Thunder and Roses (56 page)

“Bloody hell!” Michael snarled after reading the familiar handwriting. Crumpling the note in his hand, he pitched it furiously across his office. “Damn Aberdare!”

The messenger said politely, “Is that your reply, my lord?”

Michael’s anger burned away quickly, leaving ashes. He dipped a pen into his inkstand, then scrawled: 7:00 tonight, at
Caerbach
, alone. Kenyon.

He sanded and sealed the note and gave it to the messenger. The man bowed, then left.

Michael stared blankly across his office, feeling the inner tightness that always came before battle. The day of reckoning had come. Deep in his bones, he had known that he would not be able to avoid this confrontation, though God knew he had tried.

He looked at the stack of work on his desk, then shoved it aside. It was impossible to care about projected delivery dates for his new equipment. Wearily he rose, lifted his hat, and strode out of his office. Pausing at Madoc’s desk, which was just outside, he said, “I’m leaving for the day. Was there anything you needed to discuss with me?”

Madoc leaned back in his massive chair and linked his fingers across his midriff. “No, everything is fine.”

With a faint nod of relief, Kenyon left.

Madoc made a
pretense
of returning to his work, but inwardly he was thinking about the interesting little episode with the Aberdare messenger. He waited until ten minutes had passed and he had seen Kenyon ride away. Then he went into his employer’s office—the office that had been his own for four years. Since no other employees were near, he didn’t bother to conceal the bitterness of his expression.

Many records were kept in Kenyon’s office, so no one would have thought twice at seeing Madoc inside. That had proved very convenient on several occasions.

After Kenyon’s oath, there had been a sound of paper being crumpled and thrown. Madoc scanned the floor and quickly located the wadded note in one corner of the office. Smoothing it out, he read it once, then again, unable to believe his luck. This would be perfect, absolutely perfect.

God was definitely on his side.

 
As usual, Nicholas had been right: very interesting things could be done while bathing. The process left Clare spotless and purring. She and Nicholas dozed afterward, then rose and shared a light meal. When she finished eating, she gave him a light kiss. “I’ll see you after the meeting. Are you the sort of artist who doesn’t like to show work in progress, or might I hear the early results of your composing tonight?”

“I prefer to wait until I have the piece roughly worked out.” His gaze held her for a moment. Then he gave her a gentle pat on the backside. “Off with you, or you’ll be late.”

After donning her bonnet, she went out the side entrance to the stables, where her pony cart was waiting. She had driven around the front of the house before she recalled that she had intended to take some books to Owen. It would be weeks before he could return to work, and he wanted to use the time well. Though she had sent some volumes home with him the day of the wedding, he might be ready for more.

She halted the cart in front of the house and looped the reins around one of the granite urns. Skipping into the house, she went right to the library. No sign of Nicholas; he must have withdrawn to the music room.

She had selected the books and was on the way out when a brilliant flash of light drew her eye to Nicholas’s desk. Curiously she went to investigate, and found that the slanting rays of the sun were reflecting off a chunk of quartz and twisted silver. She lifted it and turned it over in her hands. So this was the famous specimen of wire silver that had been collected with such risk, and which in the end had not been needed. With everything that had happened in the last fortnight, she hadn’t seen it before. Well, it made a decent paperweight.

She was about to set it down when she saw the note that had been resting underneath. The paper unfolded, revealing slashing black handwriting. 7:00 tonight, at
Caerbach
, alone. Kenyon.

Dread struck with paralyzing force. No … dear God, no ….

Dumping her books on the desk, she snatched up the note. As she read it again, fury blazed through her. Damn Nicholas! After swearing that he would do nothing foolish, he was stepping right into the lion’s den. A formal duel would require seconds, so perhaps Nicholas only wanted to talk, but how could he be so stupid as to trust Lord Michael after all that had happened? And how could she have been so naive as to believe Nicholas’s assurances?

Only the night before he had mentioned that

Gypsies lied fluently when necessary, and obviously that was a skill he had retained. He must have sent a message to Lord Michael before making love to her, and received the answer before they had dined. The damned, treacherous, pig-headed …

Imprecations boiling through her mind, she raced through the house and out to the stables again. Seeing the head groom, she gasped, “Has Lord Aberdare gone out?”

“About five minutes ago, my lady.”

“Saddle a horse for me,” she ordered. Remembering that Rhonda was gone, she added, “A gentle, biddable one. And use a regular saddle, not a
sidesaddle
.”

He gave her modest day dress a doubtful glance, but went off obediently. Fuming, she paced in front of the stables, vaguely aware that she had never allowed herself to feel such rage in her life; the passion that Nicholas had unleashed in her was emerging in unexpected ways. Of course, never in her life had she felt such fear. Every nuance of their lovemaking that afternoon returned to her. Looking back, she realized that it had been unusually intense; had he been saying good-bye in case something went wrong? Her stomach knotted at the thought.
                        

Briefly she considered taking the groom with her, but after a moment’s reflection she decided against it. This was not the sort of conflict that could be resolved by armed retainers, like bands of medieval knights. A single female would have a better chance of preventing violence between the two men. They had both been raised as proper English gentlemen, and she would use that fact ruthlessly.

