Page 80 of Married to the Earl

And Betsy would be there. Betsy would sit up with Astrid as late as Astrid liked. It was part of her job as a lady’s maid, but she also seemed to enjoy the conversation.

I’ll tell her all about what happened today at the Angry Boar, Astrid thought.It will be good practice for when I have to tell Conor about it, and Betsy will give me some idea of how a normal person might respond to such a tale.

Also, she had to admit, she was proud of her exploits. She was proud of her cunning plan and her daring in carrying it off. She wanted to brag a little.

And after that,she thought,perhaps I’ll stay up late reading for a while. Or maybe I’ll enjoy a nice warm bath. I’ve had a hard few days, and I think I deserve to do something kind for myself. Besides, it would be good to scrub herself clean, to get herself looking good for Conor, when he came home. He would appreciate that.

The carriage slowed, then pulled to a stop.

Astrid sat forward, confused. They couldn’t have arrived at the manor yet, could they? They hadn’t been on the road long enough.

She pulled back the curtain and looked out the window, but all she could see was blackness.

Definitely not the manor, then. There were lanterns lighting the path leading up to Middleborough Manor. Even if one or two of them had gone out—which they wouldn’t, because they were well tended—it was unthinkable that someone would have to approach in the dark like this.

She was just about to get out and ask the driver what was going on when she heard a loud noise, like the crack of the world’s most powerful whip.

What was that?

But she knew. She knew by the spray of red that flecked against the glass of the carriage. She knew by the sudden shouts from outside, triumphant and outraged at the same time.

A gun. That was a gunshot.

They shot the driver.

Her body froze. She needed to run, to get away from here, but there was nowhere to go. The voices surrounded the carriage now. There was no way she could leave without running straight into whoever had fired that gun.

And they knew she was here. Of course, they knew. There was no point in having a carriage if you didn’t have a passenger. In fact, Astrid thought, they probably knew exactly who the passenger was.

The only thing for miles on this path out of town is Middleborough Manor, she thought.With Conor in jail, I’m the only one likely to be returning there at this time of night. This is an attack specifically targeting me.

Why? Why did they want her? Whowerethey?

Could it be a coincidence that this was the day she had visited Killian O’Flannagan? What if everything he’d said to her at the Angry Boar was a lie? What if hehadbeen party to the murder of Lord Hayward?

He wouldn't have wanted to kill me in his pub, she thought wildly.But here on the road, with no one watching…

Or maybe that was wrong. Maybe it was someone else altogether. She was the wife of an earl, after all. She must have considerable worth to a lot of people.

She looked frantically around the carriage, trying to find someplace to hide. Of course, it was a lost cause. If there had been a steamer trunk in here, as there had on the day of her move up to Middleborough Manor, she might have tried to cram herself inside it. But even that would have been a painfully obvious strategy, and she would have expected to be found within moments.

The voices drew closer. Astrid shrank back into the seat, trembling.

Thank God I didn’t persuade Father to stay with me, she thought.If they’re here to kill me, it’s just as well they didn’t get him too.

The door of the carriage creaked open.

The barrel of a pistol preceded a grinning man Astrid didn’t recognize into the carriage. “Good evening, Lady Middleborough,” he said.

Chapter 32

The sound of the cell door creaking open jerked Conor from his uneasy sleep.

He couldn’t believe he had fallen asleep at all. It still seemed surreal that he was here, in jail for murder. His fine clothes looked out of place here. He felt dirty and uncomfortable, and he wanted nothing more than to go home.

The other prisoners had been whistling and hollering at him for some time—it amused them, it seemed, to have an earl in their midst—but they were quiet now. Conor wondered whether they had all fallen asleep too.

It occurred to him that he had no idea what time of day or night it might be. That was disorienting.

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