The Duke’s Perfect Wife (MacKenzies & McBrides #4)(43)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

Hart debated doubling back but decided against it. He’d not seen anything today to indicate assassins lurking behind every bush, and no one he’d spoken to had noticed strangers in the area. His men would catch up to him when they could.

The lack of obviously dangerous people did not alleviate Hart’s anxiousness for Ian. He kept searching.

He clattered into quiet villages, inquired in the local pubs, asked at farms if a gentleman had put up with them for the night. Most of the people around here knew Ian or had at least heard of him, but none could help.

A church clock was striking four when Hart rode over yet another canal bridge. He was exhausted, and his men were long gone, probably returned to Waterbury by now. Hart’s muscles ached from the long day in the saddle, and his eyes kept drooping in spite of his efforts to keep them open.

He should stop and rest, then resume looking again at sunup. His worry wanted him to keep going, but his reason told him he’d be sharper if he broke for a few hours and waited for daylight.

Hart unsaddled his horse, pulled off the bridle, and slid the halter he’d brought with him over the horse’s head. He tied the horse to a sturdy sapling, giving the beast enough rope so it could graze, then Hart lay down with his head on the saddle, his cloak wrapped tightly around him.

He woke on a sudden to the same church clock striking eight, the sun in his eyes, and the bulk of Ian Mackenzie looming over him.

Chapter 13

“Damn you, Ian,” Hart said.

He sat up, rubbing his neck, stiff from lying against the saddle. The horse had broken free and now wandered a little way from them, head down, cropping grass.

Ian said nothing. He didn’t ask what Hart was doing here or why he’d been sleeping on the ground in the middle of nowhere beside the canal. In continued silence, Ian turned away and caught the horse.

The horse shoved his face against Ian’s side as Ian removed the halter and buckled on the bridle. Animals liked Ian—Cameron’s horses and the Mackenzie dogs followed him about with affection.

Hart rubbed his jaw, feeling the scratch of whiskers as he climbed painfully to his feet. He lifted the saddle that had served as his pillow and carried it to the horse. “What are you doing out here, Ian?”

Ian took the saddle from Hart and set it on the horse’s back, then reached beneath the horse and caught the girth, tightening it with the expertise of a long-experienced rider.

“Looking for you,” Ian said.

“I thought I was looking for you.”

Ian gave Hart a you-are-hopelessly-behind-in-this-con-versation look. “They said you were trying to find me.”

“Who did?” Hart scanned the empty countryside beyond the line of trees that bordered the canal. “Did you find my bodyguards? How did you even know I was back here?”

Ian took up the horse’s reins, then he stopped and looked at Hart, straight into his eyes. “I can always find you.”

They stood like that for the barest moment, brother staring at brother, until Ian broke the contact and turned away, leading the horse back to the towpath.

I can always find you.

The words echoed in Hart’s head as he watched his brother walk away, kilt stirring in the wind. No boats moved on the quiet canal in the dawn, and mist curled under the overhanging trees and the bridges.

I can always find you. Knowing Ian, he’d simply been stating a fact and not implying that he had a special connection to Hart.

But Hart felt the connection to Ian, the tether that had stretched between himself and his brother from the moment Hart had realized that Ian was different, special, and that Hart had to protect him. He’d sensed the connection through the years Ian had spent at the asylum and every year since Ian’s release. Hart felt it so strongly that when Ian had been accused of harming someone eight years ago, Hart had done everything in his power to shield Ian from the consequences and had been prepared to take the blame on himself.

Not that Ian would bother talking such matters through. He continued leading the horse westward along the path without waiting to see whether Hart followed.

Hart caught up to him. “Cameron’s house is the other direction.”

Ian kept walking. He did not look at Hart, only watched the canal or nudged stray branches out of the way so the horse would not trip on them. Hart gave up and walked in silence beside him.

Ian’s destination became clear when, after about a mile, he led the horse over a narrow bridge and down to a long canal boat moored on the far bank. The boat’s foredeck contained several children, two goats, three dogs, and a man dangling his feet over the bow and smoking a pipe. The large horse that pulled the boat grazed, untethered, along the side of the canal.

Without a word, Ian dropped the reins of Hart’s horse and stepped onto the deck of the boat. One of the children, a girl, climbed off at the same time to catch Hart’s horse. She stroked the horse and crooned to it, and the horse seemed happy to let her.

Hart went on board after Ian, because Ian clearly expected him to. The pipe-smoking man nodded once at Hart but didn’t bother to get up. The children stared, as did the dogs. The goats didn’t care one way or the other.

An older woman came out of the cabin. She was shrunken to almost the size of the children, and she was dressed all in black with a black scarf over her hair. Her eyes were as black as her clothes and alert and sparkling.

She pointed at a wooden crate next to the rail. “You,” she said to Hart. “Sit there.”

London society might be surprised to see His Grace of Kilmorgan quietly and obediently take the seat. Ian sat down next to Hart, still without speaking.

The girl on the bank fixed Hart’s horse with the halter, took off its saddle and bridle, and piled the tack on the deck. She walked to the tow horse, who looked up patiently, and put a halter on it as well.

All unhurried. No one on the boat got off to help the little girl, who didn’t wait for them to. The older woman, once she’d seen Hart and Ian sit, disappeared below.

Hart had met these Romany before, although he’d never been on their boat. He’d stood on a bank of the canal near Cameron’s estate fifteen years ago, while the same woman in black had told Hart in heavily accented English that because Cameron had saved her son Angelo from arrest and death, her family would look after Cameron now. Angelo had become Cameron’s servant, assistant trainer, and close friend.

The girl got the tow horse harnessed and its ropes attached to the boat. She clucked to the large horse and guided it forward, leading Hart’s horse on her other side. Hart’s well-trained and spirited stallion quieted under the girl’s touch, content to follow her and the tow horse like a docile pony.