Declan finally lost his pursuers as the first rays of the sun began to spread across the eastern horizon. Tired beyond measure and so hungry he was lightheaded, he stopped on the outskirts of Jost to take off his coat and turn it inside out, button it so the claret color would not show. The cocked hat he stuffed into the saddlebags and secreted Spirit behind the blacksmith shop in a coral with two other nags. He thought for a moment about unsaddling the beast but a niggling voice in the back of his mind urged him not to.
There were few shops in Jost, but the tavern was open—as many taverns near a mining town always were—and it was to that establishment he headed. Knowing he looked the worse for wear was probably just as well. His hair was tousled and escaping the band that he used to tie it at the nape of his neck. His boots were caked with mud and there were dirty streaks on his hands and most likely his face as well. He would look the part of the drunkard he was going to pretend to be.
Stumbling into the inn, mumbling to himself, he wove his way to the bar and plopped his elbows on the top.
“Ale,” he demanded in a slurred voice.
The man behind the bar who was the only one in the tavern came over to give him the stink eye.
“You got coin?” he asked.
Declan reached into his pocket for that last silver dollar and thought better of it. A man such as he was supposed to be would not have money of that amount.
And that was the only money he had.
He pulled his empty hand out of his pocket and grinned stupidly.
The barman snorted. “Go on with you,” he snapped. “No money, no ale.”
“I’ll sweep your floors for a piece of bread,” Declan told him.
“Don’t need sweeping. Off with you, I said.”
Weaving as he stood there to drive home the point he was a drunken derelict, Declan turned and braced his elbows on the bar as he looked around the room, He swung his head in an arch toward the barman.
“I’ll wash your windows for an apple.”
The man started to say something but then thought better of it. “Down on your luck, eh?” he asked instead.
“Woman threw me out,” Declan said. He blew a raspberry. “Mean witch, she is.”
“Aye, most of them are,” the man said.
“Wipe the tables for a bite of anythin’ to eat,” Declan said, putting a whine into his voice.
Before the barman could respond to that, two men came through the door. Declan tensed for they were soldiers and both were armed. He turned away from them, lowered his head lest they recognize him.
“Ale,” one of them said while the other hooked a foot around a chair leg and pulled it from the table.
The barman nodded and reached for two tankards. He drew the ale then carried it over to the table where both men were sitting.
“Long night, lads?” he asked.
“Aye,” the one who had ordered the ale replied. “Chasing the Gypsy, we were.”
“Almost caught him, too,” the other one said. He took a long swing of the ale.
“Where was this?” the barman asked, folding his arms over his brawny chest.
“Out toward Wixenstead. Didn’t catch him but we got his woman.”
Declan flinched, molded his hands around the edge of the bar top. He squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his teeth.
“Had him an accomplice, eh?” the barman inquired.
“Had being the right word to use,” the soldier said.
Declan slowly opened his eyes.
“Arrested her, did you?”
He lifted his head to look into the mirror over the bar—breathing stilled to hear the answer.
“Didn’t get the chance. She blew her bloody head off to warn him, the slut.”
He watched the blood drain from his face; his eyes went dead in the gleam of the lantern light.
“She’s dead then?” the barman asked.
“As a fucking doornail,” the soldier replied and laughed.
“Good riddance to a whoring collaborator,” the other put in. “May she roast in hell.”
Neither of the men sitting at the table had paid any attention to him when they came in. They didn’t even look his way until he growled—low and mean deep in his throat.
“What’s your problem?” one of them demanded.
He slowly reached up to unbutton his coat. His blood was pounding so fiercely in his ears he didn’t hear anything else. Coat undone, he peeled it back, crossed his hands in front of him, took hold of the grips on the three-shot pistols stuck into the waistband of his pants then slowly turned. He saw their eyes widen as he brought up the pistols and pointed them. Watched as one soldier shot to his feet and went for his own weapon. That weapon never left its holster. Declan fired each of his pistols just once, but despite the terrible quaking inside his soul, his aim was true. Both iron balls went right between the soldiers’ eyes.
