Dukes By the Dozen

She swallowed hard as guilt rippled through her. She’d wounded an old friend, even if it was barely a scratch. She ought to feel more appalled than she did, she supposed. But then, a highwayman did not feel pity for their victims when they were entirely too wealthy for their own good. Which he was.

Her bad fortune that Wulf’s tracks were the set she’d followed. He had never been her target. If there was one man the Honorable Highwayman knew to avoid, it was Wulfric Standover. He had been a soldier for far too long.

Leaning back on her heels, she studied the prone man. Well, she couldn’t leave him here. Wulf wouldn’t bleed to death, but he’d certainly freeze.

Bea judged the area, stared up into the driving snow. The storm was getting worse. Blinding. The bite of the wind penetrated her woolen coat and even the thick scarf she’d wrapped about her face.

“I suppose I should take care of you, now I’ve shot you.” Bea shook him a little, careful not to jostle his head, and was rewarded with a groaning curse. “Wake up,” she shouted over a sudden, howling gust.

Wulf twitched, cursed again and clutched his shoulder.

“Easy now,” she said, pitching her voice to the lower tenor she used as a highwayman. “I imagine it burns like hell, but it is not bad.”

Eyes flicking open, he stared up at her. She remembered quite clearly the deep blue of his irises, though in the night they only appeared to be dark and fathomless.

She wondered briefly if he would recognize her, then dismissed the idea. He’d never recognize her in her current garb. No one ever did. Hair short, no spectacles. Breeches. And it had been nearly a decade since they exchanged more than brief pleasantries. Wulf had been at war, and when he was home, he had paid no attention to an aging spinster.

“Bloody hell, my head hurts.” Slowly, as if testing whether his skull would stay attached, Wulf turned to face her more fully.

“I imagine so. You’ve a knot back there—not caused by me, I am happy to report. That was the ground.” Bea fought not to set a comforting hand on the broad expanse of his chest. Drawing back, she met his gaze. “Can you sit? Stand?”

“You shot me.” Struggling to a sitting position, Wulf peered up at her from beneath hair whipped by the storm into an unruly frenzy. Fury sharpened the already keen planes of his face.

“I told you I would. Now, you are bleeding, and we will both die if we do not find shelter.” She pointed to the sky. “Snowstorm.”

“Surely, this is a jest. Or a dream.”

“Not at all.” Bea pushed to standing, careful to keep the scarf hiding her face. “I know of a cottage not far from here. We will be safe enough until the storm lets up.”

Another groan, and Wulf staggered to his feet. Casting his gaze about the path, he growled, “Where the devil is my horse?”

“The horse has run off, and I don’t think there’s much to be done for him.” Bea retrieved her own mare, who still stood patiently waiting in the trees. “Horses are wily creatures, though. He’ll find a place to weather the—er, weather. As we should do, unless you’d prefer I leave you here to freeze?”

A long, weighty pause spun out, fighting the tossed snowflakes.

“First,” he said finally, “you intend to rob me—I presume you’re the Honorable Highwayman?” At her short, acknowledging nod, he continued. “Then you shoot me, and now you plan to shelter with me?”

“I won’t shoot you again. I give you my word.” Bea shrugged, though she sent up a quick prayer he would not recognize her once they reached the cottage. Yet she could not abandon him. “You can’t walk back, my horse can’t carry the weight of both of us, and you really should attend to the wound. Also, I cannot help being honest. Or at least, to a degree. Leaving you here to freeze seems—dishonest.”

He stared at her, mouth open. “What strange hell have I fallen into?”

WULF WAS NOT SO foolish as to deny himself refuge, even if he was sheltering with a daft highwayman.

The little cottage hunkered between dense trees, appearing barely strong enough to withstand the storm. An even more dilapidated shed leaned beside it. Wulf warily eyed the structures, expecting them to blow over at any moment.

Yet the highwayman was correct that weathering the storm overnight would be impossible. Wulf was trapped—no horse and too far from sanctuary, and now he carried no weapon.

Add to that, his damned wounds. Pain burned through Wulf’s shoulder—a pain he’d felt before, having taken a musket ball to the thigh in France, another in the shoulder in Brussels. Probing this new injury proved it was only a nick, as the highwayman indicated, and the blood had already thickened and slowed.

It was his aching head he couldn’t escape.

The highwayman gestured toward the cottage door, as if shooing Wulf inside. Narrowing his eyes, Wulf watched the man carefully lead his horse toward the shed.

No choice but to enter. Even if he overpowered the slight man, restrained him, what would that accomplish? Very little at present. So, he would wait and see.