Page 22 of My Rogue, My Ruin
Brandt poured some more whiskey on the wound and, ignoring Archer’s coarse outburst, finished the work and bandaged it deftly. “There. You’re lucky that it’s only a flesh wound, and this mysterious boy didn’t have better aim. You’ll live.” Brandt took a swig from the whiskey jug and offered it to Archer. “Did you ride back here? I didn’t see your horse.”
He swatted Brandt’s hand away when he pressed it to Archer’s clammy forehead, nodding as if satisfied that a fever hadn’t set in. Archer scowled. He wasn’t delirious. At least, he didn’t think he was. “Out back. The boy helped me.”
“The same boy who shot you brought you hereandcleaned your wound? I’m surprised he didn’t make you breakfast, too. Where is this savior of yours, pray tell?”
“He must have…left.”
Archer sighed. It sounded farfetched even to him. But he knew he hadn’t imagined it.
“Did he see your face?” Brandt asked, turning serious.
“I don’t bloody well know,” he groaned, furious with himself and a touch troubled. Coming on the heels of that blasted note claiming to know his secret, the last thing Archer needed was some unknown boy to have taken a peek under his mask.
The boy had been slim in stature, dressed in black with a hat that had obscured his face. No more than fourteen, Archer guessed. He dimly recalled the slim width of the boy’s forearm. Maybe younger. He had been fearless. Shooting him, and then returning to save him from probable death. The boy had what Montgomery used to call mettle.
“Let us hope not,” his friend murmured, clearly worried. Hell, Brandt didn’t even know about the note yet, and Archer again chose to stay quiet about it. He had no proof that it had indeed been meant for him, and no other notes had been forthcoming. Though it lay like a warning prickle in the back of his mind, Archer would not let its rankling presence dictate his course of action.
He closed his eyes as the whiskey dulled his senses—and the pain in the thigh as well. The boy’s skin had glowed gold in the firelight. Perhaps it hadn’t been a boy at all. Perhaps it had been an angel sent to torment him for his sins. Archer grimaced at the unwelcome thought. He’d returned empty-handed tonight. And there were greater sins in the world than the ones he committed relieving some of the more entitledtonof their glutted wealth…like the starving poor and abandoned children, whom his very thievery fed and clothed. Archer ground his jaw and gave in to the exhaustion that crept on the edges of his consciousness.
He’d risk whatever penance his actions brought.
Chapter Six
Given the bizarre circumstances, Brynn had been out far longer than she’d planned. Dawn was already on the horizon when she arrived back at Ferndale, and there was a bustle of activity up at the house near the kitchens. Thankfully, there was no sign of Vickers in or near the stables, so she quickly rubbed down a lathered Zeus and settled him back in his stall with a generous helping of oats.
If only mending the Masked Marauder’s injured leg could have been so simple.
She tried to forget leaving him on that cot, his trousers around his shins, but it was impossible. Her mind pulsed with nothing but memories of him stretched out before her, those gauzy linen drawers leaving so little to the imagination. It was utterly disgraceful the way she’d fixated on his muscular thighs and yet hadn’t bothered to expose his face.
Grabbing hold of a dusty cloak hanging on a nearby peg, Brynn swore under her breath and poked her head around the doors. The only sounds to be heard were those of the horses nickering behind her. There was a chance she could get back into the manor and up to her room unnoticed, where her dirty, bloodstained attire would feed the fire, hopefully still burning low in the grate.
She drew the large cloak around her and started for the house. Footsteps made her freeze in her tracks, and she flattened herself against the side of the stables, her breath coming in panicked pants. She darted a look at the woods and then one back to the house, and had just made her decision to flee when a deep and decidedly unamused voice halted her escape.
“Going somewhere?”
Brynn turned in slow motion and saw her grim-faced brother. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she breathed out. “So I went for a ride. What of it?”
“Is that so?” Gray said, his arms crossing. “And where, pray tell, is Apollo?” Brynn’s heart sank. Of course he would have seen her riding in on Zeus, or if she knew her brother, he would have already noticed that both Zeus and Apollo were missing and had decided to lay in wait to catch her red-handed. She paled at the murderous look on his face. “Zeus isn’t properly trained. You could have broken your neck. I will ask you again, Briannon, where is Apollo?”
“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, Gray.” She bristled at her brother’s sharpness, but her bravado deserted her at his thin-lipped expression. “I can explain,” she said, the next words tumbling from her mouth without an ounce of grace. “I went for a ride yesterday to clear my head, and came across a boar. Apollo got spooked and threw me. Lord Hawksfield was there. He turned his ankle trying to reach the boar—”
“Yesterday?Were you hurt?” Gray interrupted, his voice sharp.
“No,” she said, wringing her hands in the lap of the skirt. “I shot it.”
“And Hawksfield?”
“He didn’t have a horse, and he insisted on escorting me home, considering I was wearing what I usually wear…” She broke off at the thunderous shine in her brother’s eyes and gulped. “Considering the way I was dressed, he thought it would be proper to act as my escort. He wasn’t pleased about it, either, and well, he’d turned his ankle, as I said…” She was rambling. She always rambled when nervous. “I didn’t know what to do, Gray. Leave him there, injured, after he tried to save me? He was a gentleman, I assure you. I changed at the cottage and came straight here. He took Apollo.”
“He would have been fine if you had left him,” Gray muttered, but Brynn could see him softening. He had a temper, but he usually knew how to subdue it with rational thought. He’d calmed enough to consider the impossibility of the situation. “If anyone had seen either of you, your reputation would be in tatters. And I doubt Hawksfield would care at all.”
“No one saw me.” She eyed him and drew the cloak from the stables closer around her. Hopefully it shielded the blood spatters and dirt on her clothing. “And, well, last night, I needed to get out. I couldn’t sleep, and Zeus was the only one awake. I was perfectly safe, Gray, I assure you.” She bit her lip at the lie—no need for Gray to know the particulars of what happened with the bandit. Tatters would be the least of what would be used to describe her reputation should it come to light that she had been in an abandoned cottage with a half-naked man, and a criminal at that. She would be shunned from polite society. An outcast. Her mother’s shame would be unimaginable. No, there was no need foranyoneto know.
Gray’s face darkened, but he nodded. “At least you are safe. Count your blessings Mother and Father are both still abed. You best get inside before Lana starts ringing all sorts of bells when she finds your bed empty.”
Brynn gave him a slanted look. “Lana has far more sense than to do such a thing.”
Gray didn’t seem at all appeased. The rigid shape of his shoulders and the downward tilt of his mouth pointed toward his continuing the rest of his brutal setdown. However, he took a deep breath, expelled it, and surprised her.
