“Only ensuring the health and welfare of my wife and child.” He winked. “Of course, should you choose to express your gratitude tonight, I will not complain.”
“My lord, you may depend upon it.”
Serenaded by the local birdlife, they fed each other small bites intermingled with tender kisses. Afterward, Dirk stretched out beside her, with his arms crossed beneath his head.
“I am so happy.” Without thought, Rebecca crawled atop her husband and covered his mouth with hers. In an instant, he flipped her onto her back and slid a hand into her bodice. Fire erupted in her thighs, and searing heat burned in her veins--which yielded to bone chilling cold.
Abruptly, she ended their kiss and came alert in a scarce second. “Someone watches us.”
“Relax.” Dirk trailed his finger along her jaw. “It is only Poulson, and he is not that close.”
“Are you certain?” The spell broken, she resituated her riding habit.
“It is all right, my dear. However, I do not wish to make a spectacle of my wife.” He whisked a wayward tendril from her face, stood, and brought her to her feet. “So let us away, else you will lift your heels for me here.”
With the sack repacked, the blanket rolled and retied to the saddle, Dirk settled her atop her mare. Heeling the sinewy flanks of his black hunter, he directed her through a copse of trees and toward the forest. As they neared the edge of the woods, he slowed his mount, and Rebecca followed suit. A bridle path opened before her, and they trotted through the dense foliage, until they entered a small clearing.
Reining to a halt, Dirk peered back. “We should wait for Poulson.”
As the minutes passed, her husband grasped her wrist and suckled a fingertip. “Remember, I, alone, have the honor of peeling you out of that luscious ensemble.”
To wit she bubbled with laughter. As she made to offer a naughty reply, Poulson appeared.
“Shall I reload your weapons, your lordship?”
“Not now. Her ladyship and I--”
The telltale cough of gunfire pierced the calm.
Every muscle in her body flinched, and gooseflesh covered her from top to toe, as she glanced from side to side. Fear clawed at her throat, but she maintained control--until Dirk slumped forward. Clutching his shoulder, he groaned, as blood oozed between his fingers.
“Rebecca, go back to the house,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now.”
“No.” She shook her head furiously. “You are injured. I will not leave you.”
Additional shots rang out in rapid succession.
Rebecca slid from the saddle, just as Dirk teetered precariously and then fell to the ground, his body hitting the earth with a heavy thud. Poulson leapt from his mount and knelt beside her husband.
“Must be poachers nearby.” The loader pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and placed it over Dirk’s wound. “What a horrible accident, your ladyship.”
Another barrage sounded, and Dirk’s horse bolted.
“That is no accident.” She hunkered as bullets sliced the air. “Where is the pistol?”
“In Lord Wainsbrough’s saddlebag, your ladyship.” Poulson brushed aside a lock of hair matted with blood from Dirk’s forehead. “This does not look serious. It is a graze, your ladyship.”
“Then why is he unconscious?”
“Perhaps his lordship hit his head in the fall.”
An eerie sensation of déjà vu shivered up her spine.
In the blink of an eye, she transported to a different place and time. The hazy glow of moonlight, the delicate scent of rose petals, the stains on her peach gown, the once boyish expression rendered devoid of emotion, the stone cold flesh of death. Arriving too late, she could not save Colin.
But she would save Dirk.
A relentless salvo echoed in the woods.
Rebecca sprang into action. Regaining her mount, she held tight to the reins.
“Guard his lordship with your life,” she commanded. “I will draw their fire.”
“But, your ladyship.” Mouth agape, Poulson stared at her. “You do not know what is out there. You could be shot.”
“It is a risk I am willing to take.” For a hairsbreadth of a second, she gazed at Dirk’s face, committing every detail, every nuance to memory. “Forgive me, my love.”
Rebecca kicked her heels and sent the roan flying down the bridle path. Although she had resided at Lyvedon for a few weeks, she had never ridden that particular tract of the estate. The narrow trail twisted and turned, requiring all her concentration as she hugged the verge. In her wake, thunderous hoofbeats spurred her faster.
