In the end, they saved part of her house. They couldn’t save Warren when they found him later burned near James’ house. He probably saw the strangers trying to start the fire. They caught him and killed him and let his body burn.

  Charlotte refused to leave her friend’s side, and that meant Michael wasn’t leaving either. He did ride to Bromley that morning and hired a messenger to inform the duke that he had the bird. That it was safe.

  If he sent men, good. But Michael wouldn’t force Charlotte to leave. The men could stay and fight if anyone returned.

  And maybe help rebuild some huts into houses.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Charlotte would never forgive herself. She deserved to be hanged for her crimes. First, she’d panicked during her first carriage robbery and was the cause of the Earl of Chester’s death. She’d been horrified and guilty over it for months. Hoping Michael would catch her, too afraid and ashamed to confess. And now this. She’d made certain John deVille escaped Michael’s prison at the mill. It was her fault he was running free, killing her friends! Did Preston know about this? He would never have ordered the death of the people here. He knew what Rosie meant to her. But why did deVille come here of all places? Why this tiny village of four huts and people so poor they couldn’t eat some days? She had to find out if Preston knew about it. She had to know. If he did, she would never forgive him. And why did the fool have to look at her as if he knew her? She was almost certain Michael saw. It was a look of recognition, a look of surprise. She’d been torn between running and hiding or clawing out deVille’s eyes.

  Oh, she just couldn’t think about it too long. She had to be strong for dear Rosie now. But she was falling apart inside. Her façade was crumbling. She wanted Michael to hold her. She wanted…no, she needed more of the intimacy they had shared last night. But he seemed distant this morning. Of course, it could be that he, too, was heartsick for Rosie. Or, he suspected something. He didn’t question her about deVille. What should she do? It was all too much. She was going to burst.

  She heard one of the women crying outside. James and Robbie were burying Warren.

  She couldn’t bear the weight of it. She looked over at Rosie, sleeping in her bed. What was taking Michael so long? She needed his reassuring embrace. He’d promised to marry her. He’d taken her body. He’d made her fall in love with him. He’d made her want to change her life around. Michael. Just thinking of him made her happy. Who would have thought she could feel this way about a man of the law?

  She heard a bit of a commotion outside. Rebecca peeked her head inside the front door. “Michael has returned.”

  Charlotte’s heart began to race. She stood up, ready to leave and go to him when Rosie’s voice speaking her name stopped her. “Do not return home yet.”

  Charlotte hurried to her side. “I have no plans on leaving you. I will stay as long as you need me.”

  Rosie smiled at her and Charlotte’s heart broke. After all the years of trying to help her and give her what she needed, she ended up taking away what was most important to Rosie. It made her want to sob.

  The door opened and Michael’s frame filled the sunlit entrance. For a moment, while he stood there, Charlotte couldn’t see his face. Then he stepped into the hut and looked at her. She smiled. His response was strained.

  “Did all go well?” she asked him.

  “Yeah.”

  He came closer and stood over the bed, looking down at Rosie and took her hand. “You have my promise that I will make this right.”

  “Aye,” Charlotte let her know. “We will help you.”

  She felt a little better already. He would help. She loved him for his promise. She didn’t think about telling him the truth. Not yet. She needed some comfort from him. The truth could wait.

  “Charlotte?” He set his gaze on her as he straightened, “May I speak with you outside?”

  “Of course.” She wanted to be alone with him, too. She practically pushed him out the door.

  When they stepped out, she wasted no time to throw herself into his arms. She held on to him and closed her eyes, praying that he did not reject her. His strong arms came around her and he held her tight. They embraced for a moment or two, neither one in any rush to let go. He seemed to know what she needed, and she soaked it in like a flower soaking in the sunlight.

  “I spoke to two vendors in town,” he told her, standing straight so he could look at her, but still holding her. “I told them what happened, and they’ve agreed to gather supplies and have them brought over, just some extra food and spices and stuff.”

