For three days Bess Arbra had been abed with a wicked cold that had brought her low. Chills, fever and a hacking cough kept her from her duties. Her father had seen to it. To him, her health was the most important thing in life. Even if it meant postponing his dream, he would see her well and fit before all else.
After working and saving his money for years to buy the old waystation at North End to turn it into an inn, he had delayed the opening until she was able to be there to reap the benefits.
Together they had remolded the waystation with their own hands. Hammering, thatching, painting and refinishing the tongue and groove floor, it was a labor of love. Exhausting and painful at times, but fulfilling. They could hardly wait to open the doors to their first customer.
Last eve, that customer had appeared.
And oh my, what a customer he had been. Stuck in her room at the Hound and Stag Inn she had been unable to greet him, usher him to a table, take his order and serve him. Her father had been the one to do that.
Waking to the sound of hoof beats clattering and crashing in the inn yard sometime around midnight, she’d thrown back the covers and gone to the window. She opened the shutters to peer out but all she could see was a handsome brute of a horse standing at the hitching post, one paw striking at the cobblestones. The rider had already dismounted and was tapping on the inn door. Even though she leaned out the casement window, she could not see him, though his deep voice could have raised the dead.
“Why is this door locked?” he shouted.
“We are not open yet, milord,” she heard her father say. “I was just about to blow out the lights.”
“Well, hell,” the potential customer said. “And here I am in need of sustenance after a busy night.”
His voice sent shivers down her spine to curl around her hips in search of their final destination in her lower belly.
“I’ve nothing to offer you but drink,” her father said. “The kitchen isn’t open and I’m no cook.”
“And I’m not hungry,” the stranger said. “‘Tis sustenance of the liquid variety I’m in need of. I’ve plenty of coin and it’s burning a hole in my pocket.”
“Then come in,” her father invited, chuckling.
She nearly fell out of the window trying desperately to put a face to that mesmerizing voice that held more than a touch of her native Chalean brogue. No doubt that was why her father had let him in.
Hastily wrapping her shawl around her, she went to her bedroom door and eased it open. The sound of male laughter drifted up to her. Her da was a gregarious man and him making a go of a public tavern was a given in her book. He never met a stranger. He made more friends than any man she’d ever known. It was his fun-loving personality and the compassion that was so easy to see in his big brown eyes. A big, soft bear of a man with arms the size of tree trunks, he was a gentle giant with a heart of gold.
Carefully making her way down from the top of the stairs, she was careful to step only on the planks she knew wouldn’t creak. It wouldn’t do to alert her da that she was out of bed and creeping about barefoot.
“The water was like ice,” the stranger said. “The moment I hit it I knew I’d fucked up.”
She blushed at the coarse language—language her da had warned her she would hear from time to time in the inn. Best get used to it now, she thought, as she pressed into the shadows midway down the stairs.
“Were there critters in there with you, lad?” her da asked.
“Something bit me on the leg,” the stranger replied.
“Did you take a look at the bite?” There was true concern in her da’s voice.
“Aye, but there wasn’t anything there to be worried about. A bit of redness.”
“Nevertheless, you might want to keep watch o’er it to be on the safe side, Declan.”
“You may be right,” the stranger agreed.
So, she thought, her father was already on a first-name basis with the stranger.
“Declan,” she said quietly, testing the name on her tongue. It was a good Chalean name that meant “full of goodness” in her native tongue. She wondered if he was a good man. His easy laughter and the way he spoke said he was, but who could tell from just the sounds a man made?
Sitting down on the stairs, leaning against the wall with the shawl clutched tightly around her shoulders, she listened to her father and the man named Declan carrying on a conversation that lasted nearly to the rising of the sun. By the time their first customer scraped back his chair, he was fully three sheets to the wind. Despite her father urging him not to, the stranger stumbled his way out of the taproom. As he passed the stairs, he turned his head and looked up at her. She was fairly sure he’d known she was there all along.
With a gasp, she pressed back into the darker shadows so he could not see her face.
“Milady,” he said, bowing—which almost cost him his balance. He had to scramble to catch the newel post to keep from pitching face down on the floor. “Oopsies.”
It was that one silly word that caused her to lose her heart to him.
That and the good look she got at his incredibly handsome and manly face. Though she couldn’t see them all that well, she could tell his eyes were a striking color of blue and the lopsided grin he bestowed upon her was so endearing it made her heart ache.
“I do believe I’m rather drunk, lass,” he muttered.
“I do believe you are, too, milord,” she surprised herself saying.
He swept his hand before him in a courtly gesture. “Then I shall take my leave until I am more fit company for you.”
With that, he staggered to the door, fumbled it open and ventured out into the first rays of the morning light.
She turned and ran up the stairs to the landing, through her bedroom to the casement window. Leaning out, she could only see the top of his head as he clumsily mounted his steed. The horse seemed to understand its rider’s condition for it stood still as after three attempts at getting his foot into the stirrup, the stranger finally managed to pull himself into the saddle.
“Home, James,” she heard him say.
The horse bobbed its head, turned from the hitching post and with what looked like very delicate steps carried his master across the uneven cobblestones and away.
“Get back in that bed this instant.”
Bess looked around—feeling the heat invading her cheeks—and made quick work of diving under the covers.
“Nosy miss,” her father said. He came over to tuck the quilt securely around her.
“Our first paying customer,” she said, hoping to mask her true reason for spying.
“I shouldn’t have let the little bugger ride off but he was resolute, and with a man like that…” He shrugged, his words trailing off.
“A man like what, Papa?” she asked.
“Dangerous,” her father replied. “And determined.” He reached down to smooth the hair back from her forehead. “Now stay put.” He leaned over, kissed her forehead then left her to think about the handsome stranger she had seen at the foot of their stairs.
