He speedily grabbed the valise, shoved it in the back of the bushes and frowned. This was not a good location. He needed much more privacy for the delicate delights in mind. He could gag and muffle her but he still needed to be sure no one would interrupt. Not likely, but he preferred a spot more secluded. Even though the bushes were dense, they were too close to the street and a passerby could possibly spot them as she thrashed about.
Morgan kept frantically trying to loosen the scarf, but then her hands went limp. Alarmed that he might be about to lose the games he wanted to enjoy with her, he drew his knife and held the wicked blade against her body as he slowly slackened the scarf.
“I’ll take this off if you remain silent.” His obscene whisper sounded in her ear. “If you call out I’ll stick this knife in your stomach. I know a place where you’ll die from the wound in ten to twelve hours. You can’t imagine the amount of pain you’ll suffer in those hours. Do you understand me?”
Terrified, she nodded and he loosened the scarf with one hand, leaving it around her throat in case he needed to apply more pressure. His other hand held the wicked-looking, very thin knife pointed at her upper stomach.
Morgan tried to speak and only produced a croak.
The murderer grinned in such an evil way that Morgan’s considerable fear escalated.
“Well,” he commented. “I guess I don’t have to worry about you screaming. All to the good. Now march down the garden, staying behind those trees along the fence. You can stop behind that big clump of bushes near the back of the yard.”
Morgan lowered her eyes while she tried to conquer her terror. This would never do. She must keep her wits about her if she was to have any chance. Above all she couldn’t let him see her fright. She was sure that was exactly what would make him gloat. Peering up from under her downcast eyes, she saw him looking at her, evidently trying to gauge her feelings. She would not oblige him by showing her terror in any degree.
She started to the back of the garden, going exactly as directed. She tried to mask her glee, as he pointed to a thick clump of bushes and pushed her toward them. He’d directed her to the bushes hiding her herb garden. Surely a propitious spot for her, since many of the plants were Druid healing herbs. The very aura of the place should be of help to her.
Nearby a large rowan tree shaded part of the area. Did the killer know she was a Druid and rowans were a sacred tree to her people? To make her garden more hallowed, she’d encouraged a mistletoe to grow in the top of another nearby tree. An additional plant revered by Druids and one considered a strong protection against evil.
He could not have picked a spot more favorable for her, nor one silently proffering her more courage. She and her mother had planted this area together, with flower beds on the other side of the tall bushes. Only the bushes with flowers in front of them were visible from the house. Somehow she could feel her mother reaching out to her now. Her courage mounted as she turned to face him.
She summoned up as disinterested a tone as she could manage. Her hoarseness didn’t help convey the attitude of uncaring acceptance, but still she hoped she’d shake him by her lack of pleading. She suspected begging for mercy was exactly what he wanted.
“I do admire you, you know,” she croaked. “Not many men want to tangle with a witch.”
He slammed his fist against her cheek so that she needed all her strength to keep from crying out. In spite of herself a few tears escaped.
“I know you’re a witch,” he growled. “All women are.”
“No,” she murmured, mustering a smile from somewhere. “I’m really and truly a witch. I can cast any spell I want. Do you want to risk one of my curses?”
For the first time his gloating wavered. “Don’t lie, you slut. Nobody nowadays is a real witch. You’re just making it harder on yourself, you know. I think you just added about an hour to your death throes.”
His knife lashed out and cut a long slash in her blouse, starting at the neckline and going almost to her waist. The very tip of the knife sliced her and she could feel blood welling. She resisted the impulse to grab the sides of her blouse and hold them together. She forced herself to smile at him instead, pleased as she saw his obscene grin waver.
“That was a mistake.” Her voice was clearing a little, but was still rasping. “Now I think I’ll have to use the curse my mother once dreamed up for a man who was annoying me. She thought it appropriate if his private member shriveled up so he could never find enjoyment again with a woman. Yes, if you hurt me badly, that’s the curse I’ll be forced to wish on you.”
