Page 52 of The Lady’s No Angel

Leo looked sick, and she knew instinctively that he would blame himself, when it was no one’s fault.

Angel’s heart banged behind her ribs as the fear that they would not find Toby became all too real. She took a breath, steadying herself and looking around them, studying the landscape.

To their right, a stocky if rather lopsided shape caught her eye, silhouetted against the last of the light. Was it a building? Or what remained of one?

“What’s that?”

Leo followed her gaze, frowning. “Stay here,” he told them. “I’ll go ahead on foot and see if I can pick up the tracks going that way.”

Angel nodded. “Be careful.”

“Always, love.”

Moving quietly, he tied his horse to the back of the gig and hurried away, remarkably stealthy for a man of his size.

“What shall we do if he’s there?” Milly asked, sounding utterly terrified.

Angel considered this. If Milly was frightened, she’d be more of a hindrance than a help. Turning to her, she reached for Milly’s hand. “This is likely to be bad. If you want to stay out of it—”

As she watched, Milly’s eyes sparked, anger flashing there of the kind she had never seen before. “Now, you listen here,” Milly said, her voice firm. “You might be Black Jack’s granddaughter, but I’ve become right fond of that boy. He’s like a little brother to me, and if you think—”

“No,” Angel said on a sigh of relief. “Oh, no, Milly. I just didn’t want you to do anything you didn’t wish to do.”

Milly harrumphed and crossed her arms. “If I get my hands on that woman, I’ll show you what I wish to do, and no mistake.”

The pony huffed and sighed, shifting from foot to foot as the sky grew darker and the first drops of icy rain fell.

“Oh, perfect,” Angel muttered as they huddled under the canopy of the hood. Around them the heath seemed to come alive, the undergrowth rustling with the scurry of night creatures.

“What’s that?”

Milly clutched Angel’s arm, almost making her leap out of her skin, but a moment later a familiar deep voice reached them.

“It’s me.”

Milly let out a shaky breath and released her death grip. Angel rubbed her arm, which felt rather bruised, as Leo appeared out of the gloom.

“That building is nothing more than a shed. I think it was a hay store at one time, but a little farther on, there’s a stone barn. I saw a light flickering inside. I think it’s them.”

“How big is the barn?” Angel asked, trying to picture it. “How many ways in?”

Leo shrugged. “Not very, perhaps thirty feet long, with two usable ways in. Big doors for getting a cart in and out, and a smaller one at the side.”

Angel ran her cold hands over the pistol in her lap as she considered. “You said the shed had been a hay store? Is there any left, or anything that will burn?”

“Burn?” Milly asked in alarm, staring at her.

Angel nodded. “Not enough to set the barn alight, but to smoke them out. Hay smokes horribly. If we could set it alight by the main doors, it would force them to leave via the smaller door. Easier to deal with them.”

“Yes,” Leo said slowly. “I reckon there was enough to do that, but they’ll know it’s a trap.”

“They will,” she admitted. “But it will get them out in the open and force them to do as we want. We just need to judge the fire carefully, so it smoulders and doesn’t blaze. It’s a stone barn and the weather is so wet, I don’t think there’s much of a risk it will catch the whole thing alight even if it burns hot. It’ll do the job.”

“Clever.”

Angel wished the stakes were not so high, and that she might take a moment to relish the admiration in Leo’s eyes, but there was no time to lose. Despite what she had told Milly, she did not trust the wicked creature who had taken Toby. Anyone who could speak so easily of disfiguring a child right in front of him was not to be trusted an inch.

“Well then, love. What do you want us to do?”