Stephanie Laurens - The Elusive Bride

They’d just settled when the innkeeper looked in. “Messenger for Lord Warnefleet.”

Jack beckoned and the innkeeper drew back to allow a middle-aged groom to enter. The man bowed, then drew a sealed missive from his pocket and presented it to Jack. Jack broke the seal and opened the sheet, scanned it.

The groom cleared his throat. “I’m to inquire, my lords, as to your situation here.”

Tristan replied in a few succinct phrases conveying their observations and their belief that they were being herded into an ambush ahead.

The groom repeated the salient points. Tristan nodded his approval.

Jack handed Wolverstone’s missive to Gareth, then looked at the groom. “You can also report that we’ll do as your master requests, and make a copy of the letter in question.”

The groom bowed. “If there’s nothing else, my lords, I’ll be on my way.”

Tristan dismissed him. The groom turned and left.

Emily had been reading the duke’s letter over Gareth’s shoulder. “I’ll fetch paper and ink, and make a clean copy.” Rising, she glanced at Jack. “Why does he want it?”

“Details,” Jack replied. “Given Delborough’s sacrificed his copy and gained something from it, then we might decide to sacrifice ours in the same way, which leaves Royce with nothing to study. He’ll want to confirm that there’s no other clue hidden in the wording. A code, even-it’s the sort of thing he would think of and know better than anyone to look for.”

“Which he can’t do”-Tristan accepted the duke’s communique from Gareth-“unless he has the letter, a good copy at least, in front of him.”

Nodding her understanding, Emily left.

“I’m just glad Delborough’s through and safe, and that Monteith’s in England, too.” Gareth fell silent.

Jack asked, “Who’s your fourth?”

“Carstairs.” Gareth glanced at Jack. “Captain Rafe Carstairs, otherwise known as Reckless.”

Tristan raised his brows. “If he’s the last one home…”

If Rafe was the last to reach England, he was almost certainly the one carrying the original letter. They all thought it, but no one said it aloud. Gareth merely nodded. “What about the watches? We’ll need to remain vigilant.”

Emily returned, bearing a ladies’ traveling writing desk with an ornate mother-of-pearl lid. She set it down on the table, opened it, and drew the lamp near. “The letter?”

Gareth drew the scroll holder from inside his coat, and under the fascinated gazes of all there, undid the complicated locking mechanism. Opening the holder, he drew out the sheet it contained, and handed it to Emily.

Smoothing the single sheet, she sat, dipped her nib, and started to transcribe.

“May I see that?” Jack nodded at the scroll holder.

Gareth smiled and handed it over.

While the others played, opening and closing the holder, and Tristan and Jack asked questions about such oriental devices, Emily kept her head down and her mind on her task.

She’d seized the chance to contribute something to Gareth’s mission-to do something, however minor, that would materially assist in bringing down the Black Cobra. Hers and Gareth’s impending happiness had made her sorrow over MacFarlane’s death more acute; she now had a better appreciation of all he’d had taken from him-by the Black Cobra.

Whatever she could do to bring the fiend to justice, she would do.

By the time she’d duplicated the Black Cobra’s mark as best she could, and had blotted off her copy, the men had decided the order of the watches. She handed his copy back to Gareth. He rolled it and slid it into the holder, then closed the holder and tucked it inside his coat. Now she knew where it rested, she could see the bulge, but it wasn’t that obvious; its presence was less obvious still when he carried it in his greatcoat pocket.

With the time for their departure on the morrow agreed upon, they all rose and retired. Mullins took the first watch. They left him sitting in a chair at the end of their corridor, looking back toward the stairs.

The first alarm came at midnight. Bister was suddenly knocking on their door. Gareth reached it first. Emily grabbed her cloak and slung it over her nightgown as she rushed to join him.

He glanced at her. “Someone’s trying to break into the parlor downstairs. Bister and I will go down-wait here.”

“Not on your life.” She grabbed the doorknob. “You two go ahead, I’ll follow.”

Gareth hesitated, but in truth he’d rather she wasn’t far from him. The cult might mount a two-pronged attack, one downstairs, the other above. Curtly, he nodded. “Just stay back.”

He pretended not to see her roll her eyes.

Jack, Tristan, Mullins, and Mooktu were already in the corridor. Jack held a finger across his lips, then mimed that he and Tristan would go down the back stairs and circle outside. Mooktu and Mullins would remain by the bedchambers in case of an unexpected incursion there.

Gareth nodded, and they silently parted.

Bister followed Gareth down the stairs. Emily followed on Bister’s heels, treading close by the wall so the stairs wouldn’t creak. Halfway down, Bister found her hand in the dark and pressed the handle of a knife into her palm. Emily gripped, nodded in thanks when he glanced back.

She clutched the knife and felt a trifle less vulnerable, but her primary concern was Gareth, slipping through the darkness of the inn’s ground floor to the parlor door. She and Bister obeyed Gareth’s signal and hung back. He cracked the door open a fraction, listened, then slowly opened it wider.

Then he disappeared into the blackness beyond.

Bister just beat her to the door. She followed him in, and through the gloom saw Gareth, a large dense shadow, waiting, apparently listening, by the window.

The substantial wooden shutters were closed and fastened on the inside. The window casement was also closed and locked, but it seemed inconceivable that the cultists could even get through the shutters.

Drawing closer to the window, straining her ears, she heard whispers, the cadences distinguishing the speakers as Indian.

Suddenly the whispering rose, then stopped altogether.

“Damn!” Gareth reached for the window latch, pulled the window open, unfastened the shutters, and pushed them wide.

In the faint moonlight, across the inn yard they saw two shocked faces turned their way-then the cultists took to their heels and fled.

Seconds later, Jack and Tristan appeared before the window, looking toward the trees through which the cultists had vanished. “What happened?” Tristan asked.

“They gave up.” Disgust rang in Gareth’s voice.

The others grunted. Hands on hips, they stared at the forest, then shook their heads, waved, and trudged back around the inn.

Gareth leaned out, caught the shutters, resecured them, then closed the window. Bister took back his knife before Gareth turned and waved Emily and Bister up the stairs.

They climbed back to bed rather less quietly than they’d come down.

Emily woke some hours later. Uncertain what had drawn her from her dreams, she lay still-then abruptly sat bolt upright.

The movement woke Gareth. He looked at her. “What is it?”

She drew in a deep breath, let it out in a rush. “Smoke-and yes, I’m sure.”

Gareth was already rolling from the bed.

Scrambling into her cloak, Emily joined him at the door, but then frowned and turned back. “It isn’t so noticeable over here.”

Her side of the bed was nearer the window.

Gareth had gone into the corridor. Mooktu was on watch, sitting closer to the stairs the better to hear any sounds from below. But neither he nor Gareth could smell any smoke in the corridor or the stairwell.