Fear and panic ravaged her senses, but Rebecca remained focused as horse and rider soared as one along the course. The trees thinned as she neared a glade, so she dropped the reins, gave the mare her head, leaned forward and clutched the saddle, and the animal charged into the field.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and she thought she might explode at any moment. An image of Dirk, deathly pale with haunting red eyes, appeared before her. It was the same nightmarish visage that Colin had assumed.
“No,” she muttered into her sleeve.
Ahead, the path split in two, leading back into the woods, in opposite directions. With a glance at the sky to check her bearing, she noted the sun’s position and veered left, hoping the trail led to the main house, where she could raise the alarm. Then, against all rhyme and reason, she took a quick peek behind her.
Six cloaked riders rapidly gained ground.
“Oh, no.”
Again, she let go the reins, stretched long, and clung to the roan’s neck. They raced through the dense forest, and low-lying branches snagged her hair and habit. Purposefully, she rode in the center of the path, praying the narrow course kept her pursuers at bag. But her prayers went unanswered, as the perilous verdure cleared to reveal a wide expanse, and Rebecca cursed. She had ridden the mare for an hour before the band of villains gave chase, so she was not going to outrun them--not in the open.
To her right, the coppice closed in, offering safe haven. Though there was no visible path, she decided it would be wiser to brave the trees than attempt escape via the meadow.
Grasping the reins, she reared up and steered the mare toward the edge of the forest. Behind her, the ominous hoofbeats grew louder. In a tactical error she would live to regret, she glanced over her shoulder.
The men were on her tail, preparing to overtake her.
A quick check of the sun told her she was headed in the wrong direction, as the estate house was to the north. When she turned her attention to the terrain before her, she spied a grove that presented much needed concealment. The roan had not missed a beat, and she galloped like lightning into the heavy foliage.
It was too late when Rebecca noted the decumbent branch.
At full force, she rode straight into it, slamming it squarely with her chest. Her lungs seized, as she gasped for air, and pain ripped through her muscles. Horse and rider separated, and she landed prostrate, unable to move. The mare disappeared into the brake. Staring at the cerulean sky, she fought unconsciousness.
Six sinister figures loomed over her, their faces shrouded by their hooded cloaks, and she tried but failed to stifle a plaintive cry. The rush of a waterfall filled her ears, starbursts shimmered beneath her heavy eyelids, and all coherent thought collapsed as she plunged into blackness.
#
With a fierce ache in his head, and another below his belly button, Dirk groaned. Instinctively, he searched the sheets for the warm soft body of his wife, because she usually cuddled close. As he reached with his left arm, pain seared his shoulder, bringing him fully alert, and he opened his eyes.
Dim light cast barely imperceptible shadows about the chamber, as the curtains were drawn. Yet, through a haze of confusion, he inventoried his surroundings. There was the tallboy that once belonged to his father, the long mirror adorned with mother-of-pearl insets, his four-poster, and various appurtenances, all the familiar comforts
of home. But those items held pride of place in his suite at Randolph House--in London.
When he sat upright, the room spun out of control, and he slumped in the pillows.
“Easy, Lord Wainsbrough.” Dr. Handley perched on the edge of the mattress.
Dirk squinted and rubbed his forehead. “What am I doing here?”
“Recovering,” the physician replied. “You were lucky, as the bullet passed clean through your shoulder.”
“You gave us quite a scare.” Admiral Douglas stood at the foot of the bed. “How do you feel, my boy?”
“Three sheets to the wind.” He grimaced. “What happened?”
“Best I can tell, you hit your head in the fall.” Dr. Handley held up his hand. “How many fingers do you see?”
“Three.” Dirk massaged the back of his neck.
“Follow my movements, your lordship.” Dr. Handley traced an imaginary path with a finger. “Excellent. There do not appear to be any lingering deficiencies.”
“Will someone please tell me what the devil is going on?” He blinked in a valiant but failed effort to clear the fog.
