Taken by Storm (33 page)

“Well, well, is
this
what my meeting with the new Lord Weybourne was interrupted for?” Sighing, he put his hands behind his back and peered down at the veterinarian. “Ah, look. A thieving intruder.” He gazed at one of his servants, just picking himself up from the floor and groaning in pain from Colin’s well-placed blow, then the butler who stood faithfully behind him. “Critchley? Please arrange to have this refuse carted out and
shot
.”

“You can’t do that!” Ariadne cried, holding Colin’s lolling head to her shoulder. “That’s
murder
!”

“That’s
justice
,” Maxwell corrected her coolly. “The blackguard broke into my house. He shall get the punishment he deserves.”

For a moment Ariadne could only stare at Maxwell in horror and disbelief, the blood draining from her face. She suddenly remembered the feeling of danger, fear even, as Maxwell had strode calmly back and forth in front of the fire, the poker clenched behind his back, his one sighted eye black and bottomless.

Oh, my God . . . .

“Please stand up, my dear,” Maxwell said softly.

“No!” she cried, locking a trembling arm behind Colin’s shoulders and clasping his heavy weight against her. “You’ll have to shoot me first, Maxwell, I swear it!”

The earl sighed. His cold gaze flickered over his rival’s still body, and Ariadne’s skirts pinned beneath it. “I wouldn’t dream of harming a hair on your pretty head, my dear,” he murmured. “Get up.”

“I
said
, no!”

“My lady.” Maxwell’s smile widened, and he reached to take the cheroot offered by his butler. “If you do not get up, I will have you forcibly hauled away from your lover by your hair, and
still
have him shot as a thief before the sun is up.”

Ariadne glared at him, splaying her fingers up through Colin’s hair and pressing his head against her even more tightly.

“Or,” Maxwell continued, gesturing with his cheroot, “You can obey your father’s wishes and honor your betrothal to me.” He flicked an imaginary bit of dust from his sleeve. “The choice, my dear, is yours. Honor your betrothal to me, or I shall have the good doctor shot.”

“That’s
blackmail
!”

“That’s my offer. Make a decision, or I will make it for you.”

Swallowing hard, Ariadne was acutely aware of Colin’s weight in her arms, his lifeblood flowing through his veins, the slow beating of his heart, so close to hers. She felt his hair against her palm and between her fingers, the weight of his brow against the cup of her shoulder—

“What will it be, my dear?”

She directed a cold glare at the earl. “You leave me no choice, do you?”

“No more than you leave me.”

An icy chill pervaded the very marrow of Ariadne’s bones, and tears leaked from her eyes.
Oh, Father . . . why did you ever pledge me to this man, didn’t you know what a monster he is?

She pressed a kiss to Colin’s brow, whispered a plea for forgiveness that she knew he never heard, and then, one hand supporting the back of his head, carefully eased him down to the floor. Her hands were trembling as she pulled her skirts out from beneath his heavy weight, and it was all she could do to maintain her courage, and her dignity, as she coldly refused Maxwell’s offered hand and got to her feet; harder still as his men shoved her roughly aside and picked up Colin’s body as though it was nothing but rubbish for the compost pile. As they lifted him, she reached out to touch his hand a final time, and found it deathly cold. Then, at a nod from Maxwell, the men shouldered her aside and carried him out of the room.

Maxwell followed, closing the door behind him. And so it was that Ariadne didn’t hear the earl’s last, cold order to his faithful servant, Daley.

“Take him out to the far pasture and put a bullet in his head. And I don’t want to see your face again until the deed is done. Is that understood?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Ariadne, alone in her room and crying into her pillow, never heard the single shot that cracked the night. By the time the sun came up three hours later, Daley was back, his face sober, his trousers smeared with grass stains, his hands filthy with the dirt of the grave. He gave his hasty report to the earl, who nodded with satisfaction and then, calmly sipping his tea, called for his morning paper.

For Maxwell, life had never looked better. His rival was out of the way. The Fastest Horse in the World was in his stable.

And now, nothing—not the chit’s father, her stupid, spineless brother, nor even her lover himself—could stand between him and the great St. Aubyn fortunes.

