by Betina Krahn
By midafternoon, the yard was mostly set to rights and the food brought by Young Bec had been consumed. Sarah promised to send some chickens and ducks from Betancourt to restock the Crotons’ coops, and Ralston volunteered to stay at the Crotons’ place that night, to watch over things until Jess was on his feet again.
Arthur entered the cottage to check on Jess and told Alice that he would have to keep his arm bound for a few days to give it time to heal. Then he spoke with Miles, telling the boy to come and fetch him if his father needed help or if those men returned. He looked around for Sarah, but Miles said she had just left, taking the shortcut through the forest to Betancourt.
He thought of the woodland that one of his ancestors had replanted and protected more than a century ago. It was now a dense wood full of snags and hollows . . . a perfect place for thieves to hide during daylight.
Rattled by the thought of her alone in that forbidding passage, he stepped outside to look down the little-used forest road. Whatever possessed her to take such a route? He mounted his horse and headed out on that same narrow, overgrown path, trying not to think about what would happen to her if she ran afoul of the gang that wreaked havoc on the Crotons’ farm.
Chapter Eleven
Sarah felt the stone in Fancy Boy’s hoof almost as soon as he did. The change in his honey-smooth gait was small, but attuned as she was to his movement, she caught it right away and dismounted. She checked his hoof and judged him able to make it home without her weight on his back.
Walking beside Fancy, she savored the light breeze and dappled light coming through the thick leaf canopy overhead. Her thoughts were occupied with the events of the last few days. Today she’d seen Michael—Arthur—work hard physically, pure manual labor, to get the Crotons’ place set to rights. Clearly that was how he’d acquired the muscular frame that fascinated her so. She frowned as she recalled the way Samuel Arnett and Clyde Ralston instinctively deferred to him and how he seemed to lead even when he was asking questions and learning from them about their work.
Honestly, she couldn’t imagine the Arthur she remembered doing any of that. That afternoon, her Michael/Arthur had proved that he was no longer a sheltered heir that had been manipulated by greedy guardians. Every time she thought she had her mind settled about him, something happened to expose a different side of him and she was forced to rethink her feelings about him.
He was strong and forceful at times, tender and thoughtful at others. Lord knew he was handsome in an elemental, skin tingling, joint loosening kind of way. And he didn’t rattle or spook easily; his reaction to Cousin George was proof of that. She had the feeling there were depths to the man she hadn’t begun to plumb, and—blast her infernal curiosity—she wanted to explore every one of them.
Alerted by the muffled thuds of hooves on the damp earth, she whirled to find Michael on horseback coming up behind her. She blushed, wondering if her thoughts had somehow summoned him.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” He dismounted and came to stand over her, breathing hard.
“Fancy’s got a stone.” Her pulse picked up at his air of urgency. “You wouldn’t happen to have a hoof knife on you, would you?”
“You know there are thieves and outlaws about, and you’ve just seen what they can do. What better place for them to hide than a dense and little-traveled forest?”
She glanced around her with a dawning recognition of the potential menace in the snarled undergrowth and looming shadows. Lord, that hadn’t even occurred to her.
“It isn’t a long distance through.” Uneasiness crept into her voice.
“Long enough for men with no scruples and even fewer morals to find you. Then where would you be?”
She thought about that for a moment, trying not to meet his gaze. “Battling my way free.” She straightened. “I’m not exactly helpless, you know.”
“Imprisoned and held for ransom, more likely. Or ravished and made to suffer the wretches’ vile demands.” He studied her face. “If something should happen to you, the whole of Meridian would come for my head. Not to mention your family and my stubborn brother.”
“Who appointed you my protector?” she demanded.
He propped his fists on his hips, looking her over.
“You’ve never been held captive.”
“True.” She swallowed hard. “I understand that you have, but—”
“More than once,” he declared, his face hardening. “I was held captive in India as surety in negotiations between the provincial government and a fiercely independent maharaja. And for eight months in a Cairo prison . . . caught up in a brawl that became a rebellious mob. I narrowly missed being beheaded. Later, as I headed back to England, I was shanghaied in Algiers. I know what it is to be captive and powerless, and I am fairly certain you would not do well under such circumstances.”
He was probably right, infernal man. But her potential peril suddenly seemed less important than what he had just revealed about his adventures. Holy buckets, the man had been through difficult times.
“So, you really could not have come back to Betancourt before now,” she said, watching the play of emotions in his face.
“Correct.” His stance softened as he sought her eyes again. “Throughout my travels I seemed to stumble into chaos and upheaval wherever I went.” His expression darkened. “Now it seems I’ve brought it home with me to Betancourt.”
She studied him, seeing that sense of abandoned responsibility and guilt she had glimpsed in him before. “I think you’re taking this too personally. This band of thieves was roaming the countryside well before you came back to Betancourt. You could hardly be responsible.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “But I did leave Betancourt untended and unguarded for years.”
“No more than Ashton has.” She realized the implications of speaking her thoughts aloud and bit her lip.
