McAlistair's Fortune (21 page)

She set her fork down, berating herself for a coward. Swallowing past a lump of guilt and embarrassment, she addressed Mr. Hunter and Christian.

“I owe you, all of you, an apology. I should n-not have gone out alone. My decision to do so was based on…on…well, it hardly matters,” she mumbled, unable to think of a way to defend herself without explaining all. “It w-was careless of me, and I apologize.”

To her amazement, Mr. Hunter accepted her apology with a quick, almost disinterested nod while Christian merely shrugged.

“Don’t fret on it, lass,” he replied in an offhand manner.

Knowing it was expected of her, she looked to McAlistair.

“Nothing to forgive,” he said softly.

“You should know,” Christian added before she’d had a chance to respond, “a letter to Haldon’s been sent, and we’ve checked the grounds. He’s not on them.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Well, what is to be done now?” Mrs. Summers inquired. “Are we to stay? The point, I thought, was to remove Evie from danger.”

And that, it seemed, was that. No need for a drawn-out and mortifying confession, Evie realized. She sat back in her chair, equal parts relieved and guilty for having gotten off so easily.

“Not entirely,” Mr. Hunter replied by way of answering Mrs. Summers. “The point was also to take her someplace easier to guard.”

“And to keep others safe,” Evie pointed out. She hadn’t been serious the first time she’d made that argument—hadn’t seen any reason to be—but she was bloody well serious now.

“There’s no reason for Evie to leave now,” McAlistair said.

If she hadn’t instinctively turned at the sound of his gravelly voice, Evie would have missed the quiet look of understanding he shared with Christian and Mr. Hunter.

“What do you mean by ‘now’?” she asked.

“Just that, lass,” Christian offered. “There’s no point in leaving just now. We can keep you safe—”

“I’m not an idiot, Christian. That wasn’t the sort of now McAlistair meant.”

“It’s not a word with multiple definitions, dear,” Mrs. Summers said.

She looked to McAlistair. “The attacker’s appearance here changed something else. What is it?”

He hesitated before answering. “We know where to look now. We can find him.”

Evie’s throat went dry. She’d become bait after all. “In town, you mean?”

“And the surrounding area.”

“There must be hundreds of people. How can you possibly hope to find him?”

Mr. Hunter answered. “It helps that McAlistair caught a glimpse of the bas…er…blighter.”

“You said you saw only his back and his horse,” Evie said to McAlistair. And, if logic followed, the back of his horse. Did they hope to identify a man by the rear view of his horse?

“It’s something,” Mr. Hunter muttered.

She chose not to comment.

Mrs. Summers set down her fork. “Well, until such time as this man is apprehended, I think it would be best if a guard was taken up. It would hardly do to have the man sneaking inside whilst the lot of us slept.”

“Agreed,” all three men said at once.

“And I shall be sharing Evie’s room for the remainder of—”

“My room?” she heard herself spluttering. “But…I…surely—”

“I would feel the better for it.”

“Yes, of course, but…I…” She risked a glance at McAlistair, but his face revealed nothing. Then again, what could he possibly say?
Not to worry? I’ll see she’s not alone?
Evie stifled a sigh of disappointment. “I’m sure that will be fine.”

“Excellent. Now, as for the other precautions to be taken…”

Evie listened as a long list of rules was set out before her. Drapes were to be kept closed, doors were to be kept locked, she was not to go outside.

Though they stung, Evie had no trouble agreeing to every dictate. She adored her freedom and she adored being outdoors, but neither quite so much as she adored being alive.

Common sense aside, she was relieved when the exhaustive catalog of safety measures came to an end. And she was grateful for Mr. Hunter’s offer to continue their chess match in the library while Christian went on guard and McAlistair saw to the horses. She didn’t relish the idea of accepting Mrs. Summers’s suggestion of more needlework or the notion of returning to her room with a book.

Someone had tried to kill her. Someone had
been
trying to kill her, and all the while she’d thought it a grand joke, a silly charade. Now that she believed it, she’d become not a houseguest, but a prisoner in someone else’s home.

And—as if that wasn’t quite enough to make one’s head spin—she’d just spent two heavenly hours in bed with McAlistair…the man she’d recently discovered she loved. And she’d just lost the opportunity to do so again.

How was she to concentrate on even stitches and Greek philosophers after that?

She needed an activity that interested her if she hoped to take her mind off the day’s events.

While Mrs. Summers took up her needlework in a seat by the fire, Evie and Mr. Hunter matched skill—and even wit, as Evie grew more comfortable—until the late hours of the night. But an engaging game and Mr. Hunter’s charm alone could not keep her thoughts of McAlistair at bay.

