Patricia Rice (24 page)

Faith slammed the kettle on the hook and kept her back to him. “I’ll not marry a thief,” she declared firmly.

Refusing to acknowledge the rightness of her words,
Morgan stalked toward the door. “Fine, then. Be a thief’s doxy. I’ll
find some fine lady to walk the aisle when the time comes. Money always
talks.”

He slammed out of the house, and Faith bent over,
holding her stomach against the crippling pain. She hadn’t wanted to
fight. She hadn’t wanted to make him angry. But she could not bear the
thought of him hanging from a gallows or lying in the dust of the road
with a bullet through his heart. The pain of it wouldn’t go away. Why
had no one warned her that love hurt so bad?

***

Faith was already in bed when Morgan finally came in
out of the dark and undressed. It had taken time to work through her
rejection, to understand he might never call her his, but he was a
practical man. He could live without her as he had lived without
everyone else these long years. But he wasn’t quite willing to give it
all up just yet.

He slid into bed beside her, curving his hand around
Faith’s breast and kissing the nape of her neck. He could tell by her
breathing that she was awake, and he pressed his advantage further,
pulling her back against him until he lay wrapped around her. “I’d not
have you go to bed angry, lass. How can I make it up to you?”

By getting rid of the highwayman, he knew, but she
did not say it aloud for it would anger them both. She caressed his hand
where it lay over her bell.

Understanding her gesture, Morgan gladly obliged. In
this, they were together. Their needs were mutual, not just for the
demands of passion, but in the craving for affection that came of it. He
could take her as he wanted, but when all was said and done, she owned a
piece of him as surely as he did her.

And when they had sought their release and Faith was
sleeping peacefully in his arms, Morgan ran his hand possessively down
her swelling breasts and rounded abdomen and prayed as he had never
prayed in these last ten years. He wanted more than revenge for the
lives torn from him. He wanted a family again.

Closing his eyes, Morgan tried to see the future,
but only flashes of the past came back to knot his fists and increase
the tension he had just released in Faith’s sweet, unknowing body.

He should have ridden with Bonnie Prince Charlie
when he took Scotland. Then his bones could be bleaching on Culloden
Moor with all the others, and there would not be this hatred burning in
his soul, condemning him to hell.

But he had been scarce a lad of twenty and fiercely
eager to free his own lands from the German fist of the Hanovers. He had
offered—and been accepted—to organize a battalion of Irish to join the
prince when the prince came to free Ireland. So Morgan had gone home for
the first time in years.

And the last. Morgan clenched his eyes shut and
tried to drive out the pictures of the crumbling ruin of his home and
the three unmarked graves, but the ghosts of his father and his father
before him rose up to demand justice, and he could not deny them. The de
Lacys had owned that land since the invasion of the Normans. There had
always been a Lord de Lacy to walk those emerald fields. And he was the
last of them. If he could not win the lands back, he must die trying.

He tried to say a Hail Mary for the inhabitants of
those cold graves, but he could only remember his little sister’s dark
curls. He imagined the emaciated face the curls must have framed when
she died, a face like those of the starving children he had found when
he returned to the village that day.

A tear slid down his cheek, and Morgan curled
protectively around Faith to rest his hand on her abdomen. It had all
happened too quickly, he had been told. There hadn’t been time to write.
In truth, they had not known how to write or where to send such a
missive. His family had died bearing the secret of his whereabouts,
protecting lands they no longer owned.

It had taken no more than a quick visit to find the
meaning for the gaping holes in the de Lacy castle and the origins of
the sparkling new Palladian residence rising on the meadows where his
horses used to romp. The lands were no longer his. The new owner meant
to dismantle the “dismal” castle to build his own very British idea of a
home.

