Formidable Lord Quentin Read online

  Gratitude wasn’t what he wanted, but he’d take what he could get. “Devil take it then, don’t dive into any more ponds if you can’t swim. Even if it makes me an odious tyrant, I insist that you take Kit back to the house. Let me follow the thieves, and for once, give me some credit and don’t doubt that I can catch the bastards.”

  He was still steaming over their quarrel. He had no experience in settling irrational arguments, but he’d damned well better learn. When Bell opened her mouth to protest, he leaned over and shut her up with a rough kiss. Tearing away, he glared at her. “Go home. This time, you can’t do it all yourself.”

  “I’ll arm the grooms,” she agreed with obvious reluctance. “Don’t do anything I’d do until they arrive.”

  In his current state of agitation, the thieves would be lucky he didn’t rip off their heads. Quent didn’t make any promises.

  Twenty-six

  Cradling a soggy Kit, Bell barely managed to hold her seat on the mare after Quent boosted them up. Her brother was unusually quiescent as she arranged her skirt and kept him close. She couldn’t shake her fright at nearly losing this precious life. How could she think she was capable of keeping her siblings safe all on her own? Hadn’t she proved her incompetence in anything except giving orders?

  Before she could knee the horse into action, a sharp whistle warned they were no longer alone. She shuddered and clutched Kit, swinging her mount in the direction of home and safety.

  Two men on stocky ponies blocked her path. Beside her, Quent cursed and grabbed the cudgel from his saddle.

  “Thought we heard some’at,” one said. “Would that be the earl who’ll be stealin’ folks’ homes?”

  Oh, botheration. Hiram had brought his bully boys from home.

  Raising his cudgel, Quent placed himself and his big horse between her and the thieves. “That’s my spoiled rotten nephew. My men are right on our heels, prepared to hang horse thieves. You’d best move along.”

  Bell prayed they believed him. Her heart quailed at the possibility that they would harm Kit for a ridiculous title.

  In alarm, she heard a splash behind them. Holding Kit tight, she tugged her mare to a right angle from Quent’s.

  Hiram was riding Dream through the muddy pond, holding a pistol.

  He was riding her horse. Dripping wet, terrified beyond measure, she still had the sense to savor a flash of triumph. If she accomplished nothing else, she’d show one damned man not to mess with what was hers.

  She hugged a sniffling Kit and whispered in his ear. “Don’t say a word. Listen to Lord Quentin, pretend you’re his nephew, and if anything bad happens, listen for me to say síos. If I do, start kicking and screaming for all you’re worth. Understand?”

  Kit hiccuped and nodded.

  “Less likely to shoot us if we got a hostage,” one of the thieves concluded. “Hand him over.”

  “That will not happen,” Quent asserted. “You have a head start on my men already. We have to take the boy home before he catches cold. You don’t need him.”

  Hiram splashed through the low-lying water. “It’s the boy or the woman. Hand him over, milady,” he ordered. “That bloody man of yours would have us killed for certain elsewise. We’ll set him down once we’re safe.”

  She wouldn’t have Quent attempting to fight off three brutes if she had any choice at all. “Remember what I said,” she whispered to Kit.

  Bell held up her hand before anyone came closer. “Hiram, I didn’t want to see you hang, but I’ll have you drawn and quartered for this.”

  “Not likely,” he said with a shrug. “We used your coins to buy fares to the Americas, and those horses you’re on will pay our way once we’re there. Get down from that one and make your man do the same.”

  “That’s double-dealing, Hiram!” she protested. “We paid you for finding Dream, and now you’re stealing her back.”

  Her knees ached, and she was losing her grip. She couldn’t hope to race for safety. It was only a matter of time before she fell with Kit. She hugged him close, resisting releasing him, praying the grooms would arrive first.

  Quent idled his gelding into place between Bell and Hiram’s pistol, but he couldn’t be in two places at once. Protecting her from a pistol opened them up to the two rogues on the road—who kneed their ponies into action, riding at them from two sides.

