Light to Valhalla (8 page)

“I say we’re
askin
’
fe
r
t
rouble not
doin
’ the job we was
hired for,”
Halverson
argued
.
“Goin’ to get ourselves burn
t with naught a penny to show fe
r it.”

“Look, mate,
when I saw Lord
Coverstone
ridin
’ through London this
evenin
’ I knew we’d struck gold.
”

“‘
O
w
do ye know it was ‘
im
?  And wh
at makes
ye
so sure he’ll pay fe
r the lady?”

“I served under L
ord Major
Coverstone
back when ‘
e
weren’t no lord at all,”
Johnston
growled,
his tone sugg
ested
a
less than pleasant history
.
“‘E
ain’t
the sort to
leave ‘
is wife
to our devices
.
He’ll pay.
”

“What of our
employer?”

Who? 
It took every ounce of
Charley
’s self-
control to remain still and not scream the question aloud.

“We’ll be clear to Scotland ‘a
fore
Coverstone
get
s
back to London
with the little lady and anyone’s the wiser
.
Or…
we could find a way to collect on both
th
e original job and the ransom
.
”

Silent tears tremble
d behind clenched eyelids, and p
anic threatened to consume her
.
The desire to jump up and run hell
bent from the campsite was strong
.
Perhaps she could reach one of their horses and escape
.
S
he felt
so
alone
.
Completely exposed and vulnerable
.
Lord only knew what the brigand’s would do to her if
Alex
didn’t comply with their demands
.
And she had no reason to believe her husband would
.
He certainly wouldn’t rush gallantly to her rescue as her wild imagination so desired to
entertain
.
With effort she reigned the rampant thoughts back in
.

Keep your wits
together,
Charley
.
You can do this
.

Control was
key
.
She needed
a weapon
.
Even a sharp stick would do
.
S
he
cracked
one eye
lid
,
covertly
surveying the surrounding area
.
The fire cast
a glow of no more than ten feet around the menial encampment
, beyond that
shadows
bobbed and weaved
, glancing
eerily
off the trees
.
She gulped
.
Running alone through these woods was looking a decidedly undesirable option
.
The night was black as pitch,
she had no idea where she was,
and s
he had no sense of direction—had once gotten lost behind her father’s house
;
Alex
of all people
had found
her
and
helped
her home
.
Charley
clamped a lid on those memories
.
That
was a long time ago; h
e
’
d not be r
iding to her rescue or bailing her out of trouble this time
.

“Come to think of it.
”
Johnston
dragged a lazy finger along his chin, and
the fire illumina
ted his lanky frame as he stood
.
“I don’t see why
we can’t have a little fun
wit
’
her after all
.
‘I
s lordship won’t know
til
after h
e’s paid up
.
The sum
bitch owes me a woman anyway.
”

Horror stricken
Charley
could not tear her gaze from t
he intimidating figure
as his feet
crunched through the snow ever closer
.
She held her breath, trying not to move, desperate
to appear sleeping
.
P
erhaps he would leave her alone, at least
for as long as he believed her asleep
.
She knew she should close her eyes, but her body refused to cooperate with
logic, fear reigned supreme
.

“W
e should sport with ‘
er
and then just slit ‘
er
throat
.
Stickin
’ to the original plan is the thing to do,
Johnston
, I’m
tellin
’
ye
.
”
Ha
lv
e
r
son stood
as well
, a
long knife cradled in his palm
.
The flames glinted lethally
off the blade
.
“‘
O
u
want to go first?”

First?
 
Oh, God…
Charley
wished she didn’t know what
sport
the demons referred to,
but even she was not so naïve
.
The time had come to act
.
She must do
something.

“Well, look who’s awake.
”
Johnston
’s black eyes locked with hers, a menacing
leer stretched
slowly
across h
is face, and h
is tongue swept
lude
ly
across his lips.