The men of the village whispered the tale late at
night over their beers, how the de Lacy that was had been struck down in
the night and left to freeze in the road. Morgan could well imagine the
whiskey that must have been consumed before his father would lie
senseless in the road. There could have been foul play, but none knew of
it. Yet the very next night, when the lord’s younger son, Sean,
recklessly agreed to a secret Mass for his father’s soul, the redcoats
knew of it and were waiting for him. They hanged him from the rafters
over his father’s coffin.

Morgan had flinched and smothered his sobs of
anguish and hatred, but the final story hadn’t been told. When they
spoke of his fair young sister thrown from her home, left to starve and
die among the villagers, the then-twenty-year-old Morgan had broken down
and cried.

As he would now if he did not control his thoughts.
Caressing Faith’s warm skin, Morgan forced his mind to the future
represented by the swelling covered by his hand. He had tried to time
his absences for those times of the month when she could not take him,
but he was not fool enough to think he was so deadly accurate as to
always miss them. How long had it been? How soon would she guess?

And then, would she marry him?

***

Edward, Lord Stepney, removed his bulky body from
the hackney with a curse. He would crown the deuced thief-taker for
forcing him out like this. Why couldn’t anyone do a job as told? Bigad,
he was beginning to sound like his father now. But the fact that he had
to come to these unenlightened corners of the city to meet a bloody
runner did not ease his choler.

Watson hurried forward to lead his noble visitor
into the privacy of the darkened tavern. The place stank of smoking
lanterns and stale ale, and Edward turned up his nose in disgust.

“You had best have good reason for this, Watson. My patience is wearing thin.”

The runner settled him in a booth with a glass of
port and hastened onto the bench across from him. Edward realized the
Runner was not a man of letters, and written reports would do only when
there was no news to report. This time, he apparently had news.

“Remember I told you your cousin hocked those jewels you got him and took the proceeds to a bank?”

Edward nodded irritably.

“Well, I told the judge I was on the trail of Black
Jack, and he gave me a piece of paper to the bank so I could post a
bloke there to keep an eye on whoever came to claim that money.”

“Very clever.” Edward sat back, relaxing. He’d known
the thief-taker’s ambitions. He hadn’t realized they would go so far as
to actually lie to the only honest judge in the kingdom. Well, perhaps
it wasn’t quite a lie, but close enough.

Encouraged, Watson continued. “A legal fellow came
to check on it, but the blunderer let him get away. So I took over the
watch myself. The next day, a boy shows up with this bundle or papers,
and the clerk signals me right quick. They gabble awhile, and the boy
goes away empty-handed, but I follow him. He takes me straight back to
the moneylenders’ quarter, but he don’t report to nobody. He just idles
away the rest of the day as if he ain’t got a care in the world.”

Edward frowned, but he folded his hands placidly over his walking stick. “And the papers?”

The runner took a deep breath. “The clerk says them papers prove that their owner is the missing heiress.”

Edward stared at a space somewhere over the
thief-taker’s head as he worked this piece of information through
several elaborate thought processes. The papers did not necessarily mean
Faith Montague was alive. She had apparently not appeared to collect
the funds, in any account.

The existence of the documents did not even mean she
had been found. They could mean Thomas was double-crossing him, but
Edward already knew about
that.
The game was to
stay one step ahead of his cousin. It was growing to be a deuced boring
game, but it occasionally had its moments.

A smile playing about the corners of his mouth,
Edward returned his gaze to his informant. “Well, then, it seems to me
our next step is to catch Black Jack.”

The runner’s eyes widened but gleamed with approval.
“We have no connection between the highwayman and the bank account or
Thomas,” he reminded his lordship. “Just that reporting of the girl at
the inn that Black Jack defended”

Edward shrugged. “It’s worth a chance. If nothing else, you will remove one more criminal from the road.”

***

The pain in the small of her back had kept her awake
most of the night, that and Morgan’s absence. Faith looked with
distaste at the breakfast she had fixed and rose from the table to see
to the horses. She had come a long way since that starving child of last
November who longed for just a bite of egg.

