Once a Rake (Drake's Rakes) (26 page)

“That’s right,” Peg said, intent on her work. “Now, once you have your supplies, you have to go quickly. Parker’s rheumatiz is predicting rain, so you’ll need to bundle up. And don’t worry about us or the three out there. We have it all worked out.”

“I’m not worried about you all,” she said with a wry smile. “I’m worried about the animals. Who will see to them?”

“Ole George, o’ course,” Peg said. “Colonel Ferguson made him promise. Said as how you’d never forgive him if ought happened to yon pig.”

Still Sarah didn’t move. She had the most awful feeling that if she stepped out the door with Ian, she would never return to Fairbourne. Never again match wits with Willoughby or feed scones to Harvey. Never see the ladies who had shared her life for the last five years. And suddenly she couldn’t bear it.

Fairbourne was more hers than it had ever been Boswell’s. She had been the one to fight for it, to scrape her hands raw and wear her feet out as she hauled and herded and mended. She had been the one to squeeze pennies until they shrieked. She had turned dresses for Artie and housed Rosie and kept Lady Clarke in watercolors.
She
had. And if she walked away this night, she would be surrendering everything she had struggled to achieve. She would desert the only real home she had ever known.

She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t that brave. She couldn’t simply close her eyes and step out over a chasm with no more than the hope she could find the other side.

It was irrational, she was sure. Certainly Ian and George would have planned a way to protect her. They had set up this little farce for her to play out, hadn’t they? They must have a way for her to slip back into her old life without a hiccup.

Still, she sat there, her gaze on the green baize door that separated the servants’ quarters from the main house, keeping one world apart from the other, and all she could see was that it separated her safe, tedious life from the unknown. That one step through that door would carry her irrevocably away from all she knew.

That unknown frightened her. Especially the unknown with Ian.

“Miss Sarah?”

She nodded, not moving. She had to make a decision. So far she had helped Ian almost by accident, her intent to get him better and away, so she could protect her home. This, though, was different. If she walked through that door, she would be casting her lot with him. She would be hazarding everything she had struggled to achieve on the chance that he could prove his innocence. That he
was
innocent. A man who had made no honest offer for her. Who planned a life that had no place in it for her.

“Miss Sarah, come along. The colonel needs to be down the road before Old George brings the militia back. You need to help him clear his name.”

Sarah looked up at her dear Peg. She made no declaration. She felt no great sweep of emotion, no urge to laugh or cry. She simply got to her feet and held out her hand for the food bag.

Peg shook her head. “You need to change first. Don’t want you catching the ague.”

There was nothing Sarah could do about her gray dinner dress, although thankfully it had a high neck. Quickly changing her slippers for half-boots, she plucked her hooded cape from the hook by the back door and returned.

“Thank you, Peg,” she said, suddenly afraid that this was good-bye.

Peg did something she hadn’t done since Sarah had been married. She pulled Sarah into a hard, tight hug. “You keep yourself safe out there, Miss Sarah, you hear?”

Sarah hugged her back, inhaling the scent of wood smoke and cinnamon to take with her.

“Stay off the road if you can,” Parker added, too inured to his rigid propriety to follow Peg’s example. “We couldn’t find a hat big enough to cover that red hair of his.”

Sarah saw the concern in his rheumy old eyes, though, and reached up to kiss his papery cheek. “We will. Keep the ladies safe ’til I get back.” She pulled away with a wry grin. “And make certain you give Lady Clarke a bit of extra cosseting. She has earned it tonight. Thank you both.”

“Now,” Peg said, holding up more lengths of rope. “We’d appreciate it if you’d tie us up too. Nice ’n tight, now. We don’t want to be suspicious.”

Sarah quickly tied them both to their chairs. Then, giving them each one last quick hug, she picked up the bag and turned for that green baize door.

“Don’t cook up my pig while I’m gone,” she warned with a hard-won grin, and pushed the door open into the dining room.

