Mcalistairs Fortune

by Alissa Johnson

  “He was killed. Ten years ago.”

  “Nine! It was nine years!” Herbert laughed suddenly, a razor-sharp sound that tore from his throat. “Have there been so many, McAlistair, that you so easily lose track?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “It was bloody yesterday.” Herbert stopped laughing, sighed, and closed his eyes. It was just for a moment, but that moment had Evie tensing, itching to reach out and snag the gun in his hand, knock him down before he could reach for the second. Failing that last part, she could at least be certain he only had the one gun. Just the one bullet. And if he was battling her, there was no doubt he wouldn’t waste it on McAlistair.

  She flicked her gaze to McAlistair and saw the slight but decisive shake of his head. It was an order. Don’t. She might have ignored it, but for his eyes. He stared at her, unblinking, his dark gaze holding a thousand terrors. They didn’t demand. They begged.

  Though it cost her, she stood where she was and watched Herbert once again raise his lids.

  “It was yesterday to me. I can still hear him whispering to my mother in the dark. He knew you were coming. He wasn’t afraid of you,” Herbert was quick to insist. “But he feared for my mother and me.”

  “I never killed an innocent.”

  “My father was innocent,” Herbert snapped. “An innocent man who made a mistake.”

  “He made a choice. That choice netted him a substantial amount of money. And cost the lives of half a dozen good men.”

  “He made a mistake. How was he to know what the information was to be used for?”

  “He knew.”

  “Did you ask him?” Herbert demanded. “Did you give him a chance to explain before you slit his throat? Did you?”

  McAlistair shook his head.

  “Well, then,” Herbert’s mouth curled up in a sneer, “it would appear I am the better man.”

  Slit his throat? Evie looked from one man to the other. Had Herbert’s father been a soldier for the French? Had he met McAlistair on a battlefield? That would make sense, but how would he have known it was to happen? Why would he fear for his wife and child? “I don’t understand—”

  “You’ll speak when spoken to,” Herbert snapped without looking at her. “I’ve things to say to McAlistair.” He took a deep breath, as if steadying himself. “I spent years looking for you. Years hunting down every damn McAlistair I could find.” He laughed suddenly. “Would’ve bloody helped to learn earlier you spell it differently than most. Do you know how cold it is in Scotland? Sogging lot of McAlistairs there too. I was tempted to kill a few on the off chance they might be related. But then, I’d have been no better than you, would I? No worse, but no better.”

  McAlistair said nothing.

  Herbert shrugged. “But even the most obscure rumors eventually reach that godforsaken country. I left the moment I heard of the mysterious McAlistair, Hermit of Hal-don Hall. I assume a man like you found eating insects and picking vermin quite a step up in life?” He chuckled a little at the jab before continuing. “And still, even after taking a position at Haldon, I couldn’t find you. It didn’t help matters,” he snapped suddenly, swiveling his head to glare at Evie, “to have so little time off.”

  “I…” Was she expected to say something? “I’m terribly sorry?”

  Herbert snorted and turned back to McAlistair. “By the time I discovered your little cabin, you were gone. Gone.” He groaned and laughed at the same time. “Have you any idea how aggravating that was? To search so long, to come so close?” He shook his head as if dismissing the memory. “Luring you into the open remained the only avenue left to me. And you, my dear,” he said with a quick, almost appreciative glance at Evie. “You provided me with the perfect means. All it took was one glimpse of the veiled lady creeping back into her room in the dead of night to spark my interest and a quick peek in your little desk to discover what you were about.”

  Evie’s stomach twisted. Her ledger, her drafts of letters to newspapers and government officials. Yes, it would have been easy to figure out what she was doing by picking the lock on her desk.

  “You used her,” McAlistair growled.

  “Speaking again, are we?” Herbert jeered. He shrugged. “As I said, it was the only avenue left to me. The staff could talk of little else but how you’d come out of hiding to help Lord Thurston save his pretty wife. How brave. How daring. How romantic.” He smirked. “How very convenient for me. One threat and you came running to Haldon. One shot at Miss Cole and you came running to the beach. It was indulgent of me, I know, but I needed to see you fear, just once see you fear the way my father did.”

