by Daria Vernon
The woman threaded a ribbon through Beth’s hair, tugging as Beth frowned.
“What have you to be worried about?”
Beth hadn’t realized that her expression was flaunting such worries.
“I don’t know.” And then she suddenly did. “I suppose I—I keep hesitating about something because my head and my heart aren’t aligned.
“Pretty clear where your heart falls, judgin’ by those last sounds that came caterwaulin’ from the pavilion.”
God, she’d heard them.
“So what’s this head of yours want?” Emily tugged playfully on the ribbon, jerking Beth’s head back a bit.
“Freedom.”
“Lady—isn’t no sign of oppression in what you just did. Seems to me you’ve claimed your freedom.”
It was true. Beth cared more about trespassing in someone’s tent than she cared about what immoral activities she and Rhys might have been caught in. Emily was right. She was free. Even if she caught up to the party with her skirt askew and her frogs undone, even if she hung off Rhys’ arm while the scent of desire wafted from them, of what consequence was it now? Her father had never and would never abandon her. Lady Weldon might try to remove Allison from Beth’s devilish influence, but if Beth had wielded her influence over Allison as deftly as she’d estimated, then Lady Weldon would have a hard time of keeping them apart. Who else mattered?
Beth looked down at her hands as if to confirm that there was no embroidery hoop there. No, she’d dodged those fears of dull oblivion and shaped her life into something else entirely. Instead of a man like Hamm breaking her like a horse and boasting about it, she’d discovered one who blew on her sparks of bad behavior until they became bonfires.
And it was what she wanted.
He loves me.
But fears still swirled that their paths had crossed but not aligned.
Her years of aloneness had made independence grow on her like a fine, fresh thing. She was on the cusp of her own renewal right as Rhys returned. She’d lit herself inwardly with Mediterranean promises—sleeping late in Venice, riding through la Loire, finding Stefano for a dance . . . yet already that name—Stefano—had lost its allure. Still, her Continental dreams could not be forfeited and she couldn’t even bring herself to speak of them.
“’Haps your heart and your head can both have what they want.”
Beth snapped out of her reverie and tried to catch up to what Emily had said. “I don’t follow.”
Emily spun Beth around roughly and began to fuss about the strands of hair that framed her face. The woman’s hands smelled like strawberries.
“If you talk to him, about the concerns of your head, they might line up better than you thought. The heart can be very smart.” Emily slapped her on the shoulders and looked at her with pride. “You’re all back put. Will you be off to find your man now?”
Beth took Emily’s arm fondly. “Thank—”
But she was cut off when a small boy darted from nowhere and near skidded into them. They both instinctively reached down to steady him. His threadbare shirt was damp and dirty, and he barely rose to Beth’s chest. His eyes shined with fear as he looked up at her.
“For the lady.” His shaking hand passed her a sealed note.
Beth looked around again for Rhys. Suddenly the whole encampment seemed more swallowed by the dark than she’d recalled. He was nowhere.
Emily watched her, waiting and gripping the messenger’s arm.
Beth flicked away the unstamped drop of wax with her thumb and read:
Go to the stables at the end of Partridge Street.
Go alone or Allison will suffer.
—Desmarais
It was as though the skeletal hand of the reaper himself had palmed her heart to squeeze it as his plaything.
But she was already running. The letter, left somewhere on the ground behind her. Faint calls to her—Emily’s voice. Words she couldn’t hear.
Run. Just run.
Rhys faced the trunk of a sycamore and strained to relieve himself in spite of a cock that had come roaring back to life the moment he’d reflected on what had just happened. Such reflections were not, it seemed, a thing that he could quell.
He sighed, propping an elbow against the bark and tapping it with his fist—trying to use its roughness to erase the memories of smoothness from moments before.
The muscles of his back, the body he’d honed on ships and maintained by sawing wood—it all felt like sap now. He didn’t walk or lean, he oozed. He reached out to the tree for support because every part of him that wasn’t in his loins was limp from the exercise of love that he’d just shared with Beth.
