The Captain's Caress (50 page)

They were so taken up in their hilarity that they didn’t hear the distinctive call of a night bird, but a second and louder call prompted Madelena to pause and listen. “Something is wrong,” she said, suddenly serious. “That’s Roberto’s danger signal. You’ll have to go.”

“I can’t leave now.” Brent was unwilling to abandon his wife and son. But the call came yet again.

“Move!” Madelena commanded, and her alarm communicated itself to the others. “Roberto would not call three times unless he feared you were in mortal danger.” When Brent still hesitated, she hissed, “Hurry or we may yet lose everything.”

Brent went to the window; he was surprised to find it completely dark outside. Roberto was kneeling before a small fire in front of the wagon. When Brent opened the door and listened intently, the sounds of shod hooves on stone were carried to him.

“Someone’s coming, several riders from the sound of it,” he whispered to Madelena. “Turn down the lantern and keep quiet.” He darted out the door and around behind the farmhouse. Then he crouched low and sprinted to the narrow hedge that separated it from the fields. Moving along that until he came to a point just beyond the wagon, he halted a few yards from the fire and the crouching figures of Roberto and his dog. Stacks of rifles stood near the gypsy, and Brent cursed under his breath for forgetting to arm himself. He could not get to the rifles without revealing his presence.

The horses, still enveloped in the inky blackness of the night, came closer and closer until they halted just outside the range of the firelight.

“What are you doing on this land?” The resonant voice attracted Brent’s attention as Gowan drew his horse close enough for the fire to illuminate his features.

“Camping for the night,” Roberto answered without raising his eyes.

“I don’t allow Gypsies on my land. Camp somewhere else.”

Brent strained to see how many men accompanied Gowan.

“I can’t,” said the still motionless Roberto. “I was heading to the fair when one of my women took sick. She’s lying in that farmhouse now.”

“Go see if what he says is true,” Gowan directed, and two men dismounted and headed toward the farmhouse.

“I wouldn’t go in,” Roberto cautioned. “She’s infectious.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Gowan asked skeptically.

“Smallpox.” The men fell back at those words.

“Don’t stop,” Gowan bellowed.

“I can hear some female groaning from out here, your lordship.”

“You can’t keep her here,” the earl said irritably to Roberto.

“I can’t take her away until she’s better, or until she dies,” Roberto responded phlegmatically. “I stopped here because it’s far from the other farms.”

“Where are the rest of your people?” Gowan was aware of the danger of smallpox, but he was suspicious. “I never knew Gypsies to travel alone.”

“They’ve gone on without me. They don’t want the pox either. Some may come back tonight.” Brent moved noiselessly along the hedge until the mounted men were between him and the fire. Gowan had brought six men, all armed. He and Roberto would be hard pressed to hold off seven men alone, even with two dozen rifles.

“Have you passed any travelers these last two days?” Gowan inquired.

“What kind of traveler might you be looking for?” Roberto asked.

“One of our women is missing. She’s expecting a child soon, and we think she’s wandering in her mind. She may be lost and unable to find her way home.”

“We didn’t meet any woman on foot.”

“She wasn’t on foot. She was driving a wagon.”

“We didn’t meet any wagons.” Gowan looked at the barn.

“What’s in there?” he said nodding in that direction.

“My horses,” replied Roberto.

“But your wagon has only a single trace.”

“I ride the other, or tie it behind,” said the ever-inventive Gypsy. Gowan gestured impatiently and two men moved toward the barn. They had almost reached the door when a terrible scream came from the farmhouse and Fiona came running out. The other men stumbled all over themselves trying to get out of her way.

“I need water,” she squawked, grabbing up a half-filled pail by the door and brandishing her fist in the air before rushing back in. The men drew back. They had seen Madelena bend over a writhing female in the dim light of the lantern and that was enough for them. They needed no encouragement to retreat to the fire. The one nearing the barn stopped outside the door, and the other only stuck his head inside long enough to catch the sound of horses moving about in their stalls.

“Just two old nags,” he said as he returned to the fire. During the distraction created by the women, a Gypsy had materialized out of the night and taken up a position to one side of Roberto. He was watching Gowan with steely eyes. Behind the hedge, Brent smiled to himself; Roberto would have made a fine ship’s captain.

Gowan peered intently into the blank face of Roberto, trying to see behind the mask. He had no reason to doubt his story, but he distrusted all Gypsies. He was still undecided as to whether to leave when the night air was punctured by a piercing wail. “I want you off this land first thing tomorrow, and don’t bury her carcass here if she dies.” Another Gypsy arrived and squatted by the fire, his head cocked. His keen ears had caught the sound of many feet approaching along the route he had just traveled.

“The old lord let us camp on his land,” Roberto said sullenly.

“The old lord is dead, and this is my land now.” Gowan had not failed to notice Roberto’s reinforcements.

“What about the young lord?”

“The young lord’s dead, too. There are no more Douglases.” Gowan’s last words were nearly cut off by the unmistakable cry of a baby.

“What was that?” he demanded, whipping around in the direction of the sound.

“That was the sound of a new generation of Douglases,” Brent announced as he stepped from behind the hedge into the light.

Chapter 47

“You!”
The monosyllable was torn from Gowan’s unwilling throat.

“I’m not very easy to kill.”

“I’ll make sure you die this time.” Burning with rage, Gowan shouted to his men, “Take him! Take him, you cowardly fools!” But while Gowan was gaping at Brent, the Gypsies had taken up their arms, and Gowan’s men found themselves looking into the barrels of three very businesslike pistols.

“Your men can’t help you now, Gowan. You’re going to have to take me yourself, if you think you can.”