She wondered how long it would take for him to return, and once he had, she wondered why he sat in the corner, scowling and holding a book he clearly was not reading. When he set the book aside and excused himself from the room a half hour later, she wondered where he’d gone. And when Christian came in and informed them that McAlistair had asked to take the first guard that night, she wondered if he were in danger, or…

“Check.”

Evie blinked. “Beg your pardon?”

“Check,” Mr. Hunter repeated. “Your king? A game of chess? Recall something of either?”

“I…oh.” Evie glanced at the board and winced. “I’m sorry, I was distracted.”

“Yes, I noticed.” He reached over to pat her hand gently. He’d done that more than once tonight, she realized. She must look as miserable as she felt.

“I suppose I must seem a mess,” she mumbled.

“No, you seem understandably preoccupied.”

“And tired.” Mrs. Summers set aside her needlework and rose from her chair. “It is late, and you could do with a bit of sleep.”

Evie poked, a bit petulantly, at the rook she’d
meant
to push another space over.
Blast.

“It will be here tomorrow,” Mr. Hunter said in a sympathetic voice. “You can wait until then for defeat.”

It was just the sort of swaggering comment she was coming to expect from him, and just the thing she needed to hear.

She left the room smiling.

I
t was a perfectly lovely day to be on the coast.

The sun was shining, the temperature was mild, and a soft salty breeze was coming off the sea.

Anyone who cared to look about would find very little lacking in the picturesque scene. Anyone, that is, but a man in a temper.

“Damn, bloody sand.” McAlistair shook out his boots at the back door. If he didn’t, Mrs. Summers would comment on the trail he left. And he wasn’t interested in having an argument with Mrs. Summers this morning. It was Evie he wanted to argue with this morning.

He’d been waiting, patiently almost, since last night for a chance to speak with her alone. Now, finally, Christian was patrolling the grounds and Mr. Hunter was asleep after taking over for McAlistair in the small hours of the morning. That left only Mrs. Summers to contend with. McAlistair considered his options as he put his boots back on and dug out his key. Perhaps the direct approach would work.

Mrs. Summers, I should like a moment of privacy with Miss Cole.

That was allowed, wasn’t it? Evie had been left alone to play chess with Mr. Hunter.

And she’d been alone with him for two days, so what would a few minutes in a parlor or library matter?

He was scowling as he pushed through the door, locked it behind him, and went in search of Evie. Allowed or not, he was taking those minutes.

Flirt with Mr. Hunter, would she?

McAlistair took the back steps two at a time. Maybe he shouldn’t have put his hands on her, but it was too late to take that back. It was much too late for her to change her mind. And if Evie thought otherwise, she was sadly mistaken.

She belonged to him now.

Perhaps not forever, perhaps for only as long as it took to make her safe, but for now, for today, she was his. And
only
his.

Sharing, to McAlistair’s mind, had always been overrated. Any man with six brothers could attest to that.

After a brief and irritating search, he found her in the library, alone, and curled up—nearly swallowed, really—in the cushions of the window seat, with a book against her knees.

The gentle light from a spray of candles illuminated the room and cast a gold glow over her frame. A few warm brown tendrils of hair had slipped from their pins to fall in soft curls down her back. She’d grow annoyed by them eventually and shove them back in. For now, she appeared content, comfortable, lost in whatever world her book had opened for her.

She looked so beautiful.

How many times would he have to look at her before that instant of wonder he felt when she first came into view finally dimmed?

Because the answer to that sat like a weight on his heart—it hadn’t dimmed in eight years of looking at her—he cleared his throat loudly to break the moment.

She glanced up and offered a shy smile. “Good morning.”

“You shouldn’t be sitting in front of the window.”

Her brow furrowed a little at his rough tone. “The drapes are closed. And I had to try it at least once.” She closed her book and made an awkward attempt to swing her legs over the edge of the seat cushion. She succeeded in tangling her skirts and nearly rapping her head against the wall, but very little else.

Eager to get to the topic at hand, and not one to bother himself with the finer points—or any points, really—of tact, he asked, “What is Mr. Hunter to you?”

“Hmm?” She didn’t look up from where she was—he could only assume—attempting to scoot her weight to the edge of the cushions. “I believe he’s still abed.”

He stepped forward and plucked her off the cushions and set her on her feet with more force than finesse.

“Heavens.” She stepped away to right her hopelessly twisted gown. “What’s gotten into you?”

“You. Mr. Hunter.”

She blinked at that. “Well, which is it?”

“Both.”

The beginnings of temper flashed in her eyes. “I see, and what is it we’ve done?”

“That’s the question I asked you.”

