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Despite that worry, Ian felt a swell of confidence as his fingers closed around the shape of the pistol. He hurriedly unwrapped it from the oilskin in which it was kept, the weight of it reassuringly the same as the one he had carried on the Peninsula. And he had always been accounted a good shot.
There had still been no shout of greeting, although the horses were now very close. And no talking at all, Ian realized. He eased nearer the door, turning his body to face it and laying the pistol in his lap, his right hand resting over it, although the darkness would certainly conceal that it was there.
With his left hand, he reached out and found Anne’s arm. Without speaking, he applied pressure, trying to signal her to move over behind him on the seat he occupied. If he could position her there, with his body between whoever was outside and hers, he could offer her even more protection than the pistol alone would afford. After all, he would have only one shot.
His every sense was trained on what was going on beyond that closed door. With the fall of night, Ian had pulled the shades down over the windows, hoping to keep out some of the pervasive chill. That was a move he now regretted.
There was a soft jingle of harness, quickly muted, probably by a gloved hand. Ian pulled Anne’s arm again, more urgently this time, and finally she understood, slipping silently onto his seat and pressing close behind him. He took a breath in relief.
As he did, the door he was facing was jerked open and a torch was thrust into the carriage. It came so close to his face that Ian felt a searing heat, and the sudden flare of light blinded him. He recoiled automatically, to escape both its brightness and the flame, which seemed directed at his head.
He felt Anne’s intake of breath against his spine, and he steeled himself, expecting her scream to follow. Apparently she was, as she had claimed, made of sterner stuff. George Darlington might have been a coward, but his daughter was not.
“What have we ’ere?” the voice behind the torch asked. “Lookee, mate. It seems we’ve got ourselves a couple of passengers in this ’ere deserted coach.”
As the man talked, Ian’s eyes gradually adjusted to the light and his face came into focus. The sight was not reassuring. Despite his years with His Majesty’s army, never noted for attracting the cream of the underclass to fill its ranks, Ian doubted he had ever seen a more villainous visage.
It was obvious by the man’s comment that there were at least two of them. Ian’s gaze flicked to the darkness beyond the blaze of the torch. He could barely make out another figure behind the one who was doing the talking. He could tell little about the second rider, however, and he quickly brought his attention back to the nearer of the two.
“And one of them’s a woman,” the torch holder said.
There had been a subtle shift in tone with the last word. The possibility of violence had been there since the door had been flung open without warning. Now the threat seemed more purposeful and more clearly directed. And Ian’s blood ran cold, lifting the hair on the back of his neck.
None of that fear was allowed to show in his features. They were as imperturbable as he had always determined they would be when facing battle. Then he had made sure of his control in order to give his men confidence that he knew what he was doing. Now he tried to use that same control as a form of intimidation.
“We are awaiting our outriders,” he said calmly. “They should be arriving at any moment.”
“Outriders?” the torch holder questioned, throwing a quick glance over his shoulder. “We didn’t pass no out-riders.”
“Perhaps you came upon the coach from the opposite direction,” Ian suggested logically.
The snow-laden wind whipped in through the open door. The flame of the torch reacted to its rush by leaning inward, as if reaching toward the occupants of the carriage. The acrid smoke from the pitch-soaked rag, which had been wrapped around a broken branch, tainted the air around them.
“Mayhap we can fix whatever’s gone wrong with your vehicle,” the torch holder said. “Why don’t the two of you step out, and we’ll take a look.”
Ian debated the suggestion, but he could see no advantage to them in being outside. As it stood now, these two would have to go through him—and the pistol—to get to Anne. He could be rid of at least one of them by using the gun. He’d have to take his chances that he could knock the second one out with his fists, but thankfully control wasn’t the only thing Ian had learned in his years with the army.
Of course, there might be more than the two he could see. Which could present a problem to his schemes, he thought, fighting the urge to grin at his presumption of planning any kind of extended defense, given his very limited resources.
However, they couldn’t both rush him through the narrow opening the door presented. The pistol would take care of the first, and his fists the second, he reiterated mentally, preparing himself for that sequence of events.
He only regretted that while he had had the chance he hadn’t thought to instruct Anne to get out through the opposite door as soon as they made their move. Maybe she would be wise enough, or frightened enough, to do that anyway.
“Thank you for your kind offer,” he said aloud, those decisions having been reached in a matter of seconds, “but I’m afraid it is quite beyond repair. I’ve sent for another coach.”
“From the inn?”
The man in back spoke for the first time, drawing Ian’s attention to him again. There had been some nuance of amusement in that question, and Ian hesitated, wondering what these two knew about the inn. Obviously, if they even knew its location, they knew more than he did.
