Redeeming Jack (31 page)

The bones of her right wrist sat at an awkward angle. Had she broken it? Carys looked wildly around. Apart from the seething miniature world of the sea creatures beneath her, she and Oliver were alone. She choked back a sob. How long had she been unconscious?

She checked the position of the sun. It was much lower in the sky now. Should she leave Oliver and take her chance on the causeway, or go back for Jack? She cradled her wrist between her breasts. Perhaps she should leave them both and go and find her son instead. Surely she could bargain with the duke? She’d rather give Owen to him than see him harmed.

She glanced down at Oliver, who hadn’t stirred. No matter how much she hated him, she couldn’t leave him to drown. She needed Jack. With her injured wrist she couldn’t even move Oliver to safety. She set her teeth, glanced back up the cliff to the Inner Head and began to climb.

* * *

Jack sat up with a horrid rush of sensation. He shut his eyes, rolled onto his side and retched. His head felt like he’d been hit by a cannon ball. He’d waited until Carys and Rice’s voices faded before attempting to move.

Luckily for him, Rice had been too squeamish to finish him off, and Carys hadn’t betrayed the fact that he was still conscious. Rice must have taken her back to the mainland. Jack struggled to his feet and almost blacked out again. He guessed the sun was within an hour of setting. If he wanted to catch up with his wife, he needed to leave now.

Jack sucked in a breath and studied the narrow strip of Devil’s Bridge. He could hear the faint sounds of water slapping against the stones far below, indicating the tide was already on the turn. When the wind died down, he traversed the bridge at a run and kept going.

His knees were weak by the time he reached Inner Head. Had Carys called his name, or was it just the screaming of the gulls? He saw her, almost at the top of the cliff. Her red hair tangled around her face, her expression wild.

Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he enfolded her in his arms and tried to decipher her gasped words.

“Oliver’s stuck at the bottom of the cliff.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t think so.” She showed him her right wrist. “I hurt myself and I couldn’t move him.”

Jack resisted the urge to tell her to leave Rice to drown. But he was the one who could kill without conscience, not her. Smoothing her hair back from her face, he saw the desperation in her eyes which mirrored his own. He ripped off his neck cloth and bound her wrist. “The best we can do is get Rice to higher ground. We don’t have time to take him with us. We’ll barely make it across the causeway as it is.”

Carys pulled out of his arms. He marveled at her courage. With her titian hair catching the glowing rays of the sun, she looked like a lioness ready to defend her cub. “We’d better hurry then.”

As they scrambled down, Jack saw Rice stretched out on the causeway. “Can you take his arms? If we can get him upright, I’ll carry him up the cliff and leave him there. He’ll be safe until morning.”

Carys crouched by Rice’s head as Jack attempted to grasp his legs. After a few seconds of useless pulling, he knelt to study Rice’s riding boot. “Damnation, the man’s caught his boot in a hole.”

Rice groaned and his eyelids flickered.

Carys produced Jack’s knife from her pocket. “I kept this. Perhaps we can cut his boot off.”

Jack sawed away at the expensive, well-fitted leather. Every so often, he glanced at the causeway and considered the sounds of the sea. Rice attempted to sit up. Jack pushed him down again. Blood seeped through a makeshift bandage Carys had fixed to Rice’s side. It seemed he hadn’t missed his target after all.

Jack studied the man’s pale face. To his experienced eye, Rice looked like he’d lost a considerable amount of blood. It was even possible that Rice would bleed to death before he got back to shore. Jack didn’t want Carys to see that or even know that it was a possibility.

“Carys, you must go now if you want to get across the causeway.”

Carys cradled her wrist to her chest. “I can’t leave you here.”

Jack cursed as the knife nicked his skin. “I’ll catch up with you if I can. Did Rice tell you where Owen is?”

“He’s at Saint Iltyd’s Church.”

“Then go and find him.” He sensed her hesitation. “Go on. Owen needs you more than I do.”

Carys came and knelt by his side. She cupped his face in her hands. “I love you, Jack. Please don’t leave me again.”

He fought a rush of emotion that made it almost impossible for him to speak. “Just go.”

