A Season Beyond a Kiss (63 page)

Another scrape of a chair almost sent Raelynn flying back upstairs in spiraling trepidation. By dint of will, she held her ground even though it took every effort for her to remain where she was. If not for her shaking, she might have felt a lot braver about the situation.

A large dark shadow emerged from the dining room, and Raelynn gasped as she realized it wasn’t Gustav at all, but their cloaked and hooded assailant. She screamed, totally forgetting about the pistol she clasped, and raced into the hallway. She fully expected to be caught by a man whose swiftness had aroused the sheriff’s awe, but much to her bemusement, he lumbered after her, as if impeded by some unknown hindrance. Indeed, he seemed to be dragging a foot behind him.

Now recognizing an imminent threat to her life, Raelynn darted into the dark kitchen and tore around the huge hearth in an anxious quest to get to the back door, only to cry out in sudden alarm as she went flying over an overturned chair, an obstacle that had been deliberately placed in the shadows across the path to the back door where it wouldn’t be readily seen. No doubt Tizzy had been creeping cautiously through the kitchen when she had come upon the chair, but Raelynn had been too caught up in a frenzy to escape to notice.

Tumbling forward, Raelynn made every effort to spare her baby injury by twisting to the side. Alas, she forgot about the large crock that stood at the far end of the brick hearth. Her head caught the brunt of the impact, leaving her senses jarred.

Dazed but still determined to find safety, she forced herself to keep moving and managed to crawl beneath the table where she huddled in the shadows near the far corner. Barely a moment later, the darkly clothed shade stumbled into the kitchen and then came to a halt, evidently mystified by her whereabouts. Very slowly he crept to the back door. He snatched it open abruptly, wrenching a surprised start from Raelynn, but she clasped a trembling hand over her mouth, stilling herself for that moment when he would turn and start searching the kitchen for her.

Hardly daring to breathe while her assailant was so near, Raelynn waited in heightening anxiety, her heart thudding wildly in her chest as she crouched in a small knot within the gloom. She became increasingly mindful of the man’s laborious panting and considered that very odd indeed for one who could run so swiftly. Indeed, he wheezed as if afflicted with some strange malady. Considering the physical prowess he had already exhibited, the man should have displayed no exertion at all, especially from so simple a task as walking into the kitchen, but that didn’t appear to be the case at all. Then she recalled that moments earlier she had heard him lumbering behind her. That memory certainly didn’t conform to Rhys’s premise that their attacker enjoyed running. Perhaps she had been mistaken about this being the same man who had launched his attack upon them in the fog, Raelynn thought. But then, the hood and the cape were the same, weren’t they?

Crouching in her lowly hiding place, Raelynn debated her chances of reaching the dining room door before the man became aware of her hiding place and blocked her path. The way he was plodding along, she just might be able to do it.

In the waiting silence, Raelynn heard the front door open, bringing her to alert attention. The visitor’s footsteps were too quickly muffled by the hall rug to allow her any hope of recognition, but her eyes widened in sudden apprehension as she saw the darkly cloaked intruder draw a knife from the enveloping shroud he wore. Turning, he advanced toward the dining room with a rapid, but halting gait.

Raelynn’s mind flew. Tizzy hadn’t been gone long enough to allow any possibility that the new arrival was Farrell. So who, other than Jeffrey, was making his way into the house?

Finding no other name but her husband’s to lay to the one who had just entered, Raelynn scrambled out from underneath the table and, behind the man’s back, dashed through the doorway leading to the hallway, trying desperately to cock the weapon she clasped as she ran. Such a task proved much harder than she had supposed, and she cursed the foul thing as a tool of Satan as she raced with all of her heart and strength in a frantic effort to outdistance the masked prowler. When she reached the parlor door, the culprit was just leaving the dining room.

Rhys Townsend glanced in her direction, having heard swiftly racing footfalls approaching from down the corridor. Oblivious of the intruder entering the parlor, he never saw the knife hurtling toward him.

“Rhys, look out!” Raelynn screamed.

The lawman threw himself to the side, but much too late. He gasped as the blade sank into his chest and staggered unsteadily as his legs slowly gave way beneath him. In the next moment he collapsed against a chair and then slowly slid to the floor where he sat, feebly trying to clasp the hilt of the weapon.

