If He's Dangerous

by Hannah Howell

  It was difficult to hold fast to the stealthy approach. Argus wanted to race to the cottage, kick in the door, and kill both men with his bare hands. The still-sane part of him, the one not driven nearly mad with fear for Lorelei, knew that would be an insane thing to do and would only get him and Lorelei killed. Or, Argus knew, he easily could find himself lying there, bleeding to death, while everyone else rushed in to save his lover. It would undoubtedly look very heroic, he mused, but it would be idiotic.

  Once the small cottage was in clear view, the trees thinning out so that the rest of the distance to the building consisted of wide-open space, Argus halted and the duke moved to stand beside him. One more step and both of them would be visible to anyone watching from the cottage. Argus could see his family, mere shadowy forms in the dappled shade of the trees, ready to slip up behind Cornick while he and the duke held the man’s attention. There was still a lot of room for disaster to move in, but Argus was as confident of success as he could ever be when Lorelei’s life was at stake.

  “I pray I was right to say that the man will not kill us immediately,” the duke murmured.

  “It would greatly surprise me if you proved to be wrong. From what I have observed in the last few hours, our military lost a fine general when you became the heir to a dukedom.” He almost smiled when he saw the light hint of a blush tint the man’s cheeks.

  “It was planned that I would go into the military, but I am not sure I have the strength for such a life. The strategy is something I can do and enjoy, but I fear my soul, even my mind, would shatter after seeing so many men die. I do not think I would look at the dead and see only brave soldiers who honorably died for king and country.”

  Argus looked at the man and slowly nodded. “No, mayhap not. You would see sons lost, orphaned children, and the like. Such heart is not a bad thing.”

  The duke shrugged. “I am what I am.” He looked at his watch and then tucked it back into the pocket of his waistcoat. “Best we begin the play. The ease with which that man kills the innocent makes me think it very important that we do not make him wait. And you need not worry that I will see him or his man as someone’s son or father. I see both men as naught but vermin that the world will be well rid of. I do not suppose you could use your gift on these men.”

  “If they have not used the protections they devised when I was their prisoner, I will do so and this will be over quickly and cleanly. At least it will if neither of them are as resistant as others I have met recently. Unfortunately, despite his desperation and the crazed way he has been acting, I believe he will recall what it is I can do. So he and his man will don the protection of tinted spectacles to deaden the power of my gaze and put enough linen in their ears to mute the sound of my voice.”

  “A shame, for you are right. If they did not, this could all be over quickly. You could just tell them to toss aside their weapons and surrender. Now, it shall be a struggle to keep his attention on us and keep him from shooting any of us until the others can slip up behind him.”

  There was no argument to make to that statement so Argus simply started walking. He surreptitiously studied the duke as they made their way down a small hill, out of the trees, and into the open, for the man looked a lot different from how he usually did. At the moment, Roland Sundun looked every inch the duke. Between Max and the duke’s valet, they had dressed the man with a rich yet subtle elegance that Cornick would recognize right away. All in black save for the crisp white of his shirt and cravat, a faint rim of lace around his wrists appearing at the edge of his coat sleeves, and very subdued silver embroidery on his waistcoat. For once the man’s hair was neat, tied back into a precise queue. Argus suddenly realized that the duke was still young enough to be considered a prime marriage prospect, his lean muscular form and handsome looks making him even more so. If the man ever came to London, matchmaking mothers would mob him, especially when it was discovered how rich he was.

  Shaking aside that idle thought, Argus studied the cottage they walked toward. Small, sturdy, and well maintained, it was a very fine residence for a woodcutter and his family. The duke treated his people well.

  The face in the window to the right of the door was easily recognizable as Tucker’s. Argus suspected Cornick was standing back until he was certain it was safe. Cornick was deadly, possessing a cold, murderous heart, but he was also very protective of his person, to a point that bordered closely on cowardice.

  “Cornick!” he yelled as he and the duke stopped a few yards from the door.

  His body tensed, prepared for a bullet to slam into him, and Argus made certain that his body was placed a little ahead of, and in front of, the duke, ignoring the man’s grumbling over such protection. Argus did not believe Cornick would just shoot them, take the money, and run, however. Cornick would want to savor his perceived victory, to boast and strut before them, letting them know that he had power over them. However, Cornick was also desperate and trapped. Argus was counting on the man not knowing just how completely trapped he was.

  Lorelei felt as if her heart had just leapt up into her throat when she heard Argus’s voice. She could not see out the front window because Tucker’s bulk blocked her view, but she was certain Argus was standing out there in front of the house, in the open, a ready and easy target. Guilt soured her stomach, for this was all her fault. She did not know just how she could have refused the baker’s plea for help, but she should have taken more guards with her, enough to stop Cornick and Tucker from taking her.

  Then her hopes for a rescue were pushed aside by her fear for her father and her lover. She did want to get home safely, but not at the cost of either of their lives. That would be too high a price to pay.

  “They be here,” said Tucker. “Both the duke and that bastard Wherlocke. Got a nice fat bag with them, too.”

  “My money,” said Cornick and rubbed his hands together. “How very nice.” He looked at Lorelei. “You must be so comforted by this touching evidence of their concern for you.”

