“I’ve noticed. And the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that damned blaze was no accident.” He finally became aware that Blotchy was bearing down on him. “Halt right there.”
“You are putting these girls in jeopardy. If they are as valuable as you say, this Larkin person you mentioned will not be pleased to know that they are at risk.”
“If you don’t stop that damned nag, I’ll kill you right now,” he warned.
Blotchy abruptly lurched to the left. Concordia did not know if she had confused him with her less than expert handling of the reins or if he simply had had enough of the alarming late-night activity and decided to go his own way.
Whatever the reason, she was forced to remove her hand from the gun in her pocket in order to control the horse and maintain her balance. Blotchy responded to her sudden tightening of the reins by turning in a tight circle and tossing his head.
“Control that bloody horse,” Bonner ordered, stepping hurriedly back out of the way.
It dawned on her that he was even less familiar with horses than she. Bonner was clearly a city man, born and bred. Only the wealthy could afford to keep private stables in town. Everyone else either walked or summoned a cab or an omnibus when they required transportation. The villain was expensively dressed, but his harsh accent gave him away. He was a product of the streets, not of Society. It was doubtful that he had ever ridden a horse in his life.
“Have a care with that weapon, sir,” she said, struggling with the reins. “If you fire it in these close quarters, all of the horses will take fright. They will likely bolt for the entrance and trample everything in their path.”
Bonner looked quickly at each of the three horses. He finally understood that he was the only object standing between them and the entrance. He set the lantern down and took an uneasy step back.
“See to it that you all keep those bloody nags under control.”
“We’re doing our best, sir, but I fear you are making them restless.” She tugged on the reins, urging Blotchy into another tight circle. Halfway around she reached into her pocket, grasped the revolver and pulled it out.
She could only hope to take the man by surprise and pray that she could keep her seat if Blotchy bolted when the gun fired.
She came out of the circle clutching the gun.
Before she could steady herself to fire the shot, the dark figure of a man materialized out of the shadows near the entrance. He glided soundlessly up behind Bonner and made two short, brutal chopping motions with his hands.
The villain jerked violently, as though he had been shocked by a jolt of electricity. He crumpled to the ground.
There was a deathly silence. Concordia and the girls stared at the stranger.
He glided toward Concordia.
“You must be the teacher,” he said.
She finally remembered that she was still holding a gun.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you about?”
He did not pause. When he went through the lantern light Concordia saw that he was dressed entirely in black. The light flickered briefly on dark hair and cold, stern features. Before she could get a closer look, he moved out of the light and back into the shadows.
“I suggest we discuss the matter after we are all safe,” he said. “Unless you have some objections?”
He had just felled the man from London with a single blow. That certainly seemed to indicate that he was not on the side of the mysterious Larkin. An old axiom flashed across Concordia’s memory. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
She could use a friend tonight.
“No objections whatsoever, sir.” She put the gun back into her pocket.
“I am relieved to hear that.” He looked at the students. “Can these young ladies ride reasonably well?”
“They are all very capable in the saddle,” she assured him, not without a touch of pride.
He caught hold of Blotchy’s bridle and steadied the gelding. “That is the first bit of good news I have received on what has otherwise proven to be a rather disastrous night.”
He unfastened the bundle she had so carefully strapped to the back of the saddle.
“That’s mine,” she said sharply. “I cannot leave it behind.”
“Then I suggest that you hold onto it.”
She tucked the bag under one arm, juggling the reins with her free hand.
Powerful fingers closed around her ankle.
Startled, she looked down. “What do you think you are doing, sir?”
It was immediately clear that he was not interested in taking liberties. Instead he deftly slid her foot out of the stirrup, inserted the toe of his boot into the iron and vaulted smoothly up behind her.
He took the reins from Concordia’s fingers in one hand and then edged Blotchy closer to the other two horses.
“Please give me the reins, ladies,” he said. “The smoke has grown extremely heavy outside. It will provide good cover but it will also make it difficult to see each other if we become separated.”
Edwina and Phoebe handed the reins to him without demur.
“Right, then, we’re off,” he said.
The stranger did something with his knees that made the gelding surge forward.
The violence of the horse’s forward lunge caught Concordia by surprise. She very nearly dropped her bundle when she grabbed wildly for the front of the saddle.
“My students are all excellent riders, sir,” she got out in a half-strangled voice. “But I regret to say that I, myself, am still something of a novice.”
“In that case, I suggest you hang on very tightly. You have caused me more than enough trouble tonight. If you fall, I cannot promise you that I will be in a mood to stop to pick you up.”
Something told her he might well mean every word of the warning. She clung to the saddle for dear life.
Beneath the cover of the dense smoke and the noise created by the catastrophic flames and the men’s confusion, they galloped out of the stable and pounded toward the southern gate.
Concordia knew that she would always recall two things about that night with vivid clarity for the rest of her life: the astonishing roar of the fire as it consumed the castle and the strength and power of the stranger’s body pressed tightly against her as they rode to safety.
