Bronwyn Scott's Sexy Regency Bundle

by Bronwyn Scott

  Nora’s stance grew more alert. Good girl. She’d picked up on his plan. Would she understand she could trust him? That this was about freeing her, not about protecting his own interests?

  The riders closest to the flare and Witherspoon appeared in the clearing. He had less than a minute to effect his plan. Witherspoon would not buy an act of sloppy horsemanship from him without smelling a rat. He knew Brandon rode too well for such an occurrence. But these boys knew nothing of him.

  Brandon sawed on the reins, causing the stallion to rear, his great hooves striking the air. The rearing horse created a barrier between Nora and her captors. Nora turned and ran.

  ‘The Cat’s getting away!’ the soldiers yelled, recovering themselves as the horse settled down. They pointed and gestured wildly as the other riders pulled up.

  ‘This way!’ Witherspoon raised his arm in the direction Nora had gone. Witherspoon kneed his horse and took off with Brandon beside him. Brandon knew he hadn’t been able to give Nora much of a head start. The riders’ later arrival and the brief moments of confusion at the site had bought her a small amount of extra time. He hoped, between the head start and the cloudy night, it would be enough.

  His luck was failing. The clouds suddenly parted, revealing a white three-quarters moon. In the distance, he made out her form, running hard towards a copse of trees. Beside him, he heard Witherspoon cheer, still clinging to his belief The Cat was female. ‘There she is!’

  Brandon spurred his horse on, but Witherspoon’s mount was equally as fine and matched the stallion stride for stride. There’d be no breaking away from him in the short run, but if Nora led them on a merry chase, the thoroughbred would tire over time. Behind them, the rest of the pack had fallen steadily back. Jack was with them, somewhere. Perhaps Jack would coax them into taking a false trail or short cut and leave Nora to the two of them. Brandon liked those odds better.

  Nora burst from the copse, mounted low over the neck of her gelding. Thank goodness she hadn’t gone to ground. With a lead and horsed, she stood a chance if she rode smartly. Her gelding was a solid horse and good over the long distance. If she could hold on long enough, Witherspoon’s thoroughbred would exhaust himself. A sidelong glance at the mount showed flecks of foam already forming at the bit.

  ‘She’s horsed!’ Witherspoon called over his shoulder. They were closing in on her faster than Brandon liked. They were near enough to see her take a hedge, trying to cut cross country. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, Brandon would have taken time to appreciate the fine bit of horsemanship on display.

  Witherspoon’s horse stumbled briefly and a movement at his side caused Brandon to glance over. Fear gripped him. Witherspoon had drawn his pistol. Recognising that his flashy thoroughbred was tiring and wouldn’t be able to catch the sturdy gelding, Witherspoon was opting for a bullet.

  ‘My horse can’t catch her, Stockport, but my bullet will. You go on and bring her down when she tires,’ he said, speaking of her as if he were bringing down a buck from the hunt.

  ‘You can’t kill her,’ Brandon yelled over the sound of racing hooves, fumbling for the persuasive skill for which he was reputed to possess. ‘There’ll be no satisfaction of a trial, no chance to see her punished for her crimes. This should be decided by a court of law.’

  ‘I only mean to wound,’ Witherspoon said with cool calculation. He slowed his horse and took steady aim.

  Pistols were unpredictable things, Brandon told himself. It was highly unlikely Witherspoon would hit his target at this distance. Short of throwing himself at Witherspoon and overtly fouling the shot, he was helpless to intervene.

  Witherspoon’s finger squeezed the trigger and time slowed. Brandon edged his stallion into the thoroughbred, throwing it off balance. The bullet fired. Brandon’s distraction wasn’t enough. He watched in horror as Nora slumped forward into the horse’s mane.

  ‘A hit! In spite of your incompetent horsemanship, Stockport,’ Witherspoon crowed. ‘That should slow her down. My horse is spent. You ride ahead; at least that edgy beast of yours has some stamina.’

  Brandon wasted no time. He let Nora make one last effort, turning the gelding towards a forested area where speed would matter less and trickery more. He knew she intended to dismount and hide. He let her, relieved to see that she was conscious and not suffering unduly.

