The Elusive Flame (44 page)

Doffing his clothes, Beau left them hanging on the silent butler in the dressing room. When he slipped underneath the top-sheet, he snuggled close to Cerynise and laid a hand upon the rounded mound of her stomach. In a moment he was rewarded by a movement of his child, and with a heart swelling with relief, he pressed his lips into his wife’s fragrant hair. A soft, contented sigh slipped from her lips as she nestled her head beneath his chin and stroked a hand over his hardened chest.

“I love you,” she murmured drowsily.

His voice was fraught with emotion as he answered her in kind. “And I love you, madam…truly, deeply, and forever.”

“N
O TRACE OF
the brigand has been found, you say,” Brandon mused aloud. “Is it possible that he has fled the area?”

July had flown and August was advancing to a ripe old age, yet there was still no sign of Wilson. More than a week ago, Beau had come to the conclusion that the sailor had likely escaped to other climes after Moon had recognized him, causing Beau to give serious consideration to extending the search throughout the Carolinas and, if necessary, the entire South. Should it come to that, he knew by offering a generous bounty in every port in the world, the man would eventually be apprehended. There was no place where the beast could hide that a goodly sum of money couldn’t find him. It would only be a matter of time.

Until then, it was impossible for Beau to rest entirely at ease either day or night. He was always on the watch for the rogue and acutely leery of taking Cerynise outside their home. If Wilson was still in the area, the man could easily resort to using a pistol and, from behind any tree,
wait for them to appear. Yet, in spite of his own vexation, Beau had tried to spare his wife, making a brave show while keeping her entertained with stories of his seafaring adventures, revealing more than he would have ever done otherwise. Fortunately, his parents had joined him in his endeavors to keep her distracted. His mother had ventured to their house almost daily and had even brought Hatti in to stay throughout the next weeks just in case the baby decided to come in the middle of the night or while the doctor was away delivering another baby. His father was forever buying Cerynise books on art, babies, or any subject he thought she might be interested in reading. Finally Beau had decided that he needed his parents’ company as much as his wife did and had asked if they’d be willing to come in and stay with them until after the birth of the child. The fact that they had arrived with baggage a mere trio of hours after he had sent the summons assured Beau that they had been anxious to come but reluctant to intrude unless bidden.

Despite the worry and rage that never strayed far from Beau, the days passed pleasantly enough even though Cerynise tired more easily in these, the final stages of her pregnancy. As a result, the household retired fairly soon after an early supper, allowing Beau to ease his wife’s discomfort in the privacy of their bedroom. In recent days, he had noticed her massaging her back and getting around much more slowly as her burden lowered in her belly. She was usually more comfortable in bed after he rubbed her back or when she could prop her legs across his. Snuggling beside him with their heads on the same pillow was always relaxing to her. Sometimes they would talk for a time while he held her close within his arms, but more often than not she would fall asleep listening to the low murmur of his voice. Not so Beau. He remained alert for long hours afterwards, keenly attuned to the sounds of the house, his mind constantly roaming in search of a plan that could be set into play to fully guarantee his wife’s safety.

It was the third week in August, into the wee hours of
the morning, when Beau was snatched abruptly from a sound sleep, his mind instantly alert to danger. After bounding from the bed, he ran to the window where he searched the night-shrouded shadows cloaking the yard. Behind him, Cerynise murmured restlessly, no longer comforted by his presence. Beau cast his gaze over a shoulder and watched as she drew up in a small knot upon the mattress, as if distressed or disturbed by some discomfort. Whatever it was, caused her brows to gather in a harsh frown, but in the passing of a moment, the scowl eased. Without waking, she rolled to his side of the bed and snuggled her face against his pillow, breathing in deeply and then releasing a long, blissful sigh as if savoring the scent of it even in her sleep. Beau, however, was fully conscious, and the odor he was smelling didn’t sit well with him at all.

It was smoke!

Peering intently through the windows, he searched the garden and surrounding area along the north side of the house for any sign of a fire. Everything seemed normal enough, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it was. The acrid scent was growing stronger by the moment, wafting in with the soft breezes that swept into the room. He lifted his gaze to the tops of the trees and saw their boughs gently swaying to and fro, their leaves flickering beneath the light of the moon. There was some hope, of course, that the wind was carrying the smoke from a more distant place. He could only pray that was all it was, but he rather suspected the breezes were coming from a more southerly direction, for even at this early morning hour, they seemed much warmer than they had been in some days.