“Och, there you are, lassie,” Ian greeted her when she reached the parlor. He had been lounging in one of the lacquer chairs, his frame overwhelming its delicate bones. “I was running out of old poems to entertain y’r ladies.”

“Entertain?” Lady Clarke retorted. “It is not entertaining when a person cannot understand a word.”

Ian gave her a big grin as he unfolded himself from the chair. “Ah, but isn’t the Gaelic a fine language? Pure poetry itself. Would that I could stay and share more.”

She huffed. “Sounded like you were swallowing marbles.”

He turned his grin on Sarah. “Ah, lass, aren’t you lucky to have such a grand one for a mother?”

“In law,” both Sarah and Lady Clarke objected at the same time.

Ian laughed as he bestowed a sweeping bow to the women who sat tied up on the good furniture. “Alas, I must be off. I thank ye f’r y’r grand hospitality, and hope one day to repay the generosity.”

His answer was a snort from Lady Clarke and a breathy giggle from Artie. Well, Sarah thought, at least the girl was recovering. Sarah checked to see that the women looked fine. In fact, Lady Clarke looked more lively than Sarah had ever seen her.

“May we be off?” Sarah asked, sounding strained even to herself.

“In just a second,” Ian said. Then, before Sarah knew what he was going to do, he had another length of rope in his hand. She instinctively stepped back. He caught her and dropped a loop of the rope around her wrist, pulling it tight. “So I don’t lose ye in the dark, lass. I’d hate to have you fall down a badger hole.”

She flushed. “I swear you’ll pay for this.”

His smile was darker than before. “I have no doubt, lass. No doubt at all. Now give your good-byes, and we’ll be on our way.”

Sarah was even more surprised to realize that tears burned the back of her throat. Even more shocking, she saw tears glint in the older woman’s eyes. “You will be all right?” she asked Lady Clarke.

“Of course we will,” the older woman declared primly. “Do you think I would let one Scottish traitor discommode me? Be off, Sarah. Sooner gone, sooner returned.”

Sarah nodded. “I will be back as soon as I may. I promise.”

It seemed there was nothing else to say. Lifting the bag of supplies, she followed Ian out into the darkness to find Harvey tied up to the railing.

“I see you thought of everything,” she said, giving the horse a pat. “I hope he bites you.”

“He tried,” Ian admitted, and offered the great horse a scone.

Harvey gave the lumpy pastry a glare, then lipped it. Lifting Sarah onto the horse’s back, Ian swung up behind her. Sarah pulled at the rope around her wrist.

“Leave the rope on,” he ordered, reaching around her to wrap the rope around his fist and settle the reins. “Appearances are everything,” he said, clucking Harvey into motion. “And you have to appear to be participating in this little adventure through no fault of your own.”

“I
am
participating through no fault of my own.”

Pulling Harvey’s head around, Ian urged him into a trot down the lane. Sarah shivered, not from the cold, but from the solid wall of heat at her back. From the feeling of upheaval and incipient madness. She had been right when she’d stood at the green baize door. She had stepped through a door and suddenly the world no longer looked familiar. And it terrified her. It exhilarated her.

“Are you all right, lass?” he asked, his voice rumbling in his chest, his breath brushing against her sensitive ear.

She almost laughed out loud. Of course she wasn’t all right. She might never be all right again. “You should have warned me,” she said, her voice sounding strained.

“I couldn’t.” He did sound apologetic. She didn’t trust him. “I didn’t have time. Not with all the interest here suddenly. Not with . . .”

She turned in the saddle. “What?”

He looked away for a moment. “After you left today, Old George brought me news. Stricker’s been found. He’s dead.”

Her heart skidded. “Then you cannot prove he is the culprit.”

“Worse. They caught one of the men dumping the body. He blamed me.”

She looked back at him. “We will simply prove you couldn’t have been there.”

“I’d rather not bring you into this if I can.” He shrugged. “I’m hoping I can get one of my friends to investigate.”