  She smiled at him and tried to remember what her days were like without him in them. A sennight hadn’t even passed and yet he felt like he’d been in her life all her days.

  “I also spoke to a few brickmakers and carpenters. They will help us rebuild homes for Rosie and the others. I’m going to train some handpicked men at home and send them to Bromley to keep the law.”

  “You are planning a life here,” she said softly and with a warm smile, reaching up to touch his temple.

  “Yes, I told you. With you.”

  “And children?”

  “If you want.”

  “I want four.”

  He gave her a doubtful look. “It hurts you know.”

  She let out a little laugh. “So I have been told.”

  He shrugged and she trembled a little in his arms. “Then we’ll have four.”

  Something rolled over her like a wave of mud, cold and suffocating. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want to breathe anymore. She broke away.

  “What’s wrong, Charlotte?”

  “This is too good,” she answered on the edge of hysteria. “You are the answer to my prayers, Michael.”

  His beautiful face broke out into a grin. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “God does not hear my prayers.”

  His grin faded and he came forward to her. “He hears all your prayers, Charlotte. If you think about it, He’s probably answered many of them, but not the big ones, like the ones for your parents, or maybe even Preston Bristol III. Come on,” he motioned to himself with his hand. “He knows what’s good for you, eh? Me.”

  He made butterflies come alive and dance inside her. She wanted to giggle but wrapped her arms tighter around him instead. “Promise to always want me, Michael,” she said into his chest. “Promise me you will love me without condition.”

  “I promise,” he whispered and ran his hand down the back of her head. She tilted her face to his. “I promise, Charlotte. I know you have some secrets. Keep them as long as you don’t trust me enough not to.”

  His words were like knives in her heart. Did she trust him enough to tell him that Preston was the head of all the crime in Sutton, Croydon, and anywhere else he could send his men? That she was The Dark Horseman, accused of killing an earl? That her father worked underhandedly with justices of the peace to drop all charges against Preston because of her? Did she trust Michael enough to not have everyone in her life, including her, sent to the noose? No. In truth, she did not. Why would he spare Preston or her father from justice? A thought occurred to her. Could Michael be bribed if enough was offered? No! She remembered his reaction when she asked him if he, like his work partner, had taken bribes. Michael was honest and honorable, if not hardened and detached.

  Soon, their embrace was interrupted by the service for Warren.

  Charlotte wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold herself together. But for now, she encouraged Rosie with soft, heartfelt promises and supported her when she stepped outside.

  When the priest from the next village said his last prayer and Charlotte turned to go with Rosie, she spotted Colin and William arriving on their horses.

  “I sent word to them,” said Michael, coming up beside her. “I need to know who that man was last night. I’m going to find him, and anyone involved with him, and make certain justice is done.”

  Charlotte’s belly burned. She felt faint. John deVille would certainly tell Michael everything about her. “Michael,” she said stopping him. No! She couldn’t tell him anything about deVille with Rosie standing with her. She couldn’t let Rosie know she was responsible for this. She wasn’t ready for that yet. “I wish to speak to you, please.”

  Colin was off his horse first and reached him in seconds.

  “Rosie,” the young man said first and bowed his head in respect for who she’d lost. “Rest assured, we will find the ones who did this.” He turned to Michael. “There was another robbery on the road last night.”

  “Where?” Michael growled. Was the village a diversion?

  “Outside Cheam. One of the Horsemen held up Lord Crawley, John Eddren, who traveled with his young wife. The Horseman made off with the lady’s jewelry and Lord Crawley’s signet ring and some money.”

  “How do you know it was one of the Horsemen? Was anyone killed?”

  “No, and we know because before he left, he kissed the lord’s wife.”

  “The Kissing Horsemen,” Michael muttered. “How ridiculous.”

  Sebastian. Charlotte knew it was Sebastian. He’d been planning the hold-up for a while. She didn’t tell Michael and hated herself for it. But she knew she would have hated herself even more if she turned on the people who had always been there for her.

