‘Can you stop for some home brew?’
‘Thank you, but we’ve just had a pint at the Lamb and Calf. If I have any more, I won’t stay in the saddle long enough to make it home.’
‘As you wish, mistress! Though I’d stake you in the saddle against anyone, whatever you’ve drunk. All those times you and the boys raced across these fields! Well, God’s blessing on you both,’ the man said, doffing his cap before turning back to his hoe.
As they rode away, Giles said, ‘Mr Grey treated you with surprising familiarity. Sure you’re not secretly a Republican at heart?’
‘Hardly! Farmer Grey has known me since I was a tot, mounted in front of Papa as he rode about visiting the tenants.’ Maggie laughed. ‘I had to get you away before he recounted any embarrassing episodes from my misspent youth.’
‘Riding ventre à terre with your boys.’
‘Among other things I don’t intend to confess.’
‘What did he mean, “your land”?’
They’d surmounted the crest of a hill that gave a wide view over the fields and farms, strips of velvet green and burnished gold divided by the deeper hue of hedgerows and the green-shaded mix of woodland. Dismounting, Maggie dropped her reins to let the horse graze and walked to the edge of the summit, Giles following behind her.
She pointed across the valley to a hill in the far distance, where one could make out the outline of a stone manor surrounded by an embrace of woods.
‘That is mine. Or rather, Robbie’s—my late husband’s. His father died when he was quite young, naming my father as guardian and steward over the land. We grew up together. These last few years, Julian has watched over the property for me. I haven’t been able to go back since I left after Robbie’s death.’
Giles stood quietly, watching her, and she made herself go on. ‘They brought him back to the manor after...after the carriage accident.’ She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the memory of the bloody, mangled body that had been her last glimpse of him.
‘His injuries were...’
‘Catastrophic.’
‘I’m so sorry. Bad enough to lose him, but like that—’
She nodded. ‘I felt as if someone had tried to rip my heart out through my throat. There was such a weight on my chest, I couldn’t breathe. Even thinking of going back to that house, where we were so happy—the old sensation returns, and I can’t force any air into my lungs.’ She laughed shortly and shook her head. ‘Silly, I know, but there it is.’
‘It never gets much easier, does it? When one loses...someone dear, one goes through life as if walking through London on a foggy morning—the shapes and patterns recognisable, familiar, and yet somehow...distant.’
She nodded. ‘One goes through the motions of life, without ever feeling a part of it.’ She looked up to catch his gaze. ‘Except with you. That’s the gift you given me, even greater than the pleasure, which has been treasure enough. When you touch me, for the first time in a long time, I feel fully alive. Thank you for that.’
He reached over to take her hand and kissed it.
‘It’s a gift you’ve returned in full measure.’
He looked for a moment as if he would say more. Maggie held her breath, waiting, but when he said nothing further, she chastised herself for a fool.
He didn’t need to say anything more. She wouldn’t really want to hear it.
‘Even when I chide you about matters that are none of my business?’ she asked at last.
‘Even then. I needed to be chided, whether or not I appreciated it at the time.’
‘What will you do now?’
‘I’m not sure. This visit has certainly shown I need to learn a great deal more about Abbotsweal, and to do that, I must spend time there. If I nose about Hampshire without calling on the earl, it will look like I’m sneaking behind his back, afraid of him, or trying to tweak his nose by inserting myself into estate business before I have the right. I’m not afraid of Telbridge, but neither have I any desire to meet with him. However, it looks more and more like I must.’
Maggie nodded, pleased that he’d come to the conclusion she’d reached at the outset. ‘Can you be civil?’
Giles laughed. ‘Davie says I have the hottest temper of all the Hellions, and I’m afraid he’s right. But I’ll do my best.’
Maggie bit her tongue on an offer to accompany him. How she wanted him to learn and love the land that was to be his! But it wasn’t her place to go with him as peacemaker; there was nothing official between them that gave her such a right, much as she might wish to help smooth things over.
She needed to stop thinking herself into his life, and limit herself to the friendship they shared. ‘Maybe you should ask Davie to go with you.’
‘I’d prefer to take someone else,’ he said, giving her a significant look, ‘but doing so would occasion too much comment. I might consider asking Davie—if it wouldn’t make things worse with the earl from the outset, my bringing with me as advocate to the mighty earl’s house the humble son of a farmer.’
‘The earl need only know he’s a standing member of Parliament,’ Maggie replied. ‘But the sun’s nearly down; we should get back. I shall need to wash and change, and if I’m late for dinner, I’ll earn one of Polly’s scolds.’
‘Your maid again? She sounds like a tyrant!’
‘Definitely. She’s been with me since I was so young, she’s used to ruling with an iron fist.’ Maggie paused, thinking ruefully of the discovery she’d made the week before. ‘But I can’t resent it—she truly does look out for my good. It was Polly who insisted I come back to London and start running Papa’s household again after...after Robbie died. She practically dragged me back into life single-handedly.’
‘If she had not, I would never have met you. I must leave her a generous vail.’