  He entered the woods behind her and slid off the stallion’s back. ‘Nora, it’s me, Brandon. Show yourself.’ He looked around desperately. He had only a little time. A small cry of pain caught his attention and he followed it to Nora, crouched in the notch of a dead tree, nearly invisible in the dense undergrowth.

  ‘I will shoot without hesitation.’

  Brandon’s gaze dropped to the pistol in her good hand. ‘I am not the enemy, Nora.’ He held his hands out at his side. If he ever needed the right words, it was now. ‘I know you ran because of what you overheard at the ball. You misunderstood.’

  ‘I heard about your plan, how seducing me was your way of keeping the mill safe,’ Nora ground out, her anger apparent in every word.

  ‘Nora, there isn’t time to explain. You are wrong. How else can you explain why I am out here risking my neck for you, again? Don’t be a fool, Nora, you know what we had cannot be faked.’

  Brandon sensed her wavering. The pistol lowered. Had his words been successful or had her arm simply tired of the act?

  ‘Are you hurt badly?’ He took a confident step forward, not daring to betray the anxiety inside. The Cat appreciated strength. If she sensed weakness, it would be like blood to a shark.

  ‘It just grazed me. But it’s bleeding and it hurts at present,’ Nora admitted.

  ‘Unbutton your shirt.’ Brandon commanded. It was too dark to see much of the wound, but he pressed around the area to make sure the bullet had not entered. ‘You’re right, there is no entrance or exit wound. You’re lucky. But it’s bleeding too much for a simple graze.’ Brandon ripped a strip from his own shirt and fashioned a tight bandage. ‘There, that should stop the bleeding and keep you from dripping until we get you home. I don’t want those dogs to smell blood.’

  ‘I am not going back with you. Everything is over. Finished,’ Nora said sternly.

  Brandon ignored her. ‘I’ll stall them here. You go back to Stockport Hall and have Harper tend to you. We’ll sort everything out in the morning.’

  Nora backed away. ‘No. Brandon, be reasonable. There is too much doubt between us.’

  ‘There is too much passion between us for us to let it go. Do you think what we have happens every day?’ Brandon was worried. Already blood seeped through the bandage. He had to get her back to the hall.

  ‘I know it doesn’t. But The Cat cannot do this. I have devoted my life to helping others, to saving people from lives of industrial slavery.’

  ‘Your husband is dead. I meant to tell you at the ball. You are free to start a new life.’ Brandon returned her gaze with a hard stare of his own, closing the distance she’d created between them. ‘You cannot start a new life if you’re dead.

  ‘Nora.’ Brandon reached for her, taking her face between his hands and kissed her lips with all the passion of a lover.

  She fell in his arms, limp against him. ‘Oh, so now you’re swooning, at last,’ he joked, not quite grasping the situation.

  ‘That’s not funny,’ she said faintly, all her strength ebbing. ‘Help me, Brandon. Don’t let me die. Witherspoon will win, he needs me dead before…’ She didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘Nora!’ he called out in the shock of holding her slumped form, but she was gone, completely unconscious in his embrace.

  He swung her up in his arms and looked about frantically for a place to hide her, but it was futile. The wound and her exertions over the past twenty-four hours proved to be too much.

  He heard horses approach and felt his heart sink. Time had run out. Nora lay limp in his arms and he could not protect her. A fine champion he had turned out to be for her.

&nb
sp; ‘You’ve got her, Stockport.’ Witherspoon and his cadre reined in, Witherspoon’s voice full of glee at the sight of Brandon with The Cat unconscious in his arms.

  Witherspoon jumped off his horse and strode to Brandon’s side. He flicked back Nora’s cloak, revealing the bandaged wound and the rise and fall of breasts beneath the dark shirt. ‘Aha! I was right, Stockport. The burglar is a woman.’

  ‘So you were.’ Brandon barely held his temper.

  ‘I wager the woman is Eleanor Habersham.’ Witherspoon reached for the mask and head scarf, pushing them off.

  ‘Have you no decency? The poor woman is unconscious,’ Brandon rebuked him, ‘You’re mauling her as if she were a cheap doxy.’

