She couldn’t possibly tell him. She would have to find another way.
The footsteps returned and two young men—scarcely more than boys—came slowly up the incline, carrying another crate. She knew them well. “Thomas Biggins! Ben Jones! I’m ashamed of you, aiding and abetting a thief. Put that down immediately. Be off with you both or I’ll have you taken in charge.”
The two young fellows glanced from Bridget to Martin and back. They set their burden on the paving stones. “But, Mrs. Black, I mean Mrs. Fallow, we was only doing what Mr. Fallow told us,” said Biggins.
“He’s the new master here,” added Jones.
Mrs. Fallow? “He is not the master.” She shot a glare at Martin. “You told them I am your wife?”
“Bridget, my darling, you promised to wed me!” he cried predictably. “That makes us as good as married already.”
“It does not.” She huffed furiously and turned to the boys. “If moving this cargo was open and above-board, why would he ask you to do it at night?”
“Er . . .” Thomas Biggins shrugged.
“It’s to be delivered to a smuggling vessel, I’ll be bound.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Ben Jones hung his head.
“Your mothers would be ashamed of you.” She caught Martin’s sudden movement, sidestepped hurriedly, and pulled out her pistol. “Stay where you are. Thomas and Ben, go home, and for your own safety, don’t mention this to anyone. Go! Now!”
The two young men’s eyes widened at the sight of the pistol. They scurried away.
“Curse you, Bridget,” Martin said. “It’s your damned fault I have to move these guns in a hurry, and now you’ve driven off my help.”
“Go away, Martin,” she said. “You can leave peacefully or I can shoot you. Take your pick.”
He made a rude noise. “You won’t shoot me.”
To some extent he was justified in his belief. She didn’t want to shoot him. She had to grip the pistol tightly to keep her hand from shaking.
He indicated a gun tucked into his breeches. “Nor will I shoot you, though I am sorely tempted. Since you’ve robbed me of my young assistants, you’ll have to help me load the crates instead.”
“You must be out of your mind.”
“No, merely desperate. I need those rifles.” He approached, lowering his voice. “Ireland needs them.”
“The last thing Ireland needs now is weapons,” she hissed. “Do you want more innocent women and children to die? For that’s precisely what will happen if there’s another uprising.”
“Not this time,” Martin muttered. “This time we’ll be ready. We’ll strike right at the heart of the bloody English. This time we’ll win.”
“You’re wrong, Martin. England is a hundred times more powerful and better organized than the Irish. Whatever you do, England will pay back a hundred times over in atrocities and continued oppression.”
“Not while they’re occupied with fighting the French.”
“Believe what you like,” she said. “That doesn’t make you any less wrong, nor does it excuse the theft of these rifles.”
“Your da believed it did.”
“My father was ill and deluded.” She choked up. What had possessed her dear father to risk his life in a hopeless cause?
Perhaps he’d sensed that he would die soon. Perhaps it was his last ditch attempt to aid in freeing the country he loved so well. If those guns had reached Ireland when they were meant to, years before, even more innocents might have been killed—but desperate, passionate men don’t count the cost until it’s all over.
“Martin,” she whispered. “I beg of you. Please go.”
Colin found Bridget’s property without much difficulty, thanks to Snappish, whose white coat made him plainly visible in the moonlight, up on the hill beside the house. Relieved that she’d arrived safely, he dismounted and led the tired gelding up the drive. The house was dark; perhaps Bridget was already asleep.
And where was Martin Fallow? Had she come to confront him alone? Or . . .
A demon of jealousy pricked at Colin. It was absurd—she didn’t even like Fallow—and yet the suspicion wouldn’t go away.
Footsteps sounded, and two men burst out of the shrubbery behind him. They ran away down the drive, never once looking Colin’s way. What the deuce was going on? He led the gelding though the gap in the shrubbery. Ahead stood a small stone building, most likely an ice house. Once again, all was silent. He left the gelding to graze and skirted the ice house, seeing no one. Further down was another building, perhaps a dairy cellar judging by its location below the ice house. Colin crept quietly toward it. From the far side of the building came the whuff of a horse.
A man’s voice floated to him on the quiet night. Colin flattened himself against the stone wall and inched forward.
“What about his sacred memory?” The voice both admonished and cajoled. “A true, loving daughter would respect her father’s wishes.” Martin Fallow, damn him.
“I do respect his wishes,” retorted Bridget. “I long for Ireland’s freedom from the English yoke.”
Colin’s blood ran cold.
Bridget’s voice choked up. “I do, Martin, truly I do, but—”
Fallow interrupted. “No buts. A true daughter of Ireland would carry out those wishes.” For once, the dastard actually sounded like he meant was he was saying.
“And a true daughter of England—where, may I remind you, I was born and have spent most of my life—would have you arrested for treason.”
“You won’t do that to me,” Fallow said.
“No,” she said softly, “I won’t.”
Colin froze in disbelief.
