“Come out and die, ye devil!” He shook the weapon at Ashton, and roared with laughter. “Or stay an’ burn! One’s as good as the other, jest so’s ye die! ’At’s what the man says!”
Coughing, Ashton fell back from the doorway and squinted tearing eyes against the sting of smoke as he glanced about for his own pistol. In the thickening cloud of black it was not within immediate view, and he ran to his chest, holding an arm across his face to shield it from the smoke and the growing heat of the flames. He liked neither of the choices the man presented him and meant to provide another. Lifting the heavy lid of the trunk, he seized his derringer and stumbled back to the doorway. He blinked to clear away the tears and peered out, but the brigand was nowhere to be seen. Cautiously he crept out onto the deck and, through a teary haze, saw Lierin’s carriage pulling to a skidding halt in front of the house. In hardly a flash she was scrambling down and running toward him. He was relieved to see her, but knew the dangers of her coming close.
“Go back! Go back!” he cried, and then whirled as the mad chortling sounded behind him.
“So ye’ve come out,” the brigand observed leeringly as he stepped from behind a nearby shrub. He aimed his pistol at Ashton’s midsection and fondly stroked the barrel of it with his other hand. “The liedy’s returned jest in time to see ye laid to rest.” The pig eyes flicked down to the derringer, then returned a glare to Ashton’s wary regard. “I figgered ye were after somethin’ like at, but ye won’t have time to use it.”
Ashton heard an explosive roar and expected to feel the shot boring its way through his belly, but strangely the pain did not come. He stared at the crumpling man for one brief, incomprehensible second, then turned a startled gaze beyond him toward a large dark shape coming at a run. It was Hickory hurrying forward with a musket clasped in his hands. Reaching the dead man, the black stared down a moment and then lifted wide eyes to Ashton.
“He was gonna kill yo, massa,” he said in some astonishment.
“Aye, that he was, Hickory,” Ashton sighed in relief. “But you have saved the day.”
Lenore’s heart had stopped, but now it was beating again at a thunderous pace, and she was on the run, holding her skirts high as she raced across the lawn. She saw the bloodstained shirt of the one she loved, and fear burrowed down deep in her heart. Flickering images of a tall figure standing near the deck railing pierced her mind and mingled with countless other impressions, all of Ashton. Striding, sitting, standing, laughing, frowning, smiling, he was there with overwhelming intensity, filling every fiber of her brain. The illusions were vast in number and indistinguishable one from another. Then lastly came the intruding memory of her dream, when she had stood with Malcolm above his grave….
“Oh, Ashton! Ashton!” she cried as she flew into his widespread and welcoming arms. He clasped her close as she sobbed out her fear, and she felt his lips brush her hair and his voice speaking to her in a soothing tone; then she gasped and stumbled away with him as the billowing tent burst into a roaring wealth of new flames.
“Get the horses out of the other tent!” Ashton shouted to Hickory, and leaped across the low shrubs to follow the black who had turned and was sprinting toward the smaller tent.
Lenore lifted her hand and stared down with fixed attention at the blood glistening on her palm, and her heart began thudding. Everything blurred and then went slowly dark around her. The impenetrable density of the black shroud closed in upon her until there was naught but utter darkness. In the dead vast and middle of the night…the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world…
A dim spot of light growing!
A flame! A fire! A fireplace! A hearth with tools! A broad hand grasping a poker, lifting it, slashing it down on the head of a horrified man! Again and again, until the man slumps lifeless. The cloaked form of a man slowly whirling, raising the poker again, then a hot, sharp pain in her back.
Running down a dark hall! Heavy footsteps behind her! The cold breath of fear panting down her neck! A door slamming behind her and a bolt jamming home! Scrambling from a window and running! Running! No! Riding!
A narrow lane, trees flashing by…and then a fire! The asylum where the woman was kept a prisoner! No help here! A dark form looming behind her! The woods! Trees again! Faster! Faster! Jump! Swerve! Hang on! Don’t fall now! He’ll catch you!
An open field ahead! Escape! Jump! A thunder of hooves beside her! A charging team! Coming at her! Oh, noooooo!!!
Once again blackness…deep, dark, impenetrable…
Chapter Seventeen
LENORE’S eyes fluttered open, and she stared into the worriedly frowning, soot-smeared face looming over her. A trace of a smile touched her lips as she lifted her hand, and Ashton seized it in an eager, but gentle, grasp before lowering a kiss upon the slender fingers. Her gaze moved slowly about the interior of her bedroom. She lay fully clothed upon the silken coverlet of her own tall four-poster. Meghan stood close to the head near Ashton and bathed her forehead with a cool, wet cloth. Robert Somerton had taken up a stance at the foot and appeared rather disconcerted as he clasped a hand about a bedpost. Some vague image seemed to obscure his countenance as she stared at her father, and she flicked her lashes to clear her vision, but when she fixed her attention once more on the white-haired man a diaphanous visage again blurred and distorted his features until his jaw became squarish, his hair dark, and his eyes green. A disturbed frown puckered her brow, and in deepening confusion she averted her face.
“What happened?” she asked in a hushed whisper.
Ashton’s frown relaxed slightly as he replied. “I believe you fainted, madam.”
“Aye, mum, that ye did,” Meghan readily agreed.
“But how did I get here?” Lenore indicated the room with a brief sweep of her hand.
“Mr. Wingate carried ye, mum,” the maid supplied the information.
Lenore tried to lift herself from the bed as a memory came back to her, but she closed her eyes again and quickly retreated to the pillows as the room swam dizzily around the bed. Ashton’s hand dropped upon her shoulder in a silent urging for her to rest. Feeling his touch, she lifted silken lashes and conveyed her distress in anxious questions. “Your wound? Is it serious?”
“A flesh wound, madam, nothing more,” he assured her. “Meghan has offered to bandage it for me.”
Lenore breathed a trembling sigh of relief. “You frightened me.”
“I’m sorry, my love,” he murmured. “’Twas not my intent.”
“Not yours…but obviously someone else’s! That man was out to kill you!”
“I do believe he was, madam,” Ashton admitted. “And so were the others.”
“Others?” She raked her brain and then recalled that she had seen another body sprawled on the decking. “There were two of them?”
“I believe I counted four,” he calmly supplied the information.
“Four!” she gasped and braced up on an elbow. “How did you ever manage to escape?”
“Talent, madam.” The hazel eyes gleamed at her. “I seem to have a certain aptitude for brawling.”
Lenore dropped back into the feathery softness and groaned at his humor. “Oh, Ashton, you’re making light of it all. Don’t you know those men could have killed you?”
“I believe that came to me at the time, madam.”
“What were the thieves after?”
“My heart, I gathered.”