Broken glass tinkled noisily upon the wood floors in desperate need of a varnish, or replacement, with an uneven, but steady ping, ping, ping.
And then… silence.
He stood there, his back pressed to the wall.
Plink.
Plink.
Plink.
Glaring, Martin took in the massacre made of glass by the mercenary lot outside. This had been the last room with fully intact windowpanes in the great brick manor house, as his brother had referred to it.
No more.
Someone outside had chosen to make target practice out of the remaining leaded glass in the house.
Though, in fairness, great manor house—or even for that matter, simply house—was a ludicrous descriptor for this new property. Both had been used interchangeably by his naïve partner, also his younger brother, a military man turned builder.
“New property,” Martin muttered under his breath.
Seven years younger than Martin’s thirty-five years, Thaddeus had joined Martin in his craft with the same zeal he’d used with the toy soldiers he’d battered against one another in the imagined play battles he’d orchestrated upon the uneven plank flooring of their family’s house in the Rookeries.
Where Martin approached each project with cool-headed logic and an emotional detachment, Thaddeus always threw himself feet-first into any and every aspect of life. That had been the case when he’d signed up to serve in the king’s army, and that had remained the case when he’d returned home, in search of work—work that Martin had, without hesitation, provided him with.
In terms of construction and renovation projects, there was no project too big or small.
And no property unsalvageable.
That was what Martin had always believed, too.
That was, in fact, the lesson he’d given his naïve and trusting brother. That had also apparently proved to be a lesson the younger man had taken to heart.
In so doing, Thaddeus had made a liar out of Martin in the advice he’d given about expecting something from nothing where any and all properties were concerned.
Silently cursing, Martin moved his gaze slowly around the empty parlor, taking in everything from the glass littering the warped and faded oak flooring to the cracked plaster.
The floor-to-ceiling windows, with every other one previously cracked and missing panes, had been thoroughly divested of the last intact panels.
Errant snowflakes carried into the room, gusted in by the winter wind. The flakes floated down to join the glass littering the floor, melting almost on impact so that the remnants of the melted flakes glistened upon those lead remains.
Plink.
As that last, solitary little cling of glass fell forlornly, joining the other shards throughout the room, Martin remained at the narrow place between the windows, waiting for another assault on his new properties… that did not come.
Since he’d arrived only last night, his journey from London slowed by a winter storm, he’d been largely unable to evaluate the state of his latest investment. As he’d been doused in darkness, freezing from the absence of a single fire, and completely abandoned, the main goal of last evening had been to not freeze to death.
There’d been no servants. Not a single one. A detail—an important detail—his brother had failed to mention.
Family and business made dangerous bed partners. That’s what he’d always heard. Familial loyalty, however, mattered more, and with his brother struggling financially to find his way since he’d returned from his time serving king and country abroad, there’d been no way Martin wouldn’t hire the younger man.
Not for the first time since his arrival, however, he began to have his doubts about his brother’s judgment on this particular investment.
A lone wind howled across the countryside. Spilling through the windows now devoid of glass panels, it whistled, a forlorn and haunting wail of nature protesting the unforgiveable harshness of an unexpectedly cold English winter.
Gritting his teeth to keep them from chattering, Martin finally relinquished his hiding place, stepped out into the room, and edged over to the nearest window. He surveyed the grounds, in search of the man responsible for—
A figure darted out from behind the towering trunk of an oak tree.
Martin opened his mouth to let fly another curse, trying to shift back from the window—too late.
A violent war whoop went up, echoing around a countryside made all the quieter by the early-morn hours and the latest blanket of snow that covered the earth, and that darting figure launched something with blindingly quick speed.
An ice-packed snowball exploded in a shimmery display, leaving crystalline remnants upon Martin’s black wool jacket, a jacket he’d been forced to sleep in due to the cold of a crumbling estate in desperate need of repairs.
“Bloody hell,” he snapped into the quiet.
That was really enough.
Stalking over to one of the paneless windows, Martin caught the sill and leaned out.
He immediately found the perpetrator behind the assault on his property.
Nay, not one.
Nor, for that matter, a man.
Rather, three small figures of varying ages.
Martin shifted his gaze over the three responsible for his rude morning wakeup and the attack. They were all dressed in coarse wool that, even with the ten paces between Martin and the trio, revealed age and wear. He moved his gaze past the boy tucked in the middle before swiftly jerking his stare over once more.
They were not all boys.
