SHK (19 page)

She hurried over to the gelding Stuart was still holding by its reins. Without a word of thanks, she jerked the reins out of his hands and vaulted up into the saddle. “Goodbye, and good riddance,” she called over her shoulder as she galloped into the night.

“Damn and double damn! I can’t let her go alone. I know she came without being asked, but I would never be able to live with myself, if something untoward happened to her.”

Stuart stepped into his path. “You can’t be serious. Snowden’s men are in all probability already searching for you. He won’t take you prisoner this time. He’ll hang you from the nearest tree for playing him for the fool tonight.” He rubbed a tired hand across his face. “God Almighty, I can hardly believe so much happened in the span of just a few hours.

“Think, man, we are fugitives. We can’t afford gallantry. Her father and Lord Mowbray will understand that. If I were her parent, I would give her bottom a good trouncing for putting you into this situation.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t even be here, if it wasn’t for that obstinate, daring girl. She took an immeasurable risk when she jumped on Snowden’s back. Hell, if he finds out he’d been bested by a mere girl, he’ll have apoplexy.” The thought made him chuckle, despite the gravity of the situation.

“Okay, so I give her credit for being a cut above the usual social butterfly that seems to be the norm of well-bred young ladies, but that still doesn’t change a thing. If you go after her, you’ll likely ride straight into the arms of Sheriff Snowden.”

André pushed past his friend and gripped Noir’s saddle horn. “I have to go, and I know the risk I am taking. I see no other choice. However, I don’t want you to come along.” He held up his hand to stay Stuart’s protest. “I need you to lay low and keep your ears open. If Snowden captures me, I’ll need your help. Otherwise, I’ll join you tomorrow at Bellingshire and we’ll make plans on how to get into Greenbriar and steal Aunt Victoria’s original will.”

He swung into the saddle to the muttered curses of Stuart’s frustration.

“Fool,” he called after him. “She is a child, a colonial, and she’ll likely land on her feet if she is knocked off her high horse.”

STORMY HEIDE KATROS

83

Tears coursed down Stormy’s face as she galloped full tilt back to Emerald Hills. She had been foolish to follow André. What had she thought she could accomplish by that? Oh, and the humiliation to be told she was a spoiled child. Well, if she never saw the cad again, it would be too soon.

Emerald Hills loomed in the distance. Once she had the gelding rubbed down and stabled, she would go to bed and sleep the morning away. No one would be the wiser that her night escapade had not stopped with André’s rescue, and she would never tell.

Her hands tightened on the reins as renewed resentment chased through her. She had not expected gratitude, just a bit of appreciation for her part in tonight’s scuffle. Too late she became aware of the hoofbeats gaining on her. Within minutes she was crowded by a press of horses, rough hands reached for her and pulled her off the gelding.

“Hold him tight. I remember him too well from earlier tonight. And it proves that the bloody bunch from Emerald Hills was involved in setting that French pig free.” Snowden dismounted and advanced on Stormy, his eyes narrowed with contempt and palpable hatred.

“I owe you one, boy.” He did not elaborate, because he did not care to admit in front of his henchmen that he’d been bested by a mere stripling.

Lewd laughter, kept low in deference of the night carrying sound, stopped him in his tracks. He was about to lash out at the man holding Stormy, when he heard him say.

“This ain’t no lad, gov’ner. I’ve got me a handful of tits that says this is a lass.”

Reacting to the man’s vile touch upon her person, Stormy started to kick out at him and would have succeeded in getting loose, if not another pair of hands had reached out to squeeze her breast in a vulgar display of lust and the intent to hurt.

She yelped in pain, sagging against the man holding her. Bile rose in her throat, and within moments she spewed the contents of her stomach onto the ground.

Snowden walked within arm’s reach of her. “Turn her face to the light. I want to see if I recognize which of the Mowbray bitches this one is.”

Someone grabbed her chin and jerked her toward the light of the moon.

“She ain’t one of them, that’s for sure. Tell me who you are or I’ll turn you over to my men for a bit of sport.”