“Admiral Douglas, I shall take my leave.” Dr. Handley gathered his physician’s bag. “If his lordship presents additional symptoms, send for me, at once. Otherwise, I will check his condition in the morning.”
“Thank you doctor.” Admiral Douglas weighed anchor in a bedside chair. “Now, if you can manage, I should like, very much, to know what you recall of your last day at Lyvedon Hall.”
“My last day?” He cleared his throat. “And where is my wife?”
“Take your time, son.”
Something in the admiral’s demeanor troubled Dirk, but he was not sure why. On the advice of the man he had come to consider a second father, Dirk closed his eyes and foraged the miasma of his memory for pieces of the reality that defied him. Slowly, a collage took shape from the still forms of his life, until the images assailed him in staccato blasts.
The journey to Lyvedon Hall.
The gunfire no one anticipated.
The terror in Rebecca’s expression.
“I indulged my wife in a round of shooting, as she favors the sport. Poulson, my loader, trailed us.” Dirk pressed a fist to his mouth and relayed the remaining events, to the best of his recollection. “After I fell from my horse, I lost consciousness, and then I woke here.”
“Blake and Damian questioned your man, and your account matches his.”
Blood ran cold in his veins, and dread shrouded his heart. With a deep breath, Dirk opened his eyes and met the admiral’s stare. “What happened?”
“From what we have gathered, Rebecca thought you gravely injured, and she was still taking fire from an unknown adversary. Your horse bolted, leaving her and Poulson defenseless. To spike their guns, she rode off, which allowed your loader to seek assistance.” His brow a mass of furrows, Admiral Douglas sighed. “She saved your life, that wife of yours.”
“My viscountess is the bravest woman of my acquaintance.” Dirk compressed his lips. “I am fortunate, indeed. But I will have words with her, as she is increasing and should not take unnecessary risks.”
Stretching beneath the covers, Dirk yawned. He shifted his weight and resituated a pillow. And then he snapped to attention.
“Admiral, what have you not told me?”
The veteran naval officer frowned. “The mare returned to Lyvedon Hall, later that night.”
Dirk swallowed hard. “Only the mare?”
Admiral Douglas dipped his chin.
Had Dirk thought he was in pain?
Drowning in a tidal wave of nausea, he suffocated as agony tore at his chest. With his jaw clenched, he gritted his teeth, sat upright, and steeled himself to pose the question that imprisoned him in his own private hell.
“Where. Is. Rebecca?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Locked in a stone cell small enough to prevent her standing upright or reclining to full length, Rebecca shivered and drew herself into a corner. The villains had stripped her naked before imprisoning her in the tiny enclosure, but unconsciousness had spared her the humiliation. Now, she huddled amid the stench of damp earth mixed with urine and prayed for the strength to endure.
In the dark, she searched her memory and drew on her training as an agent for the Corps. In the lonely solitude of her confinement, she recalled the various tactics deployed to break captives of war, so her current situation was not entirely unfamiliar. The nudity, the base brutality of her cage, and the meager fare of water and stale bread portended evil. But it was what she could not surmise, the length and hardship of her incarceration, that most frightened her.
How long had she been there? And where was there? Judging from the number of meals, Rebecca guessed it had been two days since the attack at Lyvedon. Of course, thoughts of the grand estate conjured images of its owner, her husband. In the blackest hours of her ordeal, when she despaired her perilous predicament, she pictured Dirk, hale and hearty, with the wind in his hair as he barked orders to the crew aboard the Gawain. Instinctively, she placed her palm to her belly and smiled. With their babe tucked safe inside her, she was not alone.
Therein lay the heart of her courage, because she knew without doubt that Dirk, no matter the extent of his injuries, would come for her and his heir. Despite the traitor’s intent, Rebecca need only survive, so she resolved to persevere.
Although she was not hungry, she ate every scrap and drank every drop. For exercise, she bent her knees and flexed her muscles. Closing her eyes, Rebecca prayed the nightmares plaguing her slumber would not return, because she desperately needed rest. But when she slept, she dreamt.