  Quent swung his cudgel at one, but the other pony rode close enough for its rider to grab Bell’s reins. Her mare reared in fright, and her weak knees gave out. Rather than harm the mare’s mouth by yanking back, Bell slid backward, hitting the ground but clinging to her brother. The rogue leaned over and snatched Kit from her arms.

  Kit cried out, but then abruptly shut up. She could see his pale face straining to watch her while his captor galloped toward the road. Hiram held his pistol on them, giving the kidnappers time to escape.

  “Bring that mare over here, milady. I be needin’ her more than you,” Hiram ordered. “I sure don’t want to be puttin’ gunshot in you.”

  “I’m fine, Quent, stay seated,” Bell warned. Pulling herself up, she led her mare straight at Hiram. “Síos, Dream,” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

  Blessed Dream, with Hiram on her back, responded to the command down that Bell had taught her years ago. The horse kneeled in the mud—and Hiram tumbled over her head.

  Bell cracked her crop across Hiram’s gun-holding arm once he hit the ground. For good measure, she stamped on his fingers with her boot. He hollered, and she kicked the pistol into the brackish pond.

  Bless his Irish heart, Kit did what came naturally. At Bell’s shout, he screamed and beat his heels into the escaping pony as his captor tried to escape back to the road.

  “Brilliant,” Quent acknowledged curtly, kneeing his massive mount after a screaming , squalling Kit and his would-be kidnapper.

  Bell was shaking so hard, she wanted to collapse in quivering fear, but now was not the time. She clung to the reins of Dream and the two mares, stomping Hiram’s hand every time he tried to get up.

  With Kit wailing like a banshee, kicking his heavy boots, and thrashing about as only a holy terror could do, the thief holding him could barely control his pony, much less force it to run. Quent would be on him in seconds.

  Swallowing back her fear, Bell clung to Dream’s neck. Her heart throbbed in terror, but she had to admit that she would be useless chasing after thieves. She had to admit that she couldn’t do it all.

  She prayed and watched over her shoulder as Quent performed a circus maneuver worthy of her own father. He leaned over and swept Kit from the terrified pony, heaved the boy over his saddle, then spun his war horse on a dime, and hurtled back to her while the thieves raced away.

  He might call himself a tradesman, but Lord Quentin Hoyt was a warrior through and through.

  Not even breathing hard, he dropped Kit on Dream’s saddle. “Good work, lad, hold on.” He held out his hand to Bell. “Don’t worry about that bastard you’re kicking. He can’t go far on foot. Take Kit home. I’ll go after the other horses.”

  Once upon a time, she would have argued. That time was not now, while she was shaking too hard to climb into the saddle.

  Bell set her overlarge boot in Hiram’s too-long stirrup. With a boost from Quent’s big hand on her posterior, she managed to throw her breeched leg over the man’s saddle. Dream stood still like the dream she was, letting Bell struggle astride while taking Kit into her arms. Choking back tears, she settled Kit in front of her, clutching him with one arm while she took the reins of both mares in her free hand.

  “The horses aren’t important. Come back with me,” she pleaded with Quent, too weary and wrung out to fight.

  “I don’t let horse thieves go free,” he said with finality.

  Her heart wept over this man she’d thrown away less than an hour ago. He was an obstinate Scot, a tyrant in the making, but he had the courage of Robin Hood and King Arthur rolled into one.

  Arguing would be futile, b
ut he was only one man. She couldn’t let him risk his life for what was not his battle. “I can’t bear to see you hurt. Please don’t do anything until the grooms catch up with you,” she asked. “We don’t know how many thieves there are.”

  “Take him home,” Quent said curtly. “I’ll be fine if I know you are.”

  That was as much of an admission of his concern for her that she would ever wring from him, Bell suspected. As much as she wanted to weep and tell him not to go, she’d reached her limits.

  She didn’t have his physical strength. To help him, she must find someone with more stamina and weapons.