Stormy fought against the faintness that threatened to overwhelm her. She swallowed convulsively, then took a deep breath and decided that she would draw the short end of the stick, if she continued to fight. These men had the upper hand, and they didn’t care that she was a woman or that under normal circumstances they would pull their forelocks in deference to her social standing.

Tossing her head with false bravado, she gazed at Snowden with contempt. “I suggest you let me go, sheriff. I am not an English subject. You have no jurisdiction over me and you are holding me without cause. I was merely riding to clear my head.”

Snowden snorted. “Indeed, and pigs fly. I don’t care whether you are an English subject or not. You are under arrest and at my mercy and no one dares to counter my actions in this county.”

STORMY HEIDE KATROS

84

Stormy struggled in vain against the steely hold of the man behind her.

“You can’t do that. I am an American.”

The men had crowded closer, trying to get a better look at her.

One man stood so close that his foul body odor even surpassed the stink of the man holding her prisoner. He openly leered at her. “I often wondered what one of them colonial strumpets would look like, lads. No decent English lady would strut around in men’s breeches or being caught riding through the countryside at this time of night. I vote we’ll each have a turn at her.”

Snowden sliced his hand through the air. “Back off. If anyone has a turn, it’s going to be me first. However, I propose we’ll take her back to Greenbriar first.”

He leered at Stormy. “I am betting my last guinea that once Despard gets wind of it that you are my prisoner, he’ll come back to return the favor and try to rescue you.”

Stormy cringed, when he shook his fist into her face. He was so angry that spittle spewed from his mouth in a fine mist. “This time he won’t escape me,” he boasted, his expression one of utter hatred.

Stormy felt tempted to tell him that André was no longer at Emerald Hills, but even as the words formed on her lips, she realized that she would incriminate herself and put her family at risk. Hanging her head, she allowed them to put her up on one of the horses.

She shuddered when one of her captors mounted up behind her and rubbed himself suggestively against her bottom. God what had she gotten herself into? Icy fingers of dread skittered up her spine, when it dawned on her that it could take most of tomorrow before anyone at Emerald Hills would notice her absence.

André had followed Stormy after his brief argument with Stuart. Despite her head start, he managed to catch up with her. Holding Noir to an easy canter, he used the night shadows to his advantage to keep her in sight. He had just decided to turn around, since she was within a mile of Emerald Hills, when he saw a group of riders emerge from a thicket and crowd around her.

He sucked in a pained breath when he recognized Snowden. Well, what had he expected? A welcoming committee? For a second he wondered whether he should rejoice that Stormy had been intercepted by Snowden rather than a bunch of cutthroats, before he came to the conclusion that one was actually synonymous with the other.

His hands clenched around Noir’s reins. He had no chance in hell against seven men, but he could not just sit and wait either. Slipping from the stallion’s back, he guided him into the trees and told him to wait for his whistle. Noir snorted with a doleful look in his dark eyes.

On second thought, André discarded his voluminous cape and threw it across the saddle.

It would lend him greater mobility, if he were dressed only in his breeches and shirt.

He sneaked within a few feet of Stormy’s assailants, just in time to hear Snowden announce that they would take her to Greenbriar and interrogate her there. Gad, he wished he could spare her the pain she might be in for, but he couldn’t do it alone. He could only hope that Snowden would use better judgment with her than he had in André’s treatment. Either way, he was determined that Snowden would taste the blade of his saber.

He waited until the posse was out of earshot before he whistled for Noir. He took the back route to Emerald Hills and sighed in relief, when he saw the candles burning in Thomas’s study. He had counted on his friend’s habit of staying up late to either read or pore over his accounts.

STORMY HEIDE KATROS

85

André left Noir in the deep shadow of an oak tree, while he crept up the terrace steps and knocked lightly on the glass of the double doors.

Thomas’s head snapped up and he turned in his chair to check, if he had heard correctly.

He frowned, when he saw nothing but the dark of night--until something moved.

