But the barrel swung away...to Georgie...
‘No! Not Georgie! Not Georgie!’
And again her voice echoed in the silence of her mind and the pistol glinted...
* * *
‘Emma! Emma! You’re dreaming. Emma, come back. Come back to me!’
She fought, struggled to win free of the arms that held her. Georgie! It was too late for Harry and the pain sliced to her soul.
But gradually the deep, tender voice penetrated. ‘No, sweetheart. You saved Harry. They’re safe. Come back.’
She came back to herself fully, half in Hunt’s lap as he rocked her in those powerful arms, but the shreds of nightmare still clung, scored her.
‘Hunt?’ Her own voice, raw and shaking, full of tears. She would have crawled inside him if it were possible.
‘Yes.’ His arms tightened, his lips against her temple. ‘They’re safe. I swear it. Come. I’ll take you to them.’
* * *
Five minutes later she stood, Hunt’s arm close around her, in the doorway of the night nursery. Harry and Georgie—both in Harry’s bed—lay sound asleep in the flickering light from the candle Hunt held. Georgie clutched Anna Maria and Harry’s fist held a toy soldier.
‘There.’ Hunt’s lips pressed against her hair.
She nodded, dragged in a trembling breath. Tears still clogged her throat, but she held them back, leaned on Hunt, husband and lover, as she pulled the door gently closed again.
In the glow of the fire, Bessie smiled at her. ‘Reckon they’re still sleeping, me lady.’
Emma nodded. ‘Yes. I... I just needed to see.’
Bessie got up, poked the fire and added some wood. ‘Course yer did. I’ve been in a couple of times. Seems Miss Georgie got scared—you saw she’s in with Master Harry. When I looked in she was sound asleep and Harry was nearly asleep, but he said she was fine there.’
Emma managed a wobbly smile. ‘He’s looking after her then.’
‘Aye.’ Bessie’s eyes crinkled. ‘An’ you should let his lordship do the same with you. Go on. I’ll send if needs be.’
Hunt’s arm tightened. ‘Would you rather stay, love? There’s Georgie’s bed and I can bring a chair in.’
She turned in his arms. ‘A chair? For you?’
His tender, crooked smile turned her heart upside down and inside out. Had he called her love? ‘Where else would I be?’
Nowhere, she realised. He’d be with her. With her children. Their children. They would always be Peter’s, but now they were Hunt’s, too, in every way that mattered.
She looked back at the door. ‘I think they’d rather we didn’t. They have each other and perhaps when he arrives today, Fergus’s basket might go in there. Just for now? They would love that and Harry won’t feel embarrassed.’
Hunt’s whole body shook as he snorted out a laugh. ‘Very well. But I give you fair warning—that basket is only for show!’
* * *
He took Emma along the dark, silent hallways, shatteringly aware of her slender body leaning against him. This was how it should be, this sweet acceptance and care of the one for the other. The simplicity of being able to give again. How on earth had he ever thought he could maintain any other sort of marriage?
They reached his room and he shrugged out of his robe. He turned to Emma, drawing her into his arms. In a moment her robe lay on the floor as well. He found her mouth, kissed her gently, deeply. It wasn’t about sex. He tasted the salt of tears still on her cheek, felt the deep tremors in her body as he scooped her up into his arms.
‘Hunt! You’ll hurt yourself!’
He snorted. ‘I’m not so bloody old I can’t still carry my woman to my bed.’ He suited the action to word and settled her exactly where she belonged—in his bed. He got in with her, drew the covers up around them and breathed a sigh of utter contentment when she snuggled into his arms and laid her head on his shoulder there in the quiet shadows of his bed. Their bed. He desperately wanted it to be that.
‘You don’t want me to go back to my own bed?’
He looked down at her in the dim glow of the fire. ‘Ouch.’
‘Ouch?’
‘Yes. Ouch.’ He pressed a kiss to her temple. ‘I was an idiot the other night.’ Like an all-conquering hero, he’d not wanted to show any weakness. He’d been afraid to accept her comfort; instead he’d made her feel unwanted. Because he’d wanted to do all the giving, all the bestowing and all the protecting. Not because she might think the less of him, but because he hadn’t wanted to admit that he needed her, needed their marriage to be more than merely convenient.
