Capturing Sir Dunnicliffe (The Star Elite Series) (4 page)

But running up the hill was easier said than done. He tried to keep as quiet as possible,
but was aware of the sound of his boots hitting the cobbles echoing through the deserted streets, acting as a beacon to his assailant. He began to get confused. Was the sound of footsteps coming from his boots, or the assassins? He couldn’t be sure, and wished he had the time to stop for long enough to check, but daren’t risk any losing any of the precious distance he had created between them.

For endless minutes he turned from one narrow street, into another, then another as he tried to get to the top of the hill
and out of the village, using the most confusing route for his assailant to follow.

A
t the corner of the next street he slowed down for long enough to glance behind him, and was assailed by a wave of dizziness so strong that he had to lean against a low wall beside him for support. He could feel the steady drip of blood falling from the end of his fingers, and knew he was losing far too much, too quickly.

If
he wasn’t careful, he would risk passing out.

Gasping for breath, he cursed fluidly at the sight of the shadowy figure gaining rapidly
on him and hated the man for his persistence.

By the thin light of the partial
moon, he saw the man raise his arm, and ducked just as the white flash of the gun firing lit the narrow street for a brief moment. The top of the stone wall beside him suddenly splintered, sending shards of stone and dust into the air.

Hugo
broke into a run, turning around the next corner and heading further up the hill. It seemed to take him forever to get to the top, and away from the last line of houses that marked the edge of Port Isaac.

He thought he hear
d faint shouting from the village behind him, and hoped the last shot had woken the villagers, prompting them to investigate the noise. He threw a glance over his shoulder, swearing roundly when he stumbled on the uneven rocks, but found no reassurance in the empty road behind him.

Determined not to be lulled into a false sense of security, Hugo
ran as fast as his legs could carry him. He could only hope the assailant had been forced to hide while the villagers were searching the village. He ran down a narrow cart track at the back of the last line of houses, taking the only route left available to him without doubling back and re-entering the village. The risk of meeting his assailant head-on was too great. In a shoot-out, with his arm as badly injured as it was, Hugo would undoubtedly lose.

At the end of the narrow track, t
here was a left turning lined with high hedgerows that would give him enough protection from his attacker’s line of shot. As he ran, he mentally plotted the village’s layout, considering the route, and wondering if there was any street he may have missed that the attacker could use to draw close.

He
was assailed with a mixture of jubilation and desperation as he reached the end of the road. He paused long enough to see the dark shadow of his assailant run out onto the end of the track far behind him. Clearly the man had been forced to hide for a few minutes, driven undercover by the anxious villagers, but wasn’t prepared to give up until Hugo was dead.

Given
his assailant’s determination, Hugo knew that this was no random or local attack. This was a trained assassin, sent to achieve a goal. A professional hit man who would not give up until they had succeeded and Hugo was dead. Hugo had been in his job long enough to know that the assassin probably wouldn’t get paid until he could present his boss with the evidence of Hugo’s demise. That made him more dangerous than someone just out for revenge. It also made Hugo’s situation even more perilous, and he could only consider himself lucky that he hadn’t gone to the boat house as suggested.

With a curse, Hugo
peered through the gloom for any gap in the hedge he could use to get off the road. It took far too long, and he was aware that his pace was slowing considerably with each passing step. Usually physically fit, he knew his tiredness wasn’t down to the long run uphill; it was down to the amount of blood he had lost. He tried to bend his arm and wipe the blood off his hand, and cursed when his numb fingers wouldn’t react, leaving his arm to hang uselessly by his side. 

He almost missed the small gap in the privet, and slammed to a halt so swiftly
that he almost fell over himself. Chest heaving with exertion, he pushed through the thick wall of foliage and at last was heading in the direction of his horse. He hoped his assailant hadn’t found the tethered animal earlier, and shot it, or released it to roam free.

Once or twice he
stumbled on the uneven field, which slowed his pace even further. Having been roughly ploughed, the dips and hollows beneath his boots did little to help his dizziness. He swallowed the bile in his throat; his stomach heaved, and he knew he was going to be sick.

Afterwards,
he wiped the back of his mouth with his working hand and awkwardly drew his gun. Although he wasn’t sure his vision was steady enough to get a clear shot, it gave him some reassurance to have the heavy weapon in his hand. Exhaustion clawed at him, dragging his footsteps and hindering his every movement. He had already begun to tremble with exertion, and felt sweat bead on his brow in spite of the coolness of the night air.

He paused at the end of the field
to catch his breath. The silence of the night settled around him. Hidden in the shadows of the hedge, he took a moment to study the field behind him. The night was so dark he couldn’t even see the far end of the field. There was simply no way of knowing where the gunman was. If he had any chance of survival, he had to continue as though the man was still behind him.

Climbing the gate
beside him was the hardest thing he had ever done. With only one arm, and plagued with dizziness that made the whole landscape swirl and collide in a confusing blur, it was inevitable that he would fall.

As he hit the
ground, he landed too heavily on his injured arm. Pain immediately exploded down from the injury in his upper arm, lancing the limb in burning fury that ran right down to his fingertips. He became immediately aware of a feeling of wetness in his palm, and knew that the blood flow had increased. Rolling on to his back, he lay on the uneven ground and stared blankly up at the heavy clouds hovering threateningly high above.

He
knew that he didn’t have long to live and, for one brief moment, wondered if tonight was the night he was going to die. He had been a soldier for nearly all of his adult life. It was all he knew and, given the risks he regularly took with his life, it was possible that he would be killed doing his job. He just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. There was so much more he wanted to do with his life. Cursing his own stupidity, he clenched his teeth and rolled into a sitting position.

