by Donna Hatch
“My lord?” The coachman’s voice broke through the darkness.
Cole closed the kiss and lifted his head. “What is it, Parker?” His voice sounded hoarse.
“Trouble.”
He released her with a regretful, rueful smile, caressed her cheek, and then put his head out of the coach’s window to converse with the driver, but the wind carried their voices away from her. Her senses spun with Cole’s taste, his scent, his touch, the desires he stirred.
Cole pulled his head back inside, his expression dark. He drew in a breath, held it a moment, and then released it slowly. The sweet bliss that had enfolded her faded at his grimness.
“What’s amiss?” she asked.
“Forgive me, but I must ask you to move to this seat.” He indicated the bench across from her.
After she complied, he knelt and lifted the cushion of the seat they had recently vacated to reveal a compartment filled with handguns. Cole deftly loaded them all and laid them out on the seat next to her in a neat row, all the handles facing the same direction.
Seeing guns in his hands left her cold. “What is it?”
“Highwaymen. Take off the jewels and give them to me.”
At his commanding tone, she obeyed without question. After placing her pearls and diamonds in a small cache hidden in one corner of the compartment, he blew out the lanterns and parted the curtains over the windows. Alicia craned her neck around his head to see riders approach from both the front and the rear of the carriage.
A voice called out, “Stop the coach and cooperate, and no one will get hurt.”
As the coach slowed, riders surrounded them. Alicia’s heart pounded. Her breath rasped loudly in the stillness.
Cole placed a hand over hers. “Courage,” he whispered.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she watched Cole soundlessly heft a gun in each hand and hold them poised, his hands steady, his expression impassive. She could easily imagine him as a soldier—deadly, ruthlessly calm in the face of danger.
“We aren’t carrying any money,” Cole called out.
“Send out the lady,” came the reply.
They exchanged wide-eyed glances and Cole frowned, clearly wondering why they would make such a demand. “Lie down,” he mouthed.
Alicia sank to the floor and lay with her cheek resting on the floorboard.
“If it’s ransom you wish, take me!” Cole shouted.
“We want the girl.”
Alicia peered out from a crack between the door and the frame. The bright moonlight glinted off the highwaymen’s guns pointed at the coach. One of the highwaymen, she presumed the one who had spoken, eased his mount closer.
“Send her out now, unless you wish for bloodshed!” the leader called.
Cole trained his guns carefully upon the highwaymen. An explosion erupted from beside her. With a gasp, she covered her ears. Smoke curled from the barrel of Cole’s gun. The leader let out a grunt and folded in his seat, but before he dropped from his saddle, Cole fired again and another rider fell. Both lay motionless in crumpled heaps on the ground. With howls of fury, the highwaymen all opened fire.
The coach began moving again, and judging from the swaying, the horses were at a full run.
A hole flowered in the doorframe, and the wall behind her splintered. She flattened herself, her heart hammering against the floorboards. Perspiration trickled down her face. Cole dropped his discharged guns and picked up others, firing without pause as incoming balls tore their way through the walls of the coach and the seats. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air.
Cole dropped his guns next to Alicia in a small pile of firearms scattered on the floor and picked two more, watching out the narrow back window. He continued firing outside as the highwaymen pursued, their shots growing wider as they fell behind.
He looked down at her. In the semi-darkness, she could not see his expression, only the direction of his gaze. “Are you all right?”
She nodded mutely.
“Alicia?” A trace of panic colored his voice and she realized that he could not see her clearly enough to have seen her nod.
“Yes.”
“A ball didn’t strike you?”
“No. I’m unharmed.”
Another gunshot from outside shredded the back curtain. Cole grunted and fired back both guns. He dropped them and picked up his last two, his focus on the road behind them. No returning fire came.
They rode in silence for several moments while Cole kept watch. Finally satisfied, he set down the guns and helped Alicia to her seat. He scooped her into his arms, crushing her against his hard, strong body, and let out a ragged breath. As the danger passed, the reality of their peril caught up to Alicia and she shuddered, tears gathering. They might have been killed. If not for Cole’s skills as a gunman, they surely would have been. Or she would now be in the hands of criminals. She let out a sob.
Cole held her, arms strong and soothing, all signs of the merciless gunman gone. He murmured words of comfort while she wept. She lay against him, wishing things could have been different between them. How right it felt to be encircled by his arms!
By the time they arrived in front of the baron’s home, she had pulled herself together and dried her tears.
“You took a terrible risk, Cole.”
“I’d die before I’d deliver you to unscrupulous men.” His voice sounded tight, angry.
Predawn gray spread across the eastern sky and mist swirled above the ground. He helped her out, holding her hand for a moment longer than necessary. His eyes searched hers with an intensity that set her heart racing. Then his expression softened, and he brushed a kiss against her temple before turning away.
He looked up at the coachman. “Parker? Are you all right?”
The coachman sat hunched over. Cole swung up onto the seat and carefully eased the driver’s body back, causing him to unbend. The man sucked in his breath as Cole probed his side and then swore softly.
“Come inside, Parker. We need to have that attended.”
“Jest a scratch, milord.”
