show’s over!”
The woman’s head disappeared.
As he trudged back toward the pavement, Maggie rushed out onto the street toward him.
“Are you all right?” She reached for him, trying to see his side and gauge how badly he was hurt, but he pushed her helping hand away.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Her head jerked upward at his curt tone. “What?”
“I told you to stay back. Did you not hear me?” Connor asked crisply.
Her lips parted, but no words came out.
He shook his head, exasperated. But, doing his best to let the matter go, he stepped past her. “Come on. We need to get out of here. The last thing we need right now is a chat with the constable.”
He winced as he bent down to pick up the weapons that he had removed from Flynn’s son. Perhaps they would bear some telltale sign of evidence. For now, they’d serve if any more threats should appear.
Then he picked up the dragoon’s knife and gave it by its handle to Maggie.
“Here. You carry this,” he said without meeting her gaze. She grimaced and held the thing like a dead rat. “Let’s go.”
She followed a few paces after him as he stalked back down Park Lane, toward the mouth of the alley, through which they had passed earlier.
“Connor?”
He remained coldly quiet.
“Say something.”
He stopped short and pivoted to face her. “Very well. When we are married, madam, if I give you an order, I expect you to obey it—without question. Particularly in matters of life and death. Damn it, Maggie, have you no concept of the chain of command?” he barked at her.
She jumped, then her mouth fell open.
He pivoted on his heel and continued marching forward. “Come. Let us hasten back to the party,” he said with a biting undertone of sarcasm.
She spluttered a little behind him, then hurried after him in her dancing slippers, skipping to keep up. “Chain of command? Well, pardon me, Major! I was not aware that becoming engaged to you meant I’d enlisted in the Army.”
He harrumphed.
“I was worried about you!” she exclaimed. “That’s the only reason I followed. I thought you might need me to send you reinforcements.”
“Did it look like I needed help?” He stopped and turned to her, intensely annoyed. “I told you, I neither want nor need a mother hen. Obviously, I had everything under control.”
“Oh really? And did you have yourself under control?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do not make excuses. You were clearly in the wrong.”
She huffed with indignation, but he didn’t care. There was a time for kisses and a time for laying down the law, and by God, he’d dealt with enough neophytes in his day to realize that the chit’s safety required that he nip this defiance in the bud.
That bastard had just threatened her. Given that the dragoon had already murdered up to three members of his family, Connor wasn’t taking any chances with his future wife.
Her survival until he finished this business might well depend on her following his orders to the letter. Why was that so difficult for her to understand?
She gave him a wounded pout, but he did not soften his expression. Letting her off the hook here could get her killed. On the contrary, this was essential training.
“I was only trying to help,” she said with a sulk.
“Oh really? And what were you going to do? Give him a frosty set-down? This isn’t a ballroom, Margaret. It isn’t even a duel governed by some pretty code of honor. Do you understand me? Good. End of conversation. Do not disobey me again.
“Now, hurry up. He might decide to come back, and I promise you, if the bastard does, you won’t like what you see. Your presence won’t stay my hand a second time.”
He pivoted around the corner, making sure she was right behind him.
Her silence as they walked through the dark alley onto the wider, illuminated street beyond told him that she was mulling his words.
Clearly, he had given her much to think about.
Alas, his declaration that the topic was now closed had be
en overly optimistic.
She kept glancing up at him as they walked up the elegant street, side by side. For his part, Connor was just glad to have passed through that tight, claustrophobic alley, for a place like that was a fine spot for an ambush.
“What?” he finally grumbled.
She was shaking her head. “I don’t believe it… You’re blaming me for this?”
“I had him! You distracted me. He got away. Ergo?”
Admittedly, some of his anger came from hurt male pride that she had seen him fail at such a vital task—even though she was the one who had caused him to blunder.
Still, the only person in all of London whose opinion he really cared about had just seen him at his most ferocious.
