In view of the fact he was not supposed to be skulking around, Jamie walked both horses to the front of the house and left them munching on the lawn while he eased his backside on to the low wall closest to the building. Really, he reasoned, what happened next was down to her. He intended to ask her outright about it straight away.
Did you want me to kiss you yesterday?
Too blunt.
I was wondering, should I have kissed you yesterday?
Pathetic.
Cassie, yesterday there was a moment when I was convinced you wanted to be kissed. Like a fool I let it pass. Was I right to do so?
Jamie groaned aloud. His toes would cramp up before this awkward debacle was concluded, in fact...
He heard a chair scrape on wood close by and realised the only place the noise could have come from was the vicarage. Somebody was home, which meant he could hardly remain sat in their front garden rehearsing all of the cringingly bad sentences he intended to say. Jamie stood up, straightened his coat, smoothed down his wayward hair, then smartly rapped his knuckles on the front door.
More wood scraped against wood and footsteps made their way to the door, but did not open it. ‘Who is it?’ The Reverend Reeves’s tone was wary and unwelcoming, something which did not bode well when he could have no idea who his visitor was.
‘Captain James Warriner. I should like to speak to you, Reverend.’
‘Go away. You are not welcome here.’ Well, it had started well. Things would undoubtedly get much worse before this conversation finished.
‘I appreciate that, Reverend Reeves, however I come here with a purpose. A neighbourly purpose.’ When this was met with stony silence Jamie knocked again. ‘I have something for you.’ He bit back from telling the man he had Cassie’s pony in case the man told him to take it to the stable without opening the door. He could hardly argue with such an obviously sensible request. ‘It is important.’
The bolt slid noisily open behind the door and it finally opened a crack. Half of the vicar’s face came into view. He appeared quite dishevelled. His hair was sticking up on one side of his head, the shoulder seam of his cassock torn, but it was his eyes which began to bother Jamie. They were quite manic.
‘Go away, Warriner. Whatever you have I do not want.’
‘I found this pony wandering riderless—I believe it is your daughter’s.’
‘I have no daughter!’ This was spat with venom—a worrying amount of venom—then the vicar tried to close the door.
Jamie wedged his foot inside.
‘This is your daughter’s pony, sir! Your daughter Cassandra...’
‘Do not speak her name in my presence!’
Foaming spittle was gathering in the corners of the man’s mouth again, not that Jamie needed to see it to know something was amiss. Jamie was instantly, loyally furious.
‘Where is she?’ He angrily pushed at the door with his shoulder, ignoring the resistance from the other side. The Reverend altered position to brace his full weight against it to close it, allowing Jamie to see the whole of the man’s face for the first time.
Four deep scratches marred his left cheek. More were visible on his neck and on the backs of his hands. Not scratches, perhaps. Claw marks. Human claw marks. And was that blood on his shirt?
His neck prickled with fear. ‘Where’s Cassie?’
The vicar refused to budge, still denying him entry. ‘Did she open her legs for you, Warriner? Did you use her for your pleasure or to get petty revenge on me for daring to speak the truth about your sins?’
Every instinct Jamie had was positively screaming. Something was very, very wrong.
He stepped back, then lunged at the door with a primal grunt of exertion. As he had intended, the odious vicar fell backwards as the full force of the impact knocked him off his feet.
Wasting no time, Jamie strode into the stuffy kitchen. ‘Cassie! Cassie where are you?’
There was no reply, and her father was already scrambling to his feet. He threw himself in front of Jamie as he stalked towards the narrow staircase. ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’
The bitter taste in Jamie’s mouth, his palpitating heart and the way every hair on his body had suddenly stood to attention were warning signs he had grown to trust. They had kept him alive in the Peninsula and he was damned if he would doubt them now. He grabbed her father sharply by the lapels. ‘Get behind me!’ Unceremoniously he shoved him back to the floor and took the stairs two at a time.
‘If you have so much as harmed one single hair on her head, I will kill you!’
When her bedchamber door refused to open Jamie felt the bile rise in his throat.
‘You locked her in, you bastard! The thing she fears most in the world! Give me the key!’
Below him, the Reverend Reeves walked towards one of the plain wooden crosses nailed to the wall and closed his eyes, his body rocking back and forth as he began to chant in a monotone. ‘The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; in him I will trust. He is my shield, and the horn of my salvation and my refuge. Thou savest me from violence...’
‘The key!’ Jamie no longer existed, he could tell. Wherever the Reverend’s mind had gone, it was no longer in this building.
Chapter Fifteen
‘I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, so I shall be saved from mine enemies...’
The man was quite mad. Clearly lost in his own fevered recitation of the scriptures, trying to reason with him was only wasting time. Wondering about the sort of life Cassie endured with him did not bear thinking about. Not yet at any rate, because he still had to find her.
Jamie threw his shoulder repeatedly at the door with a strength he had not known he possessed. As he did, he called to her and each time she failed to answer he rammed the barrier between them harder. For the first time since his injuries, Jamie was thankful those bullets had torn through his leg. Because his weakened leg had forced him to rely more on his arms, and those arms, these shoulders, were now stronger than ever. The door really did not stand a chance. Once the ancient wooden frame began to splinter he was able to break through in a matter of seconds as it all gave at once under his relentless onslaught.
