CHAPTER 35
All or Nothing
After his horse had tripped three times on the boggy, pathless moor, Connor had abandoned the animal and finished crossing the longest mile and a half of his life on foot, running through slog and rain in the blackness, up and down the hillocks, through puddles up to his shins, wrenching his old gammy knee on a thorny clump of sedge, finally reaching the Thinkery about twenty minutes after seeing the lantern signal.
He’d heard two males arguing inside as he’d crept silently into the building on the ground floor, closing in for his attack. When one called the other “Father,” he realized that not just Seth awaited him upstairs, but also Elias Flynn.
Good. That meant Connor could remove both threats at one go.
Maggie’s presence in the room complicated matters, of course. With a dagger in one hand, a pistol in the other, he had climbed stealthily up the steps, calculating how best to get her out of there unscathed.
But then he’d heard glass shatter and a startled cry from her, followed by a thump.
With that, he’d sprinted the rest of the way up the stairs.
He could smell the smoke even before he’d seen wisps of it pouring out from the crack at the bottom of his uncle’s study door.
Then he’d kicked the door in.
Now, stepping over the threshold into the smoke-filled room, Connor assessed the situation in a glance.
Both men were using their coats to slap frantically at the fire that now engulfed the front wall of the study. Flames consumed his uncle’s bookshelves.
Where is she?
His heart lurched until he spotted Maggie unconscious on the floor, tied to a chair that had toppled over sideways.
His stare homed in on her head. Is that blood?
But then the old man, turning in response to Connor’s arrival, reached for a weapon.
Connor reacted instinctively, hurling his knife at Elias, striking him in the chest. A garbled expletive escaped the old whoremonger.
His son gasped.
Elias stumbled backward, looking shocked as he reached for the blade sticking out of his chest.
But not even Connor expected what happened next, as Elias pitched back clumsily against the wall, stumbling over his heels into the flames.
His clothes ignited.
“Father!” Seth shouted, as a horrific scream rose from the burning man’s throat.
Connor went to Maggie while the dragoon stood by helplessly, watching his father in shock.
“Go outside! Run out into the rain!” the son cried.
The father thrashed from side to side, howling.
Connor was glad Maggie was not seeing this as he stepped over her inert body, ready to protect her. But it seemed his enemies were preoccupied at the moment.
The room now stank of charring flesh.
“Get the rain on you, Father!”
Elias leaned out the window as if to take his son’s advice, but, writhing in pain, lost his balance and fell.
His inhuman scream was cut short.
“Oh my God,” Seth said. He turned to Connor. “What have you done?”
Connor lifted his pistol, took aim, squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Seth sneered. “Got your powder wet, eh, Major?” Then he reached for his own pistol, which he’d set aside.
Connor charged him, running at the gun even as it was pointed at him. He reached Seth in a heartbeat, grasped his arm and drove the muzzle skyward in the same split second that the bastard pulled the trigger.
The bullet bit into the ceiling somewhere above the door in a burst of plaster dust. Connor wrenched the spent weapon out of his enemy’s hand, but Seth abandoned the fight with a glare that promised vengeance later.
For now, he ran out of the room to go down to his father. Not that much could be done for the man at this point, if he was even still alive.
Connor let him pass at a safe distance, checking his own fury for the moment. He would deal with him later. First, he had to get Maggie out of here.
The place was burning down. He tucked the empty gun into the back of his trouser waist in case he found some dry ammunition to use later. He did not intend to let Seth get hold of it again.
“Sweeting, can you hear me?” he asked, willing his voice to be gentle as he crouched beside Maggie and quickly untied her hands.
He cursed to himself when he saw how red and raw the delicate skin at her wrists had become.
He pressed two fingers to her neck, checking her pulse. She was alive, still, but his rage turned flinty when he got a closer look at the blood trickling down the side of her face from the gash above her ear.
It erased whatever trace of pity he might’ve felt for the man he had just set on fire, to say nothing of his son. To be sure, the dragoon had merely postponed his death, not escaped it.
“Maggie, can you hear me?” Connor asked again. He was frightened to move her until he was sure she had not sustained worse injuries that he could not see.
To his unutterable relief, her lashes fluttered when he caressed her cheek with one knuckle. “Connor,” she mumbled. “I knew you’d come.”
Then she coughed in the thickening smoke. His own lungs were straining, and the smoke stung his eyes. He glanced around to find that the fire had now spread to the opposite wall.
Time was of the essence.
“I need to get you out of here, love. I’m going to pick you up now. Are you able to move?”
“I think so…” She tested it, stretching her fingers, flexing her feet in her mud-caked socks.
