Page 68 of Snowbound with the Scoundrel
“Claire?”Rupert asked, trailing after her.“What’s—”
She seized his hand in another of those vice-like grips you wouldn’t think she would have, on account of her being such a lissome young thing.“Look!”
Striding purposefully across the snow-covered grass was none other than their new primary suspect, Phyllis Cuthbert.
At the entrance to the hedge maze, she paused and looked around, as if checking to see if anyone was watching.
Beside him, Claire gasped, and Rupert’s heart sank into his boots.
“I think Phyllis just made a dizzying ascent up the list of suspects,” Claire whispered.
Rupert wasn’t about to disagree.Because clutched in Phyllis’s hand was a pistol, glinting in the crisp December sunlight.
Chapter28
They ran hell-for-leather across the gardens to the entrance of the maze.
Rupert was struggling to formulate a plan—a tricky proposition for him during the best of times, and this was decidedly not the best of times, when the woman he loved was about to run headlong into a hedge maze so she could confront a crazed spinster with a gun.
At the entrance to the maze, he grabbed Claire’s arm.“Did you bring your pistol?”
Her face paled.“I forgot it.I was so flustered this morning, and—”
He withdrew his own gun from the waistband of his trousers.“Take mine,” he said, pressing it into her hands.
She pulled her hands back.“I couldn’t possibly—”
“I insist,” Rupert said, and something about his expression must’ve given her to know that he wouldn’t be gainsaid in this, because for once in her life, Clarissa Weatherby didn’t argue.
“All right,” she said, her voice clipped with nerves.“Thank you.”
He studied her.Her eyes had a flighty quality about them.He knew she was as scared as he was.“Are you sure you want to do this, Claire?”he asked softly.
She nodded jerkily.“I do.It’s my job, and I won’t have anyone saying I quit as soon as the going got tough.”
Rupert sighed.“I was afraid you would say that.”He cleared his throat.“Well, then.You go right, I go left?”
She nodded again.He was just about to head in when she added, “And Rupert?”
He turned, and she grabbed him by the cravat with her free hand, hauling him in.She kissed him the way Andromache must’ve kissed Hector before he headed off to face Achilles in single combat, the way Juliet kissed Romeo before she plunged that dagger into her heart.She kissed him like it was the most important thing she would ever do.It was a kiss that made him feel precious, made him feel like he was good enough, made him feel like maybe, just maybe, she cared about him, too.
They were both breathing hard by the time they broke apart.“Be careful!”Clarissa said fiercely.
Rupert touched her cheek, hoping his eyes would tell her everything he had in his heart.“You too, Claire.”
Then they turned and ran in opposite directions into the maze.
Rupert had been inside the hedge maze at Castle Helmsley before, but not so often that he knew where he was going.He immediately got turned around and hopelessly discombobulated, but he figured that was to be expected, and the thing was to keep going.
He tried to creep silently along and not give away his approach.But time was of the essence, so he was attempting to do this at a run, and he knew he had to look a right idiot doing a ridiculous sprinting tiptoe with his arms flapping around for balance.
An opening appeared in the wall of hedges to his left, leading him deeper into the maze.He paused to peer around the corner.He didn’t see anyone and couldn’t hear anything but the hiss of the wind.
He guessed left but quickly ran into a solid wall of greenery.Turning around, he started back the way he’d come, and that was when he heard Rosalind’s voice from a few rows over.
“Oh, my—Phyllis!”Nervous laughter floated over the top of the hedge.“You startled me.”
“On edge, cousin?”Phyllis’s voice held a note of poison.
