When She Said I Do (39 page)

There was where Callie had fallen. Ren could still see the wild mess he’d made of the area, flinging himself down by her side.

There was the wide trail of crushed grass he’d left, carrying her back to the house with his awkward run.

Too much blood.

He shook off the memory and forced himself to focus. There was little to see in the dark, so he closed his eyes and reconstructed the area from memory. The hill behind him was not much more than a rise between this little vale and the house.

The hill to the north of him was much higher and topped with a flat expanse, like a natural barrow. If he were a sniper, he would choose that hill.

But she’s only a little girl.

A Worthington girl. So Ren turned his gelding and headed up the hill to the north.

Callie’s brothers had protested mightily his leaving them behind. Ren hadn’t bothered to explain the lack of mounts or his own need to ride rather than trust his damaged body to sustain the search on foot. He’d simply walked out to the stables and saddled his horse. The bloody Worthingtons could muddle through on their own.

At the top of the hill he found a place where the grass had been flattened by a small body. The musket and powder sack lay abandoned nearby. Ren picked up the musket and blinked at its antiquity. The little idiot was lucky the thing hadn’t blown up in her face.

Callie wasn’t.

Ren lay down upon the matted grass and pointed the musket downhill. It was a difficult shot. She’d come bloody close to hitting him, though if Callie hadn’t been there the shot would have gone wide by a foot.

With only darkness around him, he could not see down into the vale. He closed his eyes once more and imagined.

He hated the man below. The man had ruined everything, had broken his family, had stolen the closest thing he had to a real mother.

He aimed the musket, opening one eye, seeing before him the green and gold vale in the spring. The man was walking, limping, fleeing the only true happiness he’d ever known—

Ren shook his head and refocused. The man was limping across the vale, his coat flapping open in the wind. The wind had been gusting, he remembered. It had swept Callie’s voice away, muting it to the cry of a bird.

A windy day, downhill, at this distance …

Ren revised his opinion of the girl’s skill. He was bloody lucky to be alive.

So was Callie.

But he had not died. The girl had watched from above while he’d lifted Callie into his arms and run for the manor.

She had to know her sister still lived, didn’t she?

Ren remembered how much blood there had been. The grass had been dripping in it, burning like fire in his memory. Callie had lain so white and still. He’d thought she was dead himself.

So … he closed his eyes. His gift, once upon a time, in the service of the Crown, had been infiltration. He’d been able to play the parts required of him by using his imagination, placing himself into the fabricated life of a man willing to be seduced by the enemy.

Now he placed himself into the mind of a half-wild, brilliant child who believed she’d murdered her own sister.

He opened his eyes and stood, leaning on the musket as he gazed into the black distance outside the circle of lantern light.

He knew where he would go.

*   *   *

Attie lay curled into a hollow in the straw, listening. There was something out there in the dark.

Rip. Rip.

Breathless and terrified, she scowled fiercely at the stone wall in the direction of the sound. She couldn’t bear not knowing.

She shifted to a crouch and approached the wall low and small. There was a hole a little more than halfway up. She knew she could just look through it if she stood on her toes.

Rip. Rip.

Standing as tall as she could, she peered through the window, if one wanted to call it that when it was really just a few missing stones. It was entirely dark outside. She stared until she felt as though her eyes were coming out of her head, but—

Then she heard the unmistakable snort of a horse. It was just some old pasture nag, ripping the grass up bite by bite. Attie relaxed down onto her heels. “Go on now,” she hissed at the annoying beast. “Or I shall eat you!”

“There’s no need to threaten him. He’d like nothing more than to go home to his nice warm stable and eat real oats.”

Attie spun around just as a lantern came into view. “Ow!” She held up a hand before her stunned vision and backed rather painfully up against the stone wall.

“My apologies, Miss Worthington.” The light faded somewhat, but Attie’s night vision had been spoiled by multicolored blurs that danced across her sight.

She kept the wall to her back. “Who is there?”

“It’s Porter.”