She crawled under the covers and turned to her side, clasping her hands together under her pillow and drawing up her knees. It was how she slept each night. Her father had once joked it must have been how she slept in her mother’s womb.
“‘As your child will sleep in yours,’” he’d said.
That memory made her sigh heavily. A child was not something she had ever wanted. Her dreams were not of husband and family but of living her life on her own terms. Running the best inn in the country where the elite came to sup and wile away the hours. Taking lovers if she so wished. Being the mistress of a rich and powerful man but having his children?
“Not for me,” she mumbled as she closed her eyes.
Before she and her father had come to buy the inn, she had taken precautions to make sure an unwanted pregnancy never happened.
“Better to be safe than sorry,” she said with a yawn.
The image of the handsome stranger flashed across the darkness and she smiled. Mayhap he would be back. She drifted into sleep with his beguiling, lopsided grin chasing her down into the darkness.
* * * * *
A bath might have taken the stink off him but had done nothing to help the vicious hangover that was still plaguing him. Not even Meg’s foul brew had put a dent in the armor that was squeezing his head like a vise. He’d gone straight from the bath back to bed and now that the sun was nearly down, he was hungry, thirsty and itching to be about his business. After dressing, he opened his room door and came up short.
“Good day, Your Grace,” the burly servant said with a slight bow.
“What are you doing, Jasper?” Dec asked.
“Helping you to walk the straight and narrow or so’s I’ve been told,” Jasper Hawkins replied with a gap-toothed smile. His red bulbous nose was only marginally lighter than the mop of ginger hair atop his overlarge head.
“How exactly are you helping me to do that, Jasper?” Dec inquired through clenched teeth.
“I’m to accompany you wherever you go here in the keep.”
Dec narrowed his eyes. “And beyond the keep?”
“There be two more men who’ll be riding with you when you go beyond the walls of the keep.”
“Oh, they will, will they?” Dec snarled.
“I was told to tell you there be guards outside your window, too,” Jasper said then shook his head sadly. “You done went and made His Grace angry ’bout somethin’ I’m reckoning. We was told not to let you out of our sight.”
Dec dug his fingernails into his palm. “Do you know where my father is at the moment?”
“Not at the moment, no, milord. He rode out a while ago. Said he wouldn’t be back for supper.” Jasper leaned closer. “Bet he’s seeing that Lady Gay?”
He opened his mouth to chastise the servant for gossiping but then realized with his father gone, he shouldn’t have too much trouble slipping past his jailers. He forced a smile to his lips.
“Mayhap he is and let’s hope she makes him happy,” he told Jasper. He clapped Jasper on the shoulder. “Well, come along. I’ve got a helluva appetite. Have you eaten yet?”
* * * * *
Cook had always had a soft spot in her heart for the young earl. From the time he was a toddler she had made special treats for him. His favorite was a chocolate-covered coconut candy with pieces of chopped cherry and pecans mixed inside. It was her own invention she called tin soldier for she formed the confection inside a gingerbread man mold and piped it in edible silver paint. When she sat two of the treats in front of him after his meal, he did what he always did—slipped his arm around her waist and hugged her.
“You spoil me, Suz,” he told her.
“If I don’t, who will?” she asked and with years of loving him like a son and having that love returned, she reached out to smooth his curly hair. “You need a haircut, lad.”
“Aye,” he acknowledged. “I’ll get one when I’m in Iomal tomorrow.”
“Is that wise, milord? His Grace is on the warpath,” she said, exchanging a look with Jasper who was sitting at the table with the young man. “Best you be staying closer to home for a while.”
“I’ve business in Iomal,” Dec stated. “Business that can’t be put off.”
“That’s where they say the Gypsy has his hideout,” Jasper said. He sopped up the last of the gravy from the roast beef on his plate and plopped the soggy bread into his mouth. “Hear tell the red coats are crawling all over the place.”
Dec looked at him. “When did you hear that?”
“Just this morn,” Jasper replied. “Man came by to tell His Grace about the robbery last eve. He said the red coats got a new captain and he’s got spit in his eye ’bout catching the Gypsy.”
“Did he give the name of the new man?”
“Penry, I believe is what he said,” Jasper said, pushing his plate away now that it was bare of even a morsel of food.
“Royce Penry?” Dec wanted clarified.
“That sounds ’bout right.”
“Shit,” Dec said under his breath.
That was all he needed. He and Penry had hated one another since they were in short pants. Though they had been in separate regiments in His Majesty’s Royal Marines, they had sparred together often at the inter-regimental maneuvers. Penry’s commission as a second lieutenant was only a few months longer than Dec’s. They had been pitted against one another in mock battles that Dec’s regiment always won. The bad feelings between the two had grown in leaps and bounds. Penry had been the one to instigate many of the charges that had been brought against Declan and had testified before the Regimental Court when Dec was dismissed from service. Now that Penry was a captain with his own regiment, the man would be even more insufferable.
And posed a sharper danger to him. If Penry so much as suspected Dec was the Gypsy he would double his efforts in apprehending him and there would be no arrest. Penry would execute him on sight.
Troubled by this new development, Dec asked Cook to keep the tin soldiers safe for him.
“You’ll not be having at least the one?” she asked, hurt showing on her lined face.
“I’ll eat them both when I return,” he said. He pushed his chair back, scowled when Jasper did the same. He turned narrowed eyes on the taller, heftier man. “Are you going to wipe my arse for me, too?”
Jasper’s ruddy face turned darker but he bobbed his head. “If needs be, Your Grace.”
