The Scarred Earl (21 page)

‘What a shame your grandmother’s not here, or she could come as well,’ he offered as an almost acceptable alternative to embarrassing poor Peters for life.

‘My promise in return for yours, my lord,’ she replied, as if the notion of the Dowager Duchess storming impatiently into Marcus’s prison and demanding all this nonsense stop immediately weren’t niggling at her sense of the ridiculous.

Alex weighed up the idea against some wild sisterly crusade to grab her brother from the hands of his enemies and decided his wife-to-be was rapidly teaching him the art of compromise. ‘Aye,’ he agreed grimly, hoping his eyes looked steely and uncompromising even as she was wringing a promise out of him he would have given much not to make.

‘Aye to what?’ she prompted as unmercifully as he would have done in her shoes and even as he felt the sting of it he admired every regal inch of her.

‘Aye, I will take you with me when we manage to work out the best way to rescue
your brother from Rich’s enemy, as long as you stay any wrongheaded impulses you’re brewing to storm in where angels fear to tread and demand your brother back just because you happen to want it so.’

‘It might work,’ she offered, as if she thought there was a strong possibility the generations of ruthless piratical Seaborne blood in her veins could awe Marcus’s captors into meekly handing him over.

‘Maybe, but a rational plan would probably serve far better.’

‘Very well, I promise to save it as a last resort,’ she said and still her willow-green eyes challenged him to pledge his word in return.

‘Then behold me reluctantly part of a council of three,’ he said with a bow that genuinely honoured a formidable opponent.

‘That will do for now, then,’ she replied with another of those queenly nods that gave him permission to proceed with their meeting.

This time his elegant bow carried more than a hint of irony, but she managed to signal that they remove themselves from the proximity of the door and any potential listeners as if she was chatelaine of this vast mansion. She led the way to the wide windows
where they could make sure the private courtyard garden beyond stayed neat and empty. Reluctantly admiring the instincts of a true conspirator, Alex and Fred Peters went like good sheep under the guidance of their shepherdess and he marvelled at the power his future lady exerted.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Alex whispered into the riot of escaped curls about Persephone’s ears and decided only a fool would ever be deceived by her breeches.

‘We have a bargain,’ she muttered so low he had to get even closer to hear her and he wondered if she knew exactly why he was finding her presence so distracting and was taking some sort of devious feminine revenge on him for trying to exclude her in the first place.

‘Your brothers and your cousin would have my hide to tan and bind books with if they knew I’d brought you with me.’

‘Now I thought I had brought
you
, my lord, but I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t since you’re making so much noise.’

Stung by her criticism, Alex stood silent with her in the deepest shadows he’d been able to find on the tree-lined slopes above
Kingslake Moot Castle and gloomily reflected that the woods were full of brash and brambles and as much in need of attention as the rest of this ramshackle estate. He hoped young Givage and Joe Brandt had found a path clear enough to give chase if only they managed to find this wily rogue who was intent on plaguing the Seabornes tonight. Alex didn’t know if he wanted to meet the ruthless villain now that Persephone was dogging his every step as if she knew he would try to leave her behind if the man so much as put his toe inside Kingslake Woods tonight.

‘He’s arrived,’ she breathed into his ear, and he was so busy controlling his instinctive response to her closeness he nearly stumbled over her words.

‘How can you know that?’

‘From the same sense of evil I felt on Jack’s wedding day and I’m not fool enough to shrug it off this time,’ she informed him as militantly as a woman could when trying not to leave even a murmur on the wind to reveal their presence.

Brooding on the likelihood of her being denounced as a witch in less enlightened times, he shrugged in what he hoped she would read as agreement and charged his
senses to confirm her instincts. He hoped Peters was as good at creeping about the countryside as he had boasted and that Joe wouldn’t take some reckless risk when this man had already proved himself a cold and ruthless foe. He was the one with the most experience of furtive night work and he was bound to his lady’s side as surely as if they were tied together by his fear of what she might do if he parted from her for even a second. It occurred to him he must actually love her to let her trample all over his plans and prejudices in the first place and filed that revelation away to be looked at later, when he had leisure to be horrified.

