Page 40 of How to Tempt An Earl
The note came in the middle of Kieran’s third cup of coffee. He read it with growing grimness. The confrontation he’d known was coming had arrived. The Horsemen would face Roan…but now with the complication that Roan had Celeste. Roan wanted to meet. The note had come in her handwriting.
‘Why would he want to meet?’ Luce asked as the note was passed around. ‘You don’t actually believe he’ll give up Celeste, not when he’s come all this way to retrieve her?’
Kieran hadn’t quite worked that out for himself either, but neither was he inclined to overlook an opportunity to see Celeste and try and rescue her. ‘We can’t simply ignore this. She must be terrified.’ It was the things she’d left unsaid that haunted him now. Whether she wanted him or not, he would not leave her to that fate.
‘If you were Roan, what would you want?’ Kieran posed the question.
‘Safe passage?’ Caine offered. ‘That’s one thing he doesn’t have and perhaps we are in a position to give it to him.’
‘Revenge,’ Luce answered simply. ‘He wants revenge against her for selling his secrets, for running from him, making him look like a fool. If his ward can escape him, what does that say? He wants revenge against us for foiling his attempts at Wapping. He’s shown himself to be vindictive over and over. This is just more of the same. And he wants it to be painful. We have taken his freedom from him and we’ve injured his business, forcing him to rely on others. He wants to pay that back. He wants to take something of value from her and from us.’
‘Roan never gives anything up,’ Kieran mused out loud. ‘Perhaps he thinks he won’t have to. He wants us and he wants her. He’ll use her as lure to draw us out but will have no intentions of effecting any negotiation.’ Roan would mean to shoot on sight.
Caine nodded thoughtfully. ‘We’ll be ready too. We’ll go to his meeting, but only one of us will show themselves—the other two will stay out of sight. We’ll quietly take out any hidden gunmen so that the surprise will be on Roan.’
‘I’ll show myself. It will play into his hand in regard to Celeste.’ Kieran glanced at Luce. ‘Unless you’d rather do that? It will be a deadly day.’ Luce was the youngest, the one with the least experience of missions where letting one’s enemy live to tell about it was not an option.
‘This is for Stepan. I can do it,’ Luce assured him.
‘Then, if your horses are rested, we ride,’ Kieran said. ‘I know the place he means. It’s on the north-west corner of the estate. There’s an old gamekeeper’s cottage there.’ His blood was starting to hum with the anticipation of a mission, his unrest settling now that he had a sense of action.
Within twenty minutes, the horses were saddled: Tambor for him, Caine’s Argonaut and Luce’s Ulysses. Three black horses for three dark-haired brothers. He checked his pistol and slipped his knife into his boot before mounting. The brothers rode out, three abreast, all armed for war and blood.
At the north-west corner of the estate, Kieran gave the signal and the brothers split, Caine going left, Luce going right, to form a ring of surveillance and, if needed, a ring of death. Kieran rode to the hut.
‘Roan! I’m here!’ Kieran called out when he was a fair distance from the hut—close enough to be seen but not close enough to be shot at. He waited, Tambor stamping his feet impatiently and tossing his head. Even Tambor was ready for action.
There was no sound, no movement. Did Roan think he was going to fall for that and let curiosity get the better of him so that he’d dismount and approach the hut on foot? It was far easier to overpower a man on foot than a man on horseback. He would not give up the advantage so readily. He called out again—still no answer. He scanned the area around the hut, looking for signs that someone had been here or was still here. But there were none—no sign of horse droppings, no markings from a coach or wheels, no ash from a fire, no residue from a meal. No signs of life.
Kieran heard the shrill whistle of a starling—Caine’s sound—counted to five and smiled when it was answered by the fast-paced cheep of a garden warbler—Luce’s call. He’d taught him that when he was seven. A count of five later, Kieran added his own, the fluted sound of the song thrush. It was the call given to signal safety and that all was clear. Usually, it was a welcome sound. Today, it was a confusing one. This had not gone as expected. In fact, one might say it hadn’t ‘gone’ at all.
Kieran wheeled Tambor round and rode back to the pre-arranged rendezvous, his brothers already there. ‘No one?’ he asked Caine.
Caine shook his head. ‘No one and no sign of anyone having been there.’
Luce confirmed the same.
‘There’s been no one at the gamekeeper’s hut either.’ Kieran drew out a worried breath. ‘This feels wrong. We’ve missed something.’ More than that, he felt as if they’d played into Roan’s hands. ‘Why would he ask us to meet him here and then not show up?’
He exchanged a concerned glance with Caine, who said, ‘Because he wants to be elsewhere, and he can’t getthereif we’re nothere.’
‘Deflection. It’s a chess gambit.’ Luce spoke up. ‘You bait a trap for your opponent with a piece they want to take—really want to take—and it will draw them away from their usual territory, leaving it undefended for you to move in and put them in check.’
Kieran’s mind worked. Celeste was all he wanted, so what did Roan think he was drawing him away from?
Caine sniffed the air. ‘Do you smell that? It smells like smoke. Is anyone burning leaves today?’
Kieran smelled it too. ‘Not that I’m aware. We don’t have any burning scheduled.’
Then the pieces clicked into place. What had they said earlier? That Roan wanted to take from them the things they’d taken from him: his freedom, the things he valued. Kieran lifted his gaze to the sky and found it—the wisp of grey smoke—and his heart pounded. That was what Roan wanted—to draw them out away from the Hall so that he could getintothe Hall!
‘Good God! The bastard is trying to burn my house down.’ And Celeste was with him. This was punishment—revenge against both of them. His thoughts went rampant with fear. He wheeled Tambor around in a circle but Caine grabbed his reins.
‘You cannot go tearing back there. He is calling you home with that smoke. He wants you to know he is there and he wants you to come charging in mad as hell. He’s not negotiating, Kieran. He is looking to shoot first and last. We must make sure he doesn’t get that chance. You have time. The house is brick and stone; it will burn slowly.’
‘But does she?’ Kieran breathed, exchanging a knowing look with his brother.
‘We can’t save her if we’re dead,’ Caine argued calmly. ‘Same plan as before. We’ll take out the snipers while you take out Roan.’
