Page 96 of Thief Taker

Kicking his heels into Nero’s flank, Kit crouched low over his neck as the whipping branches flew overhead and he plunged off the road and into the copse. Trees closed around him, the safety of the heath beckoning. Then a fourth gunshot ricocheted through the dark and a flare of hot pain sliced his right arm.

He’d been shot.

Shock punched the breath from his lungs, sent his left hand fumbling his pistol to clutch at the reins as Nero broke through the trees and onto the heath.

Elias had shot him…

Bewildered, all he could do was hold on and wait for the night to swallow him whole.

Chapter 34

“Well, that was a right bloody shambles.” Groves paced across the road to stand at Elias’s shoulder where he stood staring out onto the dark heath.

As if he needed to be told. As if the gun smoke in the air wasn’t sign enough. Wessex had been right there, right in his bloody hands—again!—and he’d lost him.

“I think I winged him,” he said after a silence. “I heard him cry out.”

Groves grunted. Behind them, Marlborough’s men were getting his carriage back on the road, calming the horses. He could hear Marlborough bleating from inside the coach, complaining about the delay.

Marlborough, who wasn’t bloody Wessex after all. Which meant Rowsley or—

“Cole.” Groves put a hand on his shoulder, turning him around. He resisted, not wanting to face the words that were coming. But Groves was insistent and, besides, he had a right.

With a sigh, Elias turned. “I’m sorry. We were so close.”

“Did you recognise him?” Groves said. When Elias didn’t reply, he added, “You could have shot him before he fled. The reward is the same, dead or alive.”

He could have. Perhaps, a month ago, he would have. If he’d known for sure who was behind the mask… “I didn’t want to risk hitting the horse.”

Groves scoffed, as he should. “You’d better come up with a better reason than that for letting him escape.” He nodded towards the carriage. “Marlborough ain’t the sort to give a farthing for horses. There’s plenty of men, still, who don’t like what we do at Bow Street. I can’t be giving them excuses for curtailing our authority.”

Elias glared. “Marlborough is a murdering bastard—”

“Lower your voice, for the love of God.”

“It’s true.”

Groves spread his hands. “I don’t care, unless you can prove it. More pressingly, we need to apprehend Wessex. Marlborough won’t let this go, and he’s a man with influential friends.”

“It must be Rowsley,” Elias said, dropping his voice and casting a quick glance at Marlborough’s men. “Wasn’t I right about him stopping Marlborough tonight? He was trying to take back what Marlborough won from him last night.” It made sense. Perfect sense. Except that Wessex had wielded his damned silver pistol in his left hand, and Rowsley was no cack-hander.

At least, so far as he knew.

In the moonlight, he could see Groves’s face well enough to notice his eyes narrow. “If you think I’m going to the magistrate to get a warrant for Viscount bloody Rowsley, on nothing but your suspicion, you’ve very much mistaken your man.”

Elias waved a hand, accepting his point. “I ain’t asking you to. I’ll take Rowsley in myself. And I’ll have the evidence to do it, now, won’t I?”

“And what’s that, then?”

He tapped his arm. “I winged him, Groves. If Rowsley’s been shot, then he’s our man.”

And if he hasn’t?

Behind them, with a great heave, Marlborough’s carriage rolled back onto the road. A couple of clouds scudded across the sky, the wind picking up, turning the moon misty and the night darker. Groves said, “If Rowsley’s shot, he’ll go to ground. He won’t advertise it.”

“Maybe. But he can’t stay away from the card tables for more than a night, and even if he could…” He swallowed the uneasy feeling in his throat. “I could have his brother call on him.”

Groves lifted an eyebrow. “You could have his brother call on him?”