“I’ll send a message.” Felix grabbed one of the horses and hauled it into the open. The stocky bay snorted and fought at leaving the shelter of the trees. “Let me give you a hand up.”
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped.
“Suit yourself, my lady.” He presented the reins with an ironic gesture.
Snatching them out of his hand, she spoke soothingly to the nervous animal. She scrambled onto its back, swathing the greatcoat around her. The storm was bad enough in this hollow. She dreaded to think what she’d face on the open moor.
The horse curveted at having a rider, but Charis quickly brought it under control. She glared through the downpour at Felix. “If you hurt my husband, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
Felix gave a harsh laugh. “You always were an unnatural chit. Once I get the money, I have no further interest in either of you. Although I’ll wager Trevithick will curse the day he tangled with the Earl of Marley’s termagant daughter.”
She ignored his jibes. “Remember what I said. I know you and Hubert are eager to prove your prowess on a defenseless man.”
Kicking the horse into a gallop, she forced it up the slippery path out of the dell. As she bent forward over the beast’s neck, her heart pounded out a single message. Gideon, wait for me.
Twenty-three
Up on the moor, the wind roared like an angry monster. It turned the driving rain into knives that pierced the thick greatcoat like muslin. Fierce cold sliced through Charis’s bones. But nothing made her colder than her fear for Gideon.
Her mount neighed and fought as she battled to turn it onto the faint path toward Penrhyn. She sawed furiously at the bit, but the animal was too frightened to settle.
“Please, please, behave for me,” she sobbed, tightening her thighs to keep her seat on the twisting horse. Her arms ached with stopping it bolting back the way they’d come.
Gideon needed her. Every second counted. Hunkering down in the saddle, she grimly set to gaining control over the beast.
Eventually, the animal began to splash its way westward at an unsteady gallop. Charis’s shoulders knotted with strain, and she panted for breath. She leaned over the horse’s neck, calling encouragement although she knew the gale whipped her words to oblivion.
All the time, her heart pounded out a silent message to Gideon.
Wait for me, my love. Wait for me. Wait for me.
Dread created its own swirling storm inside her. Not dread for herself, dread for her husband. Had he kept his ghosts away? What were Felix and Hubert doing to him? Where did they mean to keep him? Dear Lord, don’t let it be somewhere dark and constricted like the pit at Rangapindhi.
She blundered on. The rain turned her clothes to heavy wet ice. Her sodden braids collapsed and tumbled down, blinding her. With one shaking hand, she hurriedly dashed her dripping hair away from her eyes. The storm transformed the afternoon into night, lit by jagged flashes of lightning, punctuated by rolling thunder.
The horse released a high-pitched neigh and balked at a swollen stream. Ruthlessly, Charis kicked it until it launched into an ungainly jump. “Come on!”
The animal stumbled when it reached the crumbling bank. Charis slid dangerously, nearly fell into the raging flood. After a terrifying, breathless pause, the flagging horse found its feet, slipping in the mud.
She hoped to heaven she followed the right path. Or any path. Either she’d missed Penrhyn’s gateposts in the squall, or she was yet to reach them. Or she was hopelessly lost. Gideon said it was only a couple of miles to the house, but she felt she’d been riding forever.
“Stay with me.” Her frozen hands closed clumsily on the reins.
The weather worsened. The wind became a malevolent, deadly force. She wondered how the plucky little horse kept going.
“There’s a warm stable ahead. Oats. Hot bran mash. Soft straw for your bed.”
She repeated the promises over and over. She didn’t know if the gallant beast heard. The words were for her benefit as much as the horse’s. She kept talking until her voice scraped over her throat.
All the time, she struggled to hold on to hope. Hope that Gideon was safe. Hope that Akash and Tulliver would rescue her husband. Hope that she’d find her way home. If she was caught on the moor when night fell, what could she do?
Keep going.
What choice did she have?
Fatigue made her muscles burn like fire. Her arms felt like iron weights. Cold stole the strength from her legs. Her eyes stung with staring into the arctic blast. Anxiety for Gideon was an evil, black, roiling mass in her belly.
