Authors: Anne Bishop
Liam closed his eyes, trying to gather his strength. The
clip clop
of the cab horse’s hooves soothed him, almost lulling him to sleep.
He opened his eyes. Only one set of hooves. Had Padrick stopped to talk to the other barons after the cab had set off? Had he been delayed by something simple like a loose cinch? Or had he been detained by another pair of rough-looking men?
Twisting around, Liam stuck his head out the cab window to look behind him.
Padrick, riding a few lengths behind the cab, made a sharp movement with his hand.
Liam drew back into the carriage, his heart pounding strangely.
Padrick’s horse made no sound as it trotted on the city street. No sound at all.
Not sure what to think, he tried not to think at all until he reached the town house. Trembling from the effort, he
got out of the cab by himself — then realized the cabby had driven him directly to the mews behind the town house. He staggered over to the cart that already had his trunk in the back and leaned against it to take some weight off his shaking legs.
“Baron Liam!” Kayne, the upper footman who had been acting as his valet, touched Liam’s arm briefly, his worried expression making his plain face look harsh.
One groom ran to the kitchen door to inform the butler that the baron had arrived. Hogan, the groom he’d brought with him from Willowsbrook, stood nearby, looking surly.
His father’s man, Liam thought sickly. His father’s servants. Except for Kayne, who’d been hired the day after he’d arrived in Durham to replace the upper footman who had gone out to run an errand and never came back. The rest of the servants, Kayne had told him the next evening, were speculating that the man had run off with a parlor maid that he’d been courting, a young, pretty woman who worked for a family a few doors down.
Padrick rode up beside the hackney, handed the driver a few coins, then moved his horse to one side to allow the cabby to turn his horse and cab.
“Is everything ready?” Padrick asked as soon as the cab was gone.
Liam almost said yes. Then he looked at the saddled gelding and said, “Bring him over here.”
Hogan led the gelding closer to the lanterns.
“The saddlebags are empty,” Liam said sharply.
Kayne stammered, “There was no need to use them, Baron Liam. Everything fit in the trunk.”
Knowing his anger was unjust but unable to stop it from rising, Liam pushed away from the cart, stumbled over to the gelding, fumbled with unsteady fingers to untie the saddlebags, and finally pulled them off the horse. Heat crept through him, filled him.
Not now
, he thought as he walked back to the trunk.
Merciful Mother, don’t let my temper give me the shakes now
.
“Not your fault, Kayne,” he said, opening the trunk. “You couldn’t know there are things I always carry with me.” Like the miniatures of his mother and sister. He rummaged through the trunk until he found the velvet pouches that protected the miniatures. He stuffed those into one saddlebag, along with a change of linen. The small case that held his toiletries went into the other saddlebag, as well as the purse that held the coins he’d brought with him.
Hogan took the saddlebags from him. Tied them securely to the gelding’s saddle.
By then the butler had reached the mews.
“Baron Liam,” he said. “Did the gentleman find you at your club?”
A chill went through Liam, smothering the heat. “What gentleman? What did he look like?”
“He had fair hair and blue eyes,” the butler replied. “He said he had an urgent message for you. When I said you were not at home, he asked for your direction.”
“So you told him where to find me,” Liam said softly.
The butler stiffened. “It did not seem out of place to do so. He was, as I said, a gentleman.”
Liam glanced at Padrick, who said nothing. Didn’t have to say anything.
“Yes, he found me,” Liam said. “He had…troubling …news, which requires my immediate return to Willowsbrook.” No reason not to confirm the story Padrick had already told the western barons.
“Let your groom take the cart and head out of Durham by the north road,” Padrick said. “We have another stop to make, so we’ll catch up with him as soon as we can.”
Another stop? Liam didn’t ask, certain he wouldn’t get an answer. He just looked at Hogan and said, “You have your orders.”
“Let me accompany you, Baron Liam,” Kayne said quickly. “It’s obvious the news from your estate has distressed you to the point of being ill. You should have someone along to look after you.”
Liam managed a smile. “My thanks for the offer, but there’s no need. I’ll be fine.” He mounted the gelding, waited for the wave of dizziness to pass, then looked at the butler. “If anyone asks for me, tell them that I’ve been called away.”
