“Both are easily discarded.” Hepburn’s gaze never wavered from her. “Nothing will be allowed to cast doubt on Senora Menendez’s presence.”
“Why does it matter so much that she be here? Is it so important that you impress people with her presence?”
“Of course.” He spoke slowly, with impassive earnestness. “This is the first social function I’ve hosted since my return from the wars. The status of my family depends heavily on the success of this party.”
She didn’t believe him. “Liar.”
He surveyed her and judged her. “You’re intelligent.”
She basked in his admiration—and that was unwise. She couldn’t soften toward him and perform in his farce. She couldn’t. If anyone recognized her, she would be lost.
Amy would be lost.
But Clarice knew how to play her refusal: with good humor, not defying him, not allowing him to see the depths of her desperation. And of course, if she could distract him with a little light flirtation, that was a good idea too. Not too much, of course—last night he’d kissed her with no provocation. She didn’t want a repeat of that…wonderful passion. She recognized a precipice when she stood on one, and this was a precipice most high.
Moving close to him, she smiled, using her dimples to good advantage. In a soft, engaging tone, she said, “My lord, what you ask is impossible. If I were caught, I’d be ruined.”
She saw no sign of softening. If anything, his jaw grew harder, his eyes colder. “You won’t be caught. I won’t allow it.”
He was unyielding.
She was rational. “In schemes such as this, there’s always a chance of a misstep.”
Impatience rolled off his still figure. “No.”
Her heart beat faster. Beneath her black gloves her palms grew sweaty. He was dangerous. Dangerous and implacable. And mad? Still, she had to refuse. She had to. “My lord, I cannot do this thing.”
He looked down as if masking his thoughts, then up again to search her face. She thought he was looking for something. “That’s your final word?”
The uneasiness that had plagued her since the first moment of their meeting doubled, and doubled again. “It must be.”
In a gentle tone at odds with his menace, Hepburn said, “It was only a month ago when I heard of a horse, a most amazing two-year-old stallion in Gilmichael. He was the magistrate’s horse, half Arabian and half Beaumontagnian, a rare beast of unusual color and spirit.”
Clarice felt the blood drain from her face. Her hands tightened on the reins. Blaize moved restively, and she fought the desire to pet the stallion reassuringly. “What are you saying?”
“You stole your horse.” Hepburn smiled with chilly satisfaction. “You stole Blaize.”
Fourteen
Ye canna be angry and think clearly at the same time.
—THE OLD MEN OF FREYA CRAGS
You stole your horse. Hepburn knew the particulars. He knew the truth.
And he did not cavil at blackmail.
The urge to run away grew in Clarice, to flee from her life with its different towns and its indifferent people. To urge Blaize to gallop and gallop, to have the wind in her face, to abandon her duties—even Amy!—and never look back. “No. No, my father the king—”
“He’s gone.” Hepburn slashed the air with his hand. “And if he were alive, he didn’t give you that horse. Blaize is a two-yearold. By your own account, you’ve been in England for more years than that.”
Trapped. Trapped by her own thoughtless lies. By this man with a beautiful, soft, passionate mouth and flint in his soul. What to do? First she should try to appeal to Hepburn’s love of animals. “All right, it’s true. Magistrate Fairfoot fancied himself a trainer. He tried to break Blaize, and when he couldn’t…he was going to kill this gorgeous—” Humiliated, she faltered. “Blaize doesn’t deserve to be destroyed because a ham-handed English magistrate has to break every creature of beauty and spirit he comes in contact with.”
Nothing softened in Hepburn’s face, and his voice was flat. “Did he try to break you?”
Better yield to me, girlie, or I’ll slap you and that sister of yours into the dungeon and you’ll never see the light of day again. Embarrassment at the memory of that dreadful scene roiled in her. The torn bodice. The bruises on her wrists. The lucky chance that brought Amy to her aid.
Color swept Clarice’s cheeks. She knew from experience she couldn’t ride fast enough or far enough to get away from the memory. But she wanted to. Dear Lord, how she wanted to!