Thank God. More than once on the battlefield, he’d seen blows to the head kill or paralyze men instantly.
“Put your arms around me,” he forced out. “Here. Try for me, love.”
Maggie lifted her hands to his shoulders while Connor slid his arms under her back and the bend of her knees. Moving smoothly and carefully, he rose to his feet, carrying her toward the door.
Coughing again, Maggie laid the uninjured side of her head on his shoulder.
To his relief, they left the roaring blaze behind them.
Connor cradled her gently in his arms as he sped down the dark, narrow staircase. Slowing his pace when he reached the bottom, he scanned the darkness on the ground floor of the Thinkery.
It was possible that Seth was lying in wait there, but a wary glance around confirmed the lower room was empty. The dragoon must’ve run out to his father, as Connor had initially assumed.
Still, not knowing what sort of trouble might await him at the front of the building, he had to keep Maggie out of the line of fire. Put her somewhere close enough where he could still protect her, but as far as possible from the burning front section of the neo-gothic folly.
With that, Connor carried her out the back door of the Thinkery, into the wet, chilly night.
The steady rain poured off the deep, medieval-style eaves overhanging the back wall of the Thinkery, but at least these provided the two of them with a narrow strip of shelter.
Connor set her down there, on the stone foundation at the corner of the building farthest away from the fire.
Miserable as it was outside, the wind-driven mist of the shower blowing just past their noses felt like heaven after the ovenlike heat and smoke of that blasted inferno.
Maggie leaned back wearily against the exterior wall, looking somewhat revived by the cold sprinkle they both were getting in the face, while Connor kept scanning the blackness around them for movement.
To his relief, there was no sign of Seth.
As he’d anticipated, the dragoon must have remained with his dying father at the front of the burning building, facing the distant manor house.
By now, for that matter, Connor trusted that his men had seen the flames towering out of the Thinkery window.
They would not understand what the hell was happening, but being well trained, they’d hesitate about leaving their posts, sensing some trick of the enemy. Aunt Caroline’s staff would surely respond within a few minutes, however. They could deal with the blaze.
Until then, Connor’s chief concern was for Maggie. The moment she was secure, he would go and hunt Seth. Finish this thing.
And this time, that bastard would not get away.
“Sorry about the fire.” Maggie coughed again, wincing. “It was my fault,” she confessed.
Connor arched a brow and looked at her again, leaving off scanning the darkness. “You started the fire?”
She nodded wearily. “I had to try and warn you it was a trap. I didn’t mean to burn the whole place down.”
“Oh, I knew you were trouble from the first moment I laid eyes on you, Lady Maggie Winthrop,” he whispered tenderly, and leaned close to kiss her brow for a long, shaky moment, his heart clenching.
God, I thought I’d lost you.
The fact that his enemies had gone after her redoubled his hunger to end this. He pulled back again, then lifted her hand and gave it a quick kiss. “I must go. Time to see matters sorted. You stay here.”
She clutched his arm. “There are two of them.”
“Not anymore,” he said.
“Oh.” She grimaced. “I must’ve missed that part.”
He nodded grimly. “Be glad.”
She stared at him, still clinging to his arm. “I don’t want you to leave me, Connor. I’m scared.”
“I know, sweeting. I have to. Don’t worry,” he promised, finding a smile for her—a mask for his rage. “I’ll be right back. Be brave for me just a little while longer.”
She closed her eyes. “Very well.”
“Hey.” He squeezed her shoulder gently, and her eyes swept back open. “Stay awake,” he ordered softly. “You need to keep alert after a nasty blow to the head like that, you understand? Don’t drift off. We’ll have Nestor take a look at that as soon as I’m done here.”
She nodded. “Connor, I love you.”
“I love you too, Maggie. With all my heart.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her lips.
“Be careful.”
“What fun is that? I’m jesting,” he whispered at her look of alarm. “Here.” She looked so damned vulnerable sitting there that he gave her the second knife he always kept in his boot, sliding it out of its hidden sheath and offering it to her by the hilt.
Not that she knew how to use it. But he could not leave her here unarmed when she still looked so small and alone and defenseless.
“Take this,” he said. “If anyone comes near you, cut them and call for me.”
She took it, wide-eyed, but obviously grateful. “Don’t you need this?”
He shook his head meaningfully.
“Oh… Right.” She dropped her gaze and gripped the weapon uncertainly.
He wished like hell that he could’ve trusted his pistol instead, but after its mate had failed to fire upstairs, he couldn’t take that chance.
Of course, he was still cursing himself for that amateurish mistake. He’d been so panicked to reach her that he’d somehow let the rain run into his ammunition pouch. It had been hard to avoid, splashing and slogging his way across some thirty acres of boggy heathland in the dark.
