The rain had stopped, although it was still overcast and cool for the time of year, but English weather was never to be relied on. The road through the woods was gloomy, rather like one of those horrible children’s fairy tales Eugenie read to her younger brothers—the more horrible the better they liked them. Stories full of trolls and wolves and wicked witches. When a bird flew up from the bushes with a shriek, she jumped, and Georgie’s arms tightened about her.
“All right?” She glanced back at him and smiled.
He nodded, but she noticed his eyes were flickering nervously about them and every now and then he’d give a shiver, despite his new warm coat.
“The duke will look after us,” she tried to reassure him. And herself. “You do like him, don’t you, Georgie? He has been kind to you?”
Georgie’s gaze turned sly. “He’s only doing it because he wants to please you, miss.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s sweet on you, miss.”
Eugenie tried to think of something to say but Georgie’s cheeky grin was unsqua
shable. In the end she shook her head at him and turned again to face Sinclair’s back, her face fiery and no doubt her freckles standing out.
It was a ridiculous suggestion.
She would rather have said Sinclair was cross with her. He certainly hadn’t been very happy when she insisted on bringing Georgie with them, but eventually he’d given way to her on the condition that once somewhere suitable was found they would leave Georgie behind. Of course Eugenie and Sinclair had different opinions of what “somewhere suitable” might look like.
She considered the duke as they rode. His bark really was worse than his bite. That gruff manner he affected when he was actually being kind, and the haughtiness that hid his uncertainties about himself. It was as if he believed his generosity was a weakness to be hidden. She felt as if she was beginning to know him rather well. Strange to think they had been so intimate, that she had touched him and kissed him and . . . well, she knew things about him she’d never tell—and yet it was only now that she felt she understood the way he felt and thought.
At first Sinclair didn’t see the men. They were up ahead, lurking in the shadows of the dripping trees. Waiting, as he later found out, for him. It was only as Sinclair and Eugenie drew closer that the two men rode out of the forest, hard-eyed, roughly dressed, and placed themselves directly in front of the little party. Blocking their path through the woods.
Every instinct warned Sinclair they were dangerous.
If he’d been on his own he would have ridden straight at them. Usually that ensured that anything in his way soon moved out of it. But there was Eugenie to consider and there was no way he could leave her to the mercies of these bandits—he knew instantly that was what they were. Thieves, ruffians, lawless highwaymen. No, he would have to stay and bluff his way out of trouble. As a duke he was used to being obeyed, and most people were used to obeying him. It came in handy.
“You are in our way,” he said loudly. “Move aside.”
They didn’t answer, their eyes watchful and wary.
Time to show these ruffians who was in charge, he thought grimly. Reaching into his saddlebag, Sinclair expected to place his hand on his pistol, which he’d placed in there during their stay at the tavern.
It wasn’t there.
Disbelievingly he began to search, and then search again, more desperately, but he found no familiar comforting shape to place his hand on. The pistol had gone.
He saw one of the ruffians nudge the other with a grin and his heart sank. They knew he was unarmed. That meant that this meeting wasn’t an unfortunate coincidence but a calculated assault. Someone had taken his pistol and sent word of it to their companions.
With no weapon there was nothing he could do but continue to play the duke, using his authority as a threat. Some people found that more frightening than a gun.
“Move aside at once,” Sinclair demanded loudly.
“I don’t think so.”
“We’ve come to relieve you of your savings,” the other man retorted, the one with the scrappy beard. “You was flashing it about in the tavern back there, so we heard. I reckon we have more need of it than you.”
“I am the Duke of Somerton, a peer of the realm,” Sinclair said angrily, “and you will regret it if you molest me.”
The two men looked at each other and snorted with laughter. “We heard you was a duke. Some of the other travelers seen you in your pretty coach with your pretty horses.”
“My man will be here soon. He’s following behind us.”
“You haven’t got no man,” scrappy beard sneered.
His glance moved toward Eugenie and Georgie, and Sinclair’s stomach twisted. They would not harm Eugenie and the child, not if he had to fight them with his bare fists. But who had taken the weapon? He knew there was only one way to find out.