Intent upon this murderous game, the villain advanced upon the sheriff with an awkward hop and a skip. Raelynn gnashed her teeth in fierce determination and drove the side of her palm downward upon the firing mechanism. It clicked into place just as the man jerked the knife from Rhys’s chest, wrenching an agonized cry from the lawman. The assailant drew back his arm, fully intending to plunge the knife in again for good measure. In the next instant the pistol exploded, sending a lead ball through the culprit’s hand. The devilish demon roared in pain as the blade went flying out of his grasp. Clutching the wounded extremity, he seemed to writhe in agony as his breath slashed harshly through the air holes in his mask. Then he stumbled about to face Raelynn, and the moonlit glow streaming through the parlor windows glinted off the eyes hidden beneath the slitted openings, making the hooded beast seem truly demonic as he rasped in guttural tones.

“Bitch! I’ll kill you yet!”

Lurching toward her, he snatched a handkerchief from a pocket in his cloak and wrapped it about his bleeding hand. Then he put into play his hitching gait that, though clumsy, seemed far too fast for her to escape.

Raelynn’s hands still stung from the force of the exploding pistol. Had she been given enough time to reload the weapon, such a feat would have been difficult, for now she was shaking uncontrollably. Gritting her teeth to still the tremors, she raised the useless flintlock behind her head and threw it at her adversary. It caught him alongside his darkly garbed cheek, causing him to curse and bat it away with his good hand.

The moonlight touched upon his hooded head, illumining the cloth to a midnight gray while darkening the eyeholes to a flinty black. His gaze now seemed centered unrelentingly upon her as he hobbled toward her.

Raelynn whirled, knowing full well where she was going this time. Out! Spurred on by the realization that the man would kill her if he caught her, she raced for her life, back over ground she had covered moments earlier. Already breathing heavily from her attempt to reach the parlor ahead of her assailant, she was nevertheless desperate to get away. That goading fear put swift wings to her feet.

In the kitchen she fairly sailed over the same chair that had brought her down earlier. In the next moment she was yanking open the back door and flying across the roofed porch. Hearing swiftly lumbering footfalls following in her wake as she ran into the yard, she threw a fearful glance over her shoulder to find the man crossing the porch in hot pursuit. An instant later her breath left her in an audible “Ooph!” as she ran full bore into something very solid. A tree trunk might have gained the same results, but this solidity proved all too human as long arms came around her, wrenching a scream from her. In her panic her mind settled on the obvious. There was not only one madman after her; there were two!

“Raelynn!”

The familiar voice was the last she had expected to hear, but it was definitely the most welcomed. Still, there was a demon with a knife behind them, seeking to reap a grim harvest. The man would kill them both if he could.

“Jeffrey, look out! He knifed Rhys!”

Jeff had left the jail without a single weapon in his possession. Still devoid of one, he pushed Raelynn behind him and braced himself to meet this oncoming foe barehanded and head-on. His adversary lifted the blade high for a downward thrust into the chest of this new threat, but Jeff grasped the front of the black mantle and, with a hard-driving knee to the groin, brought the knave crumpling forward with a half-wheezing, half-gagging groan. For good measure, Jeff repeated his assault with every hope of crushing any little pebble that remained in the other’s loins.

The cloaked miscreant collapsed in a billowing heap of writhing torment upon the ground at Jeff’s feet. That worthy snatched the hood off with such force that the culprit’s head lolled loosely around his darkly clad shoulders. Jeff was intent upon rendering the fellow his just due and once again seized the front of his cloak. Hauling the man upright, he slammed a hard fist into his jaw, jerking that one’s face about. He wasn’t above turning the other’s cheek with another driving blow. Indeed, he proved unrelenting as he slammed another right into the now sagging jaw and followed it with several more blows until their would-be assassin drooped unconscious within his grasp. Jeff finally relinquished his hold and allowed his opponent to collapse in a dark heap upon the ground. Only then did Jeff reach down and turn the other’s face to the meager light of the moon.

“None other than Lord Marsden,” he sneered.

“Marsden!” Raelynn gasped, stepping beside her husband. “But why, Jeffrey? What did we ever do to him?”

