Christmas in The Duke's Arms

by Grace Burrowes

  Eliza decided to ride with the next coach, hoping the highwayman attacked when she was a passenger. She had the money to pay for passage to the next village, if it came to that. But if the coach was attacked, and she managed to capture the highwayman, she would be a hero and have completed the mission successfully.

  She wasn’t certain where Pierce was. She’d seen him this morning, and they’d exchanged curt but polite greetings. That was unfortunate. She wished they might have parted on amicable terms. She wished they hadn’t had to part at all. The last two nights she’d lain awake for hours, wishing he’d come to her room, though if he had, she would have sent him away. Contrary woman! So frustrating to want him and to know he didn’t want her in the same way.

  He obviously cared for her. He was willing to make an effort to seduce her, but how long would that last once he won her? Not long. She had made a promise to herself not to compromise. She would marry a man who loved her or not marry at all.

  Eliza heard the clatter of the coach arriving and checked her reticule for the small pistol she always carried. Although designing weapons was her profession, there was nothing special about this pistol, except she’d modified it to ensure it shot straight and true. That was all a situation like this required.

  She set down her tea cup, glancing at the table where Mr. Wilson sat alone. Mrs. Penter had come down earlier and then retired again, saying she felt a little tired. Since Wilson was sipping his tea and studying the paper, it did not look as though he planned to depart any time soon. Eliza almost decided against soliciting passage on the coach. But she approached the driver anyway. If nothing else, the journey would be beneficial because she could study the road. Perhaps she might see a clue about the Sheriff.

  As she climbed aboard the coach, she did wonder for a fleeting instant how she would return to The Duke’s Arms, but she decided to follow her instincts. Agent Saint was always going on about listening to instincts. Maybe there was something to that approach. If not, Eliza would certainly give Saint a piece of her mind when she finally made it back to London.

  Eliza seated herself next to another woman, pleased she was beside a window and could peer out. After the passengers exchanged pleasantries, an uneasy silence descended. This was the stretch of the journey where so many other coaches had been waylaid. The woman who shared Eliza’s seat clutched her valise tighter, and Eliza held her own reticule close. She wasn’t concerned about losing her valuables—she didn’t carry any—she wanted easy access to her pistol.

  The snow-covered landscape tumbled by as the coach moved forward at a brisk pace. Several points along the snow-covered landscape would make good ambush spots. The foliage was thick and provided good cover. She wished it had not snowed so recently. Then she might have been able to study the tracks the highwayman had left during previous attacks. As it was, everything was covered with an obscuring blanket. That worked in the Sheriff’s favor, but—

  A blur of movement caught her attention, and she all but pressed her nose against the glass. Fiend seize it—as Pierce would say—the highwayman was attacking! The Sheriff wasn’t Wilson, after all. Eliza deftly lifted her pistol from her reticule, lowered the window, and heard the man shout, “Stand and deliver!” To accent his words, he fired a shot in the air.

  The horses shied, and the carriage veered to the right, sending the groom tumbling into a ditch without, it seemed, his blunderbuss. The driver finally managed to take control again. By that time, the highwayman had primed his pistol again, making him dangerous.

  Ignoring the rocking coach, the screams of her fellow passengers, and the shouts of the highwayman, Eliza leaned out of the open window and aimed her pistol. She didn’t want to kill the criminal, but she wanted to wound him so he would no longer be a threat. She aimed and cocked the hammer just as the coach slammed to a stop. The jolt moved her arm, and her shot went wild, the pistol ball hitting the snow a few feet to the right of the Sheriff.

  She’d attracted his attention, and he turned his gaze and then his pistol on her. “Down!” she yelled to her fellow passengers. She tried to duck herself, but she had to pull her arms in from the window. The highwayman aimed, and Eliza yanked one arm inside. He cocked the hammer, and if his aim was true, she was in trouble. She couldn’t possibly pull her arm in and duck in time. She should have felt some sense of horror, but instead she felt completely detached, as if it was someone else being fired upon.