As close to Alex as she could be without actually being in his arms, Persephone knew half of him longed to be off and away on the chase. She felt the instincts of a born hunter in the quiver of his powerful body when she told him the man who took Marcus was near and the curb he clamped on them as soon as he reminded himself he had her by his side.

If she was a truly noble woman, she would slip off back to the distant hollow where they had left the horses, or make herself stay at home in the first place, but not even Alex’s
gruff frustration at her presence could have made her stop away tonight. She was right; she felt it as if she could see through the darkness and the heavy undergrowth and untidy canopy of trees to the black-hearted villain stalking all their lives at the moment. Holding her breath, she listened intently and had to acknowledge there was hardly a brush of leaves or the stir of a woodland creature protesting to give the man away.

Still her heart thumped in her chest and the finest hairs on her nape stood on end and at least she knew this time she wasn’t wrong about the presence of evil. A petty kind of malice and the soul of a scavenger perhaps, but evil all the same, she decided, as she struggled yet again with a reason why his mean gaze had fallen on them in the first place. Rich was behind it all somehow, whether through his fugitive lady, Annabelle de Morbaraye, or after his disreputable adventures had uncovered some secret others wanted hidden.

Her eldest brother’s restless wanderings and rakish reputation never deceived her and she knew from the start he was up to something dark and dangerous under cover of a more than usually wild young gentleman
about town. If he hadn’t been far away in India, the man at her side would probably have joined in and she didn’t know which acute peril she preferred him to have survived when she thought how he had suffered at the hands of a different enemy. Glad now she was here to hold him back by her presence from running his handsome head into the first trouble that came along, she stepped even closer to remind him he couldn’t dash off to risk everything she now held precious on a wild dash into danger.

Deeply thoughtful at the notion he meant everything to her, she supposed she might have to thank this invisible enemy she sensed, pausing and sniffing the air like cautious quarry scenting a predator. The hot negative that sprang into her mind stopped that thought in its tracks, but still the terror that lingered in her fast-beating heart and desperately controlled breathing was for Alex and not herself.

Better to die herself than live without him, and now she had another conundrum to struggle with—how not to let him know she loved him so dearly she’d fallen into the trap she warned herself about on Jack’s wedding day. She’d given her heart away so completely
there was no hope of ever getting it back and was now at the mercy of The Fates. If he lived and prospered, so would she—if not, then her life would become dark and diminished. Persephone Seaborne had failed to learn from Lady Henry’s example of what it cost a woman to love her husband so completely.

A breath of sound had her thoughts sharp on the present, instead of on some mournful and terrible future that might not happen. Ears pricked for any hint who had moved, it seemed as if the whole of nature was holding its breath and the stillness of the September night itself seemed alert and edgy. A pheasant called out its harsh chiding cry of protest at being disturbed and this time Persephone thought it was the man trying to insinuate himself into these woods unseen to watch Kingslake Castle for potential rescuers who stopped to strain every sense.

Evidently he didn’t dare put himself into the power of too many others, since he seemed to be alone here. That gave him something of an advantage over Alex’s party who had each other to look out for. Given the choice, she was certain her own particular lord would have come alone as well, so
she was very glad she hadn’t allowed him that luxury.

This was no simple rogue then, he must have a name and a position that would suffer if he was revealed as Rich Seaborne’s enemy. As they stood here like a very serious version of children playing statues, Persephone marvelled any man would risk his freedom and reputation to draw two powerful families into his web. A very daring one, she decided with a shudder, and hoped they were as well hidden in this shadowy corner of Kingslake Woods as Alex thought they were.