“Stop that,” Dec snapped. “Since when have you ever called me that?”
“Always a first time,” Jasper replied.
Dec leaned in, kissed Cook on the cheek then mumbled, “Well, stop doing it.”
With Jasper following close behind him, Dec left the kitchen where he preferred eating when he could and exited the door to the walkway that led to the stables. Out of sorts and striving to keep his temper in check, he didn’t fail to notice the two men who fell in behind Jasper. Grinding his teeth, he increased his speed until he reached the stable.
“You want him saddled, Your Grace?” asked the stable boy who’d come running as soon as Dec approached him.
“Aye, Stevie. Thank you,” Dec said and forced a smile to his lips. It wasn’t the lad’s fault he was being shadowed.
He knew once he was atop the stallion he could outrun the bloodhounds whose mounts were already saddled and waiting.
“Figured I’d be going out this eve, did you?” he snarled at the older of the two men.
“His Grace thought you would,” the man replied.
“Think you can keep up with me?” he challenged.
“Aye, Your Grace,” the man stated. “We know we can.”
Smirking to himself, Dec leaned against a timber upright as the stable boy led the big black horse out of its stall. He’d helped at the birthing of the animal and had trained it himself. There were times he didn’t need to give directions to the beast; it seemed to read his moods and anticipate what he wanted. Fleet of foot and strong, Warlock was a purebred Rysalian. His coat glistened in the sun with a bluish shimmer to the jet-black flanks. Standing at seventeen hands tall, the stallion was a hot-blooded brute but as loyal as the day was long. It whickered as soon as it caught sight of its owner.
Berating himself for not bringing a treat for the beast, Dec pushed away from the beam and went over to rub Warlock’s head, smooth his hand down its neck, speaking softly to him in Chalean. The horse stood still as he was being saddled but there was a gleam in its black eyes that gave notice the beast was ready to run.
“Don’t worry, boy. We’ll lose them soon enough,” he said in the language he had learned at his mother’s knee. There wasn’t a horse in his father’s stable that could keep pace with the Rysalian stallion much less catch it.
Warlock bobbed its head as though it understood.
Once the animal was saddled, Dec vaulted into the saddle without warning and the horse needed no encouragement to leave the stable yard.
“Your Grace, wait,” Dec heard one of the shadows yell after him as he and his partner scrambled to mount their steeds.
“Catch me if you can,” he chuckled then drummed his heels against Warlock’s belly.
Racing away from the keep with the warm wind pressing against his face, he urged the mount to stretch its legs and Warlock accommodated him with a long, fluid stride that quickly left his pursuers in the red clay dust billowing behind its hooves.
* * * * *
The road to Iomal wove a serpentine path through lush green hills and past a narrow silver-shot stream edged with cattails that undulated down to the bridge at Dead Man’s Crossing. The bridge spanned the pitch-black waters of the Flint River and sat only a few hundred feet from a dark, forbidding limestone cave known by the locals as Black Chasm Hole—the opening to which was covered in dense vines. Beneath the graceful arch of the wooden bridge the river flowed briskly. It was rumored many a living thing had lost its life in the rapid current and deep waters that ran into the cave, and those who got trapped inside the fissure were never seen again, their bodies never recovered.
Slowing Warlock to a walk as he neared the bridge, Dec looked around him. He had long since lost his shadows but Jasper would have told them his intended destination, so he knew they would be coming to the bridge soon enough. Making sure there were no eyes spying on him, he clucked his tongue and urged the animal down the slippery bank and into the water.
He did not worry the steed would balk at entering the fast-moving water. They had made this trek many a time and the beast knew what most men didn’t: the water looked deep and dangerous but at that point—about ten feet from the first plank of the bridge floor—the depth was less than a foot. Warlock moved into the current with barely a stiffening of its body and headed straight for the straggly vines draped over the cave’s entrance. Sweeping aside the thick growth with his arm, ducking beneath the low-hung rim of the opening, Dec maneuvered his mount into the stygian darkness. Once inside, he began to count slowly. When he reached twenty, he halted the horse and stretched out his right hand to feel along the rough, craggy wall. He found the lantern he had placed there years before and plucked it from its niche. Shaking the lamp to see how much oil was left and making a mental note to bring more when next he came, he balanced the lantern on his pommel then reached into his pocket for a match. With a hiss light flared in the darkness to illuminate the eerie underground grotto. After adjusting the brightness to a softly muted glow, he held the lantern aloft and lightly drummed his heels against Warlock’s sides.
Black Chasm Hole stretched far back into the gently rolling hillside beyond Iomal. It wound through a chamber adorned with stalactites and stalagmites, past a strange, eerie-green grotto then sloped gradually downward until it came to an intersection. Tugging the reins to the left, Dec moved his steed into the smaller of the two byways that intersected the main gallery. It was a tight squeeze, and considering Dec was claustrophobic, he was sweating profusely by the time a faint light shown about ten yards ahead. He had to force himself to extinguish the lantern when he spied the peg upon which he would leave it for his return trip.
“Almost there, boy,” he said softly for sound carried within the cave system.
His words were as much for himself as they were for his mount. The swift flowing water made him uneasy. It brought back the bitter memories of slamming into the frigid, churning waters off the coast of Madragil. Of going under, clawing his way to the surface, turning around and around in the waves in a vain attempt to locate his mother and brother. Of diving into the dark maelstrom as the ship slowly sank—taking its passengers with it. Of screaming the two names that were the only lifeline he had to throw to them.
Of failing.
His mother. His brother. His father.
Himself.
He’d fought the waves for as long as he could before helping the only other survivor to the rocky shore. There he had sat—shivering and crying—never taking his eyes from the spot where the Molly Celeste had gone down. Staring mindlessly at the debris washing against the craggy cliffs and scattered amid the incoming tide.