Beau snatched up a pair of trousers and, thrusting his feet through the leggings, stood up to hitch the garment up over his naked loins. He lit the wick of a hurricane lamp, adjusted it, and resettled the glass globe. Then he rechecked the pistol that he had been recently keeping in his bedside table and slipped it into his belt before taking up the lamp and making his way from the room. He passed
the landing above the stairs and strode down the hall toward the bedroom where his parents were ensconced. He was about to rap his knuckles lightly against the door when it was yanked inward, revealing his father, who had donned his trousers with similar haste. He was also carrying a lamp.

“Where’s it coming from?” Brandon whispered and glanced up and down the hallway as he stepped out. Reaching back, he closed the door behind him, taking care not to awaken his wife.

“I’m not sure, Pa. It may only be a fire farther away on the docks. If the wind is blowing in the right direction, we usually get some of the smoke here. Something happened like this last year.”

“Let’s look around downstairs to make sure,” Brandon suggested. “But first, we’d better light some sconces here in the hallway just in case we have to race back and get the women up.”

In a few moments, they made a cautious descent to the lower floor and prowled through each room, searching for some indication of a fire before moving on to the next. The house was wreathed in silence, but nothing seemed amiss despite their growing awareness of smoke. Going off in a different direction than his son, Brandon wandered down the corridor toward the kitchen. Upon entering the room, he found the back door standing open and a manly form crumpled across the threshold.

“Beau,” he called quietly. “Come take a look at this.”

Turning the unconscious man over, Brandon muttered a curse as he noted the bloody gash across the young houseman’s brow. He glanced around as Beau joined him. “Whoever did this certainly meant for this poor fellow to be out for a while.”

Beau raised his gaze and squinted against the light of his lantern as he peered past the covered terrace buttressing the house and probed the shadows of the garden. Noticing a flickering glow being cast into the area from the south side, he stepped over Cooper’s prostrate form
and crept to the end of the porch, keeping a watchful eye out for anyone lurking in the gloom. When he reached the end of the terrace, he finally discovered where the smoke was coming from. The fence along the street side had been set ablaze some time earlier. What remained of the barrier wouldn’t have been enough to warm their backsides even for a few moments on a cold winter’s night.

“Cooper was on watch tonight, Pa,” Beau stated in sudden alarm as he ran back to his father, who was wrapping a cold, wet compress around the servant’s head. “The culprit probably set the fence on fire to lure Cooper out and hit him as soon as he stepped out. Someone may already be in the house.”

“You’d better check upstairs to make sure the women are all right and get them up,” Brandon urged, lifting the houseman and draping him over a broad shoulder. “I’ll take Cooper to his quarters and wake the rest of the servants.”

As his father left, Beau ran down the corridor toward the central hall. He was about to leap up the stairs when he noticed the north garden area flickering with light. Snatching the pistol from his belt, he raced to the window, threw it open, and leaned out in time to see a large, darkly garbed man sprinting around the front corner of the house. Flames were already leaping up from a burning mound of dry kindling that had been piled up beneath the edge of the house. A torch had been dropped alongside, no doubt after the arsonist had heard the window open.

Beau dashed back to the kitchen door and yelled out to his father, “Pa! Wilson’s trying to burn us out! He has already started another fire on the north side of the house. Tell the servants to hurry and put it out! If you see Wilson coming around the back of the house, yell! I’m going out the front now to see if I can catch him.”

“Kill the bastard!”

“I plan to,” Beau muttered, whirling back into the house. He set aside the lamp and ran to the front door, but to his horror he found the portal standing open. Barely
an instant later a sudden scream from upstairs sent shards of ice-cold dread shooting through him. Pivoting sharply about, he raced across the hall and leapt up the stairs three at a time. He was less than midway in his ascent when he saw Cerynise and his mother above the landing, but they were not alone. A masked man in black garb, lean and of more than average height, had seized Cerynise from behind and had an arm clamped tightly around her, effectively keeping hers pinned to her sides. In his right hand the brigand held a pistol directed toward Beau.

