“He and his wife have been going at each other like bloody rabbits.”
“Rabbits?” the colonel questioned.
“You know, sir,” Major Lambert averred. “The poke and tickle?”
There was a beat of stunned silence and then the colonel started laughing. “Here? With your men all around him?”
“It surprised me, too,” Lambert said. “I knew Tiebauld in school. He was the laugh of Eton. He couldn’t walk across a room without tripping over his own feet. But after his performance today, I would describe him as a horse.”
Anne’s cheeks grew hot at such coarse talk. But a niggling insecurity in the back of her mind wondered at what Major Lambert had said. She wanted to believe Aidan had turned to her out of love. But could he also have been orchestrating a ruse to trick Major Lambert?
“And you could hear it all?” the colonel was asking.
“You couldn’t avoid it,” Major Lambert said. “Isn’t that right, Williams?”
“Aye, sir,” the sentry dutifully answered.
“Well, he’s quiet now,” the colonel said.
There was a thoughtful pause. “Almost too quiet,” Major Lambert said. Anne could picture him putting his ear to the door, so she wasn’t surprised when the door opened without a knock or preamble.
She held her breath.
“Well, he is still there,” Major Lambert said as if he’d always suspected that was the case. He shut the door. “The man had to wear out sooner or later.” He started to laugh, but when the colonel didn’t join him, his voice trailed off. “Is something the matter, sir?” he asked stiffly.
The colonel moved away from the door. Anne rolled over, listening intently.
“Major, Lord Tiebauld is well respected amongst the gentry and by the people. If Gunn doesn’t confess his name, you can’t charge him with treason. Otherwise, you will create a situation I will be forced to divorce myself from. Am I clear?”
“Gunn will talk.”
“So you say—and yet he isn’t going to say anything tonight. The man in the cellar appears half-dead.”
“I was a bit overzealous today,” Major Lambert conceded. “Sergeant Fullerton can be heavy-handed. Gunn will recover.”
“You’d best hope so. Or you will find yourself apologizing to Lord Tiebauld, who can make my position in this country very difficult. If that happens, I will sacrifice you.”
“I would expect you to do no less, sir,” Major Lambert said, but some of the cocksureness had left his voice. “At the same time, sir, I will also look forward to your full support when my suspicions are found to be correct.”
“If that is the case, Lambert, then your career will take a new and very fortunate turn. I believe you know of what I speak.”
“Yes, sir.”
They parted company then, presumably to go off to bed…but Anne didn’t sleep.
Every fiber of her being centered on Aidan. He had to succeed. The alternative was unthinkable.
Aidan had never killed a man.
He stood over the body of the sentry who had been guarding the cellar door gripped by a coldness he had never felt before.
He had not meant to kill him. His intention had been simply to render him unconscious.
However, just as Aidan had been about to attack, some inner sense had warned the soldier he was not alone. He’d turned and would have cried out except for Aidan’s quick action. He’d snapped the man’s neck.
For a moment, Aidan imagined the guard’s soul passing through him. Something, something he couldn’t name, pricked the hair on the back of his neck and tore at his conscience.
Anne was right. War meant hundreds—thousands, even—of men dying. He could not live with the responsibility of their deaths on his shoulders. He understood her fears now. Just as he slowly, painfully accepted the fact he’d had no choice but to take the sentry’s life.
At the same time, an idea of how to use the man’s death to his advantage also came to him. He’d left Gilbride’s body on the other side of the cellar in the shadows. He could let it be for now.
The cellar door did not have a lock. Aidan pushed it open and pulled the soldier’s body through it. Inside, the torch still burned, giving the room its only light. He kicked shut the door and lay the body on the floor.
Robbie Gunn could have passed for dead himself. He slumped in the chair, his chin on his chest. He appeared not to be breathing—but Aidan sensed the spirit of the man was alive.
“Robbie? ’Tis I, Tiebauld.”
A choking sound was his only answer. It was enough. Aidan knelt at his side. “God, man, can you stand? Because if