For the first time in his life he had killed a man.
Nay, he thought. He had killed two and there was at least one more he would put down before the day was o’er.
The barman threw his hands up, backed away. “I want no trouble with you, milord,” he said but Declan ignored him. He jammed the pistols in his waistband and headed for the door. When he passed the place where the two soldiers lay on their backs staring at what was beyond this world, he stopped, leaned over and pulled the rapier from the baldric of one of the dead men. With the blade clenched tightly in his hand he left the barman staring after him.
Running as fast as he could, he collided hard with the corral gate, ignored the pain then pushed it open. He ran to Spirit and swung himself onto the beast’s broad back with a gasp. He was sure he’d broken a rib or two on the gate but he didn’t give a gods-damn. Rapier in hand, he kicked the horse in the sides and sent it racing through the opening in the fence just as the sun chased the night away.
* * * * *
Hoping and praying Declan had not found out about Bess, Daniel and Jack began searching the areas Jack thought him most likely to have gone to ground. From having tracked him more times than he cared to remember, he had some idea where Declan would go. Which road or trail he would take. By the time he reached Jost, the sun was up and there was a crowd milling around in front of the tavern.
“That doesn’t look good,” Daniel said.
Riding up to the tavern, Jack called to group of men. “Something happen here?” he asked.
One man turned around. “The Gypsy was here,” the man said with a broad grin. “Sent two troopers to their reward, he did.”
Jack flinched. “He killed a man?”
“Kilt two of ’em,” the man replied.
“Were they trying to arrest him?” Daniel queried.
“Might have been on their minds after they told him his woman was dead, but that was most likely the last things they thought afore he shot ’em ’tween the eyes,” the man told him with a wink.
“He knows,” Jack said with a groan.
“And he’ll be going after Penry,” Daniel stated.
* * * * *
Althea had been nervous since waking at first light but had no idea why. She had been pacing the battlements of her father’s keep, her eyes turned to the west for hours now. The heavy downpour of the night before had put a slight chill to the morning air and she pulled her shawl closer around her. An image of Declan drifted across her mind’s eye to send a shudder through her. It rippled from her head to her toes to chill her even more.
“Something has happened to you,” she said. She leaned against the stone barrier. “I know it. I feel it.”
It was the same feeling she’d had when she’d been locked in Penry’s office at Gilhaven—beside herself with worry wondering what they were doing to the man she loved.
He was the Gypsy. There was no denying that. A part of her was shocked and dismayed, but another part was wildly thrilled at knowing he was such a dangerous and reckless outlaw. A criminal.
It was thrilling. Most certainly immoral.
Which made it all the more exhilarating.
The man she was going to marry was the stuff of legends. Tales were being told of him. Ballads were being written. He robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. How romantic was that?
As excited as she was at having such a man for her husband, she was filled with growing anxiety.
“You need to find something to occupy your mind,” she mumbled. “Else you are going to go crazy imagining all manner of evil has befallen him.”
The image of him wounded, hurt, lying on the coach road with no one to help him passed through her mind.
“Watch over him, Mo Regina,” she prayed to the Triune Goddess, Morrigunia. “Keep him out of harm’s way and bring him home safely to me.”
Home. Arlington Castle would be their home once they were Joined.
That was where she needed to be, she thought. If he was hurt, that would be where he would go.
With that belief firmly in her mind, she left the battlements at a fast walk, picking up speed as she skipped down the steps to the great hall below. She called to the first servant she saw to run to the stables and have a horse and carriage saddled for her.
“Where are you going?” her father asked, sticking his head out of his study.
“To Arlington,” she said. “Declan needs me.”
Her father frowned as she hurried past him to take the stairs up to their living quarters.
“You have received word from him?” her father called after her.
“Aye, Papa,” she lied. “And I must hurry.”
She didn’t know why but haste was of the utmost importance. She had to get to Declan as quickly as she could.