Thomas reached for the loaded pistol he kept in the top drawer of his desk and walked cautiously toward the door.

“Don’t shoot, it’s André.”

Thomas would have recognized the deep baritone of his friend anywhere. He tried to digest the implication of his presence, even as his hand shot out to unlock the door. He pulled André inside.

“What in God’s name are you doing here? I expected you to be halfway to Bellingshire.”

He urged him away from the window, so he could not be seen from outside. “What has happened?”

André expelled a troubled breath and asked if he could sit. He would not, could not give in to the pain in his ribs. “We made great headway, when we heard hoofbeats behind us. Stuart and I hid, and you would never guess who was following us.” He raked a tired hand through his tousled hair.

Thomas snorted. “At this time of night and the danger we are in because of Snowden’s treachery, I am in no mood for guessing games.”

André tried to make light of the situation by chuckling softly. “Stormy had set it into her head to come to our aid.” He shook his head. “There is no telling what that minx will do, is there?”

Thomas sank to the nearest chair, his expression one of bewilderment. “You say she came after you? Bloody hell, what did she think she could accomplish by that? It goes to show that Trevor and his American ideas are off the mark.”

André held out a staying hand. “Actually, we don’t have time to dwell on that. Now that I have time to think on it, I could have made a better case for her to turn back rather than call her a spoiled child. It was quite unfair, considering the risk she took for me. She took off on the gelding she had brought along, before I could say anything else and headed back to Emerald Hills. I followed at a distance” He snorted his disdain. “So much for keeping her safe.”

“Anyway, she rode headlong into Snowden and his posse. I am not sure if they were on their way here or what they were up to, but they have her and I heard him tell that they would take her back to Greenbriar for interrogation.”

“Good God. There is no telling what that man might do to her. We have to waken Trevor to tell him.”

“Hold on a minute. We can’t march headlong into Greenbriar and demand her release, Thomas. It would give Snowden the excuse he is looking for. He could shoot us on sight, claiming we came to murder him. And he would go scot-free, because his henchmen would vouch for him.”

Exhaling heavily, Thomas rubbed a tired hand across his face.

“But what can we do? We can’t leave Stormy in the clutches of that perverted beast.” He wisely refrained from saying that she had brought her predicament upon herself.

Thomas’s words brought images of his own incarceration to mind, and André cringed inwardly. “How do you propose to waken Trevor without alarming Annemarie?”

STORMY HEIDE KATROS

86

“Good point. I have noticed that he includes her in all of his decisions. Too much freedom if you ask me. A woman needs to tend to women’s work, but apparently they have different notions in the colonies about that.”

André suppressed a grin. He could not help but see a bit of humor in his friend’s statement. Somehow he could not see Annemarie or Stormy mincing about in dainty dresses all day working on useless pieces of tapestry.

Thomas rubbed his chin and shook his head. “It’ll prove a bit tricky and I hate to do it, but the only way is to sneak through Stormy’s bedchamber and shake my brother awake. Let’s hope Annemarie is a sound sleeper.”

Trevor came abruptly awake, the moment a hand suddenly, and none too gently, covered his mouth. His heart slammed wildly against his chest, while he tried to make sense out of what was happening. His mind whirled with ideas like a hamster in a cage. Had Snowden somehow found his way into Emerald Hills? Had they come for him and Thomas? He repressed the urge to fight back, afraid he would waken Annemarie. He hoped they only wanted him and as long as she slept she might not be in immediate danger.

He slowly realized that the hand covering his mouth had relaxed the slightest fraction, so he cautiously opened one eye. Fury raced through him, when he recognized Thomas. Struggling to a sitting position, he shoved his hand away. Damn he ought to punch him, brother or not for scaring the wits out of him. Only when he saw the seriousness of his expression and the finger of caution he held against his lips did he calm some.

Trevor nodded his understanding and slipped silently from bed. He was nude, but judging by his brother’s expression he refrained from apologizing and simply grabbed for his breeches. He hesitated, when Thomas opened the door to Stormy’s bedchamber.