The groom brought a chestnut mare to the mounting block and Clare swung into the saddle. Her skirt bunched around her knees, baring her calves, but propriety was the last thing on her mind. She did remember her pony, so as she gathered the reins she said, “Please bring my cart from the front of the house. I won’t be needing it.”

Then she galloped out of the
stableyard
. T
hank
God she had done so much riding over the last weeks, and t
hank
Nicholas for the fact that all of his mounts were beautifully trained.

Caerbach
was a small ruined fortress that stood on common grazing land about halfway between Aberdare and Bryn Manor. Originally it had been an outpost of the main castle of Aberdare. It would not take long to reach it.

How soon until she was close enough to hear a gunshot?

As she pounded along the track, she prayed with the greatest
fervor
of her life.

 
Caerbach
stood on top of a hill and had once commanded a wide view of the valley. Over the centuries the woods had encroached and the cut stone had been taken for use elsewhere, leaving a scattering of rocks and partial walls set in the center of a sunny clearing. For children it was a delightful place to play hide-and-seek; for adults, it offered undisputed privacy.

Nicholas kept an alert eye on the trees as he rode through the woods, but was unsurprised to find that Michael was already in the clearing, lounging against one of the low walls with his arms folded across his chest. His casual posture did not match his taut face.

As Nicholas dismounted, Michael growled, “You’re late.”

“I see you still have your watch set fast.” Nicholas tethered his horse outside the ruins. “You never could stand the thought of being even a minute late.”

“Don’t waste my time with vapid reminiscences. Why the hell did you ask me here?”

Unhurriedly Nicholas picked his way among the stones, the coils of his whip gently slapping his leg underneath his coat. Though he had chosen not to bring a pistol to this meeting, he hadn’t wanted to be entirely
defenseless
. He stopped opposite Michael, fifteen feet of clear ground separating them. “A couple of reasons. The most important is to get to the bottom of why you decided to hate me. Since you haven’t taken against Rafe and Lucien, I presume there must be something specific about me.”

Tight-lipped, Michael said, “You presume correctly.”

When no further comment came, Nicholas said encouragingly, “The only motive I can think of is sheer bad sportsmanship. Youth is competitive, and you and I often went against each other. It was usually a pretty even match. I never much minded when I lost, but you hated losing. Is that the problem—that I won too often and defeat has been festering for years?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Michael snapped.

“Schoolboy competition has nothing to do with this.”

Nicholas refused to get irritated; it had never been easy to extract information from Michael. “What did I do that is so dreadful that you can’t bring yourself to speak of it?”

A muscle in Michael’s jaw twitched. “Once I say it, the die will be cast. I … I’ll have no choice but to kill you.”

And he didn’t really want to, Nicholas was interested to see. “I didn’t come here to die, Michael, though if I have to fight you, I will.” He put one hand on his hip, brushing back his coat to expose the whip in case Michael hadn’t noticed it. “But before we get to that, I must find out if you were responsible for the recent attempts to kill me.” He felt a brief flare of the anger that he had been keeping under rigid control. “The one thing I find truly unforgivable is that Clare’s life has been endangered. That is also why I questioned whether you’re behind it. Have you become so mad that you would kill an innocent woman to get at me?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The day after you returned to Penreith, I was riding with Clare and a party of children when a bullet grazed my horse. Clare was sure that you had fired at me, but I thought it was a poacher. You’re too good a shot to miss.”

“You’re right—if I had wanted to shoot you in the back, I would have done it.” Michael frowned. “It must have been one of your other enemies.”

“I can’t think of anyone else who wants to kill me, so I’ll stay with the poacher for the time being.” Nicholas’s voice hardened. “However, it’s impossible to explain away the five men that ambushed Clare and me at a
traveler’s
hut in the mountains. They set it afire at midnight, then waited outside with rifles to shoot us when we tried to escape.”

Michael’s eyes widened with what seemed like genuine surprise. “You both got out unharmed?”

“No t
hank
s to you.” Nicholas dug into his pocket for the silver card case, then flipped it across the clearing. Michael instinctively reached under his coat. The movement confirmed Nicholas’s suspicion proving that the other man had come armed.

When he saw that Nicholas was not throwing anything dangerous, Michael swiftly changed his action to a one handed catch. Recognizing the flat silver box, he said, “Where did you get my card case?” He lifted his head, his eyes molten with anger. “Have you been trespassing on my property again?”

“It was found outside the hut where the ambush took place,” Nicholas retorted. “In a court of law, that might be enough to hang you. Yet in spite of the evidence, I have trouble believing you would be so cowardly, or that you would hire bandits to help you.” Remembering the bullet that had almost struck Clare and the terrifying escape that followed put cracks in Nicholas’s composure. “Well? What have you got to say for yourself?”

“I don’t have to answer to you, Aberdare, but for what it’s worth, you judged correctly. I did my best to break your neck in London, and I’ve been planning on challenging you again, to a real duel this time. But I had nothing to do with any ambushes.” Michael held up the card case. “This went missing several days ago. I don’t know exactly when or where, because I often forget to carry it.” He dropped the case into a pocket. “So much for evidence of my treachery. You obviously have more enemies than you thought.”