Page 105 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
Chapter 21
Ascant mileback on the path trod by the big red-haired man and his retainer, the dark haired woman stopped her cart in the narrowest section of road. She handed a mallet to the man in the back.
The cart bed shimmied and pitched as they both climbed down, the mare rolling her eyes in a foolish fashion.
“Cálmate, querida cora—” She caught herself and stroked the horse’s nose.
She had slipped from the English. She did not usually do that. Seeing the girl with the besotted man she’d taken as a lover was making her heart ache just a bit. How foolish they both were, like this lovely horse, not knowing that she, Mrs. Nichols, was here to help them.
She went to work on the tack, ignoring the man’s stare, while keeping an eye on his movements. He was one of two ruffians she’d hired for a great deal of money.
She clucked her tongue at the horse as she worked, and led her away from the traces. The cart dipped on the shafts.
“Now,” she said.
He grinned, smashing at the spokes, destroying one wheel and pushing the cart on its side, blocking the road completely. Shaldon’s noble son would stop for this cart. He would wonder if the girl had been on it.
The brute picked up the mallet and approached. She slid a hand into a pocket and he stopped, a sly grin revealing yellowed, gapped teeth. “Is there aught else, Mrs. Nichols?”
As anom de guerre, Mrs. Nichols was working out well. A dropping of the eyelids, a turn down of the lips, a ducking of the head, and no one questioned a soldier’s foreign widow, especially not one so clearly struggling to, as the English said,keep up appearances. Therehadbeen those sideways looks, filled with speculation. After all, she was today a Frenchwoman, and not so far past the breeding age.
However, she’d seen right away, with all the laborers traipsing about, she’d stick out following the girl’s path from Scotland.
She whipped her hand out, a coin flying at him. The mallet fell softly, and he snatched up the bit of silver. “That’s the rest of your payment.”
Mouth curling, his gaze on her narrowed. The smaller of the two men, he’d come along for this last bit of work.
After he’d used that mallet on his comrade.
Another coin flew. “And this for that extra bit of trouble.”
He rubbed both coins together. “An’ how ‘bout an extra bit of summat else?”
These English men were no different than the Spanish, no different than the French, no different than the Portuguese, the Austrians, the Italians, the Belgians.
Men were men, and it was blissful they could not see past the shape of her bosom.
“Here we are, all alone,” he growled.
She brought out the pistol, making him smirk.
“Here now. Don’t want to use that. They’ll hear the blast in the next county and come running.”
“Oh.” She let her voice and hand quiver. “You are most certainly right.”
He stepped closer, and she edged back, the brush at the side of the road catching her skirts. Her boot slipped in a muddy patch and she went down on one knee, the pistol hitting the soft dirt a yard from her.
His cackle cracked the silence, his eyes flitting between her and the gun.
“There now,” he said. “Knew we’d come to an agreement.” He nudged the gun aside with his foot and began fumbling with his fall. “Lift up your skirts and let’s have a go.”
She edged further down the embankment, closer to the overgrown hedge of a farmer’s field. “I’ve already paid you.”
“Well, you’re a little bit more, aren’t you, a little thing like you. And then there’s the rest of them coins in your—”
He choked, eyes widening, and grabbed for his throat where the dagger had stuck. He jerked at it, sending an arc of blood over the damp ground, and fell forward, releasing the blade.
She watched until the twitching stopped.
