by Gaelen Foley
With that, she bustled off. Maggie saw Connor bite his lip, as though tempted to argue. But perhaps he, too, realized that their arrival seemed to have given the bereaved woman a much-needed new topic to occupy her mind.
“This is most generous of you, Aunt Caroline. Thank you!” he called after her, but Maggie wasn’t sure the duchess heard him.
She was already marching back over the threshold of her domain, directing the porters in the entrance hall toward the rooms for the two old ladies, and ordering hot water for baths with mineral salts to ease the travelers’ aches and pains.
Connor called to Peter and Rory to come with him, while Nestor and Will took over the process of moving horses and servants into their respective quarters.
As the major strode off with his cohorts, Maggie turned to smile at the twins in the waning half-light. She surmised that their mother was glad to shoo them away for the time being, for the pair were standing around getting underfoot, and watching everything, agog.
For her part, Maggie mainly planned on following Connor, observing what he was up to—she loved watching him in commander mode—but the girls were welcome to come along. “Shall we, ladies?”
“Sarge, you forgot this!” Will shouted after the men, holding up the knapsack that Rory had carried over his shoulder for most of the day. He must’ve left it on the driver’s box of the traveling chariot, since that had been his main post throughout their journey.
But the men had already gone out through the garden beside the house, heading for the fields, so Penelope dashed over to fetch it for him.
“I’ll take it to him, Will!” She quickly retrieved Rory’s knapsack from the skinny lad before the traveling chariot was whisked off to the stables.
They had to wait briefly for her return, as the servant carriage leaving Dartfield Manor rolled past in between them, heading off to bring supplies from the village, as ordered.
Off it went down the drive, but the gates had been closed, thanks to Major Carvel—a fact that probably annoyed the driver.
If she were in his shoes, Maggie thought, she’d be cursing her bad luck for being chosen for the task, heading out onto the roads with foul weather bearing down on them.
Hunkered down on the seat, the man clapped the reins over the team’s backs to hurry them along, no doubt nervous about making it there and back before the storm hit.
This seemed unlikely, however. The wind was gaining speed while the skies continued to darken.
Maggie turned her gaze from the roiling clouds overhead to the two young girls. “I do love storms, don’t you? So exciting.”
One friendly question was all it took to open the floodgates of their enthusiasm.
“Once I saw lightning strike a tree and it nearly exploded!” said the slightly taller twin.
“Really?” Maggie said, but dashed if she could tell the two apart.
Once they had moved from their original positions, she had no idea which was which, but they both were delightful.
From that moment, the youngsters did not stop talking, chattering away on a dozen random topics as they strolled along. Maggie and Penelope exchanged an amused glance as the girls led them first through the garden on one side of the house, and then out onto the windy moors.
The pair seemed thrilled to have new people to talk to—Londoners, no less—out here in the middle of nowhere.
As they took their refreshing post-travel constitutional, hawks wheeled high overhead, riding the unsettled currents of air.
The wind shook the clumps of thorny yellow gorse, making their nettles rattle like old dried bones. It whispered in the rugged Scots pines that grew here and there, and rippled through the mounds of pink and purple heathers that stretched on seemingly for miles, covering hill and dale.
When the walking path climbed to the crest of a gentle rise, Maggie spotted the men in the distance once more. They seemed to be taking the lay of the land. Connor was pointing toward the deep, narrow chine that nature had cut through the chalk hills on the edge of the property.
A swift stream ran along the bottom of its steep, pale sides; they could hear its babbling current rushing along on its way to the sea.
While the talkative twin told them all about their local village and their studies and how boring it was there, the quieter one gave up trying to get a word in edgewise. Instead, she took it upon herself to act as their guide, running farther up the footpath, then pausing to beckon to them.
“Here, come this way!”
“Hope, I don’t want to take them that way! It’s depressing!” said the talker—apparently this was Faith.
Maggie looked at her in question.
“It’s where our father died. He tripped. It’s very high up,” Faith said. “Overlooking the stream.”
“It’s a nice view!” Hope said. “I’ll bet they want to see it.”
“Is it dangerous footing there?” Penelope asked.
“Not really. It was just muddy that day, and I’m sure he wasn’t watching where he was going. That’s just how he was,” Faith said with a sigh. “He was probably holed up in his Thinkery for hours with his books, and walked out with his head still in the clouds.”
“What’s a Thinkery?” Penelope asked with a blink.
“That.” Faith pointed. “See? That little castle sort of building on the rise? It was Father’s favorite place.”
They followed the direction of her pointing finger, and there, tucked in a fold in the heather-clad landscape near a copse of trees, they could just make out a gothic folly in the distance: a miniature castle, complete with two dainty spires.
“It’s filled with boring stuff. Books.” Faith shrugged. “He had his study there and his prayer closet.”
“It was his one luxury,” Hope chimed in, rejoining them. “You should see it. It’s cozy.”
“I don’t want to go there,” Faith mumbled, turning away. “But I’ll walk to the cliff with you, if you really want to see it.”