Charley
scrambled to her feet, grabbing up one of the unburned fire logs piled
beside
her
.
“Do not touch me,” she warned, more than prepared to
take a swing at
Johnston
’s
head
.
She threw a harried glance toward
Halverson
.
Could she hit them both and make a break for the horses?  Lost and freezing was certainly better than beaten, raped, and most probably murdered
.

His rotten grin widened
.
“What do ye
know, Johnny boy,
we’ve got ourselves a feisty little miss
.”

Three

“Aren’t we go
ing to save her?
”

Alex
rested a restraining hand on
Sidney
’s vibrating shoulder
.
“Steady
.
Wait until the moment is right
.
We’ll do this just as we planned
on the way in.
”

In all he was amazed at
how eas
y discovering
Charley
had been
.
Not an hour before
,
he and
Sidney
had run across an overturned carriage bearing the
Coverstone
seal
near
Harvetshire
Road
.
Saunders, the family driver
,
and a dead horse still lay along the ditch
.
Alex
hated to leave
them
, but time was of the essence and he
plann
ed to send men back for the bodies
as soon
as possible
.
F
rom there, f
ollowing the trail
through the
snow had been painfully simple
.

“That son
of a bitch is going to rape her,
”
Sidney pressed
.

“Not yet,”
Alex
murmured, watching
Charlotte
spar with the idiot Steven
Johnston
.
The sight of
Johnston
confirmed his
conviction Witherspoon was the mastermind behind
Charlotte
’s abduction
.
“Right now he’s just toying with her
.
Stay calm and follow my lead,
Sid
.”

“You forget, Lord Major
Coverstone
, that you no longer out rank me.”

“And you forget, Captain Harris, I wasn’t stupid enough to get shot
in the ass
by my own weapon.”

Sidney
winced
.
“Low blow,
Alex
.”

“
P
oint
made
.
We’re doing this my way.”

Sidney
mer
ely grunted in response, eyes riveted to
Charlotte
circling
the fire
, a
log clutched in both hands
.
Flames
glanced lethally off
her
sparkling green eyes,
and the half hazard tumble of curly
red
hair
blazed in the flickering orange
f
irelight
.
Fairy sprite?
  Not hardly
.
S
he
bore more resemblance to
a
soldier he’d gladly place on the front lines
than a
n impish
marchioness
.

“Once both their backs are to us, we’ll go in
.
”
Inwardly
Alex
roiled with fury
.
He wanted nothing more than to charge into the camp and beat the bloody pulp out of the bastards
.
Instinctively he fell back to years of training and
self
discipline
.
It was as though two men existed
inside
him
.
One riddled with anger and confusion while the other analyzed the situation with
the
cool, clinical indifference
of a hardened soldier
.
He didn’t particularly like the latter man
.

Both brigands shifted
as
one with measured menace around the fire ring
.
Charlotte stood directly opposite, keeping the smoldering pit between them
.
She appeared to be working her way toward the horses
.
Smart girl.

“Just a little more,” Alex murmured willing the second man to quarter in a bit further.

“Come now, milady,”
Johnston
leered
.
“We only want to have a bit of fun
.
You might even
enjoy
it.
”
He adopted a placating tone
.
“
The d
evil
knows that husband of yours
is too busy gallivanting about on the continent to
take proper
…
care
…” he lingered over the word, “of a comely little lass like you
.
Guess he’s not man enough fer the job.”

Alex ground his teeth
.

“My husband is twice the man you could ever dream of becoming,” Charlotte spat,
the hard edge of
defiance
slicing the air.

“I’ll just have to prove
ye
different.
”
Johnston
leapt
boldly
over the smoldering fire
pit
, landing
directly in front of Charlotte.

Before Alex could draw breath Charlotte swung
the log, making devastating contact with
the side of
Johnston
’s head
.
“S
tay away from me!” she
commanded
as
Johnston
staggered backward, dazed.

