Stephanie Laurens - The Elusive Bride

Later, while Mooktu, Mullins, and Bister readied the carriage, Gareth showed Jack and Tristan the evidence of the abortive attempt. They found three different spots where fires had been lit.

“Determined beggars, aren’t they?” Tristan spread the ashy remains of one fire with his boot. “But perhaps they achieved what they intended.”

Gareth grunted. “That occurred to me. No one could have imagined a fire would take hold long enough to do any real damage. They just wanted to keep prodding us.”

Jack gazed at the charred logs. “Anyone care to wager we’ll see action today?”

“No bet,” Tristan returned. “Given this, today is the day.”

A hoy brought them back to the front yard. For the benefit of the cultists they were sure would be watching, Jack and Tristan shook hands with Gareth, then mounted and, with cheery waves, trotted off south through the town, as if parting ways.

In reality they would circle around and fall in behind the band of cultists following the carriage, as they had the day before.

Emily was already in the carriage, snuggled up beneath a mound of rugs. His breath fogging in the sharply cold air, Gareth glanced at Bister on the roof, at Mooktu and Mullins on the box. “Be ready. Somewhere on our road today, they’ll strike.”

The expressions on the three faces turned his way mirrored his own feelings. At last!

He climbed into the carriage, shut the door, and they were off.

They rolled sedately out of the town, heading north on the road to Sudbury and Bury St. Edmunds. Once they’d left the last cottages behind, Mullins flicked the reins and the horses lengthened their stride.

His hand locked around one of Emily’s, Gareth watched the winter-brown fields flash past-and waited.

He was still waiting-they all were-when the carriage rolled into the village of Sudbury. He recognized the tactic, one cult commanders often employed-make the target wait and wait and wait until, inevitably, they relaxed, then pounce-but he still felt the effects. When? was the question occupying all their minds.

After rattling across a bridge over the River Stour, Mullins drove into the market square, paused to ask directions, then headed on a short way and turned into the yard of the Anchor Inn.

Climbing down to the cobbles, Gareth took one look at the ancient inn Wolverstone had directed them to, and felt expectation leap. The inn was so old it was a hodgepodge, a conglomeration of additions made over the centuries with wings here, there, and entrances everywhere-perfect if one wanted men to slip unobtrusively inside.

Leaving Mooktu, Bister, and Mullins to watch over the carriage and arrange for fresh horses, he ushered Emily through the front door.

The innkeeper popped up before them. “Major Hamilton?” When Gareth nodded, the man beamed. “Please-come this way. You’re expected.”

Both he and Emily eagerly followed the man down a narrow corridor. The innkeeper halted, tapped, then opened a wooden door that, from its solidity, dated from Elizabethan times, and bowed them in.

Emily led the way, wondering who was expecting them. The answer had her eyes growing wide.

The room was full of large gentlemen, and it wasn’t a small parlor, but one of the inn’s main reception rooms. A quick head count said ten; she was surrounded by ten men-ex-Guardsmen by the look of them-but it was the man at the center of the group, the one she found herself somehow facing, who captured and held her attention.

He was dark haired, but so were many of the others. He was by no means the tallest of the group, yet he was the most powerful.

Emily knew that without question.

His face was austere, the planes hard edged, but his mobile lips curved as she instinctively curtsied. “Wolverstone, Miss Ensworth-it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He took her hand and bowed over it. “I understand you played a key role in getting the Black Cobra’s letter to Delborough here.”

Emily glanced at the man beside the great Wolverstone, then beamed. “Colonel Delborough-I’m delighted to see you again.”

“And I you, Miss Ensworth.” Delborough bowed. As he straightened, his gaze went past Emily, and his face lit. “Gareth!”

Emily stepped aside, delighted indeed as she watched Gareth shake Delborough’s hand and share a heartfelt embrace.

As he stepped back, Gareth asked, “Logan and Rafe?”

“Logan landed at Plymouth and is heading this way. He should reach us tomorrow. Rafe…” Delborough grimaced. “We haven’t heard anything, but you know Rafe. He’s just as likely to turn up on Wolverstone’s doorstep unheralded, with smiling apologies for having inadvertently missed touching the bases he was supposed to.”

“Just as long as he makes it.” Gareth held out his hand to Wolverstone. “I’m honored to meet you, Your Grace.”

Clasping his hand, Wolverstone smiled. “Just Royce in this company. Aside from all else”-he cocked a dark brow at the man to his right-“I’m not the only ‘Grace’ here.”

“Devil!” Gareth shook hands, clapped backs, then remembered to introduce Emily. “Devil Cynster, Duke of St. Ives.”

Emily found herself taken on a round of introductions, as Gareth eagerly renewed acquaintance with a host of Cynsters and an earl called Gyles, and Delborough introduced them both to two men Gareth didn’t know, who proved to be ex-colleagues of Jack and Tristan, all ex-operatives of Dalziel-Royce by another name.

Her head was whirling by the time the door opened to admit the innkeeper with a small tribe of helpers laden with platters. And on their heels, Jack and Tristan strolled in, to a general and hearty welcome.

The innkeeper and his team withdrew, and their group-now numbering fourteen-settled about the table, Royce at the head, St. Ives at the foot. Royce sat Emily on his right. Somewhat to her relief, Gareth sat beside her. She’d heard enough from Jack, Tristan, and Gareth to expect Wolverstone to impress, but the reality exceeded her imagination by a significant degree.

They all passed the platters. Emily found herself pressed to try this and that, but then all attention focused on their plates. Silence descended for two minutes, then Gareth glanced at Delborough, seated opposite. “We heard that you sacrificed your letter-what happened?”

Delborough nodded, and took up the conversational reins, relating how the confusion arising from combining his party with that of a lady he’d unknowingly been elected to escort north had allowed the Black Cobra to insinuate a thief-a young and very much coerced Indian boy-into their combined households. While he, the lady, and their combined guards had defeated the Cobra’s forces and won through to their destination of St. Ives’s country home, the boy, Sangay, had stolen the scroll holder, but had then been trapped at St. Ives’s house by the recent heavy snowfall.

“We could see from the snow that no one had entered or left the house, so we searched, and eventually found him. Once we convinced him we could keep him and his mother safe, he helped us to set a trap for the Black Cobra.” Delborough snorted. “In, of all places, Ely Cathedral.”

Delborough went on to describe how the trap had been sprung, but the Black Cobra, Ferrar, had presumably struck, killing his own man to escape unseen with the scroll holder.

“However, it contained only a decoy copy.” Wolverstone looked at Gareth. “Which is why we’re here-because he’ll know that by now, and having tried for Delborough’s and succeeded, he’ll try for the holder you’re carrying, too. Nothing is more certain.”

Wolverstone let his gaze travel around the table. “Which is exactly what we want, because we need to reduce the cult’s forces, especially in this area. My scheme is designed to have Ferrar racing back and forth across these counties, losing men at every turn. Delborough accounted for fourteen. I hope we can take out a similar number today, and Monteith and those with him, more again tomorrow.”