Alexander and Blake arrived at eleven the next morning for their usual weekly hunting session. It was still far too early as far as the joyous and nearly insatiable newlyweds were concerned.
But Michael gave the nape of Bryony’s neck one final kiss. With a last twitch of his fingers and massive hardness he dragged himself from her off her back and sighed. "Damnation. My fault for inviting them."
He massaged her rosy buttocks, thrilling her feminine core with his thumbs, though she was already nearly completely exhausted. She pulled the wedge-shape pillow out from under her stomach and buried her head under the covers, though she still continued to squirm as he teased her relentlessly.
"Go on, darling. A bit of fresh air and exercise will do you good."
He ran his mouth and light stubble over her flank and nipped one buttock playfully, before rolling her over to nibble her rosebud of desire until she began to shudder anew. "You’re the air I breathe, love. And as for exercise, I fancy riding all afternoon right here with you."
"Promises, promises," she panted.
"Just remember I rise to every challenge."
She wiggled her hips down in an effort to harden the teasing contact. "You rise every time you draw breath."
He grinned. "Aye, if you’re in the room with me."
"Go on, darling. I’ll be right here waiting for you when you get back. You can show me all sorts of interesting tricks with your big gun."
"Gladly. Nothing like keeping it well-oiled."
She shot him a look of mock outrage. "Oh, you are so naughty. Now off you go before I change my mind and hold you captive after all."
"Oh, please hold me captive. In fact, I’ll even let you tie me up."
"Now, now. I thought you said you didn’t play bedroom games."
"I didn’t know what I was missing. And, well," he hesitated, his face growing serious, "I would never want to remind you of your past."
She brushed his cheek lightly with her fingertips. "I never think of it any more. You’ve chased all my shadows away. I’m warm, safe, loved, and happy."
"I’m so glad," he said, moving all the way up the bed now to kiss her and cradle her head against his shoulder.
"I love you."
He smiled. "I know. You don’t even have to say it. It radiates out from you like the sun warming me and the boys. Everyone we come into contact with."
She gazed into his loving face intently. "Go on, off you go and let me get some sleep. I’ll be fine. Right here at home waiting for you, I promise."
Michael went reluctantly, wishing he could shake the inexplicable feeling of dread he felt settling around his heart.
As soon as he was gone, Bryony dragged herself out of the bed to see the boys, who were in the middle of their reading lesson and delighted to see their mother.
"Good morning, darlings."
They gave her a smacking kiss each.
"Where’s Papa?" Darren asked.
"Out hunting. He’s going to bring back all sorts of nice things to eat."
"Papa’s better now? Not so sick?" Darren observed with a hopeful light in his eyes.
"Yes, much better now," she said, blinking back the tears. "You helped him, both of you. Just like he helped you."
"Can we have that puppy you promised now?" Gavin asked with a winning smile which was pure innocence. N
He was not like Damien at all, she noted with relief. He was like her as she had been, a happy child, petted and loved.
"Two puppies, one each," she promised impetuously, with a loving smile. "Ask Papa when he gets home. I’m sure he will find just the thing." She hugged and kissed them, and held them for a time longer.
"I’m going to go off to have my bath now. You do your lessons and then have a nap."
"Yes, Mummy," they both chorused obediently, and turned back to their slates.
Bryony felt a shiver of apprehension despite the calm domestic scene and the warmth of the spring day, but went off to complete her ablutions and toilette.
She dressed in one of Michael’s favourite gowns, a blue linen frock with white lace trim around the square neckline. She wondered if she was coming down with a cold, for even with the spring sunshine pouring in the bay window, setting the entire bed aglow as she sat perched on the edge pulling on her stockings and boots, she felt chilled to the bone.
She told herself to stop worrying about Michael, and tried to think of a special supper and romantic treat for her husband when he returned.
Once she had finished dressing and coiled her heavy raven tresses atop her head, she descended the stairs and headed for the hall table to see what correspondence had arrived for she and Michael.
When there was a rap at the door, she did not stand on ceremony and wait for Simms, but simply opened it herself.
She and the huge dark visitor stared at each other for a moment.
As the truth registered in her horrified mind, Bryony pushed hard and tried to slam the door shut and bolt it.
In an instant was flung backwards violently against the plaster. Then Derek Dalrymple’s hands were around her throat, threatening to squeeze the very life from her.
"You bloody bitch! Running away! Leaving us with nothing! Throwing my mother and I out into the road! What the hell did you think you were playing at! Did you think I wouldn’t find you? Make you pay?"
Each accusation was punctuation by his slamming her up against the wall, jarring her spine, setting her teeth on edge, leaving her choking on her own terror.
