Page 53 of Hold Me Fast
The investigation into the carriage and its driver had stalled—they had discovered the horses had been hired in Launceston, but the driver had been bundled against the cold and no one could describe him. The charge of horse theft had been added to the charge of assault by carriage since both vehicle and team had apparently disappeared. As far as the constable could discover, they had never emerged from Bodmin Moor.
Jowan had posted guards around the cottage for several nights, but nothing had happened. Then the local newspaper carried a snippet from the London papers about an embassy affair in Paris, where the Earl of Coombe was mentioned as one of the guests. After that, Tamsyn suggested that the men should be able to spend their nights asleep in their own homes, especially since it was raining day and night as if another flood was imminent.
Two nights later, the rain clouds cleared in the evening, and the sunset promised a fine day to come. Tamsyn went to bed wondering whether Bran and Evangeline would arrive home on the morrow. Their letter announcing that they were on their way had arrived days ago, but she was certain they must have been delayed by the weather.
She woke when someone clamped a hand over her mouth and hauled her upright by her arm. Before she was awake enough to struggle, whoever it was had her firmly grasped with an arm around her chest, her back to a hard body, both of her arms trapped inside the bedding that he’d hauled up with her.
Her heart was pounding, her stomach clenching so powerfully that she thought she would vomit, her mind screaming for Jowan, her heart plunging into a void of despair and loss.
“Light!” That was a voice she knew.Coombe.But the stench of his cologne had already warned her. Sure enough, someone set a spill to the embers of the fire and then to a candle from the mantelpiece, and she could see Paul Willard, holding the candle, and the dark outline of a man between her and the candle, whom she recognized by his shape and smell to be Coombe. Which meant the man holding her was probably Marco.
“You have put me through a lot of trouble, Tammie,” Coombe said. “I am most displeased.”
Anger came to rescue Tamsyn from the inertia that had kept her still. She would have spat had her mouth not been held closed, and even so, she struggled.
“I have come to collect you,” he continued. “I advise you to come quietly. If you make a fuss, I shall have everyone in the house killed. You do not want to be responsible for their deaths, Tamsyn, do you? Your servants and your poor friend, who has had such a nasty accident.” He finished with a giggle that told her exactly who was to blame for the accident. Where fear for herself had lost its power, fear for them held her still. For the moment.
“The drugs?” He held out a hand to Willard, who lifted the flap of a pouch he was wearing and handed Coombe an apothecary’s bottle.
No!She couldn’t! No drugs. Anything but that. Her heart gibbered even as the craving within her woke and yearned towards the bottle.
“I shall make it easy for you, Tammie,” Coombe crooned. “Normally, you would have to earn poppy juice of this quality, but I know you must have been suffering supply shortages in this god-forsaken wilderness. No noise now! You can let her mouth go, Marco.”
“No,” Tamsyn said, shaking her head as soon as her mouth was free. “No drugs, Guy. I’ll come quietly, but no drugs. I have had nothing since I left London. You’ll kill me.”
“Stupid bitch,” Willard mocked. “A tart like you? No way.”
“Rubbish,” said Coombe. He narrowed his eyes. “What trick are you planning to pull? Take your dose, like a good girl.” He tried to get the bottle between her teeth, but she shook her head and fought against the arms confining her, beyond rational thinking. Coombe swore when some of the liquid spilled. “Hold her head still,” he ordered. Willard and Marco forced her head back and held her nose. Coombe forced the bottle between her lips and then held them closed on the liquid that managed to make it inside.
Now that it was too late to stop him dosing her, Tamsyn’s panic subsided a little. Perhaps enough had escaped for her to survive such a huge helping of something Coombe described asquality. Or not. If Coombe was successful in taking her away, she would be better dead.No.She couldn’t believe that. Jowan would come for her. Jowan would rescue her.
It was her last coherent thought, as a great cacophony of sound went up from close by. If that was angel bells, there was something wrong with them. They sounded appalling. Perhaps, after all, her recent repentance was insufficient, and this was the sound of hell.
*
When Evangeline andBran called into Inneford House on their way home, Jowan was tempted to beg them to stay. This last week, in particular, with Tamsyn so busy nursing Patricia, he had felt very alone in the great house.
“How is Patricia?” Evangeline asked. “And Tamsyn! We almost rushed straight back after we heard about her accident. Are they still at the squire’s?”
“They have moved into their new cottage,” Jowan admitted. “Yours is ready too.”
Tamsyn would be so pleased to see her friend back and to welcome her to the home that she’d put so much effort into preparing.
“I’ll ride down with you. Let us go as far as Tamsyn’s and check for lights. I know she’d want to welcome you home if she is awake.”
They had just turned the corner to Apple Cottage when a great hullabaloo of sound began. The horses shied. Bran had to calm his horses, and the driver of the carriage that waited outside Apple Cottage was having a similar issue with his team.
Up on the second floor of the cottage, Patricia had her window wide open and was clanging a metal tankard against a chamber pot, while screaming for help. “Intruders! Help! Murder!”
“Evangeline, get down and run for help,” Jowan commanded. The rest of the plan came to him as he spoke. “Bran, tie your reins up so the horses think they still have a driver and set your team to a trot, then jump off onto the carriage. We’ll throw the driver off and then you can drive the carriage away while I wait for whomever comes out of that door.”
By the time he’d got that far, Evangeline was gone, and Bran had the reins tied securely to the front rail of the cabriolet, with enough slack to let the horses keep moving. They were almost on the carriage. Jowan leaped from his horse to the driver’s perch and kept going, taking the driver down the other side, trusting Bran to deal with the vehicle and team. And sure enough, both coach and cabriolet continued down the road, and his horse was following. Meanwhile, along both sides of the street, windows were opening and doors, too, as village men in nightshirts and hastily donned trousers tumbled out into the street. Many of them were carrying rifles—hunting weapons or souvenirs of the late war.
“Some of you go around the back to stop whoever comes out that way,” Jowan ordered. “Patricia, what is happening?”
Patricia leaned out to call down, “Intruders. I heard a voice in Tamsyn’s room. A man swearing, I think. Maybe more than one. Certainly, more than one person moving around. I shoved a chair under my door handle and came to the window to make a racket.”
“You did well,” Jowan told her.
