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“Y-yes.” She straightened immediately, her back as straight as ever, and a pang tore at his heart. If ever she were hurt, if ever he could not protect her . . .
The maid was trembling violently. Melisande let go of the dog and pulled the girl into her arms, patting her back comfortingly. “It’s all right. Lord Vale and Mr. Pynch have kept us safe.”
Mouse jumped to the floor of the carriage and growled at the dead robber.
Pynch cleared his throat. “We’ve captured one of the highwaymen, my lord. The other galloped away.”
Jasper looked at him. Gunpowder blackened half of Pynch’s face. Jasper grinned. His valet had always been an excellent shot.
“Help me get this one out of the carriage,” he told Pynch. “Melisande, please stay here until we are sure it’s safe.”
She nodded bravely, her chin up. “Of course.”
And even though Pynch and the maid were watching, Jasper couldn’t help leaning over to kiss her hard. It had all happened so fast. If things had turned out a little differently, he might’ve lost her.
Jasper scrambled from the carriage, eager to meet the man who’d put his sweet wife in danger. First, though, he helped Pynch pull the kyncmbldead robber out of the carriage. He hoped Melisande hadn’t looked too closely. He’d crushed the robber’s cheekbone and temple.
Mouse jumped down from the carriage.
Jasper straightened. “Where is he?”
“Over here, my lord.” Pynch gestured to a tree by the side of the road where several footmen stood over a recumbent figure. Mouse trailed behind them, sniffing the ground.
Jasper nodded and asked as they walked to the group, “Anyone shot?”
“Bob the footman has a graze on his arm,” Pynch reported. “No one else was hit.”
“You’ve checked?” In the dark, with all the excitement, sometimes a man could be shot and not even know it.
But Pynch had been in the army as well. “Yes, my lord.”
Jasper nodded. “Good man. Have a footman light some more lanterns. Light drives away all manner of vermin.”
“Yes, my lord.” Pynch headed back to the carriage.
“And what have we here?” Jasper asked as he came on the group of footmen.
“One of the robbers, my lord,” Bob said.
He held a cloth against his upper right arm, but the pistol in his hand was steady and pointed at their prisoner. Pynch arrived with a lantern, and they all looked down at the robber. He wasn’t much more than a child, a boy not yet twenty, his chest bleeding profusely. Mouse sniffed the boy, then lost interest and urinated on the tree.
“He’s still alive?” Jasper asked.
“Just barely,” Pynch said impassively. It must’ve been his shot that had brought the boy off his horse, but Pynch didn’t show any pity.
Then again, this boy had held a gun on them. He could’ve shot Melisande. A horrible image of Melisande lying where the boy was rose up in Jasper’s mind. Melisande with her chest blown open. Melisande struggling to draw air into shattered lungs.
Jasper turned away. “Leave him.”
“No.”
He looked up and saw Melisande, standing outside the carriage despite his explicit orders to stay inside.
“Madam?”
She didn’t back down, though his tone was chilly. “Have him brought with us, Jasper.”
He stared at her, illuminated by lantern light, looking ethereal and fragile. Too fragile. He said gently, “He could’ve killed you, my heart.”
