“Quit strugglin, boy, or I might lose my grip on this trigger, and then your friends wou’d be clearing up bits o’ your brain from now till Whitsunday,” the bearded man threatened.
Bobby quit struggling as he and the bearded man moved out of sight. If we live through this, Colin thought, I’ll teach Bobby some tricks to use next time. Next time. He hoped they would have a next time.
The two men were in front of him on the house side of the kitchen garden, some distance from the house. Before him, the paths came to a cross. There the path down the side of the kitchen garden intersected with the path coming from the main portion of the house. From that intersection, the main path extended through the kitchen garden to the woods on one side, and across the back of the house to the woods on the other.
As he crossed the intersection, he could be seen down the long main path. If he could just pass the break in the hedge without being seen, he could circle behind them. Having found Bobby, they might now expect opposition from the house, but not likely from the forest they had just left. The hedge on his side of the opening, however, was dense, and he couldn’t get a clear view of whether the men were still close by or had moved farther away. He could stick his head around the edge and hope no one would see, or he could just leap across the path. He risked exposure either way.
He chose the path of greater discretion. He tucked his head around the side just enough to see down the opening. He saw nothing. He leapt across. Nothing. He moved forward again, gauging his movements in relation to the windows of the house.
At the end of the hedge, he would be at the bottom of the kitchen garden and could turn into the main yard some distance from the woods. But he would be farther from where he’d seen the men with Bobby.
Unfortunately, at the next intersection, he found the first poacher waiting for him, Bobby before him with a pistol to his head. Before he could respond, the second poacher came from behind him and, pulling his arms back, restrained him. The flash of pain made his eyes see white. He wanted to struggle, but he would not risk Bobby, at least not twice on the same mission.
“This isn’t my land.” Colin would have to rely on his wits, though he knew from their position, they could be seen easily from the lodge windows. “I’m here on the largesse of the landowner. I have no concern with whatever game you trap or take. Let the boy return to the house.”
“He saw my face,” the bearded man objected and pressed the pistol against Bobby’s temple.
“He’s a boy,” Colin soothed. If the men were assassins, he needed to discover it.
“A boy’s as good a witness as any other in a trial for transportation or execution,” the man restraining him said.
“We are guests at the lodge,” Colin said, hoping he was giving Fletcher time to protect the child. “Here for a day or two, then home. We have no reason to be concerned with your business.”
“But we have reason to be concerned with yours.”
“In what way?” Colin waited to hear that these were the men who had attacked them before.
“The lodge has a fine set of plate and weapons, or so we’ve heard. We’d like them . . . all of them. That means, you see, it’s unfortunate that you and the boy decided to visit here this week,” the bearded man explained. “Gives us no choice.”
Moving his pistol from Bobby’s head, the robber leveled his gun at Colin. Colin realized he’d failed once more. Now, they would all die.
If he were lucky, Fletcher would be in the priest hole with Jennie and the babe. But Lucy was unprotected, and she wouldn’t have time to hide. He hadn’t shown her the second hole or how to get into it.
He prayed she had ignored him and gone to hide with Fletcher. And he prayed that the men wouldn’t start a fire in the main hall. It would be a cool night. A small fire was no danger, but a blazing one would heat the rooms behind it and suffocate those hiding in the priest hole.
He felt despair and a bone-deep regret. Why hadn’t he seized his opportunity to take Lucy to his bed and show her the pleasure he could offer?
He started to struggle, but stopped. If she were watching, at least she would see him die bravely and know to hide. If she could. If she had time.
As in the carriage, the gun leveled at him was too close to miss. All he needed to do was stand still while the ball dropped and ignited. A gun cracked, and he waited to feel the ball. But instead, the poacher flinched, sending a second shot humming past Colin’s head. The poacher fell to the ground, writhing in pain and releasing Bobby.
“Run!” he cried, as he twisted from the second poacher’s grasp and began to fight him.
Another shot rang out, and he heard the bore of the bullet pass him by. Another shot fired soon after. How Fletcher was reloading that fast, he didn’t know, but he also didn’t care. All he needed was to give Bobby time to get to safety and dissuade the robbers—by whatever means.
Another shot. And another. From the numbers of shots fired, it sounded like the house held a full party, and each one was standing in a window shooting.
Thank God for Fletcher, though he’d given him a direct order to protect Jennie and William. He could hardly regret him disobeying it, but he’d have to berate him for choosing Colin’s safety over Jennie and the infant’s.
He twisted the second poacher’s arm until he felt it dislocate. The poacher began to howl in pain. Then Colin knocked him behind the head, felling the big lug to the ground, unconscious.
He had only a few minutes. He called to Bobby, who was hiding in the trees, to get a rope from the carriage. They tied the poachers tightly. There was no way to deliver them to the local magistrate without revealing their presence, but Fletcher could drive the men to the porter’s lodge, and from there, the porter could deliver them to the appropriate liaison of the Home Office. The men might not die—because that would attract too much attention—but Colin was sure that they would find themselves on the next boat of transported criminals and poor.
Fletcher came from the house accompanied by Bobby. “Is this all of them, sir?”
“Yes, I believe so. They didn’t sound like they had any more accomplices.
