If He's Noble (Wherlocke Book 7) (Paranormal Historical Romance) Read Online Free PDF

all secured their saddles on their horses.
    “Why not? Need to tell her that we failed and convince her to let us try again.”
    “Well, I am nay going.”
    “Me neither,” said Ned.
    Mac looked at both his companions in shock and then his mouth twisted in an expression of disgust. “Are you really that afraid of an old woman?”
    “Not her exactly,” said Ned, “but of what she might have done to us because we failed.”
    Mac mounted his horse and glared at his men. “Cowards.”
    “I think you should consider nay facing her with bad news.”
    “Damn me, Will, when did you become such a wretched coward you tremble in your boots over facing some old lady?”
    Will shook his head. “Not a coward. She gives me a real bad feeling, Mac. Real bad. If you have to go, that be your choice, but watch your back. Watch it close. Me and Ned will wait for you at the Cock and Thistle.”
    Still shaking his head, Will rode off. By the time he reached the agreed upon meeting place, he found himself wishing he had stayed with his friends. He became all too aware of how deserted the meeting place was. No one would be near at hand to see or hear anything. He was utterly alone. Slowly dismounting when the carriage arrived, Mac fought back a sudden urge to leave and go share an ale with Will and Ned.
    “You failed,” the woman said as she paused in the doorway of the carriage before stepping down the steps lowered by her servant.
    “That huge feller she has with her now found out we had taken the horses and took them back. Everything else went as it should. I do not know how he even discovered the horses were gone before morning. We should have had at least until the sun came up. But we will be ready for him next time.”
    “There does not appear to be a we any longer. Just a you .”
    “My men are waiting for me to join them. No need of us all riding here.”
    “This huge feller, ” she said as she finally left her carriage and stepped closer, “who is he?”
    Mac shook his head. “No idea, m’lady. He just appeared at her side. Lad at the stables said he was called Sir Bened Vaughn.”
    She frowned. “I do not recognize the name yet something about it nudges a memory. What matters now is that you failed. I do not accept failure, sir.”
    When a hand grabbed his hair from behind and a knife blade was pressed to his throat, Mac cursed himself for scorning Will’s and Ned’s unease. The woman studied him as if he were some strange insect that had dared to intrude upon her stroll through her gardens. “Meet your replacement.”
    Even though he knew he had no chance at all of escaping his fate, Mac fought but the brutal slice of the knife over his throat quickly stopped him. His last thought as he fell to the ground, his blood flowing out of him at a rate that would end him swiftly, was that he should have treated Will’s concerns with more respect.
    Augusta Wootten grimaced and looked over her cloak. The blood from the wretched fool lying dead on the ground had sprayed far and wide. She could see a few spots on her cloak. Tsking with disgust, she took off the cloak and tossed it over Mac’s body before looking at her newest hirelings. The man cleaning off his blade and his two cold-eyed companions looked far more capable of doing what needed to be done.
    “Get rid of that,” she said, waving a hand in the direction of the body, “and then we will discuss what needs to be done next.”
    “Should we hunt down the other two?” asked the leader as he sheathed his knife.
    “No. Who would they talk to about this without risking arrest and hanging? There are more important matters to attend to now. If we happen to stumble across those fools, we will deal with them then, but there is no need to waste time hunting for them.”
    Carl Mullins watched the woman walk back to her carriage and her waiting servant and then signaled his men to help him carry off the late Mac.
    “I do not trust that woman,” his man Tom