Hannah Howell (35 page)

“We will hold off shooting as long as we can, Ballard,” Cyril told him.

“I will give one sharp whistle as soon as I have gotten into the barn and made sure Clover is there,” Ballard said. “One sharp whistle and then ye can start shooting and making all the noise ye like.”

“Good luck. We will wait for your whistle unless they see us and open fire. Then it will be every man for himself.”

Ballard nodded and started to creep forward. He heard Cyril whisper orders to Theodore, Shelton, and Lambert, then heard soft rustles as they made their way to their chosen positions.

Keeping to the shadows of the trees and undergrowth, Ballard made his way toward the barn. Voices drifted from the hayloft. He listened carefully. One sharp comment was Clover’s. An instant later there
was the sound of a slap and a soft cry quickly muffled. It took every ounce of his willpower not to rush to her aid. But he knew any rash action on his part could endanger them all. He could not bolt straight to the barn door. He had to creep up on it from the wooded side, or he could easily be seen by someone in the house. He breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the place where he had chosen to leave the cover of the trees.

A quick dash across the narrow open space between the forest and the barn brought him to the side of the rough plank building. He rested against the wall for a moment, waiting for any sound indicating that he had been discovered. He drew both pistols from the waistband of his breeches and crept to the corner. He peeked around the side and immediately stilled. A mangy dog, tense and bristling, stood there watching him.

Ballard silently cursed. If he moved, the dog would probably bark and warn everyone of his presence. If he shot the dog, which he was loath to do, the noise would alert the men in the cabin, and, worse, the man now with Clover. He slowly crouched down until he was almost eye level with the animal.

“Easy, laddie,” he murmured as he cautiously extended his hand, palm up.

The dog growled softly and hunkered down. Ballard cursed silently, afraid the dog would sense his tension and react to it.

“Soft now, laddie. I willnae hurt ye. No need to be giving an alarm, eh?”

He kept speaking quietly, hoping the man in the barn could not hear, offering his open hand to the dog. Finally, the dog eased its guard. Still Ballard
hesitated, taking more time to assure the animal that he meant it no harm. When the dog finally allowed him to pat it, Ballard knew from its thin frame and half-healed wounds that it had been badly abused. That such a sadly treated animal would accept any friendly approach was pure luck, and Ballard prayed that such luck would stay with him.

As he slipped into the barn, the dog followed. Ballard wished the animal would go away for it might still inadvertently cause an alarm to be raised. Then he turned his full attention to climbing the ladder to the hayloft without making a sound.

Clover fought the urge to flinch as Thomas slowly stroked her hair. He had brought her to the hayloft the moment they had arrived. Still in shock over Ballard’s mortal wound, Clover had not been able to hide her horror when Thomas had secured her wrists to two metal rings in the wall. He had then left her there for an hour or so, her feet barely brushing the floor, before he returned to her.

Gradually she had begun to fight the slide into hysteria. She had even faced down a dark moment when she wondered why she should try to stay alive now that Ballard was dead. Three thoughts kept her clinging to a hard-won strength. Dillingsworth wanted her to cower, to be wholly submissive to him, and she refused to give him what he wanted. And if by some miracle Ballard survived, he would come for her. She must hold herself together in case he did. Finally, if he died, she would live to make Dillingsworth pay.

At first, her loathing for Thomas shocked her. Then she realized the strength it gave her. It also
angered Dillingsworth. Dangerous though the game might be, she enjoyed that small victory over him.

“You really are mad, Thomas, if you believe you can get away with this,” she told him.

“I have simply taken back what is mine.”

“You cast me aside, Thomas. I still have that polite letter you sent telling me so.”

“I could not marry you, but that did not mean I had cast you aside. You should have understood that.”

Clover laughed, a short, bitter sound, and shook her head. “I guess I am sadly ignorant then.”

“After all the time we spent together, how could you believe I would let you go completely? I needed money. That is the only reason I married that whore Sarah, but I would still take care of you.”

“By making
me
a whore. Your kindness knows no bounds, does it, Thomas?”

“I would have given you a good life. Instead, you married that barbaric Scotsman and came to this wretched backwoods.”

