Page 108 of Counting on a Countess
“Fuck,” he said aloud.
He’d lost his heart to her. Yet she’d played him false from the very beginning.
She worked in direct opposition to the Crown. For over a decade, he’d fought to protect his king and country, and all the while, she defied English law. And she had dragged him into her criminal world when she’d agreed to become his wife. Her callous disregard for the sacrifices of good men was anathema to everything he’d championed. But it hadn’t mattered in the face of her criminality.
When he reached the house, stone encased him. His movements were heavy as he slipped inside, still careful to keep from being heard. Tired beyond reckoning, he climbed the stairs.
Part of him shouted that he should pack his belongings and ride away. Far from her.
Instead, he entered Tamsyn’s bedchamber. He pulled a chair into the center of the room and sat.
Many times, he’d readied himself before ambushing the enemy. In that tense silence, he’d checked and rechecked his rifle, mentally reviewing how the ambush was supposed to transpire so that nothing could be left to chance. He had to be certain of his opponents’ defeat to keep his own fear at bay.
This time, he wasn’t armed with his Baker rifle. As he waited for his wife’s return, he armed himself with her lies.
Chapter 27
Tamsyn’s very marrow ached with weariness as she climbed the stairs and made her way toward her bedchamber. She’d never known such exhaustion, but that was the price of stretching herself thin for so long. For the first time in years, she had declined joining everyone at the Tipsy Flea for a postrun celebration.
She prayed for a deep, dreamless sleep, and was already beginning to unfasten the top buttons of her bodice when she opened the door to her room.
She barely had time to swallow her yelp of shock.
Fully dressed, Kit sat in a chair in the middle of the room.
His face was a mask as she shut the door behind her. He held his body rigidly, his hands tightly gripping the chair’s arms.
Her weary mind leapt into action, searching for an excuse as to why she was awake, clothed, and roaming the hallways.
“Don’t.” His voice was low and flat. “Don’t think of an explanation.” He stood, and she instinctively backed up, until she pressed against the door. “I know.”
Her stomach pitched and the room tilted. There was no need to ask himwhathe knew. She understood. Somehow, he’d found out.
“Outside,” she said quickly. “We can talk away from the house. I don’t want anyone to hear us.”
He lifted a brow. “Your aunt and uncle aren’t aware?”
“Please,” she said, raising her palm. “We must go outside. I’ll tell you everything.”
That seemed to momentarily mollify him. They left her chamber and she moved back down the stairs and out the rear door of the house. As she wove through the weed-choked garden, Kit’s looming presence remained at her back. He said nothing, yet she could feel his anger in unseen waves.
Like a prisoner walking to their execution, she exited the garden through a gate, moving on until she reached a fence at the edge of a barley field. Her sense of self-preservation screamed for her to run and never come back. Yet he would catch her if she tried, and it was pointless to flee.
She felt the slightest gleam of relief. The lies could stop now. Everything would be out in the open, and her deception—of Kit, at least—was at an end.
“How?” she asked, turning to face him. The night’s darkness wreathed him in shadow, but she sensed his furious expression. “How did you find out?”
“I followed you,” he answered. “Down to the dead end in the corridors beneath the house.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
He gave a humorless laugh. “That’s because I was a damned good soldier.” After a moment, he asked, “Did you build them—the corridors, the false wall with the door?”
“No,” she answered. “My grandfather saw what happened to the aristocrats in France, and was terrified that the thirst for noble blood would spread across the Channel. He hired Irish workers to construct an escape route from the house. It was only happenstance that there are also caverns beneath the manor. That’s where...” She swallowed. “That’s where we store the brandy and lace when they’re brought ashore. There’s another passageway that leads from the cavern to the stone shed you saw yesterday.”
“The spiders’ home,” he said acidly.
A throb passed through her at the mention of her distraction. “A week after the goods are delivered, we bring them up to the shed, load them into our buyer’s waiting wagon, and then he proceeds from there.”
