Chapter Twenty-Three
Lucien was tired. He’d not really slept the night before, spending pleasurable hours in Courtney’s bed, but the tension strumming through him kept his eyes from closing.
The thunder of eight horses’ hooves against the packed earth of the Great North Road had become a rhythm in Lucien’s blood—relentless, desperate, driving him forward through the moonlit night. Thank God it was a full moon on a clear night, or they’d see nothing.
His horse’s flanks were lathered with sweat, but the animal seemed to sense his rider’s urgency and maintained its punishing pace without complaint.
Beside him, the Duke of Blackstone rode with the grim determination of a man who had already lost everything that mattered. Behind them, Rockwell, Wolf, Julian, Tarquin, Fane, and Axton formed a formidable hunting party that would have intimidated any sensible criminal.
But Lockwood had proven himself far from sensible.
They had been riding hard for hours, stopping only to change horses at coaching inns where they learned that a carriage matching Lockwood’s description had indeed passed through. Each confirmation drove Lucien harder—they were on the right track, but were they gaining ground?
Now, as the first pale light of dawn began to creep across the horizon, Lucien’s eyes swept the road ahead with desperate intensity. Every shadow might conceal danger. Every bend in the road could bring them face to face with their quarry.
“There!” Julian’s sharp cry cut through the morning air. “On the right side of the road!”
Lucien’s heart stopped as he saw what had caught Julian’s attention—a dark shape crumpled in the tall grass beside the road, partially hidden by the shadow of an ancient oak. Even from a distance, he could see the pale yellow of what looked like a woman’s dress.
Was it her? Please let it be her and God let her be alive! “Courtney!” The name tore from his throat as he urged his horse forward, the others thundering behind him.
He was off his mount before the animal had fully stopped, his boots hitting the ground at a run. The sight that greeted him made his chest constrict with a mixture of relief and terror.
Courtney lay motionless on her side, her yellow morning dress torn and stained with grass and dirt.
Her auburn hair had come completely free of its pins and spread around her like a halo, with bits of leaves and twigs caught in the tangled strands.
Her hands were still bound behind her back with rope that had chafed her wrists raw, and there was a livid bruise forming along her left temple.
But she was breathing. Her chest rose and fell with reassuring regularity, and as Lucien dropped to his knees beside her, her eyelids fluttered.
“Courtney,” he said softly, his hands hovering over her as he tried to assess her injuries without moving her. “Can you hear me, love?”
Her eyes opened slowly, unfocused and confused. When her gaze found his face, she blinked several times as if trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
“Lucien?” Her voice was barely a whisper, slurred with confusion. “You’re…you’re here. I knew you’d come for me. You must find my horse. He must be frightened…he saved me…”
“What horse, darling?” he asked gently, even as Julian worked to cut the ropes binding her wrists. The relief of finding her alive was so overwhelming he could barely think straight.
“The bay,” she said, her words still not quite connecting properly. “I took the gelding from the inn. Not my horse. Fast horse. Very fast. But the rabbit…” She trailed off, her eyes losing focus again.
Lucien exchanged a sharp glance with Rockwell. She had escaped. Somehow, his brave, brilliant Courtney had gotten away from Lockwood and been trying to reach them.
“She’s not making sense,” Tarquin said grimly, kneeling on her other side. “Head injury, most likely. When did you fall, Court? How long have you been here?”
Courtney tried to sit up, but Lucien gently pressed her back down.
“The rabbit ran right in front of us,” she said, her voice stronger but still disoriented.
“Scared him. The horse shied and I…my hands were tied, I couldn’t…
” She looked at her freed wrists in bewilderment. “They were tied. I couldn’t hold on.”
“A rabbit spooked your horse,” Rockwell said, understanding dawning in his voice. “You were thrown.”
“The straw,” Courtney continued, her narrative jumping erratically. “I hid in the straw pile. They looked in the fields. Wrong direction.” A small, triumphant smile crossed her bruised face. “I fooled them.”
“Yes, you did,” Lucien said, his throat tight with emotion and pride. His brave, clever Courtney had not only escaped her captors but had managed to steal a horse and ride toward help. “You magnificent, brilliant woman.”
Julian had produced a flask and was helping her take small sips. “How long ago did you escape, Court? Do you know where Lockwood is now?”
