In all honesty, he couldn’t say he was sorry. Not when he thought of how wonderfully she’d tasted, or the way she’d moved under him, and the warm clasp of her body around his cock, like a living glove holding him, stroking him…
The gravel of the drive crunched under Helios’s hooves. The trees dripped big splashes of rain on him while protecting him from the steady drizzle. Robert caught sight of MacKenzie Manor, and hoped that the ring’s glittering stones would keep Clarice’s attention long enough for him to plead his case. How odd to feel so uncertain about someone he hadn’t known existed a week earlier! But somehow she’d insinuated herself into his heart.
The house loomed before him now, and he urged Helios faster.
It appeared Waldemar was right. Robert did love her. Loved her more than he’d ever loved anything or anyone.
As he dismounted at the front steps of MacKenzie Manor, Millicent flung open the door and rushed toward him. As soon as his feet touched the ground, she grabbed him by the shirtfront and demanded, “Where have you been?”
He didn’t suppose there was any use lying to her anymore, so he said, “In Edinburgh, seeing Waldemar off.”
“Leaving me to try and protect Princess Clarice! A bad choice, Robert, a bad choice indeed.”
At once he knew. Something had gone wrong. Ogley. In a fury so deep and instantaneous he could scarcely speak, he said, “Tell me.”
“She’s been arrested!”
He looked up at the wide double doors and saw Prudence standing there, looking forlorn and confused.
Millicent continued. “Colonel Ogley found this magistrate from Gilmichael—”
Robert didn’t wait to hear another word. Handing Helios over to Pepperday, the waiting hostler, he said, “Saddle the fastest horse in the stable.” Helios had had a hard ride from Edinburgh. He couldn’t make it all the way to the border.
“M’lord, we have Blaize.”
Robert turned his sharp gaze on the hostler. “The magistrate didn’t take him?”
“The princess left him in the stable in Freya Crags. The stable-man sent me a message,” Pepperday said. “I went and got the stallion immediately.”
Hepburn acknowledged the important information while absorbing and interpreting the rest. “Then saddle Blaize.”
Pepperday ran toward the stables, calling back, “Aye, m’lord. Anyone who rides like Her Highness doesn’t deserve t’ hang on an English gibbet.”
Grabbing his saddlebags, Robert raced for his room with Millicent and Prudence on his heels. He’d done this a hundred times before. Left on a mission at a moment’s notice. He knew what to do.
Once there, he emptied the saddlebags and loaded them with supplies. A knife. A good, strong coil of rope.
His hands were shaking. He was sweating.
Another knife. A pistol. Another knife. His lockpick kit.
“Robert.” Prudence’s voice trembled. “Why do you need so many knives?”
He glanced up, surprised to see his sisters in the room. “I’m good with knives.”
“I thought you were good with your fists,” Millicent said.
“That too.” He wished Waldemar were still with him. To free someone from prison was a two-man task. But Robert would have to do it on his own, or die trying. And death wasn’t acceptable, for if he died, Clarice would hang. Looking around, he asked, “Are there any fireworks left?”
“Yes.” Millicent went to the door and ordered they be brought to the stables.
“Why?” Prudence asked.
Robert glanced up at his little sister. Her face was white. She bit her lips, and her eyes were too large in her frightened face. “Fireworks might come in handy.” Swiftly he brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “Don’t worry.”
Prudence turned with a sob and ran from the room.
The ring.
As an afterthought he thrust it into the bottom of the saddlebag. He would give the ring to Clarice tonight, after he had rescued her—for he would rescue her. He wasn’t sure of her answer, but a lass who just been rescued would be most grateful to her rescuer. Not that he wanted gratitude from Clarice. He wanted—would have—love. But gratitude might weight the scales a bit.
“You can get her out,” Millicent demanded rather than asked.
“Yes.” Flinging the saddlebags over his shoulder, he headed down the stairs toward the stables.
Millicent followed. “You did all those heroic deeds for which Colonel Ogley took credit. Isn’t that correct?”