He had a choice
. He could either remain where he was, and wait for the assassin to catch up with him, or he could get up and find somewhere to hide while he dealt with his wound.

Immediately his thoughts turned to Jemima and
Eliza’s old house. It would be perfect: it was empty, and unlikely to draw anyone’s attention. When - if – he got out of this situation with his life, he would take the opportunity to drop by Willowbrook Hall and explain to Jemima and Eliza what had happened, and offer to pay for any damage he did to their house while gaining entrance.

For a brief moment, he wished that Peter was there to watch his back.
He felt entirely isolated from the rest of the world, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Cursing under his breath, he
half-lay, half-sat beneath the shelter of the hedge for several moments, and tried to quieten his heavy breathing so he didn’t give his position away. He was incredibly vulnerable but needed to stem the steady flow of blood seeping from his arm, before he bled to death. Easing the thick band of black cloth from around his face, Hugo clumsily tied it around his wound. At the first touch of the rough cloth against the raw flesh, pain reverberated down his arm as the burning around the hole increased tenfold. A low moan escaped him despite the precariousness of his situation, and he felt sweat pop out on his brow. His breath sawed in and out and he fought to stem the rising tide of blackness that threatened to overwhelm him. It was sheer determination that fought off the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness long enough for him to use his teeth to tie the cloth around his wound as tightly as he could stand. He swallowed when his stomach lurched in protest at the additional pain, and he wondered if he could make it to Padstow.

He knew that if the assassin appeared then
, his life would be over. He was simply loath to lie there to wait for his assailant to catch up with him, and pick him off at will or for the Frenchmen and their protectors to stumble upon him. Lurching clumsily to his feet, he cursed at the sheer effort such a simple task took. He was exhausted. His body protested vehemently, and he swayed alarmingly for several moments, which didn’t help his already churning stomach.

He was fully aware that with every moment he hesitated, his chances of survival diminished. With urgency nipping at his heels, he paused only long enough to allow his recalcitrant body to co
-operate. As he stood silently waiting for the world to settle, Hugo became aware of heavy thudding sounds around him. Immediately backing up to the fragile protection of the hedge, he waited. In less than a minute, four riders thundered over the horizon, their outlines clearly visible even through the inky blackness as they crested the brow of the hill and disappeared into the night. He watched as they veered away from the cliffs, and Padstow, and headed inland.

A small part of Hugo br
eathed a huge sigh of relief at the realisation that at least one of the immediate threats to his safety had been eradicated, even if it did leave the most lethal threat still free to roam and claim him.

Urgency swept through him with renewed determination, pushing Hugo away from the sheltered protection of the hedge and into the open field.
It was imperative he get to his horse as quickly as possible. That meant not taking any additional routes. He simply didn’t have the strength.

He seemed
to have been walking for miles, but in reality it was most probably only a few minutes. Unless he was much mistaken, he had already begun to weave, and thinking about anything suddenly seemed like such a difficult thing to do. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to concentrate on the simple task of placing one foot in front of the other.

As he walked across the field, his thoughts turned toward the house in Padstow that could prove to be his salvation – if only he could get there. Immediately the image of a hauntingly
beautiful face swam before his vision so strongly that he wondered if he was hallucinating. The image of her was so real, so clear to him, that she could have been standing in the middle of the field right before him, and he realised that he really had no choice.

At least at Harriett’s house there were herbs, potions and tinctures. He could only hope that Harriett had labelled them clearly enough for someone like him to follow. She may have something that he could use on his wound
to prevent infection, and help restore his energy enough for him return to London and report his findings to his associates.

Thankfully Harriett
was safely tucked away at Willowbrook Hall, saving him from the indignity of having to ask her for help. That was something that he absolutely refused to do.

It didn’t bother
him that she was a witch. He had never even considered it important before now, and it didn’t make him think any less of her. If he was honest, nothing could make him think any less of her. His gratitude that she was miles away meant that her presence around him wouldn’t make him want things he had no business wanting.

The future was precious enough without Harriett making him wish for rainbows.

Until he was strong enough to go after the assassin and obtain his revenge, Harriett’s presence in her own home would undoubtedly put her in danger. If he was the only one at her cottage and the assassin found him, then the resultant battle would be between the two of them and Harriett wouldn’t be caught in the middle.

Right now he couldn’t
even protect himself; the last thing he needed was to have to protect Harriett as well. 

Hugo almost collapsed to his knees
in relief when he saw the shadow of the solitary yew tree at the far end of the next field. Although he hadn’t heard any sounds of movement for a long time, that didn’t mean that the gunman wasn’t behind him, posing just as much of a risk to his safety as he had back in Port Isaac.

A
surge of excitement swept through him when he saw the outline of his horse still tethered beneath the tree. The dejected droop of the horse’s head was enough to assure Hugo that nobody had been near the beast since Hugo had tied him there earlier the previous evening. The horse perked up at Hugo’s approach, clearly relieved that someone was finally going to get him out of the rain.

Standing beside the
horse’s reassuring bulk, Hugo took a moment to check that nobody had tampered with the saddle and girth before standing back to contemplate the new problem that presented itself. He somehow had to climb on to the horse, using only one hand, fighting the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm him at any moment. Shaking his head at the enormity of the task, Hugo untied the horse, taking a moment to re-holster his gun before he slid his foot into the stirrup nearest to him, and used every ounce of his remaining strength to launch himself upward.