CHAPTER 13
Michael slowly descended down the muddy bank with the pistol pointed at his back. The stream of water flowed swiftly after the rain. The prick was going to shoot him and dump his body in the stream where it poured into the ocean somewhere.
The thought was sobering, but then again, this wasn’t the first time he had a pistol pointed at him. But this American was resourceful and he had managed to get off the ship safely and track him down.
“Stop,” the American said. “Turn around.”
Michael obliged, all the while focusing on how he was going to get that pistol away from his captor, instead of succumbing to a slow agonizing death.
“Aren’t you going to beg for your life?”
“Would it make any difference?” Michael said his hands in plain view. Perhaps if he kept him talking, he’d find a way to distract him somehow.
His captor watched him intently. Then he pulled out a knife with its point curved, one that Michael had seen in India. “I don’t suppose it would. You English are all alike. Too damned proud to know what’s good for you.”
Michael saw the hatred spark in the miller’s eyes, as if the American had a vendetta against the English.
“Geoffrey…he was damned proud too—one determined prick.”
Michael dropped his hands and rolled them into balls of fists so tight he’d felt the nails dig into his flesh, fury pumping through every cell in his body. If it wasn’t for the pistol pointed at his face, he’d kill the son of a bitch. “You,” Michael hissed. “You shot him that night in the alley?” The American didn’t respond, but he didn’t have to. Michael saw it in his eyes.
Just then, a faint sound of footfall closed in on them. “Michael?”
Michael tensed, fearing for Emma’s safety. Damn, she defied his order. The prick’s head snapped toward the voice and listened, the look on his face sent icy chills down his spine.
“I am going to enjoy your little lady—”
Michael charged like an angry bull and they both landed hard on the ground. The prick’s arm jerked back and the pistol went off, the bullet whizzing by his ear. The nameless American kicked him off and clobbered him hard in his face. Michael stumbled back several feet—damn his fist felt like a brick.
While Michael tried to orient himself, the miller cut him hard on his jaw and Michael landed flat on his back. When the man charged again, Michael swiftly rolled over to his side and quickly found his footing. Without losing momentum, he swiftly retaliated and they both landed in the thick of the freezing stream.
“So the stiff knows how to fight,” the American blurted out.
“You have no idea.” Michael knocked the cull down again with his fist when the scum tried to get up. With each punch, blood oozed everywhere and the cull’s painful grunt soon morphed into craggy laughter. “Crazy bastard.”
“I don’t think you know how many people you’ve pissed off.” The American coughed in pain. “When I’m done here with you and your pretty lady, I’ll be sure to deliver my condolences to your precious family in Oxfor—”
When Michael clobbered his foe again, the thug’s mad laugher morphed in a loud yowl, then fell silent. Not trusting himself to be near the scum without killing him, Michael quickly checked for additional weapons on the American. When he was satisfied the scum had none, he walked over to pick up the pistol and the knife on the ground.
“Get up,” Michael ordered. He watched the scum slowly rise, now completely wet from the stream and no doubt freezing in the February weather. Just then he saw Emma appear where the main road ended. She looked down at them with the pistol in her hand.
“Well, well, well,” the American blurted out, looking at Emma. “Hey pretty, darlin’. Wanna—”
Michael slugged him in his jaw and the American stumbled back. Taking no time, Michael threw a hard upper cut where blood spewed out of the cull’s mouth.
“Michael.” She frantically made her way down the bank, trying not to fall.
Michael jumped on top of the American and punched him again and again, the scum’s face jerking left and right as rage pumped through Michael’s veins with a life force that had a mind of its own.
“Stop, Michael,” she begged.
He didn’t.
“You’re going to kill him.”
If he didn’t finish him, he’d go after Emma and his family.
“Michael,” Emma begged. “Michael…please,” she said in a soft whisper. “Stop this.”
All he saw was red fury and the need to eradicate the parasite from harming anyone else he cared about. It took several more seconds until it finally registered to him what she was trying to tell him. When he stopped, he instantly backed away, realizing the damage he’d done.
Blood everywhere. On his hands. On the scum’s face.
Michael saw the look in her eyes; that look of despair. His heart sunk deep into the pit of his stomach when he saw the fear in her eyes. It took several more seconds to cool his rage. “Are you all right?”
She blinked several times before answering. “Never mind me.” She looked at the man on the ground, bleeding. “Will he live?”
He’d always been able to keep some remnant of control, but when it came to Emma he wasn’t certain. “We need to go,” Michael finally said. “Go, get the passengers.”
She didn’t budge. “Will you be all right?”
When Michael gave her a firm nod, she hitched up her skirt and headed up the bank and disappeared. The scum slowly opened his eyes and wiped the blood off his nose with his shirt sleeves. Michael walked up to him. “Who sent you to kill Geoffrey?”
The American spat blood.
“Who?” Michael hissed. The scum said nothing. “You deserve to rot in hell for what you’ve done. But I will promise you a quick, clean death if you confess.”
“I’m dead either way, so why does it matter?” the scum muttered between coughs.
Michael knew the name he was about to utter would shatter everything he’d come to trust, but he needed to know. “Does Tomkin sound familiar?”
The culprit glared at him and said nothing.
“Willoughby?” Michael’s heart thumped faster and harder as each second ticked away. And when the name didn’t register to the parasite before him, a sigh of relief washed over Michael. “How about Jimmy?”
The American’s eyes lit up. So both men on the ship knew Jimmy. Good, at least he was heading in the right direction. Most likely, one gunman to do the job and this one to make sure it was carried out. Either Jimmy or someone was working hard to cover his tracks.
“So, the idiot spilled the beans,” the cull said.
“And you shot him for it.” Michael didn’t need an answer. “Did you hire the boy to deliver a message to Emma before she boarded the ship?”
“What boy?”
With the answers Michael needed, he forced the cull to stand and shoved the dirt bag up the bank and on to the main road. Emma was with the driver who was slowly gaining consciousness, while the passengers huddled together and stood by the carriage. When the blond saw Michael and the prisoner approach, she gasped in horror. The gentleman hushed her and ordered the women back inside the carriage.
As soon as they were all safely tucked away, Michael ordered his prisoner to get on the horse that was hitched to the carriage. The driver was in no condition to drive, so he took the reins. “One move and I will shoot to kill, understand?” Michael warned the prisoner.
If the prisoner was foolish enough to try to escape, he’d fall beneath the thundering hooves and get trampled. As soon as the passengers were dropped off at the next coaching inn to change horses, he and Emma would be on their way to Chatham Hall in Oxfordshire.
* * *
As the carriage drove on, Emma couldn’t stop thinking about Michael beating the American. There was a sense of blind madness in his eyes, as if he’d been under a spell where she could not reach him. Why was this realization so surprising to her? After all, she knew he was a trained assassin, a spy. A deep sense of sadness gripped her. She recalled Tomkin’s words: “It’s no accident that he remains unattached….”
The raw brutality she had witnessed opened a window to Michael’s world. To live with that kind of danger every day must take a toll on him. When she joined Lord Tomkin’s team over a year ago, she had a glimpse of the danger, but this…this was an entirely different layer, one that made her deeply sad. She could not imagine what that would do to a person.
Emma looked at the passengers sitting across from her. The woman holding the sleeping tot smiled at her. She smiled back. The gentleman was looking out the window and the blond mindlessly flipped through the pages of Bell’s Life in London.
She was glad for the silence.
As much as she cared for Michael, she couldn’t stand by and watch him get killed. She knew he would never willingly give up this life. After what she witnessed today, the flicker of hope she’d secretly held in her heart died.