Fascinated, she wondered aloud, “How’d you get that bullet wound?”
He turned toward her. Not what she wanted! She bent her head quickly, enough to conceal her face in shadow but still able to peek up under the edge of her hood. Standing as far across the room as she was, she probably could have met his eyes, but hers rose no higher than his shoulders. She really couldn’t help it. Now she had a perfect view of his wide chest, thickly muscled arms and legs. She was getting exactly what she’d wanted when she’d decided not to protest sharing a room with him—a chance to satisfy her curiosity about what a magnificent male body looked like.
Instead of answering her, he said, “Why are you still wearing that cloak?”
“It’s drafty in here.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Well, it will be for me. You’ve never slept on a floor to notice how cold it can get down there?”
“I just gave up my quilt, you’ll be warm enough.”
“Take it back if you want and stop procrastinating. Or does talking about your wound bring back painful memories you don’t want to recount?”
“Does stubbornness run in your family?”
“No, I think I got all of it.”
He finally chuckled, giving up. “My regiment was sent to the Peninsular War, tasked with taking that territory back from the French and then defending it. I’d been shot before, a minor wound that hadn’t fully healed when I was shot again. But the second shot went clean through and laid me low for several weeks. My condition wasn’t improving, so they finally sent me home to recover—or die. I don’t think the army surgeons were sure which would happen. But I convalesced with my family, and my father got me to promise I wouldn’t go back. I think he did it when I was delirious with fever, because I really don’t remember making that promise, but he swears I did.”
“Does it still hurt?”
“Occasionally.”
He stretched his arms above his head, twisting his torso from side to side perhaps to see if this was one of those occasions, and he did actually gasp. She cringed for him. “So it does hurt?”
“Just on my back, never on my chest, deuced odd,” he replied. “A bit of rubbing usually helps, but I can’t reach it.”
She sucked in her breath. He wasn’t suggesting she massage his back, was he? She wouldn’t mind! But she didn’t dare give into a temptation that could lead to a lot more than rubbing his back if she got that close to him.
“Or you can let me sleep on the floor,” he added. “Hard surfaces tend to help when this old wound acts up. If you wouldn’t mind taking the bed instead?”
She nodded and headed toward the comfortable-looking bed while he picked up two of his pistols and went over to where the quilt had landed on the floor. But he was going to wonder why she slept in her clothes after he’d stripped down almost completely, so she bundled up fast under the covers so he wouldn’t notice and faced the side of the room away from him.
She guessed he was looking her way again when he asked, “Are you asleep yet, Ness?”
Of course she wasn’t, only moments had passed since she lay down, but she still said, “I am, and we’re leaving early in the morn, so you should be, too.”
“Tell me about yourself. I’m beginning to think your secrets are more interesting than mine.”
“Was I not clear enough that I’m asleep?”
He laughed. “Most definitely. Very well, we’ll resume this conversation in the morning when you’re not asleep.”
But about a half hour later, he mumbled, “I should have drunk more of that cheap wine.”
A short while later he added, “Bloody hell, I’m calling a truce.”
Vanessa didn’t respond, but wondered what the deuce he meant by that. He wasn’t the only one having trouble getting to sleep tonight.
Chapter Nine
AS MONTGOMERY LAY ON the floor, he thought about the very pretty wench in the bed nearby. Who did she think she was fooling?
He’d been unable to stop staring at her from the moment he’d guessed he was a she when she’d turned to look for Charley after they’d stopped for lunch and he’d gotten a glimpse of her face. He’d been bowled over. The audacity of her trying to pass herself off as a boy when her waist was so narrow, her hands so delicate, her face so feminine and pretty. Why was she disguising herself? Or maybe it wasn’t a disguise. She could have been raised without any of the feminine frills, might never have worn a dress or coiffed her hair or batted her eyes. Good God, she would be devastating if she did. But why had she continued the pretense after she’d been found out?
Her denying it was silly, didn’t matter a jot. It just made him determined to get her to fess up so they could enjoy traveling together in other ways. But he let her think her ruse was still working because he didn’t want her to ride away. However, trying to tempt the wench into revealing herself or force her to scream at him in outrage for disrobing in front of her proved that the idea of enjoying an amorous night with her had turned him into a bloody fool. There would be no more silliness like that. For whatever reason she wanted the world to see a boy standing in her boots, he had to go along with it and give up the notion of her in his bed. As soon as that was settled in his mind he got right to sleep.
A loud noise at the door jolted him awake. It was much louder than a normal knock. Having left one lamp burning for the night, he immediately saw why. There was an ax blade stuck in the door. It hadn’t been pulled out yet for another whack. Grabbing a pistol, he ran to the door before that happened.
A bloody ax. How the devil had Chanders’s thugs found him?
But the ax didn’t get pulled out of the door. Before he could unlock the door, he heard a loud thud in the corridor, then some other noise that wasn’t very loud. When he flung the door open, ready to shoot, no one was there. He peeked into the hall and saw a body being dragged around the corner to the stairs, only the boots of the downed man were visible for a moment before they disappeared.
