Spellbound (22 page)

“Then you must know I am
also the Duchess of Windhaven. The new king will not take kindly to
his friend’s wife being raped and murdered.”

If possible, his smile
grew. “My dear Swan, do you honestly believe I will be caught at
this late date?”

Something of her fear must
have shown on her face. His laugh this time was mocking—but he
actually stopped stalking her.

“I will wait.” His tone
suggested she not view this as the reprieve it sounded. “Your fear
will grow, heightening my pleasure.” He grinned evilly.

But she honestly couldn’t
consider it anything but a relief.

He moved again, not
stalking, but simply moved to her side gripping her arm painfully.
He flung her across the room towards the back. She stumbled,
catching herself against the opposite doorjamb.

“Sleep in there.” With
that, he walked out.

Raven’s knees wobbled and
gave out beneath her. She sank to the floor, as gracefully as she
ever did as Juliet.

The sobs that threatened to
wrack her body were determinedly held back. She had to think and
she had no idea when he would return.

The Marquess of Beverley
was alive. This seemed to echo through her panicked mind along with
the thought that she would never get out alive.

Unless she killed
him.

And she knew, without a
doubt, that she would have to.

Blinking, Raven realized
she must have fallen asleep. A sense of panic rose up to overwhelm
her. Had he returned? Did she lose her only opportunity of
escape?

It occurred to her that
should she manage to escape, she had no idea where to go. She knew
she was still near Windhaven but she had no idea in which direction
she’d traveled.

Moving with incredible
slowness due to the still aching sensation in her shoulder and
head, Raven made her way back to the outer room.

Once there, she realized it
was several hours later, full dark, and Beverley had yet to
return.

She stifled the sigh of
relief and strode over to the table. Grabbing up a hunk of cheese,
she bit into it, determined to keep up her strength should the
ability to flee arise. She could only manage to force a few bites
before she tossed the rest back on the tray. The wine she avoided.
He may have poisoned it.

Taking up the small knife,
Raven tested the edge, pleased to see it was quite sharp. He must
have believed she would not have the nerve to attack him—or else he
didn’t believe she could do much damage with the small blade.
Regardless, she slipped the knife into the pocket of her cloak. Any
sort of weapon was better than none at all.

She peeked out the door,
meeting nothing but Stygian gloom in all directions. Light of some
sort would have been nice, but she knew it would make her a sitting
duck in the darkness.

There was nothing for it.
She had to take her chances.

It didn’t occur to her to
wonder at the unbolted door.

She had been walking for
what felt like hours. She passed trees, denuded of their leaves,
eerily grotesque in the dim light cast by a partial moon breaching
the clouds.

The cold was starting to
seep into her bones. Shivering, she pressed onward, sure she was
going in the right direction and, even if she wasn’t, the well-worn
path suggested something was at the other end.

Then she heard it. The
cracking of a twig or branch.

Glancing quickly to her
right, she stopped moving, listening with all her might.

Utter silence.

Cautiously, she began to
move again. Another twig snapped. She stopped.

Nothing.

Her heart pounding in her
throat, Raven tried not to think of brigands, wild animals, and
most of all, Lord Beverley. If she pondered what might become of
her should she stumble across any of those three, she just might go
stark, staring mad.

Closing her half-frozen
fingers around the knife in her pocket, she began moving again,
watching all around for signs of her unwelcome companion. She
prayed that she could remember even half of the self-defense
measures Adam had insisted on teaching her.

This time the sound came
from her left. Were there two of them, who or whatever they
were?

Turning slowly, she tried
to pierce the inky darkness behind her. Still turning, she scanned
all around her, looking for any sign of someone else.

Presently, she came back to
her starting point, looked straight ahead…

And screamed.

“My lovely bird, where do
you think you are going?”

His tone held the same
inflection one would use to comment on the weather, as though he
had no real interest in her reply.

He probably
didn’t.

Raven gripped the knife
tightly, almost tempted to move closer to him. His lips twisted
sardonically, as if reading her thoughts.

She cautiously pulled the
knife from her pocket. Beverley watched her movement, his smile
growing until he released a short laugh.

“What do you hope to do
with that, my pretty raven? Will you stick me between the ribs?
Here, let me help.” He opened his cloak and jacket, unbuttoned his
waistcoat and shirt, exposing his chest. Pointing, he continued
mockingly, “Right here, my dear Swan. Stick it here if you want to
do me in.”

Not pausing to think, Raven
threw herself forward. She kept the knife up, hoping he would watch
it.

He did. He never saw her
other fist until it was too late.

Being a woman, her punch
did not contain the power she might have wished but it was enough
to knock him off balance. He stumbled to the side, surprise and
then rage contorting his features.

Raven didn’t hesitate then
to strike out with the knife. She struck out and up, catching him
exactly where he had pointed, between his ribs near his
heart.

He fell back, falling
slowly to the ground in what Raven personally thought of as a
slightly overacted death scene. His eyes grew huge in his white
face as he clutched frantically at his chest, rivulets of blood
seeping through his fingers to drip and pool on the
ground.

Raven stood transfixed. The
coppery smell of spilled blood filled the cold night air, making
her gag. She finally managed to stumble away to retch in the
bushes.

Glancing back, she noted
how still he was, his eyes open, unseeing.

She supposed, considering
his propensity to come back from the dead, she should walk over to
make sure that he was actually gone. After a moment of
consideration, she decided she simply couldn’t get that close to
him.

