Authors: Danelle harmon
“Excuse me, my lord. There is a small . . . disturbance, that demands your immediate attention. . . .”
Maxwell had risen to his feet, bid Tristan good-evening, and that had been the end of a confrontation that Tristan had been dreading with every waking breath of the last week. Now, he wanted only to escape this Hades incarnate, find this veterinarian of Ariadne’s—
bloody hell, why didn’t she just run off with the damned groom?
—and demand some answers. And as for the race. . . . He’d see Maxwell in hell before he gave up either Shareb-er-rehh or his sister to the soulless fiend!
The night was dark, lit only by the silver wash of starlight and the eerie bars of gold slanting across the lawn from Maxwell’s windows. Tristan was almost to the stable when he heard shouts and pistol shots coming from behind him.
Within the house.
He froze.
His first instinct was to rush back inside, his only thought the safety of his sister. But rationale took hold of him and he dove for cover behind a block of shrubbery, peeking out just in time to see a door open and several men, carrying a dead body between them, hurrying across the dark lawn. Dread iced Tristan’s spine, numbing his limbs and settling in his stomach. In horror, he watched as they slung the corpse over the back of an old, sway-backed gelding, exchanged quick words between themselves, and leaving only one of their number behind, returned to the house.
He nearly blacked out for holding his breath. The man that remained, a wiry, skittish-looking bugger, was just pocketing a gun and carrying a shovel. As Tristan watched, he took the gelding’s halter and tried to lead him away. A little dog came racing out of the darkness, barking frantically; the servant shouted at the animal to no avail, finally raising the shovel until it ran, yelping, into the shadows. The gelding’s eyes rolled with fear and he began to stamp and snort, nearly spilling the corpse from his back. The servant jerked down on the animal’s halter, hard, then, dragging the shovel behind him, led the frightened beast off into the darkness.
Tristan didn’t need anyone to tell him where the servant was heading.
Toward the lonely Norfolk pastures.
He scrambled out from behind the shrubbery, half-expecting gunfire to ring out behind him, but the night remained still and quiet save for the scraping, increasingly distant sound of the shovel moving over the ground. Tristan waited until he was sure the servant couldn’t look back and see him, and then, driven by morbid curiosity and fear, sprinted across the lawn after him, keeping to the shadows and behind trees. For a minute, he thought he’d lost the odd trio; then he saw the old gelding just ahead, and thirty feet away, the little dog following at a safe distance. He heard the panicky drumming of his heart, and felt the bile of fear in his stomach at sight of the corpse, the fingers dangling just above the horse’s knees and the lifeless head and arms swinging above the grass with every plodding step the old beast took.
Who was the dead man? Another debtor who had fallen afoul of Maxwell and couldn’t pay up? Tristan shuddered, seeing a sudden vision of his own dark fate. Unless he came up with the money—or Shareb won the race—
he
would be the next one to be murdered and buried in a dark, Norfolk field.
He wiped icy sweat from his brow, and continued on.
The house was well behind them now, the night growing darker, deeper, blacker. Out over the lonely pastures he followed the servant and the broken-down old horse. Here the grasses were thick and damp, the brambles clawing, and he felt the moisture seeping through his shoes until his feet were wet and clammy. Somewhere off in the distance a night bird called; closer, an owl hooted. Finally, a mile away from the manor house, the servant stopped the horse, pulled the corpse from its back, and let the body drop bonelessly to the earth. It landed on its back with a heavy thud, arms outflung and face turned toward the night sky.
Tristan stole closer, unnoticed.
The servant began to dig. Cold starlight flashed against the shovel, and the sound of metal striking rock and flint, the servant’s labored breathing as he worked, and loose dirt thumping against the steadily growing pile of earth, filled the night. On and on it went. The digging sound was horrible, and the sweat turned to ice the length of Tristan’s spine as he wondered how many other unmarked graves were out here on this lonely, windswept hill.
He crept closer.
And saw the body move its hand.
He froze, the scream hanging in his throat. Then reason and reality swept in, and with it, horror. The bugger was burying the man alive!
