Enchanting the Earl (The Townsends)

by Lily Maxton

  He let loose a heavy sigh. “Fine. Georgina will be our lookout. You can go with her, Eleanor. Find a high spot with a good view, but somewhere out of sight.”

  “Obviously,” Georgina said, and Eleanor smirked.

  Theo watched them go, his heart thrumming. “We still don’t have a plan for what to do if he arrives before the ship leaves.”

  Annabel touched his elbow. “We’ll think about it on the way.”

  “Let us make haste, then.”

  Within minutes, Theo and Annabel stood at the shore with Fiona and Mary, after sending Robert to wait by the road with the others. While a few other straggling passengers climbed in first, Annabel hugged her sister and then stooped down to fold her niece in her arms. Theo had to look away from the scene—the pain on Annabel’s face in that moment felt like a punch to the gut.

  “You’re not coming with us, Aunt Bel?”

  Annabel shook her head, blinking hard. “Not now. Perhaps someday I will.”

  Theo sucked in a quick breath. When he’d pictured Annabel leaving Llynmore, he’d imagined her in Scotland, not another island altogether. Though why it made a difference, he couldn’t say. Edinburgh wasn’t much nearer to the Highlands than Ireland. At least not enough to make a difference.

  “Good-bye, Theodoros,” Mary said before barreling into his leg and clinging to him tightly.

  He might have corrected her. He might have told her Theodoros wasn’t really his name, but he didn’t have the heart to. Instead, he patted her back awkwardly until her mother tugged her away. “It’s time.”

  “Farewell,” Annabel whispered softly behind him.

  No sooner had Fiona and Mary climbed into the boat that would carry them to the ship that would take them to a new land, did a sound drift down from Oban’s main street, crisp and clear and alarmingly realistic.

  Peeee-wit!

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  As the rower dipped the paddles into the water, Annabel and Theo stared at each other, stunned. They were so close. So damnably close. Fiona and her daughter were within throwing distance of freedom.

  Annabel, after a second of frozen indecision, pitched forward and began stumbling toward the crescent of buildings that made up Oban. Theo followed quickly behind. “We need a distraction,” she said. “We need to keep him occupied until they’ve reached the ship.”

  Theo had already studied the buildings and alleyways of the town on their first visit and again as they walked to the bay. “There’s an abandoned building a little bit ahead of us, on the left of the road just before the main street. Hide there.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to make sure he doesn’t find you or your sister.” His grip tightened on his walking stick. He was ready to use it as a weapon if he had to.

  Annabel hesitated.

  “Go,” he said harshly.

  She turned and darted toward the building he’d mentioned, which looked like it had once been used as a stable. Now, the holes in the roof marked its state of disrepair. Theo continued in the direction of the main road, pulling his hat low on his head to partially conceal his face.

  His pulse throbbed in his veins, and his hands weren’t quite steady in the energy of the moment, but he thought he was in control. He needed to come up with something quickly. Something that would distract the viscount long enough to keep both Fiona and Annabel safe. Maybe he could startle his horse somehow…

  Another step forward. Another. He found his attention slipping.

  He gritted his teeth. He needed to focus. But the sun had just emerged from behind a cloud and was hot against the back of his neck. Hotter than it normally was this far north. As balmy and direct as it had been on some of the battlefields in Spain and Portugal in the summer. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and he flinched, his chest growing tight.

  A fly buzzed past his ear, the sound loud and droning.

  Later, when he had time to think, he would think it was ironic—he was always so careful, so guarded—and in the end, he had no defense. The things that dragged him back to hell in that moment were things he could never have protected himself against. The sun was hot, and sweat trickled down his neck, and a fly buzzed in his ear. One instant, he thought he was fine, and the next, he wasn’t. Dread pooled in his stomach and tightened to a hard, sharp ache. His body jolted as he crashed to his knees.

  He needed to find cover, or he’d be pumped full of bullets. Why was he out in the open? He pushed forward, on hands and knees, shaking so hard his teeth rattled. He was too far to make it. He could hear the enemy, shouts and thudding footsteps, and goose bumps spread along his flesh. He was outnumbered. He didn’t have his musket. They’d kill him, or they’d take him.

  Either way, he was as good as dead.

  He was staring down at the dirt in a wild panic, wondering if this was the last thing he’d see before he was shot in the back. He was staring down at the earth, thinking he should have been a better soldier than this, should have been able to protect the men beside him, which was why he didn’t see Viscount Westburgh, less than twenty yards away, slip into the same stable Annabel had disappeared inside an instant earlier.

  …

  Annabel stood in a shadowed stable stall. The door opened. She expected it to be Theo, but the man illuminated by the patch of sunlight that streamed down from the broken roof wasn’t Theo.

  Her heart jolted unpleasantly at the sight of the viscount, who blocked her only exit, an expression of anger and raw suspicion turning his face into an ugly veneer.

  She shrank down, hands scrabbling along the dirt floor to find a loose wooden board one of the workmen must have pushed aside.

  “I know you’re here.”

  He stepped forward into the silence.

