Jackal (Regency Refuge 2) (18 page)

Rupert held onto Rosalie with one hand and balanced himself on the edge of the phaeton with the other. She got her footing to climb out when another bullet echoed through the unrelenting winter air. Horror choked Rupert as her body jerked and she became dead weight. Her mouth was open in surprise. It would have been almost enchanting had her left eye still been present. In its place, however, a gaping hole oozed viscous fluids from the body and brain.

Claire, the kitchen maid, screamed. A spray of blood from her friend covered her. She stared wildly at Rupert for a fractured moment before she scrambled over the body of her fallen compatriot, fighting to escape the phaeton. She reached for Rupert's hand, and he grabbed it, heaving with all his might to get her up and out to safety before another shot shattered the morning further.

The three survivors hunkered down, their bodies hugging the phaeton. Rupert's voice was urgent. "We know where he is for the moment, but he won't stay in one position. We're safe until he's regained us in his line of sight. Unfortunately, without knowing which direction he's moving, our safety will be short-lived."

The maid pulled the bonnet off and within seconds shimmied out of Eleanor's dress. Beneath it she wore trousers and a loose shirt to give her easy movement. "I have my directive."

Her deadly intent was evident in her eyes and poised-to-run stance. Before she could dart away into the clearing to draw The Hunter's fire, Rupert grabbed her arm to forestall her. "What exactly is your directive?"

"To keep you safe at all costs."

"Why?" The word demanded her submission.

"I don't know."

"Who gave that order?"

"It was delivered by courier, but it was written on the minister's stationary."

When this is through, I'm going to burn every piece of stationary the minister owns. I'm done with unsigned messages.

Rupert, still gripping her wrist, stared hard into her eyes. They held no guile. "Nobody else dies today, not on this side of the story anyway. I'm belaying the minister's order."

The maid shook her head, her blonde hair almost preternatural as it lay still despite her movement. "I answer to him."

"Not if he's The Hunter, you don't. The only reason for you to run across this field right now is so that he can force me to watch you die. He's counting on you creating a distraction. He knows it's coming, and we won't be able to use it to escape. This whole game he's been playing – going after Uncle Fitz and William, all of it – has been to make me suffer. You follow the minister's order, and you play unerringly into The Hunter's hand."

"You think the minister is The Hunter?" The maid's voice dropped into a harsh whisper, but there was no surprise in her eyes.

Rupert pulled Juliana close to his side as he asked the maid. "What do you think?"

She averted her gaze for a split second before answering. "Rumors. Nothing proven. Information has been leaked, strange assignments given. It's been speculation. He is a feared man."

Rupert nodded. "Arm yourself. We'll draw his fire and keep him occupied. Barrows and the rest of the team will be closing in on our location. We only need distract him until then."

The maid nodded.

"You're Claire, right?"

"Yes, m'lord."

"Very well. Claire, Juliana, stay close." Rupert had a pistol in each hand and smaller ones in both pockets. They'd given The Hunter plenty of time to reload. Between his weapons, Claire's two pistols, and Juliana's… His eyebrow went up. "Do you know how to shoot?" When she nodded fervently, he gave her one of his pistols. "Try this instead. It'll shoot further." She pocketed the muff pistol, and gripped the larger one he'd given her with a steady hand.

They moved as one to the rear of the phaeton. Rupert poked his head around the corner and fired a random shot into the woods, hoping to draw The Hunter's fire in order to ascertain his location. A second later, a shot tore into the wood of the phaeton.

Grim resignation choked Rupert. "He's getting closer."

They moved to the other end, and this time Claire popped out momentarily to fire off a round. No reactionary gunfire met them, but before they could decide what to do next, another shot was fired. The sickening sound of a bullet hitting flesh filled Rupert's ears. Either The Hunter had shot the dead horse again – the other one had already broken free and trotted off in his terror – or he'd buried another shot in the upstairs maid. This was about insult and revenge, not swift victory.

"You might as well show yourself!" Rupert's voice echoed in the still cold of the morning.