  A familiar figure rushed at the Sheriff, and all sense of detachment fled. “No!” she screamed, but it was too late. The Sheriff’s pistol fired, and Pierce blocked the shot with his body.

  “No!” Eliza screamed again as Pierce crumpled to the ground.

  Nothing and no one moved for a long, long time. No more than a second or two had passed, but in that brief period, she went over every moment she and Pierce had spent together. She recalled every sweet word, every tender look, every time he had made her smile.

  Eliza reached for the door and all but fell out of the coach. She could prime a weapon in her sleep, and she readied her pistol while kneeling on the ground by the coach. Raising it, she saw the Sheriff had not moved to prepare his weapon. He was staring at Pierce’s body with open-mouthed shock.

  Eliza raised her pistol, and with what she considered admirable restraint, moved the barrel slightly to the left, then fired. She hit the Sheriff in the thigh, and he went to his knees with a yelp. Ignoring him, she ran to Pierce and knelt by his side.

  The cold, wet snow immediately seeped through her pelisse and her dress, but she didn’t care. Pierce was lying on his side, his back to her, and she reached for his shoulder. Her gloved hand hovered in the air above him. What would she do if he was dead? What would become of her? How would she live without him?

  She loved him.

  All the rest didn’t matter. Where they lived, whether he told her in so many words he loved her, whether she ever designed another weapon. Pierce was her life. Hand trembling, she clutched his shoulder and rolled him onto his back. The scarlet stain on the snow where Pierce had lain caught her eye. “No,” she whispered, her gaze flicking to his face. His eyes were closed, his complexion pale and lifeless. “No,” she sobbed, lowering her head to his chest. She needed to listen for his heartbeat, but she was sobbing too much to hear. God was cruel to allow her to hold him, feel his warmth, this last time before he grew cold as the snow she knelt upon.

  “Pierce!” she cried. “No. You can’t die. I forbid it. Fight, damn you!” She sat and shook him, eliciting no response from him. “Please fight. You have to live. I-I love you. You know that, don’t you? I love you, foolish man. I’ll go to Switzerland with you. I-I’ll go anywhere with you—even somewhere awful like India or the United States. Please live. Please.”

  Her head fell into her hands, and grief overwhelmed her.

  Chapter Seven

  ‡

  Pierce didn’t know what that awful sound was, but he pushed through the blackness to make it stop. He waved his hand, brushing against something solid but pliable. With his gloves on, and his fingers so numb they were probably frostbitten, he couldn’t feel a thing. He pried his eyes open and stared at Eliza’s bent head. She was on her knees beside him, her shoulders shaking as though she wept.

  He waved his arm again, brushing it over her arm. Her head snapped up, and she stared at him as though she were seeing a ghost. “Pierce!” she screamed. “You’re alive.”

  Ah. That explained the crying. But there had been more. She’d been talking. Telling him…she loved him? “You love me?” he said, his voice raspy.

  She gathered him into her arms, causing a slice of pain in his shoulder. “Of course I love you. I’ve always loved you. How dare you jump in front of that highwayman? You might have been killed!”

  “I couldn’t let him shoot you.” And that was when he realized he loved her too. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t always known it, but perhaps that was why he hadn’t known. It was so much a part of him. He’d sacrificed himself for her
because it was second nature to do so. And he’d been wounded by the pistol ball for his pains.

  He remembered the blood. His head began to spin, and he forced his thoughts away. This was no time to faint at the sight of blood. Eliza needed him. They had a mission to complete.

  “The Sheriff?” he asked, sitting. The world tilted, but he tried to pretend that was normal—and thank the Maker he had not eaten much for breakfast.

  At the mention of the highwayman, Eliza opened her mouth like a hooked fish. She lost her balance, then scrambled up. Pierce tried to follow, but it was a moment before he could climb to his feet. By then she was standing over a man lying on the ground not far from where Pierce had been lying. He recognized the gray coat. He’d seen the man set out from the inn and followed, thinking he would turn out to be simply going home. But when the man had started for the road, Pierce thought he might have his Sheriff of Nottingham—except it couldn’t have been Wilson. He’d been sitting in the public room when Pierce had stepped outside.

