‘Good. No need to disturb him.’
Garrick reached the stables without seeing anyone at all, and found Dan standing in the yard holding a skittish Bess and the reins of the bag of bones he’d ridden before. Garrick shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Dan. Stable your horse and return to your duties. I will get there faster alone. Give me the directions.’
Dan’s face dropped, but he complied.
For a city lad he had given very precise directions and Garrick had no trouble finding his way to the one approach leading to the cottage, a narrow cart track winding through the woods. The smell of smoke gave away its location. Garrick tied Bess to a blackthorn bush and surveyed the thatched half-timbered hovel. A woodcutter’s cottage. No sign of any guard. He crossed the clearing and strode up the flagstone path. No sound emanated from within. The door was ajar. He pushed it open.
A tub o’lard lay on his back on the stone floor, his face a bleeding pulp. What in hell’s name had happened here?
Garrick crossed the room swiftly and knelt beside the injured man. He felt for a pulse. He swung around at a rustle behind him and stared from the barrel of a pistol to the rigid, white face of a very determined young woman.
He got to his feet and held out his hands, wariness and relief coursing through him. ‘Ellie, you are here. Are you all right?’ He hesitated and then bowed with a regretful smile. ‘I mean, Lady Eleanor.’
‘If I didn’t know better, I might think you were pleased to see me.’
What the hell was she talking about? He stepped forwards. She waved her pistol. ‘Stay back.’
‘My lady, you seem to be in some danger. I think we should leave.’
Eleanor frowned. ‘We? I think not. Where did you arrange to meet William?’
‘Your brother? I made no such arrangement.’
She glared. ‘Don’t think to fool me again. Just tell me the meeting place.’
He recoiled, shocked by her obvious distrust. He kept his voice gentle. ‘We have to leave before anyone comes, then we will talk.’
‘We are not doing anything. Don’t think me a fool. Your man here told me everything.’ She levelled her pistol at his head. She backed towards the door. ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t know how to use this weapon, will you, Garrick? Make one move and you’re a dead man.’
Clearly he was dealing with Lady Moonlight. ‘As you wish. Go on your own. But go now.’
A shadow fell across the flagstones outside. He moved to get a better view. Her pistol followed him. Damnation. Matthews. With a gun in his hand and a smile on his face.
‘Stay where you are, my lord,’ she warned in a low voice.
Matthews’s gun was levelled at her back. If he warned her, she would look. And she might die.
Garrick dived to the floor, rolling, yanking free a pistol. She kept her weapon trained on him. Garrick fired. Her shot came a second later. The burning, ripping pain of her bullet tore into his bicep. He reeled from the numbing force. Thank God she hadn’t shot to kill.
She jerked around at a sound behind her. Face twisting in pain, Matthews shook his hand, blood trickling from his fingers, his pistol at his feet.
Garrick launched himself upright, staggered forwards, reversed his pistol and struck the steward behind the ear. He measured his length with a dull thud beside the first man.
‘Go,’ Garrick said. ‘Get out of here. Take my horse. She’s ten yards off to the right of the path. For God’s sake, hurry.’
Eleanor pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. ‘I shot you.’
‘Never mind that.’ Garrick bent to pick up Matthews’s pistol. He forced it into her hand, relieving her of her discharged weapon. ‘Run.’ He pushed her ahead, urging her out the door and down the path. With one hand in the small of her back, he guided her to his horse.
A raucous shout came from behind. A woman running from the back of the cottage. They were done if she was armed. He kept going. His shoulder blades tensed, anticipating yet another bullet. More noise, ahead of them this time, a rider thundering down on them.
Garrick drew his second pistol. ‘Keep going,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll catch you up.’ His left arm useless, he dropped to one knee and steadied his forearm on his thigh, ready to shoot the rider as he came in sight. He would only get one shot.
‘My lord.’ The rider turned his horse at the last moment. The blond curls were unmistakable. Dan? By thunder, the lad needed a good hiding if this was the way he followed orders. Garrick released his finger. ‘You young idiot. I told you to stay at Beauworth.’
The boy stuck out his bottom lip.
‘Never mind. Come on.’ Garrick turned to follow Eleanor and almost tripped over her, crouching behind him with her weapon cocked and ready to fire. He cursed. Would no one obey anything he said?
She stared at him, a puzzled frown on her face. ‘You don’t really know anything about this, do you?’
If only that was completely true. ‘We don’t have time for talk. Move.’ Grasping her arm, he guided her to Bess cropping at the grass. Dan leapt down, untied the reins and boosted Eleanor into the saddle. He helped Garrick to get up behind her, before remounting.
‘Where to, my lord?’ Dan asked, his eyes bright with excitement.
Good question.
‘Brown’s farm,’ Ellie said. ‘My horse is there.’
So, Lady Eleanor was taking charge. But since his head was spinning, it was just as well.
The Brown kitchen was like any other farmhouse kitchen in England: tiled floor, polished copper pots and hearth with a kettle steaming on a hook over a large brick fireplace. Or it would be, Garrick thought, had a Marquess not been sitting at the kitchen table with his shirt off while an apple-cheeked farmer’s wife wielded a bowl of water and a bloody cloth.
The back door opened to admit a burly man of middle age with a craggy face. ‘What’s all this I hear from the lad in the stable about Beauworth needing help?’ The man was a younger version of Martin Brown and, Garrick recalled, one of Beauworth’s tenant farmers.
‘His lordship had a bit of an accident. A fall from his horse,’ Mrs Brown said.
‘The lad said it were a bullet. Those highwaymen we’ve been hearing of, I’d wager.’
‘Oh, my,’ Mrs Brown said, her blue eyes widening.
Damn. They should have remembered Dan needed to know the story they had concocted for the farmer’s wife.
Hands clasped at her waist, Ellie moved back to the table, whether seeking or offering protection Garrick couldn’t tell, because her gaze was fixed on the farmer.
‘The lad is mistaken,’ she said firmly. ‘Please, Mr Brown, do not concern yourself. We came only to fetch my horse. We will leave right away.’
Protection, then. It made Garrick want to smile, to pull her close and kiss her, but perhaps she’d change her mind about wanting to protect him, when she learned his secret.
John Brown scratched behind his ear and stared at Garrick’s arm for a second or two. ‘I’ll send to Beauworth for the carriage.’
‘No need,’ Garrick said. ‘It’s nothing. I’ll be back on my horse in no time at all.’ He winked at Mrs Brown. ‘Isn’t that right?’
She batted her eyelashes. ‘Yes, my lord.’
Brown touched his forelock. ‘As you say, my lord. But we need to catch them villains. Terrorising decent folk