She sidestepped Hepburn’s question. “His wife walks and talks, but she’s broken. Dead inside. Please, my lord, don’t send Blaize back to him. Blaize will never be broken. He can only be led. Magistrate Fairfoot will kill him, and it will be an agonizing, grisly end.”
“I won’t send Blaize back to him.” Hepburn extended his gloved hand, demanding she put her hand there as a token of her agreement. “As long as you do my bidding.”
She stared at the hand. She looked up at him. At the man who cared for nothing but that his stupid ruse succeed.
It wasn’t fair that she, a princess bred to be spoiled and pampered, had had to grow up so early, to take responsibility for herself and her sister’s welfare. And be left worrying about their other sister. It wasn’t fair that she was forced to face this man who held the trump and rush into danger at his bidding.
Giving in to the frustration, the anger, the anguish, she incited Blaize to flight. The lively stallion leaped forward, eager to run as he had been bred to, his long legs stretching out as they sped across the meadow.
She heard Hepburn’s startled call, then the thunder of his horse’s hooves behind her.
She didn’t care if he chased her. He didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the exultation of this flight, the illusion of escaping, the blessed sense of intemperance.
She and Blaize raced across the meadow and straight up the hill at the far end, then sped down the other side. They approached a wooden fence; beneath her, Blaize gathered himself and vaulted it in smooth, glorious flight. A long valley lay before them. Blaize stretched out his neck, tasted the bit, sensed her expert grip on the reins, and allowed himself to run, and run, and run.
Tears ran down Clarice’s cheeks from the cool wind on her face. Or perhaps it was resentment and rage at the noose that held her by the throat. At Hepburn, galloping behind her, always right on her heels, ruthless and coldhearted. There was no escaping him. He was faster, stronger, bigger than her. Wilier, more ruthless…damn him!
He held the other end of the noose, and there was no eluding him.
As she acknowledged that, her brief rebellion failed. Good sense reasserted itself, and as the land rose again, she pulled her steed to a halt.
As Hepburn rode around to block her, he caught Blaize’s reins in his grip. Hepburn’s lips were drawn back to show his white teeth. His nostrils were flared, and white, furious lines bracketed his mouth. His blue eyes were molten fury, and he shouted, “What did that prove?”
She didn’t care what he thought of her anymore. No smile, no compliment, no touch on the hand, would dent that pitiless determination. So she shouted back, “I didn’t do it to prove anything. I did it because I wanted to.”
“You can’t outride me. There’s nowhere you can run where I can’t find you, and breaking your neck won’t accomplish anything.”
“I won’t break my neck. I can ride as well as any man—and Blaize is mine.” She threw the challenge at him.
“I’ll make sure he’s yours when you’ve done as I’ve told you.” He flung the bribe at her and extended his hand again.
So she had run away, raced across meadow and over jumps, and she was right back where she’d been ten minutes earlier, with Lord Hepburn demanding that she put her hand in his to seal the bargain.
She hated Lord Hepburn. She hated him, and feared him…and lusted after him. If she only she could understand why. Why she wanted him when he infuriated and frightened her.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “Why must I perform such an absurd charade?”
“I seek justice, and freedom, for a friend.” Hepburn spoke steadily, without fanfare, as if justice and freedom and friendship were worth any effort.
She didn’t care. “Friendship?” She wanted to spit into that extended palm, but her breakdown in civility couldn’t extend that far. “What does a man like you know of friendship? You don’t know how to be a friend.” She tried to stop talking. She really did. She even rode away. Then she thought of Millicent, of his poor sister, and she rode back. “You don’t even know how to be a brother.”
Her accusation took him aback, for his hand dropped to his side and his voice was truly puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“Look at you!” She gestured at him. “You come back from the war, all unhappy and brooding, and you pay no attention to the needs of your sister.”
Sarcasm coated his voice. “I have two sisters.”
