Passionately Yours (Hellions of High Street 3)

The man wet his trembling lips. “Twenty minutes… maybe a half hour.”

Dudley laughed again.

Keeping a tight rein on his emotions, Alec tucked one of the pistols in his pocket and grabbed the proprietor’s arm. “Show me the path.”

“Yes, yes, of course. This way, sir!”

As the man turned, Alec caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. Spinning around, he lashed out a kick just as Dudley rose from his chair and squeezed off a shot from the pistol he had pulled from inside his coat.

The bullet smashed into the ceiling, sending an explosion of plaster and splinters raining down on them.

Snarling an oath, Dudley regained his balance and swung the butt of his spent pistol at Alec’s head. “I trusted Thayer to finish you off, but I see I shall have to do it myself.”

“You may try.” Alec dodged the blow and countered with a hard punch that knocked his adversary back against the table. He followed it with another. And another.

Dudley tried to slide away, but Alec caught him by the collar. “Both you and Thayer have done enough evil. You’re now going to pay for all your betrayals.”

As Dudley tried to grab up a knife from the table, Alec punched him again, his knuckles hitting the other man’s jaw with a savagely satisfying thunk.

Dudley’s head snapped back, and with a grunt, he dropped to the floor like a sack of stones.

Alec stepped over his unconscious enemy. That was for all his friends who had perished because of the pair’s treachery. He flexed a fist, every fiber of his being aroused with a primitive warrior bloodlust. The next blows would be for Caro—the lady he loved who was now alone on a desolate moor, fleeing a dangerous predator.

Thayer had better start praying to the Almighty for mercy, for the dastard will find none from me.

“Now show me the path, and quickly,” Alec barked at the proprietor. “Then tie up this miscreant and lock him in the cellar. If he escapes, you’ll take his place on the gallows.”

“Th-this way, sir.”

In a scant few moments Alec was remounted on the big bay and riding along the narrow trail that led up through the wind-carved rocks to the ridge crowning the steep moor.

Caro paused to catch her breath.

Was it merely the wind, or did she hear the faint clip clop of a horse’s hooves?

Telling herself it was naught but her agitated nerves, she tightened her cloak around her shoulders and started to climb again. The slippery rocks shifted beneath her boots, making the going slow and treacherous, but she forced herself to keep moving.

Thayer was desperate. And deluded. He would not allow her to escape easily.

The thought spurred her on.

Rounding an outcropping of granite, she slipped and fell, scraping her hands on the painfully sharp shards.

A clench of fear squeezed the breath from her lungs as Caro pressed her raw palms together, trying to warm the chill from her heart. She was exhausted, she was hurting, she was on her own against a ruthless adversary. But the wind’s harsh echo off the stones warned that now was no time to allow courage to surrender to tears.

“I yearned for an exciting adventure, and now I have got it,” she reminded herself. “In spades.”

Though I hope my clever plan is not digging my own grave.

Thrusting aside such mordant thoughts, Caro regained her footing and began picking a path up through the steep tumble of rocks. As the clouds parted for a moment, allowing a shimmer of moonlight to brighten the blackness, she cast a look over her shoulder at the way she had come.

For just an instant, a spidery thread of silvery light outlined a figure dismounting from a horse and starting to scramble up through the rocks at a furious pace.

And then, in the blink of an eye, the scene was swallowed in a swirl of fog-blurred darkness.

A fresh burst of fear gave new force to her steps. Faster, faster. From the crest of the ridge just ahead, it was only a short traverse to where a forest of pines rose up to cover the hillside. If she could just reach its needled shadows, she had a good chance of losing herself in the trees.

Though her legs were feeling heavy as lead, Caro tried to hurry her pace. But the howling wind kept tugging at her skirts, and the demon stones seemed intent on tilting and twisting beneath her half boots.