It was the one task of utter importance he’d been handed, and he’d fallen short of what had been expected of him. His belief in himself had run aground just as surely as the ship had capsized beneath him.
A fitting metaphor for his life, he thought.
Ruined.
Defeated.
The water beneath Warlock’s hooves was a vivid reminder of the disaster that was Declan Farrell.
Beneath the hooves of the steed the path began a steady incline. By the time rider and beast crested the rise, another cave entrance led them out into a thick copse of trees. Leaving the Black Chasm Hole behind, Dec turned Warlock to the west.
And ran right into Jackson McGregor.
* * * * *
“Where the hell did you come from?” Dec demanded, unnerved to find his boyhood friend in such a remote spot.
“Did you forget we found that cave together?” Jack asked. He was sitting with his arms folded over his chest, his hat pushed back on his thick, curly blond hair, one leg crossed over the pommel of his saddle.
“Are you following me?”
“I saw you leave the keep and thought I’d tag along. Figured since you made it a point to tell everyone where you weren’t going, you’d come through the Hole.” Jack grinned. “On your way to where, exactly?”
“None of your business,” Dec snapped.
“Not familiar with that place. Rather anxious to see if for myself,” Jack returned. He threw his leg over his horse’s head, stuck the toe of his boot in the stirrup and took up the reins. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“Fuck you, McGregor,” Dec told him. “I’ve business in Wixenstead and I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Oh, I know what you need, Farrell,” Jack said. “But the sun is over the yardarm. Why don’t we stop at the new inn between here and there and have a tankard or two.”
Dec growled then kicked Warlock into a gallop. He had no need to turn around to see if Jack was following. He knew he would be racing right behind him.
Which complicated matters immensely.
A diplomatic courier would be taking the road to Wixenstead this eve. Under the fall of night when he did not believe he would be observed, the rider would be carrying important papers to the Royal Marine command post in Gilhaven. Among those papers would be the routes the tax collectors would be taking over the next few weeks. Included would be the number of outriders who would be accompanying each tax collector. The more outriders, the more valuable the cargo. It was imperative Dec get a look at what was inside the courier’s pouch. Having Jack traipsing behind him was an impediment he did not need.
Coming out of the forest into a large open expanse of meadow, Dec ignored Jack when his friend pulled alongside him. He could feel Jack staring at him—no doubt grinning like a fool—and that set his temper rising and his nerves on edge. He had a job to do and having Jack following his every move would put a major crimp in his plans.
“What’s the name of that new inn?” he asked, not bothering to look at Jack.
“The Hound and Stag,” Jack supplied.
“The Hound and Stag,” Dec said under his breath. He’d been there the evening before and drank himself into a stupor after he’d robbed four of the Duke of Oxmoor’s uppity party guests. He winced thinking how he had roused the landlord so rudely yet the man had been cordial despite the inn not having opened as yet.
He also remembered the young woman who had been sitting on the stairs spying on them.
The landlord’s wife? He wondered. Surely not, for he was no doubt in his fifties and she had appeared to be in her late teens.
Daughter? Ward? Most likely she was one or the other although…
She could be an indentured servant.
That thought made him frown.
“What brought that expression on?” Jack asked.
Dec turned to look at his friend. “What expression?”
“The one that said you got a good whiff of somebody’s stinking turd,” Jack replied.
“I’m riding beside a stinking turd,” Dec groused. “Does that count?”
“You need to get your wick waxed,” Jack told him. “And the sooner, the better. Fairling and I were discussing that just this…”
Dec sawed on the reins; Warlock protested with an irritated whinny. “I know gods-be-damned well you were not discussing my sex life with Fairling!”
Jack reined his mount, wheeled it around to face Dec. “She was the one who said you needed a woman to take you in hand.”
“I have women who will take me in hand,” he snapped. “And mouth.”
“Who, Meg?” Jack said then blew a raspberry.
“I won’t have it, McGregor,” Dec yelled at him. “Do you hear me?”
“Partially deaf men five counties over from here heard you, Farrell,” Jack replied. “Want to try for six counties?”
“Fuck. You,” Dec said then sent Warlock into a gallop.
“I’m not the one you need to fuck,” Jack shouted after him.
* * * * *
The door opened and Bess almost dropped the tray upon which were full tankards of ale that she was carrying.
It was him, she thought, stopping in mid-step to stare at the scowling man who came storming into the taproom. An equally handsome—yet jovially grinning—man trailed close behind him. Without so much as sparing her a glance, the dark-haired god strode over to a table in the corner, jerked the chair back and sat down with a loud grunt.
“That time of the month for him,” the blond said, winking at her as he passed. “Two pints, if you will, milady.”
“Right away, milord,” she said and caught herself before she could bob a curtesy and spill the ale for a certainty.
Hurrying to deliver the five tankards to the men who were eyeing the newcomers with suspicion, she placed the drinks on their table.
“Who’s the toff?” one of the men asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” she said though she remembered his first name was Declan.
“That ain’t the duke’s boy, is it?” another one asked quietly. “The Black Earl of Dungannon?”
“Well poke my boar and call him a sow if it ain’t,” a third man proclaimed. “Lord Declan Farrell, it is.”
Bess slowly turned her own gaze to the two men in the corner and her infatuation with the dark-haired man got stronger even as her hopes of catching his eye plummeted. He looked to be in a hell of a sour mood if his clenched fist and pursed lips were any indication.
“Best not keep the likes of him waiting, Bessie,” the first gentleman advised. “He’s got the devil’s own temper, they say, and he already looks outta sorts.”