  ‘She treated us no better,’ Witherspoon snarled. ‘There, it is Eleanor, that tricky piece of baggage.’

  Brandon looked down at Nora in his arms, expecting to see her mass of dark hair, but seeing instead the dun-coloured wig. He was safe for the moment. Her forethought bought them both some more time—more time for him to find a way out of this and perhaps another chance for them. Had she worn the wig out of concern for him? To avoid exposing him to censure?

  The others turned their horses and began the trek back into the village. Witherspoon and Jack remained behind with Brandon to help him mount his bay with Nora.

  Witherspoon flicked a glance over Brandon’s torn shirt. ‘I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, but you’re getting soft. I wonder what else you might have done if we hadn’t arrived so quickly. You bandaged her wounds. If she persuaded you to tend her wounds, perhaps she would have persuaded you to let her go.’ His eyes gleamed like blue icicles in the dark.

  ‘Speak plainly, Witherspoon—what are you suggesting?’ Brandon returned with a cold steel of his own.

  ‘That you’ve a soft spot for thieves or, if you like, that perhaps the reason you bandaged her wound was that you’re in league with The Cat.’

  ‘You’re a slanderous fool!’ Jack interjected with scorn. ‘How dare you suggest such a thing about Stockport. He’s an upstanding member of Parliament.’

  Witherspoon swung up into his saddle, fixing Jack with an intense gaze. ‘All the same, Stockport’s house hasn’t been robbed.’

  ‘You’re welcome to your speculations,’ Brandon said curtly, before kneeing his bay into motion and grabbing the reins around Nora’s still form.

  ‘I’ll be watching you, Stockport. There’s something not right about all this,’ Witherspoon cautioned.

  For Brandon, the night seemed an interminable hell. He rode back to Stockport-on-the-Medlock with Nora in front of him. Gratefully, she remained unconscious.

  He argued with Witherspoon over where to take her and won. Witherspoon wanted to take her to the Manchester jail. Brandon argued she ought to be held in Stockport-on-the-Medlock, at least until she was better able to travel and arrangements could be made.

  The small town jail, which was nothing more than the Squire’s root cellar, would be much better than the dirty city jail.

  He stayed with Nora until he saw that she received medical treatment and was regaining consciousness. He ensured her privacy by counselling everyone to get some sleep and promised they’d meet in the afternoon to discuss their next step.

  ‘What is there to discuss, Stockport? I say we hang her. We all know what she’s done,’ Witherspoon countered.

  ‘There’s protocol to these things and it must be followed,’ Brandon had responded tersely, wondering how much longer he could keep Witherspoon at bay. It was apparent Witherspoon was starting to believe his favour wasn’t enough.

  The sun had been up for an hour before Jack and Brandon returned home.

  ‘To bed, then.’ Jack stretched and yawned as they entered the house.

  ‘I think I’ll stay up,’ Brandon said in desultory tones.

  ‘She’s going to need you in possession of all your faculties, old friend. It would be best if you slept. Perhaps things will look better after some rest.’

  ‘I hope so, Jack, because right now I am flat out of ideas. But you were right, she’s got something on Witherspoon.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Nora swam towards consciousness, acutely aware that her shoulder was a throbbing, aching mass of pain. How had it got that way? It felt like she’d been shot. She remembered. She had been shot. By that bastard Witherspoon too, she guessed.

  She remembered being in the woods. Brandon had been there. She’d been in his arms. He’d been frantic. She could hear his voice in her head, begging her to run, to go home with him. Then she had fainted. She had never fainted before in her life. She picked a rotten time to start adopting that womanish behavior.

  She opened her eyes. The room was nearly dark, except for a small shaft of light coming in from the crack between two doors positioned above her. She was underground, but this wasn’t the root cellar at The Grange. She shifted her position on the cot where she lay and winced at the pain in her shoulder.

  Nora forced herself into a sitting position and took in the scene of her captivity. It was too much to hope that this wasn’t a jail, that Brandon had somehow whisked her away to a secret underground room. That could only mean one thing. She had been caught. Caught and shot. Witherspoon meant to see her dead before she could tell someone about his secret plans. She had to get out of here, had to live long enough to tell Brandon.