He looked at Padrick, who simply turned his horse and rode out of the mews and into the alley. After a moment’s hesitation, when he clearly heard the sound of a horse’s hooves, Liam followed.
The sickness from the poison must have affected his hearing, Liam decided. It wasn’t possible for a horse not to make a sound on cobblestone streets. He’d been so busy trying to stay upright in the cab, he’d become delusional. That’s all it —
As soon as they turned out of the alley and onto another street, Liam heard only one set of hooves on the cobblestones. His own horse’s.
Padrick urged his horse into an easy trot, a pace that covered distance without looking like the riders were in a hurry. A typical pace for young men in the city — when they weren’t riding like fools.
Liam gritted his teeth, concentrated on staying in the saddle. “This isn’t the way to the north road.”
“We’re taking the west road out of the city,” Padrick said. “We’ll circle around. The horses are fresh, so we should be able to catch up with your groom on the north road soon enough.”
“And if someone’s waiting for me on the north road?” Liam demanded.
“Then your man will have a better chance by himself,” Padrick replied sharply. “It’s you they’re after, not the people who work for you.”
You don’t know that
, Liam thought bleakly. He continued to follow Padrick toward the west road because he was still too weak and sick to do otherwise. But when they left the city and he saw the road ahead of them lit by the full moon, he reined in, too uneasy to continue.
“What’s the matter?” Padrick asked, turning his horse so he and Liam faced each other. “Are you feeling too sick to ride? Here.” He extended a hand. “Give me the reins. I’ll lead your horse. You just hang on to the saddle. When we catch up to the cart, you can ride with your groom.”
Which is what I should have done in the first place
. “I have a question that needs an answer before we go any farther.”
Padrick made an impatient sound. “What answer do you need that can’t wait?” “Who are you?”
Padrick gave Liam a strange look. “Has that poison addled your brains? I’m Padrick, the Baron of Breton.”
Fear. Temper. Sickness. It was an uncomfortable mix sliding around inside him. “Let me rephrase the question,” Liam said.
“What
are you? You ride a horse that makes no sound on a city street. You indicate the other western barons wouldn’t dare harm you, which means you have far more power over them than anyone in the council realizes.”
“Not I,” Padrick said quietly.
“And you conveniently appear to help me, claiming I’ve been poisoned and those men had been sent to kill me. You seem to know too much and say too little. So I ask again: What are you?”
Padrick said nothing for so long, Liam wondered if he should try to make a run for it back into the city. Then, “I am the Baron of Breton. I am gentry.” Padrick paused before adding, “And I am Fae.”
Liam swayed in the saddle, not sure if it was shock or sickness that suddenly made him so weak. He was on a moonlit road, alone, with one of the Fae?
“So now you have to decide, Baron Liam,” Padrick said. “Are you going to risk riding with one of the Fae on the night of the Summer Moon, or are you going to take your chances and ride north alone, or back to the city, and hope you don’t meet anyone who wants to finish killing you? I’ll ride north with you to help you get home. Or I’ll keep riding west.”
It wasn’t a hard choice when there really was no choice. “If I’m going to be riding with one of the Fae tonight, shouldn’t it be a fair maiden who gives me a come-hither look?” Liam asked. Relief swept through him when he saw a glint of humor in Padrick’s eyes.
“You’re stuck with a man, and I save my come-hither looks for my wife.”
Liam grinned. The sickness was still there, and the worry about his family and what might happen in the council tomorrow, but he felt a little boyish excitement, too. “Let’s ride.”
Turning his horse, Padrick held the animal to an active walk.
Liam chafed at the slower pace, then realized it was a chance to ask a few questions. After all, he’d never met any of the Fae before.
“You’re riding a Fae horse. That’s why I couldn’t hear it on the streets.”
Padrick nodded. “A Fae horse has silent hooves, unless it wants to be heard.”
Liam admired the gelding. “I’ve never seen a finer horse. Well, maybe I’ve seen as fine.”
“Oh?” Padrick said, giving Liam a long look.
“When I bought my stallion, Oakdancer. There were some ‘special’ horses that weren’t for sale, and I saw them only at a distance. Oakdancer’s light on his feet, but not like your gelding.”
“Where did you acquire your stallion?”
“From a man named Ahern.”
