Jonas cursed softly. The blade fell. Steel scorched through tender skin.
But Lucien Delamere did not flinch, not even when the acrid smell of burning flesh filled the air. “Do y’ know, the French think they know how to flog — nothin’ c’mpared to the Dey’s old boy. Aye, Hamid knew how to strip off ev’ry inch of a man’s back, y’ know. Had a bloody passion for giving pain, that one.”
Gritting his teeth, Jonas probed through torn tissues until he found the ball of lead. “Found it,” he said gruffly. “Almost done now, boy.”
“No rush. Jus’ thinking about Hamid. Ever tell y’ about the time he found me trying to escape? Had me tied up and called for his special whip. Now that was pain…”
Luc blinked. The next moment his head dropped back against Jonas’s supporting shoulder. The old servant scowled as he pulled the bullet free.
“Sleep, boy. Damned if you haven’t known too much pain already.” Carefully he settled his unconscious charge against the clean white sheets and finished his work.
Jonas shook his head as he stood up and doused the candle. “Something tells me there’s more pain to come. Especially if you can’t get this mad idea of revenge out of that stubborn Delamere brain of yours.”
~ ~ ~
He awoke shaking, pale. Unsure of where he was. Just like all the other times.
His callused fingers pulled at cool linen, but he felt instead the rake of hard ropes and the bite of burning leather.
It could have been any one of a dozen places or a dozen savage memories.
Southold. Rouen. Algiers.
He didn’t know or care. In his dreams they all burned together, a red-orange blur of fury that singed everything it touched.
And so he fought. The way he had always fought before.
His arm swung out, knocking over pillows and the branch of candles long guttered beside the bed. The crash of metal rang through his head, shaking him from impossible memories.
England. Norfolk. Sweet dawns and velvet nights.
Home again.
Oh, God, if only it were true. If only he could go home again…
Luc Delamere sat up, blinking, his fingers in his long, dark hair.
Free — and yet never free again. His tortured memories would see to that.
~ 16 ~
Tinker slept outside that night behind a tangle of berries that overlooked the only road from Kingsdon Cross. When he came back at dawn, he was dusty and tired and he sported a bruise over his right eye. He also looked very happy.
“Did you get them?” Bram launched out of his chair and hurtled toward him. “Did you tie them up and beat them within an inch of their lives?”
“When did you become so bloodthirsty, cub?”
Bram flushed, suddenly self-conscious, caught between the innocence of a child and the grave responsibilities of an adult.
Tinker ruffled his hair. “Not that I mind. You’re a help, young ‘un, and that’s a fact.” The old man’s eyes lit with dark humor as he recalled the night’s events. “Aye, I caught a couple trying to sneak into the drying room. Broke one of the fellow’s arms. Gave the other one a lump on the skull he won’t soon forget. If we’re lucky, that should be enough to scare them off for now.”
If we’re lucky. Silver studied Tinker’s eyes. They were cold, the color of fenland granite.
The coldness told her he didn’t think it would be enough.
Silver fought down a wave of despair.
“But we can’t count on that,” Tinker continued flatly. “So sit yourself closer, Master Bram. Let’s talk more about this idea of yours.”
~ ~ ~
They untethered Cromwell at three just as Bram suggested and finished rigging several traps an hour later. Now two ditches crisscrossed the field near the conservatory and several holes disguised by leaves dotted the path up to the house.
Silver studied their handiwork, trying to convince herself it would be enough. Finally she and Tinker went up to rest, knowing that they would need their strength for the night to come.
Bram, meanwhile, settled himself on the porch overlooking the path up through the valley. He was pale and Silver didn’t like him involved, but there was nowhere else for him to go. Their parents and uncle were dead. Lavender Close was all they had left.
“The boy’ll manage fine,” Tinker said when he saw Silver frowning. “Grown up a lot these last few days, he has. Reckon you should be proud of him.”