“Yes.” Michael frowned. “He hasn’t lived up to his responsibilities either.” A moment passed as he searched her upturned face. “You, however, have more than met our obligation to the estate . . . setting the house to rights, rebuilding the stables, tending to peoples’ ills and complaints. Including mine.”
He reached up to stroke her cheek and she shivered.
“You are a wonder, Sarah Bumgarten. What are you doing here?”
The searching question in his eyes pulled every heart-string she possessed. She had the most compelling urge to tell him.
“I . . . I . . . couldn’t stay in London and I needed a place to go. I knew Ash wasn’t here, so I figured no one would object. When I got here, winter was coming on and the house was cold and leaky; there were missing slates on the roof and missing glazing in some windows that let in the elements. I needed something to do to take my mind off . . .”
“Off what?” He reached for her hands.
She recoiled from that contact, but he held her fast.
“Tell me.”
She braced internally, realizing that she could no longer shrink from the truth behind her presence at Betancourt.
“I was involved with someone. At least, I thought I was. He came back from Italy with a fiancée and I had to learn of his blasted engagement in front of my mother and half of London.” She struggled with the feelings that clung to that memory. “I never really fit in there, so I left London, hoping to find a place where no one knew or cared that I was a bluestocking ‘jilt.’ Betancourt was empty and in need of attention. And I had attention to give.”
“And the name of this paragon of arrogance and selfishness?”
She couldn’t bring herself to say his name, shamed by the emotion the earl’s betrayal still had the power to stir in her.
“It doesn’t matter.” She forced a smile that felt more like a wince.
“But it does,” he said, lifting her face with his fingertips. His gaze slid into hers, probing, seeking the bruises on her heart. “I need to know who to flatten when I set eyes on him. Callous, trifling bastard.”
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It was said in an almost teasing tone, but she heard underneath it the flintiness that hardship and misfortune had shaped in him. He spoke the truth when he said he was not afraid of much. In that moment she realized he very likely would throw a punch at an earl.
“Any man who doesn’t recognize how bright and engaging and desirable you are is either blind or stupid. Or both.” He inched closer to her. “So, I’ll keep an eye out for an arrogant dolt wearing thick spectacles.”
She couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in her.
“You say the most outrageous things.”
“Just the truth, actually. I’ve never been quick enough to come up with sharp ripostes. It just happens that the truth is often more outrageous than we realize.”
He leaned toward her upturned face and his voice lowered to the nerve-tingling vibration that sent gooseflesh over her shoulders. “The truth about your eyes, for instance. They’re the color of a South Sea island lagoon. A beautiful blue-green that would make butterflies jealous. And your skin is so smooth and warm, so sweetly freckled.”
She would have covered her nose, but he refused to release her hand. Sweet Heaven, did he intend to itemize every flaw she possessed?
“Your hair—sun-kissed and streaks of gold—is soft to the touch and smells of rose oil.” He twirled a finger in a wisp of hair that had escaped her chignon. “You leave every room you enter smelling of your passage.”
“So . . . my complexion is ruined and I reek of too much scent?” she said, her throat tight and words a bit forced.
“What I am saying is, you’re utterly delectable, Sarah Bumgarten.”
“Oh?” She could hardly breathe. “So . . . I’m . . . edible?”
“I’m having a devil of a time here—”
“Not insulting me?” she said, staring helplessly at his mouth.
“Controlling an urge to—aww, hell.”
He met her lips with his and completed a circuit of desire that had been charging between them for days. This electrical connection was hot, urgent, and totally overdue. She wrapped her arms around him and rose onto her toes to meet his kiss.
His lips felt hard and demanding at first, but softened as they blended with hers. Her heart beat recklessly; she could hardly take a breath as she fitted her mouth to his and learned the pleasure of tasting him fully. Salty, faintly sweet, he was as delectable as he claimed she was. More, she wanted more of these powerful sensations . . . more and deeper kisses, more and deeper contact . . . she wanted to climb inside his skin and touch every bone and sinew . . . wanted to discover every little known, never shown part of him.
She didn’t hear the rustle of leaves, the snap of dried branches on the forest floor, footfalls—clumsy in their haste and growing closer. But Michael heard them. He was breathing heavily as he jerked his head up and looked around. His body tensed against hers.
“Go for my horse—now!” As he backed away, he thrust her toward his mare and growled, “Now, Sarah!”
Confused, but trusting his instinct more than her own pleasure-dulled senses, she wheeled and made it to his horse before it struck her that Fancy was lame and needed help. She hopped up into the stirrup and swung into the saddle.
“Get Fancy!” She held out a hand to him and after an instant of indecision, he grabbed her horse’s reins.
As he swung up behind her and they took off, rough-looking men emerged out of the forest and demanded they halt. Threats weren’t enough to keep Sarah from kicking Michael’s mare into a run.
The road was narrow and overgrown in places, but their direction was clear and they managed to hang on to each other long enough to lose sight of the bandits. Fancy tried valiantly to keep up, but was limping badly and clearly in pain. He finally stumbled to a halt, ripping the reins from Michael’s hand as they rode on.
“I’ve lost him!” he called to Sarah.
