Once a Rake (Drake's Rakes) (3 page)

Sarah knew that she was a Christian, because she bent to help Boswell’s unpleasant relation off the ground. “Are you all right, cousin?”

Bent over and clutching his ribs, Martin yanked his arm out of her grasp. “You did that on purpose, you bitch.”

The squire frowned. “Language, sir. Ladies.”

Martin waved him off as well. “This is no lady, and you know it, Bovey. Why my cousin demeaned himself enough to marry a by-blow . . .”

Sarah laughed. “Why, for her dowry, Martin. You know that. Heavens, all of Dorset knows that.”

The only thing people didn’t know was the identity of her real father, who’d set up the trust for her. But then, knowing had been no benefit to her.

“What Dorset knows,” Squire said, his face red, “is that you’ve done Boswell proud. Even kind to his mother, and I have to tell you, ma’am, that be no easy feat.”

Sarah spared him another smile. “Why, thank you, Squire. That is kind of you.”

The squire grew redder. Martin harrumphed.

“Climb on your horse, Clarke,” Squire said. “It’s time we left Lady Clarke to her work. We certainly haven’t made her day any easier.”

Martin huffed, but he took up his horse’s reins. He was still brushing off his once-pristine attire when the soldiers, bantering like children on a picnic, returned brandishing Willoughby’s lead, the pig following disconsolately behind.

With a smile for the ragged soldier who’d caught him, Sarah held her hand out for the rope. “Thank you, Mr. . . .”

The man, lean and lined from sun and hardship, ducked his head. “Greggins, ma’am. Pleasure. Put up a good fight, ’e did.”

She chuckled. “I know all too well, Mr. Greggins.” Turning, she smiled up at her neighbor. “Thank you, Squire. I am so sorry you had to send Maizie off.”

The squire grinned at her, showing his gap teeth and twinkling blue eyes. “Aw, she’ll be at the bottom of the lane, right enough. She knows to get out of yon pig’s way.”

Tipping his low-crowned hat to Sarah, he turned to help Martin onto his horse. Sarah waved farewell and tugged a despondent Willoughby back to his pen. She was just pulling the knot tight when she caught sight of that shadow again, this time on her side of the coop. Casting a quick glance to where the squire had just mounted behind the pig-catching soldier Greggins, she bent over Willoughby.

“I wouldn’t show myself yet if I were you,” she murmured, hoping the shadow heard her. “And if it was you who let Willoughby go a moment ago, I thank you.”

“A search would have been…problematic,” she heard, and a fresh chill chased down her spine. There was a burr to his voice. A Scot, here on the South Dorset coast. Now, how frequently could she say she’d seen that?

“You didn’t by any chance recently shoot at someone, did you?” she asked.

As if he would tell the truth, if he were indeed the assassin.

“No’ who you think.”

She should turn around this minute and call for help. Every instinct of decency said so. But Martin was the local magistrate, and Sarah knew how he treated prisoners. Even innocent ones. Squeezing her eyes shut, Sarah listened to the jangle of the troop turning to leave.

“Give you good day, Lady Clarke,” the squire said, and waved the parade off down the drive.

Martin didn’t follow right away. “This isn’t over, missy,” he warned. “No thieving by-blow is going to keep me from what is mine. This land belongs to me now, and you know it. By the time you let go, it will be useless.”

Not unless the shingle strand sinks into the ocean,
she thought dourly. The only thing Martin wanted from Fairbourne was a hidden cove where boats could land brandy.

Sarah sighed, her mind made up. She simply could not accommodate Martin in this or anything. Straightening, she squarely faced the dyspeptic man where he stiffly sat his horse. “Fairbourne is Boswell’s,” she said baldly. “Until he returns, I am here to make sure it is handed back into his hands in good heart. Good day, Martin.”

Martin opened his mouth to argue, and then saw the squire and other men waiting for him. He settled for a final “Bah!” and dug his heels into his horse. They were off in a splatter of mud.

