Page 2 of The Last Crimes of Peregrine Hind
All hell broke loose.
The Dartham horses shied—the driver lurched as if to reach for a gun—the coach came to an ungainly stop as the footmen raced to the door, almost certainly to arm themselves with a gun stashed inside. The thieves slipped out from their hiding places, and Lyd dissuaded the coachman from any heroics with a pistol aimed steadily at his heart.
Peregrine was already off his horse, and as his thieves subdued the two footmen, he flung open the door to the carriage and lunged inside, knowing that brashness and speed would be his only defense if the duke was armed.
It was dark inside the cabin, and before he saw the single occupant scrambling for the opposite door, he detected an oddly lovely scent.
Like cloves and orange peels, maybe. Like Christmas.
Then he saw the duke, and all other observations left his mind. He seized the murderer of his family by his coat and hauled him bodily out of the coach, sending him sprawling onto the damp dirt of the road.
Peregrine hopped easily to the ground and took two long strides over to the duke. “He was alone,” he told Lyd, and she swore in response.
Lyd had wanted the duchess. Badly.
The duke was just pushing himself to his hands and knees when Peregrine pressed a boot to his shoulder and shoved the duke back onto his rump. Peregrine then raised his pistol, already loaded and primed.
He was grateful for the bright moon tonight. He hoped the duke would see enough of Peregrine’s sister in Peregrine’s features to feel thoroughly haunted by his sins as he died. But then the man on the road lifted his terrified face, and Peregrine froze.
Yes, those were the extravagant clothes a Dartham would wear; yes, there was the skin that seemed to shimmer the palest gold. Yes, there were those dark eyes, which Peregrine knew would be a deep sapphire if he peered closely enough. But this was not the duke.
This was not the duke.
Peregrine swore to himself as he studied the man’s face, but there could be no doubt. Reginald Dartham had narrow eyes set closely together, a thin mouth, and a scattering of pockmarks across his jaw. But this man had an entirely different look to him: wide eyes fringed with long lashes, a full mouth, and a jaw carved in a fine, unblemished line. And while Reginald was well known for his elaborate periwigs, even while traveling, it was this man’s real hair which tumbled darkly around his shoulders as he scrambled to his knees.
It gleamed like silk in the moonlight.
“Stop,” Peregrine ordered coldly, his pistol still raised.
The man stopped, his face tilted toward Peregrine. There was no doubt now that Peregrine had gotten a better look. While the duke was in his forties, this man couldn’t be more than twenty-five.
“Please,” the man breathed. “Please. I have money—there’s money in there?—”
“We’ll be taking that as it is,” Peregrine interrupted. “Who are you, and why are you in the Dartham’s coach?”
“I’m S-Sandy—Alexander. Alexander Dartham.” The young man swallowed, and then breathed again, “Please. Please.”
An unpleasant stab of empathy followed the man’s pleas. How often had Peregrine heard those words on a battlefield? Or after the smoke had settled, when all they could do for the wounded was hold them down and hope the surgeon could amputate quickly?
But then Peregrine remembered his sister and the little niece or nephew he never got to meet. He remembered the cold graves of his mother and brother.
Likely they had pleaded too.
Heart once again hardened, he stared down at Alexander Dartham. He’d heard of the duke’s younger brother—a notorious rakehell who gambled and swived his way through London. They said no man or woman was safe from his charms, and Peregrine reluctantly admitted to himself that he could see why. Alexander was very beautiful, and on his knees like this . . . also dangerously stirring.
“Where is the duke?” Peregrine demanded, tamping down the flare of heat he felt looking at the brother of his enemy. “He’s supposed to be passing through here.”
“He took a horse and rode to Far Hope,” Alexander said. “This morning. He was worried about being any later than he already was to receive his guests. Please. Don’t. I can give you anything you want. Anything.”
“No, you cannot,” Peregrine informed him.
No one could bring back the dead.
One of the thieves relieved Lyd on coachman duty. She climbed down and came to stand next to Peregrine. “You should kill him,” she said bluntly. “Hasn’t it been your design to destroy them all anyway?”
It had been—although he hadn’t intended to kill anyone aside from Reginald. After the duke’s death, the plan went, he would rob the duke’s widow and the new duke of everything that could be carried off, and then he would burn Far Hope to the ground.
And then what, he didn’t know. All his careful preparations ended with Far Hope in embers. Maybe he’d retire.