“From a friend’s house,” Ian lied. “He lives only a short distance away.”
“And what be your friend’s name?” Torchbearer probed.
“I can’t see how that could possibly be of any concern to you,” Ian said, injecting into his tone the freezing censure he had heard often in the voice of his father, the late earl.
“Don’t want her ladyship to get cold, now do we?” The man’s eyes slid past Ian to examine the girl he sheltered behind him.
“Then I suggest you close the door and be on your way,” Ian said. “Our friends will be arriving at any time.”
“Nobody on the road,” the man denied. “Maybe you ain’t telling the truth about what’s going on. Maybe you be carrying this young lady off from the loving bosom of her family. Maybe a little rescuing is in order ’ere. And I’m just the man to be doing it,” the nearer of the two boasted.
He started forward and Ian raised the pistol, both gloved hands wrapped around it, holding it steady, his finger on the trigger. He pointed the weapon directly at the man’s midsection, and the sight of it stopped his motion. Ian was thankful to see that the barrel didn’t waver, despite the cold.
“We don’t need you here,” Ian said. “I suggest the two of you remount and go about your business.”
“No call for the popper,” the man said, taking a step backward, away from the muzzle of the pistol. Some of Ian’s tension eased at his retreat. “We was just trying to help.”
“We don’t need your help. Be on your way. Both of you.”
The man’s eyes locked on his, holding there for perhaps half a minute. He was obviously trying to gauge Ian’s strength of purpose. Or his courage.
Ian resisted the urge to let his finger tighten around the trigger. Unfamiliar with the mechanism, he had no way of judging at what point it would discharge. Actually, he acknowledged, he had no way of knowing it would discharge at all. He blocked that possibility from his mind and concentrated instead on convincing the villain before him of his willingness to shoot.
“They had a fire at the inn,” the man said unexpectedly. “Could be a long time ’afore your servants get back.”
“I told you they have gone to borrow a coach from a friend.”
There was a sound from the other one, a noise suspiciously like the snort of amusement that had come from the groom when Anne had slammed the door. And suddenly, with that sound, everything fell into place.
These two, typical of those who frequented the public rooms of the scattered country inns, had probably overheard John or the groom asking about a carriage for hire. Obviously that request had been denied due to the unsettling effects of the fire or perhaps even because it had been the livery stable itself which had burned.
In any case, these scavengers must have heard enough to figure out the location of the stranded travelers on whose behalf his servants were inquiring. Or they had heard enough to know in what direction to search for the disabled coach. Then they had hurried here on horseback, beating the rescue party.
It was quite possible that they loitered at the posting inns, hoping for just such a situation. Ian wondered how many other travelers had fallen prey to their schemes.
“We’ll be on our way then,” the man with the torch said. “Since you won’t be needing our services.”
His eyes again shifted to Anne. He smiled at her, revealing the blackened hole of a missing front tooth, before he stepped back, lowering the torch. He began walking toward the horses and his companion, the wavering light he carried revealing both as Ian watched from the still-opened door of the carriage.
Just before he reached his mount, the leader threw the torch into the side of the roadbed. The flaming arc it made through the night drew Ian’s eyes. Unconsciously they followed its flight and landing. The fire sputtered and sizzled a moment in the snow before it went out, plunging the area into darkness.
Ian’s gaze refocused quickly on the place where the two men had been standing just before the scene had faded into the surrounding black. As he waited for his vision to adjust, he strained to keep track, by sound alone, of what they were doing.
There was almost no noise, however. At least none he could follow. Gradually his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, other than what little moonlight found its way through the obscuring clouds. The horses were still there, exactly as they had been before the torch had been extinguished, but the two men had vanished as if they had never existed.
Ian turned on the seat, throwing his left arm in front of Anne and pulling her toward him. He shoved her behind his left shoulder. As he did, the two movements simultaneous, he brought the pistol around, pointing it at the rear door of the carriage.
He wasn’t disappointed. The door burst open and something came hurtling through it from the outer darkness. Ian delayed for half a second, unsure whether this was something the two had thrown into the carriage to make him fire. He was well aware that he had only one shot. And then, judging the bulk of the object to be man-sized, he knew he couldn’t take the chance that it was not one of the scavengers.
He squeezed the trigger, and the noise of the shot filled the coach, along with a smell as acrid as that from the make-shift torch. He had time to think that he couldn’t possibly have missed at that range before a body sprawled across his knees. He pushed the man to the floor with the hand that still held the empty pistol, just as another shape scrambled into the opening. It was the second man, who had a hand on either side of the frame of the door to pull himself in.
