.
Thomas’ horse, a fine bay gelding from Tristan's own stable, tossed his head as Thomas drew him up. He reached down to stroke the horse's lathered neck, letting the horse fall back into a brisk trot.
Tristan drew his horse up to Thomas’, frowning at him. “We will run the horses into the ground if we are not careful.”
Thomas instinctively growled at Tristan. “If you are concerned about cost—”
“I am concerned about running the only horses as fast as these two in the entire county down to their knees and then not being able to continue.”
Thomas shook his head, chagrined as his own snappishness. “I'm sorry. But we cannot slow down. Every moment, they are pulling farther away.”
Once they had realized Blythe was with Cottering, it had been distressingly easy to discern his motive.
“He won't take her to London, where she has friends, and he won't take her to sea either, because what could he want on foreign shores?” Georgiana's voice was grave and level, like a doctor delivering a fatal diagnosis. “He is going north, to the border. To Gretna Green.”
Tristan and Thomas had looked at her appalled.
Honey had nodded, her face set into grim lines. “He wants control. That's what he always wants. He pulls you away from anyone who could help you, and then he forces you along his way. He could control me because I was all alone in London with no friends. But someone like Blythe, I suppose that will take a marriage.”
Thomas waited impatiently as Tristan sent messages to London and to the major ports, but then they were on the road leading north to Scotland. They were silent as they rode, and it occurred to Thomas in a rueful way that it had taken an actual kidnapping and forced marriage plot before they could be the least bit pleasant to each other.
The first stop they had made, in the village of Westbury, confirmed their fears. An innkeeper had seen the coach going by shortly before sunset. From the look on Tristan's face, Thomas could see he was describing Cottering's coach, though the crest on the side had been covered with a plain board.
“The bastard's trying to cover his tracks, but he's not doing it well.”
Thomas shrugged, guiding his gelding back onto the road. “If there's one thing I want to make sure he does not do well, it is kidnap innocent women.”
Night had fallen, giving the road a sense of gloom and despair. The moors stretched out on either side of them, and Thomas realized they couldn't continue at a gallop. They had to wait until at least moonrise to regain any speed, otherwise, they risked snapping the horses' legs in the rutted road.
When guiding the gelding along at a full gallop, Thomas didn't have to think about what Blythe might have been going through, whether she was scared or hurt. Now that his and Tristan's pace had slowed, it was all he could think about.
“You genuinely care about her, don't you?”
Thomas stifled the urge to snap his teeth at Tristan like an angry wolf. “Of course I do. I've loved her from the moment I met her, and I cannot tell you how terrible it is that you are the first person I have told it to.”
“I assumed you must have told her when you made her your mistress.”
Thomas barked a harsh laugh. “Dear God, Blythe might be on her way to being married to a true monster, and you will not let things go. Damned Carrow pride. For your information, Parrington, she was never my mistress. She was only at that flat because she was running away from you.”
“Why?”
“Because you look at her, and you've never seen her! You lived for years with that gleaming flame at your damned dinner table, and you never saw her for who she was. You saw what you wanted to see, a prim missionary and not an adventurer, someone who wants to bring only good into the world. You ignored it, and when you could no longer ignore it, you tried to kill it.”
Tristan's tone was stiff. “I was going to marry her.”
Thomas was silent for a moment. “I will not allow that.”
“What are you implying?”
“What I am saying, Parrington, is that you will not marry her. You'll crush her. I don't care if you have me arrested, tried for kidnapping, or any other nonsense. If I have to, I will put her on a Martin ship racing for the South Seas to keep her out of a wedding you.”
“Because you want her?”
“Because she deserves better than someone who is going to douse that light.”
Tristan did not respond, and after some time, the moon rose, and they could regain some of their speed. The small village rose up out of the moors in front of them, and at first glance, Thomas could see that there was something wrong.
They pulled up at the inn, and Thomas halted a pot boy hurrying by. “What's all this, lad?”
“Mairi got smashed in the head by some gentry mort in the rear courtyard. They say he chased his woman out into the moors, and now no one knows what to do.”
“Thomas, look.”
Thomas turned to see the coach with the obscured crest—Cottering's vehicle. Thomas felt his heart leap. They were close, so close, and he would have given all the breath in his body and all the wealth in his title to have Blythe in his arms.
“Are the villagers going out to search?”
At the boy's uncomprehending look, Tristan scowled and then turned to Thomas.
“I'm going to get a search party organized. You—”
Thomas nodded even as he dismounted. “I'm going to go searching for her.”
Instead of arguing with him, Tristan nodded. “Godspeed. If you find her before we do, tell her I'm sorry.”
The moors were disastrously rough in the winter. The frozen earth and wire-hard grass made it treacherous for the slender-legged thoroughbreds the peerage preferred. Thomas tethered his horse to the inn and tried to think.
She had been here. She had been here just a few hours ago, if the people were to be believed. He fought back the panic that sank into his thoughts, telling him that she was dead, that she was hurt and afraid.
Blythe would fight, and that meant he had to as well. From the courtyard where the maid had been clubbed down, Thomas started to walk. The moon was fair risen, bathing everything in an eerie silvery night, and everywhere he could hear the sounds of nature that were so absent in the city.
If we get out of this, I'm taking you far away from England. I'll take you anywhere you want to go. We'll see the world, and I'll give you whatever you want...
The minutes crawled by, and soon enough, Thomas lost all sense of time. He could have been searching for Blythe for hours or moments. He might have always been searching for her. Suddenly, a woman's scream rent the air, and before he could even quite register it, Thomas was dashing toward the sound. It sent chills up his spine, and he ran as hard as he could. Once his foot caught on a hard tussock of grass, but he righted himself, dashing for that horrible noise. It was her. It had to be.
He came around the bend of a narrow hill, and in the moonlight, he saw Blythe struggling with a man who had her by one arm. The man was laughing like some kind of monster out of a fairy tale, but Blythe was utterly silent, pulling as hard as she could to get away.
Thomas felt a murderous rage rise up in him, a hellish anger that roared at the idea of anyone touching his Blythe.
He raced across the grass toward them, reaching inside his jacket, but then Blythe suddenly threw herself back toward her assailant, giving in to the force he was exerting and disturbing his balance. As Cottering stumbled, Blythe's free hand came up and she smashed a fist-sized rock as hard as she could across his face. Cottering let her go with a howl, and Blythe dashed toward Thomas, drawing herself up short when she saw him.
“Thomas?”
“Did you think you could really leave me behind, angel?”
He pulled Blythe behind him, and as Cottering lumbered up to a steadier standing position, Thomas pointed one of Tristan's borrowed pistols at the man's chest.
“I have every reason in the world to shoot you. Your best bet now is to start giving me reasons to avoid it. Walk this way. We're going back to town.”
Cottering spat at him. “Demon Tom.”
As they walked back toward town, Thomas keeping the pistol squarely on Cottering's slumped back and Blythe walking so close her hand brushed his, Thomas wondered about the title. He didn't feel as if it were him anymore. Something had changed, and he felt his heart unfold like a letter from someone who loved him.