3
The stranger brought the small group to a halt on the low mound of a hill on the far side of the river.
Unaccustomed to such sustained exertion, Blotchy and the other two horses were quite willing to stop. They stood, heads drooping, sides heaving, and blew heavily through flaring nostrils.
Breathless from the reckless flight, Concordia looked back toward the fiery scene. The light of the moon bathed the landscape in an otherworldly glow. The flames were a red-gold torch in the night. The acrid scent of the smoke was strong, even from this distance.
“Look.” Phoebe pointed. “The fire has reached the old wing. It is fortunate that we did not try to hide in one of the rooms in that section.”
“The entire castle will soon be in ashes,” Theodora said, her voice soft with amazement.
Concordia felt the stranger’s hard body shift slightly behind her when he turned to study the scene in the distance.
“I assume the fire is your work, ladies?” he asked.
He sounded thoughtful, as if he were assessing and analyzing some new, extremely interesting discovery that had heretofore escaped his attention.
“Phoebe and Miss Glade mixed the formula for the incendiary devices,” Hannah said. “Edwina, Theodora and I sewed the fuses. They had to be very long and thin so they would not be noticed running along the edge of the wall behind the furniture.”
“And they had to be fashioned of material that would not burn either too quickly or too slowly,” Theodora added.
“We ran several experiments,” Edwina put in.
“Miss Glade hid the devices and strung the fuses in the rooms where we knew that the men from London woul
d likely take their cigars and port after dinner,” Hannah explained.
“Miss Glade lit the fuses,” Phoebe concluded. “It all went just as we had planned.” She paused and turned back to view the flames in the distance. “Except that we did not realize that the devices would ignite such a huge blaze.”
“Impressive, indeed,” the stranger said dryly. “Well, I have only myself to blame for this miscalculation. There were rumors in the village that there was some sort of girls’ boarding school at the castle but I thought it was merely a false story that had been spread around the neighborhood to conceal whatever was really going on there.”
He handed the reins back to Edwina and Phoebe.
Concordia was intensely conscious of him crowded behind her in what could only be described as an extremely intimate manner. The immediate danger was past. It was time to regain control of the situation.
“We are indebted to you for your assistance, sir, but I must insist that you tell us who you are.”
“My name is Ambrose Wells.”
“I want more than a name, Mr. Wells,” she said quietly.
He kept his gaze on the fire. “I am the man whose carefully crafted plans have just been cast into complete disarray by you and your students.”
“Explain yourself, sir.”
“Will you oblige me with your name and the names of the young ladies first? I believe I deserve a proper introduction after what we have just been through together.”
She felt herself grow very warm at the implication that she had been rude. Ambrose Wells had been exceedingly helpful this evening, she reminded herself. The least she could do now was treat him with a modicum of civility.
“Yes, of course,” she said, softening her voice. “I am Concordia Glade. I was hired to teach these young ladies. Edwina and Theodora Cooper, Hannah Radburn and Phoebe Leyland.”
“Ladies.” Ambrose inclined his head in a gallant acknowledgment of the introduction.
The girls murmured polite responses. Good manners that had been learned young rarely failed, even in a crisis, Concordia mused.
“Now, may I ask why you happened to be so conveniently at hand to aid us in our escape?” she asked.
He tightened the reins, turned Blotchy’s head away from the view of the burning castle and urged the horse forward.
“The answer to your question is rather complicated, Miss Glade. I think it had better wait until we have settled into more comfortable circumstances. Your students are clearly an intrepid lot, but I suspect that they have had enough excitement for one evening. They will soon be exhausted. I suggest we find lodging for what remains of the night.”
“Do you think it safe to put up at an inn?” Concordia asked.
“Yes.”
She frowned. “No offense, but I do not agree with your opinion on the matter, sir. My plan was to ride as far as possible before dawn, keeping away from the main road. I intended for us to eventually stop in some concealed place—a stand of trees, perhaps—to rest and eat the food we brought with us.”
“Did you? That sounds extraordinarily uncomfortable to me. Personally, I think a bed and a meal at an inn would be far more pleasant.”
It was becoming clearer by the moment that Ambrose Wells was not accustomed to taking anyone else’s advice or direction.
“You do not appear to comprehend the full extent of the danger, Mr. Wells. I fear that once they have recovered their senses, those two men from London will search for us.”
“Rest assured, neither of those two villains will conduct any searches either tonight or in the future.”
The cold, too-even tone of his voice sent an icy chill of dread through her.
“Are you quite, uh, certain, sir?” she asked uneasily.
“Yes, Miss Glade, I am certain. One is dead. When the other man awakens he will be dazed and disoriented for some time.” He adjusted the reins slightly, causing Blotchy to pick up his pace. “I assume it was you who felled the man I found on the ground near the old storage sheds?”
She swallowed heavily. “You saw him?”