“Behind me,” she said, some clarity returning to her eyes as the water helped clear her head. “They’ll be searching for me. They’ll be so angry…” Fear flickered across her face. “Ashley. Is Ashley—?”
“She’s alive,” Blackstone assured her, his voice gentler than Lucien had ever heard it. “Injured, but alive. She’s the one who told us you’d been taken.”
Tears of relief filled Courtney’s eyes. “I tried to run sooner, but he said he’d hurt innocent people if I called for help. He killed Kitty. And Mrs. Bellamy. I heard him talking with his men—”
“We know,” Lucien said softly, brushing dirt and leaves from her hair. “We found Kitty. I’m so sorry.”
The grief that flashed across Blackstone’s face was quickly buried beneath cold fury, but Courtney saw it. “Your Grace, I’m sorry.”
“She was a good woman,” Blackstone said simply, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
Axton, who had been examining the ground nearby, called out softly, “There’s a bay horse about fifty yards that way, standing calm as you please near those trees. Probably wondering where his rider went. I’ll go fetch him.”
“That’s him,” Courtney said with more clarity. “Good horse. Saved my life until the rabbit…”
Fane, who had been scanning the road behind them, suddenly straightened in his saddle. “We have company,” he announced grimly. “Three riders, coming fast from the north.”
Lucien’s head snapped up, his hand instinctively moving to the pistol at his side. In the distance, he could see dust rising from the road—Lockwood and his men, having apparently realized their quarry had doubled back.
“Can you ride?” he asked Courtney urgently, helping her sit up properly. “We need to get you away from here.”
She struggled to focus, her head obviously still spinning from her fall. “I think so. But slowly. Everything’s…tilting.”
“No time for slowly,” Wolf said tersely, watching the approaching riders. “They’ll be in pistol range in minutes.”
“Julian, Tarquin, get your sister to safety,” Lucien commanded, his voice taking on the authoritative tone of his military training. “The rest of us will handle Lockwood.”
“No.” Courtney’s hand shot out to grasp his coat, her grip surprisingly strong despite her injuries. “He’s killed two people, Lucien. He has nothing left to lose. If you confront him here—”
“We outnumber him eight to three,” he said to reassure her, and she nodded, letting go of his coat and falling back exhausted in his arms.
“He won’t get the chance to hurt anyone else,” Blackstone said with deadly calm, checking the priming on his pistol. “Some debts can only be paid in blood.”
The approaching riders were close enough now that individual figures could be distinguished.
Lockwood in the lead, his face twisted with rage, flanked by his two surviving thugs.
All three had pistols drawn. The three men reined in their horses upon seeing the force facing them.
The silence lengthened as they sat staring until a shot rang out next to Lucien’s head.
The duke fired upon Lockwood, his intent clear. “I’m coming for you, Lockwood. Kitty told me it was you who shot her and you will pay,” he yelled, and before the men could stop him, the duke mounted and charged toward the three villains. Axton, Fane, and Wolf quickly followed.
The Duke of Blackstone’s war cry echoed across the dawn landscape as he spurred his horse into a thunderous charge, his aristocratic composure finally shattered by grief and rage.
Behind him, Axton, Fane, Wolf, and the Montague brothers followed in hot pursuit, leaving Lucien holding Courtney while Rockwell moved to secure the bay horse that had carried her to freedom.
“Your Grace, wait!” Fane shouted, but Blackstone was beyond hearing, beyond reason. The man who had spent his entire life bound by rigid propriety and social expectations had been transformed by love and loss into something primal and dangerous.
Lockwood’s eyes widened as he saw the charging nobleman bearing down on him, pistol raised.
The baron yanked his horse’s reins hard to the left, trying to wheel away from the duke’s direct assault, as he took aim and fired on the duke.
But Blackstone anticipated the move, and the bullet whizzed harmlessly by.
Years of hunting had honed his instincts, and he adjusted his aim with deadly precision and fired again.
The crack of the duke’s pistol split the morning air.
Lockwood jerked backward, a crimson bloom spreading across his immaculate waistcoat.
His own weapon discharged harmlessly into the air as his nerveless fingers lost their grip.
For a moment that seemed suspended in time, he swayed in his saddle, his pale eyes wide with shock and the dawning realization that his schemes had finally caught up with him.
“That was for Kitty,” Blackstone said coldly, his voice carrying clearly across the distance between them.