Padrick nodded. “He must have seen something in you to sell you one of the half-breds.”
“Half-breds?”
“An animal bred from a Fae horse and a human horse. He raised the finest horses in Sylvalan. But that was to be expected, since he was the Lord of the Horse.”
“The —”Liam’s jaw dropped. “Ahern?
The
Lord of the Horse?” He thought back to the days he’d spent at Ahern’s farm when he’d gone to buy the stallion — and the odd way Ahern had gone about choosing the right horse for the rider … and the right rider for the horse.
“So you’ve already met the Fae, laddy-boy, even if you weren’t aware of it,” Padrick said.
Who could have guessed that gruff old man was Fae, let alone the Lord of the Horse? “I heard he died.”
“Yes,” Padrick said softly, grimly. “He died helping a young witch escape from the Inquisitors. Come along. We have a fair amount of road to put behind us tonight.” He urged his horse into a canter.
Touched a wound
, Liam thought as he brought his horse alongside Padrick’s. Maybe it wasn’t just his own people and the witches who had reason to look hard at the Inquisitors. And maybe that was a good thing. “Do you think the Fae will help us?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard.
“I can’t say what the Fae in the rest of Sylvalan will do,” Padrick replied. “But I can tell you this — if the Inquisitors come to the west, they’ll die.”
Liam judged they’d been riding for an hour, taking farm lanes and going cross-country at times before they reached the north road. A few minutes after that, he saw the cart up ahead, overturned in the middle of the road. He saw the downed horse and the blood turning the road black in the moonlight — and he saw the man’s body.
He kicked his horse into a gallop to cover the remaining
distance. It slid to a stop when it scented the blood, throwing him heavily against its neck. He slid out of the saddle, but managed to keep a firm grip on the reins. Not that it would do any good. The horse wouldn’t stand. Not with the scent of blood so strong in the air.
“Give me the reins,” Padrick said. “I’ll see to the horse.”
Liam handed the reins to Padrick, then stumbled toward the man in the road. Falling to his knees, he turned the man over gently, saw the cross bolts, heard the wheezing rattle of breath.
It wasn’t his groom. It was Kayne, the upper footman.
Kayne opened his eyes, stared at Liam. “They killed me,” he said, gasping with the effort to speak.
“Hold on,” Liam said. “We’ll find some help for you.” Hollow words since he knew they couldn’t reach anywhere fast enough to save the man.
“They killed me,” Kayne said again, sounding baffled. “I was riding out to warn them that they needed to watch for two riders, but they killed me before I —”He struggled to breathe.
Liam sat back on his heels. “You were going to betray me? Why?”
“They — They said I had the gift. That I didn’t have to remain a servant. They said if I did a good job of keeping a watch on you for them, they would train me to be an Inquisitor. I’d be a powerful man then, even more powerful than a — a baron. But…they …killed me.”
Kayne stared up at Liam with dead eyes, his expression still baffled.
Padrick cursed softly. “He must have sent word to them somehow the moment he was told to pack your things.” He dropped to one knee, placed his hand on Liam’s shoulder. “Liam, we have to get away from here. Now. This attack couldn’t have happened that long ago or he wouldn’t have still been alive. There’s no way of knowing if the men
working for the Inquisitors are ahead of us or behind us, but they can’t be that far away. And either way, we’ve got to put some distance between us and this road.”
“Hogan was a Willowsbrook man,” Liam said. “He wouldn’t have let someone else drive the cart and leave him behind to make his own way back home. Which means he’s wounded or dead, back on the road somewhere.”
“We can’t look for him,” Padrick said firmly. “And we can’t stay here.”
“I wonder if the footman Kayne replaced actually ran off with the parlor maid. Or was that the first death?” He shook his head, struggled to his feet with Padrick’s help. “Where do we go?”
“Where’s your estate?”
“Northwest. Near the Mother’s Hills.”
“Then that’s where we go. Without the cart, we don’t have to stay on the roads. That’ll make it harder for anyone to find us.”
Padrick led Liam to the horses and held the reins while Liam mounted.
“I’ll do,” Liam said, answering Padrick’s unspoken question.
Nodding, Padrick mounted his horse and turned toward the west. “Then let’s ride.”
In the early dawn, Ubel boarded the yacht and quietly entered the cabin.