“Should we check the woods?” Fletcher searched the first poacher’s pockets.
“Yes. Or at least the remainder of the grounds,” Colin directed. “We now at least know that violence unrelated to the child is possible, even here so far into the woods.”
“Aye.” Fletcher began to walk away to collect the porter.
But Colin called him back. The older man never liked compliments or compensation. But saving his life was too great an obligation to leave unnoticed.
“Fletcher, that was a great shot. I’m not sure I could have made it. And not from the distance of the house, with a rifle unused for months.”
“What shot?” Fletcher looked confused. “I made sure Miss Jennie was locked up and safe, then I came running to help you when I heard the firing.”
Colin looked back at the house. From the angle, the shot had to come from the second floor. At one of the petal windows, he saw a reflection and the bore of a gun sticking out unobtrusively.
“Can you handle these men?”
“Sure, especially as trussed as you have left them for me.”
“Then I must check on Lucy.” He walked, then ran to the house, fearing what he might find and wondering how she had made the shot.
When he arrived back in the gunroom, Lucy was seated at the table where they had enjoyed tea the day before. Her forehead rested, wearily, against her hand.
A row of rifles lay on the floor, each one having been shot to protect him. A long rifle, nearly six feet in length, was supported on a low table, propped by books to create the appropriate angle. She looked serious, severe, and worn to exhaustion.
“Is he dead?”
“No, just wounded. He should live.”
“I didn’t want to kill him.” She looked pleadingly into his eyes. “But you and Bobby were in danger.”
“They would have killed
us.” He hugged her to his side as she buried her face in his clothes. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
She was silent for some minutes before she answered. But then she pulled back from his side and wrapped her arms around her chest. “I learned to shoot my mother’s pistol when I was young, perhaps seven or eight. And since I had a talent for it, my father taught me to fire a flintlock when I was nine or ten. I became a curiosity. The men in the regiment treated me as a sort of mascot; they taught me tricks . . . how to shoot a penny in the air. Periodically, they would even make a little money off it, betting the new recruits that they couldn’t outshoot me. During the sieges, the men practiced firing. In part, it was to remind those behind the walls that the troops were outside, waiting.”
“To make the inhabitants fearful.”
She nodded, one hand absently rubbing a circle in her elbow. “The men had rifled most of the guns to increase their accuracy, but it was still almost always a surprise to see what they hit. During the sieges it became almost a sort of game between the battalions, to see what one could hit at increasingly impossible distances. But as the sieges wore on, the men decided it would be amusing to teach me to shoot long distances.”
“That doesn’t explain today. That wasn’t the shooting of someone taught to fire for amusement.”
“No.” She nodded agreement. “But at Badajoz, we shared the camp with the Ninety-fifth Regiment.”
“Ah, the sharpshooters.” Aidan had served at Badajoz; her story would be easy to confirm, if Colin wished.
“They had Bakers.” She pointed to the rifles on the floor. “They took longer to load than the muskets, but they were far more accurate and at greater distances. The riflemen in the Ninety-fifth could shoot a man off the city walls. One day, they staged a competition with my father’s men. The hospital was quiet, so I went to watch. It was pretty, in a way: the green uniforms of the sharpshooters—the French called them ‘grasshoppers’—next to the scarlet of the infantry. The men were laughing, setting up more and more distant targets. At some point, one of my father’s men joked that any man could shoot as well as the grasshoppers with a good Baker at his side. Somehow the bet was amended to be ‘any woman.’ At some point, I can’t remember quite how, my father’s men wagered the grasshoppers that the nurse could shoot a flag flying from the battlements. The grasshoppers took the bet.”
“I see where this is going. The wagers went high.”
“Mostly for whiskey and tobacco,” she explained.
“But I’m sure some money also passed hands.”
“Of course.” Her eyes focused on some point in the distance. “The grasshoppers were very accommodating. They loaded the rifle, told me how it aimed, explained all the tricks of shooting it. It was a calm day, so I didn’t have to think about wind, only distance and how much the ball would drop before it hit. I hit the target. That’s how I met my fiancé.”
“He was one of the sharpshooters?”
She nodded, losing herself in memory. “It was his gun that I shot. Of course he took the credit for being a fine teacher. After that, I learned a great deal more about how to shoot. Later, he gave me my own gun. Sometimes we had intruders in the camps during engagements. There were always some who thought to steal or attack the hospital tent when the fighting moved a distance away. It was important to know how to defend oneself. I kept it under my shirt in the hospital tent, to protect the camp when the fighting had moved ahead of us. Sometimes, if the colonel needed a particularly tough shot, he’d call on me. I thought I’d never have to do that again.” Her hands and voice began to shake.
“I’m glad you could. My life depended on it . . . possibly all our lives.” He kissed her hair and stroked her back, until Fletcher called for him from the stairs.
She closed her eyes, then opened them and met his gaze. “Tonight.”
“What about tonight?
“I don’t want to sleep alone.”
He stroked her hair. “If you do not wish to, my darling, you won’t.”
* * *
For dinner that evening, Fletcher and Bobby wished to hold a celebration, and Jennie even ventured from her retreat.
