"I didn't marry her to abandon her, but frankly, I doubt that she would come with me if I asked," Peregrine said, his voice cold. "Her whole life is in England—all her friends, her relatives. How could I take her away from that?"
"You can let her make the choice for herself," Ross said, his voice equally cold. "If you desert her, I swear I will track you down and make you sorry that you ever set foot in England."
Peregrine chuckled, wanting to defuse the situation. "You're beginning to sound like me. Too much exposure to my amoral ways is corrupting you."
As Ross gave a reluctant smile, Peregrine continued, "Believe me, I have no desire to flee England as a criminal, just as I have no desire to force Sara to make a decision where either choice will make her miserable." He thought he knew how Sara would choose—and it wouldn't be for her husband. "I just want you to be prepared for whatever comes."
"Try not to get yourself killed," Ross suggested. "Sara wouldn't like it, and it would leave me in the regrettable position of having to hunt Weldon down myself to prevent him from injuring Sara or me." In a piece of massive British understatement, he added, "Untidy."
"Definitely untidy." Peregrine shook his head. "When I came to England, I thought revenge would be a straightforward business. Instead my life has become unbelievably complicated."
Ross's mouth quirked up. "Welcome to the real world."
* * *
When he heard the sound of approaching horses, Kane readied himself. He had found a perfect ambush spot in a patch of broken ground and was concealed in a clump of rocks. The trail was about sixty yards away, an easy shot for an expert marksman. Like many old lanes, this one was sunken about three feet below ground level, so men up on horseback would be easy targets.
He lay on his stomach, his rifle steady in his hands. Far better to do this task himself; assistants were invariably more trouble than they were worth. The dolt Kane had taken along to the lawyer's house had been too stupid to avoid getting shot in the arm. No, this was best.
The two men rode into range. Kane spent a moment confirming that they were the right ones. He was careful about such things.
Lord Ross Carlisle was on the near side, but Kane aimed at Peregrine, for the dark foreigner was more important and also had experience that should make him cooler under fire. A pampered English aristocrat like Lord Ross would probably be too surprised and confused to take cover before Kane reloaded and shot him.
Aiming for the heart, Kane began tracking Peregrine. In just a moment, another moment...
Without haste, he squeezed the trigger.
* * *
If the sun had not come from behind a cloud a few minutes earlier, there would have been no warning at all. As it was, Ross saw only a brief flicker as light slid along a rifle barrel, but that was enough. Without conscious thought, he reacted with the reflexes honed in thousands of miles of dangerous travel.
From the angle of the barrel, Peregrine was the target. And he was unaware of the danger because his attention was on a clump of trees to the left. The trail was narrow here, and the horses were so close that the two men were almost touching.
Acting from instinct, Ross shouted, "Get down!"
At the same time, he dived sideways, reaching out to shove his friend lower.
Both warning and action were a fraction too late. As Ross grabbed Peregrine's arm, a bullet slammed into his own back with paralyzing impact. As the breath was blasted from his body, he had the fleeting thought that it was ironic to have survived Bokhara and Afghanistan only to die like this among the peaceful green hills of England.
Then darkness claimed him.
* * *
Furiously Kane watched his plan go awry. The Englishman must have seen something, for he shouted and moved between Kane and his target. As thunderous echoes of the gunshot rolled across the valley, a horse screamed, and both men disappeared from view, falling between their mounts. Since the path was below ground level, Kane could not see what had happened. Both horses bolted down the path, one still screaming. Then all was silence.
As he swiftly reloaded, Kane swore under his breath. His rifle was powerful, and it was possible that the one bullet had hit both men, going through Lord Ross to strike Peregrine. In fact, that was likely, for there was no sound from where the men had fallen. But it had been sloppy shooting, and quite possibly one or both of the men were still alive. Kane would have to finish them off at close range, which would make it obvious that this was no hunting accident.
But it was too late to turn back. Every sense alert, Kane began to make his way across the ground to his victims.
