“With those eyelashes like that.”
“Um, all right.” He tried to wrangle his bemused expression into a smile. “Why don’tyoustay here and guard the house, maybe have a bit of a sleep? I’ll go scout around and report back to you.”
“No.” She pulled black leather gloves from a pocket of her riding tunic and began to yank them onto her hands with such vehemence Ned expected her at any moment to break a finger. “Shall we proceed?”
He chuckled quietly, so as to not wake Lady Armitage, and gestured along the corridor. “Lead the way, madam.”
By the dim light of a lantern, they crossed the field toward the oak woods. Ned took the lead then, being more familiar with the nocturnal hazards of a meadow. With his guidance they avoided cow pats, thistles, sudden ditches, murky dark puddles, and an iron rake someone had left lying about just waiting for a comic moment. They entered the woods. They had not gone far among the trees before a sudden noise alarmed them; dousing the lantern, Ned pulled Cecilia behind the shelter of an oak. Silently, barely breathing, they listened.
Someone else was creeping through the woods with a hesitancy that suggested stealth, although they were trampling fallen branches and leaves with a clumsiness that suggested a desire to be murdered by pirates. Ned and Cecilia looked at each other by faint moonlight. Ned pointed to Cecilia, raised his hand, then pointed beyond the tree. Cecilia nodded. Drawing the gun from his belt, Ned took a steadying breath, then leaped forth.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” he warned the stranger.
Or at least he began thus. He was, however, interrupted by Cecilia also leaping from behind the tree, gun rising as she, too, warned the stranger to stop.
“Excuse me?” Ned turned to her impatiently.
“What?” she said, glancing at him.
“I told you to stay behind the tree.”
“No. You did this.” She repeated the gestures he’d used, her gun waving as she did so.
“Yes, which means ‘Stay behind the tree.’”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Something’s ridiculous,” the stranger agreed.
They turned, weapons straightening, and stared at the gray-haired man before them in the moonlight. He was armed with a rifle.
“Jokerson!” Cecilia exclaimed.
“Jacobsen,” he corrected through gritted teeth. “Drop your guns.”
“No,” Ned answered, and shot him.
Jacobsen screamed and flung backward, his rifle shooting at the sky. He smashed into the ground and lay abruptly silent.
Cecilia winced. “You didn’t have to kill him.”
Ned walked over to nudge a booted foot against the man. “He’s not dead. I only shot his shoulder. He must have hit his head when he fell.”
“Poor fellow.”
Ned looked up from retrieving Jacobsen’s rifle and stared at her incredulously. “He was going to kill us.”
“Even so.” She holstered her gun. “I don’t like violence.”
“Well, you’re in the wrong profession, then, sweetheart.” He emptied the rifle of its ammunition and threw bullets and gun in opposite directions. “We should probably return to the house. He might have killed Lady Armitage in his escape.”
“I doubt that.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because he’s still alive,” answered a voice from the shadows.
Ned sighed.