‘Cassie!’
Although daylight outside, the room was dark. The heavy curtains were pulled tight and it took his eyes a moment to focus properly. The tiny bedchamber had been ransacked. The blankets and sheets from the bed hideously tangled and strewn over the floor. Her clothes were scattered around, ripped and torn as if some ferocious beast had rampaged through the room and gone at them with its bared teeth. All around him was carnage, yet he could still not see her.
Jamie clambered over the mess to search on the other side of the bed and there she was. On the floor. Slumped against the solid leg of the headboard. Most of her hair covered her face, but he saw enough to feel sick. Gagged. Hands bound tightly behind her back, whatever held them together had also been lashed securely around the bedpost. One sleeve of her dress hanging limply where it had been torn from the bodice.
Whatever rage he felt for her father was temporarily forgotten in his rush to help her. Jamie ignored the protest in his thigh as he dropped to his knees beside her.
‘Cassie?’
He smoothed the bulk of her hair from her cheek and saw the bruising. Her cheekbone was covered in an angry raised mark. Her lovely eye swollen from another blow to her face and she wasn’t moving.
‘Oh, my darling, what has he done to you?’
Instinctively his fingers went to her neck and located her pulse. It vibrated strong and steady beneath his touch, easing some of the tension clouding his mind. He wrenched the knife out of his boot and carefully cut through the bond which held her to the bed. It wasn’t rope or cord. Whatever it was, it had the distinct texture of silk. Those binding her han
ds were harder to remove. The ribbon, and he was certain it was ribbon, was covered in some raised decoration which made slicing through without harming her skin problematic. Jamie had to lean her heavy head against his upper body in order to do it. When they finally came free, he glanced down at the tangled mess in his hands and recognised part of it instantly. Her floral garters, and if he was not mistaken the other restraint was made out of a single silk stocking.
Jamie gathered Cassie close and began the arduous task of trying to stand with her in his arms. Unconscious, she was a dead weight, but his arms were strong and he was damned if he would fail her.
Something hard and angular caught him unawares on the back of the head.
‘She needs to repent!’
Jamie almost dropped her. Almost. Instead he managed to lower her carefully to the ground just as another blow caught him across the shoulders. He twisted around in time to see the crazed vicar coming at him again, brandishing one of the austere wooden crosses from the kitchen. He allowed his assailant to attempt to strike him again, lunging for the makeshift weapon and using its downward momentum to destabilise the man. Jamie wrenched the crucifix from his hand and tossed it out of harm’s way, before heaving himself awkwardly to his feet to go on the offensive.
As he topped the man by over six inches, he did not bother crouching to take him down. Instead he stalked towards him menacingly, grateful for the burning fury and hatred which coursed through his veins and rid him of any guilt at what he was about to do. This time he welcomed the savage inside, happily opened the cage and let it out to wreak chaos. This man deserved nothing less.
His palm shot out, gripping Cassie’s father firmly about the throat, then marched him back against the wall to loom over him.
‘You hit her.’ And he wanted to kill him.
‘She is just like her disgraceful mother!’
Jamie felt his palm squeeze tighter of its own accord and didn’t care.
‘You tied her up. Gagged her. Locked her in!’ Dear God, he hoped she had not been imprisoned for long.
‘She prostituted herself for money!’
‘You’re a monster!’ He could feel the vicar struggling to breathe and still he didn’t care. ‘A raving madman!’
‘She’s the monster. She is possessed by the devil himself. I saw the evidence of it with my own eyes! Pages of blasphemy where animals talk! Harlots’ clothing. Wanton lust. In my house! With you!’
Behind him, Jamie heard the magnificent sound of Cassie moaning. She was coming to. It distracted him and her father used it as an opportunity to wrench his neck free.
‘I know it was you who fornicated with her. JW! JW! It was on your cravat. I did not put it together till now. James Warriner. Debaucher. Fornicator!’
The need to smash the man’s head against the wall was instinctual, because this man had hurt Cassie and therefore he needed to die.
‘And don’t forget, Reverend, I am the devil’s own henchman. This face will be the last thing you ever see and it will be laughing as it chokes the life out of you.’
Both of Jamie’s hands wrapped around his neck. One violent twist and he would have the satisfaction of hearing and feeling it break.
An execution.
Justice. And Jamie would be the executioner.
She moaned again and without thinking he turned to her. Saw her eyes. The pain and fear in them and knew he couldn’t allow her to see him as the monster he truly was. With a growl of sheer frustration, he smashed her father’s head against the wall. The older man’s eyes rolled back in his head and his knees gave way. But the man was still breathing as Jamie left him on the floor.
‘It’s all right, Freckles. You’re safe now, darling.’