The shovel flashed, the servant grunting and cursing as he struck rock. Holding his breath, Tristan crept forward. He was thirty feet away now . . . twenty . . . fifteen—
The old gelding stepped quietly toward the fallen man and nosed his shoulder, as though trying to rouse him. The hand moved again, then the arm, and Tristan heard the poor fellow moan, saw him drag open his eyes and reach up to gently touch the horse’s lowered muzzle.
At that moment, the servant turned and saw the whole thing.
Swearing, he tore a pistol from his pocket and trained it on the defenseless man.
But he was too late. Tristan had already leapt forward, his elbow deflecting the servant’s aim, and the shot went wild into the Norfolk night.
The crack of a pistol, the ground vibrating beneath him as bodies wrestled in the grass, grunts, curses, fists against flesh—and the dark mass of Thunder moving to stand protectively over him. Colin, dazedly aware of the struggle, tried to sit up, couldn’t. He fell back in the grass and must have blacked out, for when he opened his eyes there was only a hand against his cheek and someone hovering over him, breathing hard.
“Ariadne—” he murmured, desperately trying to get to his feet. “Got to get her out.. . . “
The stars wheeled above his head and began to fade out. From a great distance away he felt his rescuer shaking him, slapping his wrists and cheek, forcing him back toward consciousness. An arm slid behind his nape, pulling him up. Dragging open weighted eyelids, Colin saw a youthful but handsome face, intent gray eyes staring worriedly down at him, and a tense, determined mouth that broke suddenly in a relieved smile.
“Another one of Maxwell’s debtors, are you?” the youth drawled, in a voice that was educated and high-bred.
“Colin Lord . . . veterinarian, London.”
The wry smile vanished and the youth leapt to his feet. “You’re the bloody bastard who helped Ariadne get to Norfolk! Damn you, I ought to just finish what that idiot started and kill you right here and now!”
Colin, too ill to stand, drew his legs to his chest, and rested his brow against his knees.
“Please, after I get my bearings. Make it a fair fight, at least.”
“If it weren’t for you I’d have caught up to her and stopped her before she ended up in the clutches of that—that
monster
, Maxwell!”
“And pray, who are you?”
“Tristan St. Aubyn, her brother,” the lad declared, with highborn indignation.
“Ah, yes, of course.” Colin bent his head and wincing, massaged the back of his skull. “Young Lord Weybourne. If you’re after the stallion, I fear you’re too late, lad.”
“I’m not too late. Shareb-er-rehh belongs to
me
, not my sister. Besides, I didn’t chase her all the way from London because I wanted to get my hands on that horse! That isn’t what she thinks, is it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Bloody hell.” The young lord, no less high-strung than his sister, began to pace, cheeks bright with color, fists clenched at his sides. “I chased her all the way to Burnham because she
cannot marry Maxwell
, she doesn’t know the danger she’s in, doesn’t know what Father tried to do, damn it, she doesn’t know
anything
—”
“She thinks you want the horse to pay off your debts,” Colin said, carefully.
“Debts! I’ll tell you about debts!” Then, lowering his voice as though he feared anyone hearing him out here in this desolate pasture, the young lord spat, “I’m in debt to the tune of thousands, and it’s all owed to Maxwell. Gambling debts, horse racing debts, cockfighting, dog-fighting, and boxing debts. I made wagers, lost, borrowed from Maxwell because he was the only person I could find who’d lend me the blunt to support my obsession, gambled more, lost more . . . before I knew it I was in over my bloody head.”
He paused, raked both hands over his eyes, dropped them on a sigh of self-disgust before turning his face away.
“Maxwell threatened me with bodily harm if I could not come up with the money. So I went to my father, and when he realized what a fiend Maxwell is—I mean, what kind of a man would lend money to someone my age?—he tried to break off Ariadne’s engagement to him. He sent a note to Maxwell but before anything could be made public, before he could even tell Ariadne, even, that he had broken it off, there was a f-fire—”
“Easy, lad,” Colin said gently, in a voice he might’ve once used to steady a frightened midshipman.
“There was a . . . f-fire, and my father ran into the barn to try and save Shareb-er-rehh. He was the last of the Norfolk Thoroughbreds, but Father, he—he had an attack, and I was the one who . . . who . . . f-found him. Damn it, damn it all to hell—” The youth bent his brow to his fingers, unable to mask his grief from Colin’s sympathetic eyes. “And to think that my sister believes I came here to steal Shareb-er-rehh back. . . .”