Granted, the smallest of the bunch wore boy’s garments and could easily pass for one. Her dark hair, however, was a messy tangle down her back.
So this was who was responsible.
Children at play.
Some of the tension went out of his frame.
The local village children had likely assumed the properties remained uninhabited and had made it a source of target practice.
Just then, the little girl shot an arm up and waved excitedly.
One of the boys, with like coloring and similar features—likely a brother—shot an elbow into her side and said something.
Instantly contrite, the girl let her arm fall, folding her little limbs across her middle, and stared back at Martin with an impressive modicum of mutiny from one so young.
Martin leaned out another fraction, the sough of his breath leaving a cloud of white in the morning air. “No need to worry,” he called down. “I trust you didn’t expect anyone was living—”
The words died in the frigid air as the tallest of the boys drew his arm swiftly back and launched another snowball.
Cursing, Martin edged back.
But the boy proved too quick, or Martin proved too slow.
Oomph.
A perfectly packed and extremely hard snowball hit him in the nose, which proceeded to spurt blood.
Martin caught the wounded appendage and glared around his hand at the sniggering boys and the round-eyed girl, who at last managed to show the proper amount of fear.
Each boy took the pant-wearing little girl by a hand, and the children raced off together, their pace uneven as their small legs made the trudge through the deep-for-them snow.
Martin glared at their retreating forms.
The bloody savages.
One of the little boys glanced back and made a crude gesture.
Martin narrowed his eyes.
They were children.
They were just children.
He reminded himself of that detail to ease the simmering fury inside. Naughty, mischievous, troublemaking children. With his elder brother having two imps of his own, Martin knew something about the sort.
Granted, this lot of troublemakers had launched a full-scale attack upon his brother’s latest investment, which, with its already-precarious state, was guaranteed to see Martin in the damned hole for the project.
Martin pinched his still-bleeding nose harder.
But still, children.
Martin briefly closed his eyes, reminding himself of that important reminder—they were just children. They—
Another snowball hit him.
They had returned.
He dove out of the way as they launched a second attack upon him.
Nay, these were not children. They were damned monsters.
A man had to draw the proverbial line somewhere.
Releasing a bellow, which was met by a flurry of gasps, he took off running down the uneven stairs that had been stripped bare of carpet at some point, its marks still left upon the wood.
The house was doused in darkness still, due to the lack of candles and the need to conserve fuel, as he headed toward the back of the manor house.
Scattered along the floor were details he’d failed to notice upon last evening’s late arrival. Rocks—small ones, uneven ones, larger ones—littered the ground, the glass upon the floor indicating that his new investment had been used for target practice far longer than just the morning snowball assault.
Another wave of fury whipped through him.
Shoving the double doors of the terrace open, he stalked outside and down the snow-packed terrace.
Not that they would be here still.
Even with the distance between him and that trio, he’d caught the spark of fear before they’d darted to the copse.
Martin reached the crumbling banister that overlooked the back of his new properties. Gripping the ledge, he glared out.
In fairness, by the information his brother had obtained from their seller and the state of the manor itself, the crew of mischief makers had undoubtedly assumed the properties had been abandoned. Making his presence known beyond the murky shadow in the windows he’d been to the children that morning would prove the wisest way to establish the fact of ownership. Once they saw a person lived here, they’d likely find their trouble someplace else.
They—
His gaze snagged on the three children. Emerging from the copse with more of their war whoops, they burst forward through the snow.
Martin stilled. “You have got to be kidding me,” he whispered into the morning still effectively broken by the antics of children who were either fearless or missing brains in their heads.
The tallest of the boys—the one with the impressive arm—wound his arm several times, as if he were in the middle of a competitive cricket match, and launched another snowball.
This time, Martin dodged the missile, and it sailed past, the slight crunch of snow and ice as it exploded upon the ground filtering through the air.
Collective groans went up among them, but the little girl bent, scooped herself up a small snowball, and hurled it, though ineffectually.
It appeared Martin had found himself three interlopers who’d no intention of quitting.
Turning on his heel, Martin strode the remainder of the terrace and, holding the railing, took the stairs quickly, the snow mounds upon the stone steps making his place slow and his gait awkward.
“You three,” he bellowed, and either his nearness or the sound of his shout caused the trio to freeze. Using that shock to his advantage, he trudged on ahead. As he reached them, they appeared to find themselves—too late. With the girl and the smaller boy darting in opposite directions, Martin caught the tallest boy, the greatest offender, by the back of his jacket.