Since her father had gone into the storeroom to tap a new keg, Bess was the only one serving in the taproom. Slipping the tray beneath her arm, she wiped her hands on her apron and all but ran to the bar to fetch the pints that had been called for. As she poured the brew her heart was pounding brutally against her ribcage. She’d never seen a man as handsome as Lord Declan—not that she’d seen all that many good-looking men in her nineteen years—and his looks had surely bewitched her. She saw the blond man glance over at her and smiled tremulously at him as she poured the second pint. He smiled back then leaned in to say something to his companion.
Then Bess wished the floor beneath her slippers would open wide for the Earl turned his head to look at her, too, and as their gazes met, his blue eyes widened.
* * * * *
“Mother of the goddess,” Dec whispered. The girl behind the bar had to be the one he’d seen on the stairs the night before but he had not gotten a look at her face. Now that he had, he felt as though someone had slammed a meaty fist into his gut. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her golden dark skin was flawless and it shone with vibrant health. There was a glow about her, an aura—as the gypsies called it—that drew him like iron filings to a magnet. He couldn’t take his eyes from her. His fingertips itched to touch her sleek, glossy black hair. To roam over her caramel skin and trace the sweet curve of her spine. Drift across her belly and dip between her thighs. His mouth watered to taste her lips. The sight of those voluptuous lips did wicked things to his lower body. He ached with the need to ease his body over hers.
“Gorgeous, huh?” he heard Jack asked. “If I wasn’t a married man…”
“Shut up,” Dec ordered. He swung his head toward Jack. “I mean it. Not another gods-be-damned word about her.”
Jack’s mouth dropped open, his eyebrows shot up and he blinked.
Declan watched her as she came from around the bar and headed for his table. The soft grey cotton gown she wore did not do her lush figure justice. This was a woman who should be dressed in the finest Chrystallusian silk, the most elegant Ionarian satin trimmed with the best Chalean lace. Jewels should drape from her lovely, swan-like neck and around her slender wrists. Her thick ebony hair hung down her back in a loose braid but it should be spilled about her shoulders—the rich, shiny tresses caressing a man’s bare body.
And her eyes, he thought as she reached the table, were as black as midnight and with a bright sheen that pulled him deep into their depths. He could happily drown in that sultry gaze.
“Two pints, Your Grace,” she said, placing his tankard before him.
“What is your name, milady?” he asked. He was aware his gaze was devouring her and she knew it, as well. The smile that spread over her rosy lips made him ache.
“Elizabeth, Your Grace, but my da calls me Bess.”
“You are from Chale,” he said, thrilled by her Chalean brogue.
“Aye, milord,” she acknowledged. “We are Crónórgan though some mistakenly think we are Black Chale.” She put Jack’s tankard on the table then turned her full gaze on Declan. “You, on the other hand, I would say are true Black Chalean with your dark hair and blue eyes. Am I right?”
“My mother was from Chale and I was born there,” he said. “I have a fond spot for Chalean lasses.”
Her smile widened. “That’s good to hear.”
“I was here last eve,” he told her and saw Jack’s stunned expression turn to something to which he couldn’t put a name.
“I saw you,” she said.
“I saw you, too,” he told her. “Though you were hiding your beauty in the shadows.”
She blushed at his compliment. How refreshing, he thought, for a woman to have modesty. Those he had known over the years—with the exception of his mother and Cook—did not know the meaning of the word.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said. “Can I get you anything else?”
“What’s on your menu tonight?” Jack asked.
Dec kicked him under the table.
“Ow,” Jack yelped. He shot Dec a look Dec had no trouble understanding.
“We have mutton stew if you would care to try it,” she said. “I made it myself and I’m told I am good cook.”
“Then by all means, if your sweet hands made it, we’ll take two bowls,” Dec said.
She laughed and his entire world cantered off to one side. Birds sang in the trees. Rainbows appeared over pots of gold. Roses bloomed. Primal lust drove red-hot into his groin. It took him a moment to realize she had left the table.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jack hissed at him. “You damned near broke my leg.”
“Go home,” Dec ordered, not looking at him. When Jack didn’t move, he turned his full attention on his friend. “Go home, McGregor. Now. This minute. This very second. Get up and go. Leave. Bye-bye. Slán.”
Jack slumped back in his chair. “By the gods, you have gone ’round the bend.”
Dec narrowed his eyes to emphasis his words. “That was an order from your earl, McGregor. Leave now.”
“Are you going on the coach road tonight?” Jack countered.
“Am I what?” Dec asked, but he knew. He knew! Jack was privy to his secret as surely as he was sitting there glaring sternly at him.
“How did you get past me last eve to come here?” Jack demanded.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dec growled. Had Jack seen him on the coach road?
“You may not give a gods-be-damn about your own foolhardy neck, Declan, but there are those of us who have great affection for you,” Jack said. “The last thing we want is to have you taken from us as your mother and Eion were taken from you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dec said, trying to deflect the censure he saw building in his friend’s blue eyes.
“You are not a stupid man,” Jack snapped. “Please do not…” He stopped as Bess returned with two oversized bowls filled with steaming stew. He smiled up at her. “It smells heavenly, milady.”
“Thank you, milord,” she said, beaming. “I didn’t bake the bread but I pledge to you it is very good. A lady down the way will be bringing it fresh to us each morn.”
“I am sure it will be just what the doctor ordered,” Jack said.
She bobbed a curtsy, gave Dec a look that set his blood to boiling then asked if she could get them anything else.
“I think we’re good for now,” Jack answered for them.
When she tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, Dec had to dig his fingernails into his palms to keep from groaning. One did not groan with lust while in the midst of a fierce argument with one’s friend. It simply wasn’t done.
