Does she know the effect she has on people? Michael thought. No wonder powerful men are in awe of her.
His arm still buzzed with the aftereffects of her touch. He felt as if he’d been stripped to his essence—just the base desires and failures of a man who’d lived an unexemplary life except for having fallen in love with two exemplary women.
His foot throbbed. Every step the horse took was like the whack of a small hammer on it. More concerning, he was starting to feel warm. He needed to attend to it. But he needed to attend to Nab and the people in the carriage first. The risk of certain death before the risk of potential death. That’s how they triaged it in war. And now he was in one.
“What do you think the duke will do when he finds out we disobeyed his orders?” he said.
“He’ll issue a warrant for our arrest. I can hardly blame him.”
“Nor can I. There’ll be no evidence to arrest Bridgewater or stop Morebright. I don’t suppose your rebels are going to be very happy either.”
She shifted in the saddle. “I’ve failed them. But I can’t sacrifice Nab or any of them. Not for a principle.”
“Let’s save them. We can worry about the rest when we finish.” If we finish.
A short time later, Undine brought the horse to a stop, and Michael focused his attention on the road before them. They’d passed a number of wagons and people walking in the last few hours, but no carriages. The last mile or so had been through a high, thistle-filled pass between two mountain ridges. He’d been too bleary to untangle what part of the Lowlands they were in, but now they stood at the highest point, looking down at the road curving out of sight into a densely wooded pass by a slender burn.
“Look,” she whispered.
At the edge of the road stood a carriage.
“It’s them.” She guided the horse to a place out of sight. “That’s one of Bridgewater’s carriages.”
Michael gazed at the carriage, so still, and a chill went through him. He could feel her worry. She had had the same thought he’d had. The horse flattened its ears and nickered unhappily.
A man in breeks and a cap burst from a tangle of briars near the carriage. He had a pistol in his hand.
She began to dismount and Michael caught her.
“No,” he said flatly. “Suicide.”
The man opened the carriage door and began to speak, though they couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“They’re alive,” she said.
“Someone is.”
The carriage was a hundred yards ahead of them. They couldn’t mount a sneak attack on horseback. The only way was on foot, and the trees reached almost to where they stood.
“Through there,” Michael said, pointing. “We’ll be hidden. We’ll have to leave the horse.”
She slipped off and secured the ties.
Michael followed, landing on his good foot, but the first halting step on his other foot made him ill with pain.
“Let me look,” she said, staring at his blood-soaked shoe.
The foot had swollen in the wet leather. “After,” he said. “If I don’t think about it too much—”
“If you don’t think enough, you’ll die.”
“Well, there’s a happy thought.”
She met his eyes. “What can they do in your time?”
“Forget it.”
“Michael, your wound is serious. I’ve seen men die from less. Will you die if you go home? You may die here.”
“Not of the infection,” he said sadly. “But I will of a broken heart.”
She opened her mouth to argue but stopped, overcome. “Damn you,” she said. “I don’t want to cry. Not now.” She swiped at her eyes angrily. “And I don’t want you to leave. But ye can’t ask me to watch you die. Ye can’t.”
He felt as if a knife was sawing him in two. “And you can’t ask me to leave the only happiness I’ve known in years.”
The carriage door slammed, and they turned. The man in the cap strode to the front and climbed on the driver’s box. But instead of gathering the reins or picking up a whip, he stood up and looked down the road in one direction, then in the other.
“I recognize him,” Undine said. “That’s Tom, one of Morebright’s servants. He’s the one who told Morebright I was in the reception room.”
“That’s going to complicate things.” Michael took a painful step forward. “I wonder what he’s waiting for. Do you see that overhang?” Michael pointed to a rocky outcropping ten or fifteen feet above them, extending from the cleft of the hill beside them. “Let’s see what we can see from up there.”
They slipped quietly up the rocky slope—Michael, with his gasps and sharp inhales, considerably less quietly than Undine, who moved like a mountain goat, jumping from stone to stone.
At the top, they had a view that extended for miles, but the only people they saw were a few men fishing at the shore of the burn beyond the woods.