“I am. But—”
“No buts, Miss Silver. No choice neither. That boy’s all the help we have. I couldn’t get no other men from town. Most likely that braying ass Millbank has been stirring them up.” He sighed. “Now you go and get some rest. I’ll be sure to wake you before dusk.”
~ ~ ~
“Best be waking up, miss.”
Silver came awake with a jolt. Tinker was shaking her shoulder, looking grim. “What — what is it, Tinker?”
His eyes were cold, she noticed, and he had her father’s old musket slung over his shoulder. Would the thing even fire? she wondered. “What’s happened?”
“Bram saw someone sneaking up from the valley.”
Quickly Silver tugged on her boots over the breeches she had fallen asleep in. “Is Bram safe?”
“The boy’s just fine. And everything is ready,” Tinker added grimly. “It’s time to teach our friends a lesson that will keep them from ever coming back.”
Silver tugged on her hat and followed Tinker into the gathering twilight, praying that they could do just that.
~ ~ ~
Luc stood in the unused ballroom at Waldon Hall and watched a dust mote dance over the polished floor.
He was tired.
He was also confused. And this confusion was something new to him. In the five years since his capture he had set about his life with ruthless efficiency, every act and emotion dedicated to but one end.
Revenge. Sweet and full. Against the faceless strangers who had destroyed his life.
Only now, for the first time since that bitter night, Luc found it was not going to be easy. Instead of the stark tones of black and white, there were bits of gray and pastel emerging to soften his point of view.
Dangerous, damn it. Only by being strong could he do what had to be done. Only by being as ruthless and focused and inhuman as his enemies.
And so Luc had been.
Until one moonlit night on the heath when fate had tossed a russet-haired firebrand into his path. And then, sweet heavens, how everything had changed.
With every breath, with every look, she made him softer. She made him remember things he couldn’t risk remembering. Soft things, warm things. Half-forgotten things that were part of his old life.
Golden summer afternoons at Swallow Hill.
Warm, dancing candles in a room filled with laughter. He could almost see her in that room, laughing with his mother, teasing his hoydenish sister. She would be perfectly at home there. They would all adore her, especially his iron-willed grandmother.
Luc smashed his hand against the wall, feeling pain jolt through him. And he welcomed the pain as if it were a friend. Pain he knew well and could always endure.
But this other feeling, this quickening, this softness, this impossible burst of hope…
That was something Luc could not bear to feel again.
He studied his face in the mirror, seeing black hair and a single diamond gleaming amid the lace at his neck.
He saw the face of Lucien Delamere, heir to one of England’s grandest titles and richest estates. But the eyes that stared back at him were older than they should have been — schooled in pain no man should ever have known.
But he was a Delamere no more, Luc told himself, frowning. He could never go back to being that careless, rakehell aristocrat. He was only Blackwood, only a criminal wanted across the length and breadth of England. Now his one true home was the night.
~ ~ ~
“What in bleedin’ hell are you doing there, boy?” Arms cross
ed, Jonas Ferguson surveyed his charge with shocked concern.
Luc went on wrapping his muscled forearm, gritting his teeth against the pain. “I’m dressing for a masquerade ball, of course. I shall go as Napoleon and you shall be my Josephine. You’ll look exceedingly handsome in white satin, I think.”
“Ach, my lord, you’re an offense to my eyes. And you’re bleedin’ all over my fresh-washed floor!”
“Jonas,” Luc said sharply. “No titles.”
“Very well, my — er, Master Luc. Only, it don’t seem bloody proper, somehow, not when you’re by every right a marquess.”
“Not now, I’m not. Remember that, Jonas.” Luc gritted his teeth as he twisted the linen tight. “And my profusest apologies about the floor.”
“Bloody fool.”
“Did you say something, Jonas?”
“Pay no mind to me. Not that you ever do. My lord,” the reed-thin servant said defiantly.
Luc sighed. “I told you, no titles, Jonas. One slip could be fatal. It’s Blackwood now.”
“Outside, mebbe. But in here it’s ‘your lordship’ and that’s that.”