‘I want this to be our bed that we share,’ he said. ‘Not because I want you convenient for sex, but because I want you. Just you. To sleep with me. To wake up with me.’ He took a very deep breath. He’d come this far... ‘The other night... It’s always the same dream, Gerald is dead and he begs me for help. I try. I try to stop the grave closing, but I can’t. And he can’t hear me, because when I speak there’s no sound.’ Heat burned his eyes and he rested his cheek on Emma’s hair. Her arms came around him in wordless understanding and entwined they slept safe and secure.
Chapter Twenty
Hunt, dressed and shaved, hurried downstairs, praying that Emma would remain asleep. He wanted the prisoner interviewed and gone and his family safe. He found Barclay and Masters on guard duty in the below-stairs corridor, sharing a pot of coffee. He shook his head as he approached. Masters. He might have known it. The man would have taken last night’s attack as a personal insult.
Barclay greeted him with a tired smile. ‘Good morning, my lord. Our man is secure.’
Hunt nodded. ‘Good. Have you two been here all night?’
‘And where else would I be?’ Masters growled.
Barclay shrugged. ‘We were spelled, but we were here for most of it. Chap’s awake, but not very happy. Will you interview him now?’
‘Yes.’ He was going to have some answers. ‘I’d like you there to note the entire interview, William. And you, Masters. In case he tries anything.’
Masters scowled. ‘Reckon I hope the bastard does try something. Then I could put a ball in him like he deserves for trying to kill the boy.’
Hunt caught his breath. ‘Harry told me what happened. Was he the target?’
Masters nodded grimly. ‘That would be my take. He knew those children were in the coach, my lord. Both of them. Sure Miss Georgie was wailing, but he said, clear as day, for them both to get out. How’d he know? And why waste the time if all he wanted was her ladyship’s purse? No, he wanted the boy.’
Barclay looked grim. ‘We talked it over. Not hard to think of someone who might want Harry dead.’
‘Then we need him to turn King’s—’
‘Hunt!’
He swung around to see Emma hurrying towards them.
‘Sweetheart.’ He caught her hands. ‘You should not be here.’
Her hands tightened on his. ‘Yes, I should. If he is the same man who followed me about those last few weeks I lived in Chelsea, then I can identify him. That’s more evidence—’
‘For God’s sake, Emma!’ Hunt exploded. ‘You’re not going anywhere near that bast—’ He broke off, fought down the panic. ‘Sweetheart, I want you safe.’
She put her hand on his arm. ‘I know, but...please, Hunt. I need to do this. To help keep Harry safe.’
And there was the bottom line. For both of them. Harry. Her courage had saved the boy last night. She had every right to be here now.
‘Very well.’ He caught her face between his hands. ‘But I don’t like it.’ He took his own pistol from the pocket of his coat, checked the load and cocked it. He looked at Emma. ‘Behind me.’ At her mutinous expression, he said simply, ‘If I have to use this, you can’t be in the line of fire.’
Her face cleared
. ‘All right.’
He nodded to Barclay and Masters. ‘Ready.’
Exchanging glances, Barclay and Masters checked and cocked their pistols. Hunt unlocked the door, opened it and looked in. ‘Right. He’s not going anywhere.’ He stepped into the room.
Emma dragged in a breath, and fought down the fear, the nausea, as she walked into the room.
The highwayman, bound hand and foot, was tightly secured to a heavy-framed chair. Bruised and dishevelled, he glared at Hunt, then his gaze swung to herself. She saw the jolt of shock, heard the sharp intake of breath.
Rage flooded her, engulfing fear, as she recognised him. ‘You didn’t expect me,’ she said. ‘You were masked last night, but I’ve seen you before. You’re the man who used to follow us.’
He snarled as she turned to Hunt. ‘If you ask around Chelsea you will likely find others who saw him. Perhaps even on the night we left. Maybe he knows something about the house.’
The man’s jaw clenched. ‘That fire wasn’t—’ He broke off.
Emma smiled coldly. ‘Fire? Did I mention a fire?’
The man glared at her in sullen silence.
Hunt laid his hand lightly on Emma’s shoulder. ‘Well done.’ He spoke directly to the man. ‘Your name?’
