“Better a horse than a cliff, Harry.” Ian rocked back on his heels and stood. He held out his hand to the prostrate duke. “Come on, now. Let’s get you back home and perhaps Mrs. Potts can see to those cuts. I think the one on your head needs to be stitched. And perhaps she’ll have a nice treacle as well.”
Beaumont allowed Ian to help him up though his face was still ruddy with anger. Even the lure of dessert couldn’t sway his mood. “I’d rather call for a gun to put that miserable animal down for such a disgrace, but I’m not certain if I don’t deserve it more. What wretched humiliation.”
Ian slapped him on the back in an expression of male sympathy and the duke limped away shaking his head. “I fell from a horse? Impossible.”
“Are you sure he’s going to be all right?” Hero asked as she rose. “You never can tell with him when he’s seriously hurt.”
“He’s fine.”
She looked up in surprise at the tone of his voice. There was a muscle jumping in Ian’s cheek as he ground his teeth. He looked not concerned but angry. Very angry.
Confused, she laid a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry that Papa has caused you so much trouble.”
He growled low in his throat. “Heis not the trouble.”
Even more confused, she wanted to ask him what he meant, but Ian only stormed off to retrieve the once-riled horse. Gideon’s saddle was sitting skewed to the side, and as she watched, he lifted the knee roll and flap to examine the girth beneath. He ran his hand up the billet and gave it an incensed tug with an audible snarl of rage. To her surprise, the entire saddle tilted and fell to the ground.
She gasped. “What was wrong with the girth? Was it worn through?”
“Get your father on his horse and get him home.”
“What about you?”
“Bugger it, Hero, just bloody well do it,” he barked and her eyes went wide. There was frustration and fury in the command. His eyes, which had held only warmth before, were cold. This had to be the Ian of years past, the captain in the army, the soldier on a battlefield with deadly purpose. He looked ready to do murder, and she felt a chill of fear—not for herself but for the first groom he saw.
Reluctantly, she called for her father and helped him keep his balance while he mounted the still-saddled gelding Ian used in his pursuit. Once Beaumont had control of the animal, she went to Colleen, gathering her skirts in preparation for mounting on her own once more.
“Wait.” Ian strode over, but not to assist her as she thought. In contrast to the ire he’d shown moments ago, he now looked unexpectedly rattled. Abruptly he pushed past her and flipped up the flap on her sidesaddle. Running his hands over the straps, he released a harsh breath and hung his head. “Thank God.”
Thank God?
“Ian, what is going on?”
“Please go, Hero.” Calmer now, he grasped her around the waist and lifted her easily into the saddle. “I’ll follow and we can talk later.”
An hour later, Ian returned to his room and dropped into his armchair only to realize that the girth of the saddle was still fisted in his hand.
Hissaddle.
In Harry’s mad escapade, the duke hadn’t mounted his own horse but Ian’s. The damage done to Beaumont had been meant for Ian.
And it had been intentional.
He wanted to imagine these odd incidents were nothing but coincidence, but now there was no doubt. The cut three-quarters across the girth was clean, leaving the last bit to tear free from the strain and pull of the horse’s effort. Their sedate walks and canters hadn’t been enough to break it away, but Harry’s wild ride had.
After a fashion, Ian was grateful for the episode and what it clarified for him. First, there had been the incident with Hero in Glasgow, which may have been unrelated. The lamp in the hall outside the music room and the locked dungeon door, if taken as an attack, included them both. But in the past two days, while Hero recovered from her exposure and fever, he’d nearly been thrown from his horse, only to find enough burrs on the saddle blanket to incense the most placid mount, and he’d nearly taken a potentially disastrous tumble down the long winding staircase when he slipped on a spill of lamp oil near the top step.
Only his quick reflexes allowed him to catch the bannister before he went down. As it was, he sported a large, painful bruise on his hip and strained his shoulder when his own weight nearly dislocated it from its socket. Boyle had been profusely apologetic but could offer no explanation for the spill.
Those last two were so subtle that they could have been coincidence. But the previous night, he’d awoken in the dead of night to find someone in his room. He called for Dickson, but the shadow slipped out the door and vanished before he could make chase.
And now this.
He slapped the girth against his thigh. It wasn’t his imagination or paranoia any longer. Someone was trying to do him harm. To what extent, he had no idea. With the very worst consequences, he might’ve died from the incidents. Succumbed to exposure in the dungeons. Falling just so from his horse or down the stairs might have broken his neck. More likely, non-life-threatening injuries would’ve been the result.
So what point was someone trying to make?
At any rate, it was clear now that he was the target and not Hero. He had that to be thankful for, if nothing else, but today’s incident indicated that the mastermind behind all this cared little for the collateral damage of these attacks.