She slowed and started to turn back to help her beloved mount. Two men on horseback came roaring up behind Fancy, pointing something at them. There was a crack, then another. The first shot went wide.
“They’re shooting at us!” Michael pulled her back against him to grab the reins and turn them back toward Betancourt.
In desperation, she leaned to peer around him, and saw Fancy rearing, pawing at the bandits trying to take him under control. She kept looking back, heartbreak blurring the image, until Fancy’s struggle was out of sight.
Sunshine warmed their shoulders as they left the woods behind, but nothing could erase the stunning visual of Fancy fighting for his freedom.
“We should have gone back for him—he’s worth a stable full of other horses,” she said, swallowing tears.
He slowed the horse to a walk. “No amount of bravery can beat a gun. If I’ve learned anything in the last six years, it’s that you have to know when to fight and when to withdraw to fight another day.”
It was hard-won wisdom, she sensed, and probably the right thing to do. But she was still devastated by the knowledge that her beloved horse was now in the hands of brutal men who had killed stock at the Crotons simply because they couldn’t take it with them.
“He has such spirit,” she said softly. “And he’s injured. They won’t take care of him . . . and if they think they can’t use him . . .”
“We’ll find him, Sarah.” He took a deep breath and pulled her back against his chest. She melted against him, needing the warmth and security of his hard body supporting hers. “He’s one of a kind. They won’t be able to sell him off without somebody noticing.” She closed her eyes and tried to believe him. “I’ll search the whole county, inch by inch if I have to. I’ll find him, I swear it.”
* * *
Michael lifted her down at the stable door, stroked her damp cheeks with his thumbs, and then sent her into the house ahead of him. Every footstep cost her precious energy, but the moment she entered the great hall she felt something was different. Voices came from the parlor and she hurried to the archway to find her beloved uncle seated in the center of a knot of household staff, relating one of his Nevada stories.
“Uncle Red?” She could hardly believe her eyes. His face was ruddier, his hair was whiter, and she could have sworn he’d added an inch or two to his barrel of a chest. But he was still every bit the beloved old Westerner who had been her father figure, teacher, and occasional accomplice for as long as she could remember.
“Sarah!” He struggled to the edge of the settee and then to his feet, sending the servants scattering back to their duties. She ran to hug him, and saw him wince as he opened his arms to her. Instinctively, she gentled her customary bear hug for the old prospector, but his embrace was every bit the hearty squeeze she had come to expect.
“Are you all right, Uncle Red?” She pulled back in his arms to look him over with concern. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“Aww, just saddle sore. Fancy livin’ is makin’ me soft. I took the train from Suffolk to London to see Lizzie, an’ then mounted up an’ rode straight—” He halted and scowled at her. “You been cryin’.”
Tears welled again.
“It’s Fancy—he’s been taken by some men who—” She saw alarm building in him and tried to explain. “There are a bunch of thieves—outlaws—who’ve been stealing and tearing up property on our tenants’ lands and we went to help a farmer who got injured. They caught us in some woods on the way home. I was walking Fancy because he picked up a stone and they came up quickly on us and they had guns—”
“Guns?” Red’s alarm changed to outrage. “In England? Hell, the coppers don’t even have guns here.”
“Fancy couldn’t run and we had to get out of there.”
“Yellow-bellied bastards,” Red growled, pulling her against him and patting her. “We’ll get ’im back, Sarah. I promise you.”
“Damned straight we will,” came a deep voice from outside the parlor doorway. Sarah looked up to find Michael stopping just inside the doorway. His frown at the sight of her in a man’s arms m
elted as he recognized their visitor.
“Red? Redmond Strait?” He looked Red over in astonishment. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
Red released Sarah and limped toward Michael, stopping a few feet away. His gaze flicked back and forth, and up and down, inspecting Michael’s striking features and formidable frame.
“Who the hell are—?” Red came up with his own answer before the question was fully out of his mouth. “You’re that imposter.”
That, Sarah hadn’t expected. She swiped at the moisture on her cheeks and hurried to Red’s side. “Imposter? Uncle Red, what are you doing here?”
“Yer ma sent me t’see about you an’ protect you from some varmint who showed up claimin’ to be Arthur come back from the grave.”
“He’s—” She scowled in confusion. “How did she hear about him?”
“Somebody brought word ye were bein’ held here and she stormed around like Pecos Bill on a twister. Frankie’s baby is takin’ his sweet time comin’ and Lizzie’s afraid to leave ’er, so she sent fer me.” He looked her over, and she reddened under that inspection. The old prospector didn’t miss much, and whatever he saw clearly caused him concern.
“You all right, Sarah?”
“I’m fine, Uncle Red, really.” Her thoughts went straight to George Graham. What other somebody could it be? “I can—we can explain.”
“We, is it now? You throwin’ in with this tall drink o’ water?” Red stepped right up to Michael, squinting to examine his face, his long hair, and muscular chest. He limped around Michael, looking him up and down with narrowing eyes. Completing that circuit, he faced the younger man and crossed his arms.
“Tell me somethin’,” he commanded.