  “I will be comforted, sir, when I see your body on the ground with a bullet between your eyes.”

  “Tsk. Such a crude thing for the daughter of a duke to say,” he said absently, revealing that she was no longer of any interest to him. “I wonder just how long I should make them wait. They need to be made to see who is in charge here, of course, but I do not want them to think I have decided to surrender or something equally as foolish.”

  “Take your time, enjoy the last few moments of your miserable life. Perhaps you should even consider taking this time to try to atone for all your sins. It might delay the devil from pulling you into hell the moment your body hits the ground. Lord Uppington sees a lot of spirits and he claims the ones that belong to the devil rarely linger after death, for the devil is not a patient man.” She was pleased to see that both Cornick and Tucker were a little pale. “Some atonement now might give your black souls time to hide.”

  She forced herself not to flinch when Cornick abruptly bent down and brought his face very close to hers. He was not a particularly handsome man but not unhandsome, either. He could easily disappear into a crowd. She wondered if that was one reason he had become the man he now was. Being ignored or forgotten could twist a man. Why Cornick was what he was did not really matter much, she decided. No matter what her fate, his was written in stone. He would die. There was some comfort to find in that knowledge.

  “You will regret those words and soon,” he hissed at her. “Death can come easy or hard.” He smiled. “Or it can come later, right after Tucker and I cease to enjoy your many charms. It will be a long ocean voyage we will be taking and a little womanly comfort might be nice. And I am sure Tucker would gladly slit your tongue if you were slow to learn to shut up when told to.”

  The thought of Tucker and Cornick dragging her along with them as they fled the country, forcing her into their beds before they killed her, was terrifying, but Lorelei fought to hide that fear. Cornick was a man who would sniff it out and use it
against her. Cruel men such as he was had a true skill at that. It was, in its way, a power of sorts, but she would not allow him to weaken her with his threats. And his threat of rape could be ignored, for she would never allow it. If she could not escape, she would find a way to hurl herself into the water once the ship was out to sea.

  “Do you know, I have never understood people who think threatening or hurting ones weaker than themselves is justifiable in any way?” she said, showing him that she knew exactly what game he was playing. “You gain no true power and you certainly gain no respect. The only ones you can truly make fear you are the ones who are weak, or some who are too witless to see what you really are, or utter cowards. Anyone with wit and a spine could beat you. Ah, but I forget. Those are the ones you tie up. Silly me.”

  Lorelei wondered why he did not hit her. It was obvious that he wanted to and he had not hesitated to do so when she had tried to escape. That could be it, she thought as she watched him bring his fury under control. Cornick needed a real threat to himself or his plans before he could physically strike out. He could shoot people without any hesitation, but actually beating on them with his hands caused him to hesitate. Perhaps he feared getting blood on his fine clothes, she mused. Or ruining his fine manicure.

  It made no sense, but she was glad of that hesitancy. She did not wish to be knocked unconscious again, not when her father and Argus were both in danger and she had no idea what their plan was. Lorelei wanted to be fully aware and ready to do whatever she could to help so that they could all get out of this alive. It might be best if she curbed her sharp tongue, but something about Cornick made her every word come out razor sharp. His grand plans to murder people who had never done anything to him were part of what so infuriated her.

  “You do not understand who you are dealing with, bitch,” he snapped.

  “No,” she said quietly, never taking her gaze from his face, “I do not. You obviously have money enough to buy yourself fine clothes and have had an education, so why are you doing this? Why steal a man and beat him senseless regularly in a vain attempt to steal his God-given gift? Why do something so certain to get yourself hanged?” She nodded at Tucker. “He I can understand as he has probably done enough to get himself hanged a dozen times, so there was no added risk to this for him. But you are the son of a gentleman, are you not?”

  He brushed off his coat and stood up straight. “Of course I am, but I am only the youngest son of a minor baron. I had to work for my coin like some commoner. Uncle thought himself so benevolent when he got me a job in the government. As a lowly clerk! I worked there for years and never got anywhere, was never made anything more than the clerk I started as. They never even noticed the work I did, not even my uncle. Then I was offered a chance to finally rise up in the ranks, to join with a man destined to gain some real power. A lot of power. And money. Wherlocke has destroyed that chance, but you, and your father, will ensure that I do not have to retire from the field as a beggar.”

  Cornick grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to her feet. “You will not retire from the field, you fool,” she snapped. “You will be buried in it.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Lorelei could see through the small window at the side of the house, and caught a glimpse of movement. There was a plan, she thought with a surge of hope that made her momentarily light-headed, and she became determined to keep Tucker and Cornick’s attention fixed on her. She would not be surprised if her father and Argus intended to do the same. If they were truly hoping the others could sneak up behind Cornick and Tucker as she, her father, and Argus kept the men’s attention on them, it could prove to be a risky plan. Lorelei prayed hard that it would work.

  “Cornick!” bellowed Argus again. “Do we meet now or have you changed your mind?”

  Tucker stood up and idly checked his pistol. “I want to shoot that duke. Never killed me one of those before. Damn my eyes, but it would be near to killing the king.”