  “Everyone knows you killed him. You didn’t do yourself any favors by running. But now, it’s too late to run.”

  Annabel barely kept herself from gasping. He thought she was Fiona—he’d only seen a cloaked woman hiding in the stables—maybe a flash of blond hair.

  “I know your sister is helping you.” He growled, frustrated. He must think there was a possibility Fiona was armed, or she assumed he wouldn’t be so hesitant. “I’ll ignore her part in this, if you come to the gaol with me willingly.”

  She wasn’t going anywhere with the viscount, willingly or unwillingly. She needed to keep him distracted until Fiona was safe. Her grip tightened on the wooden board. He pulled a pistol from his waistcoat pocket and cocked it, the sound deafening in the quiet.

  Annabel struggled to slow her breathing, slow in and slow out, soft enough that he wouldn’t hear. She waited for him to move closer, heart thrashing against her ribcage.

  He peered into the first stall, pistol raised. She was in the fourth stall.

  He backed out and peered into the second.

  When he leaned over to peer into the third, she crept forward silently, so she was level with him, straightened, and before he could turn, she swung the wooden board, striking him on the side of the head. His eyelids fluttered closed as his body crumpled to the ground, landing with a dull thud. A gash on the side of his forehead oozed red.

  The board fell from her hands, plummeted at roughly the same rate as her stomach, and landed at her feet, churning up a cloud of dust.

  She stepped forward, once, then twice. He looked still. He looked…dead.

  She bent over him tentatively, reached down until her fingers nearly touched his lips, and felt a puff of breath on her fingertips. Another breath surged over her fingers, slow and steady and strong. He wasn’t dead. Just unconscious. Relief hollowed out her stomach.

  As silently as she could, she slipped past him and ran out to the side road, searching for Theo. She saw him sitting on the ground, his back against the stone wall of a building. His legs were curled up to his chest, knees bent, as though he was trying to make himself as small as possible. His face was in his hands.

  “Theo,” she said softly, her heart wrenchi
ng. She didn’t want to startle him by touching him, so she simply said his name. As many times as it took him to hear it.

  Eventually he lifted his head. His skin was clammy, ivory tinged with green, and he looked like he might retch.

  “It’s me,” she repeated, touching his shoulder. He flinched, but his eyes finally focused on her, and she felt like crying from relief.

  “What…” His voice was hoarse. He licked his lips and looked around. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” she said. She handed him his cane, and he pushed to his feet unsteadily. “You’re safe, Theo. You’re safe.”

  He went still. Then cradled her face in his hands, taking her by surprise. He tilted her head back, ever so softly, ever so gently, so he could look into her eyes. “Are you safe?”

  She nodded and smiled, even though her hands were still trembling from her encounter with the viscount. “We need to go.”

  On the way back toward the inn, she glanced down at the bay. The skiff was gone, and the ship, the ship that carried her sister and niece, was at full sail, easing away from land and picking up speed.

  Tears blurred her vision. Her family was safe. They were finally safe.

  They took their things from the inn and met up with Theo’s siblings. Georgina and Eleanor rode back on the Highland horses, leading the cart. Robert drove this time, and Annabel sat next to Theo, the silence thick between them.

  His eyes, which were still a bit distant when they started their journey, gradually grew clearer and sharper. He didn’t speak. He didn’t utter a sound until nearly an hour had passed, and then, he took Annabel by surprise.

  “What happened to Westburgh?”

  “It’s…taken care of,” she said.

  His eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

  Robert glanced back at them curiously but didn’t speak.

  Annabel chewed on her lip. “He cornered me in the stables…and I…well, I hit him with a wooden beam. He was unconscious when I left.”

  She felt Theo’s gaze on her, hot and angry, and she reluctantly looked at him. “When were you planning on telling me this?”

  “I wasn’t,” she admitted. “Not today. I thought it would be better if I didn’t worry you.”

  She heard him suck in a sharp breath.

  But when he spoke, his voice was flat. If she’d inflicted pain with her careless words, he didn’t show it. “Because you didn’t think I could handle it?”

  “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Did anyone see your face?” he asked.

  She understood the direction his mind was going. “No. I kept the hood on the entire time.” For the first time, a smile curved her mouth. “Even Westburgh didn’t realize it was me. He thought he’d found Fiona.”

  When Theo didn’t respond, she said, “Don’t you see? Fiona’s gone—she can’t be charged with assaulting the viscount. And even if he asks questions, no witnesses can place me in Oban, anyway. It’s over,” she said. “The viscount can get as angry as he wants, or threaten me as much as he wants, but he can’t actually do anything.”

  The cart rattled over a particularly bumpy spot, and she had to brace her hands on the seat to keep from falling against the man next to her.

  She read so many things in his expression—frustration, fear—but the thing that struck her the most was guilt. Her chest ached. “It isn’t your fault,” she said softly, so that Robert wouldn’t hear.

  “It is my fault,” he whispered savagely. “The bastard was right in front of me, and I didn’t even see him.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m safe.”

  “He could have hurt you. You could be locked up in a gaol cell right now.”

  “But I’m not,” she said desperately. Something was different; something that scared her. He’d never been so distant before. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore, just staring straight ahead at nothing.

