A Season Beyond a Kiss (51 page)

Her expression turned glum. “You’ve stayed away far too long as it is, Jeffrey. I was beginning to think I would never see you again.”

Detecting a telltale quaver in her voice, Jeff allowed himself to savor a measure of hope for their marriage. Nevertheless he spread his hands and gave a convenient excuse. “I’m sorry, madam, but I’ve been busy.”

“Obviously. Too busy to bother yourself about seeing your wife.” Raelynn heaved a sigh and pushed away her unfinished dessert, having lost her appetite as well as her elation. Struggling against an overwhelming urge to cry, it was a moment before she gained enough aplomb to glance up at him. “I’m ready to leave now if you’re of such a mind.”

Immediately Jeff snapped his fingers, gaining the waiter’s attention and requested the check. When the man returned, Jeff briefly glanced at the bill and tossed down enough to bring a wide grin to the fellow’s lips.

“Thank you, Mr. Birmingham. Thank you very much.”

Soon Jeff was escorting his wife outside. Just beyond the door, he paused to snuggle the cape up close around her neck before he glanced around at the wall of fog surrounding them. It had definitely thickened, to the degree that he couldn’t see much beyond the length of his own arm.

“This reminds me of London,” Raelynn commented with a shiver.

“I’m glad I know the area well. This stuff is as dense as the chantilly sauce you just had with your bread pudding.”

Jeff drew her arm through his and strolled along the boardwalk at a leisurely pace. Now and then footfalls seemed to echo back at them as they passed other busy restaurants and coffeehouses. Once they had left that particular area behind them, Jeff paused to listen for a brief moment and then began to quicken his pace.

“Jeffrey, why are we walking so fast?” Raelynn asked, having difficulty keeping up. His legs were much too long for her to hope to keep up with his long strides. “I’m going to be winded by the time we reach the next block.”

“We’re almost to the corner,” he encouraged, unrelenting of his long strides.

Raelynn strained to see through the whitish murk, but it seemed like a wall now encompassed them. “Are you sure?”

“Aye, madam. Trust me.” They reached the division just as he had said. Raelynn almost stepped into the street, but Jeff snatched her back against him. As she turned to inquire as to his reason, he pressed his fingers against her lips, urging her to be silent. Leaning down, he pressed his face near her ear. “There’s a wagon coming up behind us. Can you hear anything else?”

Canting her head to listen, Raelynn recognized the jangle of harnesses from the approaching wagon and, on the cobblestones, the slow clip-clop of horses’ hooves. Did she also hear hurrying footfalls following behind them? Or was that merely an illusion created by the fog?

She became aware of Jeff’s distraction and, in heightening dread, moved closer. The driver of the wagon had set his steed to a faster trot and came at a fairly good clip around the corner where they stood, paying no heed to them as he nudged the horse with the end of his whip.

When the vehicle had finally passed, Jeff clamped an arm around Raelynn’s waist and wrenched a gasp from her as he lifted her off her feet and sprinted across the street. Once there, he pushed her back against the wall and braced himself in front of her as running footfalls rapidly approached them. Out of the hazy shroud, a tall, ominously hooded figure seemed to soar toward them on the wings of a widely flapping cloak, setting the eerie vapors aswirl. As he advanced, this darkly shrouded demon from hell lifted a large, gleaming blade high above his head and, with a strange hissing sound, charged her husband.

Raelynn’s scream quickly faded in the thick, dank air, but Jeff was just as nimble as his attacker. Stepping forward to meet him, he grasped the other’s wrist and wrenched it behind the fellow’s back, evoking a sharp yowl of pain from him before the blade clattered to the ground. The devilish fiend twisted free and, thrusting a hard elbow into Jeff’s midsection, drove that one back against the brick building. Jeff barely had time to recover his breath before a backhanded blow slammed him once more against the wall, momentarily stunning him. The cloaked one scurried to fetch the knife and was just reaching for it when Raelynn snatched the long, ornate stickpin out of her cap and went flying toward him. It had become frighteningly clear that their assailant’s intention was to kill either one or both of them, but she wouldn’t take what he was dealing out without handing out some of her own.

Her forward charge gave her impetus, and the pin sank to the tip of its ornate hilt into the fleshy part of the man’s buttock, tearing a scream from the fellow and bringing him abruptly upright. Now incensed, he whirled upon her with knife in hand, his breath slashing outward through the holes of his hood.

“Your end has finally come, bitch!” he hissed. “After tonight, we’ll have no more worries about what you may find.”

Having shaken free of his daze, Jeff recognized the threat to his wife and sprang upward from a crouch, hitting the culprit squarely beneath the ribs with a well-muscled shoulder and driving him back upon the cobblestones. Immediately a fierce scuffle ensued for possession of the knife as Raelynn circled them, watching for an opening to lodge her stickpin once again into their attacker.

Intent upon their struggle for survival, none of them noticed the approach of swiftly running footfalls until a loud bellow boomed through the fog, “What the hell’s going on here?”

Instantly Jeff recognized the voice as one belonging to a friend. “Rhys! Help us!”

Though Jeff reached out to seize the cloaked form, the man clasped the butt of his knife and brought it around with a powerful sweep of his arm, striking Jeff’s chin and sending him flying backward into the lamppost. His head hit the metal pole, and he slithered unconscious to its base.

Espying Raelynn near at hand, the villain flipped the knife around in his gloved hand and stepped toward her as he lifted the weapon high for a downward thrust into her breast. She screamed in terror, but in the next instant a shot from an exploding pistol sent the blade flying out of the hooded one’s hand. The scream that tore free from the assailant’s lungs was enough to cause Raelynn to cringe. The hooded one grabbed his now bleeding hand, looked at her as if considering another attempt, and then swung his attention around to bear upon the sheriff who was just raising the sights of a second pistol. The cloaked man promptly got down to the business of escaping down the street. Rhys gave chase, leaving Raelynn to look after her husband. A moan of despair escaped her as she gathered his head into her lap and, with the skirt of her gown, wiped away the blood that trickled down his forehead.

