Chapter 311: Paranoid [1]
Hayden remained seated as Damien and his guards left the area. His smile faltered as he thought about what Damien might have planned for him.
It sounded like the very plan Hayden had prepared for Eloise. Arranging an incident with her carriage to stir up the old grief Damien still carried over his late parents.
Hayden lifted his glass to his lips, needing something to calm his nerves. Just as the wine touched his mouth, he stopped and drew the glass back, inspecting it more closely.
It wasn’t that he believed Damien had planned so far in advance as to tamper with the drink, but he realised that he shouldn’t risk drinking further should an attack come.
He set the glass down and rose from his chair, settling his hands into his pockets as he walked towards the door, his footsteps slower than usual to prolong seeing Damien again.
Outside, the man Damien had caught eavesdropping was waiting for Hayden.
"I’m sorry-"
"You’re useless," Hayden said, brushing past someone he no longer considered a friend.
Now that Damien knew exactly who he’d been dealing with in the court, Hayden couldn’t risk using his old contact again.
Hayden returned to the centre of the pub, scanning the room for any sign of Damien. Neither he nor his guards remained.
"Should I leave now? That bastard isn’t going to harm me," Hayden said softly, though even as the words left his mouth, he couldn’t quite convince himself of them. "I shouldn’t leave right after him."
With that, he turned back towards the private room, deciding to linger a while longer to make the most of the room he’d already paid for, and the drink besides. There was no need to rush home to his family.
Hayden spent the next hour in the room, staring at the walls, listening to the murmur of voices and footsteps passing by the door.
Eventually, he stood, now fairly certain the danger had passed. Rather than linger longer than necessary, he hurried out to his waiting carriage.
"Go quickly," Hayden ordered the coachman.
He didn’t bother glancing round to check whether Damien or his guards still lingered nearby. All he wanted now was to reach home, where he’d be safe from any threat.
Hayden remained tense until the carriage moved. He sank back against the seat and drew a deep breath.
Then suddenly, he laughed at himself. At how foolish he’d been to worry over Damien at all.
"He’s still just a little boy," Hayden muttered, his gaze drifting to the window. "He’d be a fool to harm me somewhere I hold connections. But," his brow furrowed. "How did he know he’d find me there?"
Hayden frequented that pub often enough whenever he returned home, but it wasn’t as though Damien could stumble upon him there by mere chance.
"Has he been watching me?" Hayden wondered. "He must be. He’s looking into what I get up to away from Camille."
He tapped his fingers against the seat, turning the thought over and over, trying to work out just how long Damien might have been watching. "I should have known the bastard would be watching me," he muttered under his breath.
Hayden had always known Damien never truly cared for him. For appearance’s sake, and because family ties demanded it, Damien merely tolerated him, and Hayden did the same in return.
"They should have taken him along with them," Hayden said quietly, his thoughts drifting to Damien’s late parents.
Quinn would have been far easier to deal with, had he been the one to inherit the title of Lord Hawthorne instead.
"If they’d all died, Camille and I could have had it," Hayden whispered, bothered by the missed opportunity.
He had money, but money couldn’t buy a title. It couldn’t buy the respect owed to Damien simply by birth.
Had the parents and the children all perished together, everything that belonged to Damien now might have been his instead. It would have made his life so much more interesting than the one he currently lived.
Hayden sighed, sinking further into the seat, letting his eyes fall shut.
Just as peace began to settle over him, the distant sound of hooves reached his ears.
His eyes shot open. He leaned towards the window, instinctively searching for whoever rode so close. His mind leapt immediately to the attack Damien might have planned.
Hayden strained himself to catch sight of the rider ahead, behind, or anywhere, but he couldn’t see anything.
What troubled him more was that, despite the growing noise, the carriage hadn’t changed its pace at all.
It struck him then that he’d never thought to warn his coachman of a possible attack.
Hayden gritted his teeth and reached beneath the seat for his gun. His stomach dropped when his hand met emptiness.
"Camille," he muttered, remembering too late that she and the children had taken his usual carriage.
Now he had neither guard nor weapon to protect himself. His only option was to pound against the carriage wall, desperate to catch the coachman’s attention and urge him faster.
His heart hammered against his ribs as the sounds grew louder still. It felt as though the rider were directly behind him, yet each time the sound reached him, the distance seemed to shift.
Hayden took the risk of throwing back the window and thrusting his head out, desperate to see exactly where the danger lay.
Behind the carriage, he caught the briefest glimpse of two riders passing by.
"Go faster! Go faster, you fool!" Hayden shouted at the coachman, beating his fist against the carriage wall, but between the busy road and the rush of wind, he wasn’t heard.
He fell back, sinking to the floor of the carriage, and waited there for impact. He stayed low as the horses grew closer, closing his eyes, since there was nothing more he could do to save himself now.
A tightness gripped his chest as the horses rode past without incident. His eyes flew open, and the realisation hit him all at once that he’d been terrified over nothing.
He pressed his right hand to his chest, trying to slow its frantic beat. He drew a deep breath after deep breath, but the unease refused to loosen its grip.
Hayden remained on the floor, unable to move just yet, unsettled by the fact that he couldn’t tell whether this had truly been Damien’s doing or whether he’d simply frightened himself half to death over nothing at all.
’That bastard!’ Hayden cursed silently.
He understood then exactly what Damien had done. Damien had planted so effortlessly fear in his mind. A fear that now refused to leave.