She titled her head at him. “You want me to tell you what we’ve done to irritate you?”

“I want you to tell me if you’ve done something I should be irritated about.”

“As you’re quite obviously irritated already, I would say we have.” She gave her gown one final tug. “Now then, if you’re done asking silly questions, I’d like to finish my book.”

“I’m not done.” And he damn well wasn’t silly. Assassins, former or otherwise, were categorically incapable of being silly. “What’s between you and Mr. Hunter?”

Her eyes widened slightly, the temper flashed in her eyes, and then her face hardened into a cold mask. “At the moment, there are several walls and the space of roughly thirty yards between Mr. Hunter and myself.”

“Don’t play games, Evie.” He felt his hands ball into fists. “I watched you last night.”

“Watched me
what,
precisely?”

“Flirt.”

Flirt?

Evie didn’t mind jealousy from McAlistair. In fact, she quite liked the idea—it was a first for her, after all. She did not, however, care for the accusation that her behavior had been the cause. She’d much prefer a general sort of jealously—the kind she’d seen Whit and Alex exhibit when another gentleman glanced too long in their wives’ directions. That was rather sweet.

This
was rather insulting.

“Do you think I hopped from your bed to his?” she asked in a cool, soft voice.

“I…” He had the grace to grimace a little. “No. No, I don’t.”

That was something, anyway. “Do you think me
capable
of—”

“No.”

“Then I fail to see why you’re angry with me.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “He’s a rake.”

She gestured impatiently at the door. “Well, go lecture him, then.”

He scowled—or continued to scowl, to be precise—and then clasped his hands behind his back in a supremely dignified sort of way that reminded her of Whit.

“I don’t like that he touched you,” he said.

Her heart softened at the reluctant embarrassment in his voice. “That he patted my hand, do you mean?”

“Was there something else?”

“No,” she quickly assured him. “It was only a consolatory gesture, McAlistair. He was being kind.”

“He was being…”

He trailed off, and she saw the uncertainty, the frustration…Wasn’t that marvelous? she thought suddenly. Oh, not that he was unhappy, of course, or at least not
entirely
—he did look rather adorable at the moment—but that she could actually
tell
that he was unhappy. He’d grown more at ease with expressing his emotions, and she more adept understanding them.

“Would it help,” she asked softly, “if I were to tell you that my interest in Mr. Hunter stems from
his
interest in Kate?”

He considered that. “It might…Does it?”

“Yes.” When he said nothing, merely grunted in a noncommittal, perhaps-I’ll-give-it-some-thought sort of way, she gathered her courage and stepped closer. “I was disappointed when you left the room.”

Again, the grunt.

She reached up to finger one of the buttons on his waistcoat. “I nearly paid for the distraction with my king.”

His lips twitched. “Did you?”

“Mm-hm.” Her eyes caught on his mouth. She did so dearly love the way he expressed himself with that mouth—the half smiles, the subtle frowns, the heated kisses. She stepped closer, until she was pressed against him. Slowly, she stood on tiptoe, letting her breasts brush his chest. “I do believe you owe me a—”

He hauled her into his arms and sealed his mouth over hers. Evie let herself fall into the excitement of the kiss, allowed herself to revel in the feel and taste of him. But she knew it couldn’t last.

“Mrs. Summers,” she breathed when he broke the kiss to trail his lips down the side of her neck.

“What?”

“She’s in the parlor.” Directly down the hall. “She could come in.”

He stilled, swore, and stepped away.

They stood there, breathless, staring at each other with pounding hearts.

Suddenly, McAlistair grinned. “It was my turn to clean the dishes this morning.”

“Er…I see.”

“Haven’t got “round to it yet.”

“Oh, I see.” And this time, she really did. “Would you care for a bit of help?”

“Wouldn’t mind.”

She fought a bubble of laughter the entire way to the kitchen, but gave up the fight the moment they were inside. “This is outrageous.”

McAlistair’s answer was to back her against the wall and begin where they’d left off in the library.

Her skin heated, her heart melted, and all thought spun away.

Until a vaguely familiar and wholly unexpected male voice said, “Well, isn’t this a naughty bit of business?”

McAlistair swung around, throwing an arm up to keep Evie from stepping out from the protection of his body. He needn’t have bothered; she’d frozen in shock at the sound of the voice.

“Ah, ah, ah,” it drawled from somewhere in front of McAlistair. “Keep your hands where I can see them, McAlistair. There we are. Now step away from the girl.”

McAlistair didn’t move.

“Step away, or I’ll blow a hole through the both of you. I’ve heard a shot to the gut is Hell’s own way to go. Would you like that for her?”