‘Go to hell!’
Hunt shrugged. ‘It’s you that’s slated for hell, via the gallows. Who sent you?’
The man sneered. ‘Help you? Why?’
‘To save your neck.’ Hunt’s voice held a winter chill. ‘Holding up a carriage carries the death penalty. And you deliberately fired on a child? They’ll line up ten deep to watch you swing.’
There was a moment’s silence while that sank in.
‘Or,’ Hunt said quietly, ‘I could see that you are transported. If you tell me who gave you your orders. Come! Why swing for someone who was too cowardly to do his own dirty work?’
The man snarled. ‘Reckon I don’t know that’s a trap?’
‘It might be,’ Hunt acknowledged. ‘But what do you have to lose? You’re dead already. Without your information I’ll push for execution. Speak, or swing.’
The prisoner swallowed. ‘You want a name?’
Hunt inclined his head. ‘I want two names. Yours and your master’s.’
‘Riley. My name’s Riley.’
* * *
Ten minutes later, having extracted as much information as possible, Hunt left the room with Emma. Hunt turned to Barclay. ‘William, I’ll leave you and Masters in charge here. Make sure there are sufficient armed men on hand when the wagon arrives.’
William’s nodded grimly. ‘Believe me, my lord, he won’t escape.’
They continued up to the ground floor.
‘Hunt?’ Emma sounded as sickened as he felt. ‘Do you think it can be proved?’
‘The connection? Yes. Enough to protect Harry.’ They were crossing the front entry hall, on the way to the library. ‘Whether or not the information was passed deliberately—who the devil is that?’
The footman on duty in the hall hurried to open the door as the knocker fell silent.
Hunt glanced at Emma. ‘We’d better see who it is and make sure they leave without any hint of—bloody hell.’ His eyes widened at the unexpected visitors.
Emma pulled herself together and went forward. ‘Lord Martin. Miss Carshalton. How surprising.’
Lord Martin looked faintly embarrassed. ‘Lady Huntercombe. I didn’t expect to see you. I merely wanted...that is, I was driving out with Miss Carshalton and, ah, thought to leave this.’ He held out a small package. ‘For the children. Something Harry said yesterday led me to think they might—’ He broke off, cleared his throat. ‘Look, we didn’t mean to intrude.’
‘You aren’t intruding, Lacy.’ Hunt didn’t bother to hide the steel in his voice. ‘Your arrival is opportune actually.’ He shot a look at the footman. ‘Have our other guest escorted to the library before he leaves, if you please.’
‘My lord.’ The footman scurried off.
Lord Martin frowned. ‘Huntercombe, if you have a visitor—’
Hunt gestured towards the library. ‘I insist, Lacy. I think you’ll both find this very interesting.’
Lord Martin looked annoyed. ‘Now see here, you may have a quarrel with me—I’m fully aware that I behaved badly to Lady Huntercombe. But there’s no need to subject Kit—that is, Miss Carshalton to any unpleasantness.’
Emma watched, curiously detached, as he turned to the girl at his side. ‘Kit, wait by the fire here in the hall. Huntercombe can say his piece and—’
‘I think, Lord Martin,’ Emma said quietly, ‘that Miss Carshalton should hear what Huntercombe and I have to say.’
The younger woman’s chin went up. ‘It’s all right, Martin. I’m sure whatever it is can be sorted out amicably.’
‘Amicable,’ Hunt said coldly, ‘is not what I had in mind.’
* * *
The library fires did nothing to dispel the chilly atmosphere. Hunt set a chair for Miss Carshalton and she sat, eyeing him warily.
‘What is this about, Huntercombe?’ Lord Martin demanded.
Hunt shot Emma a glance. ‘Let me begin.’ He’d used the short walk to the library to refine some sort of strategy. He wanted the truth here.
‘Lacy, the night after you and your father called on Lady Huntercombe, or Lady Emma Lacy as she then was, in Chelsea, I responded to those threats—’
‘I didn’t threaten her, Huntercombe!’ Lord Martin sounded as though his back teeth were jammed together. ‘Whatever my father may have said, I was merely concerned for the children’s distress if they were forcibly removed by the magistrate.’