“Freeze,” he said, releasing the child, even though he expected him to take flight.
Instead, the boy remained there, arms folded mutinously at his chest. From the corner of his eye, Martin spied the two other children reluctantly returning and taking up places on the other side of him.
By their similar coloring and freckled features, they were siblings.
“Well?” the tallest boy demanded. “What do you want?” He spoke in the crisp, condescending, cultured tones of quality and elevated birthright, the kind of tones Martin had grown accustomed to having turned his way by people who deemed themselves his betters.
He opened his mouth to tell the fancy-born child precisely what he thought of him and his uncouth manners, but then stopped, again noting the sorry state of the child’s garments.
Martin moved his gaze down the line.
All three of them.
A little tug on Martin’s sleeve brought his gaze down to the tiny girl. “Are you going to put him in the ribbet, sir?” she whispered, staring up at him with tears and fear brimming in her eyes, and damned if he didn’t feel a chink in the fury that had sent him after them.
He shook his head confusedly. “The ribbet?”
“The gibbet,” the smaller boy clarified, exasperation rich in his equally crisp King’s English. “Luna means the gibbet.”
All sadness and fear instantly receded from the girl. She glared at the one who’d explained for her. “I said gibbet, Logan. He heard me wrong.”
“Did me and Lachlan hear you wrong, too?” Logan snapped back.
Just like that, the trio who’d had their sights set that morn on Martin and his properties turned on one another.
A melee spiraled quickly, with each child’s words rolling over the others’, their voices rising. Martin’s temples started to throb from the quarreling that moved from them casting aspersions on one another’s hearing and speech to the decision that saw them facing the “ribbet” and circled back to the original misspoken word that had landed them in the heart of their argument.
Their shouts escalated, and then Lachlan charged at his brother.
Oh, bloody hell.
“Enough,” Martin bellowed, stepping between the combative boys. He stretched his arms wide to keep them from attacking each other, but the eldest went hurtling around Martin, evading his reach, and launched himself at his brother.
The smaller boy went flying into the snow.
Tamping down a groan, Martin immediately plucked the bigger child off his brother, and holding him gently but firmly at the nape of his garment, he prevented him from continuing the attack.
“You’re bleeeeeeding,” Luna cried and then promptly burst into tears.
Another cry went up, this time from across the lawns. “You monster!”
Yes, yes, they were.
Martin, along with the three children, turned his head in time to see the whirling bundle of fury barreling down on them. Clutching at her skirts as she trudged through the snow, the woman heading toward them took giant, awkward steps. All the while, her muffled, distant mutterings reached Martin.
“Mama does not walk well in the snow,” Luna explained, just as the woman went pitching forward.
Squawking like a bird, Mama flapped her arms and somehow managed to keep her balance.
“I… see that,” he said from the corner of his mouth. Thank God. The mother. He followed her approach, never more grateful to see another person in his life.
“It’s because she has big skirts on,” Logan defended.
“And because she’s angry,” Lachlan added.
As she should be. If ever a group of children had deserved a maternal lecture, this trio was it.
At last, huffing and out of breath, the lady reached them.
She shoved back her deep black wool hood, revealing dark curls and a pair of blue eyes even wider than the daughter’s. They were the captivating kind, when Martin wasn’t one to be captivated by… anything. That was, anything beyond his own work. They were made even more enormous by the pale hue of her cheeks, splotched with circles of red from the cold. A fire glimmered in those aquamarine pools.
“You monster,” she snapped for a second time. “Are you all right?” She directed that question at Lachlan, who in the melee with his brother had secured himself a bloody nose. The lady pressed her sleeve against the dripping appendage.
Martin frowned. Their family affairs weren’t his business, and yet, it still bore pointing out. “They’re both monsters.” A slight tug at his sleeve brought his gaze down to Luna.
“Ahem.” The little girl cleared her throat.
“They’re all monsters,” he corrected, and she smiled and nodded her approval at being included—as she’d deserved—in his count.
The young woman gasped. “How dare you?”
He furrowed his brow. Wait a moment.
How dare he?
And then it hit Martin as hard as the ice-packed snowballs her heathens of offspring had struck him with that morning. He reeled. “You’re calling me a monster?” he demanded, because it really bore repeating.
“Well, how should I refer to a man who goes about attacking and scaring children?”
Attacking and scaring children?
All three children shared a smirk.
Nay, it was official—the woman was as mad as her misbehaving brood.