Leading their mounts, they walked back to the trail. As Giles paused to help her remount, she spied a clump of her favourite wildflowers on the verge. ‘The first rose campion of the season! I must bring some home.’
‘Did you pick your mama posies as a child?’ he asked.
‘Of course! Didn’t you?’
‘Always.’
While Giles held the reins of her mount, Maggie bent down to pluck a handful of stems. An instant later, she heard the blast of a pistol shot, a fiery whoosh of air right above her head, and a soft thud as the ball buried itself in the tree behind her.
Chapter Fifteen
Watching with horror as a shot streaked through the air where Maggie’s head had just been, Giles dropped the reins of the startled, rearing horses, grabbed Maggie and dragged her into the woodland, pushing her down behind the trunk of an ancient oak and covering her with his body. His heart racing, he peered around the tree in the direction of the shot.
He saw and heard nothing—no thrashing and snap of branches, no swaying of tree limbs as someone pushed their way back into the undergrowth.
‘What could that have been?’ he whispered. ‘A poacher?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied as softly, squirming to a sitting position behind his protective body. ‘It was a pistol shot, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘A poacher’s mainstay is lairs and traps. A pistol would be too expensive for a farmer or cottager to own.’
‘You’re right,’ he realised suddenly. ‘None of the families on the downs where I grew up had one. Ben, who served with the army, told me his rifles were all hand-made, the best from a skilled gunsmith who left his mark, and quite expensive. But if it wasn’t a poacher... Stay here and stay down!’ he commanded.
He darted across the trail and into the woods in the direction from which the shot had come. This time, he heard a faint rustling in the far distance, and stealthily made his way towards the sound. If the weapon had been a pisto
l, it couldn’t have been fired from very far away.
Almost at once, he came upon a place where the branches had been bent back, the ferns on the ground trampled. Looking back towards the trail, he had a clear line of sight to where he and Maggie had been standing.
A shiver running through him at the implications, he looked all around, trying to find the perpetrator’s trail. Studying the ground closely, he found a trace of boot prints, and followed them onward...to a series of shallow and then deeply cut hoofprints that showed a horse had set off at a gallop in the direction from which it had come.
He’d never be able to catch up to them on foot. Convinced that whoever had fired on them was now far away, Giles abandoned any attempt at concealment. Picking up his pace, he continuing past where the deeper fresh prints cut out of the woods to follow the shallower hoofprints—which showed that the rider had been shadowing them along the trail, keeping just out of sight under the cover of the trees.
Having learned all he was going to, Giles retraced his steps. To his exasperation, if not surprise, when he emerged from the woods, he saw Maggie waiting on the opposite verge, the reins of their mounts in hand.
At his raised eyebrows, she explained, ‘I thought it would be better to track down the horses, in case we needed to get away quickly. They did run in the opposite direction from which the shot came.’
‘Unless the shooter had gone in the direction they fled.’
She shook her head, unwilling to concede the point. ‘Then the horses would have run another way. Horses are intelligent like that. Besides, a pistol only holds one shot.’
‘And can be reloaded.’
‘I ran. And I didn’t run in a straight line. Robbie always told me it’s hard to hit a moving target. But will you stop arguing, and tell me what you discovered?’
Giving up the point, he said, ‘It appears someone was following us.’
She paled as the implications registered. ‘But who, why? I can’t imagine anyone wishing to do me harm.’
Giles chuckled. ‘You did just refuse George’s suit, didn’t you?
Instead of laughing at his joke, her face clouded.
‘What?’ he asked sharply.
‘Well...’ she said slowly, ‘He did threaten me when I refused him.’
‘He threatened you?’ Giles echoed, incredulous.
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘When I gave him his congé, he was...quite ugly, as you’d warned me he might be. He went so far as to say that if I allied myself with you, I would put myself in danger.’
Remorse, chagrin, fury and shame churned in him. ‘Why did you never tell me?’
She shrugged. ‘I thought it the rant of a spoiled child denied his sweetmeat. But you can’t really think...?’
‘I would hate to think it! But neither can we afford to rule it out.’ Sickened by the possibility, he tried to push it out of his mind and concentrate on what must be done. ‘A man with pistol would have to be hired; he would likely not be local, and therefore he might be traced. But first, we must get you safely back to the manor and keep you there. No more riding out in the open.’
‘You can’t mean to keep me trapped in my own house!’
He held out his hands to give her a leg up. ‘We can debate that later. Now, let’s get back to Huntsford.’
He threw her into the saddle and remounted. ‘Take us back the fastest way, at the fastest pace possible.’
‘There’s a path down this trail that goes straight back to the stables. Can’t do more than a trot on that.’
‘Lead the way.’
The pound of cantering hoofs and then the necessity of going single file on the path put an end to any further conversation.
* * *
Not until they’d turned their horses over to a groom, did Maggie speak again.
‘You’re going to tell my brother, aren’t you?’
‘I think we have to, though we will spare your mother, if you wish. I’d like Esterbrook’s assistance in deciding how best to protect you while we try to figure out who did this.’