Sarah stood where she was until she could no longer hear them. Then, with a growing feeling of inevitability, she once more climbed past the broken pigpen and approached the shadow at the back of the coop.

And there he was, a very large red-headed man slumped against the stone wall. He was even more ragged than the men who had ridden with Martin, his clothing tattered and filthy, his hair a rat’s nest, his beard bristling and even darker red than his hair. His eyes were bright, though, and his cheeks flushed. He held his hand to his side, and he was listing badly.

Sarah crouched down next to him to get a better look, and saw that his shirt was stained brown with old blood. His hands, clutched over his left side, were stained with new blood, which meant that those bright eyes were from more than intelligence. Even so, Sarah couldn’t remember ever seeing a more compelling, powerful man in her life.

“Hello,” she greeted him, her own hands clenched on her thighs. “I assume I am speaking to the Scotsman for whom everyone is looking.”

His grin was crooked, and under any other circumstance would have been endearing. “Och, lassie, nothin’ gets past ye.”

“I thought you were dead.”

He frowned. “Wait a few minutes,” he managed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

And then, as gracefully as a sailing vessel slipping under the waves, he sank all the way to his side and lost consciousness.

Chapter 2

Sweet lord, Sarah thought, staring at the unconscious man at her feet. What do I do now? He was huge. At least four inches over six feet and fifteen stone, all of it seemingly muscle, which meant he would be impossible to move. She had a feeling that she would get halfway across the yard, the Scot’s feet in her hands, and Martin would come thundering back. And wouldn’t that set the seal on the disaster that was her life?

“Sir?” she asked, nudging the unconscious man’s shoulder. “Sir, you must wake.”

The posters had said the assassin was a soldier. Her shadow was clad in what was left of civilian clothing: well-made tweed hacking jacket, buckskins, turned boots that had seen a lot of scuffing. Good lawn shirt and brown brocade waistcoat, his blood-stained cravat wrapped around his waist rather than his throat.

She knew she should assess how bad the injury was. Instead, she stood up. There was a good chance this man was guilty of attempted murder, if not treason. If she helped him, she would be just as guilty as he. She should call Martin back to take him.

Martin. Sarah’s stomach lurched. She took another look at her guest, his features ashen and blood beginning to seep over his fingers. She couldn’t do it. If she announced this man’s presence, it would give Martin the perfect excuse to search her property, to harass her little family. She could not allow either, for more reasons than Martin knew.

Besides, she thought, she didn’t know for certain that this was the man they sought. Looking at the size of him, though, she was more certain that he was the one who had kept Willoughby from tumbling into the sea. She owed him something for that.

“Sir, please,” she urged, crouching back down to push at the man’s shoulder. “You cannot stay here.”

She couldn’t help it. She had to know how bad the situation was. She laid her hand against his broad forehead and all but groaned aloud. He was burning up. She didn’t think there was any way he was going to leave under his own power.

Sarah took a quick look around, just to make sure they were alone. The outbuildings were quiet and the house silent. Only Willoughby showed any curiosity, sticking his snout between the fence slats to sniff at the intruder.

“Do not dare fall in love with him,” Sarah warned the pig. “He’s leaving.”

“Do you think I’m no’ worthy o’ love, then, lass?” came a faint, gravelly voice. Gasping, she looked down at the stranger. His eyes still weren’t open; he hadn’t moved. But that had been his voice, hadn’t it? She wasn’t just imagining it?

“I have no idea what you are worthy of, sir,” she answered. “But I am certain you would not want it from a six hundred pound pig.”

That earned her another smile that all but set her back on her heels.
Oh, don’t do that,
she thought desperately. That smile did something dangerous to her. Something surprising, disorienting. Something she did not have the luxury of feeling. Ever.

“Not a very discriminating porker, is he?” the man asked, struggling to sit up.

Sarah helped until he was vertical. “Heavens, no. Quite capricious, in fact.”