Ian reversed the pistol, holding it by the barrel and using the wooden stock to strike at the man climbing into the coach. The second highwayman put up his forearm, deflecting Ian’s blow, which had been aimed at his head.
Ian felt Anne begin to struggle beside him, but it took him too long to understand what was happening. The intruder wasn’t concerned with entering the coach. He had instead gripped Anne’s arm and was pulling her toward the open door.
Ian tried to get to his feet, hampered by the body on the floor and by his damaged leg, which had stiffened from the cold and an hours-long inactivity. Although he managed to lurch upward, the leg gave way, spilling him onto his knees on top of the body of the intruder, which had fallen between the two seats.
“Let me go,” Anne demanded, her small fists rising and falling as she flailed at the man who held her. Although she was struggling fiercely, she was being drawn inexorably to the door.
Ian reached for her and caught the sleeve of her coat between his fingers. Either they, too, were numb with the cold or his purchase had not been secure. The fabric was ripped from his hand as Anne was pulled forward and out of the coach.
He heard her outcry when she hit the ground. Whether it was an expression of pain or of fear, Ian couldn’t be certain, but the thought that the bastard might have hurt her infuriated him.
Discarding the useless pistol, Ian pushed himself upright. He lunged forward, stepping on the dead man. He stood poised a moment in the doorway of the coach, trying to decide which of the forms on the ground below, starkly highlighted against the white snow, was Anne’s. Then a foam of a pale petticoat amid the dark material of the girl’s skirt settled the question.
Knowing that his mobility was going to be limited no matter what he did, Ian simply dove out of the door on top of the man who was attempting to drag Anne to her feet and into the woods. A grunt of surprise and a whoosh of expelled breath as the man hit the ground indicated the accuracy of Ian’s landing. It also jarred every place in his body where a piece of shrapnel had embedded itself more than a year ago and especially those places where bits of metal still lodged deep in muscle and bone.
Now or never, Ian thought, ignoring the agony. He used the advantage of shock and his superior position to begin pounding the man’s head with his fists. The leather gloves he wore offered some protection, but his hands were so cold that each blow felt as if it might shatter his knuckles. He could only hope that the bones of the man writhing in the snow beneath him were experiencing that same punishment.
His opponent somehow managed to get his legs up. He fitted his knees under Ian’s stomach and threw him off. The blow to Ian’s midsection, which still harbored one of the fragments the surgeons had deemed too risky to remove, was nauseating.
Now he was no longer the one in the superior position. No longer the one raining blows on his opponent’s head. Ian put his arms and his hands up, protecting his face as well as he could, as he simply endured the onslaught of pain.
The other man fought with the brutal tenacity of a street brawler, which was undoubtedly where he had acquired his skills. Ian could smell him, a rank, fetid miasma of perspiration that surrounded him despite the bite of the cold, fresh air.
Finally Ian managed to jam his elbow into his opponent’s throat. The move was accomplished more by luck than design, but it distracted those punishing fists for a heartbeat, as the man raised both hands to grab at his injured windpipe.
Ian rolled to the side to free himself of his opponent’s hampering weight. The maneuver was at least partially successful. Then the ex-soldier attempted to take advantage of that success by putting his knee on the ground and pushing himself upright. Instead, his knee slid sideways in the snow, throwing him forward. His forehead met that of his opponent, who was at that instant attempting to sit up. The force of the hard contact between their skulls was enough to thin the air around Ian’s head, and he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness.
He fought the surging blackness, using his hands to hold himself off the ground. Moving as uncertainly as a drunkard, he pushed his body up, swaying on his hands and knees over his equally stunned assailant. Then, with every ounce of strength he possessed, he pushed off the ground and staggered to his feet. He pulled draught after draught of icy air into his aching lungs.
However, the man on the ground also seemed to be recovering from the blow to his head. He, too, began to struggle to his feet. Unlike Ian, however, he didn’t make it. There was a crack of sound, like a rotten branch makes when it breaks under an accumulation of snow, and he fell back as if he’d been pole-axed.
Not sure what had happened, Ian lifted his head and found his ward standing like an avenging angel over the fallen man. She held a piece of deadfall, and it was obvious by her posture that she had swung it like a club against the villain’s head.
“I’m sorry that took so long,” she said apologetically, “but you were too close to allow me to strike before. I was afraid I would hit you instead of him.”
She was apologizing, Ian realized. Apologizing that she hadn’t defeated his opponent more quickly. He laughed, unsure whether that laughter was born of relief, admiration or sheer giddiness. The sharp sting that it caused in his cut lip, however, cleared his head, and he began to understand the debt he owed Anne Darlington. He couldn’t imagine another woman of his acquaintance having the courage to do what she had just done.
