Kit snapped his gaze back to Nunsworth.
Just as Nunsworth said, “And now, it’s time for my revenge.”
His face alight with unholy fervor, in a two-handed grip, Nunsworth hefted a heavy iron bar, swung it high, and brought it down with maximum force.
Sylvia screamed.
Kit’s heart stopped. He died—or so it felt.
But at the last second, Sylvia tugged one hand free and flung herself to the right—toward Kit.
The bar hit the edge of the stone slab, and shards flew.
Kit leapt to his feet and raced for the tongs.
Momentarily surprised, then realizing he’d been thwarted, Nunsworth bellowed with rage.
Kit grabbed the tongs and spun as Nunsworth raised the bar again—this time angling to where Sylvia cowered, her other hand still tied to the railing despite her frantic tugging.
His features contorted with black fury, Nunsworth started a vicious downward swing—aiming at the back of Sylvia’s head.
Kit lunged between Sylvia and Nunsworth.
With the tongs gripped between his hands, Kit caught the iron bar on the tongs’s long handles.
The force behind the blow drove him down to one knee, but he gritted his teeth, straightened his arms and braced them, then surged upward, to his feet, flinging Nunsworth back.
Nunsworth staggered, but didn’t fall. He shrieked in frustration and, this time swinging the bar from the side, eyes slitted in fury, came for Kit.
Again, Kit caught the bar on the tongs, the force jarring through his arms and shoulders.
Nunsworth shrieked like a banshee and fell into a frenzy, hammering down blows so quickly it was all Kit could do to meet them.
He couldn’t turn the tide. In strength, he and Nunsworth were evenly matched, at least with Nunsworth in a destructive fury. All Kit could do was grit his teeth and pray the man’s energy flagged soon.
Where was Smiggs?
Through the all-but-continuous clangs as Kit fended off Nunsworth’s assaults, Kit heard banging—on the front door.
Nunsworth had barred it; Smiggs couldn’t get through.
Then Nunsworth jerked and staggered forward half a step.
Sylvia was still frantically trying to get her right hand free. From her position behind Kit, with her gaze trained on the battle and a prayer on her lips that the demented beast that was Nunsworth wouldn’t break through Kit’s dogged guard, she caught sudden movement in the shadows. On a blink of disbelief, she saw the lad from earlier wielding a metal pole; he’d whacked Nunsworth across the back of his legs with it.
But Nunsworth regained his footing. Now even closer to Kit, Nunsworth clenched his teeth in a rictus grin and brought the iron bar down with punishing force.
Kit got the tongs up just in time, catching the bar on the long iron handles with a deafening clang.
Then the muscles in Kit’s arms bunched, and once again, he flung Nunsworth back.
Before Nunsworth could recover, Ollie—Ollie!—rushed past Kit. Arms extended, with all his boy’s might, Ollie shoved Nunsworth in the chest.
Just as the lad swung his pole, this time, catching Nunsworth squarely across the backs of his knees.
Nunsworth teetered, but still didn’t fall.
Sylvia saw her chance; she could just reach. She slid down and lashed out with her bound feet, sweeping Nunsworth’s boots from beneath him.
His expression dissolving into one of shock, Nunsworth toppled backward. Arms flailing, the iron bar flying from his grasp, he lost his balance and fell heavily on his back.
Before anyone else could move, another slight figure darted in, and Ned upended a metal pail of ashes, pail and all, over Nunsworth’s head.
Coughing and spluttering, Nunsworth collapsed on the floor. Ned had shoved the pail down hard, and it appeared to be stuck on Nunsworth’s head. The pail thudded on the floor as Kit’s groom rushed up.
Kit glanced back at Sylvia. Her gaze was locked on Nunsworth. She was—thank God—unhurt.
He looked at Smiggs, who had run around and entered via the rear hatch, then at the three boys—all standing around their fallen foe as if daring him to try to get up.
Nunsworth obliged and tried to struggle up—and Jack thumped the pail hard with his rod. Nunsworth yelped and fell back, and all three boys smiled grimly.