He rebuttoned his breeches. The single-mindedness of returning to her felt essential, inborn. He needed to be near her. He needed to have her on his arm again. He couldn’t wait to rejoin the party with an unspoken understanding humming between them.
He returned to where the carts and tents were circled. One of the plays must have ended because costumed actors were now skipping between the campfires, getting as foxed as they could before the night was up. The pavilion he fixed his eyes on looked quiet, but as he neared it, a group of performers ducked inside. He stopped and held his breath, but no noises of discovery erupted from it. Beth must have finished dressing.
Amid the many spheres of firelight, he caught no glimpse of Beth’s blush frock. He rolled his lips between his teeth, trying to stave off the thread of worry that was now knitting itself into his mind.
His investigative side took over. He strode among the groups of revelers that now dotted the camp. He circled the tents. No sign of her. No trace of her voice.
His ear caught another sound instead—a raised voice in the distance. His narrowed eyes searched the dark bank of the canal. Then he spotted her, the auburn-haired woman who had enjoyed the tent just before them. She knelt next to a boy, gripping his arms and . . . admonishing him?
The woman’s voice became clearer as he moved close.
“Where did he give you the note? Think, lad.”
Just as Rhys wondered if he should interfere, the woman caught sight of him and waved him over desperately. The boy twisted out of her grip and ran off.
“Ay!” The boy paid no heed to her shouts.
She turned her eyes back to Rhys and pointed at him. “You’re Beth’s man.” It felt like an accusation.
“Aye.” The sailor in him came out as if to speak her language. “Where is she?”
“She was with me, then she got this note and run off.”
Rhys’ heart lurched into a rhythm that did not match his stillness. He didn’t have to hear another word to know he should be fearful. This woman’s face said it all.
“And that boy brought the note?”
She nodded.
“What does he know about it? Did he say where she went?”
“’Tis no use. He’s not sayin’.”
“Which way did she go?”
The woman stretched out a solid arm and pointed. “She disappeared right ’tween those buildin’.”
“Thank you—”
“Emily.”
He’d already backed away several paces when he turned and broke into a furious sprint. Even at such a breakneck pace, he took in everything around him. Ribbons that decorated performer’s belts. A craggy old man cursing his bottle of wine for its stuck cork. Discarded bottles. Paper caught in tree roots. Festoons that had blown away . . .
The corner of the village that he ran for was quiet and dark. Far from the frenzy. Uncertainty lurked there.
His mind retread his fleeting observations—drawing him back to something—something he’d missed. He turned so abruptly that his heel slid in the clover. The piece of paper in the tree roots. He returned to it and picked it up.
The words were ingested almost all at once. Fro
m the very first syllable, he knew he’d see Desmarais’ name signed to it.
He’d failed her. Failed everyone.
Beth had taken up every drop of acreage in his imagination, and he’d not any room left for common sense. He had allowed this to happen. But he could linger on self-loathing later. He wadded the paper and thrust it into a pocket as he ran.
There was no one there.
Not Allison. Not Desmarais. Not even the stable boy.
The light of a few sconces lent the space an eerie flicker.
Beth was alone yet watched by a dozen sets of dark eyes. The nearest mare tossed her head anxiously. Beth reached out a hand to stroke its nose, but rather than calming the creature, the gesture seemed instead to infect Beth with the horse’s unease.
She went up on her toes to peek into the inky shadow of the stall. No sign of anyone.
She wandered. At the front of the space was an alcove for smithing horseshoes. There, a glowing brazier sat unattended near an anvil.
Finally, the faint sound of metal on metal—a click.
Beth turned slowly, bracing herself for that ugly visage—the face of Desmarais, sunken and sallow.
The gray velveteen coat was the same, but the face—
Not the one that she expected.
Difficult to recognize clean-shaven—
Without the mane.
