Running down the stairs, Flynn glanced behind him. “I think you’ve a spot of jam on your waistcoat, Jeffers.”
The majordomo’s gaze snapped to his stomach. His mouth dropped open in horror. Jeffers brushed furiously at the offensive ruby spot, which only served to stain his white glove as well.
Flynn ducked his head to hide his laughter. Turning round, he careened full on into a man. “I beg your pardon.”
The fellow snarled a foul oath, and after yanking his cap into place, hurried on his way.
“Oh my, isn’t that lovely?” Awestruck, Lily pointed behind the arbor where Angelina and Iris sat.
Unable to see what held Lily’s attention from beneath the perfumed bower, Angelina set her embroidery on the granite bench and stood. Stepping from under the arbor, she backed up several paces and searched the sky.
Could it be?
“Look. A triple rainbow.” Lily pointed to the sky again.
Iris joined Angelina. “I didn’t know such a thing was possible.”
“I didn’t either.” Tears of joy sprang to Angelina’s eyes. God had heard her silly request. And only last night, she confessed her love to Flynn.
Her arms about her sisters’ waists, Angelina stared at the brilliant arcs in wonder.
“Such an ugly storm yesterday, and see what the morning brings?” Ever the romantic, Lily sighed dramatically.
“It’s hardly morning any longer, dear.” Angelina couldn’t keep the dryness from her tone. “You didn’t come below stairs until almost noon.”
Iris shook her head. “Hmph. Not everyone rises with the birds like you, Lina.”
“Mademoiselles.” An unwelcome male voice shattered the moment.
Lord, no.
Angelina and her sisters whirled around.
Pierre stood before them.
The twins cried out and clutched each other.
Angelina fought against debilitating fear. She must keep her wits about her. She shot a sideways peep at her sisters. In shock and pale as death, there’d be no help from that quarter.
Pierre parted his coat, revealing a gun stuffed in his waistband.
Two armed henchmen shifted from foot to foot barely a yard inside the gate. The hedge concealed them from the house’s view. Their rodent-like gazes darted around the garden nervously.
“No.” Angelina shook her head in disbelief. “You sailed yesterday. Lord Devaux told Flynn—”
“Fools,” Pierre jeered. “I boarded the ship, but during the night, I was sneaked off in a barrel. I paid a man to wear my clothing and stand at the bow when the Ange de la Mer sailed.”
He stalked forward, his lips warped into a cruel sneer. Madness glimmered in his brandy-colored eyes.
How had she ever thought him handsome?
“My ship is waiting at Caldey Island for me to rendezvous with her. I had additional cargo to collect besides you three.” His lewd gaze raked over them.
Dread turned Angelina’s blood cold.
She didn’t doubt she’d be subjected to Pierre’s vile attentions. The twins, however, were more valuable as virgins, but once they reached the foreign markets . . .
She shuddered. Dear God, the thought didn’t bear contemplating.
Stall, Angelina.
“Cargo? Surely you’re not serious.” She grasped Lily’s hand and inched her sisters toward the house. “What could you possibly mean to do with three women?”
She knew perfectly well what he intended.
Pierre and his companions sniggered.
“You’ll make the last I need for a full dozen. Do you have any idea how much European women sell for on a Middle Eastern auction block?”
“God in heaven,” Iris breathed.
Lily whimpered.
Angelina scooted them another couple of inches closer to the door.
“Don’t move another step.” Pierre’s face contorted with rage. “I told you, you were mine.”
He sauntered a few paces nearer, fingering the gun’s handle. “I returned to marry you, and what did I find? You weren’t in Salem waiting for me as I asked you to be.”
“Waiting for you? Are you addled?” She stabbed a finger at him. “You were married. I couldn’t return to Salem. I was disgraced. Ruined.”
Angelina scrutinized the weapon beneath his coat. Could the twins reach the house if she distracted him?
A confused expression flitted across Pierre’s face, giving him an almost childlike appearance.
“But I came for you immediately after I . . . ah, eliminated that inconvenience. I swore to you that I loved you. Didn’t you believe me?” A plaintive tone tinged his last words.
Angelina’s heart skipped and the hairs on her nape stood straight up at his confession.
Pierre had killed his wife so he could legally marry her. He was insane.
She slowly shook her head. “You have no notion what real love is.”
“Oh, and I suppose your new husband does?” Pierre glared at her, venom spewing from his eyes. “It didn’t take you long to replace me.”