“Maybe.”
“So you can rescue her. Isn’t that correct?”
“Perhaps.” What did he know about the fortress at Gilmichael? “It depends where they’re holding her. I’ll be playing with a fixed deck of cards, and they’ll be holding the trump.”
In a voice that made the servants jump, Millicent demanded, “Can one of the men go with you? Can I go and help?”
Touched by the offer, he said, “No, dear. No. No one here can help with this. It’s likely to be dirty and painful, and—” For the first time since he’d swung out of the saddle, he looked at Millicent, really looked at her, and realized she hadn’t gone back to her previous plain appearance. She was as beautiful as she had been the night of the ball. “Is Corey smitten?”
“Yes.” She sounded truculent. “I suppose he is.”
“Why? What has he done?”
She kept up with Hepburn’s long strides without complaint. “He won’t leave. He says he’s here to give me support in my hour of need.” Her eyes sparkled with a dangerous light. “How spending time chasing me around trying to get me to listen to hunting stories is support, I will never know.”
As they approached the bustling stables, a tiny ray of amusement pierced Robert’s grimness.
She continued. “Corey’s nothing but a big, dumb…foxhunter.”
Apparently Corey had fallen from grace with a vengeance. “Yes, dear sister, that’s all he’s ever been.”
She waited while Robert asked if Blaize was being saddled, then she said, “I thought…”
“You thought that Corey’s pretty face hid some depths? None at all. He’s vain and he’s selfish, he’s none too bright, and he’s used to every woman falling at his feet.” Robert plunged into the depths of the stable. “But in Corey’s defense, he hasn’t a mean bone in his body, and if he’s telling you his hunting stories, that means he’s miserably in love with you.”
“Well, I am not in love with him,” she said crisply.
Pepperday was dealing with Blaize’s hostility at being saddled by a man other than Robert.
Accepting the fireworks from one of the stable lads, Robert placed them in his saddlebags while he asked Millicent, “Is Corey going to offer for you?”
“I suppose. I don’t want to marry him. At least, not now.”
Robert couldn’t wait for Pepperday to manage Blaize any longer, and shouldered him out of the way. “What do you want to do?” He tightened the cinch on the saddle.
“I think I want to go with Prudence to Edinburgh.” Millicent handed him the bridle. “I want to enjoy her Season, and see what other men are out there.”
As he placed the bit in Blaize’s mouth, Robert wondered—had Millicent changed? Or had she always been like this but hadn’t known how to become her real self? Flinging the saddlebags over Blaize’s back, he asked, “Marry someone you like better than Corey, then?”
“I’ve got my own fortune. Perhaps I will never marry.” She kissed his cheek. “I can’t believe you’re still here. Go and fetch Princess Clarice. That magistrate is a blackguard, and after this no one will ever consider Ogley a hero. I’ll make sure of it.”
Swinging himself into the saddle, Robert urged Blaize into a gallop.
He heard his sister call, “Bring Clarice home!”
Clarice sat wide-eyed in Gilmichael Fortress in a cell in the dark on an iron bed with her knees tucked up to her chest, and wondered if rats ate princesses.
Probably. Unfortunately.<
br />
More unfortunately she was getting sleepy, for in the day and a half since she’d been taken, she hadn’t had a lot of rest.
She’d survived a wretched ride out of Freya Crags on a broken-down horse Colonel Ogley had procured, may he rot in hell, with the rain beating down and the wind whipping her hair around her face. Her hands had been tied before her, as if a dangerous criminal like her could escape the escort of an English troop of ten armed men.
They—she, the men, Colonel Ogley, and Magistrate Fairfoot—had spent the night at an inn in the small town of Stoor barely across the English border. They seemed to hope that the border kept them safe from Hepburn’s wrath.
Fools.
That night Colonel Ogley had been deep into his role as a high-minded army colonel, a hero, and the man who had discovered the truth about the phony princess and was bringing her to justice. He obtained a room for her in the inn, locked her in, and kept the key. She couldn’t escape, yet neither could Magistrate Fairfoot get in, and the way he watched her, the way he touched her, made her sick with fear.
