Dedicated Villain (44 page)

Fiona, who had crept up unobserved, asked, “May I give him his reward, Roly?”

His heart leaping, Mathieson swung around. The girl stood a few paces away, the distant light of the flames showing her little face aglow with the radiance that was not exactly a smile but that had come to mean more to him than any smile in the world.

Without a word, he handed her the carrot and she trod nearer to the rope paddock.

“Gently, Rump,” he admonished.

She proffered the carrot; the big horse accepted it, his lips scarcely brushing her hand, and stood chomping contentedly.

“How splendid he is,” she murmured.

Mathieson glanced about, and drew her into the shadows. “But, of course. He belongs to me. I will own nothing less than the best.”

Her head came up and she turned to him. The hood of her cloak fell back and he heard her low chuckle. “
Ma belle
,” he reached for her hand. “How very brave of you to come. I was afraid I'd have no chance for a word with you.”

“Well, Grandmama has gone to bed, and Papa and MacTavish are still talking. Moira and Elizabeth will not betray me, so I very naughtily followed you. And now that I am here, what words have you, sir?” Her voice very soft, she swayed to him. “A scold for my—lack of propriety?”

His arm slipped around her. He said, “There are advantages to being a scoundrel, and—”

Her warm fingers shut off the rest. “I did not come to hear nonsense.”

There was no need to ask the obvious. He knew why she had come, and he wasted no more time, but bent to her lips. She gave them up willingly and matched his ardour with her own shy but eager caresses. He knew he could take more than a kiss and for the first time in his life knew also that the only important thing was her—that she must not be frightened, or hurried, or persuaded to what would be even a small violation of her trust and her purity. He was not pursuing a brief flurry into passion, or even a more lasting
affaire de coeur.
This was for all his days. This was his madonna, and she must be handled with reverence and kept safe—even from him. With an inward sigh, he thought, ‘Especially from me!' And smiling wryly, put her from him.

“Roly,” she whispered yearningly. “If you knew how afraid I was. How very grateful that you came back safely. I-I was praying so hard …”

He pressed a kiss into one soft little palm. “Which would explain why I did come back safely. Tiny Mite, I don't like this
plan of MacTavish's. I want you out of danger and back at your home. There is no longer the need for you to journey with us.”

Touching his cheek lovingly she murmured, “How do you know I would be safe at home, sir? You know not where I live—or how.”

“True. But it must be a beautiful place, for you grew up there. Where
do
you live, Tiny Mite?”

She chuckled again. “Guess. Tell me what you suppose.”

What did he suppose? He frowned a little. It was doubtful that Bradford was completely poverty stricken. Besides, Fiona was Lady Clorinda's granddaughter. “A country manor house, or a gentleman's farm perhaps,” he said thoughtfully.

Faintly annoyed, she said, “Where I helped feed the chickens and churn the butter.” And with a teasing smile, “Or am I London bred, and accustomed to the balls and routs and endless seeking after pleasure which—”

“Never that,” he murmured laughingly. “You're no London belle, Tiny Mite.”

Definitely annoyed, Fiona stiffened. “Indeed?”

“Indeed, miss. You are too honest; too free from sophisticated artifice and—”

“Too simple-minded? Gauche?” There was an unexpected hauteur in her voice, reminiscent of her grandmama. “A rustic do you mean, perchance? I'll have you know, Mr. Mathieson, that I've not dwelt all my life in a caravan!”

“Of course you haven't,” he agreed, much amused. “You spend at least half your time wallowing about in the mud, and baking plaster crumpets, to say nothing—”

“La, what a fine picture you have of me, sir! Only think how people will mock you for having chose a muddy rustic for a bride!”

“To say truth,” he teased, “I court you only because I covet Picayune, and because my grandpapa will get his just desserts when he samples some of your crumpets!”

“A somewhat less than compelling reason for matrimony, Mr. Mathieson!”

The chill in her voice startled him. He scanned her face and saw the proud tilt to the chin, the angry glint in the green eyes and cursed himself for a fool. “
Vraiment
but you are tired,” he said remorsefully, “and I have made you cross with my foolish nonsense. Forgive me as quickly as you can beloved, for we have so little time.”

“Oh, I am a great stupid,” she said, at once repentant. “Very well, my dear. I live in an old house called Blackberry Manor. It is situated in Wiltshire, and we are so fortunate as to have the River Avon flowing through part of the estate. You would, I think, find it as beautiful as do I.”

Unease touched him. He said in oblique probing, “And you, who are so humble, are in fact a great heiress, I understand.”

She laughed. “Now you have been listening to Torrey. My brother Francis will inherit the estates of course, but I'll own I have a comfortable inheritance which comes to me from my mama's family.” Her fingers touched his chin. “Why look so glum? Only think, now you can claim to be a dastardly fortune hunter and—”

“Not I! I shall say instead that my own fortune is vast. Since you never believe the truths I tell, you will then know that I am
in fact
a dastardly fortune hunter and will be able to warn Heywood that Miss Clandon's fortune lures me in her direction!”

“Ah, have you heard about that, then? Good gracious! I wonder if Thad knows.”

Mathieson gave no sign of his surprise, and said blandly, “I think he would not care had she sixpence to her name.”

“She was never that badly off, but just five months ago a cousin of her father's went to his reward. The old gentleman had removed to Italy years since, and we all fancied him a pauper, but it seems he won a mare at the tables, and her foal became a great racehorse. The old gentleman built up his stables and died vastly rich—and childless.”

“Jupiter! Did he leave some of his wealth to Miss Clandon?”

“All of it! He had loved her dearly as a babe and never forgot her, so now—”

“Fiona …?” Moira's soft call interrupted her.

