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He leaned down to nip at her neck, his words heating the sensitive dip behind her ear. “Because I can barely walk for all you’ve put me through in the last fourteen hours.”
She laughed. “I doubt that. If anyone is limping about, it’s me.”
He stood straight as he gave a nod to a passing gentleman. “We’re here because I remember how much you liked to gather up the crabs at the shore in Belize and then race them. I especially remember how you would always lose bets to me.”
“Lose?” She chuckled. “You do not recall correctly, my addled almost-husband.”
He shrugged with a grin. “We’ll have to remember that one differently, then.” He took a sip from his own glass and then pointed out to the field. “And we are also here for that one—a horse of mine is running.”
“It is?” Her look swiveled to him and then shot out along his pointing finger to the sleek, dark brown mare stepping lively as its groom tried to keep it calm. “You never said you owned race horses.”
“I don’t. I usually just fix the races.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye with a devil smirk playing at his lips. “But my cousin, Frederick, the soon-to-be ex-duke, entered one of the finest horses in the Leaven stables in a race today. He knows what is coming for him—complete ruin after the title is stripped from him—and if my hunch is correct, he has placed a healthy wager on his horse winning—and then an even healthier wager on his horse losing.”
She took a sip of her punch. “Why two bets?”
“One private bet to make money on, one public bet to make it appear as though he isn’t having the jockey throw the race.”
Pen exhaled, watching the horse. “Clever.”
“Either way, it’ll be my horse in another month. I just want to make sure it isn’t overrun.”
Her eyebrows lifted at him. “So, you have no nefarious purposes here today?”
“Unless you count dragging you behind that far-off line of coaches and having my way with you, then no. No nefarious purposes. In another month I’ll have to sell off most of my current…unsavory…investments as it is. There’s no time like the present to start walking the straight and narrow path.”
Her free hand threaded into the crook of his arm. “I am proud of you.”
An awkward half-smile lifted the side of his face. He wasn’t convinced the straight and narrow path was the one for him, but he was doing it for her. She’d take it.
Pen took another sip of her punch and looked at the crowd out to her right. The races hadn’t started yet, so the people were still in full mingling mode, conversations abounding. “Is he here?”
“Who?”
“Your cousin.”
“Yes.” Strider stepped to his left and spun her to face the roadway into the racing grounds. “He’s near that line of carriages, skulking about, as is his character.” He scanned the field where the coaches were lined, one after another, then pointed. “There. By the tail end of that odd curricle painted purple. Frederick is the one that doesn’t have a hat on.”
Pen found the purple curricle, then spotted the man, his top hat in hand, talking to two other men with top hats in place atop their heads.
Her blood froze in her veins.
She squinted and moved forward, her legs as heavy as stones, step after step until she could see the man clearly. Until she could see what she couldn’t believe.
Every nerve in her body spiked, her breath choking away, and she started to pant, gasping for air. “Who, who is he?”
Strider had followed her steps, his brow furrowed. “Who? What?”
The glass in her fingers dropped to the ground and her voice screeched, her hand waving, her forefinger jabbing in the air toward the men by the purple carriage. “That man—him—the one with the hat in his hand. The one on the left, talking. That one.”
“My cousin?” Strider put his hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her.
She jerked her shoulder from under his hand, her head shaking, hysterics flying from her mouth. “Your cousin—no—that’s not your cousin—I know him—I know that man. I know him.”
“Pen, stop, breathe.” Strider set his drink on the ground and stepped in front of her, blocking the view of his cousin as he grabbed both of her shoulders to steady her. “What are you talking about? You know him from where?”
Her eyes squeezed shut as her mind sank far back into the past. Back to Belize. Back to the night of the fire. The flash of the sound that woke her up ringing in her ears. Getting up from her bed and rubbing her eyes. Dragging her feet to Strider’s room to find him still asleep in his bed. Turning around and jerking to a stop at his doorway, her toes almost squashed by a man running past his bedroom door. A man so big. His hand ran into her, shoving her back so he didn’t trip over her. Stopping. Looking down at her. The face. The same face. The pistol in his hand.
Her eyes still closed and lost in the memory, Pen swayed on her feet, Strider’s grip on her the only thing keeping her standing. Her words tumbled out, madcap, her head shaking. “It was him—he was there—I thought it was a dream—a dream—I always thought it was a dream—but he was there, it was real—”