# # #

Tristan was quite proud of himself. Not only had he cleverly disguised his plan—and a desperate plan it was, too—as a gamble that Maxwell could not resist, but he had carried it through with a cool directness of purpose that would have done his father proud. Surely, it was only the thought of his endangered sister that had infused him with such courage, but nevertheless, Tristan was almost grateful for the abrupt appearance of Maxwell’s butler, and the subsequent conclusion of the meeting. Now, as he stalked out of the house, a servant running to open the door before he reached it, his heart was pounding as much with relief as it was with fear, because there were a million and one things that could go wrong with his plan to rescue Ariadne.

A plan that depended entirely upon the very one who had gotten her into this mess:

Shareb-er-rehh.

The meeting was still fresh in Tristan’s mind. . . .

“What do you mean, she’s agreed to marry you?” Tristan had said, jumping to his feet and staring angrily at Maxwell. “I forbid it! You know what my father’s wishes were, you know what my sister’s wishes were! I demand to see her immediately!”

“Sit down, Tristan.”

“I said, I want to see her,
now
!”

“Your sister is indisposed. She retired early, pleading a headache and expressing her wish to take tea in her room. Surely, this reunion between siblings can wait until morning.”

He stared into Maxwell’s eyes. They gave nothing away, and as usual, were as cold as the soul of the monster that looked out of them. Shaking with anger, Tristan sat heavily down in a chair and drained his port with one quick, fluid flick of the wrist. He slammed the glass down, and the elegant crystal shattered into a thousand pieces.

“My, my . . . what has the aristocracy come to, if its fine young men can no longer show proper poise and manners in other people’s homes,” Maxwell drawled.

“Don’t goad me,” Tristan said heatedly. “I’m not afraid of you. Not this time. Not anymore. My father told me, not two hours before he died, that he’d sent you a letter terminating the engagement between you and my sister! He didn’t want Ariadne married to you, not after I told him what you are
really
like!”

“Now Tristan—” the earl began, condescendingly.

“And isn’t it strange, that somebody
mysteriously
set fire to his stables the very night he sent that letter?”

“Quite strange indeed,” Maxwell said, fixedly staring at Tristan and smiling a thin, evil little smile.

“One would think it was almost in
revenge
,” Tristan taunted, knowing he was walking at the edge of an active volcano.

Maxwell lit a cheroot, appeared to study it thoughtfully. “Pity, that some things can be surmised . . . but never proven.”

“You will not marry my sister.”

Maxwell, still gazing at his cheroot, smiled without looking at Tristan. “Oh, but I will. The betrothal is still on.”

“I say it’s not. And I would like to see my sister,
now
.”

“Of course, there
is
the matter of . . . the veterinarian,” the earl said, offhandedly. “Tell me, does your sister fall in love with every handsome man who happens to come her way? She arrived here looking like a grub worm that just crawled out of the garden. ‘Twould be a pity indeed, if society were to find out that she traipsed across half the English countryside unchaperoned, save for the company of a man who managed to get himself thrown out of the Royal Navy for losing not one, but two of its finest warships. . . .”

Tristan was not prepared for this. He had always known that his sister was impulsive and flighty, but to think she could fall in love with someone she’d only known for what, a week?

“My time is valuable. What do you want, Tristan?”

His mind whirling, Tristan had no choice but to seize opportunity from despair. He sat back in his chair, plucked a book on foxhunting from the table beside him, and to still his shaking fingers, casually flipped through the pages, all the while feeling Maxwell’s malevolent stare boring into him behind a cloud of blue smoke.

“You are a gambling man,” he said, turning another page and pretending to be absorbed in a drawing of a hunting scene. He let a moment go by, just enough for drama and effect. “Therefore, I have a proposal for you, Maxwell. A proposal that, as a sporting man, should prove unbearably tempting to you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tristan saw one sinister black brow rise, ever so slightly. Maxwell gestured with his cheroot. “This ought to be interesting. But go ahead. I’m listening.”

“Black Patrick is the unbeaten king of the English turf,” Tristan continued, casually reciting a well known fact but feeling his own hands beginning to sweat at what he was about to propose. “In thirty-five races, he has never been defeated.”

Maxwell’s unnerving stare was leveled on Tristan’s face.