She didn’t like it when Morgan was gone for days
like this. He could be in some filthy cell awaiting trial and she might
never know it until too late. He could be dead, and she would have no
way of knowing, except that she thought she ought to feel it. A world
without Morgan would suddenly seem hollow.

She needed his security right now, while everything else was in turmoil.

She was going to have to talk to Molly about babies.
Faith didn’t relish the thought, but she desperately needed
information. It was mid-July and her monthly flow still hadn’t started,
just occasional spots that never came to anything. And she felt
terrible, more terrible than that dizzying day at the end of June. How
could Molly keep working if she ached as badly as this?

Faith made an involuntary gesture toward her stomach
as another pain cramped her middle. She’d never had cramps before.
Perhaps there was something deathly wrong with her. Where would she find
a physician with Morgan gone? Would she dare tell a physician what she
had done?

She could scarcely lift the pails to water the
horses. Morgan had warned her not to let them out of their stalls while
he was gone, but the temptation was great to let them into the paddock
to forage for themselves. Surely by evening she would feel better.

But by noon she was lying in bed groaning with a
pain that had no beginning and no end, and as she arched her back in
agony, terror erased all thought of anything else.

Having stopped in London to exchange his ill-gotten
goods for cash and to leave the proceeds with Miles, Morgan cantered
along the dusty road to home with a whistle on his lips. Miles had
verified that the trust fund was established and ready to be transferred
at his word, and Morgan’s investments in the funds were doing
exceedingly well. The future seemed promising, if only he could get one
Faith Henrietta Montague to agree.

She still hadn’t mentioned the baby to him. He
couldn’t be positive himself without questioning her, and Faith’s
shyness made questioning difficult. Still and all, it was time they
faced a few facts. He couldn’t have her slaving at Whitehead’s inn if
she was carrying his child. That situation would need to be rectified
immediately.

He still needed a few more large hauls before he
would have enough to think about that house in town. London property
came high. The new terrace houses seemed the best investment, but
perhaps he could rent for just a while. He needed to take Faith back to
civilization. He had been selfish in keeping her here this long.

But he needed Faith’s cooperation. He couldn’t take
her anywhere until she bore his name. He didn’t know how dangerous her
family was, and he needed to find out before London knew of her
existence. He could protect her much easier once they were married.

Deciding there was no reason to delay the
inevitable, Morgan turned the stallion toward Whitehead’s inn. Faith
would be there at this time of day. Whitehead would just have to do
without her for a while.

When Morgan arrived at the Raging Bull, it was on a
scene of utter chaos. Molly’s curses carried in a shrill stream from
above. Whitehead’s angry replies thundered down the stairs with his
heavy steps. His wife’s voice rose in wails of despair as smoke curled
from the back kitchen, and the excited chatter of the cook wove in
between the cacophony in some form of syncopated rhythm.

The innkeeper glared at Morgan as if he were somehow
the instigator of this confusion. Cursing, he threw down his filthy
towel. “Where the hell is she? I pay that wench good wages to keep this
place in order. And the day I need her most, she doesn’t show.”

Morgan tried not to make too much of this
declaration, but his instinct for danger made his flesh crawl, and he
edged toward the door he had just entered. “Faith’s not here?”

Whitehead stared at him in incredulity. “Does it
look like she’s here? Her and her fancy ways... Now nobody can do
nothing...” His eyes narrowed as Morgan started for the door. “She up
and leave you too?”

But he got no answer. Morgan was already racing for
his stallion. Faith would never leave her employer without notice.
Something was wrong.

He could feel it stronger all the way home. He never
feared for himself, but this fear emanated from outside of him. He
raced the tired stallion as he never would have done had not hell been
at his heels.

Flinging the reins over a fencepost, Morgan dived
for the ground and hit it running, practically flying through the door
as he heard the panicked groans inside.

The light from the window and the open door was
sufficient to give Morgan the scare of his life, in a life that was
riddled with horrors.