He’d come to kill her for taking Callie, just as she’d meant to kill him. Attie felt sick and terrified, and deep inside, relieved. When one had nowhere to go, death seemed like as good a destination as any.

Callie is dead.

The time had come to say it out loud. “Callie is—”

“Callie is alive. She is in her bed at the manor. The doctor has come and gone and he says she shall live.”

Attie couldn’t absorb the words.
Callie is alive.

Alive meant Callie was still here, still on earth, still breathing and talking and—

Attie clapped her hands over her face. The sobs that she had coldly kept at bay all day tore a path up her throat and spilled out here, in this stinking hut, in front of blasted Porter!

She fought them, but they came over and over, harsh tearing noises. She hated the sound. She couldn’t bear the pressure of holding them in any longer. She dropped to her knees and she cried in front of Porter. She never cried. Ever.

After a while, she could breathe again. She dried the tears and mucus from her face with her sleeve. Drawing deep breaths, trying to steady herself, she leaned back against the wall and stuck her chilled, aching legs out before her.

Something landed in her lap. She looked down to spy a large square of white linen. Fine. She would ruin his handkerchief instead. She picked it up and blew her nose with great energy. Then she offered it back.

“Consider it yours,” Porter said dryly.

Attie folded her arms and gazed at the man who had ruined her life. He sat opposite her, even to his extended legs and folded arms. The lantern sat just outside the door, casting a glow inside but not lighting either of them directly. Attie was grudgingly grateful for that. He’d heard her sobs, but that was somehow less humiliating than being watched.

She lifted her chin. Might as well get it over with. “You’re supposed to be the one with the musket ball in you.”

Ren found himself gazing with great sympathy at the little monster. He knew what it was like to fear losing everyone. It broke his heart that she had been pushed to this point. No child should ever have to take life and death into their own hands. It didn’t help that when filthy and rumpled, she looked more like Callie than ever, though there were already signs that the child would someday be a vastly more beautiful woman than either of her sisters.

If the rotten little beast lived that long.

He ought to leave her here and send one of her Worthington clan to fetch her. He knew nothing of children. Then again, he was fairly certain that Atalanta Worthington only bore a passing resemblance to a normal child. Good Lord, the names these people pinned on their unsuspecting offspring.

“‘Attie’ doesn’t suit you. I believe I shall call you ‘Rattie.’”

The look of horror on her face was laughable. “You will not!”

Ren gazed contemplatively at the ceiling. “Rattie, you tried to murder me. I believe that gives me the right to call you whatever I wish.”

She struggled with that for a long moment. As he suspected, she felt terrible about injuring her sister. On the other hand, she seemed to have no regrets about him, other than that she had missed the shot.

“Your family came to Amberdell looking for you.”

She looked away, sullen to the core.

“Your mother is very upset.”

Sullen stare. Sniffle.

Ren was very tired. He’d had a long and terrifying day. If he thought he would survive unscathed, he would toss the pint-sized murderess over his shoulder and cart her back to the bosom of her bedlamite kin.

Callie loved this beastly little person. Callie would want her miniature dignity preserved, he was sure. So, although he’d hardly spoken to a soul in years, it was up to him to coax the malicious urchin home.

“I killed a man once. I sent his own pike through his eye.”

He found himself impaled by her glinting eyes. Right. Blood and gore got her undivided attention.

“Of course, that was after he’d already killed me.”

She sent him a disbelieving sneer.

Ren poked a finger at the shoulder of his surcoat, right above the starburst of the entry-wound scar. “He drove it right through me first. I wrenched it out and turned it about. I sent it right through his thick skull.” He still occasionally relived the sickening sound of that blow, but he kept that detail to himself. “Then I died.”

“You didn’t die.”

Ren met her gaze. “I died. Then I was resurrected by some well-meaning bastard doctor.”

“Doctors are idiots.”

Ren snorted to hear Callie’s derisive remark mimicked in such lilting childish tones. “So I hear.”

“Then you lived in spite of everything.”

