Dylan had been away for a ten-day, leaving with obvious reluctance, on some business he declared he could not ignore, as much as he’d have preferred to stay home, keep watch and spend time both with the children and with Martin. His first night back, he invited Martin to come to his room as soon as the children were abed.
They’d established a habit of sharing the evening meal, all five of them, and Dylan often took a role in seeing the three youngsters off to their beds after an hour or so of quiet play to let their meal settle. Sometimes, he even read them a story. When he did not, Martin took that task and had even convinced Emmaline to read a bit as well. When she read aloud, her stutter almost vanished and he could see progress in her regular speech as a result. Donovan, though, remained stubbornly mute.
Although each child had a private chamber, Martin suspected they often ended up in one room. He knew Charlotte often slept with Emmaline. He never chided them as he saw no harm in it, and even if Donovan joined the girls, they were all still young enough for it to be quite innocent. No doubt the three needed the comfort of being together.
As for him, he found great comfort in sharing at least part of the night with Dylan, although the losses he had experienced were far in the past. This night, after the hiatus, they enjoyed each other thoroughly. At last they relaxed together, Dylan close against Martin’s back. They lay spooned in sated, drowsy comfort, neither one anxious for the pre-dawn parting that would not be long enough in coming.
Dylan’s cock nestled between Martin’s thighs. The captain moved just enough to sustain a subtle, gentle friction. He reached across Martin’s side and clasped Martin’s prick, teasing it with his fingertips. Although neither was really aroused nor seeking to be, the languid caresses still felt delicious.
Martin was edging toward dozing off when a piercing shriek tore through the silence.
Drawing apart, they both sat upright at once.
“What in the name of bloody Hades was that?”
They leaped off the bed and grabbed trousers and dressing gowns, donning them as they dashed out into the corridor. Martin now knew the shortcut from the master’s suite to the nursery area in the adjacent wing and did not need Dylan’s lead to know where to go. They both thought first of the children, of course. They pelted down the corridor in step.
The door to the playroom stood ajar. Fear clenched in Martin’s gut. What? Who? He prayed desperately for the three children to be snug in their beds, or any of the three beds, although he had a fearful hunch that would not be the case.
Just then Donovan burst out from behind the partly open door to his room. He brandished a toy sword Dylan had brought him from the latest trip to London. Shocking oaths erupted from his young mouth. “That bloody damned murdering bastard! I tried to stop him. I think I cut his arm. Despite that, he’s taken Emmaline and his trollop has Charlotte. I wiggled like an eel and fought him off. It was not enough for him to kill Mama and Papa. He has to do this as well. The whoreson scum!”
Dylan and Martin both skidded to a halt, shocked mute themselves to hear the boy speak. No one was about to reprimand his salty language just then, shocking though it would have been under other circumstances. That he finally spoke was the most important thing and what he said a very close second.
“When?”
“Where?”
They both asked at once, swiftly scanning the room for any sign of the girls or their abductor.
Then more importantly: “Who?”
“‘Twas Merlan, my filthy bastard uncle, the foul one I will not claim. I saw when he killed Papa and then Mama, making it look like something else had happened. No one else ever knew, but I saw. He’s mad as a March hare. I heard them plotting before it happened, him and the red-headed woman, Mama’s maid. When I tried to tell Mama, she thought I was making up wild tales.”
The lad fell silent then, as if he’d just realized he had spoken for the first time in many months. He opened and shut his mouth a time or two, almost like he was rolling long-idle words around to regain the use of them. Then he threw himself into Martin’s arms and began to weep. “No one would listen to me, no one ever, so I just stopped talking.”
“There’s no time to waste,” Dylan said. “Can you tell me which way they went?”
Donovan drew back, swiping a hand across his streaming eyes and nose. He shook his head. “Down the back way, perhaps. Into the old wing where we’re forbidden to go.”
