Minerva.
Minerva Highwood, in her governess-blue traveling gown, slowly emerging from the undergrowth. Creeping toward them with all the stealth of a cat, intent on grabbing the discarded pistol. She put a finger to her pursed lips, gesturing for Colin’s silence.
Colin made his eyes wide. No, he mouthed. No. Go back.
She crept closer still. Her foot snapped a branch.
This time, the robber noticed. His head whipped up, swiveling toward Minerva.
With a vicious growl, Colin gathered his strength and kicked him in the face. Scissoring his legs, Colin caught the man by the throat. He had him stunned and caught off guard. But he wouldn’t be able to hold him long.
“Get the pistol,” he managed.
As Minerva dove to retrieve the weapon, Colin tightened his legs about the highwayman’s neck.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, his voice strained with effort. “You’re thinking that she’s just an innocent miss with spectacles. That she can’t possibly know how to fire that weapon. But you’re wrong. She’s had training.” He raised his voice. “Min, show him. Shoot that birch tree over there.”
“I’m not firing at a tree! I’d waste my shot, and I haven’t more powder. Then what help would I be? Really, Colin.”
“See?” Colin said to the suffocating man. “She knows what she’s doing.” He released the robber with one final half-strength kick to the jaw. “No sudden moves.”
Minerva focused her gaze and held the pistol steady. “Do I shoot him?”
“No. No, there’s a knife in my right boot. Fetch it, kindly.”
Keeping the pistol trained on the robber at all times, she moved sideways until she could reach the boot. She found the knife with one hand and fumbled it open, wielding it like a dagger.
“All right,” she said, glaring down at the highwayman. “So where do I stab him?”
Stab him? Colin stared up at her, amazed. Her hair was hanging half loose, curling around her shoulders. Her eyes sparked with feral intensity. Her plump lips curled in a little snarl.
He’d seen this wild, savage look on her face before. In Spindle Cove, he’d known her to fell a grown man with her rock-filled reticule, and once she’d even challenged Colin to a duel. She wore that look of righteous fury when she thought her sister was in danger, or one of her friends. Even Francine.
But this was the first time she’d worn that look defending him.
Amazing. She wasn’t supposed to be here. But here she was, for him. Willing to shoot or stab a man in his defense. And she was goddamned beautiful.
“You don’t stab him, pet,” he said gently. “You use the knife to cut me loose.”
“Oh. Oh yes.” A drunken laugh bubbled from her throat. “I suppose that makes more sense.”
Working one-handed, she couldn’t free him as quickly as he might like. But a few minutes’ sawing and hacking at the ropes, and she had him freed.
Colin took the pistol from her the first instant he could, and promptly bashed it across the robber’s face, knocking him cold. He plucked the powder horn and spare lead shot from the man’s insensible form.
He turned to Minerva. “Hurry. We must be gone before he wakes.”
“Oh, Colin. They hit you.” She took a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at the bloodied corner of his mouth, wincing as she did.
“It’s nothing.”
“What about our money?” she asked, looking around.
“Gone with the other robbers.”
“Oh. At least I still have a sovereign. It’s sewn in the lining of my stays.”
“Well,” he muttered, cramming his left foot back into its boot. “Aren’t you resourceful.”
“You sound upset.” She balled the handkerchief in her hand.
“I am upset.” He pushed to his feet and began walking in the direction from which she’d come. They needed to be gone, as soon as possible. “I can’t believe you’re even here. Minerva, I gave you specific instructions to ride on to the next town. Where you’d be safe.”
“I know. But I made Miss Gateshead let me out, a quarter mile down the road. I . . .” She grabbed for his wrist. “I couldn’t just leave you.”
He turned and stared at her.
God, he didn’t know how to feel. Relieved to be free? Infuriated with her for flouting his commands? Overwhelmed with gratitude to see her whole and safe, and to have her here with him? The emotions seething within him were some mixture of all these.
He knew one thing. He didn’t dare touch her right now. Whether he ended up shaking her senseless, clutching her mindlessly to him and sobbing into her skirts, or tupping her on the forest floor until his bollocks ran dry . . .
She’d get hurt, one way or another. And that would make this whole damned ordeal for naught.
“Wait.” As they left the small clearing, she called him aside. “My trunk’s over here. I hid it under some branches.”
“You brought Francine?”
So that’s why she’d made such a delayed appearance.
“Well, I couldn’t leave her behind.” She knelt on the forest floor and began clearing branches from atop her hidden trunk. “Not after what you’d done to save her.”
“After what I’d done to . . . to save Francine?” He crouched beside her, helping in the excavation. “You are an intelligent girl, Min. But sometimes you can be remarkably stupid. I wouldn’t give two fingernail shavings to save this miserable piece of plaster. Much less risk my life.”
“But the five hundred guineas.”
“Believe me, you couldn’t pay me five thousand guineas to sit roped to a tree like that. I would never have left with those highwaymen if you hadn’t forced me to do it.”
“Forced you?” Her tone jumped an octave. “I didn’t force you. I could have throttled you myself when you volunteered. I was so frightened.”
“Well, it was either volunteer or watch you be murdered. You’d have risked everything to save this wretched lizard, if I hadn’t intervened. And you’d have ended up dead. Or worse.”
“So you did it for me?”
“Minerva.” He started to reach for her, then thought better of it. He gestured impatiently instead. “You left me no choice.”
“I’m sorry.” She touched a hand to her hair. “I’m sorry to have put you in that position. It’s just . . . my life’s work is in this trunk. It’s my one chance at gaining recognition from my peers, my one chance at success. I’ve already risked so much for it. When that highwayman tried to take it, I didn’t think, I just . . . reacted.” Sniffing, she looked up at him. “Can you understand?”