A head suddenly poked under the arm he had braced against the doorframe, followed by a hand gripping a flintlock. He was arrested by the sight of copper-colored hair. Copper? What a lovely color! No wonder she hid that, too, until now. And she probably didn’t know the hood of the cloak she was still wearing had slid back enough to reveal it. But she was trying to get past him and into the corridor.
He shifted his hips so she couldn’t squeeze through before saying, “I suppose one of the other guests didn’t like the noise either and put a stop to it. You can go back to bed, Ness.”
“I will, after I make sure there’s no one who needs shooting.”
He almost laughed but had a feeling she was serious. “I’ll do that. You’ll get back in bed.”
“Don’t be absurd. I’m dressed, you aren’t. There could be more thugs downstairs.”
This argument was getting silly, but there was no way he was letting her run downstairs and possibly straight into more of Chanders’s thugs. He lowered his arm and hooked it around her waist then hefted her horizontally against his hip and carried her back to the bed.
She immediately started to squirm. “Let me go!”
But he kept his tone reasonable as he explained, “We’d hear more noise if there were more thugs downstairs, so there’s no reason for both of us to lose more sleep over this. And you’ve delayed me from checking on Charley long enough. Go back to sleep.”
“But—”
“Stop arguing. You won’t like how I win,” he said, and tossed her into the bed.
Not another word. He waited to see if she would roll off the other side of the bed and run back to the door, but she didn’t. She pulled the blanket over her head instead and made some snarling noises underneath it and what sounded like a muffled scream of frustration. Aggressive, stubborn—and a temper. Their mysterious companion really was a delightful surprise.
He donned his pants, slipped on his greatcoat, picked up a second pistol, then went back to the damaged door. Glancing back at t
he bed, he saw no movement under the blanket, but he still said, “I’ll find out who I should thank for ridding this ax of its wielder. I’ll be back in a moment.”
There had been only the one loud whack, so he wasn’t worried about Charley’s safety, but he still needed to check on the boy. His knock wasn’t answered immediately, and the door was locked, as it should be, so he just knocked harder. Then it was yanked open and a pistol came very close to his face, although Arlo’s hand was trembling.
The servant backed away immediately and pointed the weapon at the floor. “Apologies, my lord!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I hope you would have used that if necessary.”
“Of course, he is also mine to protect.”
He was sitting up in bed wearing a ridiculously luxurious nightshirt. And yawning. Charley had to have been awakened by the disturbance, but Montgomery guessed he was too arrogant to be afraid, confident that his people would protect him. But another glance at that silly nightshirt had him rolling his eyes. So much for the boy trying to blend in as an ordinary fellow.
“You two can get back to sleep. That particular miscreant was after me, not you.”
“Do try to keep these disturbances to a minimum!”
Montgomery just snorted and left the room, but paused long enough to hear the door being locked again. He headed downstairs barefoot and bare-chested under the greatcoat, one pistol still in his hand, another tucked in his pants. The ax wielder had been deposited in front of the innkeeper’s desk. The gash on the man’s head was bleeding a little, but he was still breathing.
The innkeeper cringed when he saw Montgomery. “Profuse apologies, m’lord. My boys have gone to fetch rope and hitch a wagon to take this criminal to the magistrate.”
“Did he ask for me?”
“Not by name. He said he had something for the lord staying here, so I told him which room you are in since you’re the only guest who resembles a lord. Utterly my mistake, but we’re not used to having noblemen under our roof.”
“What he had for me was the ax. He’s a bloody maniac. Make sure your boys tell the magistrate that.”
The only other person in the common room was a big fellow sitting at one of the tables with a tall mug of ale before him. Montgomery caught his eye and nodded toward the body. “Did you do that?”
He didn’t really expect an answer. The man could have been involved in the attack and was just sitting there trying to figure out how to get his friend out of there.
Yet he got an “Aye.”
Montgomery approached him but gripped his weapon a little tighter when what he’d thought was just a shadow on the man’s back appeared to be an ax blade. And the big fellow had a distinctly unfriendly demeanor, was actually glowering at him.
Cautiously, he said, “I’m not sure whether to thank you or ask if you arrived with the man who attacked my door. You do appear to be carrying the same weapon.”
“The ax is an easy weapon, doesna need tae be reloaded and causes a guid fright.”
The man’s size alone would cause a good fright. Chanders’s London thugs had been big brutes, but this chap far surpassed them in size.
But before Montgomery’s suspicions got out of hand, the big fellow yelled at the man behind the desk, “Innkeep, who was it brought the miscreant tae ye?”
“You did!”
Montgomery smiled at that point. “Well, I’m glad you were disturbed sooner than I and put an end to the noise for me. Much appreciated. I didn’t relish sleeping with blood spilled in my room.
“I’m going to check the stable.” He nodded to the big Scotsman and headed to the front door, grabbing one of the lanterns.
“Ye expect more?”
Montgomery paused to admit, “Merely a precaution. I want to assure m’self there are no other suspicious chaps lurking about.”
