Thirty-one #2
“Once we marry, do you expect me to attend every dinner with you?” He followed his own thoughts, apparently unworried about killer servants.
“I expect you to do what you want to do, as I will,” she retorted, keeping her voice low. “Changing ourselves for each other at this point in our lives—”
“Is inevitable.” He concluded the opposite of what she’d been thinking. “I want you to be happy and will do whatever it takes.” He halted near the top of the hill to survey the stable yard, to which all paths led.
Thea didn’t have time to savor his words before two shadowy figures emerged from a thicket. Nearly bare branches rattled in the rising wind. They should have placed goblins closer to the house.
When the shadows hesitated, Arnaud wailed, as he and the actors had done the prior night. He had a carrying voice and a dramatic moan.
“You should teach that to the guards,” Thea whispered, biting back a probably hysterical giggle. “They’re most likely diving under their beds or reaching for their bottles after hearing you.”
Hunt’s guards were ex-soldiers having difficulty returning to civilian life. They were only allowed swords so as not to shoot off their boots.
“Good thought.” He eased along the shadows of a hedge.
The two figures hesitated, more likely to study the yard then out of fear of howls. Thea worried they might be armed. Arnaud didn’t carry weapons. Fort and the boys were nowhere in sight, so they’d safely entered the house. Fort would find help.
From here, the eerie gourds down the hill couldn’t be seen. They definitely should add scarecrows to the Priory’s yard. “Could we chase them down the hill to encounter our ghouls before the candles go out?”
“Frighten them? After we see what they’re after.
” The figures finally broke free of the shadows, crossing the stable yard as if they belonged there.
The hounds bayed in their pen, startling the intruders into running toward the garden wall.
Instead of scrambling over the low stones, they crept around, out of sight.
Arnaud uttered an obscenity and rushed her toward the lighted portico entrance. “Go inside, warn Quincy to guard the doors and send Henri out the front and around from the west side. I’ll follow the rats.”
That terrified her, but understanding she was more hindrance than help, Thea dashed inside, startling the footman.
They should have invited Kate and her soldier husband to stay until the men returned. They had grown complacent. She had grown complacent.
To Thea’s relief, the footman quickly found their ex- boxer butler, who was already directing his staff to guard doors, presumably at Fort’s instruction.
While she dithered, wondering whether to run upstairs in search of help, Henri strode down the stairs, buttoning up his coat. He’d probably been in his suite with his wife and new babe when Fort sent out his warning. Not quite as large as his brother, he was still a formidably-built gentleman.
“Arnaud is stalking the intruders,” she cautioned. “Where is Fort?”
“In the courtyard. He thinks they may be looking for an entrance to the crypt. He’ll come up on their rear with Arnaud. I’ll flank them from the front.” Henri entered the late earl’s study where Hunt kept a locked weapon cabinet. He added a shotgun to whatever arsenal he already carried.
The monk’s crypt was in the cellar of the remains of a medieval bell tower at the far front corner.
It was surrounded by forbidding forest and rocky hill and could only be reached along the walls of the manor.
The lone entrance to the crypt was outside, on that rocky hill, which was why Hunt used it for a prison.
If that’s where the intruders went, they were after the knife-wielding Darley. . . to help him escape or kill him?
Thea darted into the study and grabbed a pistol.
Henri loaded it for her. “If you’re forced to shoot, aim for where it will hurt the most. Stay behind me and wait in the foyer, out of sight, until you hear me call. Surprise is our best weapon.” He finished loading his chosen arms and raced down the corridor toward the foyer.
Her cloak still flowing behind her, Thea ran after him.
It was as if the spirit of the pirate earl inhabited her.
She never did things like this. But Arnaud was out there, and she’d be dashed before she let anything happen to the one man with a heart large enough to understand her and love her anyway.
Henri peered out the massive front doors, then vanished into the darkness. They definitely should have added haunts to the front steps.
Not happy with the unaccustomed weight of the pistol, Thea shoved it into a cloak pocket and reached for the walking stick in the umbrella stand.
She didn’t know whose it was, but the knob was heavy enough to knock someone unconscious if she swung it hard enough.
Or it could trip anyone trying to enter.
Peering through the crack between the partially opened doors, Thea could see or hear nothing of what happened.
Should she join the others in the yard? Or stand here to warn the footmen parading up and down the corridor, guarding all the windows?
They needed an army to watch over this rock mountain the pirate earl had built.
He should never have torn down the monastery walls.
Apparently lacking imagination and undaunted by eerie lanterns, a portly gentleman in a top hat strolled up the walk as if he belonged here—except none of the Priory gentlemen was heavy.
They worked too hard and didn’t take time enough to eat well.
It didn’t take much imagination to recognize the arrogant stride.
Humphries.
Chubby American ne'er-do-wells, she could handle. Thea didn’t know why he was here, but she was about to disillusion him, again.
When Chubby Humpty set foot on the bottom step, Thea swept out on the porch in her most dashing pirate cloak swirl. Circling the walking stick like a sword, she stabbed hard at—the place where it would hurt most, as Henri had instructed.
Astoundingly, the stick opened into a knife.
Humpty shrieked in agony as—unable to stop her momentum—Thea thrust the cane sword into his trouser placket.