Page 37 of Hold Me Fast
Jowan understood Bran was concerned for him. There was no point in resenting the man for it. The truth was that Jowan, too, thought he might be riding for a fall. Not because he expected Tamsyn to turn back to the drugs and booze. He knew how determined she had been as a child, and believed she would surprise her detractors.
His problem was he couldn’t believe that a sophisticated woman of her beauty and experience, who had thrilled audiences in all the great cities of Europe and beyond, would choose him and St Tetha. Who was he, after all, to win such a prize? Only Jowan Trethewey, a man of little fortune, not very much experience, and no particular talent, who had lived most of his life in a tiny village in Cornwall and was committed to staying there.
The inn was within sight, now. A cluster of people were gathered in the courtyard, and as Jowan’s eyes focused on what was happening, he broke into a run, Bran speeding up to run with him. A stranger had Tamsyn by both wrists and was dragging her towards a carriage while several other men held off Evangeline and their driver and groom, and the inn’s keeper and servants watched without interfering.
Bran fell away. Without asking, Jowan knew he would be loading the pocket pistol he carried. Jowan didn’t wait, but hurled himself straight at the man holding Tamsyn and fetched him a mighty clout to the head that had him letting go of Tamsyn and falling to the side.
*
The men hadburst into the private parlor where Tammie and Evangeline were talking over a cup of tea. “That’s her,” said one, whom Tammie recognized as Paul Willard, one of Guy’s most fervent acolytes. The other men also had muddied auras in Coombe’s signature colors. “Get the treacherous bitch,” Willard said. Another two men grabbed Tammie by her arms and dragged her to the door, though she dug her heels in and fought to be freed.
As she tossed her head about, she could see a fourth man holding Evangeline at bay.
Those hauling Tammie ignored the protesting innkeeper, but Tammie could hear Willard telling the man that Tammie was his master’s runaway wife, whom they had been sent to retrieve.
“Lies!” Tammie yelled as they forced her out into the inn yard. “He lies!”
Jowan’s coachman and guard emerged from the public room, calling for Tammie to be released. Other guests in the inn made themselves scarce and the innkeeper and his servants stood and watched as Willard grabbed Tammie’s hands and the other men formed a barrier between the pair of them and Tammie’s would-be defenders.
Willard was dragging her towards the open door of a carriage when Jowan appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and knocked him flying.
Tammie fell back into the mud of the courtyard. Jowan offered her a hand up. “Get behind me, Tammie. Who are they? Coombe’s men?”
“Yes. The one you hit is Paul Willard. I do not know the others.”
Willard was groaning. The other three men were holding the line but casting anxious glances behind them.
Jowan said, “Tammie, go to our carriage without getting too close to those villains, and bring me the flat wooden case under the rear-facing seat.”
His carriage pistols. Of course. Tammie edged sideways, keeping an eye on the men, and then made a dash for the carriage. A gunshot made her look back. One of the men was a few paces closer to her but had flinched backward, his eyes on Bran, who was standing in the shadow of Willard’s carriage, a smoking pistol in one hand and another pistol in the other.
Tammie hastened to fetch Jowan’s pistol case, her heart leaping into her mouth when the carriage rocked while she was in it. Then a voice spoke from above her. “I have them covered, Sir Jowan. Scurvy knaves.”
The guard! He must have taken his chance and gone for his blunderbuss. Tammie scrambled from the carriage and carried the case to Jowan. While Willard lay in the mud and the other three stood glowering at Bran and the guard, Jowan loaded both pistols and the coachman returned to Jowan’s carriage and produced his own pistol. Evangeline showed an unexpected talent, taking Bran’s spent pistol and reloading it.
The innkeeper decided to take a hand. “That one on the ground said the lady was his master’s wife,” he said.
“That one on the ground lied,” Jowan replied. “Is there a magistrate nearby, innkeeper?”
“No, sir. That is, Lord Brant is our magistrate, but he is away over in Kent visiting his daughter. The nearest magistrate is twenty miles away.”
“Then call the constable and have these four locked up,” Jowan ordered. “My party and I shall make sworn statements before we leave. We cannot wait for the magistrate, but these four can.”
“The woman belongs to the Earl of Coombe,” insisted one of the other men. “Mr. Willard recognized her. And she recognized him, too.”
“That’s right,” said another. “She is Miss Lind, the singer, and the Earl of Coombe is her patron. She ran away from him, and he has a right to get her back.”
The innkeeper looked to Jowan for his response. “See?” Jowan said, “Already, they contradict themselves. That man lied when he said my sister here was Coombe’s wife, and now they claim that Coombe owns the famous singer, Miss Lind. Slavery is illegal in England in case you have not heard. If you keep the leader separately from his henchmen, your magistrate will have the chance to question them before they can conspire on an answer.”
“Miss Lind?” said one of the inn’s grooms. “I’ve heard of her. The Devon Songbird, they call her. I don’t rightly like foreigners coming into our village trying to steal away the Devon Songbird.”
“That’s not her, you fool,” said another groom. “You heard the gentleman. They tried to steal the wrong lady. This is the gentleman’s sister.”
They continued to argue the matter as they efficiently tied up the Londoners, including Willard, who had recovered consciousness only to start yelling threats. His father the viscount was going to eviscerate them all, apparently. Tammie, now they’d decided the attempted abduction was a case of mistaken identity, didn’t want to upset the harmony by explaining that Willard’s father had disowned him for being a drunken degenerate.
She went inside with the rest of her party and wrote a statement saying she recognized none of the men except the Honorable Paul Willard whom she had met while in London. She said she was not, nor had she ever been, married to the Earl of Coombe, who was, as far as she knew, a bachelor. She was traveling home to St Tetha with Sir Jowan Trethewey, Mr. Branoc Hughes, his brother, and Mrs. Evangeline Parkerdale, a friend, and could be contacted through Sir Jowan.
She signed as Tamsyn Roskilly, though the name felt like a suit of clothes she no longer fitted. On the other hand, Tammie Lind did not fit, either. Who would she be now?