Running, bare-footed, naked, and so cold, she fled. Hoofbeats thundered, and she glanced back, but nothing gave pursuit. Before her, a dreary forest loomed as a specter of doom, with trees bereft of foliage standing as gnarled sentries. Absent grass, flowers, and ivy, the woods bore no sign of life. Amid dense fog, five shrouded figures emerged, their heads bowed. When four apparitions lifted their chin, she recognized the mournful wraiths and gasped in horror. Their faces the gray pallor of death, and eyes blood red, Dirk, Colin, and her parents stared at her. Then the last hooded phantom revealed a sinister skull, which laughed in a hideous squall.
With a hand to her throat, Rebecca jolted awake and immediately convulsed. Pain tore through her belly, and she seized violently. Curled in a fetal position, she bit the fleshy side of her hand and searched, unseeing, the confines of her stone prison. Inhaling deeply, she willed herself to relax, and her racing heartbeat slowed. Laughing at herself, she realized it had been nothing more than a bad dream.
Until another vicious paroxysm ravaged her gut.
Though she tried to scream, the agony strangled her cry. Gasping for air, she clenched her jaw and dragged herself, inch by excruciating inch, to the door of her cell.
“Help. Someone help me.”
A wave of nausea left her heaving hard, and spasm after relentless spasm devastated her. When a rush of fluid oozed between her thighs, Rebecca screamed.
“Oh, God.” A particularly piercing torrent seemed to tear her in two. “Help me, please!”
Banging her fist on the wooden door, she gritted her teeth against a vile bitterness. Warm wetness streamed her face as she wept, and she pressed a hand to her belly as she retched. Then she lay, wide-eyed, in the darkness.
The wooden door opened.
Unaccustomed to the luminous glow, torchlight scorched her eyes, and ensuing tears blurred her vision, as unknown jailers wrenched her from the cell.
“Who are you?” Rebecca moaned. “What do you want with me?”
The world spun on its end, until she noticed the change in her surroundings. Stretched on a long table, with her arms and legs tied to various corners, and a white sheet spread across her torso, she cried as a wresting cramp had her bucking as an unbroken horse. Trapped somewhere between unendurable consciousness and blissful oblivion, she studied the stranger who tended her.
“Try to relax,” he said in a curt voice. “It will go easier for you.”
“What is happening?”
“Do not concern yourself.” He tossed a bloodstained rag to the floor.
“Am I dying?”
“No.”
Rebecca licked her dry lips. “May I have some water?”
The man paused, as if to assess her condition, and then moved out of her field of sight. When he returned, he slipped his arm beneath her head and held a glass to her mouth.
“Not too much, else you will vomit,” he warned.
With a nod of assent, she sipped the cool liquid, and it soothed her sore throat. After a few minutes, the pain ebbed, and she floated as if separating from her mortal shell. It was too late when Rebecca realized she had been drugged.
The stranger packed a black physician’s bag and bowed, at what she had not known. And then he was gone. She tugged at her restraints but could not loosen them.
“Lady Wainsbrough, welcome to my lair.”
A menacing figure, with his identity hidden by a leather executioner’s mask, stepped from the shadows.
“Who are you?”
“In Mother England, I am known by a rather unremarkable name.” He stood at tableside. “But in the hallowed halls of the Counterintelligence Corps, I am called Denis.”
Despite her stupefied state, she trembled in fear of her captor. “What do you want from me?”
“Are we really going to play this game? It is becoming quite tedious.” He reached beneath the table, and the rasp of an unhinged latch snared her attention. “Perhaps you require motivation.”
All of a sudden, a panel she had not known existed dropped from the table, and her head fell back, dangling precariously. “Please, I do not know what you seek.”
“Wrong answer, my dear.” The villain held a large bucket from which he poured a deluge over her face.
Water filled her nose and mouth, which dammed her throat, as she fought to free herself. Struggling to breathe, she jerked from side to side, but straps at her chest and forehead held her firmly in check. Just when she was certain she could take no more, and she would drown, her punisher ceased his torture.
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