“Nor will he,” Linette gently interrupted her. “We must go, truly. Donovan and Corie might be home now, and I doubt Squire Tanner would appreciate us being here. This is his land, his cottage. I can’t believe you used a rock to break the lock on the door. We’ll have to pay for it, you know.”
Estelle gave a small shrug. “I wanted to see the inside again…needed to see it. Prince Valentin must be in terrible danger. Why else would Donovan insist we never speak of him again…like he’d never helped me and Luther. Like he didn’t even exist. It’s all so strange, Linette.”
She nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with her sister, but growing more impatient with each passing moment. She slid her arm through Estelle’s to draw her up from the stool. “Please, sweet, we must go—”
“Did you hear that, Linette?” Estelle broke in, jumping up to fly to the window overlooking the bluff. “Horses! I can’t see them from here. Do you think Prince Valentin might have returned?”
Linette didn’t answer her sister’s fanciful query, feeling like her heart had lodged in her throat.
It couldn’t be Adam from the sound of at least four horses neighing and snorting not far from the front door of the cottage. Oh, Lord, and they had broken into the place, too! How would that look? What were they to do?
Yet she’d no sooner moved to the door when it burst open, three rough-looking men she’d never seen before crowding into the place…followed by Squire Tanner, his ponderous weight preventing him from moving as swiftly. He looked from Estelle to Linette, clearly stunned to see them.
“Miss Easton?”
“I…I can explain, Squire, truly,” Linette began, but got no further when one of the men lunged at her to grab her arm.
“Looking for someone, mademoiselle?”
A Frenchman, she thought with rising panic, his swarthy face so close to hers that his fetid breath made her flinch. He only laughed and squeezed her arm cruelly as she shook her head.
“No, we were curious about the cottage, is all—”
“I say, sir, I’ve no idea why the young ladies are here, but unhand her at once!” Squire Tanner blurted with outrage. “You asked to see the place that I leased to your friends, but if you look around, as you said you wanted to do, they’ve left nothing behind—”
“Silence, you bloated fool!”
Linette gasped as Squire Tanner was struck so violently from behind by one of the other men that he crumpled to the floor in an unconscious heap. Meanwhile, the third intruder went to grab Estelle, who stood with her back pressed to the window, clearly terrified.
“No, leave her be!” Linette cried out, only to find herself thrust down upon the stool even as Estelle burst into tears.
“I’d wager that you have a fine tale to tell me,” grated her captor in his heavily accented English, still painfully gripping Linette’s arm. “Like the squire said, we’re looking for our friends. We’ve gone from port to port along the English coast for nearly a month, doing our best to find the two, but never a clue until now. It’s no surprise to me that such lovely chits as yourselves would have been charmed by the prince. He’s a handsome devil, isn’t he?”
“I—I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Linette glanced at her sister, shaking her head slightly to try and warn Estelle from saying a word. “Let us go at once! The rest of our party is surely looking for us—oh!”
Her captor had yanked her up from the stool, his expression so ominous that Linette’s knees went weak from fear.
“Is that your sister, mademoiselle? Must be, she favors you so. If you don’t tell me what you know, I’ll give my man license to have a bit of fun with her right there on that four-poster. Now talk!”
***
Adam pulled up on the reins and stopped Samson behind the carriage, a pair of footmen stepping forward to help the duke and duchess disembark.
The last thing he wanted was to be there, and as soon as he let them know he’d seen Linette and Estelle out on the heath during his ride, he’d make his excuses and go. He didn’t think Estelle shouldn’t be riding yet, just not too much, too soon. He would have told them at the crossroad if the coach hadn’t rumbled into motion, leaving him to reluctantly follow behind—
“Ais, Yer Grace, I thought you’d never arrive home! ‘Ee told me to come straightaway if I had news for ‘ee, an’ I did!”
Adam dismounted from his horse as a white-bearded gentleman looking every bit a Cornish sea captain rushed out the front door toward Donovan.
