Chapter Twenty #3
“You will walk until I tell you to stop. Up the hill to the tree line,” the man ordered.
“Could I not tend to His Lordship’s…” Freya began, but the second man gave her a hard shove, nearly knocking her to the ground.
“Walk! Now!”
“I am fair, girl,” Lord Duncan told her. “Do as the man says.”
Tears filled Freya’s eyes, but she did as Lord Duncan instructed. His Lordship came along beside her and reached for her hand. It was the earl’s way of telling her that she was not alone. He would protect her, and she made the silent promise to protect him in return.
Aaran kicked his horse’s sides a second time when he spotted Mr. Kepper assisting Justin Hartley. “What occurred?” he demanded as he reined in quickly before the pair.
“I fell from the coach,” Hartley shared as Kepper formed a sling out of tied together handkerchiefs. “When Mr. Nichols put the horses at a run to escape masked men. Likely broke my wrist.”
Aaran’s eyes had not yet spotted Duncan’s carriage, which came rolling their way in obvious alarm. Nichols reined in when he spotted them. “Are His Lordship and Lady Freya safe, Mr. Nichols?” Aaran asked.
“Gunmen took Lord Duncan and the lady, sir,” Nichols reported.
“How many?” Aaran demanded.
“Three, my lord. All in black,” the coachman explained.
“You will see Mr. Hartley to Thom Manor and explain what occurred to my brothers. I will follow the trail. Did they place His Lordship and the lady on horses or on a wagon?” Aaran asked.
“No, my lord. Lord Duncan and the lady were made to walk,” the coachman explained.
Aaran knew he frowned. Not what I expected, his mind announced. “Where did this take place?”
“A bit near a mile back, but before the turn off for the main road to London,” Mr. Nichols explained.
“I mean to follow the trail. You will repeat all you observed to Lord Orson, who has orders to follow me.”
“Aye, my lord,” Nichols said as Kepper assisted Hartley into the coach. “One moment, though, sir,” the coachman called as Aaran took up his horse’s reins.
“Yes?”
“His Lordship, sir,” the coachman said with his own frown.
“I believe Lord Duncan was shot. A bullet pierced the side of the carriage, and there were drops of blood inside and on the steps. As best as I could tell, the master covered the young lady when the shooting began. He crawled out of the carriage, back side first.”
“Struck seriously?” Aaran questioned.
“The master walked proudly across the open pasture leading to the hillside, but the young lady was attempting to tie a handkerchief about Lord Duncan’s arm as she scampered along beside him.”
“Warn Lord Thompson we will require his services.”
“Aye, sir.” With Kepper remounted as their escort, Nichols set the coach in action, while Aaran turned his attention to tracing the wheel marks in the damp earth.
There had been no rain for several days, but in February in England, it was not unusual for the early hours of the day to hold onto the dew.
Aaran shoved away the urge to rush after Duncan and Freya; instead, he stayed with the plan he and Duncan had concocted this very morning.
Duncan had insisted, “We are doing this just as we would react with any other investigation.” Aaran and all his brothers had been trained to handle a variety of confrontations by the best that the United Kingdom had to offer, a Scottish mastermind.
Lord Macdonald Duncan trained his men to handle any kind of dastardly postulation of events.
For nearly a year, their enemy had strung them along—practicing stratagems which none of them had considered previously, but would never forget.
Thompson had broken part of the code, and Aaran would make all the necessary connections.
“It has been my domain from the beginning,” he told the open road as he raced to locate where the shooting had occurred.
Earlier, both Aaran and Duncan had agreed they were weary of being victims of a shadowy threat targeting their family.
The impact of evil on those who held a special place in his heart wearied Aaran.
He was sick and tired of guessing the identity of an unknown enemy.
“I am not about to lose either the only man who ever saw me as more than an invalid nor the woman I love to this violence!”
Scrubbing his palm over his face, Aaran did not waste time wondering on when he first knew he loved Lady Freya Cunningham.
He suspected it was on the Scottish road to his southern estate when he assisted Beaufort and Lady Annalise in finding happiness.
The admission of his true feelings should worry him, but it did not.
“I love her,” he announced aloud. “After all these years, love has found me.” No condemnation followed his admission.
All he felt was a sense of rightness. Nothing and no one would stop him from claiming Lady Freya Cunningham as his wife.
“As to today, as long as no one goes off script, this plan will work. Duncan is a master strategist. Whoever has plagued our days of late is in for an unexpected reckoning.”