Luc finished wrapping the gauze around his throbbing shoulders and tore the end free with his teeth. The wound hurt like the devil, but it would have to do. Meanwhile, he wasn’t going to succeed in changing Jonas’s mind.
He gave a final look in the mirror. His black cape was immaculate. He looked every inch the dashing demon of the road.
Norfolk was full of men who would enjoy the celebrity of being waylaid by the notorious Blackwood, men so wealthy that they wouldn’t miss a few hundred pounds here or there. Many of them had extorted the money from others in the first place.
Yes, Luc had picked his targets carefully. First had come a venal financier who boasted of huge profits made from the obscene trade in human cargo out of Africa. Second had been a professional gamester who specialized in ruining naive young sprigs just come into their inheritance. Then two weeks ago Luc had run to ground a brazen bigamist from Dorset who had fleeced three wives of immense dowries, then left them penniless and disgraced.
The money from that night’s foray had gone back to the ladies in question, though none was ever told the name of her secret benefactor.
It was a dangerous game, yes, but Luc enjoyed the danger. He courted it, in fact. The desperate recklessness that sang through his blood helped him forget his bitterness.
But never for long.
Beyond him came the clang of metal. The Marquess of Dunwood and Hartingdale and heir to a dukedom smiled as Jonas tossed him a rapier of etched silver. “Dear me, aiding and abetting, are you, Jonas? I thought you didn’t approve of my little masquerades.”
“I don’t. Reckon you’ll get us both killed someday. But till then I’ll be stuck to you like a burr, see if I won’t. ‘Tis a blood oath I swore when you carried me from that stinking jail and I’ll be damned if I’ll break it now, no matter how pigheaded you are. You’ll be needing that foil, I reckon. And you’ll need your wits about you, too, for that magistrate Carlisle is no fool.”
Lucien raised the exquisite rapier carefully, savoring its perfect balance. “Don’t worry about me. It will take more than a boozy country officer of the peace to topple the Lord of Blackwood’s neat lay.” His hand settled on the servant’s shoulder.
“So you say, my lord. Me, I think I’ll bide my time and see.”
“Your confidence warms my heart.”
The old servant sniffed. “Crazy, that’s what it is. It’s a damned close game you’re playing, my lord, and I don’t like it.”
Luc offered him an elegant bow. “So little trust, my friend?”
“Aye, clever you always were, I won’t deny you that. But cleverness won’t carry you through this time. I wish we’d never come back here!”
“There was no choice, Jonas. This is where the trail led. I will find the owner of that ring, I assure you. And when I do—” He bit back an oath and turned toward the door.
“What if you don’t find him? What if all this talk of rings is just a hoax?”
“Then I’ll soon know that too,” Luc said grimly. “My criminal role affords me the perfect opportunity to find all I need to know.”
“Ought to be better ways,” Jonas said gruffly.
“But there aren’t, old friend.” Luc touched the sprig of lavender hidden inside his shirt next to his chest.
“Maybe cleverness is all I have left, Jonas. Maybe when hope and trust are gone, cleverness is all that anyone has.”
“Then go home, boy. Go back to Swallow Hill. Your ma would have you back in a second, if only you’d—”
“Out of the question. And we’ve had our very last discussion on this subject.”
“Damn it, boy, when will you listen to reason? Your arm and shoulder are fresh wounded, you stand the risk of being captured any moment, and still you insist on this harebrained notion of revenge?”
Luc raised his arm, flexing the muscles gingerly. “My arm will mend soon enough. But I will not go back to Swallow Hill, Jonas. I cannot after what has happened to me. I am not the same man who was dragged away. The Dey of Algiers saw to that.” He hefted the rapier and made a swift, angry thrust through the air. “Never, Jonas. Do not bring up the subject again.”
~ ~ ~
Tinker caught the first of them behind the drying shed armed with flint and cotton wadding, trying to set it ablaze. A neat right hook and a bruising crosscut sent the man spinning down onto a mound of verbena and drying violets, knocked out cold.