The horse stumbled again, and this time was slower to find his feet. After his initial reluctance, he’d proven a valiant companion.
“Not far now, I promise. Just one more effort. One more.” Her voice cracked, and tears she’d fought for so long rose to her eyes. Her teeth chattered so fast, she could barely speak. “It’s for Gideon, you see. We have to save him. He’s so good, and I love him more than life. And he’s suffered too much.”
The horse hung his head, his sides heaving with exhaustion, as the rain poured off him. Still crooning a fortifying litany, Charis slipped to the ground, landing with a splash. Icy water flooded her half boots. Her numb legs bent under her. She cried out sharply and grabbed the stirrup, just saving herself from hitting the ground. Her arms screamed in protest as she inched herself up. Her heart thudded furiously, her breath emerged in ragged gasps.
“Oh, Gideon, please be alive,” she sobbed in despair, burying her face in the horse’s saturated coat.
For a few seconds, she stood with the rain pounding down on her bare head. Stray pictures drifted into her mind, then dissolved. Coherent thought faded to a gray mist.
One idea remained clear. Gideon. She must save Gideon.
She blinked, forced her eyes to focus, her mind to function. Gideon needed her. She locked her knees until they held her upright. For a groggy moment, she clutched the slick leather stirrup. Then she released it and stood as the wind whipped around her.
She could do this. She could go on.
But her horse had reached the end of his endurance.
She forced words past lips that felt like solid ice. “We’re nearly home. Not far now.” God help both of them if she lied.
She fumbled for the reins and staggered ahead on foot. The horse followed docilely, too tired to resist, wading through dirty water that lapped over his fetlocks.
Eventually, she dragged the sodden greatcoat off and dropped it beside the path. Wet, it was heavier than lead, and it offered no protection. Or so she thought until she confronted the full force of the wind. The blue merino pelisse had been snug and warm on Jersey. Here, on a freezing Cornish moor in the middle of a deluge, she might as well have been naked.
Still she stumbled on. Her legs stung as if a thousand blades nicked at them. She shivered so badly, her muscles cramped to agony. She could no longer feel her feet.
The darkness now was nearly impenetrable. Devils in her head whispered that she’d die out on this moor and nobody would ever know Gideon was in trouble.
She strove to muffle the cruel voices, but with every footstep, their howls grew louder.
Then over the wail of the wind, the slap of the rain, she heard a dull pounding. It came closer and closer.
Her sluggish brain puzzled over the sound. Was it blood beating in her ears? Thunder? Gunfire? But who could fire a gun in this wet?
When the big black horse cantered out of the rain, like something risen from the mouth of hell, Charis stopped stock-still. Her dazed mind couldn’t comprehend she was no longer alone. Or whether this new arrival signaled danger or rescue.
“Lady Charis?”
The rider drew to a rearing halt in front of her. The risk she took standing in the middle of a road in Stygian darkness vaguely registered. Her horse tugged listlessly at the reins but was too weary to pull free.
Stupidly, she blinked up at the man looming above her in the saddle. Wa
ter cascaded down her face and obstructed her sight. She swallowed, trying to summon a greeting. Nothing emerged apart from a broken whimper.
“Lady Charis?” He dismounted in one easy move and stepped forward. “Lady Charis, it’s Akash.”
“Akash…” she croaked without moving.
“Gideon wrote from Jersey and told me to expect you this evening at the latest.”
“The weather…” Then the significance of his arrival struck so hard she staggered with dizzy relief. Sudden energy buzzed through her. Blood that had frozen abruptly began to flow again. Her mind churned with new hope and determination. “Akash, we have to help Gideon. My stepbrothers have him.”
She turned back the way she’d come. Akash would help. Akash would save Gideon. Everything would be all right.
“Wait.” Akash grabbed her arm. She was so cold, she hardly felt it. “You can’t go like this.”
Confused, she turned to stare at him. This didn’t make sense. Akash was Gideon’s friend. He’d saved him before. He’d save him now.