The man shifted and came on and she did her best to excuse Alex for inexorably pushing her behind him as they could almost feel the tread of softest leather soles through the summer, dry earth of the path under their feet. She dare not struggle against his determination to take any blow that came before it could get to her, but frustration bit against that earlier revelation she’d suffered that her life would be only shadows without him. To save Alex from hurt, she would sacrifice this whole operation to seize Rich’s bitter enemy and the taste of acid in her throat threatened to overwhelm her as she was sickened by her own dilemmas.

It was cowardice not to take the man if he could be stopped before any more harm was done and she had to fight the battle all women of power had fought for centuries. The one where their men went out to lay their lives on the line for some cause they believed in and they had to let them. Again she shivered as she pictured some unlucky Cavalier wife or mother forced to split her loyalties between husband, son, brother or father as one fought the other. She silently thanked God she was living in a better age and concentrated on not giving in to the temptation to make one of those choices even so and alert their foe before he could do any damage.

Alex tensed for the fight that would come if the man took another step and Persephone made herself relax her frantic grip on his black coat and not wrap her arms about his narrow flanks to hold him back. At least he didn’t know she had in her pocket the deadly little pistol Jack had taught her to shoot, and, if only she could see her target, she wouldn’t hesitate to use it. Fumbling it out to use as a much-less effective club instead, she got ready to race into action, despite all Alex’s efforts to keep her dithering on the sidelines.

At last that step came and Alex launched at his quarry with a feral snarl that made the hairs on Persephone’s neck lift again with primitive excitement, at the fight this time instead of in fear, and she got ready to add her slender force to her lover’s might. The impact of body on body made a soft thud that had her forcing her fist into her mouth so she didn’t cry out and distract Alexander at the worst possible moment. She heard the whoosh of a winded man as the rogue staggered under the impact of over six feet of hard-packed muscle and bone, and she heartily wished for a little daylight so she could at least be sure of hitting an enemy if she struck out instead of the man she loved. Now there was the noise of a savage struggle without rules or boundaries.

The sound attracted the other watchers’ attention after what seemed an interminable wait and Persephone heard running footsteps as they fought their way through overgrown paths. A desperate struggle for life was going on while she stood here, helpless as any Mayfair maiden about to faint because no other alternative was on offer. Two men engaged in that brutal battle heard them, too, for the thickset one she could just
pick out under Alex’s longer-limbed body by the faintest of starlight began to fight a different battle.

Instead of trying to overcome his opponent, the man was now struggling to escape with every street-fighter’s trick he could come up with. Persephone winced as she heard the scrape of boots on flesh when he kicked Alex on the shin, then seemed to gather impossible strength and spin upright in a desperate surge. Alex sprang after him with impressive speed, but the stranger had found time enough to whip a glinting weapon out of his boot top as his enemy came at him and Persephone screamed a warning.

‘He’s got a knife!’ She bellowed her caution at Fred Peters, as well, as he emerged from the deep tangle of briars that would make her wince for him at any other time.

Spinning on his heel with what could be classed as admirable agility if you didn’t care about the outcome, the desperate rogue threw his weapon at Mr Peters with a deadly accuracy that spoke of a very villainous youth indeed and simply seemed to vanish into thin air while they were still horrified at the sound of fine steel thudding into flesh.

Alex plunged towards the quiet little lawyer without another thought for the desperate man fleeing the scene as fast as his legs could carry him. Persephone hoped Brandt and Givage wouldn’t try to stop him if he had more than one concealed weapon about him and hurried after Alex.

‘Is he mortally wounded?’ she asked as she caught up with her impulsive love and resisted the urge to examine him for damage first.

‘Not much more than a scratch, Miss Seaborne,’ Mr Peters said manfully, although she thought his voice sounded weak and shocked as he did his best to stand with Alex’s assistance. ‘Be sure to bring the knife so I can examine it by daylight,’ he instructed and she meekly picked up the bloody thing between thumb and forefinger and held it at arm’s length.

‘It won’t bite,’ Alex told her with amusement in his deep voice that she somehow found almost unforgivable after what he’d put her through tonight.