Dylan turned to Martin. “Go back to my room and get my pistols. They’re in the military trunk at the foot of the bed. Then come back and follow down that hall.” He pointed the way into a dark corridor. “Meanwhile, I’ll try to find a trace of them before it’s too late. No telling what Merlan plans to do.”
Fear and worry curdled in Martin’s viscera. He wanted to tell Dylan to wait until he was armed. If Merlan truly was capable of murder as Donovan’s story indicated, he probably had a weapon on him now. How could Dylan tackle him barehanded? Still, he knew better than to argue.
He whirled and ran back the way they had come, the boy on his heels. “Just stay behind me, Donovan, and stay close. I’ll do my best to keep you safe, and your uncle will do his best to bring your sisters back to safety. We’ll be soldiers together and win this battle.”
“I’m not afraid. I’ve got my sword,” Donovan said. “It may be a toy, but still it’s sharp. The point especially. I’d love to run the blackguard through!”
After that announcement, Donovan fell silent. For the moment, Martin appreciated the quiet as his thoughts raced in a hundred directions. The pistols were exactly where Dylan had told him. He grabbed them and spun back toward the door.
“A light, sir. A candle or a lantern. The old wing is very dark.”
Not bothering to ask how the boy knew, since the area was allegedly forbidden to the children, Martin snatched two unlit candles. Stubby fat new ones, they should burn for some time. He also grabbed a match safe off Donovan’s bedside table and shoved it in the pocket of his dressing gown. Then, with Donovan right behind him, he charged back to the point where the corridor led to the unused part of the rambling manor house.
Sure enough, the farther they went down its length, the darker it became. He realized there were no windows and any doors were closed. The air seemed stuffy and stale, too. His house shoes made little sound as he ran, as did Donovan’s bare feet. Even those slight sounds seemed loud in the weight of silence. His heartbeat drummed in his ears.
Underfoot, the floor felt somewhat gritty, as if old dust lay thick over the hardwood. There were no rugs or carpet. Although he hated to waste even seconds, he paused to light a candle and then had to move slower lest he blow it out by the breeze of a fast pace. Finally, a sound came, the crash of a door perhaps forced open roughly or slammed shut. Shielding the candle with one hand, Dylan’s pistols clenched under one elbow, he rushed on.
When the corridor ended suddenly against a stone wall, it took Martin a moment to see the stairwell leading downward on the left side. Now he had to slow his pace for the stairs were steep and the worn treads slippery and narrow.
“Watch your step,” he told Donovan. He’d lowered his voice to a whisper when he noticed how sounds echoed as they descended the steps.
Donovan did not reply.
Then a muffled shout came from below, sharp words that sounded like Dylan’s voice, although Martin could not be sure. He thought he heard “Halt,” and then “Let the girl go.”
Dylan was going to need those pistols. Martin quickened his steps, praying he would not slip and tumble headlong down the stairs, which seemed to go on and on, switching back at least twice at what he thought were landings to access lower floors. Yet the bedroom and nursery wing were only on the second floor with no higher levels above them. He tried to recall the back wing. Outside it seemed only to be two stories as well. Did it go underground then? He recalled how the surface sloped off sharply on that side of the grounds, so perhaps there was a third lower story.
The stairs ended at the apparent end of another hallway. Fresh, cool air hit his face as he turned into the area and he glimpsed a brighter rectangle, a doorway apparently open to the outdoors.
Donovan edged up beside him. “They’ll have gone to the left, sir. That’s the way to the stables and Merlan will try to take a horse and make a run for it, I think.”
Martin did not question his charge’s assessment. They turned together and darted down the graveled path. He let the candle go out now because he could see well enough by the starlight and realized the sky had begun to pale to the east over the higher hills behind the manor. Just as they reached the stable, a commotion broke out inside. A horse neighed, someone screamed, and Dylan’s voice roared out in a furious challenge.
“You scabrous coward, let the girl go. Your fight is with me, not the children. She can’t even inherit the title, so what use have you for her?”