Clarice pretended surprise. “You noticed! Yes, and Prudence is a lovely young girl who thinks everything is fine because you say it is. She sees life as a jolly adventure—because Millicent took care that she should. But Millicent…have you even noticed her concern for you?”
“Of course.”
“So you just don’t care?” Her tone whipped at him.
“There’s nothing to be concerned about.” He sat so still in the saddle, he seemed to be a statue. “She should believe me.”
“Maybe if you ever sat down and talked to her, she would. But you avoid her, and she worries.” Clarice’s voice was again rising uncontrollably. “Where did you learn such shabby behavior?”
He flinched as if she had struck a sore spot.
She was glad. She hoped he suffered pain from some memory, and she prodded at him in hopes of hurting him once more. “After your father died, she cared for your estate and your home. And I’ll bet she raised Prudence. Didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Yes,” Clarice mimicked. “And you’ve never given her a word of encouragement or thanks. Have you?”
“No.”
“Lady Millicent is a sweet, charming, attractive woman who’s been buried in the depths of the country, doing her duty, and no one cares or notices. Not even the brother she adores.”
He didn’t look guilty.
Of course not. If blackmailing a princess didn’t make him feel guilty, why should his cavalier treatment of his older sister? “You tell her you want to have a ball, and immediately she leaps to work. You don’t give her enough time to plan it, you allow the ladies to come early so that she has twice as much labor as she should—”
He lifted an unemotional eyebrow. “I thought they would help her.”
“If helping includes sitting on their padded bottoms and criticizing her, then yes, they’re doing a wonderful piece of work. That gaggle of ladies needs to be organized, they need constant entertainment, and someone always, always needs a shoulder to cry on. Since they’ve arrived, Millicent has never been without a soggy shoulder.”
“She shouldn’t be so sympathetic. They’ll stop coming to her to cry if she—”
“—rejects them? As your father rejected her? As you’ve rejected her? I think not, my lord. Millicent well understands the pain that accompanies such a rebuff.” Was Clarice even getting through to him? “She should be dancing at your ball, not agonizing over it.”
And because he was a stupid, insensitive male, he answered, “She doesn’t like to dance.”
“You mean no one asks her to dance. Do you know why they don’t ask her to dance?”
“You’re going to tell me.”
“Someone has to!” Clarice took a long breath and tried to get her temper under control. But she lost it so seldom, and there was no retrieving it now. “She doesn’t get asked because she thinks she’s unattractive and she has convinced everyone else she is too.” Clarice pointed her thumb at her chest. “But I can fix matters. I can arrange her hair and her clothes, I can improve her complexion, and most important, I can teach her how to walk and talk and smile. And you know what? She won’t let me. Do you know why?”
“You’ll tell me that too.”
“Any man would be lucky to win her as his wife, and she won’t let me show her anything because she doesn’t think she’s worth it. Whose fault is that, my lord? Whose fault is that?”
He watched Clarice with deepening interest, as if her indignant compassion were an oddity he scarcely understood. “I’m sure you would tell me it’s mine.”
“Perhaps,” she said with stinging scorn, “you should pretend she’s your friend instead of your sister and do what you can to help her.”
But she had lost his attention. The uncaring bastard looked up the hill as if startled.
Then she heard it. Carried on the wind. Faint screams. The thunder of horses’ hooves. And a gunshot, sharp and final.
“The MacGees!” Hepburn wheeled Helios around and galloped up the steep rise.
Clarice followed, and as she topped the hill, she saw a scene that had played in her nightmares. Nightmares formed of war and revolution in her homeland. Nightmares brought to garish life before her very eyes in a peaceful valley in Scotland.
Below them, two apple trees grew on either side of a tiny crofter’s hut. A garden grew in a sunny spot on the south slope, and chickens pecked in the bright green grass.
The hut’s door hung open on its hinges. A woman lay lifeless, sprawled in the garden, bright red oozing from beneath her prone body. Two lathered horses were tethered to a tree. One of the owners of those horses placed relentless punches on a kilted man held erect by the other highwayman.
