“Now, listen closely. Hounds are nothing like wolves. Wolves are born feral. They go a bit mad when they are wounded or starving. And they only play when they’re taking your measure for battle.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to her oldest grandson, Bain, in reply to his complaint that Humphrey plays too rough.
Phineas heard the mad bellowing from outside the castle. The guard at the entrance was missing. The doors stood wide open. He slid from Caballus while the heaving horse was still moving and sprinted up the steps. Ran into the entrance hall.
Found Jonas Hawthorn, naked but for bandages and a torn pair of breeches, staggeringly white, thin, and unshaven. He was leaning against a wall, snarling orders at one of Dunston’s men.
“Every man you have. Send them all. Find her, damn you!”
Phineas rushed forward. Hawthorn’s eyes came up. Desperate. Near deranged.
Phineas felt the floor disappear. Heard nothing but wind booming in loud, rhythmic gusts. Hawthorn was speaking now. Phineas shook his head. He needed to think. He needed to listen.
“… took them both, Holstoke. Nobody knows where.”
God Almighty. Both. Hannah and Eugenia. Gone.
His sister. His wife. Gone.
No. He must think. He must find them.
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat. Pictured Eugenia as she’d been yesterday—wind-whipped hair, arms outstretched, shining love through cat-like eyes. He would find her. He would. But only if he could control his own derangement long enough to think.
He opened his eyes and noticed a sheet of paper crumpled in Hawthorn’s fist. Without asking, he snatched it out of the other man’s hand. It was a duplicate sketch of the man Phineas’s sword had dispatched less than two hours earlier.
“This is not him,” Phineas said, his voice hard as ice. “This man is dead.”
Hawthorn shook his head. “No. That is the poisoner.”
“There are two of them.”
Hawthorn went the color of ash.
Dunston and Drayton raced into the entrance hall, Drayton limping heavily and Dunston holding one of his daggers. “Is it true?” Dunston demanded. “Both women are missing?”
Hawthorn nodded and sagged against the wall. His head hung forward. “We must find them. He will kill her.”
“How did he get in?” Phineas asked. Once again, the coldness of his own voice surprised him. The fear was there, dark and devouring. But his mind was working, analyzing what he already knew, acquiring what he didn’t.
Hawthorn explained Phineas’s physician had visited early that morning, bringing along an apothecary-surgeon from Weymouth to assist him with Hawthorn’s treatment. But Hawthorn had awakened before their arrival, and the apothecary had soon departed.
“Or so we thought. One of the men found his horse wandering about the orchard. We suspected the poisoner had attacked him. Then, your man, Ross, said he couldn’t locate the women. We’ve been searching ever since.”
Phineas held up the sketch. “For the wrong man.”
Hawthorn grunted, looking tormented.
Phineas turned to Dunston. “An apothecary from Weymouth.”
Dunston nodded. “It fits.”
“Can you sketch him?” Phineas asked Hawthorn. “Do you remember his face?”
Hawthorn nodded. “Tall. Six feet. Lean.” His eyes narrowed on Drayton. “Like the man who shot you.”
“Then let us find the blackguard,” Drayton growled, moving to Hawthorn and looping his arm over his shoulders. “You draw ’im. I’ll shoot ’im.”
While Drayton helped the other runner into the library, Dunston approached Phineas with a grim stare. “Why take both women?”
Phineas shook his head. In truth, his mind could scarcely touch the thought without stark horror devouring him whole. “We must find them. That is all I know.”
He spent the next quarter-hour questioning Ross and Walters and Mrs. Green, maids and footmen and guards. He needed every fact he could gather—where had Eugenia and Hannah last been seen? The morning room. Had the castle been searched, top to bottom? Yes, my lord. Which segments of the estate had been searched? The west and north gardens. The east and south were in process. His mind automatically cataloged every bit of information, seeking threads to lead him in a direction. Toward her.
One of Dunston’s men entered and handed Dunston a scrap of cloth. “We found it in one of the east pastures, m’lords, tied to some wildflowers and grass.”
The silk was sheer and pink and torn. Running its length was a twin row of crimson roses.
Lightning sliced through him. It was her. His Briar.
“We found more, m’lords.”
Phineas looked up, heart pounding with frantic urgency.
“What?” Dunston demanded.
“Blood.” The man swallowed, his vigilant gaze sorrowful. “A great deal of blood.”
*~*~*
Her head was swimming. Aching. She did not know how Phineas managed to endure his megrims, for headaches were a wretched distraction. Her eyes hurt. And her heart was about to pound through her chest. Everything was too bright, and her mouth was dry as dust.
Then there was the arm across her throat. Tight. Choking. Her body felt like it wanted to fly apart.