The Lion.
Bethany straightened up and tensed, and the shiver that went down her spine pulled every taut muscle mercilessly out of alignment. Desmarais she could have faced. He was a snake that she could step on. She had, after all, taken a wolf since last they met. But besting a wolf could not secure her chances of besting a lion. This beast was too great. Too unpredictable.
Lionel leveled his pistol at her heart.
“They told me there was a lion at the menagerie, but I didn’t think it was worth my coin.”
He shrugged. “Well, now you get to see me for no coin at all.”
That hideous smile of his widened, revealing a new set of repulsive teeth, poorly rendered dentures, too big for him and likely stolen. She grimaced, expecting to be struck by a smell just as putrid as that of his old maw. He approached as if beckoned by her fear of catching a whiff.
“What do you want?”
“Didn’t get my promised prize from before. Got nothin’ but a banishment to the forest and my friend shot in the leg.”
“Solomon is alive, isn’t he?”
“Aye, Sol’s alive. Alive and lame. But he’s well enough to be drivin’ yer cousin from town in the back of a cart.”
Beth lunged forward as though she might strike him, but common sense, and Lionel’s warning eye, stayed her midway.
“Watch yerself.” He retrained his weapon, standing only a man’s height away from her.
She took a step back and nearly placed a hand in the brazier when she bumped into it.
He laughed at her. “Nearly settin’ yerself afire, eh? You gonna do my revenge for me?” The shrill, giddy squeal of his laughter struck a harsh contrast against the menace of his pistol.
Beth glanced down discretely at the brazier so that she might side step it without catching her skirts on fire. But beyond it, she ran out of room to evade the wretch.
“What do you want with Allison? You can have me. I’m here.”
Lion placed his free hand over his heart and painted a dramatic pout on his lips. “Don’t take offense, I did come back fer you first. But you were spendin’ time with this girl, this Lady Allison, who is fairer, younger . . .” His eyes narrowed. “. . . richer, I gather.”
“And you wish to ransom her as you once did me?”
“Actually, after meetin’ this Desmarais,” Lionel fondled the lapel of Desmarais’ velveteen coat. “I decided I like his way better—a li’l elopement.”
Beth’s body ached from the steely control that she exerted on her fear. She wouldn’t let her face betray how his talk of Allison made her feel. Wouldn’t let it show how dangerous she knew his answers might be when she asked, “And what of Desmarais?”
Lionel cocked an eyebrow casually. “Dead.”
“I figured as much, but how?”
“How about you trust yer instinct on that front as well.” He tossed a devilish grin her way.
“Did you hunt him down?”
“He did graze me with a ball once, if you recall.” Lionel’s face briefly crunched down in ire but settled back into a smug calm. “Aye. I sought ‘im out. The captain thinks I’m stupid and you think I’m stupid, but I’m not stupid, and I found him.”
Beth’s eyes widened at his lapse of confidence.
“I sought ‘im out while Sol recovered. Wanted to see if he’d pay well for aid in catchin’ you again. But he couldn’t pay well on account o’ bein’ dyin’ o’ the Covent Garden pox.”
Beth sucked in a tight breath. Lionel’s rugged dialect became more exaggerated with every outraged sputter.
“He was sickly when I found ‘im but too slow to the grave fer my likin’.”
“So you helped him shed his mortal coil.”
The foul man nodded. “I made myself comfortable in his chairs. His accounts kept Sol and me goin’ for a coupla years. Then a man came pryin’ about, lookin’ fer Desmarais. I offered him a drink—many drinks—and wouldn’t you know it, he uttered your name as his employer.” Lionel began to encroach once more, leading with the barrel of his gun.
There was no place left to go. The wall of the smithy’s area was close at her back and hung with all manner of iron instruments. The forge between them lit the crags of Lionel’s face to menacing perfection. Beth’s knuckles bumped against something solid, and it sent a pinch of fire dancing through her slender hand. A little sound—high and embarrassing—was gasped from her lungs as she brought her hand to her chest. Lionel laughed. It had been the blacksmith’s tongs, with their handles resting on the lip of the forge’s dying fire. The heat had not been so bad, had only surprised her.