“Shareb-er-rehh is the last of my father’s Norfolk Thoroughbreds, excepting, of course, Gazella. He is the Fastest Horse in the World—”

“Purportedly, Tristan, but never proven.” Maxwell took a long draw on his cheroot, blew out a perfect ring of smoke, and stamped the thing out. “After all, the beast has never been raced.”

“Precisely. Which is why my proposal should interest you greatly.”

“And just what is it you propose?” he asked, condescendingly.

“A match race between Black Patrick and Shareb-er-rehh.”

Maxwell laughed softly, a soft, thready sound that froze the blood in Tristan’s veins. He shook his head.

“With the horse himself as the stakes,” Tristan finished, quietly.

Maxwell stopped laughing. He turned the full effect of his eyes on Tristan, and on a note of scared triumph, Tristan saw the sudden, keen interest that flickered in those chilling depths. “Really, Tristan . . . haven’t you learned your lesson? You are hopelessly in debt to me already, with no means of paying me off until you reach the age to inherit.” He smiled, threateningly. “That is,
if
, you reach the age to inherit. All you have left is that horse . . . and you would risk even
that
?”

“I love that horse . . . but I love my sister more,” Tristan said, his voice beginning to tremble, for the thought of losing Shareb-er-rehh filled him with as much grief as the last memory of his father.

“Well . . .”

“Despite what my sister thinks, Shareb-er-rehh belongs to me,” Tristan said firmly. “Therefore, what becomes of the horse is my decision, and what I propose is this: If Shareb-er-rehh wins the race, you must free me from all debts owed to you — and, my sister from a betrothal that neither she, my father, nor I, wish.
Publicly
.”

Maxwell leaned back in his chair and calmly folded his arms behind his head, his gaze boring into Tristan like nails. “And if Black Patrick wins the race?”

Sick dread pulsed through Tristan’s stomach, making jelly out of his nerves, for such a thing did not even bear thinking about. He raised his chin and resolutely met the earl’s black stare. “Then ownership of both Gazella and Shareb-er-rehh goes to you.”

Maxwell looked at him for a long, thoughtful moment, his eyes glinting with greed. He kept that calculated stare on Tristan until the young lord felt his heart beginning to pound, the sweat popping out on his brow.
Please, God, let him accept the proposal, it is the only way I know to save both my sister and my horse—

“Has it ever occurred to you, Tristan, that the stallion is already
mine
? As part of your assets—assets that will be sold off to pay me, I’ll remind you, if you don’t come up with the money—I can rightfully claim him anyhow as payment of your debt.” He smiled, threateningly. “One way or another, the horse is mine.”

Tristan met that black gaze, sudden rage bubbling up in his throat like acid. “He is
not
yours, Maxwell, and if you resort to such lowly means to try and gain him, I will sell him to one of my friends for the sum of a mere pound, if only to keep him out of your clutches.”

Maxwell laughed softly then, and Tristan’s very bones felt cold.

“If you love this horse so much, then why would you risk losing him in a match race?” he said, patronizingly.

“Because I know that you won’t be able to resist the opportunity to make money—lots of money—that such a race would offer, for not only will it draw crowds from Norfolk, but from all over Britain as well. It will be the sensation of the century.”

Maxwell’s eyes glinted. “And. . . ?”

“Because I will do anything to save my sister from marrying you.”

“And . . . ?

Tristan leaned forward in his chair, gripping its arms and locking his gaze with Maxwell’s. “Because I have every faith in the world that Shareb-er-rehh will win.”

He sat back, his heart hammering painfully against his ribs. Maxwell looked at him for a long, assessing moment. Then, he gave a slight nod, and reached for his calendar.

“You are a fool, Tristan. But then, I have made a fortune off of fools, idiots—and people who don’t know when their luck has run out. But what do I have to lose? We shall run the race.” He pulled the calendar toward him. “Shall we make it, say . . . one week from tomorrow?”

“One week from tomorrow.”

“I shall send a courier to Newmarket, then, to alert my racing friends so they can spread the word,” Maxwell said, and Tristan could see that the fire had caught hold of the earl, just as he’d known, hoped, gambled, that it would. “Some advertisements there, in the newspapers, in London—”

The door opened suddenly, and the butler, gaunt and skeletal, stood there, looking like a corpse that had just crawled out of the coffin—save for the eyes, which were bright with desperation.