She looked down at her hand. It floated in her vision. Separated from her wrist.
No. She squeezed her eyes closed. This was not real.
The arm across her throat was real. The pain in her head was real.
She was being dragged. Down and down. Past damp rock and loose stones and tufts of grass.
The wind was real.
His voice was real. “Forward, Miss Gray.” Smooth, strange placidity was punctuated by rough panting. “We’ve an offering to make.”
He’d taken them from the morning room. He’d held a gun to Genie’s heart and spoken with perfect calm. Hannah would offer herself to the goddess, he’d said, or Lady Holstoke would join her namesake in death.
Clever Hannah. She’d taken her fork with her, hidden in the folds of her skirts.
The pleasant-looking man had forced them to wait inside the castle then exit past a guard who ran to see a horse nibbling cherry trees.
He’d forced them to hide. To move from place to place like rabbits evading traps. First the walled garden. Then the trees around the lake. Then to the farthest east pasture, beyond the rise.
Where the cows had died. Poor cows.
It was there that Genie had been certain she would die. The pleasant-looking man had screamed when Hannah plunged the fork into his shoulder.
His hold had loosened. Hannah had seized Genie’s separating wrist and shouted, “Run!”
Genie had. But her feet had separated, too. They’d fallen together in the purple flowers and green grass, tangled and confused. Hannah’s hem had been there.
Genie had known she must tell him.
Phineas. Her love. Her heart.
She must tell him she’d never leave willingly.
So, she’d torn a strip and knotted it tight, even though the pleasant-looking man had regained his footing. Held a pistol to Genie’s head. Forced Hannah to her feet with a brutal shove.
Now, they traveled down and down. Past golden rock to golden sand. Round, gray pebbles poked at her slippers. Her feet were separating.
No. No, she was walking. The beach was real. The water was real. The cry of gulls and bright, blue sky was real.
She breathed salt and sea. Remembered Phineas’s eyes when they’d stood here together. He was her griffin. He would come.
He would tear this serpent to pieces.
She blinked. Focused upon Hannah, whose lip bled red onto delicate white. Pink gauze wafted in the breeze as she backed toward the waves. Eyes like Phineas’s gleamed with incandescent power. “He will find you. He will kill you,” her sister said. “Never doubt it.”
The arm across Genie’s throat tightened. “Not before I have made my offering.” Something round dug painfully into her rib. “Into the sea, now,” he said. “She always favored the sea.”
Pink gauze dampened. To her ankles. Then her knees. Then her thighs.
“No, Hannah,” Genie called, her frantic heart beating her to death. Choking her to death. “You will ruin your gown, dearest.”
Eyes like Phineas’s smiled back at her. “Tell Mr. Hawthorn I stayed because I … I could not bear to do otherwise. Tell him … I did not want to leave.”
The panting breaths grew louder as the man who choked Genie drove them both forward, closer to her sister. The water reached Hannah’s waist. Waves shoved her until she stumbled.
Genie could not let her ruin her gown. Hannah looked so lovely in pink.
She saw a wrist. Not hers. It looked like ham.
She took it in her hands and bit.
A shout.
A shot. Fire streaked her hip.
She shoved away the choking arm. Spit the serpent’s blood from her mouth. Ran toward her sister, whose skirts were dragging her deeper into the sea.
Hannah sobbed her name. Staggered toward her. Genie’s feet tried to reach her, but they kept sinking into sand and pebbles.
Oh, God. She was coming apart. The pain in her hip burned. Her feet were gone. Only her knees remained. Her hands clutched at deep, soft sand.
She looked to Hannah, who stood in the waves like a wrathful sea goddess, condemning a man she would soon destroy.
Genie twisted to see him—the bad man pretending to be good. Tall and lean. Holding something long and curved. His arms dripped blood. His mouth spoke of offerings. And as he drew back his bow to send his arrow into Hannah’s heart, he glanced to the sky.
“For you, my lady,” he said. “All for you.”
*~*~*
Finding the blood nearly broke him. It soaked the mud of the pasture. It dotted white daisies and purple cranesbill. It trailed past the rail fence.
It smeared the wood.
Phineas had long passed sanity. Nothing remained but need. The need to find her. The need to kill.
He held on by remembering. How she’d played with his emerald cravat pin and dared him to pleasure her as no man ever had. How she’d glowed when he’d kissed her bare belly and opened her like a flower. How she’d laughed and spun while the wind played with her hair. How she’d waded into deep water and held his hand. How she loved him—every part of him—as though he’d been hers forever.
Eugenia held him. Focused him. Led him along the rail fence toward the sea.
