Chapter Eleven
While Tamar, who was interested in everyone, enjoyed getting to know the castle people, and was glad of the young ladies’ company, it was Serena he wanted in the room. His shoulder ached like the fiend, but it seemed to hurt less than her absence. And she’d barely been gone two hours.
His heart lifted when the children appeared and announced that Serena would be in shortly. But he could not be still. Fully dressed now in poor Braithwaite’s clothes—which weren’t a bad fit and were certainly a damned sight finer than any he’d ever owned—he paced, throwing teasing remarks to the girls as they chattered.
He needed to see Serena before he left. He didn’t know why. It was just necessary. As necessary as his going. That he might hurt her tore at his heart. That his absence might not hurt her, ate at him. All of which proved that they shouldn’t ever see each other again. This, whatever this was, had already gone too far… certainly for his peace. He had to do the honorable thing and remove himself from her life.
Impatiently, he glanced out of the window, which looked onto the front of the house. He’d glimpsed the sisters walking back toward the house that way. And he was glad the visiting curricle had gone. Damned cheek, whoever it belonged to. Serena must be back in the house by now. Perhaps he should just ask one of the girls to fetch her? Or go in search of her himself? The farewell would be easier in company where he couldn’t give in to any of his natural desires to take her in his arms or blurt out his feelings. Whatever they were.
He was just turning away when he heard the clop of hooves and the rumbling of wheels, and saw the damned curricle again. A well-dressed gentleman in a tall hat was driving it, and beside him sat Serena, her hands folded in her lap. But something about her posture screamed at him. This was wrong. Or perhaps he was just furious to see her with another man.
“Who is that fellow?” he demanded.
Immediately, the girls clustered around the window. Helen, at the front beside him, wrinkled her nose. “It’s the Frenchman, the Comte de Valère. What is she doing with him? He’s an emigre and we think he admires Serena. Only he’s like Sir Arthur.”
He never had time to ask in what way he was like Sir Arthur, for trailing behind the curricle came a horse and cart. And he was sure the driver and the unsavory looking men who lounged among the casks and barrels looked familiar. So did the barrels.
The blood drained from his head so fast he felt dizzy. He threw up the window, shouting something that he meant to be “Hoi!” but seemed to come out as Serena’s name. Everyone below looked up at him.
Serena looked desperate and afraid. She shook her head violently. The man beside her seemed to wave in a jaunty manner, but the blade in his hand was terrifyingly clear.
“Jesus Christ,” Tamar whispered and slammed the window as the men on the cart grinned up at him. Both vehicles sped off down the drive.
If ever he had to use the brains God gave him, now was the moment.
Think, you idiot!
This comte fellow was in command of the little party, and after last night, he must have known his game was rumbled, even if his identity wasn’t. And so, he’d moved quickly to obtain the rest of his store.
But Tamar knew where he was going. All he had to do was get there first and pray they weren’t stupid enough to harm Serena before their task was complete. He couldn’t afford to think of her fear now.
“Horses,” he said striding across the room and out the door. “I need horses and men.”
In the entrance hallway, Mrs. Gaskell was demanding of Paton, “Where has Lady Serena gone? She said nothing to me!”
Paton opened the front door to tumultuous knocking. Jem the gardener fell into the house.
“Just the man,” Tamar exclaimed, running downstairs.
“Lady Serena’s gone off with some bloke in a curricle!” Jem panted. “And she doesn’t want to go, I know she doesn’t! And those behind have pinched the powder!”
“In a nutshell,” Tamar said grimly. “Jem, can you ride?”
“I can cling on.”
“Good enough for me. Get horses saddled for us and as many other men as you can find to ride them, as long as there’s one horse left. Large men, preferably. Paton, I need someone to make use of that remaining horse to ride to Major Doverton with a message. It’s urgent.”
“What’s going on?” Mrs. Gaskell cried, her hands clutching her face.
“The Comte de Valère has abducted Serena,” Maria said grimly from the top of the stairs. “And stolen the gunpowder. Lord Tamar is going to get her back.”
God willing. Please, God, be willing…
*
It had been several years since Serena had taken the road up to the old fort. It hadn’t been raining then, and she hadn’t been in an open carriage. Of course, the fort hadn’t housed prisoners-of-war at that time either. Nothing much had happened there at all, despite it being the original barracks of the 44th before they’d moved into Blackhaven over a hundred years ago.
As they drove up the hill, she easily recognized the fort’s distinctive castle-shape and square, crenelated tower. The horse and cart toiled up behind them.
It was an isolated spot, with only an inn about a mile further on. But any hope Serena had harbored that the prison guards would stop them, or even shoot her abductors, died as they drew nearer.