“No. I stayed almost dead for many weeks. Months, really. I don’t exactly know. I was somewhere else.”

Now he had her. “Where were you?”

“I can’t describe it.” He’d never tried, not to anyone. “It was dark and cold. So cold I was always numb. I liked being numb.”

Attie nodded. “Numb is better than…”

Better than feeling the pain of killing a beloved sister.

“Then I woke up and I wasn’t numb anymore. I was deeply upset about that. Then I found a mirror. There was further upset, as you can imagine.”

She nodded again. “You look like a doll I had once. Cas and Poll burned her in the dining room fire and Ellie tried to fix her with wax and paper pulp. She looked like hell.”

Ren nodded. It was a fair assessment. “Does my face frighten you?”

The child shot him a contemptuous glare. “Nothing frightens me. You just make me angry.”

“Because I took Callie away.”

“Calliope. Only family calls her ‘Callie.’”

“I’m family now. I’m her husband. That makes me your brother.” Dear Lord, was he really admitting that out loud?

She looked as horrified as he felt. “You are not! You’re … you’re nothing—nothing but
Porter
!”

Ren let out a long breath, gazing wearily at his brand-new little sister. “Rattie and Ren, sitting in a pile of sheep shit in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. If I weren’t your brother, would I be here now, with you?”

She gaped at him like a fish, but it was obvious she had no proper argument to that.

He went on. “I told you that story so that you would know that you are not the first person to try to kill me. Forget about trying. It doesn’t take. But my vast experience has taught me not to take certain things personally. I won’t hold it against you—unless you upset Callie further with your self-important tomfoolery.”

Ren stood and brushed the malodorous straw from his trousers.

“Rattie, your family is worried about you and I’m bloody sick of this hut. If I can forgive you, it stands to reason that your parents and your siblings can see their way clear to doing so, as well. So get your bony little arse up on that gluttonous gelding and let us go back to the manor. I miss Callie. I want to see that she’s well.” When she didn’t move, he glared menacingly and pointed at the door.
“Go. Now.”

She went, grabbing up the lantern on her way out. Ren was still congratulating himself on his firm hand when she kicked his horse into a trot and left him standing next to the sheep hut, in the dark.

Worthingtons!

Chapter 35

Halfway between sleep and waking, Callie tried to roll over and stretch in her usual manner. First, she felt a nauseating agony shoot through her midriff. Second, nothing happened. She didn’t move. She could feel her toes, wiggle them, hear them brush against the linens, but she had not the strength in her body to sit up.

Invalid.

She closed her eyes. “Bloody idiot doctors,” she hissed to herself in the dark. “I don’t believe a word of it.”

She heard a creak, then a step, then the light of a candle flared. She opened her eyes to see Ren leaning over the fire. He straightened, shielding the candle glare with his hand. “Callie?”

She tried to be brave but her body screamed. A sob escaped her. He came closer and set down the candle on a side table. She watched him pick up a bottle and a spoon.

“The laudanum will ease the pain,” he murmured.

She didn’t like the stuff, but she couldn’t bear the agony spiking through her. Opening her mouth, she took a spoonful of the sickly-sweet stuff. Forcing herself to swallow, she dug her fingers into the bedcovers, willing it to work quickly.

“I’ve had the strangest day,” Ren said conversationally.

Callie couldn’t hold back a disbelieving snort, though it made her catch her breath with pain. “Do … tell.”

“It all started when I went for a walk this morning…”

As she listened to his deep voice, speaking so calmly, in such ordinary tones about her falling at his feet with a musket ball in her, about the doctor cutting the ball from her back, about his grim prediction—“but, as you and yours always say, doctors are idiots”—then, astonishingly, about her family and Attie’s disappearance.

Callie stirred. “Attie’s missing?”

Ren stroked her cheek reassuringly. “Attie is downstairs this very moment, ridding us all of the burden of too much cake. I would have insisted she bathe first, but I’ve completely lost control of my own house.”

Callie frowned. The laudanum was beginning to make the world blur about the edges. “But where did she go? How did she get here?”