My Notorious Gentleman (27 page)

“Do they want money?” Trevor asked.

“Not anymore,” he forced out. “I think now Lynch just wants my blood.”

Trevor considered this with a nod, then he stalked out of the dining room and went to the front door of the parsonage.

Grace stared after him with her heart in her throat. She did not insult his intelligence by warning him to be careful, but exchanging a frightened glance with her father, she fought to keep the threat of panic under control.

George, however, was losing that battle. “They’re going to kill me.”

“Now, now, if Trevor says he can handle this, he can,” she assured him with more conviction than she felt. “You’re the one who told me he knows all those ways to kill someone with his bare hands, remember?”

“I remember you were appalled.”

“Well, maybe I was wrong to be. I’m sure he’s faced much worse than some lowly rookery vermin. Don’t worry, he’ll have it all sorted soon.” She hesitated. “Do you think we should hide you somewhere in the house, George?”

“No point. If they saw my carriage outside, they know I’m here. Montgomery can try reasoning with them, but I don’t think they’re going to be satisfied until I go out there myself to pay the piper. I’m certainly not going to let them do anything to hurt the rest of you,” he added in grim resolve.

“Give Trevor a few minutes first. Let’s see if he can reason with them,” Grace insisted, though her heart pounded with sickening dread.

George looked terrified, but it was the fear on her father’s face that rattled her most of all.

“Papa, don’t,” she said in a taut voice when he rose to his feet.

“I should go out and stand with him. If God be for us, who can be against—”

“They have guns,” George said.

“Trevor told us to stay here. If we stray from his orders, we might only make things worse. It’s a delicate situation. Besides, we need to stay with George.”

The young dandy stared in the direction of the doorway. “Rev,” he said, “now might be an excellent time to pray.”

T
revor walked out slowly into the night, counting four scruffy-looking cutthroats riding around the parsonage on horseback, obviously trying to get a look inside the building and possibly assessing it for possible points of entry.

There was no way he would let that happen. They weren’t getting past him.

He checked his fury as they spotted him standing in the front courtyard in a casual pose; he propped his fists on his waist so they could see he was not armed.

They urged their horses over toward him, halting in the lanternlight outside the front door.

“Evening,” he greeted the strangers in a pleasant but guarded tone, while his dog continued barking wildly in the front bay window. “Can I help you boys with something?”

“This your house?”

“Who’s asking?” he replied.

“That’s none of your affair.” The young, bearded rider on his left dismounted and stepped toward him aggressively.

Trevor just looked at him, unimpressed.

“Take it easy, Jonesey,” the one in the purple coat ordered, still sitting astride his horse.

The bandage on his arm confirmed that this was the man George had wounded—the leader, Jimmy Lynch, Marianne’s former flash man. “We’re here for Lord Brentford, and we’re not leavin’ till you hand ’im over.”

“He’s not here,” Trevor answered serenely, glancing from man to man, noting the weapons each one carried. “We don’t get many strangers out here. I didn’t catch your names?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” sneered the scar-faced horseman on Lynch’s right. “You either hand over that snot-nosed brat, or we’ll come in and get ’im ourselves.”

“What’s all this about?”

“Stay out of it, hayseed! Our business is with him. Just hand him over, and we’ll be on our way. No one else gets hurt. If you refuse, you’re not going to like what happens.”

“It’s not wise to threaten me.”

Lynch shrugged. “Give him up, or we’ll burn your village to the ground, it’s that simple.”

Trevor felt the readiness for battle rushing hard into his veins, familiar, terrible, and bracing. His heart pumped with martial eagerness, but with civilians just inside the house, the most important civilians in his life, he had to be cautious, given the odds were four to one and the enemy had the advantage of height astride their horses.

“I don’t take kindly to strangers coming into my town making threats.”

They laughed at him, arrogant and careless.

“Friend, I’m going to give you one last chance to hand over that little strutting coxcomb before we come in and get him ourselves,” Lynch said.

“I’d like to see you try it.”