“I rode here to tell ‘ee I overheard a couple of my patrons saying they’d seen Squire Tanner escorting three strangers out of the village. A crude-looking lot, from the sound of it. Must have come in on a ship earlier today. Another patron piped up that he’d seen the three asking questions along the docks about the men they were looking for, one older with dark hair an’ the younger, fair. They must have come upon the squire whiling away the afternoon at his favorite tavern. It’s the ones ‘ee feared might show up, isn’t it, Yer Grace?”
Grim-faced, Donovan nodded. “Go on, Oliver, anything else?”
“The squire was telling them the two had leased a cottage from him, and then left without a trace two weeks past. But they wanted to see the place anyway. Ais, they might be there now!”
“The cottage overlooking the beach,” Adam said with a sudden sense of unease, drawing closer. He knew from treating Estelle about the young man who had saved her and that she believed him in danger, though Donovan had sworn him to silence. “Only a short ride from the heath—”
“What is it, Whitaker?” Donovan demanded, though the moment he’d said it, he seemed to guess Adam’s answer from the alarm in his eyes. So had Corie, who stood beside her husband and clutched his arm tightly.
“I met Her Grace’s sisters not far from there. They’d gone for a ride together.”
“Oh, God, no.” Corie’s face stricken, she glanced from Adam to Donovan. “Do you think they went to the cottage?”
“Get my horse, now!” Donovan roared to the footmen, who hastened away to do his bidding. Then he gestured for Adam to follow him into the house. “I’ve weapons enough for both of us in the library. Do you have qualms about using a pistol, Dr. Whitaker?”
“None,” Adam answered grimly. He strode after Donovan, cursing himself for the wounded pride that had made him ride away from Linette and Estelle instead of accompanying them safely home.
God help him, if any harm should come to them…
Chapter 11
“So Prince Valentin saved your sister from drowning and returned her little dog, too. Fool! His sense of chivalry will be his undoing.”
Linette blinked against the moisture blurring her vision, her cheek throbbing where her captor had viciously slapped her. No tears, no tears! She needed to keep her wits about her for both herself and Estelle, whose sobs filled the cottage at seeing the Frenchman strike her.
Not once, but twice, as if to convince her that he’d meant what he said about threatening Estelle. Yet Linette had needed no further convincing and had told the man everything she knew three times over, which from the disgruntled look upon his stubbled face, clearly wasn’t enough. Cold fear sliced through her as once again, he glanced menacingly at Estelle and then back to Linette.
“You said the prince and his man Robert left two weeks ago?”
“Yes, three days after Christmas. That evening, or so we were told—” Linette bit her tongue, realizing her inadvertent blunder as the man’s expression darkened. Oh, Lord, now she may have just exposed the rest of her family to terrible danger!
“Who told you?”
Linette hesitated for only an instant and her captor waved to his burly compatriot, who tossed Estelle as if she weighed nothing at all, upon the bed. At her sister’s near hysterical shriek, Linette grabbed her captor’s arm.
“Please, don’t hurt her, I beg you! It was my brother-in-law, the Duke of Arundale, though I don’t know how he learned Prince Valentin had left Porthleven. Donova
n only told us we must never speak of him to anyone—”
“A duke, is he?” her captor cut her off, an appraising look lighting his narrowed eyes. Then he sobered. “Did you say your party would be looking for you?”
Linette bobbed her head, knowing it was a lie and hoping desperately that the man wouldn’t realize it as such. If he believed that others might arrive at the cottage at any moment, maybe he and his two companions would mount their horses and ride away. He must realize she had no more to tell him—
“Get that one off the bed. I’ll take this one,” came his guttural command, the warning look he gave Linette truly ominous to behold. “Don’t try to escape me, don’t even dare. You’re going to take us to your brother-in-law, the duke, before anyone comes to find you. How far away is his home?”
“N-not far.”
“Good. If he doesn’t want to see your throats cut right in front of him, he’ll tell us everything he knows about where your sister’s gallant rescuer has gone and what his plans might be.”