“There’s no need to go there for our sakes,” Maggie said gently. Orphaned herself, but by illness, not by foul play, her heart went out to the twins. “I’m so sorry, girls. Please know, both of you, that Connor would much rather not be the duke, if only your father or brother could still be here with you.”
“We know,” the twins mumbled, lowering their heads.
Penelope sent Maggie a pensive frown.
“Thank you, Lady Margaret,” Faith added.
“Please, call me Maggie. And this is my maid, Penelope, by the way. She is a genius at hair.”
“Are you?” the girls asked eagerly, cheering up again.
And while Penelope answered their questions about braids and topknots and the newest styles in London, Maggie scanned the gloomy landscape up by the whimsical Thinkery.
Walking up over the rise, she now saw the men in the distance not far from the sturdy little folly.
As she watched them, Connor sent Peter riding north, probably to scout out the grounds, keeping an eye out for danger.
He pointed Rory back toward the gates, which the exiting carriage driver had left open behind him again.
As for himself, Connor went to stand on the rocky promontory where his uncle had fallen.
With the wind riffling his hair, making his long coat billow around him, he faced the coming storm as though he welcomed it, as though it called to his very nature…
Just as he called to hers.
Riveted, Maggie found him magnificent—proud, brooding, temperamental as he was. She could not tear her gaze away from him, and when he turned, sweeping a glance over the moors, he found her watching him, and from the distance, he captured her stare.
What passed between them in that moment in the twilight was like nothing she had ever felt before. A certainty. A knowing, deep in her belly.
And a hunger that she could no longer deny.
CHAPTER 30
Vendetta
“Father, we need to take shelter,” Seth said, while beside him, E
lias Flynn peered through the folding telescope that had been glued to his eye all day.
Flynn said nothing in reply, but slowly lowered the telescope and folded it. He seemed impervious to the increasingly temperamental weather.
Seth masked his impatience. This was hardly the father-son holiday he’d always dreamed of, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “The man at the last inn said there’s a town not far south of here.”
“Use your eyes.” Father nodded toward the drive of the estate where Amberley’s party had gone. “Have a look.” He handed him the folding telescope, and Seth lifted it to his eye.
From their perch atop a windy ridge about a half-mile away, they had a clear view of the misshapen estate and the drive leading to it.
Seth went very still. “A carriage is leaving. He’s opening the gates.”
“One day you’ll learn to trust me.”
Seth could not help but marvel. His father seemed undaunted by the grueling hours of travel.
While Seth felt wrung out, achy and exhausted, the seventy-year-old man beside him had seemed only to grow stronger throughout the day, driven by a maniacal intensity, perhaps, to see his vendetta against Lucinda through once and for all.
For his part, Seth was still recovering from the thrashing he had taken at Amberley’s hands last night.
Pain had further slowed his pace today, not to mention his annoyance at everyone on the way here staring at him on the roads and the inns. You’d think they’d never seen black eyes before, plum-colored bruises, swollen jaws, men who limped with cracked ribs.
Of course, Father had taken scarce pity on him during the day, driving on endlessly, powered by rage. Now he seemed prepared to weather the storm out here on this naked hillside with nothing but a few mounds of gorse for their cover.
Seth was tempted to leave the mad old bastard there to finish his quest alone, but, naturally, he did not dare. It was his fault that all this had happened, anyway. So they watched and they waited, but at least they need travel no farther in chasing their quarry.
A few minutes passed, and Seth thrilled to see that the driver left the gates open behind him.
They both ducked down like lion stalking prey when the carriage rumbled closer, heading toward them down the road.
“Should we make a run for it? There’s a folly on the grounds where we could—”
“Wait.” Father stared, assessing the situation.
Three minutes passed. Four. The storm fired a few warning shots in their faces. Cold, angry bullets of rain.
“What are we waiting for, Father? Full darkness? I’m sure they won’t see us—”
“Hold!” Father snapped, staring again through the telescope. “You must’ve failed to observe there’s no cover once we get through the gates. It’s all open ground. We’ll never get near the duke.”
A moment later, Seth saw once again that he should have trusted the old cutthroat’s instincts.
It was damned lucky they hadn’t gone charging in when he had wanted to, or they’d have been caught. The tall, brawny soldier they had seen driving the ladies’ coach all day galloped up to the gatehouse just then, swung down from his horse, and instantly clanged the gates shut.
The sound of it carried to them on the gale.
Seth frowned and turned to his father. “Do you think they know we’re here?”
“No. They just know they’re in trouble, that’s all.”
Locked out again, Seth wasn’t sure what his father wanted to do next, but he could feel the old man brooding, thinking it over.
When the plain black coach passed them on the road right beneath the hill where they sat, Father scrutinized the driver through the telescope.
“Servant,” he reported. “No one inside.” As the coach hurried off down the road, Father turned to Seth. “Tell me, son, what would Mother do if twenty people showed up at our country house without any warning?”
Seth considered. “She’d want to feed them, of course.”
“But what if she wasn’t expecting so many mouths to feed, eh?”
“She’d send a man out for supplies. Ah…”
“He’ll be back.” Father nodded toward the road.
“Until then?”
