“But not your little Clara,” Hetherington taunted knowingly. “Good God, man, she’s even younger than Isabel was when you married her.”

  Except Clara was absolutely nothing like Isabel, nor could she ever be.

  Clara was forthright and true, where Isabel would tell any number of lies to achieve her purpose.

  Clara was without artifice, whereas that was all Isabel was behind her beautiful face.

  Clara had said she loved him, and Ezra had no reason to disbelieve her, whereas Isabel had never loved him, only wished to use him to hide the fact she was—

  “Isabel is dead.”

  Ezra stared at the other man. “What?”

  The sneer returned. “Do not get your hopes up, Stone,” Hetherington scorned. “Isabel may be dead, which means you are now free to marry the lovesick Miss Catchpole, but I have no intention of allowing that to happen. I intend to kill you before the day is out,” he added in a calm voice. “I have yet to decide whether to kill you first in the full knowledge I will be killing your love later in the day, or if it would be more agony for you to remain alive until after I have disposed of Miss Catchpole.”

  Ezra’s relief in knowing he was no longer married to the duplicitous Isabel and so no longer needed to travel to the Bahamas to seek her out was quickly replaced by an agony of torment such as he had never known before at the thought of this man killing his beloved Clara.

  “Ah, I see that you look more anguished by the latter.” Hetherington nodded. “Then that is the order in which it shall happen,” he added as if he were discussing something as innocuous as the weather rather than taking a young lady’s life.

  Ezra’s frown was pained. “Did you shoot Clara on Sunday?”

  “Not to kill, obviously,” the other man confirmed. “We both know that I am such an excellent marksman that if I had intended for her to die at that time, then that is what would have happened. No, it was meant only as a warning salvo.”

  Hetherington had once been, and apparently still was, an expert shot with a pistol.

  His brown eyes now darkened until they appeared almost black. “I watched as the two of you kissed and you touched her intimately. I could not allow either of those things to continue. Why should you be happy when I am left devastated and alone by Isabel’s death?” he added bleakly.

  “When did she die?”

  “Three months ago.” He gave a snort. “Imagine my surprise, when I arrived back on English soil four weeks ago, for the first time in twenty years, only to read in the newspapers of the heroics of one Lord Ezra Stone when he rescued Miss Clara Catchpole from the clutches of the man who had kidnapped her. The drawing that accompanied the article was a very good likeness of you, by the way,” he drawled. “Unmistakably the same Ezra Stone I knew twenty years ago.”

  It seemed ironic to Ezra that the drawing of him, which had appeared in several newspapers after Clara’s rescue, was also what had allowed Stuart Hetherington to seek him out at his estate in Worcestershire. And once there, to discover Ezra’s close friendship with Clara.

  “How did Isabel die?” Ezra had no real interest in learning the reason for his wife’s death, but hoped, by keeping Hetherington engaged in conversation, that it would give more time for Noble to be discovered, minus his rider, and that Grayson Long or his head groom would add two and two together and realize something was amiss.

  Any feelings Ezra might have thought he had for Isabel before he married her had been completely destroyed when, on their wedding night, he had learned he was only being used to hide the fact Isabel carried another man’s child.

  Her brother Stuart’s child.

  Chapter 12

  “As you are the one who insisted on accompanying me, Mr. Long, I would appreciate it if you could now do me the courtesy of keeping up!” Clara turned to glare at Grayson Long.

  The man who, when he discovered her alone in the stable saddling a horse to go in search of Ezra, had insisted on either calling for assistance from the main house, where a party was being gathered together to begin the search, or being allowed to accompany her.

  Clara had chosen the latter in the belief it would cause less fuss and bother, but she now regretted having done so, as the man seemed to be making a meal out of leading Noble by the reins alongside his own horse. Admittedly, the destrier was far larger and taller than Grayson Long’s own mount, but the estate manager was the one who had insisted on bringing the other horse with them so that Ezra had a horse to ride when they found him. Clara would have been more than happy to share her own mount with Ezra.

