Happy her tone sounded clear, she pushed inside, but the old fellow stepped in her path.
"I said no visitors."
She was too close to lose out now. Fumbling with Papa's coat, she produced the letter and fluttered it, exposing the earl's wax mark. "Tell the master that I have a letter from Hartland. He has to see this."
He held out his palm, but there was no way Isadel would give him the letter. She couldn't, not without an audience with the explosives expert. "I must only offer this to Bannerman."
After sixty beats of her heart, the man nodded his thin pointy chin and waved her further inside. "You don't look like an assassin."
Assassin? Isadel wanted to be one, just not for Bannerman. "I'm a messenger, today."
"Scrawny you. Yes, that's what Hartland would send. No turret for you, boy, but the drawing room. Easier for you to make your delivery then go."
So, Bannerman was up there. Did he enjoy the air, the hazy night sky, that feeling of being on top of the world?
Before her longing for peace drove her up those stairs, she focused on the old man and traipsed behind him. Trying hard not to stare at the holes in the wall, the torn tapestries, she focused on what to say to Bannerman. Yet, the melon-sized holes, the broken lath and plaster sent a tremor to her middle. What could have done it? Who would dare destroy the gilded trim, the papered orange walls? This place was nothing like the earl's beautiful Abbey.
The butler turned to her, and she dropped her gaze. She wasn't here to assess the housekeeping. This destruction was none of her business.
The fellow stopped at a door half-off its hinges. He pressed it open and waved her inside. "Wait in here. Make sure the brass doorknobs and books remain."
Without protest, Isadel nodded. What the old man thought of her meant nothing, just like the insults of her employer's staff. Talk was cheap, and it couldn't kill a soul that had already died from sorrow. Every hope she ever possessed went away with her father and sister's murder at the hands of British pigs. The only thing worth anything to Isadel was revenge.
The door shut behind her with a thud. How it managed to stay upright was a wonder. The room was cold and grey. A fire seemed to be dying. Someone had left it to wither. Bannerman? He couldn't be in the turret and here, too. Maybe the rumors of him dying and becoming a ghost were true, but then why would Lord Hartland keep sending him notes?
She rubbed at her forehead. A hint of oak and tobacco hit her nose as she walked closer to the desk. That one time she made Bannerman tea, he had sat in Hartland's library with a pile of books about ancient medicine at his feet as he’d puffed on a pipe. Reading had seemed to ease his restlessness.
Her skin prickled as she took another deep inhale and prepared to see the big hulk of a man again. The right words to get him to agree to return to the Abbey and help her kill her enemy hadn't materialized.
Her stomach soured, rolling in her famished middle. She hadn't thought this part out enough. Pacing from the large patio door to a book-laden desk, she tried to number her arguments. She stopped and fingered an open tome upon the smooth maple writing surface. A recipe for skin lotion made with arsenic dotted the page.. That’s not very good. Papa had warned her and her sister about the horrible practices women used to lighten their skin.
With a shake of her head she stepped back, then loosened a button of her bulky jacket and fanned her head with her hat. Her nerves had her heart racing again. She shoved the hat back on, scooping up a thick curl that had come loose. Her resolve of not caring what she looked like, or even that she favored a boy, began to slip. She would see the fastidious Bannerman again as a wrinkled frog.
Maybe like a genie or handsome prince, he'd grant her wish. She didn’t need a kiss to break a curse, but craved a black powder recipe which would make beastly Moldona disappear.
The door behind her blew open, making the rush of air rattle pages. The shock of it hitting the wall made her duck as if avoiding gunshot or a cannon’s fire. She bit her lip and spun. A huge man barreled toward her. "Bannerman?"
"Yes. It's good to know the name of the man who will kill you."
Dark golden hair covered his face like thick lion fur. The wavy locks that had been parted to perfection were gone, replaced by wild curls. He looked like a beast, a large, hulking beast.
She stepped to toward the door, but he flung a poker in her direction. It whizzed passed her head, missing her temple by an inch. With a thunk, it sunk into the wall. "I didn't say you could go."
A gasp left her, but then she caught his hazel eyes, the ones she’d spied at the Abbey, the ones that lit in laughter to Lord Hartland’s jests. Wellington’s explosives expert stood in front of her. "Bannerman, sir, it is you?"
He swiped at his mane. "How dare Hartland send someone for me again. I'm done."
Stomping toward his desk, he kicked an emerald chair, sending it sliding across the scarred mahogany floor. It stopped an inch from her boot, but she stood still and stared at him.
As if filled with remorse, he rubbed a gloved hand over his face then pivoted toward the hearth. "Boy, what favor does he want? Or does he send news? Has he found the Almeida killer."
More confused at the changes in the once-well-groomed man she'd seen a few months ago than by his gibberish about Almeida, she pitched her head side to side. "I’m not sure if his note has more news of a two-year old bloodbath that savaged my Spanish lands. But I know he wants you to return with me."
"No! Hart will not order me around. Nor will one of his foot soldiers."
His voice felt like thunder. His shaking fist would surely hit with a punch of lightning, but she still held the note out to him.
"I swore to him I'd kill the next messenger who came to me." Bannerman flexed his gloved fingers. "I guess you're the lucky one he chose to die."
Death didn't scare Isadel any more than living with regrets. She folded her arms about her. "I've always been lucky like that."
"I'll give it to Hartland. He knew how much the former me liked a good joke. But a dead man has no room for laughter or more guilt. Return to Hart and tell him no."
She stamped her foot like a girl, but hardened her voice. "Do your worst, or return with me to Hartland Abbey. No middle ground."
He came near. She could smell the stench of metal coming from his arm or his hand—so like her father's apothecary shop. His arms flexed as he hovered. He was large, larger than she remembered, but as a good servant, she'd never been this near to him.
His scent, ferrous or sulfur, strangled. "No one gives me ultimatums."
If this was the end, part of her was glad of it. Straightening her spine, she held her breath and waited to be throttled, waited for darkness to overcome her when he choked the air from her throat betwixt his large hands. That had to be a better fate than going to prison or living with the knowledge she'd failed at her once chance to kill her enemy.
*** End of excerpt No Hiding for the Guilty (The Heart of a Hero Series) by Vanessa Riley ***
Lightning Strikes Twice (The Heart of a Hero Book 4) Page 25