With a saucy wink she was gone, making her way to a newcomer who had just entered the inn.
Jack leaned over the table, his voice low but insistent. “Please do not take me for a stupid man, either.” He finished what he had been about to say before Bess interrupted him. “I know precisely what you are about and if you don’t cease, you are going to get yourself killed or worse.”
“What’s worse than getting myself killed?” Dec snapped as he reached for the salt.
“Hanging, drawing and quartering?” Jack countered. “Tarred and feathered then hanged, drawn and quartered? At the very least being branded a thief then clapped in irons and chained naked to a slimy dungeon wall for the remainder of what will surely be a very short life amid the rabidly insatiable rats prowling the Labyrinth Prison?”
“You make it all sound like such fun,” Dec mumbled.
Jack snaked out a hand and grabbed hold of Dec’s wrist, preventing him from bringing the spoonful of stew to his lips. “Jest if you will but it isn’t funny, Declan. I am worried about you.”
“Don’t,” Dec said. “I am perfectly capable of doing what I have set out to do.” He tried to pull his hand back, but Jack kept possession of it. “Will you rein it in? Someone needs to help those who cannot help themselves. It might as well be me.”
“Since you could not help your mother, Eion or the cabin steward from the Molly Celeste?”
Dec flinched but held Jack’s angry stare. “Give me some credit for not being a reckless fool, Jackson,” he asked. “I am careful.”
“Who else knows?” Jack queried. “Other than your father and probably Lord Jamie?”
“Why would you think…?”
“Jasper wasn’t trailing you for no reason, you idjut. Those two galloping like the wind after you when you left the keep had been sicced on you by your father. You know I know that’s the way of it.” He tightened his grip on Dec’s wrist. “Who else knows?”
“Other than you and I assume Fairling?” Dec hissed. “No one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Aye, I’m sure. I would know if…”
“You didn’t know I was privy to your lunacy,” Jack reminded him.
“I knew you would be eventually,” Dec said. “As nosy as you are.” He jerked his arm from Jack’s hold.
“At least you admit it is lunacy on your part,” Jack snapped.
“Eat your gods-be-damned stew and for the love of the gods let me eat mine.”
Jack pursed his lips. He grabbed up his spoon and filled it, brought it to his mouth then gasped as the scalding meat burned his tongue.
“Serves you right,” Dec told him.
“Bastard.”
“Asshole,” Dec returned.
They ate in silence—relishing every spoonful of the delicious stew. Big chunks of mutton swam in a thick, rich gravy alongside carrots, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, celery and wedges of succulent onions. It was hearty faire—peasant faire—expertly prepared. The hot, crusty bread to sop up the gravy was like manna from the heavens.
“A girl who looks like that and cooks like this should…”
“What did I say?” Dec snapped. “Did I tell you not to speak of her?”
Jack frowned. “Be left alone,” he finished.
Dec went absolutely still. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “What did you say?”
“Obviously she knows who you are and is setting her cap for you,” Jack told him. “You want a good case of the clap?”
Fury lanced through Dec so rapidly it made his head swim. He was about to get to his feet when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Before he could shrug it off, a voice he had hated for a good many years cut through his anger.
“Fancy meeting you here, Farrell, old chap.”
Swinging his gaze up to a face he could have gone the rest of his life without seeing up close, he rolled his shoulder to rid it of the man’s grip.
“Penry,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Still hobnobbing with the underlings, I see,” Royce said, flicking a disdainful glance over Jack.
“Still being a horse’s ass, I see,” Dec replied.
“What are you doing here?” Royce inquired.
“I know you were several levels behind me at the academy but even you should be able to realize I am having my supper with a good friend,” Dec told him. He smiled nastily. “Or is that assumption above your mental capabilities–as so many, many things are?”
Penry’s face turned hard as stone. His muddy brown eyes glittered with rage at the insult but he maintained his correct military bearing, though his tight voice betrayed the emotions roiling through him.
“Be careful what you say to me, Farrell. I am the commandant of the garrison at Gilhaven.” He raised his chin. “I am Captain Penry now.”
“That and a copper penny won’t get you much,” Dec quipped.
“I am the law here!”
“And that’s supposed to intimidate me?” Dec questioned.
“It should put the fear of the gods in you,” Royce snapped.
“Well, it doesn’t,” Dec said. He leaned back in his chair and tilted his head to one side. “Put on quite a bit of weight, haven’t you?” He surveyed his nemesis stem to stern. “You’ve actually got a gut beginning to flop over your belt.”
Penry opened his mouth but the words never left his lips. He looked past Dec to where Bess was coming into the taproom from the kitchen. The man’s eyes turned hot and speculative. “Well, now what do we have here?” he asked. “A very pretty woman of color.”
“Go anywhere near her and I’ll carve your heart from your chest,” Dec told him.
His enemy slowly lowered his gaze to Dec. “Are you threatening a Regimental Captain, Farrell?” he asked in a deadly tone. “Do you dare?”
“I don’t make threats, Penry. I make promises and I keep them.”
Aware Penry’s hand had moved toward the hilt of the sword sheathed at his side and that he himself was not armed, Dec laid his hand over the knife beside his plate. He knew he could plunge the utensil into Penry’s chest before the man ever drew his weapon.
Penry knew it as well. He let his hand fall to his side. “This isn’t over,” he said.
“It is if you keep well away from the lady,” Dec stated.
“And if I don’t?” Royce demanded.
“Then you’ll suffer the consequences of yet another of your stupid mistakes,” Dec replied. “You’ve never won a battle against me, Penry, and you aren’t going to do so now.”
