Twice Tempted by a Rogue (36 page)

“Sabotage,” Bellamy breathed. “Faraday was right. Someone’s out to kill me.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe Faraday himself. Maybe he had someone working on this while you were enjoying your tea and shortbread.”

“Or
maybe,”
Rhys said, “the traces just snapped and not everything is about you.” He scoffed at the idea of Faraday’s decrepit servant crawling under the carriage with a file or rasp. “Bad luck, plain and simple.”

His curiosity finally overcoming his dizziness, Rhys peered down over the cliff. The ground fell away steeply. Far below, the sea chewed on the twisted wreckage with jaws of rock and wave. The entire coach had splintered to pieces. No man could have survived that fall.

Feeling suddenly breathless, he gave his cravat a vicious tug. The magnitude of the past few minutes’ events began to sink in. “Good God,” he said wonderingly. “I almost died.”

“We all did,” Bellamy said.

“Yes, but … that never happens to me.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, I’ve come close dozens of times, but never like that. I really,
truly
almost died. I could not have saved myself.”

“I’ll take that as my outpouring of gratitude,” said Bellamy. “Are you always this churlish when someone saves your life?”

Rhys winced, thinking of Meredith. “Apparently.”

Cora indicated her own temple. “You’re bleeding, my lord.”

He touched a hand to his brow. His fingers came away wet with blood. Still huffing for breath as he straightened, Rhys reached for the handkerchief in his breast pocket.

Instead, his fingers closed over two odd-shaped coins.

He pulled one of them out and squinted at it. A thin disc of brass, stamped with a horse’s head on one side and its tail on the other. Leo Chatwick’s Stud Club token.

“Bellamy,” he said. “Heads or tails?”

“What are you on about?”

“It’s an experiment. Just call heads or tails.”

The man shrugged. “Tails.”

Rhys tossed the coin and caught it, slapping it flat against his wrist. When he removed his hand, the horse’s arse shining up at him seemed like the funniest goddamned thing he’d ever seen. Laughter rumbled from his chest. Leo always did love a good joke.

“Here. This one was Leo’s.” He tossed the token at a befuddled Bellamy, who caught it handily. “Now it’s yours. I lost.”

Who would have guessed it? By all things holy and profane, he’d lost. It would seem his cursed good luck had finally run out. He’d have to learn some new tricks—like the practice of caution. No longer would he stumble through the world, flipping that coin with “Life” on one side and “Death” on the other. He’d make his own fate now.

And Rhys knew just where—and with whom—he wanted to make it.

Chapter Twenty-seven

It was nearing noon when they returned to Buckleigh-in-the-Moor the next day, riding single file on the four draft horses. They must have been quite a sight. Villagers swarmed out of their houses to watch as, one by one, Rhys, Bellamy, Cora, and their much-abused driver clopped down the road and into the courtyard of the Three Hounds.

Rhys had hated stopping the night yesterday. Everything in him had wanted to return to Meredith as soon as possible. Fall on his knees, pledge his love, beg her forgiveness for everything. What words he’d employ in that effort, he couldn’t begin to imagine. Well, three particular words were a given. Beyond that, he just hoped for inspiration in the moment.

But Cora’s ankle had needed a doctor’s attention, and they’d each had small injuries to tend. There were other basic needs, too: rest, food, proper saddles. He’d forced himself to be patient, wait.

Now they were here, and he wasn’t waiting a second longer. The moment he slowed his horse, he dismounted and hurried toward the inn’s door.

He was intercepted by Gideon Myles. The man came tearing out from the entrance. His face was one big bruise, and his steps were hobbled, and his mien was determined. He was a man with a destination in mind.

And Rhys wasn’t it.

He brushed straight past Rhys and Bellamy both, rushing to help Cora down from her horse.

“Cora.” He tugged the girl into his arms, burying his face in her hair. “Cora, thank the Lord you’re back. I woke up and you were gone, and I didn’t have the strength to go after you …” He hugged her close. “I would have never let you leave. You’re not getting out of my sight again.”

Rhys harrumphed loudly.

Myles pulled back from the embrace, surveying the bruise on Cora’s cheek and the tattered edge of her cloak. “What’s happened to you?” He turned a burning gaze on Rhys and Bellamy. “If you’ve hurt her, I’ll kill you.”

