My Heart's in the Highlands by Angeline Fortin (ebook reader screen TXT) 📕

He looked ready to do murder, and Hero felt achill of fear—not for herself but for the first groom he saw.

Reluctantly, Hero called for her father andhelped him keep his balance while he mounted the still-saddledgelding Ian had pursued him on. Once Beaumont had control of theanimal, Hero went to Colleen, gathering her skirts in preparationfor mounting on her own once more.

“Wait!” Ian snapped tersely and strode over,but not to assist her as Hero thought. In contrast to the ire hehad shown moments ago, he now looked unexpectedly rattled. Abruptlyhe pushed past her and flipped up the flap on her sidesaddle.Running his hands over the straps, Ian released a harsh breath andhung his head. “Thank God.”

“Ian, what is going on?” Hero asked, confusedby those last two whispered words, but Ian only grasped her aroundthe waist and lifted her easily into the saddle.

“Please go, Hero,” he said more calmly now.“I will follow and we can talk later.”

An hour later, Ian returned to his room anddropped into his armchair only to realize that the girth of thesaddle was still fisted in his hand.

His saddle.

In Harry’s mad escapade to ride off alone,the duke had not mounted his own horse but Ian’s. The damage thatwas done to him had been meant for Ian.

And the damage had been intentional. Ian hadwanted to believe that these odd incidents were nothing butcoincidence, but now there was no doubt. The cut was clean acrossthree-quarters of the girth, leaving the last bit to tear free fromthe strain and pull of the horse’s effort. Their sedate walks andcanters hadn’t been enough to break it away, but Harry’s wild ridehad.

In a way, he was grateful for the episode andwhat it had told him. First, there had been the incident with Heroin Glasgow, which might have been unrelated. The lamp in the halloutside the music room and the locked dungeon door, if taken as anattack, had included them both. But in the past two days, whileHero recovered from her exposure and fever, Ian had nearly beenthrown from his horse, only to find enough burrs on the saddleblanket to incense his horse, and he had nearly taken a potentiallydisastrous tumble down the long winding staircase when he hadslipped on a spill of lamp oil near the top step.

Only his quick reflexes had allowed him tocatch the bannister before he went down. As it was, he had a large,painful bruise on his hip and had strained his shoulder when hisown weight had nearly pulled it from its socket. Boyle had beenprofusely apologetic but could offer no explanation for thespill.

Those last two were so subtle that they mighthave truly been coincidence. But the previous night, Ian had awokenin the dead of night to find someone in his room. He had called forDickson, but the shadow had slipped out the door and vanishedbefore he could make chase.

And now this.

Ian slapped the girth against his thigh. Itwasn’t his imagination or paranoia any longer. Someone was tryingto do him harm. For what reason and to what extent, he had no idea.With the very worst consequences, he might have died from theincidents. He might have succumbed to exposure in the dungeons.Falling just so from his horse or down the stairs might have brokenhis neck. More likely, he would have been injured in anon-life-threatening manner. So what point was someone trying tomake?

At any rate, it had become clear that he wasthe target and not Hero. He had that to be thankful for, if nothingelse, but today’s incident had shown that the mastermind of theseattacks cared little for the collateral damage he might cause.

These were assaults with maliciousintent.

Bloody hell, Ian thought, he waswilling to take the risk for himself, willing to be on his guardand await an opportunity to catch the culprit red-handed, but hewould not risk Hero, Beaumont, or the rest of his household to thevery real threat lurking within his own walls.

Someone was trying to hurt him or even killhim. But who? And why?

As far as he could tell, only Daphne had anymotive. But why would she want to harm him if her goal was to marryhim? Despite Ian’s rejection of her proposal and what must be hisobvious attraction to Hero, she didn’t seem to have given up on herplan to marry him. Over the past two days, Daphne had flirtedoutrageously, trying to win him over.

She was obvious in her ambitions, so why hurthim? Even doing away with the more obvious impediment she had inHero would make more sense than attacking him.

Of course, Ian conceded, his death would giveher everything she ever wanted.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“I heard his grace took a fall from his horsetoday, Lady Ayr,” Camron Kennedy said that night after dinner whilehe and Hero played chess in the library while Daphne read aloudfrom Charlotte Bronte’s Villette. “Is he quite allright?”

“Yes. His pride was hurt far more than hisbody,” Hero told him absently as she made her move. The evening hadbeen a long one thus far, with only Robert’s niece and nephew forcompany. Her father had stayed abed, with Simms ordered not toleave his side, depriving Hero of his good-natured buffer.

As for Ian, Hero didn’t know where he was atall.

“I must say I’m surprised our host wasn’tpresent for dinner,” Kennedy added in an echo of her thoughts.

Yes, Hero thought, there was that. Ian hadleft before tea without a word to anyone regarding his destinationor his return. Not even to Dickson. Given his anger earlier, Herocould only hope that at best he was blowing off steam. Mandy hadbeen full of gossip of his tirade to the stable master and grooms.Those who had been targeted by the marquis over the incident hadbeen surprisingly tight-lipped regarding what was said, but thegeneral consensus among the remainder of the staff was that LordAyr had threatened all their livelihoods if the tack was not keptin better order. One of the laundry maids had said that she couldhear the marquis yelling at them through