“Damn.”
Alex froze for half a second, thoroughly impressed
.
Not many women of his acquaintance would so vehemently defend themselves
or
work toward escape
.
Perhaps all that fire and spunk she’d had as a child hadn’t been permanently doused by manners and decorum
.

Halverson
rounded the fire, trapping
Charlotte
between he and
Johnston
.
Frantically
his wife looked between the men and suddenly her gaze turned to
the thicket where
he stood
,
her
eyes, huge swirling pools of terror and defeat
.
Rage clenched in his gut
.
He
needed
to save her, protect her,
actually stand on the pedestal she’d placed him on all those years ago
.
“Go
, Sid,
now!”

*
             
*
             
*

Charley
froze, eyes round as saucers
, her heart all but still in her chest
.
Impossible!
Alex
plunged from the thicket a pistol drawn and ready,
Sidney
directly at his
s
ide
.
The vision was everything she could have hoped for
.
Her husband had not even bothered to change from his uniform
.
Her
spirit soared
, high with hope and the promise of rescue
.

The brigands spun
.
“What the hell?
”
Halverson
drew a pistol, but
a bullet caught him
low
in the abdomen
before the weapon reached half-
mast
.
He
fell
at her
feet
, moaning in agony
.

Sparked from her stupor,
Charley
gasped and snatched backward
.
Two more shots rang out
, though she couldn’t be sure who’d fired
.

Johnston
, no doubt recognizing he was outmatched,
scurried past her,
hurled himself onto the back of a mount and tore into the woods
.
Halverson
scrambled to his feet and
drug himself onto the back of his
nag, bleeding profusely.

“Get back here you son of a bitch!
”
Alex tore after the
fiend
.
T
os
sing aside his spent pistol
, h
e
palmed a knife and se
nt it sailing through the air
.
Halverson’s mount jogged to the right, narrowly missing the blade and disappeared into the forest
.
“Damn it!
”
Alex
shot a fist through the air
before striding
to the tree where his knife protruded,
embedded
to the hilt
.

Mind whirling
Charley
s
tared
after
her husband
in total disbelief
.
“Y
-y
ou came for me.”

Alex jerked the knife from the tree with
sheer
brute strength and faced her
.
Danger, raw and
power
ful,
emulated
from his
towering frame
.
D
ark
brows furrowed over
unnaturally piercing eyes
, and his jaw clenched in a menacing line
.
Bathed in the moonlight he held the aura of a mythical warrior
… completely untouchable… unattainable
.

“
Of course we
came,”
Sidney
answered
from behind her
.

Startled,
Charley
drug her gaze from the
rigid
ly brooding figure of her
husband
to find
Sidney
striding
toward her, arms outstretched, expression soft with all
that
her fickle heart had hoped to see on Alex’s face
.
The fear she’d so fervently sought to suppress took hold and h
er wall of courage
crumbled
.

“Oh,
Sidney
!
”
A slick of tears
blurred her vision
as she rounded the fire
and ran i
nto the welcoming hav
en of his
a
rms
.
Sidney
swept her up, lifting her feet clear off the ground
.
For years he’d been her friend and pillar of strength where none other existed
.
Today was no exception
.
Except that when
Sidney
held her
,
the hollow in her heart did not
disappear
.
She
turned her face into his sh
oulder, breathing deep his familiar, comforting
scent, and still
she did not find the security
she
so desperately sought
in this dark
hour
.
Charley’s
fingers grazed som
ething warm and sticky
.
Blood
.
“You’ve been shot,” she whispered
, tightening her hold around Sid’s
neck
.

“Think nothing of it, Charles
.
Are you hurt?
”
He lowered her feet to the ground
.
Gentle fingers tipped her chin as he intently searched her face
.

“No, not at
all
.
A
lthough,
you arrived
just in time.
”
Charley stepped back, assessing the tear in the arm of his heavy ja
cket and the telltale glisten
of blood oozing from the wound
.