by Gaelen Foley
“Ah, a military man,” Carstairs drawled. “Good, then you’re used to taking orders. Now, get back in your room before I blow your damn head off.”
“Why, you little coxcomb! I’ll crush you!” Mortimer lunged for Carstairs’s pistol, driving the earl’s hand upward to point the gun at the ceiling.
Carstairs cursed.
Quint rushed to his aid as they grappled. The screaming wife flapped her arms in the doorway.
For a second, Mary looked on in vexed astonishment, unable to get a clean shot at her former lover, now that two innocent bystanders were absurdly caught in the fray. Suddenly realizing that in the hubbub, she could escape and rejoin the others, she spun around and ran, rushing down the hallway and toward the back stairs.
“Ginny!” Quint roared.
With Mortimer crushing his fingers around the gun, Carstairs lost control of the weapon just then.
The gun went off, the bullet slamming harmlessly into the ceiling.
Lizzie and Sorscha were in the clear. A moment ago, they had found the back door, slipped out of the building, and were now running through the weed-choked kitchen garden, intent on stealing Carstairs’s fine carriage to make their getaway.
“My head feels so strange,” Sorscha had just been saying. “Like right before you swoon.”
“It’s just nerves.”
“No, I feel as though all this has happened before. I can’t explain it—”
Suddenly, the crisp report of the gunshot ripped through the indigo night, cutting off her words. They both gasped and jerked to a halt, whirling around to stare back at the inn. Lizzie paled. Mary must have made her kill. But Sorscha, who knew nothing of her foster mother’s pistol, immediately assumed the worst.
“Mama!” she burst out, her young face flooding with horror.
Before Lizzie could even react, Sorscha wrenched her hand free and bolted back toward the inn.
“Sorscha, don’t!”
The chit was as stubborn as her brother. In a few wild strides, the girl reached the door and flung inside, vanishing into the blackness.
“Oh, God.” Lizzie raced after her, a shadow of unease darkening her heart like the shifting clouds that now veiled the moon. She shook her head and took off running, following Sorscha back into the place. She had no choice.
Dev followed the sound of the distant gunshot.
The moon went dark, swallowed by a sinuous cloud-dragon, but he did not slow his pace, thundering down the road, gathering power and rage every second, rising to hit like the hammer of a hurricane.
With burning eyes, he stared down the road like a rider of the Apocalypse or some worse fiend loosed from the deepest circle of Hell; they shot through the darkness heedlessly, the dark steed snorting brimstone as his mighty hooves pounded the earth. At this speed, one misstep would kill them both, but it mattered not.
His heart was already dead.
The fire in his soul would lay waste to everything in its path. His mind was fevered, yet numb as ice, unable to digest the image of his beloved lying dead—all his fault. The brief moment of beauty she had shown him had winked out like a candle, the darkness revealing his life to him for what it was—a grotesque, like the frozen stone scream of church gargoyles. He had killed his family, killed his love, and rather feared he had just lost his mind.
It didn’t matter.
Clipped free now from the last fragile strand of his humanity, he stared into blackness with the eyes of a demon, the bloodlust of a stalking cougar. His rage was primitive, all consuming. Memories spiraled through his head in time with Star’s pounding hoofbeats, war drums beating in his veins as he recalled the fierce Mohawk warriors working themselves into a frenzy before battle. He felt their horrible ecstasy now. Kill. Yes, he would kill Quint, Carstairs, take their scalps. There was no fear of death in him now nor any care for consequences. He was filled with the bloodcurdling roar of the Bengal tiger, the howl of the wolf, the bellow of the Nile croc; he would tear his prey to pieces.
He slowed his horse to a walk when he came upon the overturned carriage just past the bridge. There was no one there, and the ripped timbers at the front of the chassis informed him the horses had bolted, as well.
He wondered who it belonged to, what had happened. But it didn’t really matter. Torquil Staines had told him all he needed to know.
Lizzie was dead.
He swept the darkened landscape with a baleful glance, the moon emerging again from the belly of the beast to illume the smear of blood on Dev’s cheek—not his own. His careful glance around revealed a few dim lights glowing amid the trees.
A building.