"You were mine! Always mine until Demon decided to take you from me! Well he’s gone now and you have no place to hide."
His hands eased from around her throat just long enough to rip the bosom of her gown from her neck down to her waist.
In an instant his mouth was all over her. The icy wall of fear which had held her frozen in place crumbled at the thought of any other man than her husband kissing her, suckling her breasts.
"Get off me. I’m married already. My husband is going to kill you if he catches you here," she said, landing a swingeing blow to his cheek which knocked him back long enough for her to try to flee for the door. Where the hell were the servants.
"Simms! Simms!" she shrieked, trying to take refuge in the drawing room.
He slammed the door back on his hinges before she could shut it. "You little bitch! Who’s been skewering you? Half of the country since you left, I shouldn’t wonder," he hissed, snatching at her skirts as she fled. "I can smell him on you. You’re like a bitch in heat."
She had thought her first husband foul-mouthed, but the stream of invective which gushed forth as her brother-in-law began to shred her gown and underthings was the worst she had ever heard.
She fought hard, but feared her strength would fail long before any help arrived.
At last Simms came out from below stairs and tried to drag off the deranged man attacking his mistress.
He shouted to the other servants briefly before Derek’s fist silenced him and he fell to the floor in a heap.
Bryony gasped in horror. "God, Derek, you’ve killed him!"
"No one stands in the way of what’s mine."
"I’m not a piece of property! I’ve never been yours! I can never be yours! I’m married already and I hate you!" she shouted, scrambling to the back of the house on her hands and knees.
He was about to grab her to him again when a small furious missile launched itself at him.
"You leave my mummy alone! Bad man!"
Darren pummelled his leg with his small fists. A lucky blow upwards landed squarely in his groin.
Derek let out a whoof of pain before backhanding the child full force, sending him flying sideways into the corner of the door frame.
His little head thunked against the sharp edge, and blood spattered everywhere as he slid downwards in a daze.
"God, no! What kind of animal are you?" she gasped, trying to crawl towards her son.
Even Derek seemed to acknowledge that he had gone too far as he s
tared at the bleeding child in horror. He continued to clutch his throbbing anatomy for a time longer before straightening.
He grabbed his nephew out of Bryony’s arms by the scruff of his neck and began to stride toward the open front door.
"He’s the heir. Whoever has him can control the estate. You can come or not as you like. But if you ever want to see him again, you’ll come now. And you’ll be my mistress until the day I tire of you, or the boy will suffer even worse than you’ve seen here today."
"No! You can’t have him. He’s mine. He belongs here with me and his new father. We’ll make some sort of settlement! You can have the damned estate!" she wept. "Just let him go!"
Now Bryony began to struggle to stop her former brother-in-law from leaving. Her hair tumbled down into her eyes as she snatched Derek around the waist, grabbed his groin, and twisted and pulled as hard as she could, using a self-defense move that Ash had taught her one day long ago and had finally sprung to mind in her sheer desperation.
With a roar of pain he dropped the boy and tried to drag her off him.
"Darren, run! Run get help!"
But it was little Gavin who fled screaming at the sight at the bottom of the stairs. Injured as Darren was, he was determined to stand his ground and protect his mother.
Derek knew he had to make a choice. If he had the boy, he had leverage. He could come back and deal with the wench later, when his balls weren’t half twisted off and he had the time to punish her for the whore she was.
He snatched the boy up again. With Bryony clinging every step of the way, he strode toward the door.
Robin the valet came from the servants’ quarters to see what had sent Gavin into such hysterics.
Michael, wheeling in through the back door from the stable block, wasn’t far behind him. Missing Bryony more than he could say, he had come back early amid some very good-natured twitting by Alexander and Blake about being totally smitten with his new wife.
He had galloped back as fast as he could, outpacing them, and now as he entered the house he knew the crushing sense of foreboding he had had all night had now been fully realised.
He saw the huge man grab a handful of his wife’s hair and yank it back violently until at last she released his groin and went flying back into the wall with a crash and hiss of pain.
Michael could see blood all over the door and wall, his wife half-naked and bloody, and his entire world awash in lurid red.
He could smell the gunpowder, and clutched convulsively at the musket laid across his lap, still slotted into the sides of his chair.
"You bastard Dalrymple! I’m going to bloody well kill you!" he said, struggling to get the weapon out and up.
Derek turned and gaped in disbelief. Lord in Heaven, Bryony had married Michael Avenel? The great Hero of the Peninsular War? The Grim Reaper himself?
Dalrymple went flying out the front door, cursing himself for his own impetuous stupidity in having attacked her without first knowing the lay of the land. Darren shrieked in his arms as he fled.