  “She’s an innocent.”

  The sneer returned, colored by a hint of amusement. “Doubtful, given what I just walked in on. Now, as enjoyable as this interlude is—and it is immensely enjoyable—I fear it’s time for its inevitable conclusion. Your friend outside will realize the trail he’s following is a false one sooner or later. McAlistair, if you’ve a final word—”

  “You sabotaged the carriage,” Evie said quickly. She knew she risked bringing on his wrath, but she had to do something, and since Herbert had taken every opportunity to brag, stalling him with a question seemed the best way to purchase time.

  Herbert waved his hand about in false modesty. “A simple enough thing. Hadn’t expected you to run off to Suffolk, mind you, or for you to push forward so quickly after your little accident. But I had a bit of luck breaking into Thurston’s desk. Needed coin for the trip, you know, and what should I find but these lovely dears,” he waggled one gun and patted the other, “and a letter from Mrs. Summers detailing the accident and mentioning your progress to Suffolk. I left that very hour. It being my half day off, I imagine I made it all the way to Cambridgeshire before I was missed. Now then, no more questions, I’m afraid. I’m quite out of time.”

  He lifted the gun and took square aim at McAlistair.

  Terrified, desperate, and unable to think of another question, Evie did the only thing that came to mind.

  She fainted.

  Much to Evie’s dismay, it quickly became apparent that executing a proper swoon really was something a person ought to practice a time or two before attempting in public.

  It was also best left to those with a soft chair or large settee at their disposal.

  She hit her knee against the table leg on the way down, bent her knees in what had to have been an obvious ploy to soften her fall, and had she not thrown out her arm at the last second, would have cracked her head soundly against the wood floor.

  Fortunately, form, grace, even believability, had not been Evie’s ultimate goals. She wanted a distraction, and that she accomplished quite well.

  Herbert laughed, and from slitted lids, Evie saw his feet turn toward her.

  Then he swore, and there was a flash of tangled arms and legs as McAlistair lunged into Herbert, sending them both crashing to the ground.

  She scrambled up to her hands and knees, and heard herself cry out in terror when the gun went off. But the bullet flew wide, shattering a glass platter on a shelf behind McAlistair.

  The struggle lasted only a moment, just long enough for Evie to crawl over and snatch the pistol that had fallen from Herbert’s pocket and gone skittering across the floor. And just long enough for McAlistair to land one hard punch to Herbert’s jaw, rendering her newly obtained weapon unnecessary.

  Herbert was out cold.

  She remained where she was, shivering and panting, while hideous visions of McAlistair dying before her eyes danced through her head.

  Not dead, she told herself firmly, raking her eyes over his crouching form.

  He’s not dead.

  “You’re all right,” she heard herself whisper raggedly. “You’re all right.”

  “Are you hurt?” McAlistair demanded.

  Her lungs felt too small, her knee throbbed like the very devil, and her heart was pounding hard enough to qualify as torture. She shook her head, tossed the gun asid
e, and scrambled over to throw herself around him.

  She was shaking uncontrollably and knew her attempts to bring him near were awkward and clumsy. She didn’t care. She couldn’t help it. Burying her head in his shoulder, she grasped at his back, his shoulders, his waist.

  McAlistair crooned in her ear, “Shh. Easy, sweetheart. You’re safe. You’re safe now.”

  She struggled against him. He wasn’t close enough. She couldn’t bring him close enough. And he wasn’t helping. He’d only put one arm around her shoulders in a half embrace.

  “Hold me,” she pleaded.

  A low groan rumbled through his chest. “Evie.”

  “Hold—”

  “Sweetheart. My arm.”

  She unwound herself from him in a trice, her eyes jumping to his left arm. He was holding it protectively at his side, and blood had begun to seep through his upper sleeve, turning the green fabric a horrifying dark brown.

  Fear, thick black waves of it, swamped her. He was bleeding. He’d been shot. He could die.