As the wind teased through the stand of pines and oak trees, he caught sight of Carstairs’s racing drag parked outside. His eyes narrowed. The drumming in his veins deepened.
He eased Star off the gravel and onto soft turf to muffle their approach. Stopping amid the trees’ cover, he knotted the leather reins so they would not trip the horse if he moved around or bolted; his hands were tacky with dried blood. Sliding down off his horse’s bare back, he left the looped reins draped over Star’s withers and stalked toward the building, silently unsheathing his big jungle knife.
It proved to be a dejected little coaching inn. There were lights in the high, dirty windows of the first floor, where the taproom was usually located. He glanced around, considering his options. Before approaching the place, he sneaked over to Carstairs’s vehicle and freed the earl’s horses from their harness. He shooed the quartet of brown mares in the direction of the trees; turf and pine needles muted their skittish hoofbeats. Star whickered to the frightened mares; then the lot of them could be heard cantering off across the road and into the alfalfa field across the way.
Dev glanced back at the building. Now, whatever happened, the bastards could not escape him. As far as he was concerned, none of them were getting out of here alive.
A nightbird gave a lonely warble as Dev crept up to the building. His sense of danger mounted, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.
He heard the sound of people fighting somewhere up on the second floor, a shrill woman’s voice shrieking, “Mortimer! Mortimer!”
Mortimer? What the hell?
Holding his knife between his teeth for a moment, Dev swung up onto the balustrade of the first gallery and hung around the corner, peering into the taproom. Through the filth and cobwebs that coated the window, he saw Johnny holding the occupants at bay with a blunderbuss. He saw neither Carstairs nor Quint, but they were here somewhere.
He would have to rely on stealth to retain the advantage of surprise, he saw. Subdue Johnny as quietly as possible and keep the old men in the pub from making a ruckus.
Jumping back down silently to the ground, he caught his knife deftly in his hand, landing with pantherlike agility. Stealing over to the door, he turned the knob soundlessly, easing the hammer back inch by inch.
With a furtive speed that would have made his old Cherokee shaman friend, Yellow Feather, smile, he slipped inside and had his knife pressed to Johnny-boy’s throat before the man even realized he was there.
“Put the gun down,” he ordered in a deadened voice.
Johnny froze, eyeballing his big curved knife. Without warning, he ducked to the side and struck Dev in the chin with the sturdy butt of the blunderbuss.
Dev’s head snapped back, but he recovered at once and launched at Johnny, more than ready for a brawl.
“Mortimer, behind you!”
“Doesn’t she ever shut up?” Quint asked in exasperation.
“Not really,” the mustachioed husband confided; then Quint managed to pull Mortimer off Carstairs and threw him back into his room, pushing his wife with him. “Both of you stay in there unless you want to die!”
Quint slammed the door to their room and wedged it shut with a side chair that sat next to a console table in the hallway.
“Much obliged, old boy.” Panting, Carstairs got to his feet and shook the plaster dust out of his
hair. It had rained down on him when the bullet had hit the ceiling. A speck had gotten into his eye, burning slightly, but he blinked it away.
“Not convinced we ought to let those bleeders live. They’ve seen our faces. So did those men in the tavern,” Quint added.
“A handful of old drunks? Forget them,” Carstairs muttered. “They’re no threat to us. We’ll come back for ‘Mortimer’ and his wife. First we’ve got to find Dev’s wench.” Carstairs suddenly noticed Quint staring down the empty hallway.
“Ginny!” The baron whirled to him. “She’s gone!”
“Damn it,” Carstairs cursed, reloading his pistol as he followed Quint, who ran ahead of him down the hallway, chasing his Irish whore. The wily bitch had seized Mortimer’s distraction to flee—and they still hadn’t found Miss Carlisle.
“Ginny!” With heavy footfalls, Quint pounded down the hallway and ducked around the corner. “Ginny, wait!” He saw her ahead, racing toward the back stairs in a billow of black lace, but she nearly stumbled when someone suddenly came racing up the stairs, nearly colliding with her.
“Mama, you’re all right!” cried a high-pitched voice.
Quint stopped, his chest heaving from his sprint, as a beautiful little girl with big blue eyes and dark curls rushed toward Ginny.