So she skirted around him,
continuing in the direction she had already been
traveling.

She was sure several more
hours had passed. Streaks of dawn colored the night sky. By now,
she was shaking uncontrollably, her feet and hands were numb along
with parts of her face, and moving forward had become a matter of
momentum rather than actual movement. It was only a matter of time
before she would fall down, succumbing to the overwhelming urge she
had to sleep…and never wake up.

But she was determined to
go as far as possible. She would not die knowing she hadn’t even
tried.

If she actually made it,
she swore she would do whatever Tristan wanted. If he wanted her to
stay his wife despite the probable scandal, she would not decline
the honor.

How she was able to walk
away before was something she didn’t understand now, and maybe
never would.

Her preoccupation was
shattered by the smell of smoke. Looking up, she realized she had
stumbled across a small farmstead. Forcing her feet to turn in the
direction of the building, she made it halfway down the short lane
before she collapsed.

The search continued.
Tristan sat at his desk, taking care of certain things that simply
couldn’t be put off any longer—as he had been ordered to do by Lord
Connor after telling that gentleman to go to hell. He had been a
little too anxious and had stopped paying attention to what he was
saying. He knew Northwicke was hoping the normality of everyday
life would help calm him. He had no such hope but diligently tried.
And he hoped that by allowing Prestwich and Northwicke to take the
lead, they would find Beverley. They knew him the best, after
all.

Lord Huntley burst through
the door.

“They found a
body!”

Tristan’s heart stopped. He
had to swallow around a sudden lump in his throat. Please don’t let
it be Raven, he prayed silently.

“Who?”

The earl shrugged. “Some
peasant, apparently. He’d been shot through the head. They suspect
it was Beverley.”

Tristan released the breath
he’d been unaware he’d been holding. “Indeed? Where?”

“A few miles west of here
towards Speldhurst.”

“Speldhurst? Has the area
been thoroughly searched?”

Huntley nodded. “They found
an abandoned cottage with evidence of recent habitation. Prestwich
suspects it is where Beverley took her.”

Tristan stared at him
blankly. “So where are they?” he asked, meaning the marquess and
his captive.

Huntley shook his head.
“The search is continuing on to Speldhurst. Lord Connor suspects
Raven may have escaped and tried to make her way there.”

It was the first time the
earl had called his sister by her adopted name. Tristan looked at
him with sympathy, wondering if perhaps the younger man had finally
decided to accept her decision to maintain her
obscurity.

As if reading his mind,
Huntley grimaced. “It’s hard to think of her as Rachael when
everyone calls her Raven, you know. Besides, no matter how much we
all may wish it, she is no longer the pampered daughter of an
aristocrat.” He sighed. “She is Raven more than she ever was
Rachael.”

The duke commiserated with
the earl. “I understand,” he said softly. Then, with far more
optimism than he actually felt, he added, “Join me for a ride into
Speldhurst. Perhaps Grey’s wife has heard something.”

The two gentlemen caught up
with the searchers just outside of Windhaven.

“What news?” the duke
asked.

Lord Connor spoke up.
“Nothing conclusive. There is some evidence of a tussle near
Speldhurst but it could have been a couple of animals, for all we
know.”

The duke commanded his
lungs to continue breathing. “Any blood?”

Adam nodded. “Quite a bit,
actually. But, once again, it could have been a pair of
animals.”

“Very well. Huntley and I
continue on to Speldhurst. Perhaps my brother’s wife has heard
something.”

He ignored the twin looks
of surprise on the other men’s faces. Gesturing imperiously, he and
Huntley left the others.

“Do you really believe Lady
Greyden will know something, or do you seek to distract
yourself?”

Tristan viewed his love’s
brother with a mixture of annoyance and amusement at his
perspicacity. “Both, I suppose.”

Huntley nodded, apparently
satisfied. They rode on in silence, each watching for any sign of
Beverley or Raven.

Huntley was the first to
see the blood.

“Sir Adam did not
exaggerate, did he?” the earl mumbled, looking a little green about
the gills.

Adam had, in fact,
underestimated the amount of blood spilled. Much of it had been
trampled by several pairs of iron-shod hooves and blended into the
dirt, leaving nothing more than a dark patch in the
roadway.

Tristan swore, toyed with
the idea of dismounting, then decided against it. “Let us move on.
I’m sure this area has been well searched by now.”

It was several hundred feet
down the road that Huntley released an earsplitting scream. The
duke turned his head in time to see the earl on the ground,
struggling with what appeared to be a mass of tattered
blankets.

Another scream erupted.
Tristan realized the ragged mass was a man, apparently a madman.
Cocking his pistol, Tristan tried to sight in Huntley’s attacker
but they moved too much.

With a grunt of annoyance,
he dismounted and strode to the men on the ground.

It wasn’t until he nearly
stepped on them that he realized the ragged mass of humanity was
the very man for whom they searched.

Growling with instant fury,
Tristan reached down and hauled the man off the earl, shaking him
until he ceased moving.

“Where is she?” he barked
into the man’s face.

Raising his head slowly,
the man the duke was informed was the Marquess of Beverley—whom,
incidentally, he’d met once several years ago—met his eyes with a
look so demoniac that Tristan could not help himself. He
recoiled.

Never, in all his
thirty-five years, in all his travels, battles, etc., had he ever
encountered such an expression. This man was far beyond mad; he was
possessed.