  “No,” she heard herself say. “No, it hit the platter.”

  “Caught me first. But it’s—”

  She wasn’t listening. She flew to her feet, the pain of her knee forgotten, and snatched a clean rag from the table. Dropping down beside him, she pressed it to his wound. Tears gathered and fell as the white cloth turned crimson.

  “I need more rags.”

  “Evie, sweetheart. It’s only a scratch. I’ll be all—”

  “It’s not a scratch,” she choked out on a hiccup. In her mind, it was an enormous gaping wound, and it was bleeding rivers of blood. “You need to lie down. You need a physician. You need—”

  “Bleeding’s slowed.”

  She blinked, hiccupped again, and looked at the cloth. He was right; the flow of blood had diminished.

  Letting out a tremulous breath, she dashed tears away with the back of her hand. “You still need a physician.”

  “Right now I need some rope for Herbert.”

  Sniffling, Evie drew back a little to look down at the still-unconscious footman. She noticed for the first time that her knee was wedged solidly into Herbert’s side.

  Good.

  “There should be some rope or twine about.” McAlistair said. “I need you to find it.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” The quicker Herbert was tied up, the quicker she could find help.

  Before she had the chance to stand, Mr. Hunter came charging into the room, half dressed and wielding a gun. Mrs. Summers followed directly behind him, a large silver candlestick at the ready. She took one look at the scene before her and, tossing the candlestick aside, dropped to her knees beside Evie. “Evie! Are you hurt? Are you—”

  “No. McAlistair.”

  McAlistair shook his head at Mr. Hunter’s and Mrs. Summers’s concerned glances. “Just a scratch. Bleeding’s nearly stopped.”

  “It’s not a bloody scratch,” Evie berated. But there was no edge to her tone. Relief had taken it away. It wasn’t a mere a scratch—the man wouldn’t move his arm, for pity’s sake—but it no longer looked to be life-threatening, either. “It needs to be seen to.”

  “Mr. Hunter can look at it, after we’ve taken care of Herbert.”

  “Who the blazes is Herbert?” Mr. Hunter demanded.

  “John Herbert.” Evie accepted Mrs. Summers’s assistance in standing. “A footman at Haldon. He…I…”

  “Herbert’s grievance was with me,” McAlistair told the group. “Mr. Hunter, get me some rope. Mrs. Summers, take Evie upstairs.”

  Mrs. Summers slipped an arm around her shoulder and coaxed her toward the door. “Come along, dear.”

  “But—”

  “Pour a bit of brandy in her,” Mr. Hunter suggested.

  “I don’t need brandy. I—” I need McAlistair, she thought.

  But her protests went ignored and in short order she found herself bustled out of the room.

  Twenty-eight

  With his arm aching like the devil, McAlistair paced the hallway outside the library. It was an unusual behavior for him, pacing, and one he found fairly lowering. He wasn’t in the habit of indulging in nervous movement. But though he had tried, he couldn’t seem to sit still. The inner calm he’d relied on for years had abandoned him, leaving him a bundle of nerves and energy.

  Not wholly unexpected, he supposed, when a man was working through the details of a marriage proposal.

  But still irritating.

  And absurd. He hadn’t a thing to be nervous about. His plan was sound, his reasoning infallible. Evie would marry him.

  He had come to the decision only minutes earlier, while he, Christian, and Mr. Hunter had draped a bound and newly conscious Herbert over the back of a horse. The man had ranted and raved, promising one revenge after another. That was only to be expected, and McAlistair might have simply ignored the noise if Herbert had limited his threats to him. But the footman had had quite a lot to say about Evie as well…until Christian had stuffed a gag in his mouth, anyway.

  McAlistair stopped pacing just long enough to drag a hand down his face.

  It was his fault. The threatening letter, the carriage accident, the attempt on Evie’s life—all of it was because of him. Evie had been no more than a pawn in a man’s quest for vengeance. Bloody hell, if it hadn’t been for him, she would have spent the week safely at Haldon, comfortably going about doing…whatever it was she did at Haldon.