A hailstorm of fury ripped through Angelina, scattering her common sense like sand across a desert.
“You dare accuse me, Pierre? You were already married when you walked me down the aisle. And you had the gall to demand I wait for you. While you were dragged off to your real wife in France, leaving me with child?”
Damn, damn, damn.
Would she never learn to control her tongue when angry?
“Lina!” Lily and Iris cried in unison.
Their gazes, along with Pierre’s, hurtled to her stomach.
“I lost the baby in my fourth month.” Angelina tilted her chin in defiance.
He shrugged callously. “Good. A pregnant woman is worth far less.”
How could he be so heartless about a child he’d fathered?
Pulling the gun from his coat, he waved it menacingly. “Now move.”
Hatred like none she’d ever known sliced through Angelina. Thank God she’d been spared a lifetime with this despicable blackguard.
Pierre jerked his head in the direction of the gate.
His two dirty comrades advanced, their lips bent into lecherous smirks, their shifty eyes undressing the twins.
Lily and Iris shrank together, their sky-blue eyes wide as incoherent noises escaped them.
“We’re not going with you. Not without a fight.” Angelina frantically searched round the enclosure seeking a weapon or a means of escape. Only a pile of twine near the arbor, a pair of forgotten gloves, and a bamboo rake were visible.
She’d nothing to protect them except her sewing scissors. They were too far away to be of help.
Where were the servants? Surely someone glanced out a window occasionally.
Pierre hadn’t been here more than two or three minutes. Seconds crept by feeling like hours as she desperately strove to find a way out of this situation.
“Me lady, your mother asked—”
Gregor halted halfway out the door and immediately settled into a defensive stance. He met Angelina’s gaze, then shifted his to Pierre.
“Renault?” he mouthed.
Angelina dared to incline her head a fraction.
Murder in his eyes, Gregor edged further on to the stoop.
“You assured me the Scots left this morning.” Pierre flung a rage-filled glower at one of his henchmen. “Tie him up. Let’s get out of here.”
Pistols trained on Gregor, the two miscreants crept toward him.
“Stop your dawdling.” Pierre licked his lips nervously. “You’re armed. He isn’t.”
“How are we supposed to tie him?” The larger brute eyed Gregor.
Twice their size, he didn’t
seem the least intimidated by the intruders.
“Use . . .” Pierre’s gaze roamed the enclosure. “There.”
He gestured to the twine. “That will do.”
He aimed his gun at the twins. “To the gate. Now.”
“Don’t move.” Angelina stayed them with her hand. “What’s he going to do? Shoot us? In broad daylight? With a house full of servants as witnesses?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
Flynn’s ire-laden words jerked her attention to him.
Relief and panic dually assailed her. The twins were safe, but Pierre pointed his gun at Flynn.
Jeffers, Lord Ramsbury, and two men she didn’t recognize, stepped through the doorway. Each bore firearms and blades.
Two armed footmen entered the open gate behind the abductors.
Flynn passed Gregor a gun.
“Flynn!” Angelina dashed toward him.
“Non!” Pierre roared, firing his pistol.
Another shot sounded.
Searing pain slammed into her.
The impact threw her backward into her shrieking sisters. A peculiar golden-white aura spiraled before her eyes. The glow grew narrower and narrower as she sank beneath layers of thick, cottony clouds.
Flynn. My love.
“Angelina!”
Flynn’s guttural cry was the last thing she heard before icy blackness claimed her.
Angelina moaned, regretting it instantly when razor-hot pain stabbed her chest. She took shallow breaths.
What was all the sobbing about? Who was shouting?
God almighty, had she been hit by a carriage? Or was an elephant sitting on her chest?
Something warm and sticky trickled onto her neck.
Why was she lying on the ground?
Her dress would be good for nothing except the rubbish bin after this. And it had been one of her favorites too.
“Lina, stay with me, Lina, please.”
Is that Flynn? Heavens, he sounds dreadful.
“Flynn, ye must let go, and allow me to see to her.”
Gregor. Such a nice man.
“Is she going to die?”
Lily, sobbing. Must she always be so dramatic?
“There’s so much blood.”
Ah, and Iris, always one for stating the obvious.
Wait. Blood? Whose blood?
Angelina forced her eyes open.
Four faces loomed above hers and beyond them, several more.
Don’t they know it’s rude to stare at a woman indisposed?