His answer was another gunshot, this time into the dirt at his feet. The Hunter remained concealed, but he'd moved his position enough, circling around the clearing, until he now had them back in his line of sight. Rupert jumped toward the rear of the phaeton. With is free hand he yanked on Juliana's arm to pull her with him. Claire was behind him until another shot was fired. She hit the ground with a cry of pain then scrambled awkwardly across the ground to reach them.

"It's my shooting arm, m'lord."

A quick assessment told him the bullet had done its job. Claire wouldn't be helping to defend their position. As though reading his mind, she said, "I think I can still reload."

Rupert quickly gave her his empty pistol and the accouterments needed to reload.

"Why don't we run for the woods?" Juliana's question was a reasonable one, given her inexperience.

"That's what he wants. He's waiting for it. There's fifteen feet between here and coverage, and it's a slope. Too easy to lose our footing."

Claire grunted her agreement.

Rupert yelled, "I'm lame and one of us is shot! Is that how you like to fight now? You don't think you can best a healthy man?"

A spine-chilling laugh met his taunt. "Tell me, Jackal, did you see my face that day?"

Juliana tensed beside him, but he couldn't allow his focus to stray. "Is that why you went into hiding? Because you feared I'd be able to identity you?"

The Hunter threw a volley of foul language in their direction. "You ruined everything by not dying! Who do you think you are? You thought to divulge my identity to the Austrian government? When you couldn't even give them my birth name? I owned half those men before you crossed the border into their land!"

Rupert's leg pulsed with agony, the kind that reached all the way out to his fingers and numbed them with the force of it. He battered back at the pain. Maybe it was real, maybe it was a memory of the wounds he'd endured the day he'd last heard The Hunter's voice. Either way, he could little afford to let it win.

"You made a mistake!"

The Hunter laughed. "I think not! You are the one who is mistaken!"

"You sent orders using the minister's stationary!"

A howl of anger met his words. "If the piece of baggage had done what she'd been told, she'd be dead, and you wouldn't know that, now would you?"

Rupert handed another pistol to Juliana. "On my word, both of you run for the woods."

"But you said…"

Rupert silenced Juliana's words with a finger to her lips. "Barrows should have been here by now. I can't risk your life any longer, not if I want to be able to live with myself. I'll draw his fire. He'll be focused on me and too distracted to notice you escaping. Get out of here. Run as fast and as far as you can."

He gave Claire a hard look. "Your mandate is to get her to safety. At any cost."

Claire nodded swiftly. "I can't shoot, but I can drag her out of here and make sure she obeys."

His eyes slid back to Juliana. Tears coursed down her cheeks. "It's all my fault. I insisted this plan would work."

"It was never your choice." His voice was a broken whisper. "Before I agreed, I knew the likely ending. I made the decision, and I don't regret it. He had to be drawn out." Rupert leaned forward and whispered a name in Juliana's ear. Cutting her off before she could react to it, he planted his lips on hers and kissed her with fire and lightning and the icy edge of desperation. A man about to meet his maker wants a pleasant thought on his mind when he dies, and there was none better than the memory of Juliana's lips against his own.

Before Juliana could respond to the kiss – or the name he'd uttered – Rupert stood and took two steps into the clearing. With her good arm, Claire grabbed Juliana and ran for the coverage of the trees as another gunshot pulsed through the air.

Chapter Thirty

A familiar pain burned in Rupert's left shoulder, and roaring filled his ears. He fought to keep his focus and stay on his feet. He needed to give Juliana enough time to get away.

With a shaky right hand, he lifted a pistol and took aim as The Hunter stepped out from the trees. His breath caught in his throat, tangled with the triumph of being correct and the dread of what was to come. The Hunter was too far away for Rupert's pistol to reach, but Rupert was more than near enough for The Hunter's Baker rifle.

The rifle fired, and Rupert went down on his knees, blood now oozing from his left leg, as well as his arm.
Blast it all. Why the left side?
Combined with the already excruciating pain in his left leg, this new wound debilitated him. Rupert forced himself to concentrate and do his duty.
Stay alive long enough for Juliana to get to safety.

The Hunter laughed, the maniacal sound of it bouncing around the clearing. "Not an ounce of surprise on your face, old friend. You haven't changed much, have you?"

Rupert grunted.