* * *
The deafening crack of the rifle made it shatteringly clear to Peregrine that once again he had made a lethal miscalculation. Weldon wasn't waiting, he was going direct to the death stroke.
Peregrine could have retained his seat on the horse, but let himself be pulled off by Ross's falling body. Fueled by self-fury, his mind raced at top speed.
The shot must have come from the right of the trail, where Ross was watching and Peregrine wasn't. A single gunman or there would have been more than one shot. And Ross had taken the bullet intended for his friend.
Peregrine hit the ground hard, Ross landing half on top of him as the horses stampeded, panic-stricken by the blast of the gun and the scent of blood. Keeping his head below the edge of the sunken lane, Peregrine did a hasty examination of his friend, praying that the wound was minor. The bullet had struck in the upper left back. As he turned Ross over to see if there was an exit wound, his friend's eyelids flickered open.
"That was a bloody stupid bit of heroics," Peregrine swore in a furious whisper. "You had damned well better not die, or Sara will never forgive me."
Ross gave a ghost of a smile. His voice almost inaudible, he said, "Tell Sara that... I owed you... a life for a life." His eyes closed again.
Peregrine's mouth twisted savagely as he saw the brilliant scarlet stain spreading across the other man's white shirt. The bullet had gone right through him, which was good, and the wound was high enough so that possibly the lungs were not damaged. But even if the gunshot was not mortal in itself, Ross would bleed to death quickly without treatment.
Two impulses warred within Peregrine; he wanted desperately to stop the bleeding before it was too late, but he could not afford to take the time when there was a murderer within yards. If either of them were to survive, the gunman must be stopped.
The only weapon Peregrine had was the knife he always carried in his boot. It would have to be enough. He crouched below the edge of the lane, and swiftly moved fifty yards to the left. Then he peered over the edge of the lane in the direction he thought the shot had come from. There was a tumble of boulders in the right position.
He held absolutely still, listening. At first there was no sight or sound of the gunman. Then he heard a slight rustle of grass. He could see nothing, but from the sound guessed that a single man was moving carefully from the rocks to the trail.
The ground was covered with a mixture of trees, grass, and shrubs, which prevented Peregrine from seeing the sniper, but which also provided cover for his own movement. He slid the knife from his boot, and carried it in his right hand as he crawled over the lip of the lane and began to stalk his enemy.
Staying low, he chose an angle that should bring the two men together at the brink of the lane. His progress was slowed by the dryness of the early autumn vegetation, which made it hard to move silently. Fortunately the sniper was making enough noise to cover the faint sounds of Peregrine's passage.
A few feet from the lane, the gunman stood up, presenting his back to Peregrine, who was still a dozen feet away. His rifle at his shoulder, the sniper gazed down into the lane to discover how much damage he had wrought.
When he saw only one body below, the gunman instantly realized his danger. He whirled around, hands tightening on his weapon, his eyes narrow and dangerous. It was Kane, Weldon's chief jackal.
Seeing Peregrine, Kane
snarled, "Now I have you!"
Simultaneously Peregrine hurled himself at the other man, covering the distance in three long strides. "Not yet, you bloody murderer!''
Kane made the mistake of pausing to aim. Peregrine dived under the rifle, knocking the other man backward. The gun fired, the bullet blazing perilously close as Peregrine knocked Kane to the ground. The fight was swift and deadly. A stream of profanity pouring from him, Kane fought with every savage trick he knew, but Peregrine knew more. It took less than ten seconds to pin the other man to the ground.
A distant, rational corner of his mind said that he should interrogate Kane because the other man might know something useful about Weldon's plans. But rationality had no chance against annihilating rage. "Die, you bastard!"
He slit Kane's throat in the middle of a curse. Blood spurted forth, and a hoarse, gurgling noise came from Kane's severed windpipe. Very quickly the flow of blood slowed, then stopped.