  Scowling, McAlistair walked to the door to stare at it without seeing.

  It was exactly what Evie did do when she wasn’t embroiled in someone else’s vengeful scheme that had propelled him to decide on marriage. The woman didn’t spend her days balancing ledgers and rowing out on the lake. She spent at least some of her time thumbing her nose at violent men. True, at the moment she did so in secret, but how long would she be content with that? How long before someone else broke into her writing desk?

  She was rash by nature and too overconfident by half.

  He remembered, yet again, that horrible moment when he had been certain she would throw herself in front of Herbert’s gun. She never would have reached him in time to keep him from firing. She simply wasn’t fast enough. The act would have killed her. And yet she would have tried.

  He’d never felt so sick, so horrified, so utterly helpless as he had in that moment. Not even when he’d heard the shot on the beach or seen her fighting the blacksmith’s apprentice or disappearing beneath the water of the pond, or…

  Bloody hell, the woman was in perpetual peril—half of it of her own doing.

  And between the danger he’d put her in and the danger she courted, Evie’s future safety looked fairly bleak.

  Well, he could do something about that.

  He could protect her. He would protect her. From herself and from whatever ghosts from his past sought to punish him through her. But to do so, he needed to be close to her, not hidden away in a remote cabin. And being close required marriage. There was nothing else for it.

  She might not be amenable to the idea of becoming his wife—and he, admittedly, was no longer amenable to the idea of her becoming someone else’s wife—but she could be made to see reason. Or he could drag her in front of a vicar, kicking and swearing. Either way, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight again.

  Resolute, he pushed his way through the library door.

  Evie stood next to the fireplace, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and Mrs. Summers at her side.

  “I want a moment with Evie, alone.”

  Mrs. Summers merely winged up one brow. “Do you, indeed?”

  “Please,” McAlistair added begrudgingly.

  Mrs. Summers pursed her lips but nodded. “I shall be just down the hall.”

  He waited impatiently for Mrs. Summers to leave. When she finally did, he stepped to Evie, and wrapping his strong arm around her, pressed his face to her neck and simply breathed her in.

  Evie burrowed into him. “Your arm? You’re all right?”<
br />
  “I’ll be fine.” He set aside nerves and anger, and let himself savor the feel of Evie, safe and warm against him. He ran his hand up her back, into her hair, down her shoulders. “Mr. Hunter bandaged it for me. He and Christian have taken Herbert to the magistrate in Charplins.”

  She nodded, her cheek brushing against his chest. “It’s over then.”

  No, not over, he thought, pulling away. Not quite yet.

  * * *Evie started a little at McAlistair’s sudden withdrawal.

  “Is something the matter?” she asked hesitantly, pulling the blanket closer around her.

  His answer was to give her a hard, penetrating glare, then turning to pace the length of the room.

  “Are…Are you angry with me?”

  “Yes. No.” He stopped pacing. “Yes.”

  “Well, if you’re certain,” she said unsteadily, hoping to tease him out of his mood.

  He stepped closer to her and pinned her with one very unamused stare. “You were going to step in front of that gun.”

  “Hardly necessary, as he was already aiming at me a good deal of the—”

  “You know bloody well that’s not what I mean!”

  Evie’s felt her eyes turn to saucers at McAlistair’s bellow. She watched, torn between feeling awful and fascinated, as he stormed to one end of the room and stormed back. He muttered, ran a hand through his hair once, twice, three times, until the majority of his dark locks slipped free from their tie and fell across his face—a face that held none of the cool assurance to which she was so accustomed. There were deep furrows across his brow, a muscle working in his jaw, and his lips—when they weren’t muttering—were peeled back in something akin to a snarl.

  Misery lost to fascination, and to relief that he should show so much vigor so soon after being shot. Good Lord, the man was furious. She hadn’t expected that, hadn’t even once considered the possibility that he was capable of such a temper.

  Oddly enough, the knowledge that he was, and that he lost that temper because she’d thought to place herself in danger, made her feel stronger, even calm.