Kit felt the tension of battle leaching from him. He lowered the tongs. “Well done, boys! Keep an eye on him.”
Their gazes ferociously intent, they did; not one of the three even glanced at Kit to acknowledge the order.
Kit met Smiggs’s relieved gaze and tipped his head toward the downed watchman, who chose that moment to groan. Kit didn’t want to think of what the man’s fate would have been had he and the others not arrived in time.
In time to stop Nunsworth bludgeoning Sylvia to death.
The ice that had flooded Kit on realizing what Nunsworth had planned still chilled him.
He spun and went down on one knee beside the lady who now held his heart.
She was tugging at her still-bound right hand; she flicked him a frowning glance. “I thought I had it, but no.” She tugged at the knotted rope. “Blast it!”
Relief that she was safe—and well enough to frown at him and grumble—swamped him, only to rise in the next breath in a wave so intense and immense it threatened to choke him. He reached for her bound hand and managed to gruffly say, “Here—let me.”
She sniffed and desisted and let him have at the knot.
He worked swiftly, loosening the knot—wrenched tight by her panicked tugging—then unravelling it and unwinding the rope lashing her hand to the rails.
When her hand, still in its glove, was finally free, she drew it close, massaging her no doubt bruised flesh. Kit helped her to sit upright, tugged her other glove free of the rope and handed it to her, then swung around and sat beside her.
When, still rubbing her abused hand, she leaned lightly against him, something deep inside him settled and subsided. After a second, he raised his arm, draped it around her shoulders, and drew her closer—and she came.
That entity inside him who viewed her as his calmed a little more.
Together, they watched Smiggs, who had unbarred and opened the main door, help the watchman outside.
Ned and Ollie had armed themselves with identical metal poles to the one Jack wielded. Any attempt by Nunsworth to so much as lift his head was met by a hail of sharp raps on the pail; he’d learned to lie still.
“You came for me.” Sylvia’s ungloved fingers slipped into Kit’s hand where it rested on his thigh.
Kit gripped—harder than he’d intended. Gentling his hold, his gaze still on the boys, he softly snorted at the silliness of her words. “I will always come for you no matter what monster tries to steal you away.”
He turned his head enough to meet her gaze as, with an unvoiced question in her eyes, she looked at him. He read that question and replied, “I’m not about to let anyone steal my future.”
Lost in the warm caramel of his eyes, Sylvia felt her heart, which had slowed, start to beat faster. She arched her brows. “Your future?”
His lips eased. His gaze still locked with hers, he raised her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “You,” he whispered. “You are my future, and I’m not of a mind to allow anyone to steal the years I hope you’ll agree to share with me.”
Her heart leapt, then raced. She studied his eyes. “Is that an offer, my lord?”
He tipped his head, his lips curving. “Not as such, but it’s the promise of one.” His expression remained relaxed, but there was seriousness behind his next words. “You’re a clergyman’s daughter—I plan to do everything by the book in wooing you.”
She felt her heart soften and shift, and in that instant, she knew to her soul that her heart was already his
.
That she’d succumbed to this nobleman reputed to be a rakehell, who was, in fact, so much more.
Certainty filled her; she let it show in her eyes, let the radiance of it fill her smile.
“M’lord, what do you want us to do with this blighter?”
Ollie’s question broke the moment. Together with Kit, Sylvia looked to where the three boys still had their attention focused on the fallen Nunsworth.
“He’s getting squirrelly,” the lad, who Sylvia had realized from the boys’ exchanges was none other than Jack the Lad, reported.
And, indeed, Nunsworth appeared to be trying to surreptitiously shift into a position from which he could swing away from the boys.
Not that they would let him escape.
Smiggs lumbered up, a length of heavy rope in his hands. “The watchman told me where to find this. He’s—pardon the pun—ropeable about letting Nunsworth down him.”
To the boys, Smiggs said, “Keep those poles handy. Whack him if he gives me any trouble.”
