“I can’t fight them. Not women,” Bane admitted. “But I must try. If I get dunked alongside Drake, so be it.”
The blacksmith pursed his lips. “Cut the goat mask off,” he advised. “Let them see they’ve got the wrong man.”
That might work. Bane left for the barn, where he also stabled his horse.
He wanted to merely bridle the horse and be off after his brother, but his common sense told him that he might need the stability of saddle and stirrups. It took several minutes, even with the blacksmith’s help, but at last he was in the saddle and galloping after the Misrule party.
They had reached the pond and were dragging Drake from the saddle, none too gently. Fortunately for Drake, only a few of the women—ten at most—were involved in the dismounting. The rest were not even watching. Rather, they waited on the edge of the pond for the next event in the night’s entertainment. Bane grinned. He would give them something to watch.
He set the horse at a gallop, straight at the cluster around Drake, pulling up only at the last minute. They had, as he’d hoped, leapt out of the way, and Bane reached down and grabbed the rope that bound Drake’s arms to his body. “Mount behind me,” he shouted, and heaved as Drake jumped and scrambled until he was seated behind Bane.
The horse danced and skittered. Nightshade was skittish at the best of times, and he was taking exception to the torches, the masked ladies, the noise, the load, and the whole situation. That was a help, for the women who might have objected to losing their prisoner were keeping their distance.
“This is my brother Mandrake Sanderson,” Bane shouted. “He has done nothing worthy of a shaming.” He was pretending with his hands to be attempting to control the horse, but in truth, his calves and heels were encouraging its jittery behavior.
A woman with the crown and staff of the Lady of Misrule stepped forward—an Amazon with dark curly hair. He could not see much of her face behind her half-mask, but what he could see distracted him for a moment. She was stunning.
“Mandrake?” she asked. “Not Colin?”
Bane hoped it was her readiness to listen to reason that soothed his anger, and not his awareness of her as an attractive female. Or perhaps it was just that Colin probably deserved whatever the women cared to dish out. They had made a mistake, and Bane had rescued Drake before they could half-drown him. Or all the way drown him, which old timers said had sometimes happened.
“Not Colin,” he replied. “I’ll show you.” Bane twisted in the saddle so he could use his knife to cut the ropes, an act Nightshade made more difficult than it needed to be. “Drake, take the head off,” he said.
“I don’t feel too good,” said Drake, in a voice that quavered all over the register, but he fumbled with the mask and lifted it free. His eyes looked odd. They must have given him something.
As Nightshade calmed, the women gathered closer.
“ItisDrake,” said one of the women. Bane couldn’t be sure, but he thought he recognized the voice of the blacksmith’s wife.
“Mr. Colin Sanderson is older,” explained another to the Lady of Misrule.
“We made a mistake,” said a third. “The rider is Mr. Bane Sanderson. He is the other brother.”
Bane, conscious of the absurdity of good manners in this moment, nonetheless bowed as well as he could from horseback. Drake bowed with him, murmuring sleepily against Bane’s back, “How’d’y’do.”
“What was he given?” he demanded. “Drake, I mean. To make him compliant.”
“Only laudanum, and not much,” said the Lady of Misrule. “He will be perfectly well after a sleep. I do not suppose your brother Colin plans to come into the village tonight?”
Bane had to laugh at the cheek of the woman. “My sincere regrets, my lady, but I doubt it,” he said. “You could try another perfumed note.”
The woman considered it for a moment, but shook her head. “I suppose by now word of the shaming will have reached him,” she said. She took a deep breath and let it out. “I shall have to consult with the other ladies. Please tell your brother Drake that we apologize for our mistake.”
Bane, in lieu of raising the hat he’d left behind in his haste, settled for touching the side of his forehead. “I shall pass that on, my lady.”
He turned the horse, being careful not to dislodge his sleepy brother, and rode back to the blacksmith’s barn. He’d be staying awake tonight, so he could keep watch over Drake until the drug was out of his system.
But as the blacksmith helped him to get Drake into the barn, Bane’s thoughts were not of his brother but of the Lady of Misrule. She wasn’t a local lass. In fact, by her accent, she was educated and refined. She must be one of the guests at the all-female house party up at Marplehurst Hall.
Far, far above his touch, then.
And she was magnificent.