“Then what?” Linette demanded hoarsely as her captor yanked her up from the stool. “Will you leave us in peace?”
His sudden coarse laughter chilled her to the bone. “What? Not take with us the perfect lure to make Prince Valentin surrender to us and return to Bratavia? He saved your sister’s life once. Why wouldn’t he do so again for the two of you?”
“But Donovan will come after you! He has great wealth and influence! Surely you cannot think you’ll elude him…”
Now the man laughed harder, making Linette fall silent as if the breath had been sucked from her body. His two compatriots joined in as together, they dragged Estelle between them toward the door, skirting the squire’s inert form. Linette realized her sister must have fainted from terror, while her own knees had grown so weak she felt sure she would collapse.
“Elude him? We’ll have sailed long before anyone finds your brother-in-law’s corpse...and those of any others who try to stop us. Do you think this a novice’s game? We were hired for our persistence at hunting fugitives and won’t rest until we’ve earned our gold. Now move!”
Linette did, nearly stumbling until her captor grabbed her and wrenched her along with him, twisting her arm even more cruelly than before.
The door was flung open and she heard the crashing of the waves upon the beach below, one of the men throwing Estelle’s limp form over his shoulder while the other brandished two pistols as he stepped first from the cottage. They spoke rapid-fire French to each other now, Linette knowing little of the language, but clearly whatever was said made Estelle’s captor follow after his compatriot out the door.
“Go on!”
Now her captor gripped her by the hair, a pistol in his other hand. He pulled so tightly that she cried out, twisting her head slightly to ease the pain when she spied a dark shape suddenly move past the window. Dear God, had she only imagined it? She didn’t have another second to think as she was shoved out the front door, her captor holding her in front of him like a shield.
She blinked in the sunlight, blinded momentarily as she glanced around her for the man holding Estelle…and then it seemed the entire world erupted into the blasting of pistols and a man screaming and horses whinnying in fright.
She screamed, too, her captor’s loosened grip upon her hair as he cursed behind her all she needed to twist away from him and lurch forward into a run.
As if in a daze she saw Estelle crumpled upon the ground, the man who’d carried her lying face up beside her with a bloody hole in his forehead. Horror-stricken, she lunged for her sister even as she heard someone yelling her name.
“Linette, get down! Get down!”
Pistol fire exploded behind her, a searing pain through her left shoulder knocking Linette to her hands and knees. Then an echoing blast, but this one sounded strangely dull to her ears and so very far away.
She swayed for an instant, the world spinning around her, until she sank to one side into the grass as Estelle’s voice screamed her name.
“Linette!”
Thank God…thank God her sister wasn’t dead, she thought dully, a warm wetness seeping inside her sleeve and trickling from her limp fingers.
She blinked at the faces suddenly appearing above her. Estelle, weeping hysterically, an ashen Oliver Trelawny, and Donovan—oh, Lord, he was safe, too. But it was the face hovering closest that made her try and reach up to touch him.
“Adam…I called out to you, but you didn’t stop. Didn’t you hear me?”
“Don’t speak, Linette, save your strength,” came his hoarse voice, then a ripping sound so close to her ear. She felt cool air upon her burning shoulder, and still that warm dampness and a thick metallic smell that seemed to envelop her.
“I…I didn’t mean to hurt you, Adam. You’re not in London…you’re here. Here…”
Alarmed voices swelled around her, but they seemed to recede as Linette stared up at the sky. So blue, so blue…until everything slowly, oh so slowly, became dark.
***
“Thank God the shot went straight through. Oh, Donovan…”
He didn’t speak, but simply held Corie as she sobbed against him. He had scarcely ever heard her cry, his indomitable, strong-willed wife, though there had never been a better time for tears.
Tears of gratitude. Tears of heartache and overwhelming anxiety about what the days ahead might bring.
Linette had lost a great amount of blood and remained unconscious, with Dr. Whitaker—no, Adam—refusing to leave her bedside.