“What do we have in the way of weapons?” Michael asked.
“We have a spent pistol and no more balls or gunpowder. There’s a sword on the saddle.”
“We can’t stop an ambush with that. Our best bet is to sneak down and free whoever’s in there.”
“And if the false clansmen arrive?”
The answer was obvious, and Undine sighed.
“Speed is our friend,” Michael said. “Let’s go before anyone else arrives.”
He followed Undine as they made their way back down the side. When he got to the bottom, he heard a click.
Bridgewater grabbed Undine from behind and held a pistol to her head. “Sorry to interrupt your plans with the carriage,” he said. “Where’s the letter?”
“Leave her alone,” Michael said. “She doesn’t know.”
“Oh, she knows. Morebright’s man found me at the church. He told me a very important letter went missing. Where is it?” he demanded, shaking her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Undine said.
He swung her in front of him and boxed her jaw. “Does that help you remember?”
Michael leapt on Bridgewater’s back, but Bridgewater jammed his boot on Michael’s foot, sending searing bolts of pain through him. Michael crumpled, and the orange twist of paper flew out of his shirt pocket and beyond his reach.
He looked. Bridgewater hadn’t seen it. But Undine had.
“Try that again,” Bridgewater said, “and you’ll have her brains all over you.”
Bridgewater tied Undine to a tree with rope from the horse. He tightened the rope around her wrists until she gasped.
Michael’s foot was bleeding profusely now, but all he could think about was Undine and Nab. Was Nab in that carriage? Did he have the papers? Would any of it matter? Michael pulled himself to sitting against a rock. The effort nearly made him pass out, but it brought him close enough to reach the orange paper.
Bridgewater was watching him, and his eyes narrowed.
Michael did everything he could to not let his gaze be drawn to the herbs.
A movement behind Bridgewater caught Michael’s attention.
Nab looked at him over the edge of a boulder, eyes wide with alarm.
Two women stood behind him, peeking too—one old, one young. Nab pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and held it so Michael could see. Was it the show of a successful mission or the offer of a tool to use for a reprieve from his present circumstances? The question in Nab’s eyes gave him the answer.
No. Michael made a barely perceptible shake of his head. The last thing he wanted was for three more people to be in danger.
Go, he mouthed.
Bridgewater grabbed a handful of Undine’s hair and pulled her chin up. “Where is the goddamned letter?”
“I have it,” Michael said.
“What?”
“The letter, you imbecile. You take your orders from a decrepit old lech now? I’m sure General Silverbridge will be happy to learn it. You pathetic fool.”
Bridgewater’s eyes glowed with fury. He released Undine and came to Michael. Michael braced himself, palms on the ground—one over the twist of paper. “Where is it?”
“You’ll have to search me, I guess.”
“I shall do that then,” Bridgewater said, stepping on the hand under which the paper lay. “But perhaps you’d prefer just to tell me where it is.”
The pain overwhelmed him, and Michael felt something in his hand snap. Bridgewater shoved his hand in Michael’s shirt pocket. “Nothing there. Take off your plaid.”
“I’ll need my hand,” Michael said.
“Use the other.”
Michael unbelted the wool and it puddled to the sides of his shirttails. Bridgewater jerked the wool free and shook it. “Now your shoes.”
Michael’s heart fell.
“Take them off.”
Michael extracted his throbbing hand from under Bridgewater’s boot and pulled the shoe off his good foot with his good hand. The second had to be torn off his swollen foot. Michael swallowed a cry as the sodden leather came free.
Bridgewater checked the heels and then threw the shoes aside. “I don’t see anything. Which leads me to believe the letter is somewhere much more interesting.” He returned to Undine and cupped her breast.
“Ah, how I wished this could have happened in a more leisurely way. I would have enjoyed having those legs wrapped around me while I took my ease. But tied up will work nicely too.” He tore the fabric of Undine’s bodice open, exposing her breasts. “Nothing in there.”
Michael grabbed the closest shoe and managed to peg Bridgewater in the head with it.