  “There is something else,” Colin told him. “But I would prefer to speak to you alone about it.”

  Michael nodded and excused himself from her and Rosie.

  Charlotte’s heart raced. She almost couldn’t call up the strength to keep moving but, somehow, she did.

  She smiled at her betrothed, perhaps for the last time. If Rosie didn’t need her, she would get on her horse and run away. But no. She was not a child anymore. Running away was not the answer. No matter what Colin told Michael—and she had the dreaded feeling that it was about her—she would try to trust that Michael would keep his word to her and love her despite what he learned.

  It didn’t take long for him to return. She’d just settled Rosie into a chair that looked about as comfortable as sitting on rocks when the front door opened.

  “Charlotte.” He filled the doorway and blocked the sun. His voice was low, deep, angry.

  She turned and, without a word, gently pushed past him and stepped into the sun.

  He closed the door and took her by the hand. “I want to talk to you alone.” It was almost a bear’s growl.

  “About what?”

  “About Gerald FitzSimmons.”

  She swallowed. Gerald talked! That worm! He must have told Colin or William and here they were to warn him. “Are you going to shout?”

  “I might.” More growling as he dragged her away.

  “Before you say anything, I would like to speak.” She had plenty to say. Things she needed to say.

  “You won’t charm me,” he vowed, reaching the tree line of the woods where John deVille had fled last night.

  “I do not intend to charm you,” she let him know, yanking her arm away. “I just want to tell you things I should have told you before.”

  “Oh? Like you acknowledging that you told Gerald he had to set my prisoner free, right? Thieves stick together. I know all the clichés.”

  He looked and sounded so disgusted by her that she wanted to look away, but his gaze held hers still. “Aye, that is what I did, and I must live with the knowledge that my dearest Rosie…” a short sob escaped her, “is now a widow because of me.”

  His hard expression didn’t change. Then again, she did notice the slightest crease in his brow. He fought not to pity her.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “You already know. I’m sure Gerald told them.”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “There’s a code, Michael. I don’t want to be the one to break it. If a thief is in trouble, we help.”

  “Whose code is it?” he put to her. “Preston’s?”

  “It existed long before Preston.”

  “Is he involved in all this? Is that why your father doesn’t like him? Because he’s a thief, too. Maybe he taught you.”

  “Michael, I—”

  “Is he the leader, Charlotte? The one everyone is so afraid of?”

  It was much harder to betray Preston than she thought. “I won’t—”

  His eyes opened wider and sparked like deep topaz instead of blue. What? How? But instead of being afraid of him, her blood seared hot through her veins. “Did you really expect me to go against the one I had been loyal to almost all my life? I didn’t have a friend until I was eleven, Michael. No one my own age or close until I met him. He wanted us to look out for each other and that was what I did. What I thought was the right thing to do. I was wrong.”

  “So you defied my wishes, my duty and returned to the mill that night. Yeah, I know the whole story.”

  “You know also what happened last night,” she said, tightening her jaw to keep from crying. “You know now that regardless of everything else, ’tis my fault Warren is dead. I can never forgive myself for that. Do you understand, Michael? It will destroy me. ’Tis already doing so.”

  “You can’t let it,” he told her woodenly. “You can’t live with regrets.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  “I did. I plan on starting fresh here.”

  “With me?”

  He stepped away from her as if she carried a sickness. “That was the plan, Charlotte. But things must change. Are you in love with Preston?”

  She almost blurted out no, she wasn’t, but she didn’t take her heart lightly. Michael and Preston deserved for her to examine what she felt. Thankfully, she had been doing that slowly with Preston for the last few months and he was coming up short.

  “In truth, I only know one thing for certain, Michael. I have fallen in love with you.”

  She’d never poured herself out to anyone, not even to Preston or Rosie. Not really. She always kept part of herself back because if one’s parents could not be trusted, how could anyone else be?

