Page 95 of Thief Taker

“You damned ruffian—”

“Your money and your valuables,” Kit said again, steady and quiet. “If you please, sir.”

Marlborough’s eyes narrowed in the lamplight, moving over Kit with a slow, assessing look. It made his skin prickle. When Marlborough spoke again his voice had changed, the outrage replaced by something colder and more dangerous.

“I don’t carry money,” he said.

Luckily, Kit wasn’t interested in money. He cocked his pistol, the ominous click loud in the darkness. “Your watch, if you please. And the bag beside you. Now.”

For a moment, Marlborough stared—a challenge—before slowly reaching for the travelling bag. Then he lunged.

Kit saw the pistol a second before its muzzle flashed, and he flung himself sideways, half sliding from Nero’s back as the horse reared.

“God damn you!” Marlborough yelled, struggling to reload.

From behind the coach, Hartwell called something and another pistol fired.

Then a man was shouting. “Hold! No one bloody move! This is an arrest!”

Swinging back onto Nero’s back, Kit wheeled his horse around. All he could see in the black and white moonlight were shapes moving. Nothing was making sense.

“Hold!” The second man yelled. It was the curricle’s driver, standing up and brandishing a pistol. Next to him, another man had a weapon trained on Hartwell. “Wessex!” the driver shouted. “You whoreson, stop there or I’ll kill you!”

Kit had his pistol lifted and aimed before the driver had finished speaking.

Above them, the bare branches cast enough shadow that he couldn’t see the man’s face, but his voice…

Kit’s heart clenched hard.

The curricle moved, the frightened horses stepping forward, and the driver struggled to keep both his footing and his pistol aimed. And in that moment, he moved into the moonlight and the world spun.

Because it was Elias.

The man holding a gun on him was Elias Cole.

“I mean it,” Elias said, regaining his balance. “Drop your pistol, and it’ll go better for you. You ain’t murdered nobody yet.”

From behind him, he heard Marlborough drawl. “Just shoot the blackguard and be done with it, man.”

“Shut your damned mouth,” Elias spat, although his gaze didn’t waver from Kit. “I said drop it.”

There was no recognition in Elias’s face. Those familiar bright eyes were washed clear of colour and regarding him with nothing but antipathy. His mouth—he’d kissed a smile onto that mouth—was pressed into a hard line and his brow was drawn into a frown. The hand that held his pistol didn’t waver for a second.

Kit couldn’t move, overwhelmed with horror. He’d failed, he’d lost his last chance to reclaim Ashbourne, and he’d been caught in the act of highway robbery. By Elias. He would hang. Hartwell would hang. His family would be ruined in every conceivable way.

And all of it was Elias’s doing—the man who’d held him in his arms last night, murmuring words of affection against his skin, promising to help him. The man upon whom he’d started to build a dream of the future.

His chest hollowed out and suddenly the weight of his pistol was too great; he couldn’t hold it up any more and his arm sank.

Relief relaxed Elias’s shoulders. “Right, good,” he said, keeping his own weapon aimed at Kit. “Now drop it, get off the horse and—”

A third gunshot split the night.

“You goddamn idiot!” Hartwell yelled at Kit, wheeling his horse away from the road with his smoking pistol held high. “Ride!”

Elias swung his weapon towards Hartwell and the movement jerked Kit from his stupor. He fired over Elias’s head, sending him and his companion ducking for cover. Without looking back, Kit spurred Nero towards the heath.

“Stop!” Elias shouted after him. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”