  “Be careful, miss!” the driver called. He’d stayed with the coach, and all of the passengers were peering out of the windows with trepidation.

  “You shot me,” the man groaned. He was doubled over and clutching his leg. Pierce made certain not to look anywhere near the wound. Instead, he focused on the man’s face, what he could see of it. He’d had a view of the criminal’s back all morning but hadn’t caught sight of the face. He didn’t recognize the fellow at all.

  “You should be thanking me,” Eliza said, leaning over and confiscating his pistol. “I could have easily shot you through the heart.”

  “Why didn’t you? I’m dead anyway.”

  “Who are you?” Pierce asked. “I don’t recognize you.”

  The man looked up at him, a slight smile creasing his grimace of pain. “It was a good disguise. No one would have ever suspected us.”

  Eliza shot Pierce a look, and he nodded. The highwayman had used the pronoun us. Clearly, he was not working alone. But fiend seize it if Pierce knew who he was or who he worked with. What had his disguise been? One of the maids? A groom?

  And then the man coughed quietly, and Pierce knew. Eliza spoke first. “It’s Mrs. Penter!”

  The highwayman coughed again, and Eliza shook her head. “We never even considered Mrs. Penter. No, wait.” She looked at Pierce, admiration shining in her eyes. “You said you were not willing to clear her name initially. You did suspect her.”

  “I didn’t seriously consider her. If Wilson is part of this, the two of them had the perfect game. He could rob some coaches, and she could do others. If suspicion fell on him, he only need be in the presence of witnesses the next time the Sheriff struck. No one would ever suspect her.”

  “If Wilson is part of this,” Eliza said, “one of us must return and take him into custody before he flees. You are injured. I’ll go, and you return with Penter—or whatever his name is—and the coach to The Duke’s Arms.”

  Before he could even agree, she was away. It took some time to move the man whose name was actually Penter into the coach. Several of the passengers elected to walk back to the inn, rather than ride in the coach with a criminal, but Pierce sat beside him. His shoulder hurt like the very devil, but a quick investigation with his fingers told him the ball had only nicked him. He’d have someone clean and bandage the wound when he returned.

  After a brandy or twelve, he’d be fine.

  Of course, the afternoon was more complicated. When Pierce returned, Eliza did have Wilson in custody, and everyone from the village seemed to be crowded into the inn to hear the tale and gawk at the highwaymen. The magistrate arrived, and the men spilled their tale. Wilson had needed money, and he’d applied to his uncle in London, Penter, to help him. Penter was a thief from Whitechapel, and he’d come prepared to do what he did best. The two had been successful criminals for several months. A search of Wilson’s home uncovered a room full of valuables the two planned to take to Nottingham to fence.

  Eliza and Pierce were commended for capturing the thieves, but instead of accepting the ale and free meal Mr. Wattles tried to give him, Pierce asked to be allowed to lie down. Eliza had been swept away by the crowd, and for once Pierce was content in the stable, where at least it was quiet. Peg cleaned and bandaged his wound, which she called little more than a scratch. Pierce glimpsed the blood, but fainted only once, and then he drank three fingers of brandy and fell asleep.

  When he awoke, it was dark outside. He had no idea how long he’d slept or what had transpired since he’d left. Surely Eliza hadn’t needed him. Had she even missed him? Perhaps he’d been somewhat delusional after he’d been shot and only imagined that she’d told him she loved him, that she’d go anywhere with him. What happened now? Should he propose again? He still hadn’t told her he loved her. Perhaps he should rectify that.

  “Oh, good,” a voice said from the door of the stall. “You’re awake.”

  “Eliza?” He sat, causing the blankets to slide down. His hair felt as though it were stuck to his head in the frightful manner it did every morning.