  “I should have protected you.”

  “I can protect myself, Theo.”

  “What kind of man,” he said savagely, “falls to pieces for no reason?”

  She stared at him, bewildered by the anger in his voice. “Why are you so hard on yourself? Fiona and Mary are safe right now because you aided us. Everything worked out for the best.”

  Still, his expression was furious. “It isn’t your responsibility to make concessions for me.”

  It seemed like everything she uttered was only making the situation worse. She felt so far removed from the night before, from the hazy glow of lust and promise of pleasure, that she couldn’t even fathom those moments had been real. “I’m not making concessions. I don’t understand what you wish for me to say.”

  He shook his head, his jaw clenched tightly. Immovable.

  She tried to catch his gaze again, but he was staring ahead. She felt him closing himself off from her, and she tried to pull him back. “What…” she began, her tongue heavy in her mouth. “What do you want from me?”

  The word fell into the silence, heavy, harsh, painful, and after, Theo did not speak again.

  “Nothing.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Robert went to Oban a few days later and came back with the report that Viscount Westburgh was, apparently, uninjured from his blow to the head. Though this was surmised, not told to him; Westburgh must have not have wanted word to get out that he’d been bested by a woman, because no one seemed to know very much about the matter. Just that he’d been seen leaving Oban the evening of the ship’s departure.

  With any luck, he’d gone back to his country estate in defeat.

  And each day, Annabel waited, tense, for the letter that would arrive from Theo’s solicitor. The letter that would mark the end.

  Theo was doing his best to avoid her. He stayed away from the castle from dawn till dusk and took his dinner in his bedchamber. If he was awake at night, he confined himself to his room, because she experienced her own restless nights, roaming the castle, and she didn’t see him. She did her best not to care.

  But she was telling herself lies.

  Her mind drifted, as it inevitably did, to two distinct memories.

  First, the night she’d visited him at the inn. Their joining had been shattering, tense, intense, intimate. If she’d had any doubt that Theo truly cared for her, it was eradicated by those secret moments. Lust could explain many things, but it couldn’t explain the way he’d held her the last few seconds, as though death was the only thing that would loosen his grip.

  But even that memory, as wonderful as it was, was overpowered by the one that came later. The hard resolve in Theo’s face. The harshness of his tone. And one word: nothing. One word that sounded like an ending.

  It took her a long time, too long, to work up her resolve to speak to him. But she could no longer exist as she was—tentative, uncertain, frightened—something had to give, something had to change.

  She went to Theo’s room one night and knocked softly at the door, her heart in her throat, some deep well of strength the only thing that kept her hands from shaking.

  When he appeared, he was fully dressed, as though he didn’t intend on sleeping at all. His eyes were bruised, his face pale. He looked as poorly as she felt.

  “I only wished to speak to you,” she said when he didn’t move but remained hovering in the doorway.

  After a moment of hesitation, a moment that made her heart pinch, he stepped aside. The silence between them was so pronounced it hurt her ears.

  She drew in a deep breath and clasped her hands together—she’d come here for honesty—so she would have to be honest, too. She would have to start. “The truth is…I want to be with you, Theo.”

  He blinked. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this.

  She rushed on, knowing if she didn’t say everything now, she would lose her courage entirely. “But I’ve yearned for this too long to settle. I want everything…everything you have.”

  It was something she’d realized, not long after she�
��d realized she loved him. Once upon a time she might have subsisted on scraps of affection and assumed she didn’t deserve anything more. But that was before her aunt took her in, and before Theo had awakened her greedy heart. Before she’d begun to feel like she was worth more than she’d been given.

  “I don’t want hasty couplings with a man who loves me but is too terrified to even think it.”

  His throat moved as he swallowed. Every other part of him was unnaturally still.

  “The truth is, you are not well.”

  He blanched, and she would have done anything to take away his pain in that moment, but she wouldn’t take back the words, even if she could.

  “I know. It’s why I cannot…why this cannot happen.”

  She shook her head. “That isn’t why.”

  His expression shifted, became tinged with anger, which was better than simply pain. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t just make it stop. Don’t you think I would have? Don’t you think if I could be whole for you, I would? I feel like I’m trapped in a hell that I can never escape from.”

  She had to breathe deeply to keep her eyes from stinging. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about. We had travelers here once, and one of the men told me a story. He’d been beaten and robbed by a highwayman when he was younger. He said for months he was frightened; he would startle all the time, at any little thing. Later he and his wife went back to the place where it happened. He said it was the only thing that helped.”

  Theo laughed, bitter and harsh, and she nearly flinched. “How wonderful for him. But I wasn’t beaten and robbed by a highwayman, and I can’t exactly traipse around the continent to visit the battlefields with a war going on.”

  “I know. I know what helped him might not help you. I know what happened to him is a very different thing. But Theo, what you’re doing now isn’t helping, either. I thought distractions might offer you some peace. I thought horse races and games and things done just for enjoyment might be enough, but they only held the shadows at bay for a little while. How long has it been since you’ve slept more than a few hours?”