Forbidden to Love the Duke(74)

Oliver opened his mouth to call out the man’s name. But then the front door opened, and out ran Rosemary, holding a pistol in her hands. Oliver thought for a moment that she might shoot him.

The damned pups escaped and started to bark. He strode out into the garden and shook his head. Terrible mistake.

He saw two of everything.

“What’s happening?” he demanded of Rosemary and her blurry double.

She ran past him with a look that labeled him as helpful as horse manure. “There’s a man attacking Lilac. Can’t you see?”

He realized he had his pistol in his hand. He was also still wearing the apron, but its removal would have to wait. He blinked several times. His gaze picked out Lilac in the garden. She had hefted a crumbling urn full of geraniums into her arms and heaved it at her attacker, whose mask had begun to slip.

And who happened to be the last man Oliver had gambled with in a silver hell in London. “Help me, Oliver!” Lilac cried, reduced to flinging clods of dirt to defend herself.

He snapped out of his trance to obey, the dogs barking as if echoing Lilac’s plea. Joseph Treadway had his hands around Lilac’s throat, and Oliver raised his gun, aware of Rosemary rushing up behind him. “Please do something,” she beseeched him. “He’s strangling her. I’m afraid if I shoot, I’ll hit her.”

“The treasure,” Joseph said, spittle and dirt running down his chin. “I want your—”

“Move back, Rosemary!” Oliver said. “Move out of my way now.” Strangely, she did. Perhaps it was his voice. Perhaps she was indeed an intelligent woman, for she retreated several paces with only a covert glance at Lilac.

He waited another second, took aim, and said quietly, “Jesus. Joseph, look at me.”

The man turned reflexively, his grasp loosening on Lilac’s neck, and Oliver pulled the trigger. He hit his acquaintance in the chest; a kill he’d intended and a kill he’d made. He felt Rosemary rush around him. He looked up to find her handing him her gun.

“Help Quigley.”

He didn’t know if she’d heard him call the dead man by name. There could still be time for him to find a way to cover the slip. Besides, she was too engrossed in pulling Lilac out from under Joseph’s crumbled body to argue such a point now.

He turned, sidestepping dogs and geraniums, and took off up the path to help Quigley. But the old gardener had fended off his attacker like a swashbuckler, with a few swings of his shovel.

Oliver raised Rosemary’s gun and trained it on the man Quigley had beaten. Good God. Look who it was. It wouldn’t be difficult to take down a man of Ainsley Farbisher’s age and half-arsed ability. In fact, the old roué was running from Quigley before Oliver needed to intervene. No mask could conceal his lumpy nose and potato-shaped chin.

“Well, shoot him,” Quigley said, throwing his shovel at the clumsy figure headed for the small carriage on the bridge.

“I have just killed one man,” Oliver said, lowering Rosemary’s dueling pistol.

“Aye, a fine shot that. Now do it again.”

Oliver considered that option, but Ainsley had reached the bridge, and if Oliver gave chase, he took the risk of the old bugger revealing their acquaintance. “Damnation,” he muttered. “He’s got away.”

“You let him escape.” Quigley wheeled back around toward the sisters.

Oliver strode through the neatly weeded garden to the spot where Lilac stood, Rosemary trying to shield her from the body at their feet.

“Oh, Oliver,” Lilac said. “I don’t know what we would have done if you weren’t here. He was going to—”

“Don’t talk about it,” Rosemary said. “He didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, he did,” Lilac said. “He choked the breath out of me and said he would kill me if I didn’t yield my treasure. We know what that means. How hideous of him. As if I would give up my valuables without a fight to the death.”

“We shall talk of it after we’re inside,” Rosemary said, her face colorless. “You need to come into the house, Lilac.”

“Is Quigley all right?” Lilac asked, craning to look around her sister’s shoulder.

Oliver wrenched off the apron he was still wearing and dropped it over the face and chest of the man he had just killed. “Quigley appears to be fine,” he said, straightening to study her. “What about you?”

“I broke the china,” she said. “And the silver tray got dented when I hit this person in the chops with it. What would have happened to us if you hadn’t been here, Oliver? It doesn’t bear thinking about.”