Feeling choked with emotion, shaking like a leaf in a gale and still desperately fighting to control the anger, Jamie went to her, helped her up and supported the bulk of her weight as he led her from the bedchamber. She swooned slightly at the top of the stairs, clutching at his waistcoat and collapsing against him. He didn’t trust his leg to carry her like a lady. If it gave way on the staircase, then the fall would add to her injuries. Thinking about her in more pain because of him made his stomach lurch. All he could do was bend down and fling her over his right shoulder like a sack of flour, and let his undamaged right leg bear the brunt of the lifting as he carefully picked his way down.
She hung limply behind him, but he did not stop. He took her to where he had tied Satan and deposited her gently across the saddle, then he hauled himself up behind her, positioning her damaged body to sit safely in the cage of his arms. His temperamental horse appeared to understand the gravity of the situation and set off a fair lick in the direction of home. Next to him, Orange Blossom galloped alongside. Even though it was not possible, Jamie could almost see the worried expression on the pretty pony’s equine face.
Only when he was certain he had put enough distance between Cassie and her crazed father did he stop to remove the tight gag in her mouth. The task made Jamie’s heart ache with regret, because he recognised what her father had cruelly used to silence her. It was his cravat. Letty’s tiny embroidered initials—JW, in the distinctive pattern which was reserved only for him—a damning reminder of his part in her fate.
* * *
Cassie had a vague recollection of the events which had ultimately brought her to this soft, comfortable bed in Markham Manor. Obviously, she wished she did not recall exactly the dreadful things her father had subjected her to. The beating, the choking and being practically shackled to her bed were memories which would always haunt her. It was her dramatic rescue which was a little hazy. Flashes really. Jamie’s voice calling out to her. His look of complete disgust as he threw her father to the ground. His arms around her as they galloped away, when ironically, the sun was setting. It might not be the happily ever after she had often imagined, but it was a definitive ending of sorts. After what her father had done this time, Cassie was determined never to go back.
It really did not matter that the only possessions she had escaped with were the torn clothes on her back. Everything else had been violated by her father. Her writing had been shredded before her eyes, the pretty fripperies she had hidden for so long were used to tie her up. The few plain dour dresses she had owned meant nothing to her and almost seemed like the uniform of her father’s oppression. The only thing she cared about was her pony and Orange Blossom had had the great good sense to accompany Jamie back to Markham Manor. As soon as they were all safely ensconced inside, those enormous imposing gates were ceremonially closed, meaning she was safe from harm in a virtual fortress. Never had a bolted door given her such palpable relief.
Of course, everyone had made a huge fuss over her. The physician had been fetched by the Earl himself. Her injuries were declared to be temporary. Nothing which a good night of bedrest and several hearty meals could not fix, and now that the awful after-effects of her latest incarceration were waning, Cassie felt like a fraud lying here, in one of Letty’s fine night rails, being waited on by a family who had shown her nothing but kindness and for whom she had caused nothing but trouble.
There was a light tap on the door before his dark head popped in. ‘I just wanted to check you were comfortable.’
Cassie beckoned him in, feeling an overwhelming surge of love and gratitude for this man who had come to her rescue yet again. He took a few steps towards the bed and stood awkwardly. ‘Come. Sit.’ She shuffled her bottom across the mattress and patted the space she had created. With trepidation he did as she asked, his posture stiff and barely meeting her eyes. ‘What is wrong?’
‘I feel dreadful. What you were subjected to—that ordeal—it was all my fault. He found my cravat, didn’t he?’
Technically, yes, but Jamie did not deserve to absorb the blame. He deserved the truth. ‘This time it was your cravat. Last time it was because I spoke out of
turn. The time before it was because the points of his shirts were not properly starched. Once I was locked up for three days because he caught me humming when I was scrubbing the kitchen floor. The slightest thing will send him into a rage, Jamie, and they now occur with such alarming frequency I doubt it matters what is the cause. I have come to believe his moods send him half-mad and then he finds everything about me offensive.’
‘Half-mad?’ His hand had found her hand and he was lacing his fingers through hers. ‘I hate to say this, Cassie, as he is your father, but he is a lunatic. I wish you had told me about all this before today. I could have helped you.’
‘I have learned through bitter experience to keep my father’s behaviour a secret. He could be relentless if others interfered, and in my defence I was trying to help myself. I had a plan to escape. I knew that now I am of the age of majority he could not drag me back once I left, but I did not want to be at the mercy of the streets either. In many ways, the life some of those poor wretches endure is a life more brutal than mine. At least I had a roof over my head and food in my belly. Most of the time my father is oblivious of my existence, so I was able to carry on until I had made all of the preparations to escape properly. Once and for all. To that end I had been saving a little money each week. A pitiful amount really, but I hoped eventually I would have enough to afford to rent lodgings before seeking gainful employment somewhere.’
‘You still should have told me.’
‘When you move around as frequently as I do, you assume all friendships to be transient and I did not want to burden you with my problems.’
‘You are not a burden, Cassie.’ The hand holding hers squeezed tighter and he stared down at their intertwined fingers. ‘I asked you if he was violent towards you and you denied it.’
A Warriner to Rescue Her Page 19