But no matter. The mishap had only delayed Seth’s death, not averted it.
“Righty-ho,” Connor murmured with a wry smile, determined to ease some of the fear from her eyes. He rose to his feet. “See you soon, love. Carvel’s out that way,” he added, pointing to the north. “He may well come.”
“So I shouldn’t stab him, right?” she jested halfheartedly.
“You see?” Connor grinned. “You’re catching on more every day to this whole battle business.”
“Well, I’d better, if I mean to marry you.”
He nodded, his smile fading at thoughts of the ruthless task ahead. “You see anything wrong, you yell for me.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, clutching the knife in both hands, her forearms resting on her bent knees. “Good luck.”
Connor took one last, long look at her, memorizing her in that moment. Truly, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen—even wet, muddy, bedraggled, her cheek bloodied, her hair a mess, her clothes dusted with ash—and he had never loved any creature more.
Her eyes were so solemn and brave. How could any man leave her there to fend for herself, even for a moment?
But he had to, so they could be free.
And by now, God’s truth, he knew this woman’s quiet strength.
“Go on, Major,” she urged him with a grim nod toward the corner. “Go do what you do.”
As her words sank in, his face hardened with resolve. To be sure, she understood him now. He felt it deep down into his very core, and it lit him with power from within like he’d swallowed the lightning.
“Be right back,” he whispered with a wink, then he kissed his fingers to her in farewell and left.
* * *
Maggie watched him go, her heart in her throat.
Sitting there shivering and wet against the cold stone, her head hurt, her shoulder ached where she’d landed on it, and her lungs burned, though the fresh air helped. She was still concerned about Penelope back at the manor and what would become of them all. But, mainly, her full awareness trailed after Connor.
Tall and broad-shouldered, he slid through the shadows under the eaves, angling his body as he kept to the side of the building.
Maggie gripped his knife, hoping with all her heart that she wouldn’t have to use it.
As she watched him in the darkness, her heart in her throat, Connor paused at the corner, assessing whatever there was to see at the front of the burning building.
Yet, holding her breath, Maggie could not help cursing herself. All of this tonight was her fault. Why oh why hadn’t she let Connor neutralize Seth when he’d had the chance? Some naïve sense of justice? But she had not known then what sort of monsters they were dealing with in Elias Flynn and his son.
Who did she think she was to second-guess the warrior in his area of greatest expertise? This all could have been avoided if only she had trusted him.
Anxiously flicking her fingers tighter around the hilt, Maggie swallowed down a wave of cold regret, dread churning in her belly.
Well…it was too late now to go back and do that awful night over.
But she swore that if anything happened to him out there, she would never, ever forgive herself.
* * *
Connor stole a guarded glance around the edge of the building, half expecting to be shot at. But when he poked his head out just far enough to see what he might find, he spotted the dragoon crouched by the smoking body of his father, rain dripping off his nose.
Elias Flynn lay in a twisted heap, unmoving.
Dead. Must’ve broken his neck when he hit the ground, Connor thought. A mercy, that. At least it would have been quick, putting him out of his misery.
Better than burning to death. Though he was probably burning now, where he’d gone.
Steeling himself, Connor stepped around the corner and warily walked back out across the front of the Thinkery, his stare fixed on his enemy.
“You killed him,” Seth said in a low tone, looking up at last.
“Don’t worry,” Connor said as he stalked toward him. “You’ll be together again soon.”
The dragoon’s face hardened. He shot to his feet. By the glow of the blaze above them, Connor saw the man’s fingers flex by his sides.
Then they curled into fists, and Seth charged.
Connor stepped back with one foot to brace for the onslaught and bent his knees to lower his center of gravity, raising both hands, palms open, to block the punches he knew were coming.
The dragoon dropped his head and shoulders as he ran, clearly determined to knock Connor’s legs out from under him and slam him to the ground.
Connor was ready for him, however, sidestepping the main line of attack; although Seth managed to grab hold of his upper thigh, Connor’s wide stance kept him solidly planted. Connor snaked his arm around the blackguard’s head, cranking Seth’s neck to make him loosen his hold.
As Seth cursed, Connor brought his elbow down like a spear into his back.
Seth stumbled away, twisting about to lunge at him with a brutal right punch at his jaw. Connor blocked and struck back with a speedy jab straight to the nose. Seth’s head snapped back but he absorbed the blow rather impressively.
Then they circled by the lurid glow of the inferno raging out of the upper window. By now, the roof was burning, too.
Seth launched at Connor again, his movements wild with fury. A vicious brawl ensued. They traded savage blows, slipping around in the muck and mud, until they both were bloodied and the fight ground down to a grim, brutal slog.