Martin shoved through the door and almost ran into Dylan. “Here. Your pistols.” He gasped out the words, breathless from the mad dash.
Dylan grabbed them without removing his gaze from the other man, who struggled to tighten the girth on the saddle he’d flung onto a tall black horse. Dylan drew one gun from its holster and cocked it, dropping the other and the empty holster at his feet. Martin hoped the weapon was loaded and ready.
Merlan needed three or more arms to restrain Emmaline, whose face was as white as her nightgown, while he sought to tack up the horse. He held her between himself and Dylan as he attempted to control the restive steed. In a sudden, distant thought, Martin recognized the horse. It looked exactly like the mount of the mysterious cloaked rider. Many things began to make a strange kind of sense.
Finally satisfied with the saddle, Merlan almost threw Emmaline onto the horse’s back. Although the animal snorted and danced, it did not bolt or buck. She lit on the beast’s withers and clutched a handful of its mane in a desperate attempt to stay in place. Then the man vaulted up behind her.
He kneed the horse around until it quartered toward Dylan, again keeping Emmaline between himself and a possible shot. “Go ahead,” he challenged. “You’ll hit the girl before you hit me.”
The horse began to rebel then, fighting the bit and the unfamiliar rider he clearly did not respect. Merlan jerked and spurred it, which only seemed to madden the powerful animal even more. Dylan spoke a sharp command, which briefly stilled the beast’s antics.
He stood between the horse and an open door, barely large enough to take a mounted man if he bent low. The main doors were apparently barred for the night. “Nightwind will not run me down. You’ll not get past me.”
Merlan grabbed for something at his back, perhaps a sword or knife. “He’ll jump over you when you’re on the floor with my steel in your usurping body!”
A flash of silver cut through the dusky light. Dylan twisted and ducked, not quite fast or far enough. Martin heard him grunt as the blade sank into his body, apparently just under his left shoulder. He wobbled for a moment, but did not fall. In response to a savage spurring, the horse lunged forward, even though Dylan still blocked most of the doorway.
Desperate now, Martin threw himself in front of Dylan, between him and the horse, between him and anything else Merlan might use to fight his way out. Hearing his lover’s rasping breath, he sensed the other man was weakening with the pain and probable blood loss from the wound. The horse reared, fighting to keep from being forced into the two men he faced. Emmaline shrieked, losing her grasp on the mane, supported now only by Merlan’s left arm in which he also held the reins as he fumbled for some other hidden weapon.
“Jump, Em. I’ll break your fall.”
Martin registered Donovan’s voice, coming from the opposite side of the horse. Attention focused between Dylan and Merlan, he had not sensed the boy moving from behind him, although Donovan had clearly done so. Even though the boy was shorter and at least ten pounds lighter than his sister, he sounded determined.
“Donovan, you’re talking! No, I’ll smash you. I’m half a mile in the air!”
“Shut yer gob.” Merlan snarled the command, jerking on the reins now with both hands as he gave up on drawing another blade. He let go of Emmaline as the twisting, leaping horse demanded all his strength.
Martin did not know if she jumped or just lost her uncertain seat. In a flash of white, she left the horse’s back and vanished. He heard a grunt as she landed on her brother, smashing him down just as she had warned. They fell together and, in a blur glimpsed behind the dancing horse, rolled away to get clear of its pounding hooves. Although Martin knew a horse would never intentionally stamp on a living human, in the chaos, accidents were still possible.
He prayed the children were clear as he debated his next move. Behind him now, he sensed Dylan had backed a step or two and slumped against the door jam. Even though Martin thought Dylan still held a pistol, he now blocked a clear shot at Merlan, while the horse’s frenzy made a good aim nearly impossible.
When he took a step back, his foot encountered an obstacle. The other pistol! Yes! Not taking his gaze off Merlan, he stooped to one side and groped for the weapon. His hand found slick cold metal and he grabbed. Fumbling it into a proper grip, he drew back the hammer. He didn’t want to hit the horse, but perhaps he could aim high and hit the man.
