Barnaby saw Leith’s face as he struggled to his feet. Lips drawn back in a snarl of unrestrained rage, Leith saw Barnaby coming for him, and with a rush of strength, Leith surged upright, drew a knife—a dagger—from his coat, and rounded on Richard.
“Knife!” Barnaby warned.
Richard saw the blade flashing in the morning light as Leith lunged toward him, the knife at chest height.
At the last instant possible, Richard twisted away from the strike.
Leith saw and attempted to correct his aim, yet his blade scored only Richard’s upper arm.
The shift in positions gave Richard the advantage, and he hammered a right hook into Leith’s chin and followed that with a powerful punch to the side of Leith’s head.
The would-be earl went down, collapsing face-first into the grass.
Chest heaving, Richard stood over him, then, finally convinced the miscreant was, indeed, down and out for the moment, as Barnaby joined him, Richard met Barnaby’s eyesand faintly smiled. “I haven’t brawled like that since I was at school.”
Barnaby nodded at the fallen man. “Obviously, you haven’t forgotten how.”
Richard glanced to where the ladies sat in a froth of skirts in the orchard’s grass. “Yet another thing I’ve learned about myself while here.”
Barnaby followed Richard’s gaze and smiled to himself.
Regina was sitting up on her own and delicately massaging her throat. Her gaze was alert, and her color appeared to be returning.
Looking over the orchard wall, Barnaby and Richard saw Stokes and his men, followed by virtually everyone else, streaming across the lawn toward them.
Leith groaned and stirred, drawing Barnaby’s and Richard’s attention.
Having heard the groan, Rosalind rose, and her expression that of an avenging angel, she stalked past Richard to Leith’s side and administered a well-aimed kick to his ribs. “You monster! How dare you!”
“Shh.” Richard caught her and drew her into his arms and pressed a kiss to her temple. “We caught him in time. That’s all that matters.”
Leith groaned again and rolled. He raised his head enough to slant a bleary-eyed glance up at them as if, even now, weighing his chances of winning free.
His features reflecting open disgust, Richard looked at Leith and shook his head. “You’re a despicable excuse for a gentleman. How on earth are you an earl?”
“He’s not.” Barnaby watched as Stokes and his men cleared the archway and strode toward them, then Barnaby glanced at Richard and Rosalind. “That’s what this has been about.”
No stranger to the contortions of inheritance, Richard widened his eyes. He looked at Leith. “Really?”
But Leith was studying Barnaby. Hoarsely, Leith asked, “You know?”
Barnaby met Leith’s gaze as Stokes came up, and O’Donnell and Morgan reached down to haul Leith to his feet. “We’ve worked it all out,” Barnaby coldly informed him. “And we have the proof.”
Leith read the conviction in Barnaby’s eyes, and the desperate hope that had sustained him drained, and he slumped in the policemen’s hold.
Leaving O’Donnell and Morgan to take Leith in charge, Stokes nodded to Richard. “Good work.”
Richard smiled. “I wasn’t about to let the bastard escape.”
Rosalind hugged him.
With Richard’s arm around her, the pair walked back toward the apple tree beneath the spreading branches of which Regina still sat, and Barnaby and Stokes followed.
Penelope was crouching beside Regina, supporting and encouraging the younger woman, but rose as they neared. Her gaze swept Richard—and fixed on the bloody gash in his coat sleeve. “You’ve been cut!”
“What?” Rosalind pushed out from under Richard’s arm and swung to see. “Where?”
Penelope saw the intensity of Rosalind’s reaction and smiled knowingly as all Rosalind’s pent-up concern focused on a new target.