"What? You're not going to ask me why?"

"You want me to ask why the grand scheme? Why you killed Fitzwilliam and his son? Why you had the need to draw me out of hiding? Why you trapped two innocent girls into marriage and ripped a family from their home? Is that what you want?" Rupert's voice began fading with his strength. The Hunter was still too far away for his pistol to reach. He needed to draw him in.
Maybe taunting him with a crime he didn't commit will do the trick.
Rupert already knew The Hunter had played no part in the betrothal contract scandal.

The devil with the rifle threw his head back and made a sound deep in his throat. The frenzied baying of a pack of hounds on a fox's scent could be no more bloodthirsty.

"One question, dear Jackal. I'll give you one question. Ask me anything you wish."

Rupert heard thrashing in the woods coming from his left. Juliana had escaped to his right. He dared not turn to investigate.

"I think we're about to have company. Do you have that question ready for me yet?"

"Why the duke? Why kill the Duke of Sheffield?"

"I've cursed that decision a thousand times since, but he got too close. He used his ties to the War Department to snoop about and ask questions. Then he confronted me one day. Told me he believed I'd gone rogue and planned to report me to the minister himself. I should have bribed him or done a better job of making it look an accident. On the other hand, I had to act quickly. He walked out of White's with every intention of going straight to the minister. He gave me no choice."

Thomas' winded voice sounded behind Rupert. "You killed my father? You have been staying under our roof these many weeks, and you are the one who stole my father from me?"

Rupert closed his eyes. This was not good. Not good at all. "Thomas, please tell me you didn't come here alone."

"There was shooting. People fleeing the park in a panic. You had the phaeton. Once I realized you weren't among those who left, I came to find you."

"No weapons either, I suppose."

"Not even a coat."

"Get behind me, Thomas."

The Hunter's voice clawed at Rupert like a wounded animal. "Such a touching reunion! Tell me, your grace, did you know it was no chance encounter that had you hiring Rupert here? Or that he lied to you about his real name? Did he disclose his previous employment history? Tell you he'd been sent to hunt down the man who killed your father? Or is this all news to you?"

Rupert sensed, rather than saw, Thomas' presence behind him, but still Thomas stood. A sensible duke would have crouched down and used Rupert as a shield. "Let me protect you."

Thomas' hand rested on his shoulder. "You've been protecting me for far too long. I understood more of my father's business than I ever told you."

"You knew?" Rupert wanted to keep the conversation going. As he and Thomas spoke in soft tones, The Hunter moved closer, likely so he could hear.

"It was no accident I hired the man who'd tried to bring my father's killer to justice."

"You always knew?"

Thomas squeezed his shoulder.

"We need him closer."

Rupert fought to keep his face fashionably blank, but for the first time since they'd left the townhome that morning, a whisper of a smile tickled his lips.

"Why did you go after the Clairmont sisters?" Rupert bellowed the words.

"I promised you the one question, remember?"

"Answer me then! What can it hurt? Why the sisters?" Thomas' voice was strong.

The Hunter cackled. "That was nothing to do with me. I spent a year poisoning the old man, stripping away his reality layer by layer until he would be willing to tell me his secrets without anyone being the wiser."

Rupert was sure he knew the answer, but he asked anyway. "What did you learn from him?"

"Bah! Nothing! I almost had him, but then he realized who I was, and I had no choice but to increase the dose to drive him completely mad until no one would ever listen to anything he said. His unexpected death was a boon."

"And William?"

"He had to go so I could draw you out. How else could I get you to come out of hiding? William wasn't as well trained as his father, either. He told me you worked for the duke here, and that you were at a remote castle in Northumberland. The duke, in turn, was quite willing to accept me into his home and life upon hearing I'd served with his father."

"And the sisters?" The Hunter was over-confident. It made him chatty, and Rupert hoped that played in his favor.

"All the work of a greedy solicitor. I didn't even know of his scheming until the women departed the estate. I sent a letter from abroad telling him of your location as soon as I'd dispatched William. My plan should have drawn you out, Jackal, back to your home. Instead I had to chase the infernal sisters across the country. Who would have thought that simpleton Mr. Knowles would have had an agenda of his own?"