  When or if they found him.

  Of course they would find him, Clara mentally chastised herself. And he would be alive and well. She refused to accept even the idea of there being any other outcome.

  “I suggest we leave the horses here, hidden amongst the trees,” Grayson Long answered her. “It would be better if we walked the rest of the way, so as not to alert His Lordship’s captor of our presence.” If His Lordship is being held prisoner in the barn at all, he didn’t add, but those words nevertheless hovered in the air between them.

  “I agree.” Clara nodded briskly before pulling her horse to a halt, dismounting, and tying the reins to a tree. She opened up the saddlebag on the side nearest to her.

  “Miss Catchpole?” Grayson Long looked completely taken aback as Clara removed a pistol from inside the leather pouch.

  She gave him a cursory glance before looking down at her father’s pistol, which he would no doubt discover was missing when he came to look for it. It was loaded and ready to be fired.

  “Do you know how to use that?” The estate manager continued to look alarmed after he had dismounted and secured the two horses beside Clara’s.

  She raised the pistol to straighten her arm and look down and check the sight for accuracy. Her father never traveled anywhere without his pistol following her abduction the previous month, and it had been easy enough for Clara to locate it in his bedchamber at Weston Park.

  She nodded. “His Lordship ensured that by giving me several shooting lessons after he rescued me last month.”

  Long appeared relieved to hear it. “Although I hope you will consider shooting anyone to be a last resort.”

  Her chin rose, her expression determined. “That will depend entirely on what we discover once we reach the barn.” Clara was prepared to do whatever she needed to in order to save Ezra. “I trust you know how to use that?” she returned dryly upon seeing the pistol pushed into the waistband of Long’s pantaloons beneath his jacket.

  He nodded tersely. “I do.”

  “Very well.” Clara straightened. “Then I suggest we now make our way as stealthily as possible to this barn where you believe the marksman has been sleeping.”

  “I will go first,” the estate manager drawled wryly as Clara would happily have stepped out in the lead.

  Her brows rose. “Why?”

  “Because I know where the barn is situated,” he reasoned. “Also, His Lordship will never forgive me if any harm comes to you while we are attempting to rescue him,” the man stated with certainty.

  Clara gave a snort, and the two of them set out side by side. She was perfectly prepared to die herself as long as they succeeded in rescuing Ezra.

  “Why do you care how Isabel died?” Hetherington challenged, his glittering eyes as dark as onyx.

  “I don’t,” Ezra answered honestly. “But seven and thirty seems very young to die from natural causes.”

  “I killed her,” Hetherington stated flatly.

  Ezra’s eyes widened. “What?”

  The other man’s mouth thinned. “I devoted myself to her for over twenty years, left England to live in the Bahamas with her, cried tears with her when our son was born dead. I risked ruin and shame if the truth about us ever became public knowledge. Then three months ago, I discovered her in our bed with another man. I shot and killed both of them,” he added without emotion.

  Even twenty years ago, Ezra knew the incestuous relationship between brother and sister had been a volatile one. The two of them seemed to enjoy taunting and baiting each other, except this time, Isabel appeared to have taken that baiting a step too far.

  “She said that she no longer loved me, that over the years I have allowed myself to become bald and fat,” Hetherington continued in that same unemotional monotone. “I had no choice but to kill her and her lover.”

  Ezra could see lots of other options other than Hetherington killing his own sister and her lover. But they were options that would be taken by a reasonable and sane man, and he had realized long ago Stuart Hetherington was neither of those things.

  What sort of man had an incestuous relationship with his own sister from when she was fifteen and he seventeen? Not only that but managed to get her pregnant before her eighteenth birthday, and subsequently tried to pass that child off onto another man? In this case, Ezra. The child had been stillborn and deformed. The only saving grace had been that it had been such a difficult birth, Isabel was unable to have any more children.