He didn’t think there would be or they would have come upstairs en masse to take his head off, but his duty to his ward demanded he make sure. Chanders certainly was determined to avenge himself. No doubt he’d had the Townsend family home in London watched when Montgomery didn’t return to his flat. The watcher could have seen him leave in the coach with Charley and followed the coach as it left London on the northwest road. Even if the man had kept his distance, all he’d needed to do was check all the inns on that road until he found him.
Quite a parade following him and the boy out of London this morning, he thought. It was a good time to look into those saddlebags he’d taken from the foreigners. Something in there might shed light on why those miscreants had been willing to shoot to kill in order to capture the boy. Or did they just want Charley dead?
Stepping outside, he saw a lone horse tethered there, then he was startled to hear, “Ye can be at ease, mon, there’ll be no muir attacks. My brother will be standing guard oot here for the rest o’ the night.”
Montgomery glanced to his side, then up, bloody hell, quite a bit up. He certainly wasn’t used to standing next to a man who was taller than himself. Nor had he heard the Highlander come out to join him on the porch.
“Then once again, much appreciated, but I still want to have a look around the stable.”
As he entered the stable, he was puzzled by the man’s vigilance and his and his brother’s willingness to go to such trouble. No doubt a purse was involved. The innkeeper could have hired them after the disturbance, at least until there was no longer a lord under his roof. Nobles traveled in their own coaches, after all, and didn’t usually stay in coaching houses specifically built for stage passengers.
He found the two saddlebags where Arlo had tucked them between Charley’s trunks. The first one revealed no clues of any sort, was just stuffed with clothes. The second bag appeared to be the same, but rummaging on the bottom of it, he felt something hard and pulled out a silver inlaid locket. He opened it and saw a small portrait of a young child with short ash-blond hair and a silken jacket—and jewels. A very young Charley? And if the foreigners had carried it with them, did that mean they didn’t know what Charley looked like now?
Monty began to think he’d put himself into the middle of a high-stakes, dangerous game, safeguarding a boy with perhaps an inheritance so grand that there were other claimants willing to kill for it. No wonder George was giving him a parcel of land and a manor house for taking this problem off his hands.
When he got back to the inn, he double-checked that the door to the boy’s room was locked. Back in his own room, he was pleased to see that the ax had been removed from the door and the wench appeared to be asleep. He removed his greatcoat, lay down on the floor, and was soon asleep.
But when he awoke in the morning, Nessi was gone. She might even have slipped away last night, for all he knew. And if she had, he wouldn’t be able to say he was surprised. Traveling with his entourage was turning out to be a little more dangerous than she might have anticipated. More dangerous than he’d anticipated, too. But her defection still annoyed him, a lot, so his rap on Charley’s door was a little too loud.
“Let’s go, boy! A quick breakfast then we’re back on the road.”
He didn’t wait for a response, and a good thing, since he found the lot of them at one of the tables downstairs already eating. Including Nessi. Well, he’d misjudged her. While he felt inordinately happy that she hadn’t left, he wasn’t going to allow the wench to distract him from what was important, keeping his mysterious ward alive.
To that end, he held Arlo back when everyone left the table and handed the servant the locket. “Is that your young lord when he was a lot younger?” At Arlo’s nod, he added, “So his pursuers don’t know what he currently looks like?”
“His face, probably not. He lived in seclusion. But his hair—”
“Yes,” Montgomery cut in dryly, “it’s no doubt legendary. Then it needs to be dyed or kept out of sight. And you need to tell me the real reason he’s a target.”
“He said he told you.”
Montgomery’s eyes narrowed. “Are you rea
lly going to keep his secret when his life depends on my knowing?”
“You know he is important enough for the Prince Regent to ask you to keep him safe. Act accordingly,” Arlo said, and followed the others outside.
Had he just been put in his place by a servant?
Chapter Ten
VANESSA STOOD WITH SNOW outside the inn, waiting for her traveling companions to congregate and for the coach to arrive. It was barely dawn, cold enough for her to have put her scarf on, which provided the additional advantages of holding her hood in place and covering more of her face. She’d ignored the tub in the common bathing room, wouldn’t have used it even if there had been time, but she’d taken a few minutes to splash water on her face and arms, so she did feel somewhat refreshed. And she was excited to continue her journey with her unusual traveling companions for a few more days. She’d already forgiven Monty for being so high-handed last night when she’d wanted to help. It had been bad enough when he’d thought her a girl, but now he apparently thought she was too young to be useful in a dangerous situation.
She felt her cheeks grow warm at the memory of the way he’d slipped his arm around her waist last night. She’d thought something else had been about to happen, and her stomach had actually fluttered, but he’d rudely toted her back to the bed.
He hadn’t known he was carrying a girl, obviously, but she’d still been furious at his strong-arm tactics and might have bitten the knee in front of her face if she weren’t deeply unsettled by being in close proximity to that magnificent body she’d admired earlier that night, even in that absurd position.
She understood now what he’d meant about “calling a truce.” He’d obviously been testing her to see if she was a girl, but she had passed his test and could comfortably continue to travel as a boy in his company.
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