Susanne Dietze - The Reluctant Guardian

It did to Tavin, but he’d not explain now.

A rustle. Tavin spun, his hand reaching behind his back for his knife—

Through a parting in the leaves, a dun-colored body sauntered several yards’ distant. Tavin’s shoulders relaxed.

“A pony.” He could hear the smile in her tone. “They run wild in the forest.”

“And it wants naught to do with us.” Tavin watched the creature. Its ears twitched, but it didn’t exhibit signs of alarm as it disappeared around a group of trees. That boded well for him, and Miss Lyfeld, too. He gestured for her to rise. “I’ve not heard a shot in a while. We’ll take a roundabout way and return to the house.”

“Where you will explain all of this to me?”

Her tone brooked no argument. Nor did the set of her jaw.

Better to change the subject than agree. “You said the man meant to take you with him. How did you break away?”

“I would not be a good aunt to two boys if I paid no mind to their tricks.”

Despite himself, he laughed. His smile fell when he reached the far side of the clearing. The pond he’d planned to skirt had swollen from last night’s torrent, blocking their path. “We could have walked around it yesterday.”

“You don’t mean we’re going through it.”

“I see no better option. We aren’t visible, with the trees circling us. And I’m certain the pond isn’t deep. Must I carry you?” He meant his words to be gallant, but they sounded frustrated. Of course. Everything he said came out wrong with Miss Lyfeld.

She squared her shoulders, shot him a glare and marched into the pond ahead of him.

* * *

Gemma might as well have trudged barefoot through snow. Spring-chilled water soaked her to the knees and flooded her kid boots, which found little purchase on the slimy stones underfoot. Not that she would complain. This was not the first time she’d crossed a pond.

“Take care with your steps,” he warned, “but make haste.”

“Make haste,” she mimicked, muttering under her breath, “but don’t slip—”

Faster than a blink, her twisted ankle rolled. Her foot slid out from under her.

Mr. Knox grasped her arm, pulling her upright. She expected to be chastised, but his eyes were soft and warm, like her morning chocolate.

Then he slipped, pulling her into the frigid water.

Gemma’s hands and rear smacked the stony bottom. Her backside stung, but she waved off Mr. Knox’s outstretched hand and stood on her own power. Shivering as the wind’s chill fingers stroked her soaked garments, she hastened toward the edge of the pool, thoughts of a hot cup of tea and thick blanket urging her forward. At least her front side was dry.

He extended his hand. “May I—”

“No.” She would do this.

Her wet gown tangled around her legs and she slipped again, this time landing on her elbows and belly. Frigid water drenched her bodice and lapped her chin as tendrils of slimy water plants tickled her neck.

Mr. Knox hauled her into his arms, as a lamb to its shepherd. With a sharp catch, her breath stuck in her throat, and her face warmed despite her soggy state. She’d never been this close to a gentleman before. She’d always imagined Hugh’s future embrace, slow to unfold, tentative, with a proper distance between them.

Mr. Knox’s arms felt nothing like her imaginings. He held her so close she could hear his heart thudding against her cheek, and his arms were solid and blessedly warm around her. Her insides flipped and rearranged themselves, and all she wanted was to turn her head toward his warmth and wish he could carry her all the way home—

What nonsense was this? She didn’t even like Tavin Knox. Did she?

He didn’t like her, either. But then he set her down on the bank, leaving her skin cold and her heart thumping, and his hand rose as if he’d touch her face.

“Hold still.” His fingers brushed damp tendrils of hair from her chin. More intimacies she’d never permitted a gentleman. Her pulse pattered in her ears as he leaned closer.

“You’ve a leech on your neck.”

All tender sentiment vanished. Her fingers flew to her collar. “Get it off.”

“Patience.” He glanced about, reminding Gemma of a dog sniffing the air for a fox. “Come into the trees.”

He led her into the cover of the oaks. She lifted her chin and he set to work with a touch far gentler than she expected. His fingers pressed her skin, first under her ear, then lower, where her pulse throbbed in a frenetic beat. Gemma forced her breath into evenness, concentrating on the calming sounds of the forest—the rustle of wind in the trees, the chit-chit of a nuthatch.

Still, she couldn’t ignore the fact that she hosted a leech. While wearing a sodden gown, allowing a man she didn’t like—or maybe did—to touch her neck.

Or that she’d been slapped by a stranger. Who then had shot at her.

“There.” Mr. Knox flicked a brown blur from his fingers. “Just think, you’d normally pay a physician for the privilege of losing your blood.”

For a moment his eyes met hers, then another shot cleaved the quiet.

A smuggler, or the man on the inky horse? Mr. Knox had her by the hand again. “Let’s go.”

They hurried, twigs scratching her arms and snapping in her hair. The trees thinned and they hastened over the path and then the slick grass behind the house.

They hurried through a French door into the ground-floor library of Verity House. Amy and her husband, Lord Wyling, hurried toward her, their faces etched with fear.

Amy’s arms reached out. “Darling. Let’s get you dry, shall we?”

“Amy, there were smugglers on the hill and then—Mr. Knox, where are you going?”

He brushed past toward the hall door, Wyling at his heels. “My business cannot wait, madam.”

“It must.” She stomped after him. “You know why this happened, don’t you? You aren’t the least shocked. Who chased us and why?”

The eyes that had gazed on her with warmth earlier now stared, dull as coal dust. “I don’t know him, but he would have interrogated you and perhaps killed you because you wore this.” Her cloak was still under his arm, and he dropped the sodden mess onto a chair. “Burn it.”

This was maddening. Mr. Knox, Wyling, Amy—not one of them showing the least amount of astonishment at today’s extraordinary events. Concern, yes, but they knew much more than she did. He’d said they’d speak later. Well, that time was now. “I demand to know what’s about, Mr. Knox. And I’m keeping my cloak.”

“Burn it,” he ordered, his hand on the doorknob. “Because that man will be thirsty to silence whoever wears it.”

Chapter Three

After leaving Miss Lyfeld in the house, Tavin and Wyling dashed up Verity Hill in the mad hope Tavin’s informant, Bill Simple, had dropped the promised clue before everything went wrong.

They’d found naught but Gemma’s discarded bonnet and a separate green ribbon, the hue of a budding oak leaf, wedged half under a stone.

It might be debris, carried atop the hill by the wind.

Or mayhap it was the promised clue to help Tavin comprehend the Sovereign’s plan. Nothing else made by human hands lay atop Verity Hill, although he and Wyling had spent more than an hour searching. No note, no sample of smuggled goods. Just a cheap ribbon lodged under a rock, its ends cut by a jagged edge.

Rubbish or clue?

What he wouldn’t give for silence to ponder things. Or to still be outside, where it was cool. Instead, he was now incarcerated in the Lyfelds’ overwarm drawing room, subjected to an incessant barrage of moans.

Eyes shut, Cristobel Lyfeld lounged on the sofa where Gemma—he’d given up trying to call her Miss Lyfeld in his head—had held hands with Hugh Beauchamp hours ago. “What will the neighbors say when they learn Gemma was mistaken for a smuggler? We will be pariahs.”