Robert spent two nights staying at the same inns where he and Kate had slept in separate chambers. He should have been gentler and more patient with her and started them off on the right footing. But he’d thought only of his own needs and getting back to Anastasia! He gritted his teeth and had difficulty equating himself with the thoughtless man he’d been. How much time wasted!
He cursed under his breath, forced to admit that Charlesworth had been right. He’d been an immature fool and needed to learn his lessons. He only hoped the punishment would not be too severe, and his sweet wife would forgive him. Would she look at him with her soft eyes full of love ever again? When both innkeepers informed him she’d stayed in their inns on her journey south to St. Malin Castle, he grew easier in his mind.
At the end of the third day, in the fading light, they entered the shadowy Cardinham Woods where the trees grew close together. Two highwaymen galloped from the trees. One raised his gun and fired, the bullet whistling past them and echoing through the woods. His groom, Joss, held the reins, and pulled the plunging horses to a stop.
“I’ll have the portmanteau,” one of the two said, his face half-hidden by a bandana. “You and your groom step down.” His pistol flicked between Robert and Joss, while his companion watched on, his gun smoking.
Heart racing, aware of the pistol in his pocket, Robert and his groom obeyed the highwayman’s order. Joss pulled down the portmanteau from the back seat and dropped it on the ground.
“I’ll have anything of value on your person.” He waved his gun motioning them forward. “And make it fast. I can retrieve them quite easily once you’re dead.”
The rogue’s firearm was leveled at Robert’s chest, as the other man reloaded. They were going to be shot. “Hit the ground,” Robert murmured.
Robert and Joss dived and rolled in different directions. The leader fired, the shot missing Robert, biting into the ground near his foot. Pulling the pistol from his pocket, Robert came up in a crouch and fired.
The highwayman crumpled to the ground. His horse whinnied and galloped off into the woods. The other highwayman let out a string of curses when he saw his companion dead.
With no time to reload, Robert sucked in a breath as the robber took aim at him and fired. Robert managed to jerk to the side to avoid a ball in the chest, but hot lead entered his shoulder, burning like fire. He was vaguely aware of the man riding off. He groaned. Would he live to tell Kate he loved her?
Joss fell on his knees beside him. “My lord, are you…?”
His voice faded as blackness descended.
*
After another longnight, Kate sat in front of the mirror and gazed at her reflection as Rebecca brushed her hair. The fresh air had tinged her cheeks with color, but her eyes looked flat and dull with shadows painted beneath. “I’ll ride today, Rebecca. Please tell James to have my mare saddled after breakfast.”
It rained in the night, and the sunshine was brilliant on the wet hedgerows. Kate rode the small mare named Daisy over the estate lands, breathing the perfumed air. They clattered across the bridge and cantered through the slanting shadows in the meadow. She pulled back on the reins when she realized she was near the oak tree. She’d subconsciously retraced her steps to the place where Robert had proposed. But only after she’d requested he ask her properly. He hadn’t wanted to marry her and must have been angry that his uncle placed him in that position.
She dismounted and leaned against the rough bark of the gnarled old tree remembering his first kiss with painful longing. A thrush sang in the branches above her. She paused to listen, but for once, the sweet sound did little to improve her mood, and she mounted again, riding through the lanes to the village. The villagers bowed or curtsied as she rode along the narrow, cobbled lanes to the harbor front.
A cloud of screaming gulls followed the fishing boats out on the water and two fishermen on the wharf raised their hands in greeting.
Warmed a little by their friendly faces, she began to consider how she might make a home for herself here. Eventually, she expected she would recover and love would lose its power over her. Robert might visit to secure his heir, and she would receive him coolly and wave him goodbye when he left. She gasped and shivered at the thought.Who was she fooling?
With the village and the harbor behind her, she cantered over the fields, fighting the numb hollowness in her heart. Might there be a role for her here? It was surely her duty to become involved in village affairs. She resolutely ignored how lonely that sounded and entered the castle grounds where the groom hurried forward to help her dismount.
Kate had just entered the house with the intention of changing into a morning gown when a vehicle clattered into the castle forecourt. She ran to the drawing room window to see Robert’s phaeton pull up outside. She recognized Joss Gifford, the groom from St. Malin House. A body slumped beside him on the seat.
Her blood ran cold.Robert!
As a commotion arose, she rushed out into the forecourt. Robert was unconscious. The groom lifted him from the phaeton and carried him toward the door. “Highwaymen held us up outside Bodmin, my lady, in the Cardinham Woods,” Gifford said as she hurried behind him. “’Is lordship picked off one of them. But the other one shot ’em and got away.”
Robert hung limp and silent over the man’s shoulder.
Kate gasped. Blood dripped from his fingers, trailing over the stone.
She swung round to address her groom just returning from stabling her horse. “Ride for the surgeon. Take my husband’s stallion. He’s faster. Don’t come back without the doctor.”
The groom turned and sped toward the stables. Robert was carried into the house. To see her strong husband struck down, made Kate’s knees threaten to give way.
“Take him to his chamber. Send up a warming pan and light the fire.” Kate picked up her skirts and hurried after them up the staircase. Her pulse thudded in her throat. Robert would not die. He could not. She would never allow it.
In his chamber, he lay still on the bed. “Robert?” Her voice sounded high pitched and strange to her ears. She examined his white face as the footman pulled off his boots. He didn’t stir.