Mathieson said urgently, “Listen to me! You must go back to Wiltshire
at once!
I don't want—”

“Foolish boy. As if I would leave you—or my people. Goodnight, now.” And she was gone, running quickly to her friend.

For a long moment Mathieson gazed after her, frowning. He was roused when Rumpelstiltskin shoved him and uttered a friendly whicker.

“It would seem, you old rascal, that we have two rich ladies among us. One with a comfortable inheritance, and the other a great heiress …” Mathieson scratched the stallion under his chin in the way Rumpelstiltskin particularly liked. “That puts a rather different complexion upon things—
n'est-ce pas
?”

Eyes half-closed with pleasure, the horse made no response, and after a while Mathieson left him and walked slowly to the caravan, his thoughts very busy indeed.

The rain stopped on Thursday night, and Friday morning dawned bright and sparkling with a return to warm autumn weather again. Old Shrewsbury town, proud on its perch above the River Severn, showed well on such a brilliant day. To walk its streets was to walk through history, and as Trooper Willhays told Sergeant Patchett, he expected that at any minute the door to one of the ancient timber-framed houses would open, and a lady in wimple and farthingale be handed down the steps and into her sedan chair.

Marching briskly beside him en route to the livery stable, the sergeant returned only a grunt. He liked Willhays; the boy's clean-cut face and earnest grey eyes had impressed him the instant they first met. ‘A decent, God-fearing youngster,' he'd thought then, and he was still of that opinion a year later.
Further, Willhays possessed a mind that was full of interest in the world about him. He could, thought Patchett, work his way up through the ranks—might even earn a battlefield commission some day. He had it in him to make a fine officer—if Lambert didn't crush him first. Taken a dislike to Willhays had the charming lieutenant, because the boy had made an intelligent observation about the Jacobite Cause in his hearing. Lambert had enjoyed a jolly few minutes, cutting the trooper to ribbons with his caustic tongue. The lieutenant, thought Patchett bitterly, was acid to his fingernails—and would probably rise to be a general, ruining God knows how many promising subordinates along his way. He cursed the army mentally and shocked the trooper by spitting into the kennel.

The subject of his thoughts pushed back his chair in the coffee room of the small hostelry where the troop had headquartered for two days, and walked out into the sunlit street, pausing on the steps to draw on his gauntlets. Unlike Trooper Willhays, Lambert paid no attention to the gracious old buildings. The sunshine glinting on their deep latticed or mullioned windows and brightening the flower boxes escaped him utterly. His deep blue eyes rested with indifference on the glittering river that girdled the high peninsula whereon was the town. Shropshire, beautiful in the eyes of so many, he judged a bore, and everything in it a damnable nuisance. Each moment he was here was a moment he might have been in Town with an eye to winning back his captaincy. Small chance there was of tracking those blasted rebs up here. Since Lake had gone flaunting back to the south country he'd caught not so much as a whiff of—

His bitter musings were interrupted by loud voices from inside the building. The host was saying angrily, “… hired to mend my roof, which you said as you could do. Well, it
ain't
been done. Not right, that is. I told you as I wouldn't pay full money for a half-done job of work, and I meant it! Now take yourself off, or I'll call the constable!”

Lambert's lip curled as he started down the steps. Disgusting
that a guest should be obliged to hear such a vulgar dispute! You'd not find such behaviour at a decent inn, but—

He checked, standing shocked and motionless as another voice rose. A whining, rasping, crudity of a voice that whipped him back to a small dim chamber under Castle Carruthers, and the traitorous hireling whom he had shot down to protect himself from a charge of kidnapping and attempted murder. He whispered, “Hessell!” and walked on, knowing this threat must be properly silenced or he would face a greater loss than his commission.

Moving swiftly, he went down the steps and along the street to the baker's shop, continuing to the far side of the deep bow window. Affecting to inspect the cakes displayed there, he had a fine view of the front of the inn, and in less than a minute saw Ben Hessell's ungainly figure come shambling down the steps and slouch off. At once, he followed. Hessell was going towards the livery stable, which was bad, because that insolent clod Patchett would likely be bringing the horses at any minute.

Lambert hastened his steps until he was very close to his quarry. Hessell started across a narrow alley. Coming up behind him, Lambert said softly, “My pistol is at your back, Hessell. Turn in here. No—not a word!
Move
—or I'll do the world a favour and shoot here and now!”

The big shoulders jerked and then cowered, as Hessell identified the voice. His cunning mind told him that if he once walked into that alley, he'd never come out alive. Pulling his shattered nerves together, he halted and said, “I told me mate as I'd seen yer, Lieutenant, sir. And I told him what we'd done … you and me. If I don't come back …”

“You filthy lying bastard,” ground out Lambert, shoving him hard. “You've got precisely ten seconds, and then—”

“But I bin follering you, sir. Honest I have! May me liver rot if I'm telling a whisker! I don't hold no grudge, Lieutenant. I know what you and yer friend Captin Otton is up here fer, and—”

Lambert's eyes widened in shock. Rage made him very fast.
Hessell's arm was seized in a bruising grip and he was spun into the mouth of the alley and slammed against the wall behind a tall rain barrel. Two narrowed eyes blazed into his own. The muzzle of a pistol was rammed hard under his chin, so that he gave a yelp and in terror and desperation, gabbled shrilly, “Don't yer never scrag me, Lambert! Don't you never! On top o' all the rest, you'd be—”

The pistol smashed against his throat cutting off his words and bringing tears of pain into his small dark eyes.

Lambert snarled, “Have you seen that dirty swine? When? Where?”

Hessell's devious mind raced. So this horrid wicked cove didn't know where his accomplice in crime was. And he was desperate anxious to find him. He wanted Otton. Bad, he wanted him. And that could be worth a penny or three, maybe. He whined and moaned, and clutched his throat.