Gentle soul that she was, he did not expect the girl to take it well. Old, hardened defenses in him had already braced for some sort of rejection or another.
“So, I get no credit for courage or…or loyalty?” she demanded.
Connor just looked at her.
“Here’s a thought, Major. Why don’t you learn to follow my orders once in a while?”
He snorted.
“Well, look at you!” She gestured angrily at him. “Your hand’s bleeding, your eye’s swollen, your side’s ripped open again—all because you had to go charging off alone into the night like a lunatic! Why did you not just stay with me in the garden like I asked you?”
“What, cower behind a female?” he retorted with a scoff as they stopped to squabble in the street like an old married couple. “Hide behind your skirts? You’ve obviously mistaken me for Bryce, darling!”
“You could have been killed!” she shouted.
“I know my craft!” Connor roared back.
Maggie’s posture stiffened. She folded her arms across her chest, and her chin came up a notch.
“Do not bellow at me, sir.” She looked away, nose in the air. “Humph. If I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a bully, I might as well stay at Delia’s.”
Connor froze, scrutinizing her by the light of a nearby streetlamp. Did she just threaten to call off the match?
But he refused to let his horror at this possibility show on his face, keeping his expression cool. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She lifted a dainty finger and poked him in the chest. “Never do that to me again! That is what it means, Major.”
He swallowed with relief as he held her imperious stare.
“I want your word that you won’t go running off on me again like some…some sort of Celtic berserker on the loose, w-with his face painted blue!”
Connor clenched his jaw, relieved that she was not ending it here and now after what she had just witnessed. He was not sure he would have blamed her.
He really wished she had not seen that side of him.
Nevertheless, even though he knew he was pushing his luck, he refused to lie to her. “Sorry. I can’t promise that. Berserkers only quit once the battle’s won.”
“Or when they are dead,” Maggie replied crisply.
He gave her a stern look, then walked on.
“Bullheaded man,” she said, following him up the street, around the corner, and back into the mews behind Aunt Lucinda’s house. “So, that’s it, then? You’re completely unwilling to compromise? Because that is not how marriage works—you give the orders and I obey?”
“Frankly, when it comes to situations like this, yes, darling. That’s exactly how it works.”
“Oh, indeed?” She sounded nigh strangled with indignation now, but the lady maintained her prim façade. “Well then, Your Grace. Perhaps I need more time to consider your offer more carefully!”
With that, she whooshed ahead of him back in through the garden gate, while he grimaced behind her in the darkness.
Unfortunately for Maggie, her grand ultimatum lost much of its punch when they returned to the garden only to find that over a dozen guests had poured out to see what was the matter.
The panicked looks the moonlight revealed on their faces confirmed they’d heard the gunshot.
Connor tamped down a smug flicker of satisfaction over all these witnesses who’d come rushing out only to find the two of them alone in the dark out here together.
How scandalous.
“Sorry, love,” he murmured, sending her a wicked half-smile as he pulled the garden gate shut behind him. “Looks like there won’t be any backing out now. Just think of your reputation.”
She shot him a withering glare just as Major Carvel came striding out through the trellised walkway.
“What happened? We heard gunfire!” he said.
“Aye, you did,” Connor said as Maggie and he reached the fountain. “Bit of unpleasantness out here, I’m afraid.”
“Were you hit?” Carvel asked.
“No, no. I’m fine.”
His fellow soldier looked at her. “And Lady Margaret?”
“I’m all right,” she answered with a nod.
Connor held up his hands in a calming gesture to the arriving throng of shocked guests, both men and a few women. “Don’t worry, ladies and gentlemen, we are both unharmed. It was just a footpad of some sort.”
“He shot at you?” Netherford asked, hurrying after Carvel, his brother-in-law.
“Aye. I gave chase—old instincts, don’t you know,” Connor said. “We traded a few punches, then he ran off. I let him go. After all, no harm done. Don’t worry, he’s gone. Everything’s fine now.”