“You empty, clumsy girl! I can just stand here all night makin’ you so nervous that you accidentally burn yerself to death.”
“Why dead though? What is it that you want from me?”
“Now that,” he wagged his weapon at her casually in a way that made her heart skip, “is a’last the right question. I didn’t like the troubles it wrought when you fell on our crew, but my anger wasn’t at you—now my lust, perhaps—” He grabbed his bollocks coarsely and Beth cast her eyes back down to the coals. “But not my ire. ’Tis Rhys who ruined my life and couldn’t fix it. And that’s why you matter. ’Cause I recently heard you tell a story to yer pretty cousin, ’bout how in love you was with a highwayman.”
That clandestine night on the hill.
The shadow in the rotunda.
Not their imaginations—
“When Allison and I ran that night. It was you.”
“I been spreadin’ rumors of Desmarais for months. Knew it would send my Captain runnin’. He’s weak fer you, ya see.”
Beth drew her spine up.
“How sad of you to think that what he has for me is a weakness.”
“He took my livelihood!” Lionel spat past his awful dentures and gestured wildly with the weapon again. “He was a young fella and a leader, and I thought he’d be fit to tie my interests to—but my trust was misplaced—”
Beth’s eyes lifted to his. “He did everything he could for you.” There was no response but Lionel’s shrug and the snapping of the coals.
Beth put every fiber of herself into the look she gave him. She bore deeper and deeper with her gaze until she saw the brazier’s glow reflected in his dry, dead eyes. Until she saw that glow become clouded by his fear. Then she held him there—a prisoner of her cursed stare, he wouldn’t notice her reaching for the tongs—
Coal blasted through the space between t
hem as she batted a flurry of coals from the forge’s pedestal. The volley of hellfire struck him face on, pocking his stolen coat with black and amber. His pistol clacked to the floor as he batted fiery bits from his face and sleeves.
Beth got her own share of hot pebbles and ash but barely felt the searing hail as she lunged for him with the heated tongs aching in her hand.
The lion was still recovering. Breathing heavy. Hunched.
Beth lunged for him, raising the tongs high in the hopes that they would come down hard on her stronger foe. But as she brought the weight of them down, her strike was blocked by the handle of a smithing hammer that the lion had found. Her arms rang with the vibrations of her halted blow and she staggered backward, caught a heel in her skirt, and went down.
She heard Lionel picking himself up off the floor behind her. The pistol. Where was the pistol? The floor revealed nothing but ash and coal. As Beth stood up, she could feel him rushing behind her, but she couldn’t raise the tongs soon enough.
She expelled a harrowing gasp as the blow slammed her against a stall. A loud snap at her side marked the fracture of a piece of whalebone in her stays. The planks that held her upright rumbled with the distress of the horse within.
Lionel was swinging back for another blow. His warped face seemed frozen in time, even as she dodged him with a limp roll against the wall.
She caught up to the breath that she’d been choking on since his blow, and she reached out to glance his filthy chin with the tip of the still-hot tongs. He hissed but otherwise did not flinch as he drew his hammer back again. She drew back her weapon too—against hope, arms shaking—and she was faintly aware of another figure approaching as she let the blow fly—
It was like the wolves. It was like riding up to Beth as the beasts mercilessly tugged at her. Not yet knowing what damage was done. It was just like that, only worse, because Rhys knew that men were far more dangerous.
The pair’s struggle was framed perfectly by the carriage doors at the stable’s other end. Beth was doubled over. She had a tool high in hand, but so did he.
Rhys’ feet ran ahead of his mind, wishing to do anything to keep that hammer from coming down on her. But time was measured in hairs’ breadths and everything was already in motion, without him.