He managed to get one eye open. Blue. Sky-over-the-sea blue, when the sun shone and clouds rode high. Promise blue, infinity blue. Sarah couldn’t quite catch her breath.

“You’ve named him Willoughby?” he said, his voice gravelly and deep.

She allowed a small smile. “After another unfaithful pig in a book I read.”

“
Sense and Sensibility.
” He gave a tiny nod. “Grand book.”

“You read it?”

He got the other eye open. “Och, lass, a man has to do more with his time than assassinate beloved national figures.”

Sarah found herself on her feet, hands clenched. “Then you did try to kill . . .”

“Wellington? Nae. But someone is tryin’ hard to blame me, now, aren’t they?”

She couldn’t decide what to do. How could she possibly know whether he was telling the truth? “Why would they blame you if you are innocent?”

He gave a minimal nod. “Och, weel, hasn’t that been somethin I’ve been ponderin’ the last few days? Could be because I saw who did do it, o’ course.”

“You did?”

“Oh, aye. And for my troubles I was shot and sent swimming in the Channel.”

Sarah couldn’t take her eyes from him. “Why should I believe you?”

He smiled again. Damn him. “I canna think of a reason you should.”

It was getting harder to breathe. “If you are innocent, you should go to the authorities.”

“If I go to the authorities, I’ll be dead in a day. The people involved in that assassination attempt are highly placed. No, lass, I need to get to London.”

“You’ve been trying to get to London all this time and only made it this far? The alert has been out on you for almost two weeks.”

He grimaced. “Wheesht, lassie, I’m not in my best form. And it seems every tree in Britain holds my likeness. It’s hard to hide a Scotsman as big as me in the brambles.”

“But you’ve lingered here for at least three days.”

He shrugged. “It’s this blasted gunshot. What with everything, it’s begun to fester. It seems to have taken the meat out of my legs entirely.”

She was wringing her hands now, as if that would help. “You need a doctor.”

He closed his eyes, as if the effort to keep them open was just too much. “Nae, lass. I just need a night or two under a roof. A bit of soap and water, a chop or two. I’ll be gone before you know it. Unless you want to help me to London.”

She backed away. “No. I cannot.”

“Wellington is in grave danger.”

She looked around her, suddenly sure Martin would hear them and gallop back up the drive. Certain one of the women in the house would wander out and spy her conversing with an injured Scot. It would take only one mistimed witness to bring disaster down on them all.

She should see him on his way. If she did, though, she didn’t think he would last the week. He was so pale, so thin, as if he’d burned away too many pounds in the last few days. His eyes were smudged and sunken, his lips cracked. And that blood. Could she so easily condemn him?

Could she condemn her own family if he was lying? Her home?

Her home.

Oh, Christ,
she thought with weary frustration.
I am so tired of always being an inch away from disaster.

“You put my family in terrible danger,” she finally said, taking another step back.

“Family?” he asked. “You have children?”

Her laugh was sharp and dry. “Not in the strictest sense of the word. But there are three women who would suffer if I were brought up on charges of abetting a traitor.”

Some of the starch seemed to go out of him. Sarah stopped herself from reaching out to him. Guilt was an old companion. Why should it bother her so much now?

“You don’t understand…,” she protested, her hands caught in her apron.

He afforded her another wry smile. “Och, lass, but I do. Ye’d be a fool to believe such a disreputable stranger, just because he saved your pig from going over a cliff…at personal risk to himself.”

She took another step back. “Do not
dare
. . .”

But his eyes were open and they were amused. Self-deprecating. Inexplicably, shadowed with grief. Sarah knew it was absurd, but she felt as if she were falling into them, her hard-won balance sacrificed to his pain.

She closed her own eyes. “You don’t understand…,” she repeated pointlessly.

“Then help me up, lass,” he said, sounding unbearably weary, “and I’ll move on.”

She didn’t budge. She didn’t open her eyes, as if that could indefinitely delay her need to act. She might have stayed that way if she hadn’t heard a voice from the house.