“Good God!” someone murmured.
There was no point in mentioning the blood seeping from his wound. He would simply rebandage it, and perhaps a servant could run home and fetch him a fresh shirt and coat.
Only for a split second did he consider canceling the rest of the soirée, but given the battered condition in which he’d left his enemy, he felt reasonably sure the danger had passed. There was no need to make a fuss.
People trying to kill him was nothing new, after all. Aunt Lucinda had gone to a lot of trouble for his sake; everyone seemed to be having a good time—until just now, anyway—and the soirée was only scheduled to last another couple of hours.
Plenty of time for him to mentally hammer out a plan of action for dealing with Flynn and his son for once and for all.
Connor knew that, first and foremost, he wanted his womenfolk out of harm’s way. And then, the moment that Maggie and his aunts were removed from the equation, stowed someplace safe, by God, he would return and rain down bloody fire and brimstone on his enemies.
They’d soon regret the day they’d ever heard the name of Amberley.
His first order of business, however, as soon as the guests were gone, would be to question Aunt Lucinda—finally—and make her tell him exactly what the hell all this was about.
Because, clearly, there was something even worse going on here than he’d previously guessed. He did not appreciate her leaving him to muddle his way through such treachery blind. She wasn’t going to like it, but it was time for the dragon lady to cough up the truth.
Maggie sent him an uneasy look while the men who’d crowded around scanned the shadows, as though half expecting another attack.
The ladies’ reaction was different, however. Their eyebrows had shot up and they began exchanging “hmm” looks as they realized the “footpad” had interrupted some sort of tryst between Maggie and him.
“So…the two of you were out here…together?” one gossip asked.
Maggie blanched, and Connor knew it was time to speak up, though he did not answer the question directly.
“Ahem. We have wonderful news, ladies and gentleman,” he declared without warning. “She said yes!”
Maggie gasped as he captured her right hand in his unbloodied left one, raised it to his lips, then smiled at everyone with his most dazzling show of self-assurance.
Then he made his bold announcement—whether she liked it or not.
“Lady Margaret Winthrop will soon become the Fourth Duchess of Amberley!”
Gasps abou
nded. Huzzahs and stunned congratulations followed, though the latter were a little more tentative, given how they’d startled everyone.
No one, he gathered, was more shocked than Maggie.
Her smile looked pasted in place, and in that swift heartbeat before the guests encircled them, she whispered, “You devil.”
Connor gave her a hard glance. No getting rid of me now, love.
He’d just saved her reputation, obviously.
Besides, she was daft if she thought he’d ever let her get away. He knew he had infuriated her with his abrupt announcement, but at least he’d made sure she no longer had the option of backing out of their match.
She was staring at him as though finally understanding just how ruthless he could be.
Connor looked away, unrepentant. An old proverb came to mind, All’s fair in love and war, along with He who hesitates is lost. What was there to dither about?
He wanted her, he needed her, and indeed, his survival instincts warned that the peaceful future he craved would be meaningless without her.
So he’d done what he had to do.
Shortly thereafter, they and all the guests who had come outside returned en masse to the party to break the news to Grandaunt Lucinda.
And her list of would-be brides.
* * *
Seth barely remembered the wild gallop through the dark streets that brought him back to his father’s house. It was fortunate that his horse knew the way, for, with his head reeling from Amberley’s thunderous punches, it was all he could do to stay on the animal’s back.
Blood coursed down his face from the cut above his eye. Several teeth had been knocked loose. Everything hurt, especially his pride.
He couldn’t even think straight. It took all his concentration simply to keep his feet braced in the stirrups and hold on to his gelding’s mane long enough to reach his father’s doorstep.
Since it was Friday night, he knew Father would not be at home. The old cutthroat would be making the rounds at his establishments, ensuring that everything was operating smoothly.
Knowing this was the only thing that gave Seth the courage to go inside. He could not have faced him otherwise.