Bobby was recounting how he had stumbled across the men and been captured, both men praising Lucy’s unexpected skill. “You saved us all, Miss Lucy,” Bobby kept repeating, as if still surprised by the fact that he was alive. “You should have seen it, Jennie, both men on the ground, one bleeding something fierce. She saved us all.” Jennie and Bobby—separated in age by only a handful of years—had grown into close confidants in the past few days, Bobby spending most of his time, when he wasn’t on watch, in the priest hole with her, both telling stories to while away the time.
But with each recounting of the day’s adventures, Lucy’s face grew more and more haunted. And when Jennie and Bobby declared they would wash the evening’s dishes, Lucy withdrew early.
As Jennie and Bobby began to clear the table, Fletcher—drawing upon their years of silent communication in the camps—had motioned with his eyes that Colin should follow her. But Colin had shaken his head slightly, refusing the suggestion. She was shaken and distraught, and he did not wish to impose on her. Even so, he could not keep his thoughts from turning to her, to her plea that she not sleep alone. By the end of the evening, when he was finally able to retire, his body was taut with desire.
Yet when he reached their bedrooms, no light shown from below her door to show she had waited for him, and the door adjoining their rooms was shut.
His side was mending well, testimony in part to Lucy’s skill. Though it still ached, the wounds had knit firmly closed. He stripped to his drawers, chest uncovered, and lay in bed, hands behind his head, trying to distract himself by reviewing the next steps in their plans to move William to Brighton.
When the moon was high in the night sky, he head Lucy cry out in alarm. He was through the door adjoining their rooms in an instant. From the light at the window, he could see that she was in the throes of a nightmare.
She whimpered, a plaintive sound, and called out the word, “No!” followed by a mournful moan and tears.
He moved to her side and, kneeling beside her bed, called her name, brushing the hair from her face, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
She sat up, startled, her eyes wide, her hands out before her as if deflecting a blow. Still not yet fully awake, she remained trapped in the violence of her dream.
He stood and sat on the bed beside her. Pulling her in against his chest, he cooed her name gently. Slowly, her body relaxed against his as she wakened. For several moments, she breathed into the circle of his arms; then, lifting her face to regard him, she searched his eyes.
He kissed her forehead, her hair, her temple, kissing away her fears and replacing them with desire. He brushed his hand over her hair. “I’m here. You are safe.”
At the word safe, she seemed to make a decision. He could almost see it in her face. She pressed her lips against his softly, then firmly, then with greater passion. He met each change with equal fervor.
Raising one hand, she cupped the back of his head with her hand, holding his lips to hers. It was dark enough that he could not see her body in the depth of the bed, but with his hand, he could follow the line of her body, from her shoulders to her side, down to the curve of her hip. The curve of her hip. He realized it in an instant. All he felt were curves, not the square form he’d spent his last weeks imagining undressing.
He drew his hand back up, tracing the flare of her hips, the narrowness of her waist, the full swell of her breasts. Such efforts to conceal her shape suggested her troubles were more severe than he had realized, but he would think on it tomorrow. Tonight he would simply delight in the unexpected gift of her.
She tightened her fingers in his hair, pulling a handful of it slightly, just enough for a pleasurable tingle to travel down his spine; then she moved her hand slightly and repeated the action. Soon, all of his scalp and neck felt live with sensation. Her other hand
caressed his shoulder to his chest, then slipped under his arm to his back, pulling his body closer to hers. She opened her mouth to his, teasing his lower lip with her tongue.
He set her away, just slightly, and looked into her eyes. “Yes?”
She turned her bottom lip under her upper teeth, then whispered, “Yes.” He leaned into her mouth, pressing his lips against hers. He sucked her full bottom lip until he pulled the sweet edge of it between his teeth. Her lips opened, allowing him to trace her lips, then her teeth, with his tongue. She mirrored his actions, in a delightful game of give and take.
Caressing her body from hips to breast, he stopped to cup her breast with his hand, raising it slightly as he bent his head. He teased her breast with his tongue and teeth, biting the thin material of her shift and pulling it gently across the responsive skin.
At the middle of her chest, three small bows held her shift closed over her breasts. He pulled the first loose, then the second, then the third. Slipping his hand under the open bodice of the cotton, he felt her flesh, cool against his palm.
Such sweet skin, soft and clean, smiling of roses and of lemons.
She mirrored his actions, letting her hands drink in the feel of his skin at his chest and shoulders. Her caresses felt like cool fire, then only like fire when she leaned down to kiss his chest, trailing a line of lips and tongue from his collarbone to his navel, then lower. She brushed her hair—unbound—against his chest, using its silky length to caress and tease him. The sensation was exquisite. In the darkness, he closed his eyes, focusing on each spot where her body met his, feeling her moving down his body. Each inch lower tested his control, but he reveled in the sensations, at her pleasure in his body. He began to touch her once more, but she pushed his hand away. She tugged at his linen drawers, and he felt the first button release, then the second, freeing him from the restraint of his clothes. The moon at the window yielded a soft half light, and he watched her face. Her eyes closed, she focused on the explorations of her fingers.
Chasing the Heiress Page 16