Maggie sighed. ‘So I’m to be hidden away like a bottle of laudanum concealed in the pantry, while you two figure it out?’
‘You can certainly help with the figuring, but it would be foolish for you to go about, putting yourself at risk. I’m sure your Polly will agree.’
Maggie shuddered. ‘If Polly finds out, she’ll lock me in my chamber and sit at my door with a kitchen knife. But promise me, no conferring about all this without me in attendance. I’m not some package for you men to dispose of.’
Giles stopped and looked at her. Could she even imagine how precious she was to him? ‘Hardly a package,’ he replied gruffly. ‘But consider how I feel! Just the possibility that George might be behind the attack sickens me. I castigate myself for arrogance and selfishness in casually dismissing his malice, so I could do what I wanted. Have what I wanted. You, regardless of the consequences.’
‘It was what I wanted, too,’ she answered softly. ‘If it is George—still a very large “if”, you must concede—we will face those consequences together.’
Hearing her repeat the possibility out loud just hung another leaden weight of guilt on him. His chest tight with the anger and remorse, he said, ‘I should have broken with you the night he accosted me at Brooks’s.’
‘Then I would have had to track you down and seduce you in your rooms. Where Davie would have discovered us, and only think what a scandal that would have been!’
When he could not make himself respond to her attempt at lightness, she tilted his chin down until she could look him in the eye. ‘Giles, I’m a part of this, too. It’s not all your responsibility.’
‘You didn’t know how vicious he can be.’
‘You don’t know for sure he’s involved.’
Giles shook his head. ‘No. But I’ve got a bad feeling in my gut.’
‘Whatever the cause, we’ll find out and put a stop to it. I’m not about to meekly submit to coercion and give up the best thing that’s come my way since...for a very long time, because of your idiot of a brother. Not unless or until you tell me you don’t want it any more.’
Caution, regret and his sense of responsibility urged him to say just that. ‘Would you believe it if I told you so?’
She shook her head. ‘Not now. At this moment, I would only think you were being stupidly chivalrous and annoyingly high-handed, making that decision “for my own good”. For however long we both want to be together, we will be together.’ She held out her hand. ‘Agreed?’
Suddenly it struck him that after being fired upon and learning the attack was probably deliberate, most females would have swooned or dissolved into hysterics. His fierce Maggie looked angry, annoyed, and ready to ride down the perpetrator all by herself.
‘What a marvel you are,’ he murmured, and seized her for a kiss.
He let her go after the merest brush of their lips—they were much too close to the house for more—but that fleeting taste left him ravenous.
No, he wasn’t ready, either, to bow to coercion and give her up.
As long as he could keep her safe.
For now, there would be no more tasting. Not until he figured out what was going on—and, he hoped with all his soul, confirmed that it was not because of him that she’d come into danger.
He couldn’t bear the thought he might be responsible for bringing harm to yet another woman he cared for.
* * *
In a sombre mood, they returned to the house. As soon as he reached his bedchamber, Giles penned a note to his host, asking that they meet before dinner to discuss an urgent matter. When the footman he’d dispatched to deliver it returned with a reply, inviting him for a brandy in the Blue Parlour as soon as he was dressed for dinner, he wrote another to Maggie, informing
her about the rendezvous.
* * *
She was already in the parlour with her brother when a footman guided him there. ‘Maggie told me what happened,’ Esterbrook said as he handed Giles a brandy, his expression troubled. ‘I’ve agreed it’s unlikely the assailant could have been a poacher with bad aim. If he wasn’t from the county—and I can’t imagine anyone around Huntsford being persuaded to fire at Maggie, regardless of how lucrative the inducement—someone probably will have noticed him. Strangers are pretty rare, here in the country. I’ll ride out to the farms and villages tomorrow and send messengers to all those I can’t reach, asking if anyone has seen someone lurking about.’
‘If I ride south, across the downs, while you ride north through the forested part, we could cover more ground,’ Maggie said, holding up a hand to forestall the men’s instantaneous protest. ‘Giles, you admitted yourself that a pistol would have to be fired at close range, and the fields there are very open. I’d be able to see anyone in the area while still well out of range.’
‘Out of the question!’ Giles replied. ‘Just because the shooter used a pistol today doesn’t mean he might not also have a rifle.’
‘Then I’ll bring along some of the dogs. If there’s anyone within a thousand yards, they’ll sniff him out and give the alarm. Surely that’s far enough away for me to be safe.’
When he and Julian looked at each other and gave their heads a negative shake, Maggie said with exasperation, ‘You can’t expect me to just sit here cooped up and do nothing! Besides, how are you going to explain to Mama that you two went out riding, and I decided to stay at Huntsford? She’ll never believe I suddenly developed a taste for sewing samplers! And I absolutely don’t want her worried about this.’
‘Couldn’t you say you needed to—oh, I don’t know, inspect the still room or something?’ Julian said.
‘Why would I need to look at the still room, or the silver, or the attics, during a visit that is only supposed to last a few days? And you know I’m a terrible liar.’
Forbidden Nights with the Viscount Page 18