* * * * *
Streaking across the moors, cursing Royce Penry with every breath he took, Declan knew he had lost all reason, but he didn’t care. He refused to picture Bess lying dead at the Hound and Stag, her lifeblood draining away. He pushed all thoughts of how she might have taken her life to save his out of his mind and instead filled it with the brutal, evil vengeance he had planned for the man responsible for her death. Every ounce of savagery that had been lurking in his genetic makeup had come roaring to the surface. He had no remorse for killing the two soldiers in Jost. They had deserved to die if for no other reason than they had spoken ill of her. Had cursed her and labeled her with ugly words that were not true. For that and that alone, they had forfeited their lives. His only regret was that he could not resurrect them and kill them yet again.
He knew he wasn’t right in the head. He knew he was letting his temper control him. None of that mattered. He had a blood fever that tinged the world around him crimson red. The fever running through his body was scalding everything it touched. Fury had driven deep into what soul he had left and mercy was no longer a concept to him.
They would not be expecting him to come after them. He had some notion where Penry’s troops were likely to be. Not a one of them was safe. He had four shots left between the two pistols and generally the squads were six-man teams. With certainty, he knew he could take down four of the men with the pistols; he was just that good a shot. The other two would meet their deaths by his sword hand. The thought of slashing and hacking his way through muscle, cartilage and bone—blood spraying high into the air—was almost orgasmic. Declan’s bloodlust was high. He intended to keep it at that level until he could stand over Penry’s mutilated body and piss in the bastard’s dying face.
Lips peeled back from his teeth, jaw locked, his hand tight around the grip of the blade, he pushed Spirit as hard as he could across the purple moors and onto the coach road that led to Arlington Castle for that was where he knew Penry would have sent his men to arrest him.
* * * * *
Jack and Daniel were riding equally hard toward the same destination. They had learned in Pierpont that Penry had dispatched eight of his men to Declan’s ancestral home before leading the rest of his troop to the Hound and Stag to ambush him. Four miles from Dead Man’s Crossing they realized they were being followed by a lone rider who was pouring on the speed, coming on strong.
“Saur,” Daniel shouted against the wind lashing their faces and saw Jack nod.
Just before they reached the bridge, Saur galloped up beside them. Single file, they thundered across the wide expanse then went flying three abreast toward Arlington Castle.
* * * * *
In the small town of Richter’s Creek, the local sheriff and his deputy stood over the body of a man each had known since they were toddlers. It was the same man who had delivered the both of them and who—in his dotage—was long retired from the healing profession. Outside the doorway of the healer’s cottage two local farmers were looking in.
“Who would have done this?” Matthew Kimble, the sheriff asked as he stared down at the dead man.
“Someone I’d like to catch and hang from the tallest tree,” his deputy Andy Pine said between tight jaws.
They looked around at the young boy who had come to tell them of his grisly discovery. The boy—around twelve or thirteen—was panting heavily from his all-out run to the find the sheriff.
“Did you see anyone lurking about?” Kimble asked.
“Man. With. A. Wagon,” the boy wheezed. “Woman.”
“A man and woman driving a wagon?” Kimble wanted clarified.
The boy shook his head. “Soldier driving.” He struggled to catch his breath. “Woman in the back of the wagon.”
“Soldier?” Pine queried and reached out to grab the boy by the shoulder. “Are you sure, Randy?”
Looking up at his older brother, the boy nodded. “Wearing a uniform. It had one chevron on the sleeve.”
“That signifies a private,” Kimble said. “But why would he kill Healer Fisk?” Pine asked. He winced as his gaze went to the deep gash that had severed the old man’s throat.
“Good question,” Kimble replied. He squatted down in front of the boy. “Did you see the soldier enter Healer Fisk’s house?”
Breathing more normally, the boy said, “I saw him coming out with the woman in his arms. She didn’t look like she was awake and there was blood on her dress.”
Kimble swept his attention over the bloody gauzes, basin filled with red-tinged water and instruments that had obviously been used to stitch a wound. He turned to Pine. “Obviously he brought the woman here to get patched up.”
“Looks that way,” Pine agreed.