Peregrine stood and wiped his knife on Kane's coat before he dragged the body behind some shrubbery. He took a moment to peel off his victim's coat and shirt. Then, his face grim, he went to see if anything could be done for Ross.
His friend was still breathing, though shallowly, and his face was chalk-white from shock and blood loss. Peregrine had considerable experience with gunshot and knife wounds, and swiftly he improvised a bandage from strips of Kane's clothing, tying fabric pads over the wounds on both chest and back.
Having done what he could to staunch the bleeding, Peregrine stood and ran down the path in the direction the horses had gone, praying that one of the beasts was close.
Whatever gods he invoked were listening, for less than a quarter of a mile away he discovered Ross's mount. Iskander was an even-tempered beast, but he shied away from the wild, bloody human who wanted to capture him. It took too much time for Peregrine to calm himself to the point where Iskander would let him close. Finally he managed to catch the horse.
He galloped back to Ross. The next half hour was a series of disconnected, nightmarish moments: struggling to get his friend's considerable weight onto the skittish horse. Mounting behind and guiding the beast with one hand while the other kept Ross from falling. Forcing Iskander faster than a horse carrying two heavy men should have to go. And praying that his friend would still be alive when they reached Sulgrave.
Chapter 24
Sara only did needlework when she wanted to think. As she chose a new hank of green silk thread, she realized ruefully that she had done quite a lot of embroidery in the last two days. After they came back to Sulgrave, she had hoped that Mikahl would reveal the critical pieces of his missing past, but he had not raised the subject, and she was reluctant to do so herself.
There was tension in the air, like a ribbon of molten glass being drawn thinner and thinner until it must reach the snapping point. Absently Sara leaned over to scratch the head of Furface, who was curled up on the hem of her gown. Something was on the verge of happening. She had the frustrated feeling that there were things she should know, but didn't.
Her abstraction was broken when the butler entered to bring her afternoon tea. She glanced up to thank him, then stopped, her attention caught by the gray misery in his face. Guiltily remembering that she was not the only person with problems, she lowered her embroidery hoop. "Is something wrong, Gates?"
He hesitated, on the verge of denial, then said reluctantly, "You were right in your investment advice, my lady. I should have sold the L & S Railway stock when the price was high."
"It has gone down?" she said, concerned.
"Badly. The newspapers say the company is on the verge of bankruptcy." After another hesitation, he said hopefully, "Has Prince Peregrine said anything to indicate that this is just temporary, that the company will recover?"
His brief animation faded when Sara shook her head.
"I'm sorry, he never talks business with me." Disturbed by the bleakness in the butler's eyes, she said, "That doesn't mean that the company's situation won't get better—just that I don't know. Perhaps you should ask him yourself."
He shook his head, scandalized. "I couldn't possibly."
Sara understood. Gates had grown up at Haddonfield, and he could speak to her as he could not to an outsider. "I will ask my husband myself this evening."
"I would appreciate that, my lady." He used a linen towel to flick a speck of dust from a gleaming table. With sudden bitterness, he said, "I should have known that stocks and companies are a rich man's game. Someone like me is a fool to think he has a chance to better himself that way."
Sara watched unhappily, knowing that the fact that Gates spoke at all was a measure of his distress. She doubted that Mikahl was disturbed by the company's failure. Since the railway was Weldon's pet project, her husband was probably applauding.
Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden commotion in the front hall. Curious, Sara set her embroidery down and hastened out to investigate.
To her horror, she found Mikahl and the head groom carrying the limp body of her cousin into the hall. Both her husband and Ross were soaked in blood. Sara clutched the door frame, dizzy with shock. "Good God, what has happened?"
Mikahl glanced up at her, his green eyes glittering with furious emotion. "Some damned fool hunter shot Ross."
She pressed her knuckles into her mouth, on the verge of fainting. "Is he—is he alive?"
"For the moment," was the grim answer. "Send for a doctor while we get him upstairs to a bed."