A low snarl rumbled up from deep in Hepburn’s chest. “Cockscum.”
Clarice tore her gaze away and turned to stare at him. As she watched, his countenance changed. His lips curled back to reveal his strong white teeth. His nostrils flared, his eyes narrowed on the two marauders.
The sound of fists striking the poor man’s abdomen, his face, the crunch of his bones, his thin, pathetic cries, sent Blaize rearing.
Clarice fought for control of the frightened horse. Fought, too, her own desire to flee.
Those men were pitiless murderers, laughing as they killed a man blow by blow.
She subdued Blaize, then because she knew her duty, she said, “My lord, there are two of them. I can help. Tell me what to do.”
He shot her a look that made her draw back, more afraid of him than of the killers below. Letting out a war cry that made her gasp and Blaize rear again, he dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. Like the warhorse it was, it leaped into action, racing down the rocky slope toward the hut with as much assurance as it might onto a flat battlefield.
At the bloodcurdling shriek, the thieves lifted their heads in surprise, but when they realized only one man raced toward them, their alarm turned to bellows of laughter. Almost casually one of them lifted his pistol and pointed it at Hepburn.
Fear blossomed, clouding Clarice’s vision with red anger. Screaming Hepburn’s name, she urged Blaize into motion. She galloped down the slope, Blaize’s hooves striking the ground like flint against tinder.
But Hepburn’s horse gathered itself and made a smooth, long leap right at the gap-toothed reaver.
As the horse’s hooves flew at his head, the thief screamed. He rolled. The pistol discharged, and when he staggered to his feet, Clarice expected to see blood. On him, on Hepburn.
But the shot had gone astray. Clarice pulled Blaize up, trying to decide what she should do to help Hepburn. Rush in and distract the thieves? Or stay out of the way?
Giving a roar of rage, the reaver threw his smoking, useless pistol aside.
His friend, broad-shouldered and big-bellied, abandoned the savaged crofter. Grabbing a stout staff from the woodpile, he made it whistle as he spun it over his bald head. He raced toward his horse.
But Hepburn wheeled around and cut him off. In a feat of riding that left C
larice breathless, he cantered between the villains’ horses and the tree, freeing their reins as he went. He let loose another one of those shrieking, terror-inspiring war cries, and the villains’ horses panicked, galloping away in a frenzy.
The thieves shrieked their fury—and their panic. Hepburn was mounted. They were not. He would ride them down….
But he didn’t.
He galloped in a circle around the bald man with the staff, making him twist and turn, then, while he was off balance, Hepburn charged him and snatched the staff from his hand.
The bald man slipped onto one knee. His curses rang through the valley.
Halfway down the slope, Clarice held Blaze still. Hepburn knew what he was doing. She didn’t, and she didn’t want to get in Hepburn’s way.
She was afraid to get in Hepburn’s way.
He hurled the staff like a spear at the first man, rode past the bald robber, and while the horse was in full canter threw himself from the saddle onto Baldy. They went tumbling, fists flying in a brutal physical battle that raised goose bumps on her flesh. She’d never seen, never heard, such a fight.
Hepburn was on the bottom, taking, giving, blow after blow.
Toothless drew a knife from his belt and charged toward the fray.
She shrieked, “Robert! A knife!” and started Blaize galloping once more.
At the sound of her voice, Hepburn lifted Baldy with his feet and fists and threw him at Toothless. The two villains sprawled in the grass.
Hepburn stood, pointed his finger at Clarice, and shouted, “Stay!”
As if she were a dog. As if she were his serf!
And, hands trembling, heart pounding, she obeyed him like a dog or a serf. She didn’t dare not. She didn’t recognize this man, this Hepburn. He was a savage, and she was more afraid of him than of the louts he fought.
The louts had grown afraid too. She could see it in the way they stood, slowly rising to their feet and mumbling to each other, trying to come up with a strategy to defeat the lunatic who stalked them with feral intent.
They let him come, then circled, one on each side of him.
Some Enchanted Evening: The Lost Princesses #1 Page 13