Kimble got to his feet. “He’s not going to be traveling fast in a wagon. We should have no trouble following the tracks,” Kimble stated. He looked around at the men lurking in the doorway. “Brendon, mount up and ride to Gilhaven. We have no authority on a Governmental Regiment reservation but we can inform the local magistrate of what has happened. Mayhap he can send word higher up the chain of command for someone to look into this.”
Brent turned to go.
“And Brent?” Kimble called out. “See if you can find out who the woman is.”
“Aye, Sheriff,” Brent agreed.
“It makes no sense for him to kill the healer,” Pine said. “Why in the gods’ names would he do that?”
“To keep Healer Fisk from telling anyone about the woman the bastard probably shot,” Kimble said.
* * * * *
Althea sat in the back of her father’s Landau with the leather top opened down the middle. It was beautiful day under the noon sky though clouds were gathering again in the west. As her driver cleared the rise just beyond Sadler’s Mill and started the carriage down the incline, she had a magnificent view of the valley below. On the coach road she saw dust smoking behind a fleet rider. Had the beast beneath him been black she would have thought it to be Declan racing so wildly along the highway.
Movement to the west of the coach road made her look that way and she frowned. About a quarter mile ahead of the galloping rider, there was a group of redcoat riders winding their way along a twisting, turning forest trail. If they continued on the same trek, redcoats and rider would cross paths a quarter of a mile ahead.
A chill pebbled over her flesh. As surely as she sat there on the plush seat she knew the lone rider was Declan and that as soon as the troops saw him they would give chase. She got up to kneel in the facing seat and took hold of her driver’s arm.
“How far are we from Arlington?” she queried.
“Two miles, Your Grace,” he replied. “Mayhap a tad more.”
“We must hurry, Danvers,” she told him. “My husband’s life may well be in danger!”
Snapping the reins to set the horses to a faster speed, the driver nodded to the east. “More riders, Your Grace,” he said.
Althea twisted around in the seat and was disheartened to see three more riders converging on the scene.
“Mo Regina, please,” she whispered. “Please don’t let anything happen to Declan.”
* * * * *
On the other side of the coach, streaking across the meadow, the three riders were advancing on the coach road.
“There he is,” Jack shouted, pointing to the right.
“And there they are,” Daniel yelled back.
“How many?” Jack demanded, casting a quick to the east.
“Eight,” Tim replied.
All three men drew their pistols, drummed their heels hard against their mounts, and leaned forward in their saddles.
* * * * *
Barreling past a point where the forest dipped close to the coach road, Declan caught a flash of red up ahead a hundred feet or a little more and realized too late it was a squad of Royal Marines.
He brought the rapier down, thrust it between his thigh and the saddle to keep it safe then let go of Spirit’s reins. He drew his pistols and cocked them, taking aim at the man leading the column. As soon as the man saw him, Declan pulled the trigger. The pistol bucked in his hand, the iron ball sped across the distance and hit the startled man squarely in the chest, knocking him from his horse.
* * * * *
Thundering down on the skirmish that was about to take place, Declan’s three friends stared in horror as the first redcoat fell.
“Mother of the gods,” Daniel shouted. “He drew first blood.”
Tim groaned inwardly. Now they would have him for murder if not for being the Gypsy. There was only one thing they could do to save their friend and Jack voiced that assessment.
“Don’t let any of them escape,” Jack yelled.
“Not one,” Tim whispered.
Taking careful aim from eighty yards away, Tim fired the first barrel of his flintlock and the shot went through the temple of the second man in line. He watched a third man fall before the remaining redcoats scattered among the trees.
With Declan firing at them from just south of the tree line and Daniel, Jack and Tim firing at them from the west, the troop quickly dismounted and ran for cover behind the closest tree trunk or rock they could find.
* * * * *
Althea could hear the gunfire and see the plumes of smoke wasting into the air. She saw the man she knew was her future husband wheel his horse around as the dirt beside the mount was kicked into the air from the shot coming at him from the trees.
“We don’t dare get much closer, Your Grace,” her driver shouted, sawing on the reins to slow the beasts.