“Yes.”
“And he was . . . ?”
“Yes.”
She gripped her bundle very tightly. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“You did what was necessary, Miss Glade.”
The second blow she had struck with the lantern had, indeed, killed Rimpton, after all. A shudder went through her. She felt a little ill.
Another thought struck her. She swallowed hard. “I shall be wanted for murder now.”
“Calm yourself, Miss Glade. When the local authorities eventually sort out the disaster at the castle, assuming they ever manage to do so, the death will be attributed to an accident that occurred while he was attempting to fight the fire and escape the flames.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
There was enough moonlight to illuminate the wry twist of his hard mouth. “Rest assured, Miss Glade, it will not occur to anyone to consider the possibility that a female who makes her living as a teacher of young ladies might have been capable of dispatching a hardened criminal with a gun.”
“What of the man you injured? Won’t he tell everyone what happened?”
“When he awakens he will very likely recall nothing of the events immediately before he was knocked unconscious.”
She gripped her bundle very tightly. “It occurs to me, sir, that you know precisely what happened at the castle tonight.”
“So do you, Miss Glade. It appears that neither of us has any choice at the moment but to trust each other.”
4
Shortly after one o’clock in the morning, Ambrose at last found himself alone with Concordia in the inn’s otherwise deserted public room. The flames of the fire that the innkeeper had rekindled for his late-night guests cast a mellow glow across furnishings that had been worn and scarred by generations of travelers.
Upon their arrival, the weary students had been fed cold meat and potato pies by the innkeeper’s sleepy wife and then shepherded upstairs to their beds. The proprietors of the establishment had then locked up for the second time that evening and retreated to their own bedroom.
Ambrose poured a glass of the innkeeper’s sherry and handed it to Concordia.
She frowned. “I really don’t—”
“Drink it,” he ordered quietly. “It will help you sleep.”
“Do you think so?” She accepted the sherry and took a tentative sip. “Thank you.”
He nodded. She was still extremely wary of him, he thought. He could not blame her. He had some questions of his own concerning her role in the affair at the castle tonight.
He went to stand at the hearth, one arm resting on the mantel and considered his companion for a long moment.
Firelight played on her sleekly coiled brown hair and glinted on the round gold frames of her eyeglasses. She was somewhere in her mid-twenties, he decided. Her features lacked the classically correct planes and angles that were traditionally associated with feminine beauty, but he nevertheless found her quite riveting. There was a deeply compelling aspect to her smoky green eyes. In them he saw the hard-learned caution of a far older and more experienced woman.
The tight bodice of her gown revealed the outlines of small, elegant breasts and the curve of a waist that was not quite as tiny as fashion decreed. The recent forced intimacy that had resulted from sharing the back of a horse with her had informed him that the lady possessed a charmingly rounded derriere.
He had never been a strict follower of female fashions, he thought. Concordia’s proportions might not conform to those illustrated in the magazines and journals of style but they suited him very well.
There was pride and grace in the way she held herself. Intelligence and a certain vital inner force that he recognized as a sturdy, indomitable spirit marked her in a way that no cosmetics ever could. Even now, exhausted as he knew she must be, there was an irrepressible energy and determination about her that elicite
d admiration.
No, not admiration, he reflected, desire. That was what she elicited in him. It was disturbing, but there was no point ignoring facts.
Part of his reaction was purely physical, he knew. It could be attributed to the familiar aftereffects of danger and those two hours spent riding behind her on the horse. Also, Concordia Glade was still very much a mystery. He was driven by nature and training to look beneath the surface for answers.
But none of those entirely logical reasons fully explained the inexplicable fascination that he was experiencing for this woman tonight.
He watched Concordia take another swallow of sherry. The glass trembled ever so slightly in her fingers. Tension, danger and the effects of fear were catching up with her. He suspected that the worst was yet to come. That would happen when the reality of the fact that she was responsible for crushing a man’s skull struck home.
Such soul-shivering realizations tended to occur at night, he had learned. Dark thoughts thrived in the dark hours. If his personal experience with violence was anything to go by, Concordia would likely find herself awakening in cold sweats from time to time, not just in the days ahead, but weeks, months or years from now.
The knowledge that the act had been committed to save her students as well as herself would do little to quell the nightmares. His training had taught him to think of violence as a dangerous form of alchemy. It gave the one who wielded it great power, but it exacted a heavy price.
“If you would prefer, we can conduct this conversation in the morning after you have had some rest,” he said, surprising himself with the offer. He had not intended to make it. He wanted answers immediately, not tomorrow. So much had gone wrong today. All of his carefully constructed plans had gone up, quite literally, in smoke. A new scheme had to be formulated as swiftly as possible.
But he could not bring himself to push her any further tonight.
“No.” She lowered the sherry and faced him resolutely. “I think it would be best if we answered each other’s questions now. To begin, I wish to know how and why you came to be at the castle tonight. What was your purpose there?”