Page 54 of Hold Me Fast
A bang and a crash sounded from inside the house. Patricia looked away and leaned out again. “The chair held,” she said, her voice shaky.
Silence then, for far longer than he had expected. What was happening? Were the servants safe? The two maids slept in the attics, and the cook in a room off the kitchen. If whoever it was thought to collect more hostages, the servants would be vulnerable. He should have thought to tell those covering the back door to get the cook out if they could.
Before he could send a message to that effect, the front door crashed back and three people burst out into the street, only to stand staring in shock at the absence of the carriage and the presence of a reception committee.
One he recognized as the moonlight fell on him. Coombe.Not three. Four people.Behind Coombe, another of the three was carrying a body. And not just any body—the slender form of Tamsyn, wrapped in a blanket, and limp. Jowan had a moment of screaming panic at the sight of her still form, but his rational self assured him she would be of no use to Coombe as a hostage if she was dead.
At the same moment, Coombe spoke. “We have Tammie Lind. Let us pass. Marco will slice a piece of flesh off the treacherous bitch each time anyone makes a single hostile move.” The man at Coombe’s side grinned and waved a knife that looked sharp enough to carry out Coombe’s threat.
The other man swore and stepped back, shifting Tamsyn so her head, which had been hanging over his shoulder, was held away from his body. “Your whore just vomited again,” he complained to Coombe.
They were his last words. A single shot rang out and he fell, Tamsyn with him. The neighbor on the other side of the road had been a sharpshooter in the Rifles, and he took his chance at a shot as soon as Tamsyn was no longer protecting the man’s torso.
Several other men raised their weapons. Marco took a step towards Tamsyn, thought better of it, and took off at a run, and Coombe broke and ran a moment later. Several guns fired, but neither man stopped, so if any of the bullets had hit them, they had not done nearly enough damage.
Half the village took off in pursuit.
Jowan left them to it while he ran to Tamsyn. She was hurt. Unconscious. Vomiting, the villain who held her had said.
The villain lay sprawled back against the house at the top of the steps, his eyes staring, a small hole in his coat in the region of his heart explaining why. Jowan recognized him.Willard.The man who had led the previous kidnap attempt. Tamsyn had fallen mostly on top of him, but her head and shoulders dangled over the edge of the step.
At least she had not fallen headfirst onto the stone steps or the cobbles of the street. Jowan put his arms under her and lifted her just as Patricia opened the front door. Willard slumped into the house, and Patricia drew back. Jowan stepped over him and carried Tamsyn into the parlor. Her breath was broken and shallow, and when he set her down and checked her pulse, he could scarcely find it. He could smell the stink of vomit overlaying the sweet sickly stench of laudanum. Patricia was limping around the room, lighting candles from a spill as Evangeline entered, followed closely by Bran.
“How is she?” Evangeline asked, as she knelt beside Jowan.
“I don’t know.” Jowan grimaced. “He gave her laudanum. Didn’t you say it might kill her if she had to give up again?”
Evangeline’s eyes widened with alarm, but she spoke calmly. “She is still alive, and I shall do my best to keep her that way.”
“She vomited,” Patricia commented. “At least twice, by what that man said. That would have helped to get the poison out, would it not?”
“Yes, it would have,” Evangeline agreed. “Patricia, are you not still recovering from your carriage accident? Get off your knee before you damage it further. On your way out, Jowan, send someone for the doctor.”
Jowan cast a glance at the door, torn between his need to hunt down Coombe and his aversion to leaving Tamsyn.
“Tamsyn will get the best care I can give her,” Evangeline assured him. “I trust you and Bran to capture that man and prevent him from hurting my friend ever again.”
“I have horses,” Bran said, “and you know the countryside as well as anyone in the village.”
His mind made up, Jowan strode towards the door, where Tamsyn’s maids and cook were standing, watching their mistress. They stepped out of his way, but he paused and turned back to Evangeline. She had not waited for him and Bran to quit the room but was unbuttoning Tamsyn’s nightgown.
“She is my life,” he said.
The nurse looked over her shoulder to meet his eyes. “I know. She is still alive, Jowan. Go and get that villain.”
He nodded and left the room, Bran on his heels. As he stepped over Willard, who still blocked the doorway, he heard Evangeline say, presumably to the cook and the maids, “You, put some hot water on. I want warm water to bathe her. You two, fetch me towels and washcloths, and…”
Chapter Twenty-One
One of thevillage boys held the reins of two horses Jowan did not recognize.
“No time to go home or to chase after your horse,” Bran said. “The innkeeper is providing horses for anyone who can ride.”
Well enough. Jowan nodded, took the reins of the nearest horse, and mounted.
They followed the sound of the hunt—calls to alert the rest of the pursuers to sightings or redirections regarding places that hadn’t been searched. From the sounds, Coombe and his valet had taken to Bodmin Moor.
Perhaps they thought it would be easier to lose the pursuit amongst the hills and valleys, the rocks and scattered buildings, not to mention the mists that would counter the assistance given to the hunters by the bright moonlight.