It was a prison, full of foreign inmates hated by the rest of the country. The guards were not so concerned with people approaching as with their charges trying to leave. No one watched their arrival from those crenelated towers. Or if they did, it was from glazed windows, with very little obvious interest. Only a massive, iron door guarded the outside.
The rain had gone off again by the time they arrived at the fort, but Serena was cold and wet and her hair dripped down inside the collar of her pelisse.
Valère’s men seemed to know their task without instructions. Three casks were quickly unloaded at the front with one of the men, and then the cart pulled off the road. Valère urged his horses around to the back of the prison behind the cart, to the first tower which was surrounded by badly overgrown bushes and trees. But they’d been there before, she realized. They’d actually cleared a patch immediately behind the tower, large enough for the cart and the curricle to stand with ease, even for the curricle to turn so that the horse faced the fort.
When both vehicles had halted, the rest of the men jumped down and got to work. First, they kicked aside the brush they must have laid down earlier to keep the ground dry, and gave the horses something to crop to keep them still and content. Then, they unloaded the barrels and casks from the cart, and pulled more out of their hiding places in the bushes. They set about laying trails and fuses. Even Valère was so busy, she thought she could walk away without him even noticing.
“This is madness,” she told him urgently. “You’ll probably kill half the inmates. And what if some do get out? It’s only a matter of time until they’re recaptured. They can’t all have the means to pretend to be emigrés like you!”
“Thank God I won’t have to pretend much longer,” he returned, prying the top of another barrel.
“You’ll end up in there with the rest,” she taunted, waving one disparaging hand at the tower.
“No, I shall end up on a French ship currently waiting five miles down the coast from Blackhaven. And I believe I will take you with me for company.”
“Oh dear,” she flashed back. “Are you lonely in France, too?”
He gave a snort that might actually have been laughter, and she, appalled that he might imagine some rapport between them, looked away in disgust. Which is when she glimpsed the movement in the overgrown bushes beside her.
Instantly, her heart began to beat with hope, but, afraid of drawing attention to what she’d seen, she glanced back at Valère and the men, busy about their work. Testing her theory, she stood, meaning to jump down from the curricle on the side farthest away from the prison walls. They’d catch her again, of course, but it would slow things up, perhaps provide time for whoever observed from the bushes, to warn the prison guards what was going on.
“Do not,” Valère commanded. “Even if my dagger misses you, my men will catch you in under four seconds. They are not gentle like me.”
“A dagger is gentle in your world?” she retorted, subsiding back into the seat but casting a quick glance into the bushes. A hand emerged, and then a head. Her eyes widened impossibly, for it was Tamar.
Tamar was wounded! He should be sitting quietly in his chamber if not resting in his bed. How in God’s name…?
And so, her agony changed, from worrying about how to prevent this, to worrying about Tamar. Valère and the others had the will and the means to kill without compunction.
“Stop, now,” she commanded the Frenchmen. “I’ll scream and sing to warn them inside.”
“Sing away,” Valère said carelessly. “It’s too late to stop this now, whichever way they come.”
“Wrong.” Tamar said, erupting from the bushes, four other men at his heels. Jem was among them, and John the head groom. But she had no time to count heads, for quick as a flash, Valère was responding to the attack with his pistol, aiming it straight at the rushing Tamar. It seemed he’d forgotten his promise to use the knife first on Serena.
Or perhaps she was just too valuable in his escape plan. Either way, she was the only one who could stop him before he fired.
“Geddup!” she yelled, seizing the reins and lashing the horses. Screaming their annoyance, they bolted directly at Valère, not only blocking his aim but forcing him back. He stumbled into the wall as Serena wrenched the horses’ heads around, and then Tamar was on him, ramming his head and his wrist into the wall.
She saw no more, for she’d flashed past them, crashing around the prison toward the road. It seemed Tamar and his allies were unaware of the explosives at the front door. And as the horses hit the road, she pulled them around again, charging straight at the Frenchman who was about to light the fuse.
He leapt, trying in vain to escape the flying hooves that kicked him and the taper across the street.
With a sob, Serena strove to slow and calm the horses she’d so deliberately riled, gentling them until they finally came to a halt. Only then did she coax them into turning. Fortunately, there was a wide stretch of grass, with no ditch between it and the road. Even so, her hands shook so much, she was vaguely surprised she didn’t overturn the curricle as they circled around and trotted in a civilized fashion back to the fort.
By then, prison guards had erupted from the iron door, gunpowder was being swept up, and a whole troop of soldiers from the 44th had appeared. Bizarrely, so had a closed carriage and Kate Grant, who was running to meet her.
Serena halted the curricle, sliding down unaided into Kate’s arms, while a soldier held the horses’ heads.
“Tamar?” she gasped to Kate. “Where is Tamar?”
