Page 93 of Betrayal from Beyond
But Petra kept poking at her. “You hid in the hay cart, didn’t you?” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll have that livery burned to the ground.”
Kara caught a slight movement from the corner of her eye. Niall was taking advantage of Petra’s attention being focused on her. He was moving ever so slowly up behind the henchman holding Wooten.
She tossed her head and curled her mouth in contempt, hoping to keep Petra focused squarely on her. “Speaking of smug,” she said wryly, “I followedyouto that livery, Petra—and I didn’t squeeze into that farm cart until after you left the place. They had no part in it. There is no one to blame but yourself.”
“No one to blame?” Petra laughed. “You dare to say so, after drugging me? There is plenty of blame to go around, but you share the largest burden of it. If you had just done as you were meant to and kept yourself and your interfering crew at home, we wouldn’t be so very crowded here tonight.”
“Don’t be such a child,” Kara sneered. “Are you not woman enough to face up to your own mistakes? Not mature enough to acknowledge your own desires? You wanted this, Petra. All of it.”
“You don’t know what you are talking of,” Petra said.
“I do. You know I’m right, too. You could have come into England again and crept quietly around with your Russian conspirators and we might never have known of your presence.”
Petra gestured toward Wooten. “Your pet would have kept you appraised.”
Kara shrugged. “You are likely right, but there was no need for us to meddle.”
“You are an inveterate meddler!” Petra scoffed.
Niall was nearly behind Wooten’s captor, but the man, like everyone else, stood captivated, listening to Kara and her temerity in verbally sparring with Petra Scot.
Kara took a step closer, hoping to keep the woman’s attention firmly fixed on her. “Perhaps. But we have never tangled with you except at your instigation. The last time, you meant to use Niall. You forced our hand. This time, you could not let us be. You taunted us. Goaded us. You threatened my family to force me into action. All because you could not stand the thought that we won our last encounter.” She lifted her chin. “We are all here at this crossroads, Petra, because you led us here.”
The other woman stared at her, her brow furrowed. She started to speak, then stopped. Her lips pursed. She put her hands on her hips. “Damn you. I think you are right.” She nodded. “Youareright. I threw sticks at the lioness. I injured her cubs. Because I wanted to best her. I wanted the trophy on my wall.” Turning, she took a step toward the carriage, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Do you have those devices ready?” she called out sharply.
Someone else spoke out from the carriage, his tone just as sharp. Kara missed the words, but she knew the voice.
The Russian. He was in the carriage.
Petra ignored him. “The devices?” she asked her henchman again.
“Two are ready,” he answered.
“Bring one to me,” Petra ordered him.
“No.” This time the order from the carriage rang clear. “Enough of this. We have real work to do.”
“No! She is right,” Petra said. She kept her gaze locked on Kara, but held out a peremptory hand.
The man assembling the devices obeyed the summons, holding one gingerly out in front of him as he came.
Behind him, Niall struck Wooten’s guard in the head with the handle of his blade. The man slumped, and Niall eased him silently to the ground. He cut Wooten’s hands loose, and the inspector immediately began to creep toward the coach.
Petra took the device. It looked larger in her grip. She gazed down at it. “Such a strange-looking thing. And yet it is going to bring me so much satisfaction. For you are absolutely right, Levett.”
Niall was trying to tug Wooten away, but the inspector resisted. He clearly wanted to see who waited in the carriage.
“I did want you here tonight.” Petra took a couple of quick steps toward Kara, leaving the shelter of the entryway’s stone buttresses to confront her. “Because my victory would not be complete…without your death.” With a grin of pure evil, she tossed the device to Kara and turned to run.
It was pure instinct. Without thought. Kara reached out and caught it. It didn’t go off, of course, despite the multiple pins that struck her palm and fingers. Holding the thing, she looked up.
Petra had reached the middle of the sovereign’s entrance before she realized something was wrong. She spun around, her triumph fading to shock—and then to fury.
Kara didn’t wait for the woman’s further reaction. They had set up several emergency-level, prearranged signals for Gyda—and Petra tossing an ineffective bomb was one of them.
She turned to sprint away, then spun back in time to see the object failing from the trapdoor above. Niall’s makeshift bomb, with a functioning percussion cap, fell to the stone floor and landed at Petra’s feet. Unfortunately, it landed with the pin pointing up. Without contact to it, nothing happened right away.
Also unfortunately, Petra was quick to grasp what it was—and all the implications. Before the ball could turn and the pin strike the ground, she kicked it away. Niall’s bomb skittered across the stone toward the carriage, where the pin struck a wheel.