  Cradling a soggy but now-boisterous Kit, Bell barely managed to stay in the saddle on the ride back to the house, trailing Kit’s mare as well as her own. Despite the brat’s bouncing and excited chatter, she didn’t want to release his small body. Her heart still raced, and she shivered with fear and damp. When they reached the front steps, a footman ran out to take Kit from her, and she nearly tumbled off.

  “I kicked him!” Kit shouted the instant he hit the ground. “I kicked him and he let me go.”

  Wearily, Bell embraced Dream’s neck while Tess and a maid ushered their little brother into the house, still shouting his triumph. He’d have nightmares later, no doubt.

  She would have nightmares. Right now, she couldn’t even dismount.

  Syd was wearing her habit, pacing up and down, and swearing, because the grooms wouldn’t let her saddle a carriage horse. At sight of her own mare, she brightened.

  “I have a sword,” she declared murderously. “Let us go after them.”

  Humbling herself, Bell untangled her feet from the stirrups and slid ungracefully from Dream. Once her feet hit solid ground, she grabbed the saddle and hung on to keep from sinking to her knees. “Where is Penrose?”

  The elderly marquess limped from the shadows. “He and the grooms took off across the fields. There is apparently a bend in the road they mean to cut across. Where is my son?”

  “He saved Kit, then rode off after the thieves. One of them is still in the pond. We’ll need to fetch the scoundrel before he does anything else stupid.” With her damp clothes clinging, Bell risked releasing the saddle to climb the steps. “Syd, call for the carriage. You can’t possibly catch up with the men, but if they corner the thieves, they may need help transporting them or the horses. I’ll be dressed by the time the team is harnessed.”

  “There are no grooms to harness the team,” the marquess argued.

  “I can harness a team,” Syd said scornfully. “Where do you come from that you can’t pull your own weight?” She stalked off, leaving the marquess silent.

  “Do you really want my siblings in your household?” Bell murmured wearily. “Kit just chased horse thieves and drove off a full-grown kidnapper. Tess will soon come down, dressed for riding and probably carrying one of the medieval sabers from the hall. And I have absolutely no doubt that Syd can use the sword she was wielding. What can you do?”

  “I can harness a team,” the marquess snarled, before hobbling down the stairs after Syd.

  ***

  Bell persuaded Tess to stay home, wielding an ancient pistol, and standing guard over Kit. She let Syd carry a blunderbuss and ride with the carriage driver as lookout. In dry travel gown, Bell climbed inside and took the carriage’s forward-facing seat, as she always did.

  Looking miffed, the marquess did the same, forcing her to squeeze to one side. Apparently title and age had precedence over gender, Bell concluded wryly. She refused to shift sides but stared stonily out the window, praying for Quent’s safety.

  She despised being weak, but she had to accept the fact that Quent was stronger than she in many ways. She could not say the same for the marquess.

  Her rambunctious siblings needed Quent’s forward thinking. They needed his strength and understanding. And she’d flung him away.

  “I have reconsidered,” the marquess said flatly as the carriage rattled down the rutted drive.

  Bell bit her tongue and strained to see ahead, although she had little hope that Quent was already riding back to her.

  “I will grant you guardianship of your family if you will release Quentin from his vows,” the marquess continued.

  Bell almost choked. She swung to glare at the old man in the gloom from the dim carriage lamps. “You have wanted Edward’s money for decades. Why change your mind when your son almost has access to it?”

  He gripped the knob of his walking stick and stared ahead. “Much as you think otherwise, I love my children and want what’s best for them. I am well aware that Quent left home to escape the chaos and responsibility of a large and fractious family. He prefers his peace and solitude. He will be miserable living with your . . . belligerent . . . siblings.”

  That possibility gnawed at Bell’s insides. Despite her fury, despite everything she’d learned over the years, she still loved the damned man and wept at the pain of losing him. But even her stupid, worthless heart knew that if you love someone, you want them to be happy. Quent was happy when surrounded by books and papers—not chattering females and boisterous children.

  He didn’t deserve complete and utter chaos for the rest of his days.

  The marquess was offering her everything she had wanted—her family and freedom to keep her own wealth. And Quent would be happier for it.

