“I do. Forgive me.” She smiled and leaned up to kiss him.
“Why did you release Surrey from his cell?”
“I didn’t,” she replied. “I don’t know who did.”
“’Twas me,” Colin said, coming to stand with them. “Most of us follow him. Not Preston.”
This was getting ridiculous, Michael decided and stormed toward Colin and punched him in the jaw. The younger man went down like a sack of potatoes. He remained on the ground, out cold. Michael looked up at William. “You, too?”
“No, Captain.”
“Good. The garrison?”
Still staring in shock at his friend on the ground, William hesitated one more instant and then ran.
Michael and Charlotte followed him to the smaller garrison and stormed inside. They gathered all the weapons they could carry and brought them to the parapet.
“What if we cannot beat them?” she asked him, looking worried.
He smiled, reassuringly, while he handed out more weapons to the men already up there. “We’ll do fine. How good are you at shooting that thing?” he asked her, eyeing the arrow she was nocking to a bow.
“Good enough.”
“You would shoot your friends for me?” He didn’t want her to have to.
“You have no faith in me.”
“I do.” He smiled and kissed her. “Forgive me.”
“I did, too…once.”
Charlotte turned to the voice behind her and screamed. The arrow fell limply from her hands.
Preston stood with them on the battlement. Surrey’s knife was still in his back. In his hand, he pointed a pistol at Michael. “Tell your men to stand down or I will kill you. Follow her example and drop your weapons and live.”
“Do it,” Michael told William and the others and then led them by example.
“Preston,” Charlotte said softly. “Put that pistol down and let me have a look at your wound.”
He smiled and shook his head. “So you can twist the knife in deeper, Charlie?”
“I never wanted to hurt you, Preston,” she told him. “You were all I thought I had.”
“I was,” he whined, “and then this piece of rat scum—”
“I had my father, Preston. You never wanted me to see it, but I had my father. He wanted to be there for me, but I never let him because of you. You used me for years. I was an oddity. A girl thief who—”
“Who is a Horseman.”
The parapet grew quiet.
“What?” Michael turned to her. “What is he saying? You’re a Horseman?”
“Aye,” she said so softly he barely heard her. But he did.
Well, that was it. What more was there to say? She’d lied to him about everything. She was a Horseman. If he didn’t arrest her, what good was he as a lawman? No. It was over. He would give it all up. They all knew. Preston, Surrey, probably all the men. They all knew, and they were laughing at him.
“She’s the Dark Horseman,” Preston continued happily.
