Page 25 of The Heir's Fortune
“Right in what?” she asked, her breath catching, although why, she had no idea.
“I should have killed them.”
CHAPTER 9
Gideon knew he was being an ass as he prowled around their makeshift campsite, searching for more wood to build the fire to keep her warm.
It was not as though she was irrevocably harmed. A few welts were nothing that a proper ointment wouldn’t fix. And yet, the thought that the men had had their hands on her, that she had been vulnerable to them, had him seething with restless energy, even though he knew, rationally, that she was here and safe with him now.
He had to be sure to keep her that way.
“Gideon?”
He was immediately drawn to the soft, husky timbre of her voice. It stirred emotions within him that he had never before encountered.
Which was exactly why he always strove to avoid her.
“We should sleep,” she said, speaking softly, completely unaware of the effect she was having on him. “Tomorrow we shall have lots of explaining to do, and we will have to go to the proper authorities to have them find these men.”
“Do you think it wasDonRafael?”
Faith and Lord Ferrington had been chased by the Spaniard earlier in the year after they had stolen the map from his estate in San Sebastian. The fact that it had been within his family’s possession gave him cause to believe the treasure was meant to be his. According to the man’s servant, however, the treasure was never the Palencia family’s to begin with.
“He must have sent them,” Gideon said. “We will have to determine where he is right now. Whether he is still jailed or if he has escaped.”
Gideon could barely see her in the dim light that surrounded them from the paltry fire he had created and the glimpses of moonlight from above, but he could sense the hunch in her shoulders.
“Take the blanket,” he said, gesturing toward it, and she sank gratefully upon it, although she didn’t lie down.
“What will you do?”
“I’ll keep watch.”
“You said you didn’t think that we would be in any danger.”
“I don’t,” he said, for the truth was he wanted to allow her to sleep alone. They shouldn’t be here just the two of them as it was, but he was sure that this would be forgiven due to the circumstances. If he was to sleep next to her, it might be different.
At least, that’s what he told himself.
Although there was a greater reason that he didn’t want to explore – the fact that he mightwantthere to be more, and those emotions would be impossible to ignore if they were in such an intimate setting as lying next to one another.
“Very well,” she said as she lay down, wrapping the blanket around her.
Gideon tugged his cloak closer as he sat, leaning against a thick tree trunk, the fallen leaves creating a soft carpet beneathhim. At least Madeline should likely be comfortable, as an earthy scent filled the air around them.
There was a damp crispness to the air, and Gideon wasn’t sure if it was because they had stopped moving or if it was simply the time of night, but the temperature had dropped. He shivered as he allowed his eyes to close for a moment, the high alertness that had filled him for the entirety of the day dropping but an inch.
The leaves rustled in the trees around him as the cold breeze still found him, even in the dense thicket they found themselves in.
An owl’s call echoed through the sky, an answering howl resounding, to which one of the horse’s nervously whinnied in response and pawed the ground.
“It’s all right,” Gideon called out softly, hoping to soothe the animal. “They’re far from us.”
Whether he was reassuring the animals or Madeline, he wasn’t certain, but when he glanced her way, he could tell from the tense hold of her body that she was not yet sleeping.
He squinted in the dark. She was only a few feet from him, and as he moved closer to her, he realized that she wasn’t just tense – she was shaking.
“Madeline?” he said in a low voice. “Are you all right?”