Cole helped the man climb down while Alicia stood by feeling useless. As they mounted the front steps, she offered her arm to the coachman who obliged her, but leaned more heavily on Cole.
“I’m sorry,” she said to them both. “They wanted me.”
The coachman managed a weak smile, revealing a gap in his teeth. “We wouldn’t let the likes o’ them ’ave ye, milady.”
Servants swarmed around them as Cole explained. Mrs. Hodges waded in, shooing the rest away. “Come on then, let’s have a look at you. Potter, send for the doctor.”
She led him away, leaving Cole and Alicia in the foyer. Helplessly, she glanced up at him. A dark stain spread on his arm below a tiny hole in his sleeve.
“You’re hurt,” she gasped in alarm.
“It’s not bad.”
“Mrs. Hodges!”
Alicia’s frantic cry brought the woman running. “The driver will be all right. I’ve sent for Doctor— ” she stopped short. “You, too, my lord?”
“It’s nothing.”
“You men!” Mrs. Hodges sighed in exasperation. “Come into the kitchen where the light is better and let me have a look at you.”
“I’m only grazed,” Cole protested.
She made eye contact with Cole. “My lord would have my head if he thought I hadn’t seen to you properly.”
Cole’s mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “Very well.”
They lit every lamp in the kitchen before Mrs. Hodges peeled off his cravat, tailcoat, and waistcoat. After unbuttoning his shirt, he pulled the neckline aside just enough to expose his wounded shoulder. Alicia set her teeth, unable to keep her eyes off the rounded, solid muscles of his chest and shoulder. His body had been beautifully sculpted. Even wounded, he was large, powerful, and oh, so wholly male.
The bullet had cut a path through the flesh of his upper arm below the shoulder. The wound still bled freely.
�
��It’s not bad, my lady,” Mrs. Hodges assured Alicia.
Alicia hoped she would never see a wound that the intrepid housekeeper would consider serious. This one made her shiver. While Alicia helped Mrs. Hodges clean the injury, Cole’s eyes remained shielded, his lips clamped together.
The desire to offer him comfort beset her. “Does it hurt very badly?”
He shook his head but his teeth remained clenched.
Mrs. Hodges scoffed. “Asking a man if it hurts will never bring the truth. They think they have to be so manly. But really, they’re just big children. I’m in need of fresh bandages. I’ll be back momentarily.” She swept out of the room.
Cole stirred. “I’m sure it must give you some sense of justice seeing me this way.”
She stared at him, completely caught off-guard by his comment. “No. Of course not. How can you say that?”
The shields dropped, baring self-recrimination. “Poetic justice, I suppose, since this is what I did to your twin.”
Alicia sank into a kitchen chair next to him. She kept her voice soft, but spoke with fervor. “I take no satisfaction in seeing you hurt.”
He continued as if he had not heard her. “If I develop a sickness and die, you can dance on my grave. Perhaps I should insist they cut off my arm first.”
Truly alarmed, she leaned in. “No. I do not wish you to…” She could not even bring herself to say the word.
She wanted to hold him, comfort him, reassure him. Blood ran continually down his arm from the wound. She cleaned it again and then pressed the cloth against the cut to staunch the bleeding, wondering if a man as strong as he could actually die from such a minor wound as this.
She forced cheer into her voice. “This is only a scratch. You shouldn’t sicken from this.”
“It’s no worse than what I did to Armand,” he said darkly.
Panic seized her at the thought of Cole lying feverish and dying. “I’ll have the doctor—”
“Don’t trouble yourself.” Cole stood, his face wooden, and looked down at her, his chest rising and falling quickly as if he found breathing difficult. “My valet comes from Romany stock and has more medical knowledge than any English doctor I know. He’ll attend me.” He took the cloth from her hand and pressed it to his arm. With his other hand, he scooped up his discarded clothing and headed for the door.
“Cole.”
He halted, his broad back still toward her.
“Thank you. For saving me. You are very courageous. I’m sorry you and the coachman got hurt.”
He turned slowly. “I will never allow harm to come to you.”
“I know. And I owe you an apology.”
Mutely, he stared.
“You’ve tried to help me in many ways; the offer you made to me was most generous. And thoughtful. As was the offer to elope. And then you convinced your cousin to marry me and give me a place of safety. I never thanked you for your kindness. Instead, I’ve been rude and hateful to you. I’m sorry.”
He watched her, his blue eyes carefully shuttered. “You lost your brother and your parents because of me.”
“I had painted you as a monster, but I was wrong. And I had become so comfortable blaming you for all my troubles that it clouded my judgment.”
He swallowed hard. “Alicia, I swear to you by all that’s holy, if I could change the past, I would.”
The anguish in his face brought tears to her eyes. “I know. After you told me about the events that led up to—” she choked, “the duel, I realized that you never meant to really harm him. Or me. For the first time, I see you clearly.”
He grimaced. “You might not like me any better, then.”
She laughed softly through her tears. “I like you better now that I’m not trying so hard to hate you. I truly am sorry for being so terrible to you.” She rose up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his cheek, resisting the urge to kiss those lips and reawaken the passion between them only moments ago. But kissing him in the coach had been wrong, and kissing him in her husband’s home would be even more so.