“Didn’t you hear me? Gideon’s in trouble.” Her voice became stronger as she strove to speak above the shrieking wind. “There’s no time to delay.”
He swept his hand across his face in a futile attempt to clear the rain from his eyes. “Charis, Penrhyn is only minutes away. At least come back and get dry. We’ll make plans there.”
Had she almost made it home? It seemed too good to be true. Reaction hit like an avalanche. Her knees threatened to fold under her. She glanced back to her brave little horse. He’d carried her this far, but he’d carry her no farther tonight.
She drew a sobbing breath, and the fight drained out of her. As she was, she was no use to Gideon. If she was to help him, first she needed warmth and food and a chance to recover her strength.
But how it tortured her to delay his rescue. Even when she recognized the necessity of finding shelter before she collapsed.
“Yes, take me home,” she said dully, and stood in shivering acquiescence as Akash wrapped his own much dryer coat around her.
Her heart in her throat, Charis crouched in the brown winter bracken and studied the overgrown entrance to the disused tin mine. It had stopped raining a couple of hours ago, and a cold gray dawn had broken.
She wore one of Gideon’s mother’s riding habits, and the ground under her was wet and muddy. At her side, Akash held a pair of beautifully chased silver pistols and watched the mine just as avidly. Hidden around them in the bracken were ten stalwart Penrhyn men. The same men who had unhesitatingly raced out into the foul night to locate Gideon.
The sight of the mine made her feel sick. She still reeled from discovering that her stepbrothers kept her husband in an underground tunnel. When the searchers returned to Penrhyn with the news, she’d barely been able to control her rising gorge. Fear remained a sour, bilious taste in her mouth.
In such a place, memories of Rangapindhi would be inevitable. Was it also inevitable that Gideon must succumb to his ghosts? Perhaps they’d steal him forever this time. With horror, she remembered his shaking, debilitating illness after Portsmouth. This fresh torture must test his limits, no matter how strong he was.
Let him be all right.
She bit back rising panic. She’d promised herself she’d be brave for Gideon’s sake. But, sweet God, it was difficult when she imagined her husband trapped in suffocating darkness.
What if she managed to save his body yet couldn’t save his sanity? The prospect didn’t bear contemplation. Although her mind did nothing but play grim scenarios.
Courage, Charis.
She tightened her grip on her pearl-handled pistol. Her eyes were scratchy from lack of sleep, and her pulse thundered in her ears. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She knew Gideon was close. She felt it in her blood, the way an animal recognized the approach of its mate.
“Gideon will have my guts for garters when he finds out I brought you on this escapade,” Akash muttered in a voice so low only she heard it.
“I gave you no choice.”
The only way he could have kept her away was by locking her in the attics. Even then, she’d have done her best to climb out. Akash had been determined to leave her safely at the manor, but her obstinacy had outlasted all argument. If Gideon’s demons had conquered him, she needed to be there to fight them.
“He still won’t like it,” Akash said gloomily.
She prayed Gideon was alive not to like it. Strangely, Akash hadn’t been overly concerned when she laid the whole story of the ambush before him last night. Yet surely Akash more than anyone knew what imprisonment meant to Gideon.
Tulliver appeared on top of the bank overhanging the entrance and waved before dropping out of sight. It was the arranged sign for movement within.
Purpose flowed through Charis in a reviving flood, and her heart took on a surer, steadier rhythm. She would save Gideon, no matter what forces ranged against her.
Not long now, my love. Wait for me…
Akash gestured behind him. With surreptitious rustling, the men crawled forward. Charis was aware of the movement, but she didn’t shift her attention from the mine.
Hubert emerged into the daylight, leading two horses. She immediately recognized the homely pony Gideon had hired to draw the gig.
Her stepbrother yawned and stretched, his lack of self-consciousness indicating he had no inkling he was observed. Hatred flared in Charis’s belly as she watched him. He was about ten yards away, close enough for her to see he looked even worse than yesterday. Impossible to believe he held one of the kingdom’s oldest titles. In his dirty, ragged clothes and with his greasy, overlong hair, he’d pass for a beggar.