  But she’d shared her body with Michael—and she hoped to do so again. If she was going to share her life with him—and she hoped she was, she wanted to share her heart with him, as well.

  “It doesn’t matter what you do,” he told her in a quieter, somewhat shakier voice. “I look at you and I wish I could thank Mr. Green for giving me that brooch.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. He was more than she deserved. She smiled and breathed again.

  “Is there anything else I should know?” he asked, smiling with her and taking her hand.

  She couldn’t tell him about being a Horseman. She couldn’t! Not now when he was smiling at her and the wind was blowing his hair across his face against a backdrop of azure sky. She would never ride as a highwayman again. She would give it all up and spend her days raising money for others, not stealing it. And having his babes.

  She was too ashamed of her gravest sin to confess it. And she hated herself for being a coward.

  “No,” she told him. “There is nothing else.”

  *

  Sebastian Alexander, Baron of Surrey, sat in the sunniest spot of Preston’s private solar and sipped his wine. He crossed his hosed legs and examined the smudge of dirt on his shoe while John deVille gave an account of what happened last eve in the small village where Charlotte’s friend, Rosie, lived.

  “You ordered them to burn it down?” Sebastian asked Preston nonchalantly. He was glad Charlotte would hear of his robbery last night and realize he was too far away to have anything to do with killing her friends.

  Sebastian had grown up with an abusive father. The rat scum wasn’t even his real father. When Sebastian finally had had enough beatings, he killed him. He’d done many bad things, but he didn’t betray his friends.

  “Aye. And now you see why,” Preston railed. “She was with him yet again—after what he did to me! I should kill you, deVille,” he said turning to him. “For letting her and her investigator live!”

  “You called for Charlotte’s death?” Sebastian asked, not hiding his surprise.

  “Aye! John! Ride back to that village and finish her. She has given her allegiance to someone else. She may have told him everything.” He turned his pale face to Sebastian. “I’m not a monster. I will cry for her.”

  “Amanda!” he shouted next. “Where in the bloody hell are you with my tea!”

  “Tell me, deVille,” Sebastian said, sparing the man a glance as he was leaving. “Where was Lady Charlotte while you were killing her friend’s husband?”

  “I do not know, my lord. I saw her after I returned from one of the other houses. She was standing with the investigator. He was bare-chested and barefooted. And he had blood on him. He is most likely the one who killed my men.”

  “Why do you suppose he didn’t kill you?”

  “I…I do not know—”

  “Why would a man who shot our esteemed viscount,” he turned to offer Preston an indulgent smile, “and killed three men on his own last night, let you live? Why, you said earlier that ’twas as if he were on a rampage. Yet, he didn’t harm a hair on your head. Why do you suppose that is?”

  “I don’t know, my lord. “Perhaps he—”

  “Did you not spend time with him in your prison cell?” Sebastian asked him and slipped his gaze to Preston. He watched him grow infuriated.

  “You are working for him and spying on me!”

  “No!” deVille cried out “I don’t know why he let me live!”

  Preston didn’t wait to hear anything more. He called in his guards and ordered that deVille be taken outside and shot.

  He left, kicking and screaming and glaring at Sebastian. Hmm, the baron thought, deVille didn’t seem to mind the thought of killing Charlotte. Now he couldn’t.

  Sebastian put down his cup of wine and rose to his feet.

  “Where are you going?” Preston demanded.

  Preston would never admit it, but he was in love with Charlotte and her being with Michael Pendridge was driving him mad. Though he thought nothing of his own unfaithfulness with Miss Amanda Beasley and several others.

  Personally, Sebastian didn’t care what Preston did; if he lived or died. He’d started the Horsemen with Preston, but the viscount received all the glory from the men. He treated Sebastian like a favored pet instead of his equal. But favored pets, like him and Charlotte, knew how to get what they wanted from him.