  She should be triumphant. Why then, did it feel as if her world had just crumbled into dust?

  ***

  Dream’s offspring might run like the wind, but they were limited to the speed of the ponies to which the thieves had tied them. Carried on a storm of fury, Quent soon found the trampled copse where the thieves had camped. In the moonlight, he followed a trail of broken branches and horse droppings. It was easy enough to see where they’d returned to the road and in which direction they rode.

  That a hired hand like Hiram had dared treat Bell with such disrespect not only infuriated him, but ripped at his insides. How could people who had known her not see beneath her feminine exterior to what a brave, strong, intelligent woman she was? That trick with the damned horse was proof enough for the smallest mind. She’d taught the horse to throw off a thief! Hiram had to be a beef-witted bastard not to have known she could do that.

  She’d looked so exhausted, Quent had almost surrendered the hunt just so he could hold her. But he didn’t want these mindless villains thinking they could come after her again. She might have taken him into dislike, but she couldn’t stop him from arranging it so there would be no more depredations like this one.

  His gelding followed the road in ground-covering strides until he heard noises ahead. He slowed to a walk and took to a hilly field.

  From this higher viewpoint, he could see Penrose riding hell-bent down the road with his band of grooms. Help had arrived. He no longer had to wait. His fury surged now that it had an outlet.

  Quent didn’t bother to conceal his position any longer but whistled in a manner that Penrose would recognize. He gestured ahead, then struck out in pursuit.

  With Penrose and the grooms riding up the road and Quent thundering down the hill from in front, the thieves didn’t stand a chance.

  Quent lashed his whip at the first raised pistol, disarming the ruffian before he could aim. The weapon hit the ground and detonated, terrifying the stolen Thoroughbreds into rearing and sidestepping in protest. Without Hiram to give orders, it was all over but the shouting after that.

  The grooms galloped in and secured the frightened horses, leading them from the fray. Penrose ran down a thief who tried to escape on foot. After leaping from his horse and knocking off the bounder who had tried to kidnap Kit, Quent trussed him up with sailor’s knots.

  With the thieves secured, he returned to his mount and went in search of Hiram—not difficult since Bell had unhorsed the old stable hand.

  By the time the carriage lumbered up the road, three thieves and Hiram had been gathered and bound, prepared for transport.

  As his father climb
ed down from Bell’s city carriage, Quent nearly fell off his gelding. Concealing his shock, he rode over and snatched the blunderbuss from Syd before she could accidentally shoot anyone. He nodded in surprise at his father but didn’t dare hope that Bell would have deigned to travel with him.

  His eyebrows nearly flew off his head as she climbed down next. His father and Bell in the same carriage for miles . . . did not bear considering.

  “Where’s Dolly?” was the first thing she asked.

  No one answered. The thieves’ silence was telling. They knew the name. The harridan still had to be around. Quent turned to Bell’s head groom. “Check at the inn. Who is the magistrate here?”

  “Used to be Belden,” the groom answered. “Squire’s been doing the work these last years.”

  Quent didn’t bother glaring at his father, the absentee landlord. It wasn’t as if the law would allow a woman to act as magistrate—even though Bell had to be equal to any man he’d yet to meet.

  With some understanding of all the frustrations she faced as a female, Quent swung down from the saddle. Without asking her permission, he gathered Bell in his arms. He needed tangible proof that she was well and unharmed by the evening’s escapade.

  She resisted his hug—proving his rebellious Bell was alive and strong.

  He narrowed his eyes when she stepped away the instant he released her. “How’s Kit?” he asked warily.

  “Acting as if he’s as big and brave as you,” she retorted. “He’s well and with Tess. Shall I go with you to find Dolly?”

  Quent glanced to his father leaning on his walking stick. “I’d thought to use the carriage for transporting the thieves to the magistrate. My father has complicated the issue.”

  “Yes, he seems to have a habit of doing that,” she agreed coldly. She nodded toward a neat farm on a slight rise ahead. “Perhaps you could lock the men in that barn over there and fetch the squire in the morning.”