“We go back to London,” Thomas said, breaking the heavy silence. “We stick with the original plan. I surrender to the king. We try to find the satchel before the trial. If we canna,” he paused and then looked around at all gathered. “You take George and run like the devil.”
“Tommy,” Effie whispered. “Henrywill hang you.”
But Thomas was looking directly at Lucan now. “If I canna get close enough to her before I’m done in, you kill Caris Hargrave, d’ye hear?” Thomas’s gaze never left Lucan’s face. “You make sure that bitch is dead. I’ve spent me whole life running from Hargraves. Being frightened of me own shadow. I’m done runnin’. I trust in God that he will at the last hour preserve me, and if He do nae?” Tommy gave a half shrug and a shake of his head. “I’mdone runnin’.”
“Thomas,” Lucan began.
“Nay. I’ll nae be swayed. And I’ll have nae more talk of it.” He stood and picked up his pack. “Let’s go chasea hooded man.”
Effie was stone still for a moment, staring at her father, and in that pose, Lucan could see Thomas’s profile in his daughter’s jawline. Her eyes were glossy with unshed tears.
Effie stood from the bench. “Mount up.”
Gorman clapped his hands once loudly. “You heard him—let’s go chasea hooded man!”
The common room expanded with shuffling sounds then. All the members of the band left a coin on the trestle for the poor innskeep before walking out the front door. Lucan leaned over to place his coin and saw that James Rose was now staring at him, with the same intensity as Winnie had done. The young man said nothing though, merely shrugged his pack higher on his shoulder and preceded Lucan into the overcast morning.
And Lucan realized Tommy was no longer the only member of the band with a price on his head.
Chapter 18
Effie kept as much space as was reasonably possible between herself and Lucan Montague without attracting undue attention. Sitting at her bowl of porridge earlier that morning, waiting with bated breath for him to appear, her stomach had been in knots. Her worst fear was that he would make a scene about the night they’dspent together.
Or that he would act no differently at all.
How foolish, how shallow she had been, to think of either of those things as the worst that could happen.
She could see him now, riding vanguard next to her father, as Effie rode at Winnie’s side behind the group of women they would leave at the Swan. Lucan looked no different from any other time she’d watched him from the saddle, and yet she knew now what lay beneath that fine, black, quilted gambeson. She knew that the thickness of his thighs were so much more than revealed by the trousers he wore. She knew the intimate curve of his buttocks behind his hips, the carved muscles in his chest, the way his neck tasted beneath his hair. She knew the very length and power of him.
Her mounted seat was uncomfortable as they rode south east, but each twinge only reminded her of the reckless passion they’d shared. One flesh together, and despite her self-loathing, it hadbeen so sweet.
Effie could feel Winnie’s eyes on her still, and so she gathered her courage and glanced to the right.“Are you well?”
The old woman nodded mildly, her gaze keen, inquisitive.
Are you?
“I’ve been better.” Effie turned her eyes ahead, but heard the whispery snap of Winnie’s fingers. The old woman kept her signs low and hidden from the riders behind them.
You came to bed late last night. Youwere with him.
Effie didn’t respond. How could she? Anything she said at thispoint was moot.
It’s not like you.
Effie couldn’t speak aloud her next query.Does Gorman know?
If he doesn’t, he will soon. Seeing the two of you together made me want to weep. You can hide it not.
Effie felt her chin flinch, her breath catch in her chest. “Are you angry with me?” she asked aloud, her voice husky with shame and also with resentment.
Winnie’s sparse, gray eyebrows rose.Why angry? I want you to be happy.
Effie was surprised by the answer. “Then why did you say you wanted to weep?”
Things will change,she signed.The old days are gone. The Family will never be the same.
“We don’t know that,” Effie argued.
