Oliver brushed down and watered his horse. He knew Rosemary had awakened and watched him from her window, so he gave her a jaunty wave on his way to the gatehouse. A gatehouse, for God’s sake. Had he remained with his feckless circle of friends in London, no one would even ask him why he’d been dressed as a maid. He wouldn’t be sleeping alone. He wouldn’t have been rejected by one temperamental woman and had his writing mocked by her sultry sister.
He mounted the gatehouse stairs, took a bottle of wine from the cupboard, and drank its contents so quickly he couldn’t make up his mind whether it was Peony or Primrose he fancied most. He stretched out on the uncomfortable trundle bed with his pistol on his chest. He doubted Ivy would tell the duke he’d broken into his house, but the woman did have a mind of her own. Then he fell asleep wondering how he would find a treasure that had eluded discovery for centuries. How did he even know it actually existed? It was certain that he wouldn’t find it lying half-drunk in the gatehouse. Was it worth the price of facing the duke in a duel? Oliver had heard rumors that Ellsworth had lost his abilities as a marksman. Except he didn’t appear at all incapacitated. Anyway, if Oliver killed him, he’d be forced to flee England, without benefit of an heiress or her fortune. One didn’t kill a peer of the realm and resume his activities the next day.
His plan was unraveling. He had to recover something from the time and money he had invested.
He was too perplexed to have come to any decisions when hours later he heard Quigley in the garden catching snails. There was a vehicle traversing the bridge, to judge by the muffled clop of hooves and grinding wheels. Or was that Lilac bringing up his tea? Poor lady. For all her loveliness, she could never make a graceful entrance. Her gait unfairly ruined her worth. The girl needed a prince.
He grunted, pulling a blanket over his head. A moment later Lilac screamed and the clatter of broken china, underscored by a furious roar from Quigley, propelled Oliver down the stairs and out into the glare of a gray morning.
And a vicious assault in progress.
Was he seeing things? A man appeared to be chasing Lilac through the roses, and Quigley had taken a shovel to swing at—God, it couldn’t be.
Oliver opened his mouth to call out the man’s name. But then the front door opened, and out ran Rosemary, holding a pistol in her hands. Oliver thought for a moment that she might shoot him.
The damned pups escaped and started to bark. He strode out into the garden and shook his head. Terrible mistake.
He saw two of everything.
“What’s happening?” he demanded of Rosemary and her blurry double.
She ran past him with a look that labeled him as helpful as horse manure. “There’s a man attacking Lilac. Can’t you see?”
He realized he had his pistol in his hand. He was also still wearing the apron, but its removal would have to wait. He blinked several times. His gaze picked out Lilac in the garden. She had hefted a crumbling urn full of geraniums into her arms and heaved it at her attacker, whose mask had begun to slip.
And who happened to be the last man Oliver had gambled with in a silver hell in London. “Help me, Oliver!” Lilac cried, reduced to flinging clods of dirt to defend herself.
He snapped out of his trance to obey, the dogs barking as if echoing Lilac’s plea. Joseph Treadway had his hands around Lilac’s throat, and Oliver raised his gun, aware of Rosemary rushing up behind him. “Please do something,” she beseeched him. “He’s strangling her. I’m afraid if I shoot, I’ll hit her.”
“The treasure,” Joseph said, spittle and dirt running down his chin. “I want your—”
“Move back, Rosemary!” Oliver said. “Move out of my way now.” Strangely, she did. Perhaps it was his voice. Perhaps she was indeed an intelligent woman, for she retreated several paces with only a covert glance at Lilac.
He waited another second, took aim, and said quietly, “Jesus. Joseph, look at me.”
The man turned reflexively, his grasp loosening on Lilac’s neck, and Oliver pulled the trigger. He hit his acquaintance in the chest; a kill he’d intended and a kill he’d made. He felt Rosemary rush around him. He looked up to find her handing him her gun.
“Help Quigley.”
He didn’t know if she’d heard him call the dead man by name. There could still be time for him to find a way to cover the slip. Besides, she was too engrossed in pulling Lilac out from under Joseph’s crumbled body to argue such a point now.
He turned, sidestepping dogs and geraniums, and took off up the path to help Quigley. But the old gardener had fended off his attacker like a swashbuckler, with a few swings of his shovel.
Oliver raised Rosemary’s gun and trained it on the man Quigley had beaten. Good God. Look who it was. It wouldn’t be difficult to take down a man of Ainsley Farbisher’s age and half-arsed ability. In fact, the old roué was running from Quigley before Oliver needed to intervene. No mask could conceal his lumpy nose and potato-shaped chin.
“Well, shoot him,” Quigley said, throwing his shovel at the clumsy figure headed for the small carriage on the bridge.
“I have just killed one man,” Oliver said, lowering Rosemary’s dueling pistol.
“Aye, a fine shot that. Now do it again.”
Oliver considered that option, but Ainsley had reached the bridge, and if Oliver gave chase, he took the risk of the old bugger revealing their acquaintance. “Damnation,” he muttered. “He’s got away.”
“You let him escape.” Quigley wheeled back around toward the sisters.
Oliver strode through the neatly weeded garden to the spot where Lilac stood, Rosemary trying to shield her from the body at their feet.
“Oh, Oliver,” Lilac said. “I don’t know what we would have done if you weren’t here. He was going to—”
“Don’t talk about it,” Rosemary said. “He didn’t do anything.”
“Yes, he did,” Lilac said. “He choked the breath out of me and said he would kill me if I didn’t yield my treasure. We know what that means. How hideous of him. As if I would give up my valuables without a fight to the death.”
“We shall talk of it after we’re inside,” Rosemary said, her face colorless. “You need to come into the house, Lilac.”
“Is Quigley all right?” Lilac asked, craning to look around her sister’s shoulder.
Oliver wrenched off the apron he was still wearing and dropped it over the face and chest of the man he had just killed. “Quigley appears to be fine,” he said, straightening to study her. “What about you?”
“I broke the china,” she said. “And the silver tray got dented when I hit this person in the chops with it. What would have happened to us if you hadn’t been here, Oliver? It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
He tasted bile in his throat. “I should never have cleared the garden.”
Rosemary put her arms around Lilac’s shoulders and dragged her toward the house. “I’ll trust you to take care of this,” she said to Oliver. “If the magistrate needs my word as a witness, I shall be happy to give it in your defense, Sir Oliver.”
“Thank you,” he said stiffly.
She stared down at the apron. “Of course.”