Silk and Shadows (50 page)

Ross gave him a sardonic look. "Why are you talking about the law? Aren't you going to kill him yourself?"

Peregrine glanced at the other man, his face impassive. Yes, his friends were definitely getting too perceptive. "I prefer to think of it as an execution."

"So what is stopping you?"

Peregrine's brows arched. "What, no lecture on morality?"

"I don't like the idea one damned bit," Ross said, his voice clipped, "but I don't see an alternative. It is obvious that you and Weldon are locked in a till-death-do-you-part feud, and if one of you must die, I would prefer it to be Weldon."

"If and when I kill Weldon, I intend to do it in a way that can't be traced back to me," Peregrine said, grateful for his friend's pragmatic acceptance of the situation. "But if something goes wrong, and I have to leave England—I want to know that you will look out for Sara." He stopped, then started again. "You will anyhow, but I'll feel better knowing that at least one person here understands what really happened."

Ross's dark eyes flashed. "So you intend to desert your wife?" he snapped, far more angry than he had been at the prospect of his friend's committing murder.

"I didn't marry her to abandon her, but frankly, I doubt that she would come with me if I asked," Peregrine said, his voice cold. "Her whole life is in England—all her friends, her relatives. How could I take her away from that?"

"You can let her make the choice for herself," Ross said, his voice equally cold. "If you desert her, I swear I will track you down and make you sorry that you ever set foot in England."

Peregrine chuckled, wanting to defuse the situation. "You're beginning to sound like me. Too much exposure to my amoral ways is corrupting you."

As Ross gave a reluctant smile, Peregrine continued, "Believe me, I have no desire to flee England as a criminal, just as I have no desire to force Sara to make a decision where either choice will make her miserable." Besides, he thought he knew how Sara would choose—and it wouldn't be for her husband. "I just want you to be prepared for whatever comes.''

"Try not to get yourself killed," Ross suggested. "Sara wouldn't like it, and it would leave me in the regrettable position of having to hunt Weldon down myself to prevent him from injuring Sara or me." In a piece of massive British understatement, he added, "Untidy."

"Definitely untidy." Peregrine shook his head. "When I came to England, I thought revenge would be a straightforward business. Instead, my life has gotten unbelievably complicated."

Ross's mouth quirked up. "Welcome to the real world."

* * *

When he heard the sound of approaching horses, Kane readied himself. He had found a perfect ambush spot in a patch of broken ground and was concealed in a clump of rocks. The trail was about sixty yards away, an easy shot for an expert marksman. Like many old lanes, this one was sunken about three feet below ground level, but men up on horseback would be easy targets.

He lay on his stomach, his rifle steady in his hands. Far better to do this task himself; assistants were invariably more trouble than they were worth. The dolt Kane had taken along to the lawyer's house had been too stupid to avoid getting shot in the arm. No, this was best.

The two men rode into range. Kane spent a moment confirming that they were the right ones. He was careful about such things.

Lord Ross Carlisle was on the near side, but Kane aimed at Peregrine, for the dark foreigner was more important and also had experience that should make him cooler under fire. A pampered English aristocrat like Lord Ross would probably be too surprised and confused to take cover before Kane reloaded and shot him.

Aiming for the heart, Kane began tracking Peregrine. In just a moment, another moment…

Without haste, he squeezed the trigger.

If the sun had not come from behind a cloud a few minutes earlier, there would have been no warning at all. As it was, Ross saw only a brief flicker as light slid along a rifle barrel, but that was enough. Without conscious thought, he reacted with the reflexes honed in thousands of miles of dangerous traveling.

From the angle of the barrel, Peregrine was the target. And he was unaware of the danger because his attention was on a clump of trees to the left. The trail was narrow here, and the horses were so close that the two men were almost touching.

Acting from instinct, Ross shouted, "Get down!"

At the same time, he dived sideways, reaching out to shove his friend lower.

Both warning and action were a fraction too late. As Ross grabbed Peregrine's arm, a bullet slammed into his own back with paralyzing impact. As the breath was blasted from his body, he had the fleeting thought that it was ironic to have survived Bokhara and Afghanistan only to die like this among the peaceful green hills of England.

Then darkness claimed him.

Furiously Kane watched his plan go awry. The Englishman must have seen something, for he shouted and moved between Kane and his target. As thunderous echoes of the gunshot rolled across the valley, a horse screamed, and both men disappeared from view, falling between their mounts. Since the path was below ground level, Kane could not see what had happened. Both horses bolted down the path, one still screaming. Then all was silence.

As he swiftly reloaded, Kane swore under his breath. His rifle was powerful, and it was possible that the one bullet had hit both men, going through Lord Ross to strike Peregrine. In fact, that was likely, for there was no sound from where the men had fallen. But it had been sloppy shooting, and quite possibly one or both of the men were still alive. Kane would have to finish them off at close range, which would make it obvious that this was no hunting accident.

But it was too late to turn back. Every sense alert, Kane began to make his way across the ground to his victims.