The boys shuffled and circled as, none too gently, Smiggs rolled Nunsworth over, hauled his hands behind his back, and secured them with the rope. Then Smiggs reached down and bent Nunsworth’s legs at the knees, looping the rope around his ankles and cinching it tight. “See?” Smiggs said to the boys. “This is how you hog-tie a man. It’ll keep him right where he is until we decide different.”
While the boys, curious, inspected Smiggs’s handiwork, Kit rose, crouched by Sylvia’s feet, and untied the hobble Nunsworth had fashioned. Then Kit straightened, reached down and gave her his hand and, when she put her fingers in his, drew her upright.
She swayed, and he caught her around the waist. She leaned into his support as the boys turned their way. “Thank you, boys, for coming to save me. I don’t know how you realized that I was in danger before I did, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
All three boys blushed and looked bashful.
“Tweren’t nothing but what you deserve, miss,” Ollie said, “for all your hard work at the school an’ all.”
The other two nodded earnestly. Then Jack’s eyes lit, and he added, “And it was fun!”
Kit chuckled, and she smiled. Then he urged her to the door.
They left Nunsworth, trussed and mumbling curses muted by the metal pail, on the mill floor and walked out into the gathering dusk. Kit led her to the bench against the wall and gently—as if she was porcelain—eased her down to sit.
She shot him a grateful smile; she could do with a moment to gather her wits and simply breathe.
With a last glance to reassure himself that she was as well as she could be, Kit walked to the other end of the bench to speak with the watchman.
Smiggs headed for the lane, calling, “I’ll fetch the curricle.”
The boys, Sylvia was touched to note, hovered protectively beside her; if she wasn’t much mistaken, the Cavanaugh effect was rubbing off on them. She summoned a smile and focused it on Jack. “Jack, isn’t it?”
He blushed and essayed an awkward bow. “Pleased to meet you, miss.”
She smiled more broadly. “Not half as pleased as I am to meet you.” She included Ollie and Ned with a glance. “All I know is that Jack somehow ended up in the boot of Nunsworth’s gig.” She arched her brows at the three. “How did that happen? How is it that all three of you are here?”
They told her, with a great deal of color and explanation thrown in.
By the time they’d finished recounting it all, and she’d commented appropriately along the way, they were quite puffed up with pride—in her opinion, entirely justifiably—and, with the usual resilience of youth, had already forgotten the tenser moments of the drama and were inclined to cast the whole as a magnificent adventure.
She envied them that ability. It would be a long time before she forgot Nunsworth and his terrible plan.
Smiggs drove Kit’s curricle into the clearing and drew up before the open mill door.
Along with Smiggs, the three boys, and even the watchman, Sylvia looked at Kit.
Kit read the question writ large in all the faces turned his way. What now?
He glanced through the open mill door, beyond which Nunsworth remained securely hog-tied, then looked at Sylvia. “I believe it’s time we called on your father.”
CHAPTER 17
The watchman—Gibson—agreed to remain at the mill and watch over their captive; Sylvia assured him they would send relief as soon as they could, then Kit handed her up into the curricle, climbed up, and accepted the reins from Smiggs. Kit waited while Smiggs and the boys crammed in behind, then, with a flick of the reins, sent the bays in a wide turn and set them pacing back toward the lane.
Sylvia pointed to their right. “It’s faster to continue along the river.”
Kit turned the horses that way. Once they were bowling along, he glanced at Sylvia, his gaze lingering for a long moment on her face before he was forced to look to his horses. Under the cover of the noise of the rattling wheels, he murmured, “Are you truly all right?”
He felt her gaze, soft and warm, trace his cheek. “Yes, I am.” After a second, she went on, “We reached the mill before I had the slightest inkling that I had anything to fear. Prior to that, I was consumed by anxiety over my father.” She lightly touched his thigh. “Did you hear about that—the story Nunsworth used to get me to go with him?”
He nodded. “The boys overheard and told me.”
From the corner of his eye, he caught her swift smile. “They really are amazing. I had no idea they’d got so close.”
