Alec had thrown the knife hard and true. The weighted hilt quivered right below Morris’s meaty chin, the blade piercing his throat. Morris’s eyes glazed over and went blank. Angelique, clinging to his back, gave a sharp tug on her garrote, and his head went up without resistance.
“Angelique,” he said. “You can let him go.”
Morris thudded heavily to his knees as she relaxed her grip. She peered over his shoulder, not appearing very surprised by the knife hilt sticking out of his throat. “I was not in need of help.” She whisked the black rope from around his neck and gave Morris a small push. Freed of support, his body slowly toppled to the floor. The blood gushed forth as he collapsed, staining the carpet dark red in a wide arc around him. Angelique stepped away, wrinkling her nose. “Such a mess the knife makes,” she said on a sigh.
Alec turned to Cressida, who had scrambled away from Morris and now sat braced on her arms, skirts twisted around her legs, breathing hard and staring at the dead man. “Are you hurt?”
She raised dazed eyes to him. Mutely she shook her head. Alec exhaled, his hands starting to shake from the delayed fear and fury at the sight of her caught in Morris’s grasp. He simply nodded, unable to speak.
“My God,” cried Lacey in shock. “You’ve killed my man!”
Alec gave him a black look as he bent to retrieve his knife. He cleaned the blade with a sharp swipe across Morris’s sleeve.
Angelique raised her eyebrows at Lacey as she coiled her deadly garrote around her hand. “Perhaps you are next.”
The old man jerked, staring at her as if she had sprouted another head. In her dark clothing, with all her hair pulled back and making no attempt to gentle her expression, Angelique might have been the angel of death, coldly merciless. When Ian appeared in the doorway behind her, looking for all the world like his fierce Highland forebears must have looked to the invading English, Lacey gave an audible whimper.
“Get him out of the way,” Alec muttered to Ian. The big Scot glanced at Angelique and nodded. He shoved his pistol into his pocket and bent to heave Morris’s bulk over one shoulder. Angelique stepped out of his way as he carried the dead man to the sofa. Lacey watched in horrified silence, cowering in the corner.
Alec put out his hand and pulled Cressida to her feet. She came into his arms and held him as if she would never let go. He pressed his lips to her hair. She was shaking, and he held her even tighter, to keep her still, to comfort her, to reassure himself that she was whole and well. He hadn’t planned to kill Morris, but the sight of him strangling Cressida had fueled a black rage that overrode every instinct except the fierce drive to protect what was vital to him. The knife had left his hand before he’d even thought of drawing it.
“Why did you not wait in the carriage?” Angelique asked gently, touching Cressida’s arm. “I did not wish you to be involved.”
“I did wait with the carriage.” Cressida’s voice was muffled against Alec’s chest. “He found me and dragged me to the house.”
Alec glared at Angelique. She pursed her lips. “I am sorry, Alec.”
“It doesn’t matter.” It did matter. Angelique should have known better than to bring her anywhere near The Grange. Based on the way she was dressed and armed, Angelique had known exactly what she was walking into, and there was no excuse for bringing an innocent, untrained woman with her. In other situations Alec would have argued the point, but this time it didn’t matter. Perhaps that, more than anything, drove home to him how final his choice was. He couldn’t go back to being a spy—not because he had found the proof of innocence he sought, not because he had returned home and taken up his real name and position, but because of Cressida. If something had happened to her, there would have been little at Penford to keep him from the nomadic, lonely existence of Stafford’s agents. But with her…With her he saw not the salvation of his reputation, but the salvation of his heart and soul. With her in his arms, nothing else mattered.
“You’ll take care of this?” he asked Angelique.
She nodded. “Ian will go to Stafford tonight. He will want to know.”
At the moment Alec didn’t give a bloody damn what Stafford wanted. He nodded once and walked out of the room, leaving it all behind—Lacey’s concealment of the truth, Morris’s murderous loyalty, George Turner’s venal sins, and most of all Will’s fatal, tragic flaw. He had Cressida in his arms, and that was all he cared about.
Chapter 31
They rode home slowly, she before him on the horse. For the first time in five years, Alec realized he was free. The weight of his suspected treason that had borne down on him for so long was gone. The thirst of vengeance that had driven him was no more, washed away by the sorrow of his friend’s tragic secret. The prickly solitude that had been his life for five years was over, stripped from him by the woman in his arms. He was free, to live and to love. He tilted his face up to the sky and breathed deeply.
Neither spoke during the ride. A few fat drops of rain spattered against them, but the storm was still holding off. At the Penford stables Alec dismounted and handed the reins to the stable boy. He held out his arms to Cressida, wanting
