Sloan noted how the shackles were grating against the man’s wrists, and he winced. He tapped Robert’s knee. “Take heart, Powell. There are things that can be done; I’ll see to it that you are cared for. And when the time—”
Powell’s dark eyes opened. “I’ll not take your charity, Treveryan. Just take my wife—and go.”
Sloan sighed with exasperation. “It’s not charity, Powell—and I won’t take your wife. We will fight—and if all legal venues fail, then we’ll revert to the illegal.”
Robert, in return, shook his head with vast exasperation. “Treveryan, never have I thought you an idiot! She has always loved you. Make her go with you. Tie her, beat her, cage her—but get her away!”
Sloan smiled slowly, aware that he could have no greater adversary than this man he would never fight. “You’re wrong, Powell. Your wife loves you. I’m but in the sidelines of this. And I’ll not let them hang you—because she does love you.”
Sloan turned to bang for the jailor to come and release him; but Robert called him back.
“Promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“I’ll fight. I would do so no matter what, for I am not wizard or witch! But…if things should go badly, if it should become necessary—will you take her away, no matter what her protest?”
“Aye,” Sloan said slowly, “that I will promise you.”
He tried to give Robert an encouraging smile, then said, “I’d like to get the boy away now. Would you object to his being sent to New York?”
Robert closed his eyes again, casting an arm over them. “I would bless your efforts,” he said simply. Sloan nodded and called out sharply for the jailor.
Before he left, he saw Philip Smith and promised the bitter young man that he would do his best. He managed to leave him a more hopeful, if not a more cheerful, fellow. Then he paid the jailors the price of a week’s stay in the prison for the two and added a generous sum to see that they, and the other wretches in the place, would receive the best care.
He almost raised a fist against the younger of the two guards when he was asked to pay for the very shackles that were rubbing the flesh raw at Robert Powell’s ankles and wrists.
But he cooled his temper and paid the price. Whether Powell and Smith were proven innocent or not, they would be responsible for their stay—and all materials, including the shackles.
He did not want to make enemies with these men. Sloan knew that there could be no escape here such as they had ventured from the wild streets of Port Quinby. To pull off a jailbreak here he would have to bribe the guards and coerce their cooperation.
Before he left, he warned the jailors that Robert was ill and that his health was in their hands. He didn’t need to threaten, for he was quite sure that his reputation with a blade had preceded him.
It was near dawn when he finally returned to the farmhouse. Eleanor had been dozing in the deacon’s bench. Brianna, awake and furious, was pacing the floor. He approached her, ready to reassure her, but was given no opportunity to do so.
“Damn you, you bastard! How dare you do this! You are not husband or father to me, you are not anything to me!” She lashed out at him then with the strength of her frustration, fear, and fury. Her nails caught his cheek; her fists, his throat.
And he was far too tired and dispirited to take it from her. “Bitch!” he seethed in return, struggling for her arms. Eleanor awoke, concerned. From the bedroom Michael could be heard to whimper.
“Please,” Eleanor began.
Sloan did not feel like fighting before an audience, nor did he want to wake or upset the child. With a deep-throated rumble of fury he caught her wrists with a steel-tight grasp and dragged her along behind him, back toward the door.
“I’ve a few things to say to Goodwife Powell, Eleanor, and if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll say them outside, where perhaps the cool air will keep me halfway sane!”
“Eleanor, stop him,” Brianna gasped out, aware that she had provoked him past a reasonable point. But Eleanor did nothing.
Brianna stumbled along behind Sloan’s furious strides until they were out the door and she was suddenly freed—sent flying to land indecorously and ironically in a patch of wild and beautiful lilacs, so recently sprouted from the slush and snow. Gasping for air and dignity, Brianna looked up to see that he was no less furious now that he had released her. His face was severe with tension.
“Madam, perhaps I am nothing to you, but your good husband just gave me his full blessing to beat you black-and-blue!”
What was there that made her lose all reason? Perhaps it was his power over her. Perhaps it was because he had come back into her life and he was, once again, the greatest threat she had ever known. He had, in the space of hours, erased all the time that had passed between them. She thought herself good and decent, and resolved to her life, but when he stood by her, the air became charged and her blood boiled.
She couldn’t help herself; madness directed her words and actions as she lashed out at him.
“Get away from me, Lord Treveryan. I’m sorry I came to you. You are eager for his death! God knows you might take any woman, and yet she whom you cannot obtain holds a fascination. You wish that he would die!” Shredding the lilacs through her fingers, she pushed her way to her feet. “You think to take his son. Well, you will not do so! Dear God, how I despise you!” Her voice was rising, shrill and laced with laughter. She barely saw his features, the whiteness that touched his flesh beneath the sea-bronze or the constriction of his jaw. She didn’t even realize that despite the cruelty of her words, he was calm—as if he knew something about her she did not know herself.
“Dead, dead, dead!” she screamed. “Dead—as your own wife!”