The only sounds were the hiss of the rain, the crackling of the fire coming out of the upper window, and their own harsh panting.
As those few long moments of full-force effort stretched on, Connor began to wish he hadn’t given his knife to Maggie. A gallant gesture, aye, but he was tired, soaked to the skin, and so very sick of fighting.
Then Seth got in a hammer fist to his chest and half knocked the wind out of him—such blows could stop a man’s heart if done right—but as Seth moved in for the kill, Connor summoned up a burst of strength. His fist shot out, and he left the bastard coughing with a throat strike.
Pressing the advantage, Connor swept Seth’s feet out from under him and dropped astride the man, determined to choke the life out of him once and for all.
Seth reached up and jammed his palm under Connor’s chin, straight-armed, trying to hold him at bay.
Losing patience, Connor punched him across the face with an angry roar. “Give up, damn you! That’s enough!”
“Go to hell,” Seth said, coughing. “You killed my father.”
“You killed two of my uncles and my cousin, and tried to kill me at least three times!”
“So?”
Panting, Connor shook his head. “You abducted my fiancée. And for that…you die.” Then he wrapped his hands around Seth’s throat and began to squeeze.
Seth gripped his wrists, trying to claw Connor’s hold loose as the rain pelted both of them. An old, familiar rage came over Connor as he focused all his hate on the man at his mercy.
Tonight he had none. Not after what he’d done to Maggie.
At the thought of her, however, something strange happened.
Seth was choking, thrashing, fighting, and suddenly, all Connor could think of was the horrified way she had looked at him when she’d stepped out of the alley to find him well on his way to beating this blackguard to death with his bare hands.
Now that the moment had come for him to finish the job, Connor realized he did not have it in him to end the life of a man he had already bested—never mind how much the bastard deserved killing.
He was a soldier, after all. Not a murderer.
Maggie was right. Let the law deal with him.
He released his hold on Seth’s throat. “I said that’s enough,” he repeated wearily, chest heaving.
Seth clutched his neck, coughing and gasping for air as Connor lifted off him.
Connor planted his foot on Seth’s chest, though, to hold him down and stop him from trying to get away.
“What, you’re sparing me?” the dragoon wrenched out.
“Handing you over to the constable,” Connor said, panting with exertion. “Let the judges decide what to do with you. I’m taking you into custody.”
“The hell you are. I’ll not swing by a noose!”
With that, Seth grasped Connor’s bad knee above the foot pinning him to the ground and wrenched it violently, twisting Connor’s leg and throwing him aside.
Connor stumbled back, slipped on the mud, and landed on his arse with a curse of pain as Seth sprang instantly to his feet.
In the blink of an eye, Seth was up and running. He bolted off around the corner of the building on the side opposite from where Connor had left Maggie.
“Get back here!” Connor climbed to his feet, limping a bit, but infuriated anew. He gave chase.
He could not risk the blackguard seeing Maggie hiding back there, for he knew full well that Seth would not hesitate to use her as a hostage if he got the chance.
He was right on Seth’s heels, gritting his teeth against the pain of the old injury from when a horse had been shot out from under him once and nearly took him with it when it fell. He thrust the awful memory out of his mind and went tearing after the bastard through the darkness.
There was a span of about twenty feet between the east wall of the Thinkery and the rock ledge of the chine’s little canyon. Down the center of this dark, grassy stretch, Uncle Rupert’s walking path wrapped around the side of the little building and continued out onto the moors.
Around the side of the Thinkery, the exterior wall amplified the sound of the swollen river rushing violently along the bottom of the nearby chine.
Pouring on a burst of agonizing speed, Connor caught up with Seth on the walking path, grabbing hold of the back of his shirt and tackling him to the ground. Mud splashed, slippery under their feet.
It was pitch-black here, away from the blaze. Connor punched him and Seth struck back.
They brawled, rolling toward the precipice, exchanging savage blows, crushing tall grasses and tufts of heath. Connor felt a stone dig into his back. Seth found one, too, and ripped it out of the turf.
Connor ducked as Seth tried to bash him in the head with it; he blocked with his forearm, but Seth got in a glancing blow. Then mud flew up into Connor’s eyes. He could barely see for a moment, but had the presence of mind to trip the son of a bitch as Seth stumbled to his feet again to flee.
How it happened, exactly, Connor wasn’t sure, since his vision had not quite cleared yet from the mud flung into his eyes, but Seth must have slipped or misjudged his distance from the ledge.
Falling with a scream, Seth caught hold of Connor’s good leg to try to save himself, but only succeeded in dragging Connor toward the precipice, too.