She didn’t lie. Her mother had thought of the curse. Just the threat seemed to be having some effect. She watched her tormentor carefully as he blanched and looked wildly around the herb garden.
“I don’t believe you, bitch.”
He fingered the knife again, his fingers tightening on the hilt as he seemed to control an impulse to slash at her a second time. He grinned a lascivious grin, which widened when he noted her shudder.
“Go ahead, whore. I’ll give you one try. After all a man doesn’t like to take a chance with his balls. So prove to me you can work magic.”
Morgan hoped her fair skin wasn’t blushing at his crude language. She lowered her head as if thinking. Nor an act, as she really had to think. What under heaven’s name could she do now?
“Aha!” Her tormentor grabbed the edges of the scarf again. “You can’t do magic! You’re a bloody liar like all the rest of your sex.”
As he moved to tighten the scarf, Morgan coolly put up her hands and inserted them under the edges of the material.
“Don’t be so rash. I don’t really want to curse you. Such a cruel fate for any man. But to do magic I have to say the proper spells first and you mustn’t hear those.”
Tomlinson dropped his hands and stepped back a few inches. “I’m waiting, you lying slut. But not for long.”
Morgan knew she had only a few minutes. She frantically looked around for inspiration. Suddenly a great calm stole over her. She smiled as she realized her mother had somehow divined her daughter’s danger and was speaking to her inside her mind. The soothing words flowed over her.
“Remember, love, I am with you and you are under a rowan tree. A tall oak is just beyond you, as well as the mistletoe. Absorb the authority of this sacred spot and then look for some easy object to magic. Do not attempt anything too hard.”
Morgan felt a confidence, a certainty, she’d never felt before. She was under a rowan tree, the most sacred tree of the Druids. She lifted her eyes to the oak, another revered tree.
She’d edged over and placed herself more deeply in the shade of the rowan. Now for something easy. Was this the reason she’d failed before, she’d tackled subjects too difficult for a beginner?
Her gaze fastened on a smaller tree, a chestnut, along the back of the house. Squinting, she thought she saw a tinge of yellow on a few leaves. Perhaps they’d already lost some of their vigor, although the tree was full and bushy. She would not hurt that particular tree.
She muttered several nonsense words under her breath and turned back to Tomlinson. His manic glare jangled her. Even so, she refused to say something nonsensical like “abracadabra”. Her brain didn’t help her much and she came close to that ridiculous word.
She took a deep breath, as deep as her swollen throat allowed and threw her head back.
“I’m ready now. Do you see that tree near the house, centered in front of the middle window? It must have thousands of leaves. I will make them all fall off in one instant.”
Tomlinson peered through the bushes at the tree and gave a derisive snort.
“Go ahead, bitch. Nobody can do what you say you’re going to do. You only have one chance and then we play the games I like to play. You might not like them at all, but I will. Yes indeed I will.”
He sniggered obscenely and fingered his knife as he leered at her. Morgan’s calm did not desert her. She felt the all-pervading love of her mother suffuse h
er mind and heart. She, Morgan, was the daughter of a long, long line of Druids. She knew she fully possessed the support of the Goddess of the Druids. She would not fail.
She raised her head high and lifting her hands intoned as calmly as if she were ordering tea.
“Goddess of Druids, hear your child’s plea
Make all the leaves fall from yon chestnut tree.”
There was a pause and then loud swooshing sound as every single leaf fell from the tree. She watched in fascination and delight. She was a true Druid at last! She could work magic. Behind her she heard a loud gasp and she turned to see Tomlinson lose all color. He paled and took a step away from her as if she were a poisonous snake.
Before she could figure out how to use this to her best advantage, to her utmost astonishment she heard a familiar, deep voice coming from the side of the yard.
“Put down that knife, you sick bastard. I’m coming for you.”