“Sorscha, no!” Ginny shrieked. “Get out of here!”
“Ginny?” Quint queried, his voice turning strange.
Quint heard Carstairs walking up cautiously behind him. “Well, well, who have we here?” the earl murmured.
Ginny whirled around, hiding the child behind her. “Leave her alone. She has nothing to do with this. Go, Sorscha. Now!”
The girl clung to her. “I won’t leave you, Mama! You can’t make me.”
Quint stared at the child, his eyes glazing over. His memory swam. That last night they’d had together…
“Is she—mine?” he choked out, barely able to find his voice.
“Yes,” Ginny answered in a shaky voice. “Yes, Quint. She’s yours. Don’t let Carstairs hurt her.”
Quint didn’t seem to hear. Staring at the little girl, the life he had not chosen flashed before his eyes. “Ginny, she’s so beautiful.”
At his words, the girl made a small sound of anger and hid her face against Ginny’s womanly form.
“Let me see you, sweeting. She’s shy? What is your name?” The gentleness in Quint’s voice came out foreign, jerky.
Ginny was insistent. “Let her go, Quentin. I will come with you, I swear. Just let Sorscha go.”
He looked at her in hurt. “Do you think I would harm my own child? Come here, little one. I am your papa.”
“The brat’s not yours, Quint.”
“What?” He glanced over in confusion at Carstairs, who had spoken harshly.
“Look at her. Look closely.” The way Carstairs studied the girl sent a chill of foreboding down Quint’s spine.
“W-what do you mean?” he asked uncertainly.
“It’s just another of Ginny’s desperate tricks. If she had borne you a child, it would be twelve years old. This girl looks to be about sixteen.” Then Carstairs paused, taking a few slow steps toward the pair. “I know this child. I’ve heard her screaming in my head for twelve long years.”
Sorscha suddenly lifted her head from the woman’s shoulder, her blue eyes locking with the earl’s with a sudden flare of recognition. “You.”
Quint looked at him, paling. “You don’t mean—”
“The Strathmore brat. Ginny must have rescued her from the fire and raised her all these years. Sorry, Lady Sarah. Nothing personal,” he said, bringing up his pistol. “Yet again it is merely my unhappy duty to get rid of the evidence.”
“No!” Quint saw Ginny reach for something in her pocket, knocking the girl behind her body: His reaction was too slow.
Boom!
“Mama!” The girl’s scream pierced the air, but Quint saw no blood on her clothing.
Ginny fell.
Quint stared, immobile, too stunned to breathe even as Miss Carlisle came rushing up the steps.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Carstairs calmly starting to reload.
The roar that came out of Quint started as a growl somewhere down in his solar plexus. The next thing he knew, he was seizing Carstairs, slamming him with all his might against the wall so that the plaster dented in and Carstairs grimaced with pain.
“Now, Quint—”
“I’ll kill you!”
“I was aiming for the girl! She jumped in the way! Look, there’s Miss Carlisle!” Carstairs pointed down the hallway, but Quint shook his head, his eyes narrowed in disgust. Did Carstairs think him such a beef-brained oaf that he would fall for a schoolyard trick?
“I am so sick of you!” Quint hauled back his mighty fist and smashed Carstairs’s perfect nose, breaking it with one blow. God, he’d been wanting to do that for years!
Lizzie had run inside mere seconds behind Sorscha, but had stopped at the landing where the back stairs turned when she had heard Mary’s quick-thinking attempt in the corridor above, trying to pass Sorscha off as Quint’s daughter in order to buy the girl’s safety. She had stayed hidden, knowing that if she showed herself, all hell would break loose and Mary’s ploy would fail.
Now that Quint and Carstairs were turning on each other, however, she rushed into the corridor. Her face went ashen as she took in the sight of her fallen ally and hysterical charge.
Lizzie crouched down beside Mary, overwhelmed and fighting wild panic at the blood seeping out of the woman’s side. She swallowed hard, but her voice came out shakily. “I’m so sorry, Mary. She heard the shot and got away from me.”