Hunt inclined his head. ‘That is one interpretation. However, I responded by removing Lady Emma and her family to my own house. We found out later that her house burned to the ground that same night.’
‘What?’ Lord Martin’s voice was hoarse. ‘Are you suggesting I had something to do with it? Why the hell would I—?’
‘Bear with me,’ Hunt snapped. ‘Last night the coach bearing Lady Huntercombe and the children was held up.’
Lord Martin paled. ‘You can’t be—’ He dragged in a breath. ‘But surely...no one was hurt? The children...that is...’ He clenched his fists. ‘Go on, Huntercombe.’
Hunt waited a moment. Then, ‘Yes. The children. An interesting point, Lacy. But before we get to that, remind me—how did your eldest brother, Thirlbeck, die?’
Lord Martin looked as though he might be ill. ‘A hold up. Beck was ordered out of the coach by the highwayman and he...he was shot.’
Hunt nodded. ‘Precisely. Before he’d handed over any valuables, he was shot and the murderer fled. And somehow last night the highwayman was fully aware that there were two children in the coach. Despite Emma’s willingness to hand over all valuables, he demanded that the children, both of them, get out.’
If Lord Martin had been pale before, he was grey now. ‘Huntercombe—’
Hunt flung up his hand. ‘Tell me, Lacy, apart from yourself, who gains from Harry’s death? From Thirlbeck’s?’
Lord Martin swallowed. ‘Huntercombe, please—is Harry...?’ He shut his eyes, then seemed to force himself to open them. ‘Tell me—’
‘The shot missed, Lacy. And the man was captured.’ Lord Martin seemed to sag and Hunt continued. ‘That being the case, I offered him a chance for transportation if he gave me the name of the man who wanted something so badly he’d arrange the murder of a child to get it.’
‘No!’ Horrified denial burst from Miss Carshalton. She rose and stepped to Lord Martin’s side, grey eyes blazing, a flush scoring her cheeks. ‘You can’t think Martin would—’
‘Kit, wait—’
She shook off Lord Martin’s restraining hand. ‘No! Don’t be an idiot, Martin! The man would say anything to save hi
s neck!’
Hunt inclined his head. ‘I agree, Miss Carshalton. And I was very careful not to give any hint of the name I expected.’ He glanced at Lord Martin. ‘And, yes, I fully expected Lacy to be the culprit.’
The door opened and a footman came in. ‘We’ve got the prisoner here, my lord. Wagon is out the front, but they said you wanted him brought here in first.’
Hunt steeled himself. ‘Thank you. Bring him in.’
‘For God’s sake, Huntercombe!’ Lacy moved abruptly to stand in front of Miss Carshalton as Riley was shoved into the room, hands bound behind him. ‘If you must—’
Miss Carshalton gasped. ‘But that’s...’ Her voice shook and she seemed to struggle for words, even breath as she went bone white.
‘Kit!’ Lacy slipped an arm around her, but she gathered herself and fended him off, turning to face Hunt, her head high.
‘You recognise him then, Miss Carshalton?’ He couldn’t afford to feel pity. Not with Harry’s life at stake.
She didn’t bother looking at Riley again. ‘You must know I do. His name is Jonas Riley. He works for my father.’
‘Kit—’
She stepped away from Lord Martin, her face blank.
Hunt glanced at the sullen prisoner, then at the men guarding him. ‘Take him away. Inform Sir John that I will ride over later to discuss the case.’ He waited until the door closed and said quietly, ‘Apparently, Miss Carshalton, your father’s political ambitions run deeper than marrying you to a mere younger son.’
‘God damn you, Huntercombe!’
Miss Carshalton ignored Lord Martin. ‘Apparently so.’
Hunt had to admire her calm, but he pressed on. ‘One question remains: how did your father know that Lady Huntercombe and the children would be travelling out here yesterday, let alone that they would be late on the road? You knew, did you not?’
Miss Carshalton’s breath came in audibly and she looked briefly at Lord Martin before facing Hunt again. ‘Yes. I knew.’ Even as she spoke, she tugged a ring from her finger. She set it down on the desk and turned to Lord Martin. ‘I’ll save you the embarrassment of requesting that back, my lord.’
His Convenient Marchioness Page 25
