A bloody pirate!
No wonder he had that aura of danger and arrogance, that unapologetic delight in doing whatever he wished. Such as threaten another pirate with pistols. What if he’d done more than threaten? Hadn’t she already wondered at the connection between Mr. Bothwick and the death of his brother? He’d apparently accepted the fact of Red’s death without any physical proof. Perhaps there was a reason for that, as well. And the Runner—oh, Lord, the Runner—mightn’t the poor man have gone to his informant’s brother for information and help? Hadn’t she found his corpse a mere shell’s toss from Mr. Bothwick’s rowboat?
She stumbled, gripped the slippery bark of the closest tree, and dry heaved. She’d thought herself a better judge of character. She’d fancied the man lowbred but well-meaning, rakish but misunderstood, hot-tempered but overall harmless. Had she truly been that wrong?
The rain let up a little, and she forged forward along the trail. The path was beginning to widen, the trees to disperse, the leaves scarcer. She stepped free at last—and there, up ahead, like a beacon of light, like a mirage on the desert, like the Holy Grail itself, were:
Stables.
Half-laughing, half-crying, she ran toward them. She slipped and fell in the mud, but picked herself up without stopping and flew to the structure as if her life depended on reaching the horses inside. It very likely did.
A gaggle of unsavory-looking liverymen loitered by the open door. No matter. She would win them (and use of a horse, please, God) with charm and aplomb in a matter of seconds. She slowed to a walk, soaking wet and out of breath, but filled with hope for the first time in ages.
“Good afternoon,” she called out.
As one, their fingertips went to pistols strapped to their hips, then fell casually to their sides as they judged her no threat. Susan stumbled. The liverymen werearmed?She started to have a very bad feeling about the grounds on which she trespassed.
“Er... Whose stables are these?” she called out, deciding to stop where she was, rather than close the last couple yards between them.
One of the men spat a bit of leaf onto the ground before replying, “Mr. Bothwick’s.”
Spectacular. Susan briefly considered stabbing herself with the ivory-handled blade right then and there, thereby saving everyone else the hassle of killing her.
“Timothy Bothwick’s?” she asked anyway, despite the sick feeling in her stomach indicating she already knew that not to be the case.
The liveryman shook his head. “His brother.”
Of course. She’d finally found the only stables in a twenty-mile radius and they belonged to Mr. Bothwick. Thepirate.To whom she’d mistakenly given her virginity and her trust. She’d never again possess the former, but at least now she had the faculty to be more judicious in the latter. The man did not deserve trust. And, most likely, neither did his liverymen.
“M-may I see the horses?” she asked, despite her better judgment.
Once again, they all touched their fingertips to their hips. But this time, they kept their hands at the ready.
“No,” came the flat reply.
There was no room for argument.
Bloody, bloody hell. Damn and triple damn. Susan cast her gaze up to the still-rumbling sky and blinked when a raindrop splattered against the lens of her spectacles. She simply did not know enough swear words to properly convey the level of frustration burning through her blood.
The liverymen waited, silent, watching her.
She wanted to cry. She stood before them, miserable, pathetic. A woman with matted hair clinging to her frozen face. Clad in a mud-splattered dress with torn sleeves and a battered hem. One bare hand clenched her soiled skirts for warmth, the other encased in ruined silk stained brown with a dead man’s blood. Not an inch of her body had escaped the onslaught of the rain. And, to top it all off, she was lost.
“Could one of you please tell me how to get to Moonseed Manor?”’
She hated how much her voice shook. She wasn’t sure whether her body trembled because of the cold, because she was afraid the liverymen would just as soon shoot her as help her, or because she was even more afraid they wouldn’t know how to get there either and she’d wander around this wet hellhole until she died of cold and starvation.
But one of the liverymen began to gesture. Not the one who’d spit—a different one. A nicer one. Still armed, of course, but at least willing to tell her how to get out of there.
“Not too far up that way,” he was saying, “you’ll see what’s another trail. Can’t miss it. Just keep straight on. There’s no forks and the like. You’ll come out by the gate with all the roses.”
“You mean the rock garden?” she asked hopefully. “Just behind Moonseed Manor?”
He nodded. “That’s the one.”
“Thank you so much.”
She gave him a smile—no need to make more enemies—and headed in the direction he’d pointed. Eventually, she did come across another footpath. A wider one. With fewer branches. She made her way down the very center, so as to ensure she didn’t accidentally wander to the left or to the right. After what seemed like weeks to her exhausted legs and blistered feet, she clapped eyes on the gate behind Moonseed Manor.
