Knowing there was no time to waste, Blakeford yelled, “Now!” to his other men.
Then he aimed his carbine at Alys Weston's head.
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Wargrave's comment about the dangerous look of the sunken road had been offhand, but all three riders had an extra degree of alertness. Even so, it was a shock when an unknown man bellowed, “'Ware ambush!” from the trees just above them.
For an instant Alys froze. Then Reggie barked, “Lie low and ride!”
They all bent over their saddles and kicked their mounts into a gallop. Simultaneously, a man's limp body came crashing down the embankment, and a ragged volley of gunshots blasted with deafening nearness.
The warning had saved Alys and her friends from being struck by the bullets, but their escape was cut off when rough-looking horsemen thundered into the road ahead and behind. With their guns discharged, the attackers were turning to hand-to-hand combat.
Fiercely Alys reined in her horse to avoid a collision with a knife-wielding ruffian. The defile had exploded into a world of shouts and shots and crashing hooves. Beside her, Reggie and Wargrave were each being set upon by two men at once, and the acrid smell of gunpowder was harsh in her nostrils. With stunned disbelief, she realized that this was no ordinary robberyâmurder was intended.
Reggie used his powerful horse to drive back an attacker, creating a small gap. Knocking aside the man's knife, Reggie yelled, “Allie, get clear!”
Alys tried to take advantage of the confusion to break free so she would have a chance to use her pistol, but a fifth man, his eyes covered by a narrow black mask, cut her off. As she tried to evade him, he yanked his mount to a standstill, raised the carbine he carried, and aimed it at her from less than a dozen feet.
He would never miss at this rangeâthe deadly black mouth of the gun seemed enormous. Acting on pure reflex, Alys jerked back on her reins, causing her mare to rear and wheel. At the same time, she whipped her pistol from its holster and cocked it.
The man in the black mask fired. The shot was so close that Alys was sure she felt the spatter of burning cordite, but the shot missed. His carbine empty, he was temporarily harmless, so Alys pulled away from him and whirled her horse to see what was happening behind her, praying that her single pistol shot might help her companions.
Behind her a battle was raging, incoherent and cacophonous. Despite their superior numbers and weapons, the attackers were having a hard time destroying two men who were unarmed, but trained and deadly fighters. Alys saw Wargrave duck a saber slash, then ruthlessly wrest control of the sword away, unhorsing his antagonist in the process. Reggie was involved in a tussle with another attacker that ended when he knocked the man from the saddle with a savage blow of his fist.
As a third man raised a pistol on Reggie's back, Alys screamed his name and fired her own weapon at the attacker. An accurate shot was impossible, but by sheer luck her bullet winged the man. Bellowing with pain, he dropped his gun.
Then the masked man came at Alys again, leveling a pistol as he drove his horse at her. Impossible to reload under these conditions. Even as she wondered wildly why he was so intent on murdering her, she drew her arm back and hurled her useless weapon as hard as she could. The empty pistol clipped the man's cheek, causing him to jerk and sending his shot off harmlessly.
“You miserable bitch!” he swore. Grabbing at her bridle, he used his burly strength to immobilize her horse. Then he reached into his boot and pulled out a long, viciously edged knife.
Having discouraged his own adversaries, Reggie looked around in time to see the attack on Alys. With horror he saw that she was trapped in the sidesaddle, unable to evade her attacker. Knowing he was too far away to reach her before the knife would strike home, Reggie leaped from his horse and grabbed the Baker rifle that lay by the edge of the road only two feet from him.
Alys was struggling fiercely with the masked man, trying to prevent him from getting a clear stab at her, but the bastard was large and strong, and she was unable to fight free. To Reggie, the movement seemed ghoulishly slow as her attacker raised his knife high, the thin blade flashing in the morning sun.
Too frightened for prayer, Reggie dropped into approved firing position, one knee on the ground, the other raised to support his elbow and steady his aim. As the lethal knife stabbed downward, he cocked the hammer and squeezed the trigger, praying that the weapon was accurate.
His bullet slammed into the middle of the masked man's chest, knocking him backward off his horse. The knife spun glittering through the air. As the flat crack of the rifle echoed between the trees, a shout went up. The four remaining attackers, now considerably the worse for wear, abandoned the fight. The two that had been unhorsed scrambled onto their mounts and bolted after their fellows as quickly as possible.
The entire skirmish had taken less than two minutes. As the hoofbeats faded in the distance, the little stretch of road was absolutely silent. Even the birds had been shocked out of their songs by the gunfire. The masked man lay motionless on the ground, his clothing saturated with blood, while the man who had fallen down the hill still sprawled unconscious in the ditch.
Wordlessly Reggie crossed to Alys's mount and held his arms up. She slid into his embrace. Though she had fought like a tigress and quite possibly saved his own worthless life, now that the danger was over her slim body trembled violently. He held her with rib-bruising pressure as he offered a passionate mental prayer of thanksgiving that she had been spared.
Wargrave trotted his horse over. “Were either of you injured?” He looked as calm as a man riding in London's Rotten Row, but his rust-brown coat had a black hole scorched along one shoulder.
Easy for Wargrave to be composed; it wasn't his woman that had almost been killed. If Reggie had had any doubts that he wanted Alys Weston to be his woman, they were resolved now. “I think we're both all right. Allie?”
“I'm fine. Sorry to be quaking like a blancmange.” A little shakily, she disentangled herself from his embrace.
Wargrave swung down from his horse. “Nerves are permitted. For someone experiencing her first taste of combat, you acquitted yourself very well.”