Dunston followed, as did three of his vigilant men. Drayton followed, too, pistol in hand, haggard face starkly shadowed in the bright sun. He’d recognized the man Hawthorn had drawn—he’d spoken to him at an apothecary shop in Bridport.
Drayton wanted the man’s death. But Phineas would have it. This was his task. His.
As they neared the cliffs, Phineas broke into a run. He could feel her. He did not know how. But she was here. Near. He ran faster. Behind him, he heard Dunston warning his men to be ready. He heard gulls crying and waves breaking.
He heard his own heart. Pounding, pounding, pounding.
Ahead, thirty yards from the top of the beach trail, an object caught his eye. There, near where Eugenia had seen the shadow figure the day before, the grass had been trampled into a nest. At the center of the nest lay a wooden bow and a pile of arrows.
Breaths sawed in and out, his lungs burning after running hundreds of yards. He stopped as he reached the nest. Bent and took up the bow. It was well made. Wood and horn. He looked at the arrows. Picked one up. Noted it, too, was quality.
“The blackguard likes archery, I take it,” said Dunston from behind him. “I prefer blades.”
“As do I,” Phineas murmured, weighing the bow and arrow in his hands.
“Swords. Yes, I do recall.” Dunston prowled the area around the nest. “No sign of blood here. Are you certain this is the way they came?”
He needed to think. He needed to keep his head so that he could save his heart.
Phineas looked toward the sea. “Yes.”
“Then where to next, old chap?”
Before Dunston had finished speaking, Phineas was moving. Striding. Running toward the head of the beach path. He stopped when he reached the edge of the bluff.
There. Two figures. No, three.
Hannah stood hip-deep in the water.
And Eugenia. Oh, God. Eugenia was being held—dangled and choked—by a bloody madman. Her hair was half down. Her gown was muddy. Bloody.
Nearby, he heard Dunston talking in low tones. Then, Drayton was there, limping to the spot beside him. The Bow Street runner held a hunting rifle, probably borrowed from one of Dunston’s men. He brought it to his shoulder and aimed it down at the beach.
“No,” Phineas growled, grasping the barrel in his fist and forcing it up. “If the bullet goes through him, you will kill her.”
Drayton’s haggard face winced. “Bloody, bleeding hell.” He lowered the gun to the ground.
“I will kill him,” Phineas promised. “But I must get closer. Stay here. Keep his head in your sights.”
Without another word, he started down the path, moving as swiftly as he could without sliding. He needed the blackguard not to notice him. Not until it was too late.
Hannah was speaking now. The man dragged Eugenia forward with him, closer to the water’s edge. Hannah stumbled as a wave hit her.
Then, everything happened slowly, yet all at once. He saw the man’s shoulders jerk in what looked to be agony. A shot fired. Red bloomed on Eugenia’s hip. Phineas watched Eugenia toss the man’s arm aside then spit out his blood onto the sand. She had bitten him. By God, she had bitten him. And she’d been wounded. She staggered forward toward Hannah. Fell to her knees in the sand.
He ran. His heart was pounding, pounding, pounding. He needed a better position. The man was retrieving something from near a rock. Another bow.
Bloody hell. No time. No time to get a better shot.
He stopped on the next step. Nocked the arrow. Exhaled. Aimed for the blackguard’s head.
A gunshot rang out. The other man crumpled as the bullet struck his thigh.
Drayton. Bloody hell.
The blackguard took aim again, this time from his knees. He pointed his arrow at Hannah.
Phineas pointed his arrow at the serpent. Then, he breathed. And let it fly.
It pierced the man’s throat, jerking his aim high. The other man’s arrow soared into the sea. Behind him, he heard cheering. Above him, he heard gulls.
But Eugenia was now lying on the sand, reaching out for Hannah.
By the time he reached her, Hannah was cradling her head in her lap. Both women were weeping.
“Phineas!” Hannah cried. “Thank heaven. She’s been hurt. Not too badly, I think, but she is talking nonsense.”
He fell to his knees beside his wife. Scooped her into his arms. Held her as tightly as he dared without knowing the extent of her injuries.
He breathed in her scent. Violets and cherries. Felt her arms twine about his neck. Rocked her back and forth.
“My griffin,” she whispered in his ear. “I knew.”
He groaned into the skin of her precious neck. Kissed the skin of her precious cheek. Ran his hands over the whorls of her precious ears. “What did you know, my sweet Briar?”
She cupped his jaw in her hand. He drew back to meet cat-like eyes. The enlarged, black centers spoke of nightshades. Nevertheless, these were Eugenia’s eyes. And she was alive.
“I knew you would find me.”
He smiled. “Did you?”
She nodded, perfect assurance beaming. “It is your nature, my love.”
*~*~*