“I won’t betray you.” Her voice firmed. “But nor will I let you take those rifles.”
“And I will not leave without them.”
“You must. For the last time, go now and I shall say nothing against you. I’ll tell Colin Warren I found the rifles by accident.”
In other words, she was planning to lie to him—about a treasonous plot! How could she let that slimy bastard go? Duty and honor permitted only one course of action. He rounded the corner. A wagon stood outside the door to the dairy cellar, with two sturdy horses hitched to it and what must be crates of unfinished rifles in the back.
Fallow and Bridget stood only a few feet apart. Neither noticed Colin.
“Don’t be foolish, Bridget,” Fallow said. “You know you won’t shoot me. You can’t help but care about me; we’re kin, and we loved one another once.”
“Go,” she pleaded. “For the love of God, please don’t make me do this. You are a good man at heart, a man of strong principles, some of which I share. You are my cousin and were once my friend. Let me remember the good about you and forget the bad.”
“Do your sacred duty to Ireland.” Fallow prowled closer. “Give me the gun.”
“Martin, please—” Her voice was suffused with anguish. “Please don’t.”
“You won’t shoot me.” Fallow laughed, lunging at her. “You can’t.”
“No, but I will,” Colin said. And did.
Bridget had decided to run—for her gun had jammed, or perhaps the powder was damp—but at Colin’s voice, she froze. The bullet caught Martin’s shoulder as he lunged. He stumbled, regained his balance, and ran. He dodged past the cart and around the building with Colin in pursuit, Bridget right behind. She grabbed Colin’s arm. “Don’t! He has a gun. He won’t hesitate to kill you.” She clung to Colin with all her strength.
Martin threw himself onto the waiting cob, dug his heels into its flank, and galloped away.
Colin pried her hand off his arm. “I would have killed him if you hadn’t been too close for safety.” He stalked away, then stopped and shrugged. “Not that it matters. I winged him.
He’s bleeding like a pig by now. He won’t get far.”
Unless he has accomplices close by who might help him, thought Bridget; he must be in league with some smugglers. Biggins and Jones were known to help out with some of the land runs.
She gazed at the useless pistol in her hand, relieved that Colin had shot him, not she; she hoped Martin would make it to safety and Ireland, where he belonged. She sagged against the stone wall. “It’s lucky you arrived when you did.”
Colin’s laugh was harsh and grating, hardly a laugh at all. “Exactly what I should have expected you to say.” He took the gun from her slackened grip. “You can’t play the game both ways.”
His voice was suffused with cold fury, which made no sense. She wished she could see his face. “What game?”
“I suppose I should count myself fortunate that my eyes have been opened to your true character.”
Her voice faltered. “I—I beg your pardon?”
“Needless to say, my offer of marriage is withdrawn. I cannot in all conscience wed a woman without scruple or honor, a woman who willingly connives at treason.”
“But—” She could scarcely command her voice. “I connived at nothing. Did you not hear me?” She paused. “Perhaps you had just arrived. I forbade him to take the rifles.”
“If you knew about the rifles, you could have told me rather than coming here yourself.”
“But I didn’t know.”
Colin said nothing, and his silence both accused and condemned. She swallowed. “I suspected—I admit that.”
“A confession! How unexpected,” he sneered.
“I’m not confessing anything! I remembered my father bricking up part of the cellar one night in the wee hours, when he was already quite ill, and when I put that together with the rifles stolen at about that time and Martin’s recent behavior, it all made sense. But I wasn’t sure.”
“And therefore you connived at treason.”
“I did not,” she retorted. “I didn’t wish to accuse my father, to shame his memory, if it wasn’t true. I had to find out for myself.”
“That’s not too terribly bad as an excuse.”
A few moments ago, she’d wished she could see his expression, but now she gave thanks for the darkness. The disgust in his voice was too much to bear. “It’s not an excuse,” she said, furious now. “It’s the truth.”
“Well then,” Colin said, “if that’s so, let’s move to another so-called truth. What about Martin Fallow? What are your true sentiments about him? Because as far as I can see, you treat love—such as it is—in the same cavalier manner as treason. Did you tell him you loved him, just as you told me? Does your allegiance to men swing back and forth with the wind, much the same way as your patriotism? Is that why you were unsure about marrying me?”
“No! What allegiance? I tried to kill him!”
“Not very hard, since it was I who fired the shot.”
“I pulled the trigger!” she cried. “Nothing happened. Maybe the powder was wet; I don’t know.”
He raised his eyes to the clear sky, to the moon and the stars and said nothing. Apparently he considered the absence of rain or even clouds enough of an answer.
To hell with him. He wouldn’t understand, but she would tell him the truth anyway. “You are of course at liberty to disbelieve me. Perhaps I should be glad that your true character is plain as well. I bear no lover-like allegiance to Martin Fallow, but I didn’t want to kill him. As long as he could do no harm here, I thought it best to let him go. There are two sides to any story, and just because I can appreciate Martin’s viewpoint doesn’t make me a traitor.” She paused. “Or a whore.”