Lance, large, solid and impressive, was charging across the lawn, not letting anything get in the way of his reaching the killer. Morgan screamed, a hoarse sound that made Lance momentarily flick his eyes toward her although he never paused in his attack.
Morgan saw he was breathing harshly and she kept her delighted eyes fixed on him as he rushed over the lawn.
“You can’t stop me, can you, Tomlinson?”
He was deliberately goading the killer, his tone mocking and his every phrase insulting.
Suddenly Tomlinson threw his knife straight at Lance’s chest. Lance swerved and ducked and took the knife in his shoulder, but never slackened. He grabbed the knife from his body and threw it behind him, even as he ran. His triumphant face showed his tactics were consciously planned to rid the killer of his murderous knife.
“You bloody bastard, stop or I’ll kill your whore.”
“No, you can’t,” panted Lance, as he reached Tomlinson and threw a hefty punch that landed accurately on the killer’s chin and knocked him to the ground. Lance stood over him a second while Tomlinson cursed and tried to get up. Then Lance reached over and pressed a spot in the murderer’s neck and rendered him unconscious.
Then and only then, did he hold out his arms to Morgan.
“My brave, brave girl,” he murmured, holding her a little away from him, but with his face buried against her hair. She tried to snuggle closer but he held her off.
“You don’t want to ruin what’s left of your pretty blouse, do you?”
Looking up, she noticed the tension in his darkened eyes. She looked down quickly to see blood streaming from his shoulder.
“I guess I should have left the knife in ’til I could get to a doctor,” he said. The corners of his mouth turned up, but the rest of his face wasn’t smiling. “I’ve got to secure this miserable ruffian first, Morgan. Shriver will soon be here with the carriage and can take him to jail.”
He picked up her hands and kissed them. “There’s no doubt he’s our killer, but I’m sorrier than I can say you were forced to endure a minute of his vile presence. He disgraces even the word ‘criminal’. Few are so vicious or cruel.”
He gently put her aside and leaning down, took off his belt and used it to wrap around and bind Tomlinson’s ankles. He secured those murdering hands with the scarf used to choke Morgan.
Lance turned to her, running his fingers over the swollen ridges in her neck, cursing under his breath as his fingers moved in a touch so light as to be a caress. As he stared at the slash on her chest his cursing grew louder. His eyes flared as he saw her partially exposed body, but he made no move beyond reaching down and drawing the edges of her ruined blouse together.
Morgan loved his deep concern and she moved closer. She wanted to lose herself in his arms and try to forget the last hour. Lance was sanity, honor and warmth after an experience of cold and unbelievable cruelty. She needed him to hold her close. Then she saw the streaming blood wasn’t slowing and knew she couldn’t stop to express her feelings or let him utter his. They’d wasted too much time already.
“Forget about me, Lance, I’ll be fine. We’ve got to get you to a doctor. How I wish my mother were here.”
She stared at the crimson flow and wished she’d absorbed more of her mother’s great knowledge of herbs and medicine.
“But I am here, my loves,” came the familiar voice of Viviane McAfee as she walked down the garden. “I knew you needed me and Ambrose and I are both here with you. Ambrose, stand watch over this pitiful excuse of a human while I take Lord Lance into the house and stitch his wound.”
The big black Lab nosed the bundle on the ground with a growl of disdain and then sat squarely on Tomlinson’s stomach. Morgan laughed for the first time that day and even Lance smiled. She’d love to be around to see Tomlinson’s expression when he woke to find Ambrose sitting on him and literally breathing down his neck. And himself helpless with tied hands and feet. But she wanted more than anything to go with Lance and help if she possibly could.
He was losing far too much blood.
Lance refused any help from the women and got himself to the front of the house. Then Jackson ran down the steps and carefully placed his arm around Lance’s good shoulder. With marked reverence he helped the man who’d saved his young mistress into the parlor.
Now it was up to Viviane.
Chapter Twelve
Viviane looked her daughter over with care but some haste.