The deafening crack of the rifle made it shatteringly clear to Peregrine that once again he had made a lethal miscalculation. Weldon wasn't waiting, he was going direct to the death stroke.

Peregrine could have retained his seat on the horse, but let himself be pulled off by Ross's falling body.

Fueled by self-fury, his mind raced at top speed. The shot must have come from the right of the trail, where Ross was watching and Peregrine wasn't. A single gunman or there would have been more than one shot. And Ross had taken the bullet intended for his friend.

Peregrine hit the ground hard, Ross landing half on top of him as the horses stampeded, panic-stricken by the blast of the gun and the scent of blood. Keeping his head below the edge of the sunken lane, Peregrine did a hasty examination of his friend, praying that the wound was minor. The bullet had struck in the upper left back. As he turned Ross over to see if there was an exit wound, his friend's eyelids flickered open.

"That was a bloody stupid bit of heroics," Peregrine swore in a furious whisper. "You had damned well better not die, or Sara will never forgive me."

Ross gave a ghost of a smile. His voice almost inaudible, he said, "Tell Sara that… I owed you… a life for a life." Then his eyes closed again.

Peregrine's mouth twisted savagely as he saw the brilliant scarlet stain spreading across the other man's white shirt. The bullet had gone right through him, which was good, and the wound was high enough so that possibly the lungs were not damaged. But even if the gunshot was not mortal in itself, Ross would bleed to death quickly without treatment.

Two impulses warred within Peregrine; he wanted desperately to stop the bleeding before it was too late, but he could not afford to take the time when there was a murderer within yards. If either of them were to survive, the gunman must be stopped.

The only weapon Peregrine had was the knife he always carried in his boot. It would have to be enough. He crouched below the edge of the lane, and swiftly moved fifty yards to the left. Then he peered over the edge of the lane in the direction he thought the shot had come from. There was a tumble of boulders in the right position.

He held absolutely still, listening. At first there was no sight or sound of the gunman. Then he heard a slight rustle of grass. He could see nothing, but from the sound guessed that a single man was moving carefully from the rocks to the trail.

The ground was covered with a mixture of trees, grass, and shrubs, which prevented Peregrine from seeing the sniper, but which also provided cover for his own movement. He slid the knife from his boot, and carried it in his right hand as he crawled over the lip of the lane and began to stalk his enemy.

Staying low, he chose an angle that should bring the two men together at the brink of the lane. His progress was slowed by the dryness of the early autumn vegetation, which made it hard to move silently. Fortunately the sniper was making enough noise to cover the faint sounds of Peregrine's passage.

A few feet from the lane, the gunman stood up, presenting his back to Peregrine, who was still a dozen feet away. His rifle at his shoulder, the sniper gazed down into the lane to discover how much damage he had wrought. When he saw that there was only one body below, the gunman instantly realized his danger. He whirled around, hands tightening on his weapon, his eyes narrow and dangerous. It was Kane, Weldon's chief jackal.

Seeing Peregrine, Kane snarled, "Now I have you!"

Simultaneously Peregrine hurled himself at the other man, covering the distance in three long strides. "Not yet, you bloody murderer!"

Kane made the mistake of pausing to aim. Peregrine dived under the rifle, knocking the other man backward. The gun fired, the bullet blazing perilously close as Peregrine knocked Kane to the ground. The fight was swift and deadly. A stream of profanity pouring from him, Kane fought with every savage trick he knew, but Peregrine knew more. It took less than ten seconds to pin the other man to the ground.

A distant, rational corner of his mind said that he should interrogate Kane because the other man might know something useful about Weldon's plans. But rationality had no chance against the annihilating rage that drove Peregrine. "Die, you bastard," he swore.

Then he slit Kane's throat in the middle of a curse. Blood spurted forth, and a hoarse, gurgling noise came from Kane's severed windpipe, but he could not speak. Very quickly the flow of blood slowed, then stopped. Peregrine stood and wiped his knife on Kane's coat before he dragged the body behind some shrubbery. He took a moment to peel off his victim's coat and shirt. Then, his face grim, he went to see if anything could be done for Ross.

His friend was still breathing, though shallowly, and his face was chalk white from shock and blood loss. Peregrine had considerable experience with gunshot and knife wounds, and swiftly he improvised a bandage from strips of Kane's clothing, tying fabric pads over the wounds on both chest and back.

Having done what he could to staunch the bleeding, Peregrine stood and ran down the path in the direction the horses had gone, praying that one of the beasts was close.

Whatever gods he invoked were listening, for less than a quarter of a mile away he discovered Ross's mount. Iskander was an even-tempered beast, but he shied away from the wild, bloody human who wanted to capture him. It took too much time for Peregrine to calm himself to the point where Iskander would let him close. Finally he managed to catch the horse.

He galloped back to Ross. The next half hour was a series of disconnected, nightmarish moments: struggling to get his friend's considerable weight onto the skittish horse. Mounting behind and guiding the beast with one hand while the other kept Ross from falling. Forcing Iskander faster than a horse carrying two heavy men should have to go. And praying that his friend would still be alive when they reached Sulgrave.