“Ballard is not a barbarian, Thomas. You are.” She could not restrain a cry of pain when he slapped her across the face.

“You will learn to train that sharp tongue of yours.” He ran a finger over the palm of her hand. “Look what he has done to you. When I courted you, you had the softest, prettiest hands I had ever seen. Now you have the hands of a kitchen maid.”

“I earned these calluses in the honorable state of marriage to a good man. Far better to have hands as hard as a blacksmith’s than those kept soft in the service of a madman who would make me his whore.
I
cannot understand how
you
could believe I would accept the life you offered me.”

“Because it was a good life. I even would have taken in your wretched family just to keep you happy. Instead you ran off to the wilderness with that swine. You let him touch you.”

“And I quite enjoyed it too.”

Uncontrolled fury twisted Thomas’s face as he grabbed her by the throat. Her body clenched with fear. What a fool she had been to anger him to the point where he might kill her in a mindless fit of rage. When he slowly eased his choking grip on her throat, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“You will pay for letting him touch you. I was so careful with you,” he murmured as he lightly stroked her face. “I worked so hard to preserve your innocence. I even tolerated your stupid father’s interference, for it helped me keep you pure. That purity was to be mine to enjoy. Once we were together I was going to train you to please me, and only me. I knew that no other man had taught you anything, not even how to kiss. Then you stole that from me. You and that Scot.”

Clover was stunned by his words. “No one stole it. You threw it away.”

“I will not be as gentle with you as I planned to be,” Thomas continued, ignoring her words. “Now I must try to erase the stain of another man’s touch. And the touch of such a peasant.” He shook his head.

“And your wife Sarah approves, does she? I find it hard to believe she would blithely allow her husband to carry on with another. She is a very proud woman.”

“She is a whore. She needed me, a husband of some standing in the community, to salvage some
scraps of her tattered reputation.” Thoughtfully he added, “She will probably be sorry that I have killed the Scot, for she did fancy him.”

“You cannot be sure you
have
killed Ballard,” she said, tensing when he began to undo her bodice.

“Of course he is dead. The man had a gut wound. Although right at the moment, he may still be screaming from the pain of it.”

The evident joy Thomas took in that thought made Clover ill. “He might also be coming after you.”

Thomas laughed. “The man is dead or within a breath of being so. You cling to a false hope, Clover. Your barbarian will not be rushing to your rescue.”

“I wouldnae lay a wager on that, ye bastard.”

Clover was sure she looked as stunned as Thomas to see Ballard standing there, only feet away from them, pistols held in each hand, both aimed at Thomas. Although a little pale and bloodied, he looked far from mortally wounded. Her surprise grew when Ballard suddenly gave one sharp whistle. An instant later the sound of gunfire split the night air.

“You were gut shot,” Thomas muttered. “Curse you to hell, how did you get here?”

“I had help, as ye can hear. And I wasnae gut shot. Ye really shouldnae count so much on the opinion of those fools ye have working for ye.”

Thomas bellowed and rushed toward Ballard. Just before Ballard fired a pistol, Thomas suddenly moved, so that the bullet skimmed his shoulder. An instant later, he slammed into Ballard. They hit the floor hard and Ballard cried out in pain. Both pistols skittered across the hay-strewn floor.

Clover watched the two men fight in growing alarm. Ballard had beaten Thomas neatly and swiftly
twice before, yet he was clearly struggling for his life now. He might not be suffering from the fatal wound Thomas had thought, but he was seriously injured and had apparently lost a lot of blood. Thomas also had the added strength born of madness. When a knife appeared in Thomas’s hand, she feared she was about to witness Ballard’s murder only moments after knowing the joy of seeing him alive.

Over the sound of a furious gun battle going on outside, Clover could hear a dog barking. She struggled fruitlessly to free herself of her bonds even as her gaze remained fixed upon the two men. Then a mangy dog scrambled into the hayloft and began to run in circles around the thrashing men, jumping up and down. Clover knew it was Poonley’s mistress’s dog, for she had briefly glimpsed it snarling at everyone before she was dragged off to the barn.