She picked her way through the tide pools, her back straight. Her hair escaped its braid. She looked so young that she reminded Jack of her sixteenth birthday party, when he’d first fallen in love with her.

Rice cursed, and Jack pointed the knife at him. “Be very glad that Carys is a lady. I’m doing this for her.” He gave a vicious tug to Rice’s boot and finally released it from its prison. “If it was up to me I’d let you drown.”

Ignoring the pain in his left arm, Jack managed to boost Rice over his right shoulder and make his way back up Inner Head. He dumped Rice close to the top of the cliff. From his vantage point, he could see Carys crossing the causeway. She was about halfway, moving at a steady pace.

“I’ll leave you here, Rice. Let’s pray you survive until morning.”

Rice leaned back against the rocks, his face ashen. “I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done. I did what anyone would to protect my family’s name.”

“To protect the dead at the expense of the living? What a fine and honorable man you are.”

“I don’t expect you to understand, Llewelyn. You have no sense of honor. You’re a disgrace to your family name.”

Bitter words rose in Jack’s throat but he held them back and began his descent of the cliff. What was the point in trying to pierce Rice’s arrogance? If the wound in his side kept bleeding, Rice would be very weak by the morning, if not dead.

Jack contemplated the distance he still needed to cover. Neither of them would make it alive if he attempted to carry Rice across. He had no choice. He had to follow Carys.

CARYS REACHED THE end of the causeway and studied the steep path up the cliff face. She rubbed her cold palms against her soaked breeches, ignoring the dull ache in her wrist. Her fingers stung and bled from grasping at rocks to break her fall. The thud of her heartbeat sounded louder than the sea. Praying for strength, she struggled up the path, her knees threatening to give way with every labored step.

A slight jingling sound from above made her freeze on the path. When she peered upward she let out a thankful gulp of air. Three tethered horses grazed the rough grass at the top of the mound, oblivious to the bedraggled human approaching them. Two of them belonged to her and Jack. The third had obviously been left for Oliver.

At the crest of the cliff, Carys risked a look back over the causeway. She shaded her eyes against the setting sun. An indistinct figure stumbled through the rock pools. A flash of light threaded through the gathering clouds and illuminated Jack’s golden hair. Carys sat down, her strength gone.

She estimated Jack was two-thirds across the causeway. Behind him, the sea had started to gather itself to surround the head of the Worm. She wrapped her arms around her knees, willing Jack to move faster, knowing that even if she called out he wouldn’t hear her. He, of all people, must know the deadly game he played with the encroaching tide.

As if he’d heard her unspoken fears, Jack glanced behind him and seemed to pick up his pace. The faster he ran, the more he fell. Trickles of water silvered by the setting sun crept, then rushed along the cracks of the causeway like fast-melting metal. By the time he reached the final part of the land bridge, Jack splashed ankle-deep in water.

Carys knew he wasn’t safe yet. The tides surrounded the Worm in a circular pattern, many of the cross currents clashing at the shoreline. Unable to sit still, she scrambled back down the path. The menacing sound of the incoming sea closed over her, raising the hairs at the nape of her neck.

Jack was up to his knees now as he staggered against the pull of the current. Twenty feet away from her, his intent gaze was focused on the cliff face. An ominous noise made Carys look to her left. Waves rolled toward Jack at a speed that made her breathless.

“Jack!” she screamed as he disappeared beneath a curtain of water higher than his head. She ran to the water’s edge and peered into the choppy sea.

Five feet away, Jack resurfaced and fought the swell of the tide. He caught sight of her and grinned. Another wave smashed into him and knocked him sideways. Carys wrapped her injured arm around the nearest upright rock and leaned out as far as she could. When the foaming water settled, she caught a glimpse of Jack’s white shirt. She grabbed it and held on.

Carys stifled a scream as the voracious current tried to suck her down into the water as well. Stretched out to their fullest, both of her arms burned with pain. Jack’s hard fingers closed around her elbow. He hauled himself out of the water and collapsed on his back beside her, coughing and spluttering.

All her energy deserted her, and Carys slid down the side of the rock with a jarring bump. She blinked at Jack. He was soaked through. The slight wound on his left shoulder began to bleed again, coloring his sleeve a delicate pink.