  Not that any child Isabel gave birth to could ever had been Ezra’s. Their marriage had never been consummated. Indeed, the moment he learned of her relationship with her brother and that she carried his child, Ezra had not even resided in the same house as the siblings.

  “The two of us were friends once, Stuart.” At least Ezra had thought they were.

  Banished from England by his parents for a minimum of three years for the crime of having a dalliance with the married Anna Fairhurst, Ezra had been more than welcoming when Hetherington and his beautiful sister came to visit within six months of his arrival in the Bahamas. Isabel had been beautiful and charming, and Ezra had been easily seduced into proposing.

  Only to learn on his wedding night that Isabel felt nothing for him and had only needed to have a husband she might name as a father to her unborn child.

  It was shocking to learn that Hetherington had now killed his sister, but their relationship had been warped for far too many years for Ezra to feel completely surprised by it.

  None of which changed the fact Ezra was now a prisoner of the emotionally and mentally unbalanced Hetherington. The fact he had been so for at least two hours now gave him little hope of a rescue being forthcoming.

  It seemed no one had missed him after all.

  Which placed him in something of a dilemma when Hetherington was the one with the loaded pistol and Ezra was not.

  A pistol Hetherington had assured him he intended to use on Clara.

  “Shoot me, by all means, but Clara has done nothing to you,” Ezra attempted to reason.

  “She puts that smile upon your face every time you so much as say her name,” the other man sneered. “I do not believe I shall ever truly smile or laugh again now that I no longer have my darling Isabel.”

  Considering this man was responsible for shooting and killing his “darling Isabel”…

  “You have committed no crime on English soil as yet—”

  “I shot Miss Catchpole.”

  Ezra nodded. “I am sure I can persuade her not to press charges. Perhaps you might go to the Continent?” The Bahamas were certainly not an option in the circumstances.

  “I am going nowhere,” Hetherington assured in a hard voice. “Not until I have disposed of you and Miss Catchpole.”

  “I do not think you will find that in the least easy to do when there are currently two pistols leveled at you,” a familiar voice called from outside the barn.

  Ezra had never been so happy or so angry at hearing the sound of Clara’s voice. Happy that he was going to see her one last time before he died, angry because her presence here now meant that she was going to die too.

  Two pistols?

  Clara was the one to push open the barn door and reveal herself. She was, as she had already stated, holding a pistol in the direction of Hetherington’s heart.

  Two feet or so behind her stood Grayson Long, the pistol in his hand also directed toward Stuart Hetherington.

  Hetherington’s pistol remained fixed unwaveringly on Ezra.

  “Honestly, Ezra,” Clara tutted. “It seems I cannot let you out of my sight for five minutes before you are taken captive and have a pistol pointed at you.”

  It was hardly the time for Ezra to tell her how magnificent she looked, her beautiful face pale but determined. Nor was it appropriate for him to laugh at her attempt at scolding him.

  The fact that she had come here at all, and by doing so had put her life in danger, was enough to kill all his humor. He also believed she could not have done so without the aid of Grayson Long, for which he would be having words with the other man—

  “Perhaps, once your friend has lowered his pistol, you would like to introduce us?” she invited with false sweetness.

  “Oh, I am family, not a friend,” Hetherington assured her. “Is that not so, Ezra?”

  Not only did this man intend to kill as many of them as he was able, but he obviously also intended to cause as much hurt as possible with his words before that happened.

  “Not anymore, Hetherington,” Ezra corrected evenly.

  The other man gave a cackling laugh. “Why not do as she asked and introduce us properly?” he mocked. “It is very rude for us not to have even been introduced before I shoot her. I believe Miss Catchpole would wish to know the name of the man who killed her.”

