“She has treated him abysmally over the years. I can’t imagine he’ll welcome her with open arms,” Clarion said, mounting his horse. “The last I heard, though, the man didn’t leave his townhouse in Manchester—too ill to travel. She may try to bully whatever servants he left behind, or, more likely, there’s a cottage on the estate where she can stash her associates.”
“Accomplices,” Rob muttered, mounting Khalija.
“Ready?” Clarion asked. The earl’s face, set in hard lines, gave Rob confidence in the man. He nodded.
“If we go cross country, we may be able to cut her off,” the earl said, setting off.
They left late in the afternoon. After four hours of hard riding over increasingly hilly terrain, they reached a road meandering generally northwest, just short of Blackshaw Moor, in gathering darkness. They saw no sign of a carriage nor of the men they sent to follow it. That and the moonless night added to Rob’s growing frustration.
A bobbing lantern approached, revealing the woman who carried it and a man behind her pushing a cart full of vegetables.
Rob suspected they were on their way home. “Evening, good sir, madam. Have you seen other riders coming this way?”
The man walked around to stand by his wife, pausing to glance at her, before studying the two men in front of him. Rob knew what they saw, men so similar they had to be brothers. “Family is it? Are you following the carriage as well? I hope you catch them. Too big a hurry for these roads, I don’t doubt. They’ll come to grief.”
“A carriage, yes, likely the same one,” Clarion said.
The man chuckled. “Don’t get many carriages that fancy down this road. Must be the one.”
“Where did you see them?”
“We were helping Alf Jones harvest his winter wheat. Saw ’em fly by. They turned off near Alf’s place—two miles back. Bit later them other gents stopped and asked. Rode after ’em.”
Rob thanked them, and the two men rode on, slowing to a walk. Though they picked their way carefully, they almost missed the turn in the darkness.
“We’ll never find Gibbons in the dark,” Clarion muttered as they turned.
As much as he hated to agree, Rob knew going any farther put their mounts at risk and possibly their mission, too, if they stumbled by in the dark. He dismounted and led Khalija off the road. “Soft enough over here. We can bed down in the grass.” He braced himself for the earl’s objections. Rob slept rough often enough in Spain, but he doubted the earl ever had.
To Rob’s astonishment, Clarion dismounted without complaint and untied a rolled blanket from his saddle, along with saddlebags.
“Pull your saddle off. It’s a reasonable pillow,” Rob suggested.
“Do this often, do you?” Clarion’s grin, just visible in the gloom, took Rob off guard.
He grinned back. “More often than I care to contemplate. I thought I was done with it.”
They spread their things, and Clarion produced bread, cheese, and ale from his saddlebags.
“You thought ahead.”
“It pays to plan, and an army of servants comes in useful.”
Rob’s laugh had less bitterness than he might have expected. They ate in silence and lay down. There seemed little to say beyond, “Pity clouds are covering the stars.”
After a while, Clarion broke the silence. “Robbie, do you remember the time Maddy got caught in the apple tree and dark was approaching.”
Robbie again, is it? “It took both of us to get her down. Your mother would have made her life a misery if she found out. It took both of us to keep it from her.”
“We failed. Mother had her beaten—through her skirts—and confined to her room with no dinner for two days. I had to sneak bread and cheese through her window.”
“She made Maddy’s life difficult no matter what she did,” Rob mused.
“Difficult? Hell. You have no idea. Our sister refuses to be in the house with her. She only came today because she knew the woman was gone, and you were coming.”
“What are you trying to say, David?” The use of his brother’s name felt unfamiliar but right.
“We were not well blessed with our parents, Robbie. I know what the countess is. I’ve always known.”