Mary managed a weak shake of her head. “It’s all right. Just—keep her safe. Go—now, I beg you. Take this.” Furtively, Mary pressed her pistol into Lizzie’s hands. “I never got to—use it. The bullet is still in it.”
Forgetting her sprained wrist again, Lizzie automatically took it in her right hand, then winced. Wonderful, she thought in frustration. Unlike her sporting friend, Lady Jacinda, Lizzie had never fired a gun in her life, and now when her life depended on it, she would have to do so using her left hand.
She glanced down the hallway at Carstairs trying to ward off Quint’s next titanic punch, then rose. “Come, Sorscha. Any minute now, they’ll be done with each other and they’ll come after us.”
“Mama, it’s all my fault. I’m so sorry! Why couldn’t I listen?”
“It’s all right, Sorscha,” Mary forced out with agonized effort, cupping her face. “I love you, darlin’—and you should know that what Lord Carstairs said is true. There is—noble blood in your veins. I should have told you…years ago. Forgive me. That’s why I brought you to London. To restore you to your proper place in the world.”
“I don’t care about that. I just care about you! Mama, don’t leave me!”
“Miss Carlisle,” Mary said, sending her an imploring look heavy with pain.
Lizzie nodded and gathered up the weeping teenager. “Sorscha, come now!”
As Quint split Carstairs’s cheek open with his sledgehammer fist, Lizzie struggled to drag Sorscha away though the girl’s grief nigh broke her heart.
“No!” Sorscha wailed. “I want to stay with her!”
“You’ll die! Listen to me!” Lizzie gripped her shoulders and shook her slightly, staring hard into Sorscha’s eyes. “She fell to save you. If they get you, her sacrifice will have been in vain. Is that what you want?”
Sorscha absorbed this, her chin trembling, face red from crying. Forcing back her sobs, she took one last, longing gaze at Mary, who lay still now in a pool of blood and black silk. With a shattered look, she allowed Lizzie to pull her away once more.
Mary smiled with faint satisfaction when Quint’s famed right hook knocked Carstairs out cold. The brute had finally come in use for something, after all.
He left the unconscious earl in a most unfashionably disheveled heap on the floor and ran to her.
> She held up a feeble hand to stop him from going after the other two. “Stay with me,” she whispered. “Quentin, hold me.”
He fell to his knees beside her, staring at her in misery. “Oh, my love, I’ve ruined you,” he groaned, and gathered her tenderly into his arms. “Ginny.”
She shuddered with the pain of her wound, feeling consciousness slipping away from her. He was kissing her hair, running his thick, tough fingers down her scarred cheek. She was too weak to turn away from his touch.
“Forgive me, my darling. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Quentin, my love,” she murmured just before she blacked out, “go to hell.”
Johnny had proved surprisingly truculent, but Dev subdued him at about the same moment the second shot had gone off somewhere upstairs. He had heard a girlish scream and thought it must be some guest of the hotel, but he had no doubt that Quint and Carstairs were the cause.
As he pinned Johnny to the grimy flagstones of the pub, a knee in his back, the old fellows in the tavern hurried over with some sturdy hempen twine. They bound Johnny’s hands behind his back while the landlord shoved his dirty dishrag into Johnny’s mouth to keep him from calling out for his accomplices.
Gesturing at the wide-eyed old fellows in the pub for silence, his finger over his lips, Dev placed the fowling-piece in the landlord’s hands. “If he moves, shoot him,” he ordered in a low tone.
“Let them mind ’im. I’ll get them other ones with you,” the big man grunted, nodding toward the stairs.
Dev shook his head with cold murder in his eyes. “They’re mine.”
Satisfied that everything in the taproom was in order, he glided up the stairs as soft as a shadow, taking them two at a time. As he neared the top of the stairs, he noticed that the ruckus with Mortimer had ended.
Sheathing his knife in favor of his pistol, he listened carefully, his back to the wall of the stairwell. Hearing nothing, he emerged from the shadows, pivoting into the upper hallway with the gun cocked and level in his grasp.
The corridor was empty, the dirty lanterns shining dully. Scanning the long row of guest rooms as he moved forward, step by slow, wary step, he wondered about the chair stuck under one doorknob, but passed the chamber for now.