Kate turned toward the side path, and Serena saw Tamar on horseback, white-faced but determined, the reins held in one hand while the other hung useless at his side. His shoulder must have been in agony.
“I think he’s looking for you,” Kate drawled.
Her eyes clashed with Tamar’s. The flooding relief in his face almost undid her.
Kate swallowed. She was afraid of crying. “Is he…is he?” she began brokenly.
“I think he’s fine,” Kate said brusquely. “Come, in you go. I’ll be with you in one moment and take you home.”
Serena, her vision blurring, found herself led to the closed carriage in which, presumably, Kate had travelled here. Then she was seated against the comfortable squabs, and the door was closed. She breathed in long, panting breaths.
Abruptly, the door flew open again. Tamar leapt in, slamming it shut behind him. Even before he’d thrown himself onto the seat beside her, her arms were reaching for him, and then at last she clutched him to her.
His arms wrapped around her, holding her close. “Serena,” he whispered into her hair. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine,” she said impatiently. “But you, your wound…”
“It’s a damned scratch, it’s nothing. Serena—” His hands in her hair, he pulled back her head and crushed her mouth under his in a fierce, desperate kiss.
Her lips fell open for him at once, kissing him back with all her fear and love and joy. Tears spilled unchecked down her cheeks and into their mouths. She could taste them.
“Please don’t cry,” he whispered against her lips. “Please, never cry, and certainly not for me. You’ll never know how much I love you.”
With a sob of amazed gladness, she kissed him again. She felt the rough, tender pressure of his mouth for an instant more, and then he tore himself free.
“Goodbye,” he said incoherently.
The door opened, letting him jump down, and slammed again, leaving her stunned in the corner, wondering what had just happened. She didn’t know if she was laughing or crying when Kate was handed in and the carriage began to move, taking her home to Braithwaite Castle.
*
“What are you doing here?” Serena asked as the carriage bumped down the road toward Blackhaven. “How did you know?”
“Well, there were rumors flying in church this morning, about shots fired in the castle grounds, and a soldier killed—”
“I don’t believe he was killed,” Serena corrected. “But he was hurt.”
“At any rate, Tristram sent me to see that you were all well, and I drove up in the carriage, being lazy and disinclined to get wet. Mrs. Gaskell told me what had happened—and I must admit I would never have thought such a thing of Valère. He seemed the perfect gentleman. Except for the way he treated Catherine, of course.”
“I think she was his excuse to linger longer in Blackhaven if he needed to,” Serena said, wrinkling her nose. “But our arrival at the castle forced them to rush. I gather from their conversation that they originally meant to blow up the walls at night, with their prisoners well informed and a ship waiting in Braithwaite Cove. But they hadn’t moved all the gunpowder by the time we arrived, and then, of course, I found it. After last night, they knew they were rumbled. How did you know to come to the fort?”
“Maria told me. She’d heard you and Doverton discussing it, apparently. I only just stopped her climbing into the carriage with me.”
“Thank you for that, but it was ridiculously brave of you to come at all!”
“Not in the slightest,” Kate drawled. “Mere curiosity, I assure you. And I gathered I was likely to be safe, after my carriage fell in with Major Doverton on his way up here. By then, of course, Tamar and your people had disarmed both villains and the gunpowder. And you had spectacularly mown down the man Tamar had lost track of, saving, I understand, the fort door and the two guards lounging just inside it.”
“I didn’t think I could do it. Did I hurt him really badly?”
Kate shrugged. “He’ll live. Though you seemed to give him a spectacular fright.”
“That, he deserves.”
“Well, Major Doverton has given them all into custody at the fort for now. I expect they’ll be taken to London though, and probably hanged as spies, in the end.”
Serena shivered. “It’s time this war ended, isn’t it?”
“I believe Bonaparte is almost beaten. They say he can’t recover now. It’s just a matter of time.”
“And more lives.”
Kate regarded her with interest. “As you say. But you saved many today, you and Tamar and the others. You should be proud.”
Serena swallowed. “Thank you.”
There was a pause. “Tamar was distraught when he heard you’d bolted in the curricle. Almost as distraught as you were about him when you arrived back.”
Serena dropped her gaze. Kate was too perceptive for comfort.
“I like Tamar,” she said. “Everyone likes him. But you know, through no fault of his own, he has a mountain of debt and not even two pennies to rub together.”
“I know.” It doesn’t matter. I have.
“I wish you all the best,” Kate said, with just a hint of pity. “But if you truly wish this, you’ll have to fight Braithwaite and your mother.”
“I know. But I’ll be twenty-one in a few months.” She could hold out until then. She could do anything for Tamar.
“You love him,” Kate said quietly.
Serena’s heart soared. There was intense new pleasure as well as pride in admitting it. “Yes, I love him.”