Callie saw her son dart a sideways glance at the big man beside him, trying to gauge if the compliment was genuine or not. He almost visibly swelled with pride as he turned his gaze back to the road, frowning with fierce concentration.
Callie bit her lip. Why could his father not have offered such casual advice and praise? Callie could not remember a single instance when Rupert had told his only son he’d done something well. In his father’s eyes, Nicky could never measure up: he was a cripple, therefore an unworthy heir.
Ironic that here, among strangers, her son should begin to blossom. Both of these very different men had shown Nicky casual acceptance and the sort of undemonstrative kindness that only men who were very sure of themselves could show a shy, needy boy.
After a brief perusal of Tibby’s letter, Gabriel took the ribbons back from Nicky and turned up a narrow, rutted roadway. After a few minutes, they came to a rose-covered cottage. It stood at the end of a muddy track, too narrow for the curricle to pass. The front door was not visible, but in a window, a curtain twitched.
“Someone’s home there,” Gabriel observed.
“I’ll nip down and ask,” said Ethan Delaney, and rode his horse down the track. The garden was as neat and well-ordered as a picture, Ethan thought. His footsteps crunched as he walked down the cinder path that led around the side to the entrance.
The front door had a well-polished brass knocker. Ethan rapped a smart tattoo. He was aware of being observed.
There was a short delay before the door opened a crack. A small, pale, severe-looking woman of about thirty-five stood there, looking…angry?
“Can I help you?” she said. Her tone was in direct contradiction to her expression. She fixed him with an intense stare and, in a furtive manner, produced a piece of paper from her sleeve and showed it to him.
Ethan glanced at the paper. It meant nothing to him. “Good day to you, ma’am, I’m wondering if this would be—?”
She shook her head, staring at him so hard he thought her eyes would pop, and thrust the paper at him. Bemused, he took it. “And what would you like me to do with—”
To his astonishment, she reached up and pressed firm fingers over his mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said in a clear voice, “but the place you want is on quite the other side of the village. You have wasted a trip. You must turn around and go the other way.” She pushed urgently at him with her hand, glared at him, and rolled her eyes backward, first right and then left.
Ethan frowned as it dawned on him. She was in trouble. And she was trying to send him away.
In an easy, carrying voice he said, “Well, drat the fellow and his poor directions. Sorry to have bothered you, ma’am. See, we’re looking to inspect a stallion—Thunderbolt—perhaps you’ve heard of him, ma’am? A champion he was, now owned by Mr. Blaxland, of Rose Bay Farm. I’ll be off now, and thank you for your assistance.” He gave her a nod and ambled back down the path, whistling in his teeth. He heard the door close behind him.
Mr. Delaney mounted his horse and trotted back to the waiting curricle.
“It wasn’t Tibby’s house then?” Callie said.
Ethan shook his head slightly and waved vaguely up ahead. He walked his horse away.
“Mr. Delaney?” Callie prompted him.
He did not answer her until they had gone over the hill. Then he stopped and turned to her. After a moment he said, “Your Tibby, now—would she be about thirty-five, little, neat, with brown hair and brown eyes and a way of looking at a man as if he was lower than a worm?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “That’s my dear Tibby exactly. Why are we leaving, then, if she is back there?”
“Because your dear Tibby is in trouble,” Ethan Delaney told her. “She did her damnedest to get rid of me just now. She gave me this.” He passed her the scrap of paper.
Callie read the note. “Oh my God. It’s my fault.” She crushed it in nerveless fingers.
She’d gone quite white, Gabe saw. “What does it say?” he asked, but she was beyond hearing.
Gently he freed the paper from her fingers and read the note aloud.“Help. I am being held prisoner by evil foreigners. Please inform the authorities. Miss J. Tibthorpe. Rose Cottage.”
Gabe looked at Callie. “And you know which evil foreigners, don’t you?”
She shivered and nodded. “Count Anton and his men. He’s my husband’s cousin.” She gave him a bleak look and said in a lowered tone. “He—he wants Nicky dead. Me, too, I suppose.”
“Well, he won’t succeed,” Gabe told her calmly, “So stop looking so miserable. Now, tell me, how many men is he likely to have?”
She shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know.”
“My guess is there are three or four in that cottage,” Ethan said. “Don’t worry, ma’am,” he added. “The captain will have a plan.”
She turned to Gabriel. “Have you?”