Several moments passed before Sheriff Rhys Townsend came back and collapsed to his knees beside Jeff. There he sat, gasping for breath. “The beggar’s fast. Outran me in a wink,” he explained, breathing hard from his exertion. Looking up at Raelynn, he found tears streaming down her face and hurried to soothe her fears. “Don’t you cry now. Jeff has a head as hard as granite.”

Even so, he pressed a pair of fingers alongside his friend’s throat and was quickly reassured by the slow, steady pulse. Turning on a knee, Rhys pressed those same two digits into his mouth and gave forth with a piercing whistle, wrenching a start from Raelynn. Soon the same horse-drawn wagon that had passed them earlier emerged from the fog. Upon halting beside them, the brawny driver peered down at them.

“Ye got a wounded man there, Sheriff?”

“Yeah, Charlie, help me get Mr. Birmingham loaded in the wagon.”

“Ye want me ta drive him all the way out ta Oakley?” the driver queried worriedly.

“No,” Raelynn answered for the sheriff. “You can take him to Mrs. Dalton’s house, and then, if you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate it if you’d fetch Dr. Clarence for him.”

20

Stepping aside, Raelynn allowed the two men to precede her as she worriedly supplied the information. “Jeffrey and I were attacked, and in the scuffle Jeffrey was thrown against a lamppost. He hit his head and has been unconscious ever since.”

Subduing the urge to burst into frightened tears, Raelynn rushed after Rhys, who by then was closely following his deputy up the stairs. She regained enough control over herself to call after them in a steady voice, “My bedroom is upstairs and to the left.”

Once they reached the door to her bedchamber, she swung it open and ran ahead to whip down the covers on the bed. After spreading a clean linen protectively over the pillow, she stood aside as the men eased their burden back upon the bed.

“Careful now,” she urged, hovering near. Her husband was so tall that his hair brushed the headboard and the soles of his boots pressed against the footboard. Until now, she had been of a mind to think that it was a fairly large bed. It had certainly seemed enormous when she had huddled in it in lonely solitude.

Pausing to catch his breath, Rhys finally instructed his deputy. “Go fetch Doc Clarence, and be quick about it.”

As the man scampered out, Elizabeth came to the door with Farrell and asked solicitously, “What can I do to help?”

Raelynn faced the woman, thankful for her offer. “Dr. Clarence will likely be needing bandages after he closes the gash on Jeffrey’s head. If you possibly have some clean linens that have outserved their usefulness, Tizzy can tear them up into bandages.”

“No need to wake Tizzy,” Elizabeth rejoined. “I can do that easily enough. It won’t take me any time at all.”

The brunette promptly left, and in her absence, Farrell approached the bed and gestured to the sheriff who stood on the far side. “Jeffrey will be more comfortable without his clothes, Rhys. Help me strip him.”

As the men lent themselves to that particular task, Raelynn poured water into the washbasin and placed the bowl on the bedside table. Then she went downstairs to fetch some medicinal herbs and ointments from Elizabeth. By the time Raelynn returned to the room, Jeffrey had been disrobed and covered with a sheet and a blanket.

Farrell sought some answers as she gently cleansed the gash in her husband’s head. “Who did this thing, Raelynn? Do you know?”

“I haven’t a clue to the man’s identity.” Her voice shook as she described his appearance. “Our attacker was fully cloaked and had a black hood over his head. He spoke, but in a low, rasping hiss that seemed strangely exaggerated. He seemed tall, maybe Jeffrey’s height or even taller.”

“He outdistanced me in short order,” Rhys interjected from the chair into which he had settled. “Leads me to think the man not only has a lengthy stride, but long enough legs to lend him a definite advantage over most men. I have a feeling he enjoys running, because when he got to a safe distance ahead of me, he turned and taunted me about my inability to keep up. Then he said, ‘You young men have no heart to run fast.’ “

“Doesn’t sound like Fridrich or Hyde,” Farrell concluded.

“No, this man was much taller than either of them, and if he called me young, then I would assume Hyde would be but a babe to him.”

“But why did he attack Jeff and Raelynn?” the couturier pressed.

Raelynn gained their full attention by offering a supposition of her own. “I may be mistaken, but I have a feeling the man’s real intent was to kill me.”

“You? But why?” Farrell demanded.

She lifted her shoulders in a diffident shrug. If indeed she had been the principal target, the supposition that her husband might have suffered once again because of her offered little comfort. “I haven’t the faintest idea. When the man first threatened me with his knife, he told me that my end had come and . . . I remember this part distinctly . . . he said, ‘After tonight, we’ll have no more worries about what you may find.’ When he said that, he had every hope of killing me.”

“He was certainly trying to accomplish that very thing when I shot the knife out of his hand,” Rhys affirmed.

“Actually that was the second time he tried to knife me. When the man initially launched his attack, he seemed resolute about killing Jeffrey, but it just might have been that demon’s way of removing obstacles to get to me. In any case, Jeffrey and I will have to be far more wary of venturing out along dark, lonely streets until our assailant is caught.”

“Excuse me for asking,” Rhys said a bit hesitantly. “I know he’s supposed to be your uncle, but by any chance, could it have been Cooper Frye who did this thing?”

“No, I’m certain of that,” Raelynn replied with confidence. “Cooper Frye is much heavier and a lot clumsier than our attacker. And if it’s any relief to you, I don’t consider him any uncle of mine.”