“If you hadn't been here, Richard, the odds would have been hopeless. I'm glad you decided to accompany us today. Thank you.” Reggie's voice was detached, but his emotions were not. While he rated his own fighting skills highly, the chances of their escaping this deadly ambush would have been nil if his cousin hadn't been with them, and a trained soldier. Even as it was, the result could easily have gone the other way.
Wargrave said, “It was the army's loss when you couldn't join.”
It was a typically elliptical exchange of masculine compliments, but entirely satisfactory. Their gazes met and held for a moment, and Reggie knew that from now on, he and his cousin were friends.
Building bridges was a great improvement on burning them.
As Reggie kept one arm firmly around Alys, the earl knelt and removed the dead man's mask, revealing a heavy face set in angry lines even in death. Alys's gasp was drowned out by Reggie's shocked, “Blakeford!”
Wargrave glanced up. “You know him?”
Alys felt Reggie's rigidity in the arm that circled her. “I know him,” he said grimly. “There had been some trouble between us recently, but”âhe shook his head in disbeliefâ“it was a minor matter. Not important enough for him to want to kill me.”
“It might not have been important to you, but obviously it was to him.” The earl stood. “Don't bother with regrets. They would be wasted on a man who hired a gang of cutthroats to ambush his enemies and anyone else unlucky enough to be in the way.”
Despite Wargrave's pragmatic words, Alys felt a chill spreading throughout her body. Reggie might think Blakeford had been out to kill him, but Alys knew better. She was Blakeford's intended victim, and she knew why.
Who would have dreamed that her past would reach out with such violence? A man had died today trying to murder her, and two other men might have died simply for being with her. Grimly she fought the wave of nausea that threatened.
On the other side of the road, the man who had fallen down the hill and lain unconscious through the fight moaned and stirred. Then he struggled to a sitting position. He wore a dark green jacket of military cut that was so grimy and faded it was hard to discern the original color. As he raised one hand to his head, his eyes darted nervously around the three watchers, fear on his thin face.
The earl crossed the road and stood by the man, arms akimbo. “Was it you who shouted the warning at us?”
The man nodded. “Aye. I wouldn't shoot the lady, and when I was targeting the tall gent, I recognized you, Captain Dalton.”
“I used to be Captain Dalton. A year ago I learned that my real family name is Davenport. I'm the Earl of Wargrave now.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at the man's dark green jacket. “Your face is familiar, but I don't think we ever spoke. You were in the 95th Rifles. Kenneth Wilding's company?”
“Aye, sir. Corporal Willit, sir. Everyone in the regiment knew you, and what kind of officer you were.” He rubbed the oozing wound on his head. “I figured that if you was with these other folk, I was on the wrong side.”
Voice edged, the earl asked, “What is a former rifleman doing with a gang of murderers?”
“Trying to feed his family, sir,” Willit said sullenly. “After years of getting our arses”âhis eyes shifted to Alysâ“begging your pardon, ma'am. After years of getting our backsides shot off by Johnny Crapaud, we come home to no jobs and no back pay. My wife and our babe had been sleeping in the hedgerows for months when that fellow over there heard I was a sharpshooter and offered me a job.” Willit gestured at Blakeford. “He was a mean cove, but he was willing to pay fifty pounds for doing what King George paid me pennies for.”
“The situations are hardly the same, but I can understand why you accepted.” The earl frowned. After a long moment, he said slowly, “If you're willing to move your family to Gloucestershire, I'll find a decent job for you on my estate.”
The rifleman climbed unsteadily to his feet, desperate hope dawning on his face. It was the expression of a man who had learned not to expect justice. “You're not going to turn me over to the constables?”
“You've earned better than that. If you hadn't warned us, we might have all been killed.” The earl fixed him with a steely glance. “Just remember to act like a Rifleman in the future, soldier.”
Willit straightened and executed a smart salute. “Yes, sir!”
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When Julian Markham drove his curricle into the stable yard at Strickland, he felt as if he had come home. The groom who took his horse greeted him like a prodigal son. After saying that Mr. Davenport and Lady Alys had gone to Dorchester for a farm fair, he gave a broad wink and added that Miss Meredith was at home.
Obviously everyone in the place knew what was between him and Merry. Julian wondered if the servants had been laying bets on whether he would return. If only they knew how much he had been longing for this moment!
He took the front steps two at a time, knocking impatiently on the door and being admitted by one of the housemaids. Before he could even ask for Miss Spenser, Merry herself appeared in the entryway from the back of the house, a basket of fresh-cut flowers on her arm. In the moment before she recognized him, he saw the grave sadness in her wide blue eyes. Then her expression changed, her lips parting with shock.
Julian's confidence had taken a beating in the last weeks. A note of uncertainty in his voice, he asked, “Are you glad to see me?”
With a wordless cry of happiness, she sped into his waiting arms, her flowers going flying in a shower of bright colors. While the housemaid watched with shy approval, Julian and Merry lost themselves in the sweetness of reunion, their voices incoherent, their joy palpable as they tried to hug every bit of each other at once.
When Julian returned to awareness of the outer world, he led Merry into the drawing room. He did not want an audience, even an approving one.
In the bright light he saw tears on her cheeks. He drew out his handkerchief and blotted them tenderly. “What's wrong, Merry? Has something happened here?”
She shook her head energetically and gave him a crooked smile. “I'm sorry to be such a watering pot. It's just that I didn't think I would ever see you again.”
He did not reproach her for lack of faith. Instead he settled them on the sofa and put an arm around her. As she pulled her legs up and tucked herself under his arm, he said, “I'm back, but not so good a bargain as I was at the beginning of the summer.”
At her questioning glance he continued, “You were right about how the world would see this match. I spent weeks arguing with my father, trying unsuccessfully to talk him around, but he was absolutely adamant.”