  She should have told him earlier. She’d had ample opportunity. She could have told him Christmas Day or any time during the past weeks at the Hall. Now, it was almost too late.

  She surveyed the room, looking for an escape route. The room was small, square and relatively clean as dirt rooms go. It contained the cot she was on and a rickety table that held a ewer, basin and a bit of towelling.

  The idea of cleaning up reminded her of something. Nora put a hand to her head. How much did her captors know? The wig was still in place and she breathed easier. Brandon was the only potential ally she had at the moment. She needed him safe and above suspicion. If her captors discovered The Cat and his betrothed were one and the same, he’d be unable to help her. There were still unresolved truths between them, in spite of what he’d said in the copse, but he was all she had.

  She had no way to reach Hattie and Alfred in Manchester. Only Brandon knew what had happened to her and where she was. Hell, she didn’t even know where she was. Word would spread, of course, as a trial date neared, unless Witherspoon decided to forgo a trial and take justice into his own clammy hands—a huge possibility.

  If there was a trial, Hattie and Alfred would hear of it, but she didn’t want them to risk their necks on a rescue mission. She didn’t want the Manchester slums to rise up and march to her side. Not that they would, necessarily, but she could well imagine a few of them would try. She couldn’t bear to see any of them hurt.

  Ignoring her shoulder, Nora pushed herself into a standing position and began pacing the room, working out the stiffness in her joints. The best way to make sure no one did anything foolish was to make sure she wasn’t here for a trial. The longer she remained in this room, the more likely it would be that someone might try to play the hero.

  There were obviously no windows, but there was a crude, earthen staircase that led to the trap doors. Nora pulled herself up them and tested the doors with her hands. Her experimental pushes met with resistance. As she expected, the doors were barred from the outside.

  She shouted a ‘halloo’, to determine if they had left her alone or if they’d posted guards.

  A low, gravelly voice responded. ‘Quit yer bellyaching. You’ll get breakfast soon enough.’ Others laughed.

  Nora went back down the stairs. There were guards, at least three or four from the sounds the guffaws. She sat down on the cot to rest from her exertions and to think. How would she get the door unbarred? How would she get past the guards?

  Getting the door unbarred would be the least of her worries. From the guard’s comment, they meant to feed her. The door would be open on
ce or twice a day when someone brought food. Most likely, a doctor of sorts would be allowed down too, to check on her bandage. She could feign a fever, draw him close to the cot and cosh him over the head with a table leg. Getting past the guards was a much bigger concern.

  While Nora sat mulling over her options, the door at the top of the stairs opened. Food was placed on the top step and the door closed again. She made a note of the procedure. Any information at this point would be useful. She would only get one chance to effect an escape.

  Nora took the food, a bowl of gruel and dry toast, and a crock of water. She ate all the food for strength and so as not to attract bugs or rodents. The water she saved, unsure if there would be more to drink later in the day or if this was her sole ration for drinking and washing.

  The door opened again and a guard called down, ‘There’s a visitor to see you.’

  Nora stood up from the bed, hope mingling with caution. She prayed it was Brandon.

  ‘I trust you find your accommodations to your liking,’ a frosty voice inquired with all the warmth of a January afternoon.

  The visitor was Witherspoon. Nora swallowed hard and mentally girded herself for battle. Had he meant to come and finish what his bullet had failed to do last night?

  She needled him, trying to determine his intentions. ‘It’s so kind of you to call on me in my home. After all, you’ve been polite enough to let me have free run of yours all these months.’

  ‘Still cocky, I see.’ Witherspoon was dressed impeccably in riding gear, Nora noted as he circled her.

  ‘Truthful,’ she retorted, keeping her chin up, trying to ignore the riding crop he kept slashing against his thigh as he studied her.

  ‘I’ve come for some conversation, Miss Habersham. But I see you’re not dressed for it.’ Something cruel and cold flicked in his pale eyes.

  ‘My wardrobe is a bit limited at this time.’ Nora followed him with her eyes.

  ‘No bother. Perhaps I should have said you’re not undressed for it. Take off your shirt, or, if you prefer, I’d be glad to relieve you of it.’