Rhys said impatiently, “Oh, suddenly you care about the girl’s welfare?”

“Of course I care. And there’s nothing sudden about it.” He rubbed his hands up and down the girl’s arms. “I love her, more than my own life. Would have said as much the other day, if someone hadn’t smashed his fist in my face.”

“Truly?” Cora asked, blinking hard. “You … you love me?”

“Aye, truly.” He pulled her aside from the crowd, just a step. “I love you. And I’ve a question to ask you, but I’m just vain enough that I hate to ask it looking like this.”

“Probably for the best,” she said shyly. “It’s come to my attention that I may be too easily swayed by fine looks and charm.”

“I’m low on both at the moment.”

“Yes, you are.” She smiled, feathering her fingers through his hair. “And if it’s worth asking, the question will keep.”

“I see,” Myles said, a slow grin spreading across his face. “You mean to make me work for it.”

She nodded, lacing her arms about his neck.

“Good girl. You should.” Bending his head to hers, the man kissed her soundly. And quite thoroughly, considering the swollen state of his jaw.

As the assembled crowd cheered the young couple, Bellamy came to stand at Rhys’s side. “Spares me the trouble of finding her a new place.”

Damn Gideon Myles and his scene-stealing. Rhys wanted his own happy reunion. “Where the devil is Meredith?”

“Would you hand me the scissors, please?” From her perch atop the crate, Meredith braced her weight on the window frame and leaned sideways, extending an arm. “They’re just there, over by the lace.”

“Here?” Riffling his sandy hair with one hand, Darryl scouted the heaps of fabric and thread until he located the missing sewing shears. Then he loped across the cottage loft and delivered them to her hand with a gallant flourish. “There you are.”

“Thank you, Darryl.”

The youth smiled. “Anything for you, Mrs. Maddox.”

Meredith returned to her task. She stretched a length of twine from the top of the window to the sill, then cut it to the exact length. Looping that strand around her neck for safekeeping, she started another measurement crossways.

“What are these?” Darryl asked.

“What are what?”

“These.”

Craning her neck, she glimpsed him holding a misshapen lump of wood in his hand, turning it this way and that for examination.

“They’re flowers,” she said.

“Are you certain? Look like vegetables to me. Aren’t these cabbages over here? And this one has the look of celery.”

“It’s a tulip. They’re flowers.” She smiled to herself as she turned back to her measurements.

“If you say so.”

She heard a dull thunk as Darryl tossed the tulip finial aside.

“You surely are anxious to make these curtains,” he said. “What’s the hurry, Mrs. Maddox? I thought you’d be more concerned about repairing the tavern.”

“That tavern is perpetually in need of something.” Frowning with concentration, she folded her lip under her teeth. “There,” she said, cutting off the final window measurement. To Darryl, she continued, “I just want this place looking nice by the time Rhys comes back. Looking like a home.”

Darryl chuckled. “Mrs. Maddox, Lord Ashworth’s not coming back.”

“He is,” Meredith said. “I know he left, but he’ll be back. Eventually.” Hopefully before another fourteen years passed. But no matter how long it took, she’d be waiting. Call it destiny. Call it faith. Whatever it was, she seemed to have caught the brain-addling contagion from Rhys, and she didn’t want to be cured.

“No, Mrs. Maddox.” Darryl’s voice was strangely confident. “He isn’t coming back.”

Meredith turned her neck slowly. “What do you mean?”

His left eye twitched as he gave her a placid smile. “He won’t trouble this place anymore. I’ve made certain of it. Buckleigh-in-the-Moor is free of the Ashworth line. Forever.”

Her heart began to beat a little faster, though she bade herself to stay calm. This was Darryl Tewkes talking. Surely this was just another of his wild, imagined tales. She stepped down from the crate, and her feet hit the floor with a hollow thud. “Darryl, what are you saying?”

“I fixed matters for you. For everyone.” He picked up a length of lace and began folding it. “Aren’t you pleased?”

“No. No, I’m not pleased.”

“Now, now. I know you’re an independent woman and you like to do things your way, but you mustn’t be angry with me, Mrs. Maddox. He left me no choice. We tried to give him the suggestion to leave, but the man can’t take a hint. First the torches didn’t work, and neither did moving his rocks about. Tried pitching a stone
at
him, and that didn’t work either.”