Sarah felt herself pale. “How did he die?”

“His throat was slit.”

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut against sudden nausea. This new world she had stumbled into wasn’t merely unfamiliar, it was violent and unpredictable. And Ian seemed to move through it far too easily.

He focused on guiding Harvey out onto Pinhay Road and east. Harvey escalated into a long, ground-eating trot, the rhythmic staccato of his hoofs almost mesmerizing.

“You will never get as far as London now,” Sarah said a few minutes later. “Everyone will be looking for you.”

He bent his head as if studying her. “You don’t think I’m making for Weymouth?”

“Don’t be daft. That wasn’t even a particularly clever feign. The problem is, if this assassin is as smart as you say, she will also know you won’t head for the coast.”

“Of course not. But she doesn’t know I’m not headed for London either.”

Sarah looked back at him. “Then where?”

“One of the Rakes has an estate in Sussex. I’ll make for there.”

“You can trust him?”

Ian nodded. “Oh yes. He and his wife were the first ones to run into our friends the Lions.” He slowed Harvey to a walk. “You’ll like them.”

“I am not going to Sussex,” she informed him. “I will point you in the right direction, but that is all.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so, lass. I think you’ll be coming with me.”

She wouldn’t, though. She couldn’t. The farther she went with him the harder it would be to step away from him again. Even now it was too late to return to what she was. How safe she had been. Her isolation might have been hard. It might have been a life she could live by rote. But now, suddenly, Ian had torn her from it, leaving her certain of nothing but the fact that when this was over, she would be left alone with nothing but fractured, half-thought dreams.

Don’t make me go with you,
she thought, her eyes closed against the exquisite pain radiating through her from his proximity. From the unfamiliar sense of belonging incited by nothing more than a pair of strong arms around her.
Let me stay behind where I’m safe. Not from enemies or from assassins. From you. From me.

“Ian . . .”

She knew he heard the plea in her voice, because he cut her off. “Until I hear from London, I can’t risk anyone questioning you.”

“But you . . .” She gasped and wrenched around. “Oh, dear lord. The letter.”

He tightened his hold. “Stop squirming. What letter?”

“
The
letter.” Frantically she twisted until she could reach into her pocket. “The one from London. It came. I was going to bring it down to you tonight.”

He yanked the horse to a shuddering halt. “What does it say?”

“I haven’t read it yet. A madman burst into the drawing room and distracted me.”

Ian hopped off the horse and held up his hands to help her down. “Well, let’s have it then. We dinna have time to be lounging about out here.”

Sarah leaned into him, her hands against his chest as he set her on the ground. For just a moment, she wanted to stand right there, leaning against his too-solid frame. Warming herself on him.

She stepped away, her movements abrupt, and pulled out the letter. “Here.”

He crouched down. He must have pulled out a tinderbox, because suddenly there were sparks, and then a small flame. When he’d lit a small fire among the leaves, she heard paper crinkle.

“Well,” he muttered, as he tilted the unfolded page toward the uncertain light. “The handwriting is definitely Drake’s. It’s execrable…He says that they’re searching for our subject. Stricker, I’d say. Much good it’ll do them. He says to use extreme caution and to hurry.” He laughed, a dry huff. “He doesn’t know the half of it. And . . .” He peered more closely to the letter, softly cursing. “Fairy steps? What is he talking about? And who the hell is Jack Absolute?”

Sarah spun around. Jack Absolute? Before Ian could protest, she ripped the letter from his hand and crouched to the little fire to get a better look.

Jack Absolute says to meet us at the end of the Fairy Steps.

Suddenly Sarah couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think.
Oh, God. Lizzie.

Sarah swore that the world went silent. Even up on the hill the breeze stopped. A vast and absolute silence pressed against her ears. She pressed her hand against her mouth, as if it could hold in the emotions that were suddenly whirling around in her.

Ripton Hall. They wanted Sarah to take Ian to Ripton.
Lizzie
wanted her to come.