Sara nodded, grateful to have something to do. Turning to Gates, who had followed her into the hall, she said, "Send one of the grooms to the surgeon. Have him promise any amount of money if the man will come immediately."
Gates nodded and hastened off. Sara stood for a moment, hands pressed to her temples as she tried to think what to do. Dear God, Ross couldn't die. All her life, he had always been there, laughing in the good times, helping in the bad, always caring. Now his life hung in the balance.
Realizing that her breath was becoming rapid and shallow, she forcibly clamped down on her rising emotions. Hysteria would not help her cousin, but coolness might.
After a moment her mind began to work again. Other servants had been drawn to the disturbance, so she ordered a maid to bring hot water to the patient. Sara herself went upstairs to the linen closet for clean sheets.
The groom had left after Ross had been put to bed. When Sara entered the sickroom, Mikahl was scowling over the blood-soaked bandage. "He's bleeding again. Can you bear to help me put a dressing on? If not, leave and send one of the servants in. I can't afford to be worried about you, too."
"I can bear it," Sara said tersely. She had remembered to bring her sewing scissors and now used them to rip a sheet into strips. When her husband lifted Ross to turn him over, she put another folded sheet beneath her cousin to absorb the blood during the messy job of changing the bandage.
"We were riding on the trail that runs across the top of the Downs," Mikahl explained as he removed the crude, earlier binding. "There was just one shot. The hunter must have run away when he realized his mistake."
"A poacher," Sara said, averting her eyes as her husband uncovered the oozing wound in Ross's shoulder.
"Very likely." He covered the bullet hole with a thickly folded pad of linen, then tied it in place with one of the long strips Sara provided. "Both horses bolted, but I was able to catch Ross's again. The head groom met us partway back. He realized something was wrong when my horse came home with a graze wound on its neck."
"Dear God," she whispered. "If the bullet had struck you rather than Siva, you and Ross might both have died there."
"But we didn't." Having covered the entry wound in Ross's back, Mikahl began winding linen strips around chest and shoulder to hold both pads securely in place. "Though I hate to think of what might have happened if I couldn't have caught Ross's horse."
The maid had delivered a basin and pitcher of hot water. When Mikahl was done, Sara began gently sponging the
blood from her cousin's bare chest and arm. Beneath his golden hair, his face was like grayed marble. It was agonizing to see a man so vital lying as still as death.
Her husband put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Sara," he said, his voice full of helpless frustration. "I wish I had been the one hit."
''I couldn't bear that, either,'' she said unsteadily. "Accidents happen. Don't blame yourself."
For a moment his fingers tightened on her shoulder. Then his hand fell away. "If I'm not careful, you'll be as bloodstained as I am. I have to go out and take care of something now. I'll be back as soon as I can."
Disregarding his words and his stained clothing, Sara stood and turned into his arms, needing his strength. "Please," she said softly, "hold me for a moment before you go."
He complied, embracing her with fierce protectiveness. "Will you be all right?"
Sara felt the tautness in his body and understood his horror at having Ross struck down right in front of his eyes. "I'll manage," she said. "There isn't really much to do now but wait for the doctor."
Then her husband left, presumably to change his clothing and perhaps see to his horse. Sara sat down beside Ross and resumed the task of cleaning him. It wasn't much or even necessary, but it was the only way she knew to express her anguished love.
The surgeon arrived just before dinnertime. After tending Ross's wound, he told Sara that her cousin was very fortunate to have someone available to stop the bleeding so quickly, or he would have died. As it was, Lord Ross had a broken shoulder, but no major internal injuries, and should recover if serious inflammation didn't set in. He gave her laudanum for the pain and left, promising to return the next day.
"Thank God," Mikahl said, his voice intense. Back from his errands, he had been sitting with Sara in the sickroom.
"Amen," Sara added, weak with relief.
"Are you going to inform his parents?"
Sara thought a moment, then shook her head. "I don't think so. Ross won't like it if I upset them unnecessarily. Unless you think I should?"