While Kincaid grunted himself down from his perch favoring the tear in his chest and saw to their horse, Perry slid off, helped Jane and Edie down, and hefted a laden basket from the cart bed.
Her boots squished in the mud leading up to the kitchen door.
“Ever so foul,” Lady Jane muttered. “Steward and ’ousekeeper ort to be sacked.”
“Aye,” Edie said.
Now they were here, Perry’s insides tingled. She smiled at Lady Jane. In her plain gown and white cap, she could pass for an upper story servant. And what accent was that?
She reached the door first but waited for Kincaid, as they’d agreed. He tried the latch. It didn’t budge.
“What the divil,” he said, and winked at them. “No key under a brick somewhere, Edie?”
“Nay. Never.”
“Well, then, I’ve a key.” Perry pulled her set of picks from a pocket.
Kincaid snorted. He surely had his own set hidden somewhere, but he took her basket with his good arm and stepped aside to let her to do the honors.
As poorly kept as everything else on this manor, the mechanism gave way quickly, flaking off rust when the picks came out.
Kincaid set his hand over hers on the latch and fixed her with a firm stare. “Allow me.”
She stepped out of the way and watched the door creak open.
Kincaid slid a hand under the cloth in the basket for the extra pistol lying there.
At the backof the property, Fox slipped through the brush as quietly as when he was a young man hunting game in the backwoods of New England. Farnsworth and MacEwen had fanned out, moving with just as much stealth. It seemed that a peer, a Scotsman, and a humble colonial could work together. He hoped so, for Perry’s sake.
Leaving her to go in alone with the others…his heart stuttered. He’d given into the plan, reluctantly, but he’d make his way through these blasted woods and catch up and—
A twig cracked, an arm raised, and he ducked just in time, a knife slashing down into the empty air where he’d been standing. He lunged and slapped his hand over a mouth, plunging his own blade into that same spongy place that he’d hit on Harv. This man groaned and writhed and finally stilled.
Fox turned the assailant over, his stomach rolling with this bundle of bones and sinew. The boy’s chin was pimply and practically hairless. A search turned up no other weapons but the knife, and Fox tucked that away.
The air rustled and Farnsworth appeared at his side. Two more, he signaled and pointed.
Fox took one, Farnsworth, the other. These two were older. He and Farnsworth made quick work of them and plunged on.
Perry needed him. Every moment she stayed on this property, she was in danger.
He forced himself to focus. She wasn’t alone—Kincaid was crafty, Lady Jane was no ninny hammer, and Perry had weapons. Add to all that, Sir Richard would want to keep her alive, at least for a while.
They skirted the overgrown green surrounding the manor and cleared the stable buildings, prepared for the worst, but they only encountered several horses and an elderly stable hand who quickly raised his arms in surrender.
Fox went to work tying him up. “Where are the rest of the hands?”
A stream of spittle flew past Farnsworth, and Fox paused. It hadn’t been aimed at Farnsworth, he decided. Nor did his lordship look offended. No need to clock this old fellow.
“Ain’t never enough hands,” the old man grumbled. “And that Harv didna’ bother to come home last night.”
The words teased a stray thread in Fox’s brain. “Nor will he. Cocked up his boots, he has. And if you’ll be a gentleman, we’ll see you cut loose later, and you won’t wind up like Harv.” He nicked the tie in the old man’s kerchief and pulled the cloth from his neck.
“How many are in the house?” Farnsworth asked.
A low, unintelligible grumble rolled out.
Farnsworth leaned in with enough menace to prevent any more flying spit. “How many?”