  Clara had no idea who this unkempt and balding man was, but he certainly was not related to Ezra by blood. Also, having been forced to spend time with Royston when he abducted her, she believed she now recognized insanity when she saw it. The man who claimed to be family to Ezra was definitely insane. It was there in the too-bright glitter of his eyes, the high flush in his cheeks, and the high-pitched and humorless laugh he had given just seconds ago. Indeed, he and Royston had so much in common, they would get along famously. Initially, at least. Royston was too much of a peacock to want to share the stage with anyone.

  “Answer me, damn you!” the bald man hissed at Ezra, the hand holding the pistol shaking slightly in his agitation, the trigger finger starting to squeeze. “Or perhaps I really should just shoot her—”

  Clara had no idea who shot first, second, or third in the next few seconds, only that there were indeed three shots fired.

  Chapter 13

  “How long do you intend to continue pretending to be asleep, darling Clara?”

  Clara felt a slight jolt in her chest at the endearment, spoken in the voice of the man she had loved since the moment she first saw him.

  Also, she was slightly confused right now, but she believed she was riding on the back of a horse cradled in someone—Ezra’s?—arms.

  Nevertheless, she kept her eyes closed, continuing to pretend. What if it was all a dream, and there was no horse or warm arms about her holding her safe? That instead of Ezra speaking to her, that dreadful man, Hetherington, had succeeded in shooting and killing him?

  She could not bear to open her eyes to that reality.

  Would not want to ever gaze upon a world again where Ezra did not exist.

  “We will arrive back at Weston Park soon and be completely overwhelmed by the attentions of your parents and Weston and his family,” Ezra murmured. “But before we are, I wish you to know—”

  “Clara!”

  “Oh thank God, you are both still alive!”

  Whatever Ezra wished Clara to know, it was completely lost beneath the outbursts of two other people, her father and Rissa.

  Clara opened her eyes to see she was indeed held in Ezra’s arms and riding high from the ground on the back of a horse, and not just any horse but Ezra’s destrier, Noble.

  Riding toward them, hell for leather, were Clara’s father, Rissa and her husband, the Duke of Weston, and several other local gentlemen Clara did not recognize.

  Her eyes widened in alarm. “Mr. Long?”

  “Unharmed, but he has remained in the west barn to deal with… He will be along later,” Ezra assured.

  Clara sat up. “But neither of you are hurt?”

  Ezra frowned at her. “How Hetherington missed hitting any of us at such close range is a miracle.”

  “Or he is not such a good shot as he believes he is.”

  “Was,” Ezra corrected softly as the other riders grew closer still. “Mr. Long shot my brother-in-law dead during the exchange.”

  His brother-in-law? Ezra had never mentioned having a sister, but then he had not talked about having any family—

  Hetherington was dead?

  Ezra said the bullet fired from Mr. Long’s pistol was to blame, but what if it had been the bullet from her pistol and she was responsible for killing Hetherington? Presumably they could not be sure until the bullet was retrieved from—from the body.

  Clara was not in the least sorry if she had killed Hetherington. The other man had intended to kill either Ezra or herself, or both, and she could not allow that to happen. But it nevertheless made her feel sick to think she might have killed another human being, no matter how much they had deserved it.

  “Your own bullet found another target,” Ezra drawled, as if well aware of her agony of thoughts. “I shall expect you to sit at my bedside whilst I recover.” Ezra folded back the lapel of his jacket to reveal a wet blood stain on the right shoulder of his shirt.

  Her eyes widened. “I shot you?”

  “Only just,” he mused. “I believe I warned you against closing your eyes when you shoot?”

  “It is the loud report of the gun,” she defended.

  “On this occasion, you are forgiven, because your bullet grazing my arm is what made me turn sideways, and just in time for me to avoid Mr. Hetherington’s bullet.”

  “So it is merely a flesh wound.”

  “Flesh wounds can be very painful.”

  “But not as much as an actual bullet penetrating the body,” she reminded.

  “We can compare our war wounds later.” Ezra glanced up as the search party began to mill around them. “For the moment, know that I love you,” he added softly.