The next day Colonel Ogley had left. Left to meet his wife so they could return to his victory tour of the ballrooms and country homes of the ton. She’d never thought she’d be sorry to see the back end of Colonel Ogley, but when she looked into Magistrate Fairfoot’s gloating eyes, she wanted to call Ogley back and beg for mercy.
Mercy from the man she’d made a fool of? She, more than most women, understood the delicacy of a man’s self-esteem. But that’s what desperation did for a lass. Made her stupid.
After that it had been a short ride to Gilmichael and a long walk from the watery sunshine of the out-of-doors into the depths of the fortress. Magistrate Fairfoot took care to point out the gibbet with its noose swinging in the breeze.
She ignored him.
Daylight showed only too clearly the aging gray stones, the bars, and the leering guards. The sunshine was also, well, illumination. It even made her cell on the upper level of the dungeons—reserved for criminal dignitaries, Fairfoot told her—less unpleasant. At least she could see the cell as she walked into it. Damp stone walls. Damp stone floor. A small, high window. An iron bedstead strung with ropes and covered by a mildewed mattress. A chamber pot. A pail of water. Not so bad for a prison, really.
Best of all, Fairfoot ordered the men to cut her bonds, shove her inside, and leave her alone. She was happier than any prisoner had ever been, and all because he walked away. He was gone.
But after she checked the small dimensions of her cell, looked up at the window, judged it impossible to reach, and sat down on the rope bed, she realized there were no other prisoners. She couldn’t hear the movements of the guards at the other end of that long, long corridor. Her prison was utterly, totally silent. That unnerved her, gave her time to think of how it would feel to hang by her neck, choking, oh, God…but she couldn’t dwell on that. Not when the hours passed and no one came with food. When she finally yelled, no one responded. No one could hear her. She was alone.
When it clouded up again, the cell grew dim. When the sun set, it was pitch dark, so black a darkness, it pressed on her eyeballs and she had to touch them to see if they were open.
But she could hear—the scuttling of beetles, the chirping of rats. The clatter of her teeth. She was cold. She was scared. She was sleepy. She didn’t have a blanket. Thank heavens Amy had left when she did.
At least Amy had escaped this fate.
If only Robert were here.
Clarice wanted Robert, and she didn’t know where he was.
Had he come back from Edinburgh and found her gone? Did he think she had run away from the passion they shared? Did he think she was a coward to go without a farewell?
But what an absurd notion. Robert knew everything that went on in the village. The old men would tell him, and he would mount his horse and come to rescue her.
Wouldn’t he? He’d slept with her. She’d done what he asked and played his charade to perfection. He wouldn’t abandon her here…would he?
But he had never said he loved her. He had never asked her to be his wife. He had never even indicated an interest in taking her as his mistress, a solution that had crossed her mind as reasonable for a princess who loved a man she couldn’t marry.
She had discarded that solution as unworthy, but even now it lingered in her head. And lingered. And lingered.
Her head. It was nodding onto her knees. She’d drifted off to sleep.
What had roused her?
The scuttling and the chirping had stopped. And far away, down the long, long corridor, she heard the clang of a barred door. Without thought she found herself on her feet. They prickled as the blood rushed back into her limbs, and her shaking stopped as a flush of hope heated her chilled body.
Was it Robert?
The tiniest bit of candlelight shone along the corridor, and she risked the rats and the insects to run to the door. She pressed her face to the bars, trying to catch a little more of that light. She wanted to bathe in the light, absorb the light, save it to fill the darkness. It grew, flickering across the walls, a single candle carried by a single man.
She stumbled backward.
Carried by Magistrate Fairfoot, his distinguished, craggy face made horrible by his smile.
The trembling started again, harder. She was cold. She was hungry. She didn’t have a single defense of any kind. She was ten inches shorter and weighed seven stone less than he did. And he had come to rape her.
This was the kind of abuse Fairfoot enjoyed. The kind where he had all the advantages. The kind where he got to torture someone smaller and weaker.