“Apparently, they’ve been following you on and off for days, seeking to keep you safe from whoever was watching you. It was Ned who got close enough to you and Nunsworth to hear what was said. Evidently, Ned is the sneakiest of the three—or so I’ve been told.”
She laughed—and the sound teased apart the remaining knot of his own anxiety.
After a moment, she went on, “I saw Jack slip out of the boot before Nunsworth dragged me into the mill, so despite not knowing who Jack was, I realized someone had gone to fetch help, yet not knowing you were already on the way, I truly didn’t think anyone would reach the mill in time.” She paused, then said, “I suspect I should have been much more frightened than I was. Instead, I was trying to keep Nunsworth occupied with telling me how clever he’d been until I could get free of his bindings.”
“Thank God you did.” The desolation that had threatened in the instant he’d thought she would die would stay with him for the rest of his life—an evocatively effective reminder of just how much she mattered to him.
“Looking back,” she said, her tone considering, “I was only truly terrified in that moment after I’d avoided his first blow, but thought I had no chance of escaping the second.”
Kit felt his jaw clench and fixed his gaze on the narrow lane ahead.
Then he felt her gaze on his face again, a softly radiant touch tracing his profile.
“But then you were there, between me and him. And I wasn’t afraid for myself anymore—I was afraid for you. That Nunsworth would somehow overwhelm you—he was so violent and ferocious.”
Kit admitted, “I’m not entirely sure he was sane—not in those moments after I intervened.”
She went on, “But then the boys were there, and... I have to say I’m finding it hard to be afraid of a man with a pail on his head.”
Kit felt his lips lift in what was assuredly his first smile in hours. “They did lighten the drama somewhat.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw she was smiling.
“I honestly don’t think I’ll be having any nightmares about Nunsworth.”
Kit let his gaze linger on her face, on her increasingly serene expression. For himself, he wasn’t so sure.
“Around to the left,” Sylvia said as they approached the village’
s High Street. “Then take the first turn to the right, and the vicarage is the first house along.”
She accepted that the tale Nunsworth had spun about her father being at death’s door was all lies. Nevertheless, she wanted to see her father with her own eyes. Only then would she be completely cured of the anxiety Nunsworth had provoked.
Kit turned into the vicarage drive as the last of the light faded from the sky. Looking ahead, Sylvia saw lamplight filling her father’s study, the welcoming glow spilling through the mullioned windows onto the neat path that circled the house.
Kit drew the horses to a stamping halt level with the front steps. Ollie dropped to the ground and raced to hold the horses’ heads, crooning to quiet them.
Smiggs descended more slowly, joining Kit on the gravel as he stepped down. Accepting the reins Kit held out to him, Smiggs glanced at Sylvia. “Is there a stable out back?” He tipped his head at the horses. “After the afternoon they’ve had, I really should rub them down and give them some feed.”
Taking the hand Kit offered, Sylvia climbed down and smiled at Smiggs. “If you walk them around to the back of the house, you’ll find the stable. The stableman, Egbert, will probably be there—he’s a curmudgeonly old soul, but he’ll love to help with horses such as these.”
Smiggs grinned. “I know the sort—I’ll be like him one day. We’ll get along.” To Kit, he said, “I’ll take the lads with me. They can help.”
Kit nodded. “Settle the horses and leave them in the stable until we know what we’re going to do next.”
Sylvia met his eyes and realized what he meant. This would be the first time he would meet her father, who Kit hoped would eventually be his father-in-law. She let her smile deepen and looped her arm through Kit’s. He set his hand over hers where it rested on his sleeve, and together they walked toward the door while Smiggs and the boys led the horses and curricle away.
As, beside Kit, Sylvia climbed the shallow steps to the porch, she glimpsed movement through the nearer window of her father’s study. She didn’t try to suppress her smile; she wasn’t sure she could have. She’d caught sight of two faces as their owners—her father and his close friend Deacon Harris—had stood at the window and, with open, not to say avid, curiosity, watched the action in the forecourt, and now, both men were making for the front hall.
The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh Page 27