Heather displayed a fair amount of outraged zeal as she pummeled the intruder with her fists and kicked him sharply with a satin mule. She proved too much of a distraction for the rogue, for the man turned on her with a snarl, lifting the hand that held the pistol. He tapped the butt of it against her chin and promptly sent her slithering unconscious to the floor.

Beau’s ire soared to unparalleled heights as he bounded up the stairs, but the brigand whirled to face him once again, this time pressing the bore of his weapon against Cerynise’s temple. Beau froze in sudden alarm, causing the man to chortle gleefully. Emboldened by the control he held over the seafaring captain, he motioned Beau to retreat, briefly flicking the hand that held Cerynise. Beau had no choice but to slowly, obediently retrace his steps down the stairs. The black-swathed villain cautiously followed, using Cerynise as his living shield.

Beau was nearing the middle curve in the stairs when the assailant paused above him. The eyeholes in the mask gleamed with reflected light as he swept his gaze about, taking close account of his surroundings. Though only a fourth of the way down, he could see part of the front door that was standing open.

In a deep, gravelly voice that seemed oddly exaggerated, the assailant mocked Beau. “I could kill your wife now, you know, and save myself the trouble of coming back later, but of course, if I do that, I’d lose a chance to escape, for I cannot hope to kill you both. As much as it
displeases me to leave here without completing my errand, I guess I’ll just have to wait until a more opportune time to finish the bitch off.”

Without further warning, he yanked his arm from Cerynise and thrust her forward, snatching a scream from her as he sent her hurtling down the stairs toward her husband. Beau threw himself forward to catch her, but the impact of their collision knocked him backward, causing him to lose his balance. Even as he sought to hold Cerynise on top of him and cushion her fall with his own body, Beau saw their foe leap over the balustrade to the floor below and rush off toward the front portal. The slamming of the door attested to the brigand’s success in fleeing the scene of his crime.

“Damnation!” Brandon roared as he came charging into the hallway and espied the tangled forms of his son and daughter-in-law thumping down the last few steps. They came to rest on the marble floor, prompting him to ask in concern, “Are you two all right?”

“I’m not sure,” Cerynise answered, trying to subdue a wince as she pushed herself upright.

Having descended headfirst and on his back down the stairs, Beau was sure he had bruises he wasn’t even aware of yet, but there was no time to think of himself. Twisting around to look up at his father, he urged, “Pa, you’d better see about Mama. That bilge scum hit her with a pistol hard enough to knock her out.”

Rage tore through Brandon as he flew up the stairs, but when he caught sight of his wife lying unconscious on the landing, his fury soared. At that moment he was certain he could have committed outright murder on her attacker. Gently he picked her up and carried her into their bedroom, where he laid her on the bed. After wetting a cloth, he pressed it to the darkly swelling bruise on her jaw. To his relief, Heather’s eyes soon fluttered open. Becoming cognizant of his concern, she tried to reassure him with a smile but caught herself and groaned as she gingerly tested her jaw. “Oooh, it hurts.”

“Aye, madam, and so it should,” her husband whispered, stroking his fingers affectionately through the tumbled curls snuggled against her cheek. “You have a very dark bruise on your chin where that toad hit you.”

Everything came flooding back to Heather in an instant, and she had to be physically restrained from leaving the bed. “Cerynise!” she cried anxiously. “That man was trying to kill her!”

“Rest easy, madam. He wasn’t successful,” Brandon informed her. “Right now, your daughter-in-law is downstairs with Beau.”

“Unharmed?”

“She appeared to be when I left them, but she was trying to untangle herself from your son at the bottom of the stairs, and they gave me no explanation how that came about.”

“I’d better go see about her,” Heather said, making another attempt to leave the bed, but the room promptly dipped and began to whirl around her, drawing a disconcerted groan from her. “Perhaps I won’t after all.”

At that precise moment, the object of Heather’s concern was sitting beside Beau on the marble floor. Cerynise was clearly distressed but not for any reason her mother-in-law might have suspected after such a fright. Gingerly she smiled back at her husband before confiding in some embarrassment, “Beau, I hate to worry you any more than you are right now, but it seems that I’m all wet. I think the fall might have broken my water.”

Startled, he looked down at the pool of liquid she sat in and the small spots of bloody discoloration of her robe. “That’s not all, madam. You’re bleeding.”