Colin raised his head at that. “I didn’t use that word of you.”
“As good as,” she flung back, “and you did call me a traitor.”
“Yes, I did,” Colin said, “which brings me to an unfortunate decision. By rights, I should have you arrested.”
Bridget’s heart thudded in her chest. He wouldn’t. Surely not.
“However, you are the mother of my daughter, and I would prefer that she not suffer the deprivation and shame that would result from your arrest. Therefore, I am prepared to offer you a choice.”
“What choice?”
“You may remain here with your daughter if you promise to bring her up as an entirely English Protestant. More than that, there must be no mention of Ireland or Irish heritage or myths or anything of the sort. No spoken Irish, whether curses or endearments. No songs, no Catholicism, no talk of the English yoke or anything of the sort. She will be brought up completely English, or else.”
Bridget choked the words out. “Or else what?”
“Or else I shall remove her from your care forever.”
Chapter 12
After a dark silence broken only by the snuffle of one of the cart horses, she said, “I will not make any such promise, and you know it.”
Yes, Colin did know it, but what choice did he have but to require it? He crossed his arms and said nothing.
“You’re as vile as Martin.” Her voice shook, and he wished he could take her in his arms and comfort her. He ached for himself, too—for the same joy in her presence that he’d had only a few hours ago.
Love was the very devil. He’d been better off without it. He would gladly leave it behind.
Or so he told himself. For now, he had to be firm and harsh and unyielding, or he would never rid himself of her. “You must not only make the promise, you must keep it.”
“You disgusting, insulting, stupid man.” Her voice thickened; were those tears running down her cheeks?
Probably. His heart burned at the thought of causing her such misery. She brought it on herself. She’s not trustworthy, she’s not safe.
Even as the excuses rose in his mind, he sensed their unworthiness. Very well then, She’s not for me.
“I not only will not, I cannot make such a promise,” she said.
“That is entirely your choice,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding. She could no more snuff out the Irish in herself than he could become no longer English. “Nevertheless, you must decide one way or the other. I shall give you a couple of days to think about it. In the meantime, strive to forget that Martin Fallow and these guns ever existed.” Time to change the subject. “Who owns this wagon and horses?”
She gaped at him. “How should I know? Martin arranged for them.”
“If their owner comes inquiring, inform him that I’ll return them tomorrow. How many more crates are down there?”
“I neither know nor care.” She spat some Irish words at him that sounded very much like a curse. He should probably pray that his parts wouldn’t shrivel, but it didn’t seem to matter much anymore. “You may go to the devil, and I hope you meet Martin there. You and he have a great deal in common.” She turned, head high, and strode toward the house.
Colin followed her. “By God, Bridget. He threatened you. He told lies and ruined your reputation and stole your daughter. In what possible way are he and I alike?”
She turned to glare at him. “You, too, have threatened me and given me an unforgivable ultimatum, and yet I understand your reasoning—much as I understood his once I realized what it was. Perhaps, if forced together in hell where you belong, you both might come to realize that two people can disagree and yet both be right.”
“Is that why you wanted to let him go? Because you think he’s in the right?”
“Are you willfully stupid? If I’d thought that, I would have given him the guns with my blessing.”
“Then why?”
“Because he has the right to believe what he chooses.” She kept on going. “And so, Colin Warren, do I.”
Thank God he’d stopped following her. After a few seconds she glanced back. He’d picke
d up her lantern and was contemplating the contents of the cart.
She loved him and yet now she loathed him, too. She shook off her sentiments, good and bad; they were no use for now. She must conserve her energy for action. She must formulate a plan, make the appropriate arrangements…
How far must she go? Or to put it another way, how far would he pursue her? How far would he go to destroy her, once he realized she would never give in? He could accuse her of treason, have her property confiscated, thereby cutting off her meager sources of revenue, even if she was beyond the reach of the Crown.
Panic swarmed inside her. She crammed it down. He hadn’t threatened to do any such thing, only to take Sylvie away. He didn’t want his daughter tainted by treason. Maybe, if Bridget and Sylvie went far enough away, he would remember that he’d never wanted the responsibility of a child in the first place. Maybe he would leave them both alone.
She led Snappish to the stable and tended to both him and Sylvie’s pony, the only other horse she owned besides the cob Martin had taken. After a while she heard the wagon roll slowly away. Had Colin loaded the remaining cargo by himself? Where would he take the rifles at this time of night?
It did not matter. They were done with one another.
She returned to the house and composed a letter to her man of business, asking that he arrange to let the house once again.
Then she tore up the letter. She had almost no money at hand; it was all with her belongings at Colin’s house. He might return it to her, but he as easily might not; he had every reason now, in his distorted way of thinking, to mistrust her.
The Rake's Irish Lady (Scandalous Kisses Book 2) Page 20