“Get off o’ me!” Connor raked his hands behind him as he was pulled over the same ledge where Seth had murdered the vicar-duke.
In the final instant, Connor flipped over onto his stomach, clawing at the slippery turf and barely catching himself on the rock ledge.
It took all his strength, but he hung there somehow, defying gravity, holding up not just his own weight, but Seth’s. The dragoon clung on at Connor’s knees.
All the while, the swollen river thundered by some seventy feet below them. Oh my God, we’re both going to die.
“Let go of me!” Connor bellowed.
“I—can’t!” Seth sounded terrified. He flailed his feet around, trying to find any solid support on which to brace himself. But there was only empty air beneath him, white water and jagged rocks, a few scraggly trees.
Connor could feel his grip on the wet rock ledge slowly slipping.
He willed himself to hang on, fastening his hands even harder to the sharp stone outcrop, his arms and shoulders screaming with exertion, while the rain dripped off him and onto Seth below.
Seth shrieked as his grip slipped down a few inches, caught at Connor’s ankle, and there, he lasted only a few seconds longer before he plunged into the gully with a scream.
The sudden shift in weight as Seth dropped made Connor lurch. He cursed, nearly losing his hold, then clung to the rockface for dear life, while a sickening thud cut short Seth’s scream. It was followed by a splash from below.
Connor glanced anxiously over his shoulder.
“Darrow!” he bellowed, but there was no answer.
Heart pounding, Connor scanned the dark, frothing river below for several seconds, though he knew there was no way his enemy could have survived a fall from that height. He must’ve hit the rocks, then slumped into the swollen stream.
By a stray flash of lightning just then, Connor caught sight of Seth’s lifeless body floating facedown in the rushing stream. The current sped the killer’s corpse away, carrying him off toward the ocean.
The lightning vanished, and Connor strove to gather his thoughts in the distant rumble of thunder that followed a few seconds later.
Seth’s fall had unnerved him. The dire thought snaked through his mind that he would surely follow suit any minute now. His strength was nearly spent. He did not know how much longer he could hold on.
His arms were shaking, his fingers bloodied and raw from clinging to the wet, jagged rockface—when, suddenly, Maggie appeared above him.
Her face was a pale oval peering down at him over the ledge.
“I’ve got you!” She flung herself down onto her belly flat on the ground above, reached down, and clasped his forearm with both hands, steadying him. “Hold on.”
“Let go of me, Maggie. I’m too heavy for you.”
“No.”
“It’s too dangerous, woman! I’ll pull you down with me—”
“I told you, I don’t follow orders. Now, climb!” she roared.
He very nearly laughed at her vehemence amid his terror. But when he looked at her delicate white hands clutching to him, refusing to let the darkness swallow him, Connor caught sight of the ring on her finger.
Her engagement ring—the very promise of their future.
Although the diamond and its crown of emeralds were smeared with mud from this night’s ordeal, he could still see their sparkle by the lightning’s flash, and somehow, at the sight of it, he found the strength to reach deep down inside himself and take hold of a final burst of determination.
He would not be denied a life of loving her.
She held on to him, steadying and coaxing him, until he pulled himself up over the side with a last, savage heave.
He crawled a few feet away from the ledge on his hands and knees, drawing Maggie with him toward safety.
His chest heaving with exhaustion, Connor pulled her into his arms and held her fiercely amid the blood and smoke, both of them on their knees in the mud, while the rain coursed over them.
This moment, with its terror and the nearness of death, brought him right back to every battlefield he’d ever known, only, this time, overriding the past was his love for her, and Maggie’s love for him.
She was crying, hugging him desperately. “Oh, God, I thought I’d lost you.”
“Shh, it’s over. I’m here, darlin’. You saved me.”
She lifted her lovely face to the rain. Connor cupped her cheek in his palm, staring at her with helpless adoration.
“You saved me,” he whispered again.
She cupped his face between her hands, searching his eyes as though to reassure herself he was indeed alive.
“How many times is that now?” she forced out, her lips trembling as she worked up a brave smile.
The little lady quite slayed him. He shook his head as he held her gaze tenderly. “I’ve lost count.”
She laughed, teary-eyed and slightly hysterical.
“It’s all right now, love,” he whispered, cradling her to him. “It’s over.” Then he lowered his head and kissed her for all he was worth as the rain drenched them with its cold baptism.
Meanwhile, the servants began arriving to try to put out the fire, to no avail.
The Thinkery was a total loss.
But no matter. It was a small price to pay for what he’d gained here tonight, Connor knew. The woman he cherished, so warm in his arms. Peace and hope.
Life and love and finally…freedom.