Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“There was a doctor last year, passing through,” she said softly, gazing unfocused at the bread. “He examined Father in exchange for free room and board. His heart’s weak, the man said. If he doesn’t slow down …”
Rhys gave her shoulder a light squeeze. “I’ve known your father almost as long as you have, Merry. Horsemanship is in his blood. It is his life. He’d rather die than slow down.”
“I know. I know it, but …” She looked up at him and gave a one-shouldered shrug, as though he’d understand without any words.
And he did. Suddenly, Rhys understood everything. The reason he’d survived the past fourteen years and finally made his way back to this village. The reason he couldn’t leave it now. The way to redeem his whole wasted life.
It all made perfect, unquestionable sense.
“Isn’t it Sunday?” he said.
“Yes,” she replied in a bewildered tone.
He looked about the courtyard. “Why aren’t the people in church? Where’s the vicar?”
“There’s no vicar anymore. He left twelve years ago, when your father ceased paying his living. A curate comes out once a month from Lydford to hold services.”
He swore softly. This made things a touch more difficult.
She gave him a cheeky smile. “What is it? Feel the need to confess your sins?”
“Bloody hell. That would take years.” And he didn’t particularly want forgiveness. No, he just wanted to make things right. “Confession isn’t required, is it?”
“Required for what?”
“Marriage.”
A roll tumbled from her basket, and the hounds scrabbled over it at their feet.
When she spoke, her voice was strangely brittle. “You’re engaged to be married?”
“Not yet. I will be, soon.” Before breakfast, he hoped. God, he was hungry. If she lost another roll from that basket, it would never reach the hounds.
“And you intend to marry your bride here? In Buckleigh-in-the-Moor?”
“I know the village church isn’t the grandest, but it’ll do. Wouldn’t make sense to go elsewhere, now would it? Travel would be hard on your father.”
She gave him a look of utter bemusement. “You wish to be married here. In this remote village. Simply so my father can be a guest at your wedding.”
“Well, I thought you’d want him there.”
“My lord, why on earth would I care if my father attends your wedding?”
The corners of Rhys’s mouth twitched with amusement. Hell, he suspected he was close to grinning, and he didn’t grin. Ever. But he was rather looking forward to learning how it felt.
Awareness sharpened her gaze. “Oh no,” she said.
Oh, no?
Oh no, indeed. That wasn’t the reaction he wanted. This would all be much easier if she’d simply accept the rightness of it. The inevitability.
But it wasn’t him she’d focused on. Her gaze trained on a spot somewhere behind his left shoulder. “Here comes your welcoming committee.”
He turned around. Coming toward him were the two brawling apes from last night—Bull and Beak to him; he couldn’t remember their real names—surrounded by a dozen other men. Rhys recognized some of them from the inn yesterday, but other faces were new.
To a one, they all carried flaming torches.
“Ashworth,” Bull said, “we’ve come to escort you out of the village. For good.”
Inside the stables, Rhys could hear the ponies growing restless and uneasy. He was uneasy, too. He couldn’t abide open flames this close to a horse barn. But the band of fools holding the torches … they inspired nothing in him but derision.
“Harold and Laurence Symmonds, what the devil are you doing with torches?” Meredith asked. “It’s full daylight, you idiots.”
“Go inside to your father,” Rhys murmured to Meredith. “Make certain he’s safe. I’ll handle this.”
She disappeared into the stables.
Rhys stepped toward the center of the courtyard. “Very well. You’ve got my attention. Now say what it is you mean to say.”
Harold Symmonds spat in the dirt. “The Ashworths were a scourge on this village. Fire burned Nethermoor Hall to the ground fourteen years ago and drove your folk from the moors forever. You should have stayed away, too. Now we’re here with these torches to show you, fire will run you off the moor again.”
“Ah,” Rhys said, scratching his neck. “And yet I seem to be standing in place.”
A gunshot cracked through the air.
Rhys wheeled around, searching for its source. He didn’t have to search hard. Gideon Myles stood in the doorway of the stables, smoking pistol in hand.
“You peat-for-brains idiots. I’ve a wagonload of”—he threw a glance at Rhys—“of dry goods in this barn, and I’ll put a lead ball in each of you before I’ll allow you to burn it down around my ears.”
The mob was abashed.
“It was all his idea.” Laurence jabbed a thumb toward his companion.
“It was not, you lying cur!”
Here they went again.
Laurence made a sweeping gesture with his torch, sending men leaping backward to avoid being singed. The two faced off, circling one another in the middle of the courtyard. Their band of followers, who’d clearly come on this errand for its amusement value, seemed happy enough to attend another fisticuffs in lieu of a lynching.