Donovan would never think of him as Dr. Whitaker again, this man who had done everything he knew to help Linette survive the long hours since she’d been wounded.
This man who had wept late in the night when he’d thought he was alone for a few moments, Donovan standing outside the door to Linette’s room and not wanting to disturb him as Adam pleaded with her to live so they could be together.
His voice breaking as he told her that he loved her and asked her forgiveness for his foolish pride, and that he’d understood what she had told him when she lay bleeding upon the ground.
Then he’d begun to pray, the memory of his hoarse petition clouding Donovan’s eyes even now.
Please Lord, let her remain with me! Let me hear from her lips that I’m the man she’s dreamed of…
Donovan sighed heavily as Corie’s sobs subsided.
He knew she cried, too, because he’d told her that she must take the children and Estelle to Arundale Hall without him. He would follow with Linette as soon as she was well enough to travel…if she became well.
It grieved him more than he cared to admit that her hold right now on life was tenuous at best. He’d seen enough wartime injuries to know that a severe loss of blood had consigned even the strongest and hardiest of men to their graves. Damnation, if only he had shot that bastard before he fired his weapon at Linette!
Corie must have felt him grow tense because she lifted her tear-filled eyes to him.
“My love, it’s not your fault! You got there as soon as you could…even left the horses further away so those terrible men had no idea you and the others had surrounded the cottage. You heard Estelle. The last thing she heard before she fainted was that they intended to harm us! You and me and maybe our children—and then to take Linette and Estelle with them—”
“Yes, it’s terrible, all of it.” Donovan pulled her fiercely against him. “That’s why you must leave tomorrow morning. Those three are dead, may they rot in hell, but there might be more like them looking for the prince. You’ll be safer away from Porthleven. I’ve already sent a messenger with instructions that guards be hired to patrol the estate. They’ll be in place by the time you arrive.”
To his relief, Corie didn’t argue with him, but nodded against his chest. He fervently kissed the top of her head, determined to do anything he must to protect her and their family.
Even Corie’s father, heartbroken at what had happened to his beloved daughters, had asked for them to le
ave at once and to take Estelle, too, which Donovan had already decided.
His usually so spirited sister-in-law might have been determined to stay with her father at the parsonage when they moved to Hampshire, but now she had readily agreed, this experience devastating her. And here she had just recovered from her own injuries…
“Enough,” Donovan said under his breath, wishing at that moment it had been anybody but a fugitive prince to rescue Estelle from drowning. Yet there was nothing to be done about it. The die had been cast that clearly had altered their lives—and right now, not for the better.
“It’s almost supper, husband,” Corie murmured, so attuned to him that it seemed she could read his mind. “There is nothing to be done but to pray, and continue on. Would you see to Adam while I gather the children? I doubt he’ll want to join us, but he hasn’t eaten a thing since yesterday…”
Her voice breaking, Corie didn’t wait for Donovan’s answer, but hastened from the library where they’d stood these long moments, just holding each other.
Meanwhile, Donovan couldn’t help thinking, Adam sat by the bedside of the woman he loved, not sleeping, not eating, and not knowing if she’d ever recover—
“God in heaven! How much can one man withstand?” Donovan yelled to the four walls, feeling wretchedly powerless to help Linette.
Yet there was something he could do to help Adam. If he was to focus all of his energy and attention on Linette, as he seemed determined to do, then he’d need another doctor to help him in the parish. He couldn’t do it all alone!
Donovan strode to his desk and sat down, reaching for pen and paper.
Guy’s Hospital, yes, that’s where Adam had received his medical training. If Donovan had anything to say about it, he would have another physician in Porthleven by the beginning of next week. In the meantime, he would ask Miss Biddle with her skill at nursing to help out if needed in the village. She’d been the one to tend to Squire Tanner, the poor man surviving his ordeal and thankfully returning home last night with no more than a dull headache.
Kissed at Twilight Page 9