“You’ll be fine, my dear, you only need some of my special salves. What’s more important is I get this excellent man’s bleeding stopped as soon as possible.”
She turned to Lance, now lying propped up on pillows on the sofa where Jackson led him. He was still breathing more heavily than usual, but whether that was due to exertion or his wound Morgan couldn’t tell. She didn’t know how long he’d been running before he found her and the murderer in the garden.
She leaned over and kissed his forehead. His eyes flew to hers in surprise, although he smiled a little.
“That was to express my thanks to you, my lord Lance. It was only a question of a short time before Tomlinson turned on me again. I could see the fury building in his eyes.”
Her voice shook as her whole body shuddered with the remembered terror and Lance reached up and caught her hand and held it to his lips.
“It’s over, Morgan. You’re safe.”
If Viviane noticed the intimacy in his tone, she made no comment. Instead she busied herself opening the bag she’d brought with her, bringing out a little bottle.
“The wound itself is not large since the weapon was so narrow. But you tore the entry slit when you jerked the knife out. That was quick thinking, incidentally. No way could he get past you to retrieve it.”
“Thank God he didn’t turn on Morgan. That was my biggest fear and why I goaded him so. What a horrible specimen of humanity. He makes one ashamed to be called a man.”
Lance voice was steady although his eyes still were shadowed with his fear for Morgan.
“I wonder what he’ll come back as in his next life. I can’t think of anything low enough.” Morgan’s musings made Lance smile again.
“A worm? A piece of algae?”
Morgan shuddered again. “You are maligning both those good creatures,” she said quite seriously.
Viviane smiled at them both, even as she rummaged in her kit. “I will have to stitch the wound, of course, after I cleanse it. I would like to give you something to dull the pain, my lord.” Viviane was readying a needle and coarse thread as she spoke.
“I need nothing, ma’am,” Lance said. “Go ahead, I’m quite ready.”
Viviane looked at him carefully. “At least let me get you a glass of wine. No, I’ll get it, stay with him, Morgan.”
She disappeared toward the kitchen, calling for Jackson as she went. Entering the room after a short while, she handed Lance a small glass of wine.
“I would have thought the condemned man deserved a larger glass than this,” he joked after he’d swallowed the contents.
“But then I’d not have been sure of how many drops of mandrake to use, would I?”
She smiled sweetly at Lance, who glared back.
“Madam, I resent extremely your taking my decisions into your own hands. I am quite capable of choosing whether I wish to be sedated or not. You had no right to take that choice from me.”
Viviane patted his hand. “I’m going to have to finish ruining your clothes. The knife has slit them anyway and I’d like to cut them off. It will be easier for you that way.” When she was done she pushed him back against the pillow of the couch and looked closely at the wound.
“You are right, my lord, I’m a reprehensible woman by keeping you from involuntarily jerking,” she grinned at him as his glare grew more intense, “I said involuntarily, my lord. I do not question your ability to withstand pain. I am just trying to make this easy on myself.”
Lance relaxed a little, a wry grin on his stoic face. Whether he accepted her remarks or the opiate was starting to take effect Morgan couldn’t tell. Although she was glad to see him lie back against the pillows as her mother took the needle in her hand.
She put it down. “I’m truly sorry, Lord Lance, but I must trim the edges of the wound a little. Morgan, bring me a glass of brandy.”
Lance started up. “I will drink no more of anything, madam.”
Viviane and Morgan both laughed.
“The brandy is to cleanse the scissors and needle of any impurities, Lance.” Morgan moved over and smoothed the hair off his forehead with a tender hand.
“You only drank wine and few drops of an old herbal remedy, my lord,” she whispered.
With a sheepish grin, Lance lay back again and the stitching proceeded. Lance, in a half-daze, was perfectly quiet and Morgan was well pleased with her mother’s clever trickery.
Viviane bandaged him carefully and when she was done, went to the door and called for Jackson.
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