“That was
you?”

Meredith was aghast. When Gideon had awoken this afternoon, the two of them had shared a pot of tea and a lengthy conversation. Among other things, he’d sworn he wasn’t responsible for Rhys’s injury that night at the ruins. Since he had no reason to lie about it now, she’d concluded the whole thing must have been an accident.

Evidently she’d concluded wrong.

Through sheer force of will, she kept her voice even. “Darryl, what did you do to Lord Ashworth? Tell me this instant.”

“I didn’t do anything to him. Let’s just say I gave Mr. Bellamy’s carriage a bit of special attention.”

Meredith gasped. “Mr. Bellamy’s carriage? But … but Cora went with them!” Hadn’t Darryl been half in love with the girl? Every male in the village was half in love with the girl.

“Oh, you mean the harlot?” He shook his head, tsking softly. “She seemed nice enough at the beginning, but she showed her true colors in the end. We’re better off without her, Mrs. Maddox. The Three Hounds isn’t that sort of inn.”

She could only stare at him, transfixed with disbelief.

“Do you know what I wonder?” His little smile crawled over her skin. “I wonder if he’ll
truly
haunt us when he’s dead. I hope he does. The travelers would like that. I’ll have to change my story a bit, but that’s all right. What do you think, Mrs. Maddox?” he asked, moving toward her. “Which sounds better? ‘The Phantom Lord’? Or ‘The Ghostly Baron’?”

“Neither,” she said, stepping back. A floorboard creaked. Her fingers tightened around the sewing scissors in her hand. “Don’t come any closer. You’re frightening me.”

“They’re just stories, Mrs. Maddox. And it’s only me. You know me.”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“Don’t be angry.” He moved closer. “I did it for you. For us. We were doing well for ourselves until Lord Ashworth came back. Bringing his fancy London friend and that harlot around, making trouble for the whole village. He tore up the tavern, tried to take you away.” Darryl gestured angrily. “I couldn’t watch him destroy the Three Hounds, Mrs. Maddox. I’ve worked too hard for that place.”

He’d
worked too hard? “Darryl, you fool. No one’s worked harder for that place than I have. And I’m telling you, Lord Ashworth’s return was the best thing to ever happen to Buckleigh-in-the-Moor. The best thing to ever happen to me. How dare you, you …”

Despite all her resolve to be strong, Meredith began to tremble. Her eyes fluttered closed, and horrid possibilities flashed behind them. Rhys always claimed to be indestructible, but no man was immortal. What if Darryl had somehow managed to …

No
.

She opened her eyes, and she knew. She just knew, with a profound, bone-deep certainty, that everything was going to be fine.

“You’re wrong, Darryl. Lord Ashworth
is
coming back. Not as a ghost or a phantom, but alive and whole.”

“Now, Mrs. Maddox, you’re not listening …”

“No, I’m not. I’m telling you, he’s coming back. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he’s standing behind you right now.”

Darryl froze. He gulped loudly. His eyelashes danced a wild jig as he turned by slow degrees, then tilted his head up.

And up.

And up, all the way to Rhys’s waiting glare.

“Boo.” With a lightning-quick motion, Rhys grabbed Darryl by the throat. The younger man squirmed and sputtered, clawing in vain at Rhys’s grip.

“You scheming little bastard,” Rhys snarled. “I knew I didn’t like you.”

“Is Cora well?” Meredith asked, nearly beside herself with emotion.

“She’s well.” Rhys tightened his grip, and the shade of Darryl’s face deepened from scarlet to plum. “But she could have died. We all could have died.” He gave the youth a shake. “I’ve a mind to throw you in the bog, let the wild pigs sniff you out.”

Tears were streaming down Darryl’s face by this point, and his violet complexion was tending toward blue.

“Rhys,” Meredith said, tilting her head toward the youth. “Please.”

He instantly released his grip.

“Damn,” Rhys muttered as Darryl fell to the floor, dragging in air with raspy gulps. “Lucky for you, this is the week I give up killing men with my bare hands.”

“Gads.”
Darryl writhed on the floor, clutching his stomach and gasping like a fish plucked from a stream.