“Be patient.”
Seth heaved a sigh and leaned back against the boulder, taking a swig from his flask to dull the pain all over his aching body. Thunder rumbled. His misery climbed as the temperature dropped.
Lightning stabbed at them from the dark sky but missed.
At last, an hour later, the carriage came trundling back, laden with supplies. They saw its front lanterns gleaming feebly in the now-inky gloom as it neared, and heard the horses’ nervous whinnies. The clip-clopping of their approaching hoofbeats picked up speed as they scented home.
Father climbed to his feet and slapped Seth on the shoulder. “Come on now. It’s time.”
Before he quite grasped what his father was about, Elias was already striding down the hill.
“Father, what are you doing?” Seth whispered loudly.
“What do you think? We’re taking the carriage. We’ll use it to get inside.”
“But the staff will know that we don’t belong there!”
“Nonsense. If anyone from the manor asks who we are, we’ll say we came in with the duke’s entourage. And if any of the duke’s men should see us, we’ll say we’re part of the staff here. That’s why I told you to dress plain. Need to be ready for all eventualities. Now, come on, dullard, we mustn’t miss him.”
Seth thought it was madness, but knew all too well by now that there was no point in arguing. Instead, he just shook his head, then trudged down the rough slope after his sire.
“How do you mean to kill him?”
His father looked askance at him. “Silently,” he said with a smirk. Then he took a length of garrote wire out of his pocket and wrapped it around his two hands.
“It’s been a while,” Flynn remarked as the carriage rumbled closer down the road. “Let’s hope I haven’t lost my touch. Otherwise, it might be up to you. And we both know how that’s likely to turn out.”
Seth gave him a hard look. But Father needn’t have worried. Unfortunately for the wagon’s driver, the old rookery rat hadn’t lost his touch at all.
While Seth stepped out of the darkness in front of the horses, lifted his arms, and said, “Whoa,” Father sprang up onto the driver’s box like a goblin and attacked Her Grace’s astonished employee.
It only took moments.
The horses had halted, though they tossed their heads and pawed the gravel in protest.
Seth ran to assist his fierce sire.
As the driver slumped out of his seat, a dead weight, the corpse fell heavily onto Seth. He caught it with a wince, then dragged the dead man off into a drainage ditch by the roadside and hastily covered the body with vegetation.
By the time he turned around, Father was already sitting on the driver’s box with the reins in his hands. He nodded behind him with a glint of wild satisfaction in his eyes.
“Get in the back, boy!” Then he put on the dead man’s hat and pulled the brim lower over his eyes.
Seth swung up into the carriage and ducked out of sight, his heart still pounding.
Father drove on.
Seth took a deep breath and looked around to gain his bearings. The most delicious smells filled his nostrils, and as his eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness inside the carriage, he found it filled with baskets and hampers with warm, scrumptious food of all kinds. Seth’s mouth watered.
Killing did not dull his appetite. Not after all those years at war.
While Father drove the carriage up to the gates, Seth reached into one of the hampers stacked up on the coach floor and helped himself to a wedge of cheese, a hunk of ham, and a few rolls.
Ahh, the rolls were still warm. They were heavenly on a cold, wet night like this. Just getting out of the constant wind was a boon. He ate one of the rolls on the way to the gates and put a f
ew more in his knapsack for later.
Then the coach slowed and he lay down sideways on the squabs to keep out of sight, listening.
Holding his breath, he waited to see if the soldier Amberley had posted at the gatehouse would realize that a different man had driven the carriage back from the one who had driven it out.
Apparently not.
For, in the next moment, Seth heard the lock being undone and could not resist a cautious peek over the edge of the carriage window to see if the guard posted there seemed at all suspicious.
The man barely looked at Father.
A cynical smile curved Seth’s lips when he spotted some pretty blond woman who had apparently come out to bring the soldier some comforts for his long night watch—a lantern, an oilskin to keep him dry, and a serving of rations.
The two were so absorbed in their flirting that the smiling soldier barely took his eyes off the blonde long enough to unlock the gates and haul them open.
He waved the expected carriage back onto the property with nary a glance at old Mister Garrote. Seth shook his head in amazement that his father’s plan had worked. But why was he not used to it by now? Elias Flynn had not become a king of the London underworld by lacking nerve, resourcefulness, or wit.
It all went exactly as the old bastard predicted. They parked the carriage outside the kitchen entrance around the back in an area that looked about right for receiving deliveries, then they abandoned it, slipping into the workaday regions of the manor without anybody questioning them.
They just acted like they knew what the hell they were doing. Seth found it fun. Father’s glance told him he thought so, too.
Oddly enough, it was the closest Seth had ever felt to his father.
Perhaps they had bonded over killing that poor bastard together. To be sure, Father never could’ve done that with his darling Francis.
Then the rain hit, and an army of servants scrambled outside to start carrying in the food they had just delivered.
“Where’s Jackson?” the cook asked, looking puzzled and frumpy in her apron.
“The coach is back, so I’m sure he’s here somewhere, ma’am,” said a hurried footman. “Does anyone have an umbrella?”