Just then, Merlan lost his perilous seat and the reins slid from his hold. He fell, twisted, and managed to land on his feet. He let out a woof as he bent his knees to absorb part of the impact of the distance from the back of a tall, rearing horse to the cobbled floor. With an incoherent roar, Merlan charged. Martin steadied the pistol and aimed at the dark mass of the other man’s body. The weapon went off with an ear-splitting explosion and a brilliant flash in the darkness.
Apparently alerted by the commotion, Morgan and a couple of the grooms burst in through one of the end doors and came pelting down the aisle between the rows of stalls. As if in slow motion and from a distance, Martin watched Merlan collapse like a deflated balloon. The black horse faded back into the depths of the barn as the other three men surrounded the fallen would-be kidnapper.
Morgan clearly realized at once that his employer was injured and rushed to him as Dylan slid down until his arse hit the floor. In the growing light of dawn, Martin could see the scarlet streak running down the other man’s brocade dressing gown from a spot high on his left shoulder. The hilt of the knife still protruded from the wound.
Torn between needs, Martin let Morgan tend to Dylan while he looked for the children. He did not have to go far. Both covered with straw from rolling across the floor, the two emerged, looking like a pair of ragamuffins, but unharmed. Donovan clutched Emmaline’s hand, and she leaned against him as they ran to Martin.
“I-i-is Uncle Dylan hurt? That wicked man. He was too strong. I tried but he wouldn’t let go of me Still, I knew you’d all come to save me. And Donovan, you were so brave! I hope I didn’t crush you flat.”
The boy laughed. “No, I’m strong. I knew you’d be hurt falling on the stones. I’m not that hard.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking. After all these months, it’s like a miracle.”
Martin gathered both children close. “Thank God, you’re both all right. I feared the horse would trample you, although by accident as horses won’t step on a body if they can help it.” He hugged them. “Donovan, you’re a real hero. Without your help, this might have gone much worse!”
Emmaline turned an anxious look toward where Dylan slumped, Morgan beside him. The stable master tore the dressing gown aside and carefully drew the knife free. He turned to one of the grooms. “Send to town for the doctor. The captain needs his attention at once! Tell Doctor Lloyd it’s urgent.”
Shoving a clenched hand against her mouth, Emmaline muffled a wail. “Oh, no. Please not any more deaths!”
Martin hastened to reassure her, although he was worried himself. “I think your uncle will be all right. The knife hit very high, so it’s just a matter of stopping the bleeding and keeping the wound clean.”
Making a wad from a length of the wraps used on the horses’ legs, Morgan shoved it hard against the wound, slowing the dangerous flow of blood. Without taking his gaze from his master, he ordered the other groom to get one of the footmen or gardeners and prepare to carry Dylan to the house.
Dylan looked up to catch Martin’s eye. “I’ll be fine.” He managed a wobbly smile. “Em and Donnie, I swear I’ll not die on you! I’m a soldier, you know, and I’ve had many wounds and survived them. Go with Martin back to the house, and I’ll see you as soon as the doctor is done with me. You are both brave soldiers yourselves and I’m very proud of you.”
As they passed Merlan, Martin saw the man still breathed, although he had a large bloody wound in his side where the bullet had hit him. No one was paying him any mind, though perhaps they would once Dylan’s immediate needs were met. And if he died, it was no more than he deserved.
Halfway to the house, Emmaline suddenly halted. “Charlotte! We have to find Charlotte. Angela has her, and I’d wager they’re hiding somewhere in the house. Although I don’t think the nasty wench will hurt her, we must find her all the same.”
She paused, then went on, “Donovan is the one Merlan wanted, the heir. He fought, though, and I screamed my head off. After that, they decided to take Charlotte and me since they already had us. Then maybe exchange us to get him later. Or maybe kill us all unless Uncle Dylan surrendered everything to them and left again.”