Colin pulled himself to his feet. Swaying, he leaned heavily against Thunder’s stout old shoulder until the fog cleared from his brain and the waves of nausea and dizziness passed. It was then that he saw the shovel lying in the grass, the partially dug grave, the unconscious servant nearby. He had no doubts as to what his fate was supposed to have been.
“By the way,” he said, when the hitching sobs finally stopped, “thanks for saving my life.”
“Yeah. Well, I couldn’t just let the bastard bury you alive.”
The youth walked a little distance away, misery emanating from his proud, narrow shoulders as he gazed off into the night.
“So how do you propose to settle your accounts, then?” Colin asked, gently. “If you are not yet of age to claim your inheritance, it would seem that you have to give up Shareb-er-rehh in order to pay your debts, and will still lose him after all that your sister went through to keep him.”
“Mr. Lord—” Tristan faced him, his composure intact once more, his tone far older, wearier, than his face was. “Shareb is all I have. I had no choice.”
“No choice?” Colin stepped forward, the fingers of dread already inching up his spine. “What did you
do
, lad?”
Tristan kicked at a tuft of grass and looked away, his mouth hard.
“You signed the stallion over to Maxwell,” Colin said.
“No.”
“You plan to sell him and give the money to Maxwell, then.”
“No.”
“Then what on earth have you done?”
Tristan looked up, his eyes defiant. “I proposed a match race between Shareb-er-rehh and Black Patrick, and made a bet with Maxwell on its outcome. If Shareb wins, then Maxwell must not only publicly declare that the wedding between himself and my sister is off, he must release me from my debts. All of them.”
“And if Shareb loses?”
Tristan’s throat moved, and he turned away. “He can’t.”
Colin stepped forward, and grasped the youth’s shoulder. “I repeat, Tristan, if he loses?”
The wind suddenly whispered through the trees, making the leaves shake ominously above their heads.
“If he loses, ownership of both Shareb-er-rehh and Gazella goes to Maxwell, and I’m as good as dead.”
# # #
If anyone noticed that young Lord Weybourne’s personal groom bore a resemblance to the intruder that had been shot and buried in one of the far pastures, no one commented on it. If anyone noticed that Daley was unreasonably skittish and unable to meet anyone’s eyes, they never guessed the reason for it. And if anyone heard the Lady Ariadne’s pitiful sobs far into the middle of the night, no one, not even the maid that Maxwell had assigned to her, made any move to comfort her.
For their master was not a man to be crossed, and those who were in his employ knew that more than just their positions were at stake if they were to rouse his ire in any way. And so the household went about its business, Lord Weybourne—who insisted on seeing his sister—was assigned a room in a guest wing, and the servant Daley kept his silence, desperately praying that Maxwell would never find out that the man he was supposed to have killed had escaped and disappeared.
It was Daley’s most fervent wish that that man would not turn up in an unexpected—and close—place. Luckily, his tasks did not include anything remotely connected to the earl’s stable of prized thoroughbreds, and so it was that he did not recognize Lord Weybourne’s bespectacled, crippled groom for the man he actually was.
The idea of the disguise—and to get Tristan placed within the manor house in order to keep a watch over his sister—had been Colin’s. It was no difficult task to exaggerate the limp that would always pain him, and spectacles, a change of clothes, and a feigned, stooping gait was enough to fool anyone who might have gotten too close a look at him during his failed attempt to rescue Ariadne. He waited just long enough to make himself comfortable in his new role—and then he sent the young Lord Weybourne to bring his sister to him.
# # #
When a haggard-looking Ariadne was escorted to the parlor, she found a slim figure leaning against the mantle, hat and gloves in one hand, brow resting tiredly in the other.
With a shock, she realized it was her brother.
Her first impulse was to flee the room. Her second was to curse him for making her life hell these past few weeks, and forcing her to become a fugitive in order to save Shareb-er-rehh. He, like Father, had spent most of his life ignoring her, and yet here he was, wanting something from her. Shareb, most likely. She stared contemptuously at his drawn face, his elegant hands, and shot him her most withering look of disgust.
“I have nothing to say to you, Tristan. Good day.”