“Do you have a weapon?” she asked.
“A coach pistol under the seat,” he told her. “And one in my holster.”
“Give me one of them,” she ordered.
He snapped his head around to stare aghast at her. “Your Grace?” he questioned.
“Give me one of the gods-be-damned guns, Danvers,” she snapped. “That’s an order.”
The driver pulled the gun from his holster and handed it behind him. She was glad to see it was a four-barrel flintlock—the very pistol her cousin Liam had taught her to use the summer before. Though she’d never killed anything and doubted she could, at least she could use the weapon to threaten one of the redcoats if necessary.
When the carriage rolled to a stop, Danvers secured the reins then bent over to retrieve the coach pistol from a box under the seat. He brought it out then glanced around at her.
“Are you sure about this, Your Grace?”
“We’ll stay here unless we’re needed,” she said, standing up so she could see what was happening. They were at least one hundred yards from the action and the best effective range of a flintlock pistol was less than eighty yards. All they could do from that distance was divide the redcoats’ attention.
* * * * *
The first ball hit him in the left shoulder, knocking the pistol from his hand. The second ripped into his right side. But it was the third that tore through his upper right thigh that hurt so badly he screamed with the agony as the iron ball went all the way through his flesh and into the side of his mount. The big horse screamed, as well, and went down—its rear legs buckling, neck thrashing. He barely had time to throw himself off the animal before it could crash to its side and pin him beneath it. Rolling away, he knew a moment of sheer panic before his forehead slammed into a large rock.
* * * * *
“No!” Jack bellowed. He leveled his pistol and fired twice in quick succession. The first shot missed but the second was true. It took down one of the redcoats that had a musket aimed at Declan’s back.
To either side of him, Daniel and Tim were firing at the remaining four redcoats. His friends had no cover to hide behind as the soldiers did but were using their weapons to pin the bastards down as Jack raced toward Declan.
* * * * *
“Dear gods, no,” Althea cried out when she saw Declan go down. She watched in horror as he rolled away from the fallen horse then lay still.
Before he could stop her, she had scrambled over the seat and was shoving Danvers out of her way as she grabbed up the reins. She popped them as hard as she could across the horses’ rumps and the carriage lurched forward so forcefully the driver was pitched backward, tumbling over the seat and to the floorboard of the carriage.
“Haw,” Althea shouted, snapping the reins and leaning forward as though that would make the steeds run faster. She saw one of the men who had come to Declan’s aid galloping toward him while the other two kept firing into the tree line to keep the redcoats at bay.
* * * * *
As the carriage careened past them, Daniel looked around, startled by the movement. The burning sting of the iron ball pierced his belly and he looked down in surprise as blood began to mushroom from the blackened hole in his shirt.
“Get down,” Tim shrieked at him but it was too late. A second ball dug its fiery way into his upper right chest.
He dropped to his knees—the jarring pain so intense it took his breath away. He had a vague impression of a man running toward him from the trees but that man went down as the side of his head exploded in a red mist.
As he began to pitch forward, he saw Tim reaching for his pistol. Tim had tossed both of his aside. There was only one shot left in his own gun but Saur was welcome to it.
“Make it count,” he said before he hit the ground.
* * * * *
Jack used the remaining shot in his pistol to twist around in the saddle and send that iron ball right through the mouth of a yelling soldier as he ran toward Declan. He had no idea how many of the Royal Marines were left standing—or running as the case might be—but he was already jumping from Warlock’s back to get to Declan’s side.
His friend was as still as death with blood pouring from his wounds. The once-white lace at his throat was scarlet red and his head was lying in a crimson pool.
“Please gods, please,” he begged as he ran to Declan and fell to his knees. “Please let him be alive.”
* * * * *
His ammunition gone, Tim pulled the dagger from the sheath at his thigh and stared running pell-mell toward the remaining soldier who was loading his musket. Though it was hard for him to run—the agony so intense in his twisted legs—there was no way in hell he was going to allow the bastard to shoot either Declan or Jack. He was about twenty feet from his intended target. The soldier’s musket was primed. He was bringing it up to his shoulder, sighting it.
