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CHAPTERSIX
Ash watched her climb in the carriage with Arabella, his chest tight and aching. She’d been frightened. This was the woman he’d seen attempting to escape thieves. Who’d found hiding places in plain sight.
But she was afraid now.
And part of him wished to pull her back against his side, but he knew she was safe with Arabella. So, he let her go.
“I’ll be back, I’m just going to collect our things.” There wasn’t much. A quarter hour later, in fact, he was on his horse at the front of the group with Lockton.
Edge and Clubs took up the back, and they started riding into the night.
“What a shite trip this has been, eh?” Lockton grumbled as they rode.
“It’s been difficult,” he muttered back, not really in the mood to discuss the events that had unfolded.
Lockton gave him a sidelong glance. “Has it been made easier or harder to have a beautiful woman clinging to your side?”
Ash’s jaw clenched. He should have seen that question coming. “It’s not like that.”
“Not like what? The clinging? She most certainly was,” he said in his Scottish accent, chuckling. His long dark hair swept over his shoulders. “Feck, if she isn’t the spitting image of Arabella. Odd. Do they look like their father? Because Bash and Baxter look nothing like them.”
It was yet another mystery that Ash had no answers for. “I’ve no idea. I wonder if Bash or Baxter has any answers.”
“Do you think the brothers are on their way to us now?”
“I’m not certain.”
Lockton was damned chatty today. East never was much of a talker, but today more than most, his thoughts resided with Lily and what was happening with her in the carriage.
“Worried about her?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You’re distracted as all hell.”
He swallowed down a lump, sure that Lockton was right. “She’s scared. I had to shoot to get her out of the kidnapper’s possession. And now we’re dragging her north and then south again.”
“She’s not exactly like Arabella, is she? Arabella would have likely killed her own way out.”
That was true. “She does have some significant strengths, and in some ways, she’s been through far more than Arabella. She had to survive on her own for a few years before Bash found her.”
Lockton grunted. “But now she has you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I know when a man has decided to protect a woman. And you’re set on protecting her.”
True. He’d not deny it. “So, what is our move here?”
Lockton grimaced. “While Arabella can fight, Lizzie most certainly can’t. We’ve got a serious disadvantage in that way compared to the men who are chasing us.”
“Yes, that’s true, Lily’s not a fighter.”
Lockton nodded. “I think that means we run as fast and as far as we can.”
Ash nodded, though he didn’t like the idea of the criminals nipping at their heels all the way back to London. And once they got there, he had no idea where Lily would go.
“Lily has a theory that her brothers might be behind this somehow.”