McAlistair’s fury was palpable. He was standing perfectly still, just as he’d been at the blacksmith’s, but the muscles of his back were bunched and strained. Tremors too small to be seen rippled along his skin. She could feel them through his waistcoat, where her hands rested beneath his shoulders.

She wanted to tell him it would be all right, almost as much as she wanted him to tell her the same—he was in a better position to know, after all.

Slowly, McAlistair stepped aside, giving Evie her first look at their assailant. His clothes bore the unsightly wrinkles and dust of travel and his usually tidy blond hair stuck out from his head in great tufts, but there was no denying, or mistaking, the handsome Byronlike features of John Herbert, the footman from Haldon Hall. Lizzy had pointed them out ad nauseam.

Her mind whirled with questions, but before she could open her mouth to speak, he turned cold blue eyes on her. “Miss Cole, if you would be so kind as to move a bit to your left?”

Moving left required she step in front of a small hutch against the wall. And that meant moving a step nearer to Herbert. “I…”

“Do as he says, Evie,” McAlistair said softly.

Yes, well, that was rather easy for
him
to say. Battling every natural instinct to move away from the dueling pistol pointed at her, she stepped closer to Herbert. And saw the butt of a second pistol protruding from his coat pocket.

“Not too close, my dear, just enough to make McAlistair think twice about reaching for that gun in his pocket. Excellent. Now then…”

He turned his full attention to McAlistair and grinned—an excited, almost giddy show of teeth that twisted his handsome features into a gruesome mask. “So, there he is, the very devil himself. Oh, I’ve dreamt of this moment. Imagined everything I would do. Everything I would say. But now that it’s come, I find I’m quite overwhelmed.” He rubbed his free hand against his thigh. “Let me see, let me see, where was I to begin? Ah, yes…Do you have any idea, any idea
at all,
how difficult a thing it is to find you?”

When McAlistair said nothing, Herbert looked him over as if he were studying a rare and fascinating specimen under glass. “How did you manage it? Even when we were in the same bloody house, I couldn’t find you. Just that glimpse before you left and I…You don’t know who I am, do you?”

McAlistair shook his head once, his eyes never leaving the crazed footman.

“She does.” Herbert turned that wide, maniacal smile at Evie, and her blood ran cold as ice. “Don’t you, girl? Tell him.”

“John Herbert.” Her voice came out soft and wavering. “He’s a f-footman at Haldon.”

He waved the gun at her, the smile disappearing in a heartbeat. “It is Mr. Herbert.
Mister.
There was a time I could have bought and sold you twice over.”

Gone were the politely modulated tones he had used at Haldon. Even more than his words, the hard edge of Herbert’s voice portrayed a raw and deep-seated hatred.

Her hands flew up, palms out. Fear shot through her, but only a small part of it was for herself. “I beg your pardon. I d-didn’t know.”

“No. No, you didn’t. You couldn’t.” He cocked his head at her, his tone turning conversational. “And do you know
why
you couldn’t have known?”

Evie shook her head.

Herbert grinned again and this time spun to aim the gun at McAlistair. “He does.”

McAlistair didn’t move, didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. Evie ruthlessly shoved down the urge to step forward and speak, to draw John Herbert’s attention back to her. She’d do it without a second thought if she knew for certain he wouldn’t just shoot both of them. Two dueling pistols. Two shots. He could manage it if he were quick.

Herbert’s grin morphed into an angry sneer. Keeping his eyes on McAlistair, he swung his arm around to point the gun at Evie. “You’ve thirty seconds, you bastard. Thirty seconds to remember Mr. John Herbert before I blow her brains—”

“He was an agent for the war department,” McAlistair said, cutting him off.

“He was more than just an agent,” Herbert snapped. “He was a man of power and wealth and rank. He was courageous and bold. He was brilliant. The sort of man a common criminal like you couldn’t hope to begin to understand.”

“He was your father,” McAlistair guessed.

“He was a
hero.
He sacrificed his time, his money, the happiness of his own family, again and again, in service to the Crown. And how did the Crown repay him?” When McAlistair didn’t answer, Herbert swung the gun at him again. “Tell her how the Crown repaid him!”

“He was killed. Ten years ago.”

“Nine! It was nine years!” Herbert laughed suddenly, a razor-sharp sound that tore from his throat. “Have there been so many, McAlistair, that you so easily lose track?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“It was bloody yesterday.” Herbert stopped laughing, sighed, and closed his eyes. It was just for a moment, but that moment had Evie tensing, itching to reach out and snag the gun in his hand, knock him down before he could reach for the second. Failing that last part, she could at least be certain he only had the one gun. Just the one bullet. And if he was battling her, there was no doubt he wouldn’t waste it on McAlistair.