Soundlessly, a wiry Cornishman rose from the bracken that grew toward the entrance. Another joined him. Using the undergrowth for cover, they’d circled behind Hubert, who stepped into the watery sun. A few silent steps, and one man covered Hubert’s mouth to muffle any shout of warning. The other man quickly overpowered him.
The struggle was over in seconds. Hubert lay gagged and bound. He writhed as the men dragged him away from the cave. His muffled grunts of protest ceased abruptly when one of his assailants kicked him hard in the ribs.
There was no sign of Felix. A charged silence fell. Charis’s gloved hand curled with painful force around her pistol. At her side, Akash tensed and raised his guns.
“Hubert? What the devil are you playing at?”
Felix’s irritated question emerged as an eerie echo from inside the mine. One of the ponies snorted nervously and trotted toward the bracken, trailing its halter rope.
“For God’s sake, stop messing about.” Felix appeared at the entrance. Then, just as quickly, slipped back under cover.
Like a deadweight, foreboding settled in Charis’s stomach. Any chance of another surprise attack was lost. And still she’d seen nothing of Gideon. Over and over, her mind chanted her desperate prayer. Please, God, let him be all right.
“Come out, man. The game’s up.” Akash stood, and his voice rang across the open area in front of the mine. “You don’t have a hope of getting away with this.”
Tulliver jumped down from his hiding place above the mine and hid from Felix’s view beside the entrance. A wicked-looking knife jutted from his belt, and he held a pistol. For a heavyset man, he moved with incredible smoothness.
Felix called out from inside. “You forget—I have Trevithick.”
Charis was sickeningly familiar with her stepbrother’s defiant tone. For one surreal moment, it transported her back to their first meeting. He’d expressed his contempt for his new stepsister in just such a voice. And received a cuff from his hulking father in return. A cuff he’d returned with interest when he got Charis to himself.
He’d always been a sneaking, sadistic little bully. Bile filled her mouth as she imagined what state Gideon was in, bound and at Felix’s mercy.
Akash strode toward the cave, his guns held ready, his body tall, straight, and reeking confiden
ce. “We have your brother.”
“You won’t hurt Hubert. I, however, have no such scruples about my hostage.”
Charis could wait no longer. She stumbled upright on shaking legs, her heart racing with a turbulent mixture of hope and trepidation. “Gideon, are you all right?”
There was a silence. Hope shriveled like an old walnut in her breast. Her heart faltered to a stop.
Were they too late? In a fever of anguish, she darted forward to stand beside Akash.
“Charis?” Gideon’s voice was rusty, but the mere sound of it sent joy fizzing like newly opened champagne through her veins. She swayed briefly and closed her eyes as dizzying waves of relief battered her.
It was a miracle. She had no other explanation. He was alive. And aware.
And blisteringly angry. “What the devil are you doing here?”
In spite of the danger and his audible displeasure, she couldn’t contain a choked laugh. She raised trembling fingers to dash burning tears of happiness from her eyes. “Saving you.”
“Go back to the house. Now.”
“I told you,” Akash muttered.
“I want to negotiate,” Felix shouted. “My freedom for Trevithick’s release.”
“Don’t be a fool, man,” Akash snapped, taking a step closer to the mine. “We’ve got you surrounded. You can’t escape.”
“Then there’s no reason to keep Trevithick alive.”
Charis’s throat constricted with renewed terror. Her relief had been premature. The threat Felix posed was as real as ever.
“He’ll kill Gideon if we push him too far,” Charis said unsteadily. “He’s not bluffing.”
Akash frowned down at her. “A murder charge won’t help his case.”
“He’s smart enough to know his case is hopeless.” She raised her chin and stared unwaveringly into Akash’s deep brown eyes. “I don’t care what happens to Felix. Kill him, let him go free, whatever you have to do. Just as long as we save Gideon.”
His eyes darkened as if he realized what it would cost her to let Felix get away with his crimes. Then he nodded and faced toward the mine, cocking his guns. “All right, Lord Felix. I’ll come in.”
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