“Lina? We’ve sent for the surgeon. We’ll carry you into the house in a few moments. Hang on, love.” Flynn touched her cheek. Were those tears in his eyes?
Did he think she was dying?
Am I dying?
Angelina’s eyelids weighed a stone, and her freezing limbs felt leaden. She closed her eyes, the effort to keep them open too difficult.
Her upper right chest and shoulder hurt something awful. Bloody excruciating, actually. Wouldn’t dying be less painful?
I suppose I’ll have to sit up and convince them I’m not going to expire with my next breath.
Deuced nuisance, being fussed over. Couldn’t they let her lay here and get her bearings? It did rather rattle one to be shot. Wasn’t that what had happened?
“Will you please stop your fussing?” Her tone shriller than she intended, Angelina opened her eyes.
She almost laughed at their stunned expressions, except it would hurt like the devil if she did.
“I don’t believe I’m at imminent risk of cocking up my toes.” She met Gregor’s eyes. “Am I, Gregor?”
He lifted the cloth pressed to her shoulder. “I canna be certain of the nature of yer wound without undressing ye.”
Flynn growled.
Angelina sent him a quelling stare and fisted her hands against the agony lancing her every time she spoke. “Hush, Flynn, or you’ll have to leave while I consult with Gregor.”
She tried to glimpse her chest. She couldn’t bend her neck enough to see. “I’ve been shot?”
“Yes. I think it only be a flesh wound.” Gregor considered her shoulder.
He obviously wanted to examine her closer but feared Flynn’s reaction.
“Enough of this nonsense.” Angelina struggled to a sitting position, biting her lip against the pain.
Holy heaven, it hurts!
Gads. She might vomit.
“Lina.” Flynn was as white as the cravat neatly tied about his neck. “Please, be careful. You shouldn’t be moving.”
The poor man sounded quite desperate.
Like a man in love.
With her.
If she didn’t feel so god-awful, she’d be thrilled.
“Gregor, you had better carry me. My husband appears about to topple over. Jeffers, please be a dear, and assist his lordship into the house.”
“Of course, your ladyship.” Jeffers put an arm about Flynn’s shoulders.
“Stop that this instant.” Flynn shoved at the butler’s hand. “If you value your position, Jeffers, remove your arm from my person at once!”
“I’m sorry, my lord.” The butler clamped his jaw and tightened his hold. “I cannot ignore her ladyship’s request.”
“Confound it, man, unhand me.” Flynn twisted loose.
“I did try, my lady.” His features pinched in chagrin, Jeffers straightened his shoulders and adjusted his waistcoat. “I’ll await the surgeon’s arrival inside.”
Sniffing disdainfully, he pivoted on his heel and strode into the house.
Flynn was in a state, poor man.
Angelina swore she heard chuckling.
Ah, the earl and those other handsome fellows, no doubt. Rather droll friends, her husband had. Wasn’t Lord Ramsbury some sort of government official?
“Lord Ramsbury?”
The earl’s handsome face appeared in her line of vision. “Yes, my lady?”
“There’s a ship waiting at Caldey Island with nine women aboard held captive. Please, can you do something to help them?”
“Hound’s teeth.” Shock registered on the blond man’s aristocratic face.
“I’ll be away at once.” Lord Ramsbury touched her hand gently. “Well done, Lady Bretheridge.”
Gregor edged closer. “It will hurt when I lift ye.”
“I expected as much.” Angelina tried to smile, but it was difficult to do when clinching one’s teeth against agonizing pain.
“You’ll see to my treatment, Gregor, won’t you? Don’t let the surgeon or a physician do anything you don’t approve of, please?”
“I give ye me word.” He nodded somberly.
“Thank you.” Yes, she’d encourage his interest in Lily. She would quite like having this man as a brother-in-law. “Gregor?”
“Yes?” Concern creased his brow as he gazed at her.
What a remarkable grayish-blue his eyes are.
“I think I’m going to . . .”
She couldn’t finish. A wave of dizziness crashed over her. Her pulse pounded in her ears.
Blackness danced before her eyes.
Two days later, Flynn sat beside Angelina in the drawing room.
She relaxed on a divan covered by a plaid Yvette had given them for a wedding present.
The footmen had turned the piece of furniture so Angelina could see the garden from the open French windows.
Every trace of blood had been eliminated from the area.
This morning, she’d been told Jeffers killed Pierre. The other two trespassers surrendered without a fight.
Triumph and Treasure (Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Series Book 1) Page 30