Jack sat up and shook his head, sending a shower of salt water over her. She didn’t even have the energy to turn her face away when the freezing droplets hit her skin.

“Christ,
no
!” Jack staggered to his feet, his gaze fixed on the causeway behind her. “What in damnation is Rice doing?”

Carys forced her unwilling body to turn toward the sea. To her horror, Oliver was attempting to navigate the rapidly disappearing causeway. She pressed both of her hands to her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Why hadn’t he stayed where Jack put him? What madness had made him attempt to leave the relative safety of the Worm?

Jack took two steps toward the cliff edge.

Carys came up on one knee and grabbed his arm. “It’s too far. You’ll never reach him.”

Jack glanced wildly down at her and then back out to sea. They both gasped as Oliver staggered beneath the oncoming waves and then managed a few more steps. A booming roar sounded from behind Inner Head, like the dragon had truly woken. Waves crashed in from all sides now, smashing against each other as they fought for possession of the causeway.

Oliver went down, his hands thrown up as if in surrender.

Carys buried her face against Jack’s soaked shirt and held on tight. For a long while, all she could hear was the thunderous, unsteady beat of his heart. She opened her eyes when he kissed the top of her head.

“He’s gone, Carys.”

She raised her head and looked at his anguished face. It comforted her that he had as little joy in Oliver’s destruction as she did.

Jack rested his hands on her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. “We have to go on. We have to find Owen.”

* * *

Jack hid the two horses in the green darkness of the copse behind the church. He turned to study Carys. Like him, she was soaked to the bone. Her expression was set, her lips clamped together to prevent them from chattering. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“What would you prefer to do? We could go and ask for help at Oxwich Manor. But if I’m right in assuming Richard has taken Mrs. Forester to London, I doubt we’d get anyone else to listen to us.”

“Do you have a plan?” Carys looked steadily into his eyes.

He shrugged. “Not really. If we go in by ourselves, I’ll listen to what my father has to say and then try and persuade him to give Owen back to you.”

Carys gripped his hand. “I’d rather let your father take him than lose him for good. Do you understand that?”

Jack marveled at her calm strength. He brought her cold fingers to his lips. “Of course. Owen’s safety is the most important thing to consider.” Carys didn’t know it yet, but despite his conciliatory words, he was prepared to do anything to make sure of that.

He slipped his hand into his pocket and caressed the familiar worn bone handle of his knife. Could he wound his own father?

“He’s expecting two people, so we’ll go in together.” He glanced up at the leaden sky, judged the lengthening shadows. “The church is extremely dark inside. It will probably take him a moment to work out that I’m not Rice. If you get the opportunity, snatch Owen and run back here. Seek shelter at the manor.”

Carys managed a smile. “I thought you said no one at the manor would help us?”

Jack bowed. “I meant that Mrs. Mansell wouldn’t lift a finger to help
me
. Luckily for you, she is a notorious gossip. The opportunity to be at the center of another Llewelyn family scandal would be impossible for her to resist.”

Carys’s smile faded as she looked at the church.

Jack followed her gaze. “Shall we go, then?”

As they walked along the stone flagged path, Jack mentally reviewed the possible sacrifices his father might demand of him. Would he be satisfied if Jack promised to leave the country and never return? The thought made him sick and his step faltered. Even if he never got to see Carys or his son again, at least they would be safe.

The church door stood slightly ajar. A faint light flickered under the door. Jack breathed in the essence of decay and stepped behind Carys. “Walk forward slowly. I’ll keep in the shadows for as long as possible.”

A lone figure shrouded in a long black driving coat awaited them by the altar at the head of the church. Even in the gloom, Jack knew instinctively that it wasn’t his father. What price his much-vaunted judgment now? He’d mistaken his opponent twice in one day. He came up alongside Carys and took her hand. “Good evening, Robert.”

In the flickering lamplight, Robert’s eyes widened and fixed on Jack. In his right hand, he held a pistol that he pointed at Jack’s head. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

Jack smiled as fury boiled and seethed in his chest. “As you can see, I’m not. Unfortunately, it looks as if your good friend Oliver Rice is.”