He led them out, praying they wouldn’t neigh, wishing he could muffle the hoofs as he’d read smugglers did. The shutters of the building were all closed. His heart was thundering. If they caught him now . . .
He got the horses to the road. Walked them a little way, both to avoid noise and because he had no idea how his chosen steed would react to a rider, trying not to let histension show in his movements. Then he whispered a few endearments, and swung himself up onto the carriage horse’s back.
The beast took it placidly: it seemed he’d been ridden before. Cassian clapped his heels to the horse’s sides, and they jogged off into the night, leaving his prison behind.
He’d have liked to gallop, but that would be insanity on such a bad road, in the dark, on an unfamiliar beast, and with a second horse in tow to boot. He did, however, urge the horses to a trot, because his back was prickling and his ears straining for pursuit. None came, and as the slow minutes passed and he got further away, he was able to believe it wouldn’t come.
He’d done it. He had actuallyescaped,fromkidnappers, all by himself. Leo was going to choke. Cassian rode on, skin tingling with the sheer magnificence of this exploit, wanting to whoop at the moon. He had looked after himself in the teeth of some thoroughly alarming opposition, and he had not needed Lord Hugo or his valet or Daizell or anybody. He—
There was someone coming. A horse, approaching him, along the road.
Cassian’s mood of infallible competence evaporated on the instant. It could be just a late traveller, but that person would be able to tell his captors he’d seen a rider with two horses, and if it was a third bravo, or even Sir James Vier himself—
It would not be Sir James. But in the unlikely event it was, Cassian was going to make him regret he’d ever been born, somehow. He would, however, feel a lot more confident doing that in a drawing room or a lawyer’s office than on an empty country lane in the darkness.
It was too late for him to dive off the road behind a treeor some such: the lane was straight and the other rider could surely see him, and he’d only attract more attention by trying to hide now. He’d just have to urge the tired horses to speed if need be, although ridingventre à terrein the moonlight seemed a terrible idea.
Cassian squared his shoulders, trying to look unmemorable, though he was aware he’d lost his hat at some point. The other rider seemed to be hatless as well, he noticed, and as his horse plodded closer, the moon glinted silver off curls that looked, somehow, as though they might be copper and gold.
‘Daize?’ he yelped.
Daizell glanced at him, looked away, swung back around, and almost fell off his horse. ‘Cass?Cass!’
‘Daize.’ Cassian was gaping like a fish. He rode up as Daizell pulled his horse, a big rawboned brute, to a halt. ‘What the devil? How are you here?’
‘I came after you. How areyouhere?’
‘I escaped. They shut me in a room, the swine, and I forced the window and got out, and stole their horses—’
‘I stolethishorse!’
Daizell stared at Cassian. Cassian stared at Daizell. They both started laughing, incredulous and bubbly with relief. ‘Mother of God, Cass. Are you all right? What on earth did those brutes want with you?’
‘I’ll tell you on the way. I haven’t come very far and they might be after me.’
‘Hell. Then you should go without me. This damned slug is barely moving.’
‘He looks tired,’ Cassian said rebukingly. ‘Poor old boy. And I don’t think they’re on my tail precisely, since I haveboth their horses. These two are in better condition: do you want to change?’
‘Very much,’ Daizell said. ‘This is about the worst horse I could have stolen, but there wasn’t a choice.’
‘You stole a horse,’ Cassian repeated as they both dismounted, the meaning of that belatedly sinking in. ‘Really stole? From the owner?’
‘Well, he’d put the reins over a post while he stopped for a piss, and I didn’t have time to ask for the loan, so, yes. Just at the start of the Warwick Road. It was that or run after you, and I don’t think my legs are up to that.’
‘We’d better bring it back then,’ Cassian said a little dizzily.
‘I dare say. Cass?’
Cassian had gone to take the bridle off the stolen horse, to put it on the other stolen horse, because he was a horse thief now. ‘Mmm?’
Daizell slid a hand over his shoulder, up to the back of his head. He leaned in, and Cassian looked up in wonder, and then they were kissing, on the open road, under the moon. Daizell’s mouth hot on his, Daizell’s fingers digging into his hip.
He hadn’t gone back to the inn. He’d come after him, and actually stolen an actual horse to do it, and for all that was a remarkably irresponsible act, it made Cassian’s insides melt like honey in the sun. Kissing, open-mouthed and desperate and gleeful, under the night sky, while escaping kidnap. Cassian had never felt less like a duke, or more like himself.
Daizell pulled him close with a grunt, and Cassian buried his face in the sturdy shoulder. ‘Lord, Cass. I was quite alarmed.’
‘So was I,’ Cassian said, muffled. ‘They weren’t pleasant.And I need to tell you about it, but, Daize, they know where we’re staying.’