Lynch laughed harder, his voice as harsh as gravel. “You think this is a game?” he demanded. “Maybe this will convince you we’re not playing around. Jonesey, shut that fucking dog up.”

To Trevor’s left, the bearded man who had dismounted raised his pistol at Nelson, who was still barking through the window pane.

Trevor attacked, swinging his arm down with a clubbing blow to Jones’s forearm; Jones’s firing arm dropped, and when he pitched forward a little, knocked off-balance, Trevor drove his elbow back and nailed him in the throat.

Jones dropped his gun to clutch his damaged windpipe, gagging in shock; Trevor bent and picked up the weapon, turned, and fired on the middle rider, who was reaching for his gun. The man pitched off his horse with a garbled cry.

Less than five seconds had passed as Trevor strode toward the third man and pulled him off his horse, turning to use the blackguard’s body as a shield when Lynch fired at him.

“Son of a bitch!” the gang leader cursed, but he did not waste time apologizing to his friend for shooting him.

Instead, Lynch wheeled his horse around and fled, galloping off down the drive.

“Too easy,” Trevor mumbled to himself, his chest heaving.

Grace came running out. “Are you all right? We heard shooting!”

“Fine. Get back in the house.”

“Trevor, what are you doing?” she cried, when he swung up onto one of their horses.

“I’ve got to catch the leader. Brentford!” he bellowed, gathering the reins as the young earl and the pastor followed her out. “Deal with these three.”

“Good God,” Kenwood uttered.

“Blazes, you’re efficient, man!” George exclaimed.

Grace glanced around at the three dead or dying men, then lifted her head and looked at Trevor in shock.

The horror in her eyes unsettled him far more than the quick skirmish he had just fought. Indeed, to him, this was merely business as usual, but the shock on her face took him off guard. He found himself arrested by a sudden cold wash of dread that he might have just ruined his own life. Cut down all the promise of their future together when he’d put down this threat.

“
I could never love a soldier.
” With his casualties lying at his feet, her words from weeks ago suddenly rang in his ears and hung in the air between them like a fog, for how could a pastor’s daughter ever love a man trained as an assassin? She served the cause of love while he was an abomination.

It was a role he’d learned to live with, as long as the world at large—his family, those close to him—never quite figured out how it really was, not the asinine hero tales in the papers.

Only his Order brothers, who’d made the same sacrifice of their humanity, could ever fully understand.

Grace never would. This would be the barrier between them, he saw now, the limit of how far she could go with him. In truth, she should never have to face such things.

Trevor looked away, bitter, shaken, and confused, feeling as though this hoped-for future was about to be snatched away from him, too. He knew he couldn’t afford to get rattled right now, but he was suddenly more afraid of her reaction to his naked savagery than he’d ever be of any number of enemies coming at him. As the two separate pieces of his existence, past and present, clashed like iron double gates slamming closed, he cursed himself as a fool for ever getting so close to her in the first place. Surely, he was headed for a fall, because this kind of happiness couldn’t be trusted.

Too late now.
He was unmasked; the moment of truth had come. He quite expected to discover that, like she had once worried, what they had found together was too good to be true. Now that she saw the awful proof of his abilities, she would turn her back on him, abandon him, just like Laura had. Another major loss, and this one, damn, he’d never seen it coming.

Maybe some men were simply meant to be alone.

He clenched his jaw and looked away from her with a pang of odd, angry shame, telling himself all that mattered was that she was safe. She and her father, and George, too, and even the dog. As for himself, he could not afford to falter, could not let doubt creep in. That was how men in his profession got themselves killed.

His work tonight wasn’t finished yet. The leader had escaped. With a low curse under his breath, he squeezed the horse’s sides and raced off into the darkness to catch the last would-be intruder.

G
race was still standing there in shock, her hand covering her mouth.

Wide-eyed and slightly queasy, she couldn’t stop staring at the three corpses outside her front door.

I think I’m going to be sick.

Her father rushed from man to man to see if any of the fallen were still alive, but two had the gore of crimson bullet holes gaping open on their chests, and the third had apparently suffocated from a crushed windpipe.