But an illumination greater than the sun at noonday rose and shone inside her. Robert MacKenzie would come for her. Of course he would. It didn’t matter if he loved her, wanted to marry her, wanted to make her his mistress, or if he had decided he had had enough of bedding her. She had been a guest in his home, and she had been abducted from his village by a pair of despicable villains. He wouldn’t stand for that.
Moreover, he had promised her his masquerade would go well, and Colonel Ogley had made him a liar. If there was one thing she knew, one thing she could trust in this unstable world of vain ladies and cruel magistrates, it was that the earl of Hepburn was a man of honor—and his honor demanded that he come for her.
The key rasped in the lock. The door swung open.
She stiffened her spine.
When Fairfoot stepped through the door, she smiled at him. Smiled scornfully and used the only weapon she had left. In a slow, amused drawl, she said, “When Lord Hepburn gets here, he’s going to cut you into little chunks of rooster meat. And I’m going to watch.”
Twenty-nine
The world’s going t’ hell in a handcart, so ye might as well enjoy the ride.
—THE OLD MEN OF FREYA CRAGS
Robert walked across the drawbridge over the dry moat, pulled his pry bar out of his saddlebags, and pounded on the sturdy and locked oak doors.
While he waited for an answer, he looked up at the tall, menacing bulk of Gilmichael Fortress and wondered how in the hell he was going to get Clarice out of there. Especially at night, and especially when he hadn’t been able to glean one bloody bit of interesting information out of his foray around the fortress. Fact of the matter was, it had been built four hundred years earlier to protect the English border from the Scottish marauders, and it looked like every other English fortress. Large. Impenetrable. Inescapable.
But Gilmichael wasn’t a big town. Surely not many prisoners shuddered in their fortress, and surely not many guards watched over them. A few men should be easy overcome and Clarice easy to find, and with God’s grace Robert and Clarice would be well on their way before that damned magistrate had been notified of their escape.
Of course, Robert would have to come back and take care of him—Robert flexed his knuckles—but that was a pleasure that would have to wait until he had Clarice tucked up tight at MacKenzie Manor. And if Fairfoot ha
d hurt her, he would die in the most painful and humiliating ways Robert could devise—and Robert could devise quite a few.
He pounded again. The wood muffled the sound, but someone had to be manning the gatehouse.
If Waldemar were here, he would at this moment be climbing a rope up the side of the fortress and moving like a shadow through the corridors, finding the prisoner, freeing her, and providing backup for Robert if necessary. Breaking into a prison was always better as a two-man job, but there was no choice tonight. Waldemar was safely on his way to London. And getting him there made this mission look like a breeze.
But Robert must miss him more than he realized, because for a second he thought he saw a man dangling from a rope on the outside of the fortress wall. He started to jump back, to take a closer look, when the tiny, barred guard window was opened and a deep voice snarled, “What do ye want at this ’our in the night? Don’t ye know the curfew?”
In a tone of absolute disdain Robert snapped, “I don’t care about your silly curfew. Don’t you know who I am?”
“Nay.” The guard sounded a little more cautious. The light inside the guardhouse shone around his shaggy head, and Robert could see a behemoth of unusual size and breadth.
Robert got in his bluff immediately. “I’m Colonel Ogley. You have heard of me.”
“Nay.” The guard drew the word out.
“I’m the Hero of the Peninsula. I performed great feats of daring. I won medals. I saved hundreds of English lives. I captured that prisoner you received today.”
Behemoth scratched his head. “Nay. Magistrate Fairfoot did.”
That liar. “Do you know Magistrate Fairfoot?”
“Aye, I work fer ’im.”
“Then you know the truth.”
Behemoth worked through that, then nodded slowly. “Aye. So ye captured that lass. So?”
“I want to see her. Now.”
“Ye and everybody else.”
A flame of irritation roared to life in Robert’s mind. “What do you mean?”
Some Enchanted Evening: The Lost Princesses #1 Page 27