Then there was a smart crack and the man lurched as though being pulled backward then pitched sideways to the ground.
Tim snapped his head in the direction from which the shot had come and was amazed to see a comely woman standing on the driver’s seat of a carriage that sped past. She had her arm straight out in front of her and it was as steady as a rock. Slowly she turned her head toward him. The smile that stretched across her beautiful face would have scared far more people than his tortured one ever had.
“See to your friend,” she ordered him before she hiked up her skirt and jumped to the ground.
“Damn,” he muttered.
* * * * *
Daniel was dying. He knew he was and had accepted it. He’d managed to roll over to his back so he could look up at the blazing sun directly overhead. He tracked a hawk gliding along the thermals and felt at peace. Soon, he would be soaring with the other wispy spirits he could see flittering about the bright azure sky.
“Father Daniel,” Tim said as he dropped down beside him.
“It’s all right,” Daniel told him. “Really, it is.”
He started to cough and blood bubbled over his lips but he no longer felt the crippling, burning pain that had been eating at his gut.
Tim gently ran an arm under his head and lifted him.
“Listen,” Daniel said, reaching up a shaking hand to grab the front of Tim’s coat. “Take off my coat and take it over to Jack.”
“What?” Tim asked; his mismatched eyes filled with tears.
“Take my coat and put it on Declan. Give his to me,” Daniel said quietly but firmly. “Bring me his hat and his kerchief if it isn’t in his coat.”
“Father, please…” Tim began.
“Make them think it’s me,” Daniel said. He pulled with as much strength as he had left. “They have to believe I’m the Gypsy.”
What he was asking seemed to be striking a chord in the younger man for Tim nodded.
“And tell him…” Daniel pulled Tim down closer to him. “Tell him I always loved him.”
* * * * *
Tim felt as much as he saw the light leave Daniel Rees’s body. The ex-priest’s eyes stilled as he stared at what had been waiting in the Afterlife for him. There was a slight smile on his blood-streaked lips and a peacefulness to his features that said whatever it was he was seeing was good.
Choking off a sob, Tim cradled the dead man to his chest and hunkered there—rocking him as though he were a child.
They have to believe I’m the Gypsy.
That made sense to Tim. Father Daniel’s final act was as unselfish as the man himself had always been. His good name had long since been taken from him so what was one more crime laid at his doorstep? In taking on the mantle—the claret velvet coat—of the highwayman, Declan Farrell was in the clear.
No greater love, Tim thought.
Slowly he turned his head so he could look to where Declan had fallen. None of it would matter much if Declan had not survived his wounds. He saw both Jack and the unknown woman kneeling beside Declan then watched as Jack ran his arms under Dec’s back and knees and lifted him from the ground.
“Be alive,” Tim said. “Please, be alive.”
He watched Jack carry their friend to the carriage. The woman’s driver leaned down to accept Declan’s limp body then turn to lay him on one of the seats. Jack pulled himself into the driver’s seat; the woman grabbed her skirts in one hand then held her other for her driver to hoist her into the back of the carriage.
“Wait,” Tim shouted. He gently laid Daniel down then got clumsily to his feet. He thought Jack would leave him before he could do what Daniel had asked.
“Hurry up,” Jack barked. “He’s losing a lot of blood.”
“His coat,” Tim yelled back. “I need his coat and kerchief.”
“His…?” Jack snarled but the woman in the back of the carriage with Declan must have understood for she said something to her driver and between them they began stripping the coat from Declan.
As he ran past the spot where Declan had fallen, he barely broke stride as he bent over to retrieve the cocked hat. He was only a few feet from the carriage when the woman tossed the coat to him. The tail of it was saturated with blood.
“I stuffed the kerchief into his pocket. Make sure you hide the other man’s coat,” she ordered him. The words were barely out of her mouth before Jack whipped the horses into motion.
As the carriage rattled up the coach road, Declan Farrell’s black steed galloped in its wake.