Anne’s eyes had fallen once more to the man on the ground, who appeared to be still unconscious. Apparently reassured, she looked up again at Ian, as she lowered the broken limb.
“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.
Despite the darkness, Ian could see how pale she was, her fair skin drained of color. Tendrils of damp red hair hung about her face or were plastered to it by the snow. Her clothing was undoubtedly as wet as his own, Ian realized, feeling for the first time the cold moisture seeping through his sodden greatcoat and soaking the garments beneath it.
Unable to find breath with which to answer the question he should have been asking her, he nodded. He was beginning to believe he really was all right, despite the exertions of the fight. And then, with an unexpectedness that was shocking, his knees gave way. He fell on them to the ground, reaching out just in time to catch himself with his hand. Ian watched his glove sink into the slush and then begin to slide forward, leaving a shallow trough to mark its passage.
He was almost disinterested in the process, although on some level he knew that he was about to end up face-down in the snow. He wondered idly if he were dying. Suddenly a pair of strong young arms slipped around his midsection. Steadying him. Virtually holding him up. Still on his hands and knees, he turned his head and looked into Anne Darlington’s eyes.
“I’m all right,” he said, lying through his teeth.
He looked back down at the ground, watching blood drip onto the snow, staining its white with pink. He closed his eyes, not because the sight bothered him, but in order to will strength back into his body. Every inch of it ached, which was probably why he had no idea where that slow drip of blood was coming from.
“Let me help you up,” Anne offered.
He opened his eyes, turning his head again to face her. Obediently, he pushed against the ground, and with her aid managed to get to his knees. And knew with stunning clarity that he wasn’t going any farther. Not for a while.
“If I could rest a moment…” he suggested, still breathing through his mouth, trying to assess the severity of his injuries, all of which were making themselves heard in a disharmonious clamor of pain.
“Of course,” she said.
He swayed slightly, and felt her arms tighten comfortingly around him. She was very close, her body pressed against his. There was no false modesty in the way she held him. And no more embarrassment than Dare or his valet might have felt in offering him their help.
Ian closed his eyes, allowing himself to lean against her strength. He was infinitely grateful for it, as improper as what they were doing might seem to anyone else. They had been through a terrifying experience, and she was, after all, his ward.
She is also a woman. A very desirable woman.
The thought was shocking, given that until he had seen her brandishing that branch, he had been thinking of Anne only as George Darlington’s daughter. As a school-girl. She might be the former, but despite the circumstances in which he had discovered her, she was definitely not the latter. Unbelievably, his battered body was forcibly reminding him of that.
It had been a long time since Ian Sinclair had held, or been held, by a woman. And a very long time, therefore, since he had felt this rush of pure physical reaction. It unnerved him, not only because it was so unexpected, but because of its intensity.
And because, of course, that of all the women to whom he might legitimately have felt such an attraction, Anne Darlington was the most forbidden. She was his ward, given into his care by her father. Even if it had been without Ian’s consent.
And other than that consideration, Ian was the last man on earth who might make any claim on Anne Darlington. The least suitable man she would ever meet to offer her his heart or his hand.
Since he could not in honor ever do either of those things, he had no right to touch her, even in a situation that had begun as innocently as this one. And so, despite the lingering weakness, Ian put his arm over Anne’s slender shoulders, and again relying her strength, struggled to his feet.
As soon as he had, he stepped away from her embrace, creating the necessary distance between them. A distance he had never anticipated crossing.
“Thank you,” he said.
Nothing of what he had felt during those brief moments they had knelt together was revealed in his eyes or in his voice. And again, he had reason to be grateful for the control he had learned on the Peninsula, as well as for the lessons of duty and honor.
What had just happened would be forgotten, the memory of it destroyed by his determination to destroy it. And by his determination to carry out the responsibility he had been given.
The responsibility of finding Anne Darlington a husband. And that man could never, of course, be Ian Sinclair.
Chapter Three
“Amazing how quickly it can strike, even in the best of families,” a deep voice ventured lazily.
Ian had opened his eyes, and became aware of his surroundings for almost the first time in six fever-ridden days. Hearing that sarcastic comment from the man sitting beside his bed, he fought the urge to shut them again and pretend delirium.
“Insanity, I mean,” the Earl of Dare added, closing the leather-bound volume he had obviously been reading from as Ian slept.
Despite the way he felt, Ian’s mouth lifted into a reluctant smile, which was quickly answered by his brother’s.
“How do you feel?” Dare asked.