Bram, meanwhile, was keeping guard in a ledge above the workroom. When the door creaked open and a man in a coarse brown hood crept inside, Bram pushed a forty-pound sack of oats over his head.
That unwanted visitor went down instantly too.
But Silver wasn’t so lucky.
As she crouched in the shadows behind the conservatory, grimy fingers wrapped about her neck. “What’s this?” a hard voice growled.
Though her heart was hammering like church bells, she swung her foot toward the man’s shin.
The blow had absolutely no effect. Her captor only laughed as his beefy fingers tightened. The next minute Silver’s hands were jerked behind her. Even as she twisted, tough fingers gripped her throat.
Spots danced before her eyes. She tried to scream, but no sound came. Her lungs burned as her air was cut off. Hold on, she told herself desperately. Someone would come.
“Not like yer weren’t warned, woman.” As if from a great distance Silver heard the harsh voice drone on. “Only yerself t’ blame, ye bloody little fool.”
The earth began to spin. Too late, Silver thought dimly, her throat burning. Blindly, she scratched at her captor’s face.
He jerked her sideways and hurled her into a corner.
When she looked up, it was into the flat gray muzzle of a pistol.
“Aye, a real shame. Yer be a right tasty-looking piece an’ no mistake. Shoulda listened to my advice that first day I warned ye to leave.”
Silver backed toward the wall. Silently, she searched behind her, feeling a broken barrel stave, the coarse weave of an herb sack, and finally the thick handle of her mallet. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it would have to do.
Fingers trembling, she gripped the wood.
She was wondering how in heaven she would distract the brute long enough to club him when she heard shrill barking up the hill. A moment later a heavy body crashed through the dense underbrush.
Dear, stupid Cromwell.
Her attacker cursed. “What in the—”
It was all the time Silver needed. She lurched forward as ninety pounds of quivering muscle and dusty yellow fur exploded against her dumbstruck attacker. Then Bram appeared carrying a wooden casket, which he flung at the intruder’s knees.
Silver chopped down on the man’s gun hand with her mallet and sent his pistol flying.
Cromwell finished the job, knocking his prey to the ground and sinking his teeth into the wool at the man�
�s chest.
“Get ‘im off! Get the bleedin’ monster away from me afore he tears out my throat!”
It was all an act, of course. Cromwell would never do more than make a furious fuss, but Silver wasn’t about to tell her attacker that.
As she dusted off her hands and came shakily to her feet, she heard a rumble of appreciative laughter. A tall figure in black slid from the shadows between two hawthorn trees and lowered the pistol clutched in his gloved fingers.
“What a merciless trio you make, to be sure. When I heard the dog barking, I thought you might need some help.” He studied the terrified man shuddering beneath Cromwell’s paws. “It appears I was wrong.”
Silver blinked, watching the black mask dance and sway. “We can manage p-perfectly, thank you.”
“Oh, you can, can you?” The voice tensed. “Sunbeam?”
Silver shoved a cloud of auburn hair from her eyes as the ground swayed beneath her. She studied the black-clad face with fierce concentration. For some reason it wouldn’t stop dancing up and down.
And there was such a peculiar feeling in her knees.
“We’re fine, as you can see. There’s no need at all for you to involve yourself in our … in our” — she blinked and gave her head a shake—”concerns,” she finished unsteadily.
Then she pitched forward in a swirl of white linen and scattered lavender buds, right into the highwayman’s arms.
~ 17 ~
It was not going to be a good night, Luc decided, looking down at the woman in his arms.
Just then a lanky figure with wild white hair lurched toward them. On his back was slung a heavy, rusted Brown Bess rifle twenty years out of date and an iron war flail that looked as if William of Normandy might have carried it at Hastings.
The rifle fell, leveled dead on Luc’s head. “Put her down, damn you!”
No, not a good night at all, Luc thought grimly.
The man strode closer. He had to be all of sixty years old, Luc saw.
“Drop that pistol and let go o’ the girl.”
Come the Night (The Dangerous Delameres - Book 1) Page 16