  “’Ware, friend, that tastes of treason.”

  “Just let me kill the duke.” Tucker shrugged when Cornick looked hard at him. “I want to.”

  “Then he is all yours,” said Cornick as he also checked his pistol.

  Since they had only recently checked the weapons they had been aiming at her father and Argus through the window, Lorelei did not know what they thought had changed with the things, but she decided to test their watchfulness. She took a step away from a distracted Cornick the moment he released her to play with his weapon, but both men glared at her. She doubted she would get very far if she bolted and could not open the door anyway, not with her hands tied behind her back.

  To her dismay, the men donned their tinted spectacles and stuck bits of linen in their ears, thus stealing the power of Argus’s greatest weapon. Cornick pulled a lethal-looking knife from his boot and pressed it against the small of her back. If there was a plan to save her, Lorelei had the sinking feeling that a very large complication had just been presented.

  “Walk in front of me,” he ordered. “Show no sign that I have a knife at your back, make no attempt to bolt, or I will have Tucker shoot your father in the gut. Then you can watch him die slowly and in agony.”

  A whole litany of daring plans went through Lorelei’s head as Tucker opened the door. Every one of them ended with her standing over her dying father or lying in a pool of her own blood. Cornick might be a coward, even a fool who took a chance to grab for riches and power without pausing to consider the consequences, but she had been right to think he was very good with a threat. He had sniffed out her fear for the men out there and, probably uncertain of her relationship with Argus, had threatened the other important man in her life. She started to think of ways that she could warn her father and Argus that Cornick had a knife digging into her back hard enough to have already scored her skin.

  Argus nearly slumped in relief when he saw Lorelei walk out in front of Cornick, but he knew they were not out of danger yet. A soft curse vilifying Cornick’s ancestors escaped the duke at the same time that Argus saw the livid bruising on Lorelei’s face. He ached to make Cornick pay dearly for that, to suffer before he died. Lorelei was a great deal smaller and lighter than the man. Argus doubted she presented enough of a threat to Cornick to warrant a hard punch in the face.

  “Still beating on people who cannot fight back, Cornick?” Argus knew it was not wise to anger the man, but the smug look on Cornick’s face was more than he could stomach.

  “I but subdued her when she tried to run away,” Cornick replied calmly. “I fear the duke has badly spoiled his child. She does not take orders very well at all. Spare the rod and spoil the child,” he intoned piously.

  Before Argus could respond, the duke stepped forward and said, “Sir, there is still a chance for you to walk away from this a free man. If you release my daughter unharmed and leave Sundunmoor, leave the country, we will bring no charges against you and there will be no pursuit.”

  “Papa, he killed James,” Lorelei said quietly, knowing it would be a good thing if Cornick did as her father asked, but heartsore that poor James might never get justice.

  “James would understand,” said her father. “He would want you free.”

  “You cannot possibly believe I am so stupid as to believe that,” said Cornick. “Oh, you may hold to your word on it, but Wherlocke will not. I notice that he does not add his support to your offer by word or movement. His family will most certainly come after me as her ladyship so graciously, and repeatedly, told me.”

  When her father gave her a gently chiding look, well acquainted with her sharp tongue, she just smiled. Then she winked and was pleased to see the alert look on his face that told her he had understood her signal to keep his attention on her. It was an old trick they had devised to let each other know that something needed to be said that the children should not hear. Over a long, miserable winter they had learned Gaelic from the Gregors and that was now their secret language. It helped to discuss what to do about the twins’
latest mischief even when Axel and Wolfgang were in the room, usually awaiting some decision about their punishment. Now she told him about the knife Cornick held against her back.

  “What did you just say?” demanded Cornick, pressing a little harder on his knife until it pierced her skin a bit deeper, releasing a little more blood.

  “I told him that he was a good man and that I love him dearly,” she replied, weighting her voice with every bit of innocence she could put into it, but she could see that Cornick doubted her word. “It was to have been a private moment between father and daughter.”

  “It does not matter,” he said after staring at her for a moment, confident in the fact that Tucker still watched his back.

  Lorelei began to wonder if she had been imagining that shadowy movement in the window, for nothing was happening. Her father, Argus, and Cornick traded increasingly vicious quips as they tried to decide how to make the trade Cornick had no intention of honoring anyway. She continued to try to hide the pain she was in as Cornick kept his knife embedded just inside her skin. A faint but growing dampness on her back told her that she was still bleeding, perhaps even more than she had been before. There was a chance, she thought, fighting the urge to try to step away from that knife, that the others saw what Cornick was doing to her and had to move more slowly.

  “No, there is no deal to be made, not beyond what I have asked for,” snapped Cornick, obviously tired of the game of wit he was playing with her father and Argus. “I hold the power here. I have the winning card. I want that money.”

  “You do not wish to kill my daughter,” her father said, the ring of command and anger behind each word.

  “Actually, Your Grace, I think I do. She has a very sharp tongue that fairly begs a man to silence it,” Cornick said and smiled. “As you have already remarked upon, I have been forced to discipline her once. I admit to being surprised that you are willing to buy her back.”