“The key to this, my love, may well be what
he
did to your father. He’s an English lord, is he not? And he said he knew of your father’s trouble, so undoubtedly he came from England fairly recently, perhaps on your heels. Let us even suppose that he didn’t come for the purpose of acquiring land for his daughter, but on a definite mission to find something of great value or importance, possibly even a letter that verified your father’s innocence, which, at the same time, might have proven Marsden’s guilt in the matter. If he had thought your father had sequestered such evidence in his coffer, then that would explain why someone, perhaps even Marsden himself, tried to pry open the secret compartment. When I discovered it, it held nothing at all, but that’s not to say that Frye didn’t steal what it contained when he had it within his possession.”

“You found such a niche?” Raelynn asked in amazement.

“Aye, I did, the night you ran away from Oakley.”

Raelynn searched her mind. “Perhaps, as you say, Cooper Frye discovered the compartment during the voyage and took whatever it contained.”

“We’ll have to ask him about that. As for Lord Marsden, he was at our ball. Perhaps he was even in our bedroom when Nell came to the house to threaten me. He may have killed her just to keep her quiet. As we’re both aware, this man is partial to knives.”

“He stabbed Rhys, too.”

At that precise moment, Deputy Charlie came huffing and puffing around the corner of the house with a large pistol clutched within his grasp. Becoming suddenly aware of the pair of shadowed forms in the yard near the house, he settled into a stance with legs splayed and then clasped the butt of his weapon in both hands, taking aim. “Hold there!”

“Put that damned thing down, Charlie, before you blow somebody’s head off,” Jeff barked.

“Mis-Mis-ter Bir-ming-h-ham?” the deputy stuttered in confusion, letting his arms drop to his sides. “I-I thought w-we left ye locked up at the jailhouse.”

“I let myself out,” Jeff informed him succinctly and indicated the unconscious man on the ground. “Tie this bag of bones into a bundle, Charlie. I’m going into the house to see about Rhys. My wife said this devil knifed him.”

“K-Knifed S-Sheriff Townsend?” Charlie’s voice held a note of weakness that conveyed his sudden concern.

Jeff gestured toward the senseless man. “If this heap of dung moves while you’re watching him, kindly lower the butt of your pistol upon his head with enough force to send him into the netherworld. You’ll be doing us all an enormous favor.”

Half-turning, he laid an arm about his wife’s shoulders and drew her close against his side. “Tell me, my love, are you all right?”

“Yes, just a bit shaken, that’s all.” It was so very nice to be safe within her husband’s arms once again, but she couldn’t hold back the sobs as she fell against his chest. “Oh, Jeff, that horrible man . . . he . . . he would’ve killed me if you hadn’t come. I tried to warn Rhys after he came into the house. I had a pistol in my hand, but by the time I managed to get it cocked, it was too late. Lord Marsden threw a knife at Rhys, and I saw it sink into his chest. He might even be dead now.”

“Let’s go see about him, my love,” Jeff urged thickly and then hurriedly cleared his throat, trying to force back the emotion that welled up within him. It threatened to rise to the surface again as he thought of the close camaraderie he had enjoyed with his childhood friend throughout the years. He knew Rhys’s death would be a hard loss for him to bear.

Jeff solemnly closed the kitchen door behind Raelynn before stepping ahead to pick up the fallen chair. Settling a hand upon the small of her back, he guided her toward the dining room door by way of the meager glow radiating from the small, flickering fire in the kitchen hearth. Moonlight streaming through the parlor windows aided their progress around the dining room table. They were just stepping beyond that piece when a familiar voice bellowed from the parlor.

“
Damnation, where is everyone
?”

In the shadowed gloom, Jeff and Raelynn looked at each other in surprise. Curiosity spurred them on, and they rushed into the front parlor where Rhys had managed to prop himself up against the arm of a chair.

“You’re alive!” Raelynn cried with a joyful laugh.

“Of course, I’m alive!” Rhys rumbled, clasping a hand to a bloody area below his shoulder. “Though no thanks to that fellow who knifed me.” He turned a suspicious squint upon Jeff. “How the blooming devil did you get out, may I ask? I left you locked up hard and fast!”

“Not so hard and fast,” Jeff countered with a chuckle. “I’m here to prove that.”

“That damn fool Olney get away, too?” Rhys demanded angrily.