“I could have you arrested for…”
“For what?” Dec interrupted him. “Telling a toy soldier he has no authority over me?”
“You may well be surprised at the extent of the authority I have over you, Farrell.”
“Aye, well having the authority and being man enough to execute it are two entirely different things, old man,” Dec said. He folded his arms over his chest. “You want to make a run at me? Go ahead. I’ll be waiting.”
“When I do, you’ll never see me coming,” Penry snapped then swiveled on his heel and marched out of the taproom. The air in the room changed immediately, the charge gone.
“You do know what you just did, don’t you?” Jack asked softly.
“Reinforced his hatred of me?” Dec said. He picked up the napkin that Bess had left beside his plate and wiped his lips. “Tweaked his pointed nose?”
“No, you just gave him leverage over you,” Jack stated. “You showed him a weakness he’s been searching for since we were boys.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You let Penry know you are interested in that girl.”
Bess came over to their table, a worried look on her face. “Is something wrong, Your Grace?” she asked.
“Nothing a heavy boulder rolling over that fool who just left here wouldn’t cure,” Dec joked.
“Who is he?”
“He is a captain in the Royal Marines,” Jack answered for him. “The new commandant of the command post in Gilhaven. I’m surprised he wasn’t wearing full Regimental regalia.”
Dec snorted but his gaze and his full attention was steady on the beautiful woman standing beside him.
“They must have sent him here to catch the Gypsy,” Bess said. “I will pray every night he fails at his job.”
“You and me both,” Jack mumbled.
“Do you think your father would allow you to take a walk with me, milady?” Dec inquired.
A look of triumph passed quickly over Bess’s face a moment before the smile returned to her lovely face.
“I believe milady is working,” Jack said.
“After the taproom has closed, of course,” Dec amended.
“That will be well after midnight, I imagine,” Jack stated.
Dec turned his eyes to his friend. “It never fails to amaze me how you come up with such needless information.”
“Milady has spent the day working,” Jack reminded him. “I’m sure she’s tired. This is, after all, the first day the inn has been open. I would think you would have a care for her health. She sounds as though she’s getting over a cold.”
“I do have a care for her health,” Dec said. “I’m not asking her to run pell-mell across the meadow with me, McGregor.”
“Let it go, Declan,” Jack warned. “I believe you said you had business in Iomal.”
“Best you leave now, milord,” she told him. “And be careful as you ride out. The highwayman strikes around these parts regular like. You wouldn’t want to fall prey to him.”
Those words almost made Dec laugh. He felt the eyes of the landlord on him and looked that way. Patrick Arbra held his gaze for a long time and a tremor of concern wiggled its way down Dec’s back. There was no doubt in his mind the man was aware of who—and what—he was. How many more people were to be privy to the secret? Was he giving himself away so easily?
“We should go,” Jack suggested then in a lower, more forceful voice. “Now.”
Although he didn’t think the landlord would betray him unless Dec hurt his daughter in some way, he thought it best to follow Jack’s suggestion. He nodded, got to his feet, reached into his pocket for money to pay for the meal then went to the door. Every eye was on them as Jack retrieved his hat from the rack on the wall beside the portal.
“Ride safely, Your Grace,” Patrick told him.
He nodded and opened the door. Once outside in the darkness, he turned his face to the full moon threading its way through the clouds.
“All I wanted to do was talk to her,” he told Jack.
“You wanted more than that and well you know it,” Jack snapped. “Mount up and let’s get the hell out of here before someone goes looking for that gods-be-damned bounty they put on your head.” He went to his horse and snatched the reins from the hitching post.
“Bounty?” Dec queried. “They’ve posted a bounty?”
Jack swung into the saddle. “Surely you knew that was going to happen. It’s a hefty one at that.”
“How much?”
“One hundred gold pieces,” Jack told him.
“That’s all?” he asked as he mounted Warlock.
“Wait a while,” Jack snarled. “Rob a few more stagecoaches and the price will be sure to go up.”
“What is your problem, McGregor?”
“You were going to tup that girl,” Jack accused. “As sure as I’m sitting atop this horse, you were going to do what you do best.”
“Weren’t you the one who told me I needed to get tupped?” Dec asked. “Don’t you think that’s talking out of both sides of your mouth, McGregor?”
“You’re drunk. The hell with you,” Jack said and kicked his mount into motion.
Dec sat there on his horse until Jack was a hundred or so yards away then sighed deeply. He had three choices as he saw it. He could either go after Jack to ride home with him, cut across country to Wixenstead to waylay the diplomatic courier or stay where he was in the hope Bess would come outside at some point so he could talk to her.
There was a fourth choice. He could rent a room for the night. The Hound and Stag was more than a tavern. There were rooms above the taproom. He would be close to Bess and that was something he wanted more than anything. The ache in his groin needed seeing to.
Jack had accused him of being drunk but he’d not touched one drop of the pint she had brought him. He was stone-cold sober—a rare condition for him. He was completely in control of his thoughts and actions although his mind was teeming with things he wanted to do with her.
He squinted but could no longer see Jack in the shadows of the night or hear the sound of his horse’s hoofbeats.
It was an hour’s ride to Iomal. Two hours back to the keep. Half an hour to Wixenstead.
He looked up at the window above his head and was just in time to see a head pull back from the opening. He smiled. She was watching him. He walked Warlock over to the spot directly under her window, pulled his whip from where it was looped around his pommel, rose up in the stirrups and tapped the whip handle on the shutter.
“Go home, milord,” she said.
“Come to the window,” he countered.
He waited for what seemed like forever then she appeared framed in the window opening. The light behind her made a halo around her sleek hair.
