“What kinds of questions did he ask?”
“He asked of you, what you were working on in your laboratory…if I had heard that the laboratory had exploded. He had laughed at that notion. I told him he was rude and should frame his questions to the Rutland’s and then I walked into the store to get away from him. When I turned to get a better look, he had disappeared.”
Anthony shook his head. “I suspect he was the one responsible for sawing through the axle. The driver, I’ve never laid eyes on him.”
“Why would the man asking the questions, risk being seen?”
“To gloat. A farewell performance before sending us to the next world. With certainty, he didn’t plan on us surviving.”
She wiped a smudge on her cheek clean with her sleeve. “And how many do you estimate are there working together?”
“To saw the axle took a while and the culprits were cunning enough to calculate the break at the time we would be travelling along the river.”
“Someone in the town was witness to their machinations,” she insisted. “Unless they performed the deed in your stables?”
Leave it to Rachel to be thinking ahead of him. “That would take a lot of daring in light of the extra guards posted. Which reminds me, do not leave the premises unless you are escorted. I command it. Your association with the Rutland’s has endangered you, especially now that you can identify someone, possibly the villain himself. He will be more desperate.”
She raised two fingers to her forehead and gave him a jaunty salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
He scowled. “Today’s activities could have yielded ghastly consequences.”
Rachel snorted. “Even in your most serious glare, you are nothing but a pussycat.”
“Have you asked Sir Bonneville about his knee?” Anthony said.
Rachel’s ring of laughter wound through the forest and her good humor was infectious.
“I deserved that, Lord Anthony.”
He wanted to kiss her, again, right then and there.I’m no good at this…romance and attachments. I’m a disaster. I don’t know how to love.He’d kissed her in the carriage, but that was impulsive. He hadn’t known what else to do to comfort her. Hah. If only, he believed that. Truth was, he kissed her because he’d wanted to. He was drawn to her like the proverbial moth to the flame.
His muscles tightened. She had suffered tragedy after tragedy, grieving overlong and faced the hopelessness of an uncertain future. That she had been subjected to ridicule and scorn for a violent act entirely against her and out of her control was unconscionable. How he’d like to make it up to her. But how?
“You know what I’m dreaming about?”
Locking yourself up in my lab with me. Forever.“I haven’t a clue. Enlighten me.”
“Having a whole plate full of cream puffs. My stomach is caving in.”
“After today’s ordeal you can have all the creampuffs you want.” He wanted to kiss her and go on kissing her forever.
“I am going to keep you to your promise.”
Scattered across the forest floor remained the heart-shaped leaves of heliotrope. In between, patches of snowdrops showed their snowy white flowers, an indication that the shorter days began to lengthen. Blue tits abandoned their communal flocks and were feeding in pairs, their softtuppechoing through the woodland canopy. Two squirrels emerged, chattering, and scolding, driving two birds to a higher branch. The dog chased after them, barking at the bottom of the tree. He smiled at the scene. “Lovely,” he whispered, looking down on her.
How odd. With Rachel, he seemed to notice things. Things he hadn’t noticed in a long time.
Dusk approached and with it, leaden gray skies unburdened freezing rain, falling over his collar, the icy chill, cascading down his back. Rachel’s teeth chattered and he hated that she was exposed to the elements. He took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. If only he could conjure a ride home.
“What else can go wrong?” she said as they rounded a bend in the road. The dog growled and the hair ruffed up on its back.
“That’s far enough,” a gruff male voice came from behind.
Guns drawn, two men with scarves, concealing half their faces moved from the woods. The dog snarled and snapped. Rachel called her back and she leaped into her arms. Not a great guard dog.
Highway men? Unbelievable.Anthony pushed Rachel and the dog to the left, shielding her with his body. They halted behind a felled tree, the southern end, closest to Rachel, projected upward at a thirty-degree angle. A delightful boulder rested midway beneath.
Rachel blinked the sleet off her lashes. “Are you jesting? In this weather?”