Gowan’s fury didn’t blind him to Brent’s formidable bulk, nor to the fact that it wasn’t likely that one man would be able to overpower him. “You’ll never get out of Scotland alive,” he snarled. “I’ll see that a dozen officers are waiting for you at every port.”

“I’m not running away this time. We’re going to settle this right now.”

“You wouldn’t dare try to kill me,” Gowan scoffed.

“Why not?”

“They’d hang you.”

“They can only hang me once—for two murders or for one.”

Cowan’s expression lost some of its arrogance. Instinctively he looked to his men and was shaken to see that a third Gypsy had materialized out of the night; the numbers were almost equal now. “Is this a pirate’s idea of fairness?” he demanded, pointing to Roberto’s armed men with feigned contempt.

“I’ve been shot in the back once already,” Brent snapped. He was beginning to lose patience. “I don’t want it to happen again.”

Gowan’s face became rigid with fury, and he gripped the reins so hard his knuckles turned white.

The protagonists were so completely involved in the confrontation, they were oblivious to approaching hoofbeats until Wigmore burst into the light astride a winded old gray. He was followed by Smith, a half-dozen of Brent’s crew, and a score of his tenants. It was a small, ragtag army, but it bowled Gowan over.

“What are you doing here?” asked an astonished Brent.

Wigmore was too saddlesore to dismount. “Thank goodness I reached you in time,” he said. “I was afraid I would be too late.”

“Too late for what? And where did all these people come from?”

“I heard the earl say he was going to search your land. I ran into your first mate on the way, he insisted upon coming with me, and people joined us as we went along. I didn’t know you already had help.” He smiled at the Gypsies.

“You will pay for this,” Gowan thundered. “You will all regret hindering justice.”

“Justice is about to be served for the first time since Lord Robert was foolish enough to entrust his family to you,” Wigmore intoned dramatically, waving a handful of papers above his head. “At last, I have proof of your infamy.”

“Do you mean we can prove he stole Father’s money?” Brent asked, jolted into forgetting the danger Gowan still posed.

“That and a lot more,” Wigmore announced proudly. “The sheriff is already at the castle with orders to arrest the earl.”

“You doddering old fool. Nobody would take your word over mine,” Gowan said disdainfully.

“They don’t have to. I found the box you hid in the crypt below the chapel. When the countess mentioned her mother’s marriage, I remembered where you and Mr. Robert used to hide things when you were boys. I don’t know why I never thought of it before. Where else could it have been when I’d already searched the castle twice over without finding a thing?”

“You
dared
to search my home?” Gowan roared.

“Why else do you think I agreed to work for you?” Wigmore regarded his master with devastating contempt. “I even found the letters Lord Robert wrote to his wife.”

“You have no proof that I’ve done anything wrong. The money was all lost in speculation.”

“That’s not what your clerk said.”

The confident smirk disappeared from Gowan’s face.

“He was
most
helpful after the sheriff explained that he could be held equally accountable. Furthermore the Gypsy woman saw Ben murdered, and Ceddy and Bailey can hardly wait to swear they were only following your orders.”

“And Summer is
my
wife,” Brent announced before the gathered crowd could completely absorb these last revelations. “Your marriage contract was never properly drawn up. A new one has been made, witnessed, and safely recorded in Havana.”

Gowan could see the circle closing around him. The fruits of a lifetime were slipping from his hands into the hands of his hated enemy. His mounting rage was communicated to his horse and the animal became restive.

“You’re dispossessed of lands, money, wife, and power at a single blow, Gowan. Not even your powerful friends can save you now,” Brent declared.

Suddenly, the last of Gowan’s control left him. “If I must rot in hell, I’ll take you with me,” he roared, and before the astounded onlookers he pulled a small pistol from inside his coat and fired point-blank at Brent. Anticipating some kind of treachery, Brent threw himself to the ground so quickly that the bullet only grazed his shoulder, and bellowing with black rage, Gowan dug his spurs savagely into the sides of his mount. As the pain-crazed animal reared and struck out with lethal hooves, the men that had surged forward drew back, permitting Gowan to wheel his horse and gallop the frantic animal through the heart of Roberto’s small fire, killing the flame and scattering the coals in the grass. The Gypsies fired into the night, but darkness had closed about Gowan and they had no hope of bringing him down. Two of Roberto’s men hurried to where they had hidden their horses, though they knew it would be almost impossible to follow Gowan on such a moonless night.

The women had followed the events from inside the farmhouse, but when the fire went out, they could no longer see what was happening. The sound of gunfire brought Summer up from her bed.

“Lie back down,” Fiona ordered, picking up the baby from the bed. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“I’ve got to find Brent,” Summer rasped, staggering to her feet. “I’ve got to go to him.” Ignoring Fiona’s protests, she pulled herself across the room. No one noticed the bedraggled woman who appeared in the doorway, wrapped in a sheet. Haggard, she stared at the men around Brent.

“Brent.” The piteous wail came from her when she saw him emerge from the group huddled outside, and then she sagged against the doorway. Brent was at her side and scooping her into his arms before she could slide to the ground.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” he said, forgetting Gowan in his concern for Summer. “Where is the baby?”

“I have him.” Fiona emerged from the farmhouse. “She would get up no matter what I said.”

“I couldn’t just lie there while you were in danger. What kind of wife would I be?”

“The only one I’ll ever want,” said Brent, seating her gently in the chair Madelena was quick to provide. Fiona held out the baby to Summer, but she nodded toward Brent. He pulled back the edge of the blanket and gazed at the tiny face that stared back at him curiously. Clear blue eyes and fair hair, what there was of it, stamped the infant as Brent’s son.

“Do you really like him?” Summer asked timidly.

“I like him very much, but not nearly as much as his mother.”

“We come together.”