God, it was too horrible.

To be sure, he had protected them and himself. But was all this really necessary?

“Nothing more to be done for these three,” her father grimly announced.

“I’m going after him.” George ran to get his phaeton. “Lynch threatened my life, and besides, that blackguard needs to answer for all he’s done to Marianne.”

“I’m coming with you!” Grace called in a taut voice. If anything went wrong—if anything happened to Trevor—she had to be there to help him.

Her father tried in vain to dissuade her, but she refused to listen and stepped up into George’s carriage. In the next moment, Papa decided to come with them, but his goal was to try to prevent any further violence.

“Let’s go!” George slapped the reins over the horses’ rumps and sent them barreling down the drive.

“There he is!” the lad exclaimed a few minutes later as soon as they turned onto the country road.

Grace no sooner looked ahead than she spotted Trevor galloping through the moonlight. Then he disappeared from view around the bend. “They’re heading toward the village!”

“Lynch will have to cross the bridge to get back onto the main road to London,” George remarked.

“Don’t get too close. I don’t want us getting anywhere near the line of fire,” her father warned, though as fast as Trevor was riding, it seemed unlikely they’d be able to catch up until the two enemies had stopped.

H
is borrowed horse slowed its jolting gait a little when they went from the packed earth of the road to the cobblestone street at the edge of the village.

Lynch wasn’t far ahead.

Trevor cursed to himself for not having caught the bastard before they reached the town: The presence of civilians was always a complicating factor. But he bade himself be patient. Once they were through the village and over the bridge, then he’d close in and put an end to this.

Riding for his life, Lynch turned the corner ahead, thundering into the village square. Trevor was only seconds behind him, but as he swept around the corner and charged into the square, he suddenly swore.

Ahead of him, Lynch roared at the rest of his gang, waiting for him at the tavern.

Son of a bitch.
The blackguard had brought an army with him. Trevor pulled the horse to a skidding halt, but in seconds, he was surrounded, a dozen guns pointed at him. One of the gang members grabbed the bridle of Trevor’s borrowed horse and pulled it to a halt.

He had no choice but to lift his hands in surrender.

But he immediately noticed he wasn’t the only one who had run afoul of the visiting gang. Lynch’s minions had also cornered the Windleshams, apparently on their way through the village to leave for their Brighton holiday.

Several gang members had taken hold of the Windleshams’ carriage horses. Others had pushed the coachman and grooms to the ground and wouldn’t let them get up. Amid the gang’s mocking laughter and shouted abuses, Trevor could hear Callie screeching in fright, Lord Windlesham bellowing in futile indignation, and Lady Windlesham protesting shrilly from inside the fine coach as the gang harassed them.

Presently, the gang members paused in their sport, turning to see what was happening in front of the pub.

“Get off that horse,” Lynch ordered Trevor, breathing hard. When he did not move fast enough for them, Lynch’s nearest henchmen pulled him down from the saddle.

“Put your hands were we can see them!”

“On your knees.” The gun Lynch thrust against his temple persuaded Trevor to obey. He lowered himself slowly to his knees, his hands in the air, but he was already scanning for an opportunity to turn the tables on them.

“Where are the others?” somebody asked the gang leader.

“This bastard killed them,” Lynch ground out, then he punched Trevor in the face.

He absorbed the blow, shaking his head to clear it. Lynch poked him in the cheek with the pistol. “Who are you?” he snarled.

“Nobody in particular,” Trevor replied with a mild wince.

“Answer me! Where’d you learn to fight like that? He killed them right in front of me like it was nothing,” Lynch told his men.

Trevor just stared at him.

Lynch sneered. “Very well, it’s all the same to me. You can die as easily as they did.” He cocked his pistol, and Trevor shut his eyes.

“Jimmy! Don’t you dare!”

Trevor flicked his eyes open in surprise and glanced in the direction of the woman’s voice.

Marianne.

“Let him go.”

To his surprise, Marianne was holding a shotgun. He recalled her saying something once about the fowling piece that Old Abe, the innkeeper, kept behind the bar for protection.