Then, suddenly, Thomas was on top of Ballard, his knife aimed directly at Ballard’s heart. Clover could see the tremor in Ballard’s arm as he clasped Thomas’s wrist and tried to halt the knife’s descent. In desperation she pulled against her bonds until blood slickened her wrists, yet still she watched the knife point draw nearer and nearer to Ballard’s chest.

“You
will
die this time, MacGregor,” Thomas said, jubilation in his voice. “You will not be able to rise after I cut out your heart.”

“Killing me willnae win this game for ye, Dillings-worth. My friends will see that ye never leave this place alive.”

“Neither will Clover.”

“Curse ye!”

Ballard tried to muster up the one swift burst of strength he needed to stop the deadly advance of
Thomas’s blade, but he had none left. He could not stop the death strike. Just as he tensed anticipating the touch of the knife against his flesh, he heard a low, feral growl. An instant later Thomas screamed as his wrist was completely lost in the jaws of the dog.

Thomas rolled off Ballard as he tried to shake free of the dog. Ballard staggered to his feet. He watched the man and the animal roll about on the hayloft floor, waiting for a chance to grab the knife to which Thomas still miraculously clung. Then he saw the glint of his pistol in the hay and lunged for it. Was it the one he had already fired? Even as he aimed at Thomas, Ballard espied his other pistol. Just as his hand closed on it, he heard a sharp yelp from the dog.

Thomas punched the dog in the head a second time and the animal fell from him. Ballard was stunned to see that, despite the blood pouring from his mangled wrist, Thomas still held the knife. As he staggered to his feet and stepped forward, Ballard aimed both pistols at Thomas and fired. Thomas screamed as a bullet tore through his chest, throwing him backward onto the hay where he lay still. Ballard cautiously approached to be sure he was dead. It took only one look at the flat, lifeless eyes to tell him that Thomas would never be a threat again.

“Is he dead?” Clover whispered.

“Aye, lass.”

She briefly closed her eyes and shuddered. “I was so afraid I was about to watch you die.”

“It isnae easy to kill a MacGregor,” he said as he stumbled to her side.

Clover studied his face as he untied her and they both sank to the ground. He was bruised, dirty, and
bleeding, but he had never looked so beautiful to her. She slumped against him as he put his arm around her.

“I thought you were dead,” she murmured.

“I needed ye to believe it. It helped convince Thomas and the others.”

“I understand. If they had taken a good look at you, they would have seen that you were not dying. It is a bad wound though. I can see that it pains you.”

“Aye. Here, lass, the shooting has stopped. I had better reload these pistols just in case it is not a friend who comes looking for us.”

She sat back a little as he reloaded his guns, and looked toward the dog. “Do you think Thomas killed that poor animal?”

“I hope not, but I cannae take the time to examine the wretched creature now.”

He heard someone enter the barn and quickly moved in front of her. With a pistol in each hand he waited to see what the outcome of the battle had been.

“Ballard?” called Shelton from the bottom of the ladder leading to the hayloft. “Are ye up there?”

“Aye, I won my fight,” Ballard replied as he relaxed and put down his pistols. “With a wee bit of help.” He glanced at the dog and was relieved to see it tremble. “Careful as ye come up, lad. There is a dog up here who isnae too sure who is friend and who is foe.”

Shelton cautiously climbed into the hayloft. Although still unable to stand, the dog growled and Ballard murmured a word to soothe it. Shelton glanced at Thomas’s body, then moved to Clover and Ballard.

“I hope it wasnae ye who nearly chewed the mon’s hand off,” he said as he crouched before them.

“Nay, the dog came to my rescue.” Ballard held his
hand out as the animal crept warily closer. “Thomas was about to stick a knife in me and this ragged beastie stopped him. I think we will take him home.”

“That old tomcat Muskrat willnae be too pleased. How are ye two?”

“We will live,” Ballard replied. “What about the others?”

“All fine. It wasnae a fair fight really. Those oafs hadnae the wit to give us a real battle. None of them surrendered. Cyril offered them the chance, but ye were right. They chose to go down fighting rather than face a rope. We cannae find the woman. I suspect she ran off and will return when we are gone. Theodore, Cyril, and Lambert are burying the bodies.”