  “You were expecting someone else?” she asked, moving inside. The light of a brazier illuminated her sweet form.

  Pierce squinted. “Wattles allowed me a brazier?”

  “I promised to keep watch over it.” Her gaze fell to his chest, which was bare, but she was looking at the bandage, which ran over his shoulder and under his arm. “I should have done that. I’m sorry.”

  He waved her words away. “Someone had to play hero and receive the accolades. I didn’t have the strength.”

  “And how are you feeling now?” she asked, sitting beside him on the cot. The poor thing almost collapsed. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  “I brought you bread and cheese. Are you well enough to eat?”

  Pierce devoured the bread and cheese as Eliza looked on with a small smile. With a full belly, including two mugs of ale, he was feeling much more like himself.

  As he ate, they’d been talking about the mission, and Eliza had told him how the magistrate had taken the highwaymen away. But now an awkward silence descended.

  “About what I said earlier…when you were lying in the snow,” Eliza began.

  Pierce looked down at his feet. He wished he had pulled his shirt on before this moment had come. He felt strangely vulnerable and naked without it. “You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “You were distressed. You spoke in the heat of the moment. I won’t hold you to it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The cot jerked as she jumped to her feet. Her hands were on her hips, and she was obviously annoyed. “I—ah, nothing.”

  “I was not distressed nor did I speak in the heat of the moment.” She moved closer so he could feel the heat of her body on his naked flesh and smell the scent of apple. “I do love you, Pierce. I should have said it before.”

  “I should have said it before,” he interrupted.

  “You?”

  He took her hand, pulling her close. “I think about my feelings so much I forget to…feel them, I suppose. I do love you, Eliza. I didn’t realize how much until the moment I saw Penter—or whatever his name is—point his weapon at you.”

  “You dove in front of a man firing a pistol.” She sounded almost angry, although her eyes were wet with tears.

  “Love makes a man do foolish things. I knew in that moment, without thinking, that I couldn’t live without you. I would have rather died than lived without you.”

  She squeezed his hand almost painfully and pulled him to his feet. “Pierce, you realize that is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “It may be the last romantic words from my lips. I’m no poet, Eliza.”

  She released his hand and stepped into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I know exactly who you are, Pierce. And I love you.”

  She kissed him then, her mouth hungry and full of unleashed passion. She’d not kissed him like this b
efore, without any hint of reserve. It fired his blood, and he knew this night would be a true test of his willpower. Her soft body pressed against his bare chest, and her hand slid over his skin until she cupped his hard length. He broke the kiss. “Eliza, let me—”

  “Oh, no. None of your naughty books tonight. Tonight there is just you and me and this.” She kissed him again. He would have laid her on the cot, but the pathetic excuse for a bed might very well collapse if the two of them tested it. Instead, he pushed her up against the wall of the stall, his eyes meeting that of the horse occupying the stall beside his.

  “Perhaps we should go inside,” he suggested. She slid her mouth over his neck, scraping her teeth along his flesh. His hands clenched on her hips. “There is no privacy here.”

  “Everyone is inside,” she murmured. “Besides, we’re spies.” She smiled up at him. “We like adventure and risk.”

  “I keep forgetting.” And then he did forget everything but the feel of her in his arms, the shape of her body as it molded to him, and the sounds she made as he joined with her.

  Later, when they were both spent and exhausted, they lay on a blanket in a cozy bed of clean straw and looked up at the roof. The brazier had expended almost all of its coal, and Pierce would send Eliza to her warm room before the hour was up. He turned to look at her, so beautiful with her hair spread on the blanket and her eyes half-closed.

  “I’m not going to Switzerland.”

  She opened her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t leave you, and your place is in London, at the Barbican.” Amazing how easy it was to make sacrifices for her now that he knew he loved her. They weren’t really sacrifices at all.

  She pushed up on one elbow. “But Switzerland is a wonderful opportunity for you. You can’t stay a clerk forever, even a clerk in the Barbican group.”