Somewhere in the darkness there came a creaking sound. He snapped his head around and saw the stable-wicket—a small gate—moving. In the opening between the edge of the gate and the jamb, he saw the hostler peering at him.
“‘Tis only Tim,” Bess told him. “He is feebleminded.”
“Does he usually spy on you?” he asked, tearing his gaze from the moon-faced man.
“He calls himself watching over me,” she said. “You should go, milord. The roads are not safe at night.”
He sighed. “Still trying to get rid of me. You are going to give me a complex, milady.”
“Naught good will come of this, milord,” she said.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Because I do,” she said. She stepped back and pulled the shutters over the window, shutting him out.
“Bess,” he hissed but she did not answer. Instead, the light went out in her room.
Warlock pawed the ground—anxious to run—and whinnied softly.
“Aye,” he said on a long sigh. “That’s exactly how I feel.” He wheeled the beast away from the inn.
* * * * *
Bess pressed her back against the wall beside the shuttered window and smiled. Her heart was racing beneath the bodice of her gown. She put a hand to her chest, took a deep breath and shivered.
“His eyes,” she said. “He has the most beautiful eyes.”
Eyes that sparkled as they looked at her.
He was interested. By the sweet gods, he was as interested in her as she was in him and that thrilled her so completely it made her knees weak.
She stayed where she was until she could no longer hear the thud of his horse’s hooves. Releasing a long, slow, shuddering breath, she began to untie the laces of her bodice. With the parting of the fabric, she imagined his fingers on the ties and closed her eyes to savor the fantasy. In her mind, she could picture his eyes glowing hot with desire as he slowly peeled the bodice from her shoulders.
Would he smile as the gown slipped down her back, past her hips, gliding over her thighs to pool at her feet? Would his gaze travel slowly, heatedly over her chemise before he tugged it up her body to pull it over her head? Would he then enclose her in his strong arms and bring her—naked and aching—to his hard chest? Lower his head to kiss the tender, sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder?
“Declan,” she whispered as she stepped out of her gown then dragged the chemise over her upper body, tossed it to the chair by the window.
Naked, she ran her hands down her sides, her hips and onto her thighs—imagining his hands instead of her own.
“Good night, Bess,” her father called out as he passed her room.
She jerked her hands from where they had gone and felt the blood heating her cheeks.
“Good night, Da,” she called out.
She stayed where she was until she heard his door close then she went to her bed, threw the covers back and crawled atop them. She drew her knees up, encircled them with her arms and tried to calm the raging desire that was sending prickles over her skin.
“Behave yourself, Elizabeth,” she snapped.
She was no virginal lass whose fevered dreams had yet to be put to the test. There had been the vicar’s son who had enticed her into a closet at the vicarage just before her sixteenth birthday. They’d fumbled with each other’s clothing and the culmination had been anything but satisfying. It had been unpleasant, a bit painful and somewhat embarrassing.
Her next encounter had been much better. The blacksmith’s son was older, more experienced and had actually wanted her to enjoy herself.
She had.
Many times over with him.
And there had been the chandler’s nephew. More handsome than adept, at least he had been respectful of her. Their brief liaison had lasted until her father had purchased the inn and they’d moved. Until the blue-eyed Adonis had walked into the inn, she’d not seen anyone she’d even deign to give the time of day—much less free rein of her body.
But Declan?
“I want you,” she whispered. “And you want me.”
Smiling to herself, she straightened her legs and slid down in the bed. For a moment she just lay there staring at the ceiling.
“You want me and you will have me,” she said as she moved her hand to the juncture of her thighs.
* * * * *
“Stand and deliver!”
The courier nearly tumbled from his horse at the thick Chalean brogue that broke the stillness of the night. In the moonlight his face was as pale as a sheet and his eyes two large black sunken pools. “I’ve n…no money on me,” he stammered.
“‘Tis not money I’m after,” Dec told him. He had his pistol aimed at the man’s head. “I want the pouch you are carrying inside your coat.”
Fear made the courier’s lips tremble, but to give him his due, he tried to brazen it out.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
Dec cocked the pistol. “Last chance,” he stated. “Toss me the pouch or die like a dog on the highway. Either way, I’ll be taking that pouch.”
There was a moment when he thought the man might go for the pistol in his belt but he must have thought better of it. Instead, he fumbled inside his coat for the leather pouch. It shook as he pulled it out.
“Toss it over.”
“You won’t shoot me after I do?”
“I have no reason to unless you think to run,” Dec answered. “You run, I’ll send you to hell.”
The pouch came sailing at him and he caught it easily, stuffed it behind his belt then dug into his pocket for his trademark silver dollar.
“Never let it be said I left you with nothing.”
He flipped the coin at the courier but the man was so terrified, he put his hands to his face thinking he was about to be shot. The coin fell to the ground with a hollow thud.
Smiling to himself behind the handkerchief, Declan rode away to the sound of the courier losing his supper in the dirt.
A mile down the coach road, he turned Warlock into the trees and took off his coat, turning it inside out so the claret color was now the lining. He pulled the kerchief from his face and stuffed it into the pocket of his britches. The Francachi cocked hat was carefully folded and placed in his saddlebag. There was nothing to identify him as the Gypsy save the black beast he rode, and there wasn’t a militiaman alive who could outride the Rysalian. If he came upon a patrol—and he knew they were blundering about nearby—he could easily outrun them in the darkness. He knew the countryside better than any of the soldiers billeted at Gilhaven.
But to be on the safe side, he meandered his way back to the hidden entrance to Black Chasm Hole through the dense forest, backtracked a couple of times, stopped and listened for any sound that would warn him he was being followed. Satisfied he had not been seen and there was no one tailing him, he headed for the cave.