He stood with his eyes closed for a moment before turning to stride quickly away.
Desolate without him, Alicia resisted the urge to call him back. Kissing Cole in the carriage had been a catastrophic mistake. Guilt for betraying her husband ate through to her soul. She wept for the man she could never have and cursed herself for being so faithless.
Chapter 21
Cole glared at the canopy over his bed and watched the shadows slowly slip from the room as the sunrise sent thin rays between the draperies.
Stephens had cleaned his arm where the bullet grazed him and applied several painful methods of insuring sickness would not set in. After Stephens sewed the wound and properly bandaged it, Cole sent him away with every intention of pacing the floor restlessly, but apparently Stephens had given him something to make him sleep. The dog.
Painfully, he rose. He tried to dress without waking Stephens, but his sore arm prevented him from doing anything so independent. He was forced to ring for help.
Stephens entered, looking disgustingly fresh and alert, and all too pleased with himself. He cleaned the wound again. “This will be fine, no need to worry.” He wound a bandage around it.
“I need to shave and dress.”
“You should stay abed and rest another day.”
“Stop coddling me and help me dress,” Cole snarled.
Stephens wisely kept silent, but shot a steady stream of disapproving glances.
“How is Parker?” Cole asked.
“Well enough. I looked in on him after I left you and cleaned off the manure the doctor put on the wound and dressed it properly.” He shook his head. “I’m surprised people ever heal with the imbeciles the English have for doctors. Romany children know more about healing.” He pushed on Cole’s boots.
“I slept from dawn yesterday until dawn today. You drugged me,” Cole accused.
Stephens grinned, his teeth a flash of white against his brown face. “You have to sleep sometime. I figured that was as good a time as any, since you were wounded and all. And you had about a month’s worth of sleep to catch up on.”
Cole glared at him. “I’m going to make you taste all my drinks from now on.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Shall I taste all your meals, too?”
“Insolent cur.”
Stephens grinned.
With a curse, Cole cuffed him on the back of his head.
Stephens let out a cry of outrage that his curls had been mussed and carefully smoothed his hair.
“Peacock,” Cole muttered.
After grabbing a coat, Cole left the house. Outside, the air was brisk and clean, with a faint mist hanging about the trees. Dawn glimmered on the far edge of the world, but Cole knew the grounds well enough to navigate even in total darkness. The lamps were already lit in the stables as the grooms and stable lads went about their work. Cole greeted the workers briefly before moving down the row of stalls.
“I’ve neglected you of late, André,” he said to his favorite horse.
He offered an apple he’d pilfered from the kitchen. Talking soothingly to André, he tried to tack him up, but the pain in his arm forced him to accept aid from a vigilant stable lad. Cole mounted and left the stable.
Mist swirled around him like sleepy wraiths as horse and rider walked to the open field, but when Cole urged André to a gallop, darts of pain shot through his arm and he was forced to slow. While birds serenaded him with their morning chorus, Cole wended his way through the grounds and down the hollow. Wind whispered through the leaves.
As he thought back over the events of the highwaymen attack, Cole scrutinized each word, each act. Why did they demand Alicia? Normally they only desired money or jewels—not prisoners. They seemed to know who it was that they had attacked, at least that a girl was in the carriage. More specifically, they’d wanted “the girl,” as if they had been after her in particular. If they knew who they were stopping, he, as a viscount and son o
f an earl, clearly outranked the lesser title of baron’s wife, and should have been the object of their demands. Most people assumed that the higher the title, the more wealth they possessed. So why did the highwaymen demand her? Unless they were not simple highwaymen.
And prior to that, someone of shady character had come into town asking for Lord and Lady Amesbury. Right before her room caught on fire. Slow dread crept in.
For weeks, the nagging suspicion that her parents had not died in a mere accident had grown. And as he thought back on the duel, and the events preceding and following it, his instincts whispered of sinister forces at work. Perhaps it was time to do a little investigating.
And what to do now about Alicia?
He had two choices. He could leave and try to banish her from his thoughts, or he could try and coax her into liking him.
He grinned. If her kiss was any indication, she liked him at least at some level. And her words in the kitchen gave him hope. But Alicia was not the kind of woman with whom a man could trifle. He knew the first day he met her that she would never consider a dalliance. Any man who would win her affection would have to be willing to offer her his heart first.
Offer her his heart.
He couldn’t do that. And unless he did, she would never be his.
But he didn’t love her.
Then why did his thoughts always spiral back to her? And why could he not sleep for the yearning of her?
As Alicia sat at a writing desk in the corner of the morning room, the baron entered. Alicia looked up at the expressionless mask that concealed her husband’s face and smiled, his once-terrifying form becoming a welcome sight.
“Good morning, my love,” he said. “I need to go to London on business. Would you care to accompany me?”
Alicia laid down her pen on the writing desk and gave him her full attention, her letter to Elizabeth forgotten. “London?”
“I know it isn’t the Season but between the theater and opera, you might find some interesting diversions. And I have friends who live there at this unfashionable time of year who would welcome you. Someone is always sponsoring a rising musician or hosting a charity function.”