"Jesus, Bryony!" Michael exclaimed to his battered wife as he wheeled parallel to her to see how badly she was hurt.
She waved him off at once. "I’m fine. Go get Darren. He can’t take him. Please! Please! My son! Our son!" she gasped.
"I’ll get him. I swear."
With one shimmering stroke of his fingers over her tear-stained face, Michael pushed harder and harder on his wheel rims. He propelled himself to the door, stretched his long arms, and pulling back and forth to build up momentum, shot out of the portal and kept rolling down the wider of the two paths, pushing off the wooden rail with his right hand to build up speed as he yanked his gun from his lap with his left. All of his instincts for survival took over as he charged.
He would defend the people he loved with his last dying breath, as the horses thundered and the vibrations shook the ground in his waking nightmare.
As fast as he was going down the incline, still he could see Derek outpacing them both, though Robin the valet was gaining fast.
Michael raised the musket and took aim through the red haze that choked his vision. Fear and rage such as he had never known made his hands tremble. What should have been a solid hit in the knee ended up clipping the fleeing man in the fleshy part of his thigh.
It was enough to slow him down, but not stop him. He hobbled on, and Michael leaned forward to make the chair go faster while he tried to reload.
By this time Robin had come up behind Derek and seized his shoulders, spinning him around and trying to wrest Darren away.
Derek dropped the boy long enough to struggle with the valet for a moment, until suddenly Robin crumpled. He clutched his side as rivulets of red ran down though his fingers, and he fell to his knees.
Michael had already reloaded, and was preparing to take aim when Derek snatched up the howling child once more. Michael could see the blood all around him, heard the screams of the wounded and dying, could see his quarry vanishing.
He screamed his old battle cry he had never thought to utter again. "England and St. George!"
The chair was still rolling ever downwards. At the end of the path it jammed hard in the mud. In an instant Michael was launching forward, still in mindless pursuit, his heart hammering in his chest at the thought of losing Darren to this madman.
Every step was agony, white hot and searing, like a score of scorching bayonets lancing through his legs and lower back.
Still Michael plunged onward. With a roar of bestial fury he snatched Derek’s coat shoulder and dragged him right off the ground.
Derek tried to use the boy as a shield, but Darren scratched and bit hard enough for him to lose his grip. The boy leapt like a monkey into Michael’s arms, weeping and trembling.
Michael embraced and kissed him for the briefest second before lowering him to slide down his leg. "Run to your mother, lad. Go on, son, run."
Then he was on Derek, batting his four-inch knife aside as though it were a mere toy.
As fierce as a lion, he began to claw at his throat, throttling the life from him. "Trying to rape my wife! Steal my son! You bastard, I’ll bloody kill you!"
Amid the roar of the guns and the screams of the wounded and dying, Michael prepared to kill his last enemy. He would hate himself, for these were no more than children, not much older than his brother Randall when he had left him and his other brothers to join the Army at the start of the war...
He blinked, and the sounds began to subside. And now there was a new shouting amongst the men. "Don’t, Michael! Don’t! It’s over. Don’t kill him. We’ve won, we’ve won."
It was Bryony’s voice he heard pleading. At last he looked down at the white face of Derek Dalrymple and knew beyond a doubt that there were worse things than death. And that he would face them himself if he ever lost Bryony or the boys.
He raised the muzzle of the shotgun into his face, bloodying Derek’s mouth as he hissed, "Killing is too good for you. You’re going to Newgate for this. For years. A living hell for the one you tried to subject Bryony and the boys to. I’m sure there will be lots of blokes there delighted to see your tight little arse sashaying in the door."
Derek went even more white, and began to beg tearfully. "No, please, I loved her—"
"Love? Your kind doesn’t know the meaning of the word, you or your brother the Demon. You’re going to jail. It will be no more than you deserve. And make no mistake. If any of your family or friends come near me, my wife or my boys again, I shall shoot on the spot. And there isn’t a court in the land who will convict me for protecting my family from an intruder."
Michael was spared his whining pleas for clemency by Alexander and Blake running down from the house. Alexander grabbed Derek and held his pistol to his head.
"Don’t move, Derek, or I’ll damned well kill you myself."
"Tell one of the servants to send for the authorities," Michael ordered.
"I’ll put him in the stables in the meantime," Alexander offer
ed, shaking him like a rat.
Blake was examining Bryony, who was clinging to Michael’s chair, but she waved him away, insisting he look at Darren’s head and Robin’s stab wound.
"But my mother," Derek protested. "How will she—"
Michael spat, "You should both have thought of that before you tried to hurt my family. Alex, get this miserable piece of rubbish out of my sight before I cut off his cullions and feed them to the crows."
The Model Master Page 27