Bridgewater grabbed another length of rope from the horse, shoved Michael onto his stomach and tied his wrists.
Michael wished he were dead. He knew soon he would be. He thought Bridgewater would keep Undine alive, though he wondered if that would be worse for her than dying. He rolled to his side and began to work the rope. He’d played Houdini once in a play that had closed after three performances. He’d spent more time learning the lines than he had in front of an audience on that one, but he remembered quite clearly a trick that had involved escaping from bonds using the rope’s slack.
Bridgewater searched Undine roughly—down her thighs, under her skirts, and thoroughly within her bodice. The pleasure Michael would have expected him to take in this seemed to be replaced by fear as each potential hiding place was found to be empty. Bridgewater searched the horse next.
“Where is it?” he demanded. “Where?”
He raised the pistol to Undine’s head, but before he pointed the barrel, he came to a stop. “The boy,” he said, realization exploding on his face. “He’s got it.”
Bridgewater looked at them both and must have seen the truth on their faces. He began to pelt down the road toward the carriage.
“He can’t go down there,” Undine said.
“Nab’s safe. He’s in the rocks over there. He has the letter. Nab!”
“Thank the skies! But we still can’t let Bridgewater go there. The clansmen… Oh, Michael, you have to stop him.”
Michael, who had far less interest in protecting Bridgewater from his hired clansmen than she did, felt a piece of the knot give.
“Where is he?” a voice demanded.
Michael turned. The duke stood beside the horse Undine had stolen. He saw the front of Undine’s gown and averted his eyes, muttering an oath.
“Who?” Michael said. “Bridgewater?”
“I don’t give a damn about Bridgewater,” the general said angrily. “At this point, you’re as much of a problem to the army as he is.” He went to the back of the tree and began to untie Undine. “I want to find your colleague—the one with the letter. Or was that a lie too?”
“Don’t say a word, Undine,” Michael said. “The letter may be our only leverage.”
“You’ll need it,” the duke said. “You’re both under arrest. You’ve ruined a critical operation and destroyed what may be our only chance for peace. You’re under arrest until I decide what to do with you, though I’m tempted to give you both to the rebels. You’d not like what they do to traitors.”
“Michael,” Undine said urgently, looking at the carriage.
Did she truly wish to save Bridgewater? Then Michael remembered the other servants, the people the carriage driver was talking to.
The loop slipped free. He clawed his way to his feet and ran, fueled by Undine’s desire, as his body was too battered to carry on, on its own. Bridgewater had taken the road, but Michael followed the path through the trees, which he hoped would let him reach the carriage a few seconds earlier. Every other step was like a hot spike in his flesh. He heard the sounds of men’s voices coming from the direction of the burn. And he heard the crack of wood on wood as Bridgewater flung open the door of the carriage. He wouldn’t be first, but he may still be able to stop him.
Two men stepped out from behind a tree in front of him, one with a pistol. Michael recognized one as Tom, the servant at Morebright’s estate.
“What do you think you’re doing, laddie?” Tom said.
“We have to get to the carriage,” Michael said. “Bridgewater’s in trouble.”
Tom laughed a brutal laugh. “Bridgewater’s at the army camp with the general.”
“Kill him,” the other man said.
In one part of his head, Michael heard labored thrashing through the trees behind him and Undine crying, “Stop, Tom!” In another, he heard voices of the clansmen near the carriage. “There it is,” one said.
What he hadn’t expected was the electric shock of the ball tearing through his side or the charred, fleshy scent of the smoke that wove its way around him like a death shroud. He fell to his knees, then onto his face.
He knew he was dying.
“Michael,” Undine cried, her voice cutting through the slow-motion pain. “Go home. Please. Do it for me.”
Her face, so beautiful, and the duke’s behind it. He had a vague sense of something in his hand. He looked and almost smiled. The orange paper. Had she even told him how to use it? Then he remembered.
He lifted the paper, tore it open with his teeth, and shook it as the world went black.
The last thing he heard was a barrage of pistol shots and a terrified scream.