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And then to find Tamsyn gone…
He pushed matted hair from Ben’s forehead and brushed his ashen face as he fumbled for a pulse.
“Please no,” he murmured in the swirling gale. “Ben, please…”
A meagre groan emerged, and Jack closed his eyes, freed his clutched breath.
He glanced to Oliver, hunched over the bogus Lynch, fingers pressed to his neck. “Alive?”
A shake of the head and terror threaded within, confusion and turmoil lacing and twisting. Where the hell was Tamsyn?
Needles of rain pierced their clothing and Jack cursed, searching for the wound and yelling his anger when his fingers returned blood-drenched. A fierce shiver overcame the lad as Jack shoved his handkerchief to the wound and rubbed Ben’s hands between his own until one vague eye opened.
“I…my head.” Ben licked rain from his lips, struggled to sit. “Miss Penrose!” he managed, before crumpling with a groan.
“Where is she?”
“I heard…maybe a cave. It were some Frenchie; he sounded…mad.”
Jack needed no more. He tucked his coat around the lad and then hurled himself into the saddle, swinging to Oliver.
“Take Ben to the manor and get men out here.” Jowlik danced in the storm, eager for pursuit. “Bring pistols, lanterns, rope. Anything.”
“Go,” his brother yelled, standing firm, no wind daring to buffer his solid frame, and Jack nodded, yanking the reins seaward with only one thought.
Find Tamsyn.
They soon left the estate behind, racing through the fields and vaulting the low stone walls, Jowlik displaying the strength and swiftness of a creature allied to his master’s anguish.
He tasted salt on his lips, heard the roar of the sea as the cliff edge drew near. The land grew treacherous, fat splodges of water whacking like rocks, dry earth refusing entry, causing puddles to form and rivulets to flow.
A gusting wind smacked rain in his face, sight feeble, but Jowlik grasped their destination and pounded on in defiance of the perilous weather.
Jack slackened the pace as the turn emerged in the gloom, but Jowlik had no such qualms with the threadlike path and picked his way down, breath snorting. Nearly there, but hooves now slid and Jowlik whinnied, rocks unsteadying his fragile legs, flanks quivering with effort.
The brave creature had carried him thus far and Jack wouldn’t force him further, so he threw himself from the saddle, grabbed his sword and tore his way to the cove, slipping, slewing on wet shale.
“Tamsyn,” he bawled, words lost to the wind as the path broadened. He strained his eyes over the blackened cliffs and grim sea, waves like gaping mouths, ready to devour and destroy.
Rain blurred his sight but…in the surf, a boat about to be taken, and he stumbled down, pebbles giving way underfoot, the whole land quaking with the force of thunder, deafening and fierce.
He cupped his hands, pulse roaring in his ears. “Tamsyn!”
Two faces turned, both white and stark, hair plastered. A snarling man leaped from the boat and waded out through crashing waves.
Pale and gaunt, those piercing eyes Jack had stared into once before blazed with madness and intellect.
Such a dangerous combination.
“Pathétique,”La Chauve-Sourisyelled, drawing his sword. “I kill you for my pleasure.”
Jack rushed, hurtled over the shale toward the whoreson. He noticed Tamsyn attempt to stand, swaying and hesitant, but a wave struck and she fell back, boat sucked further into the tussling vortex.
With a smile curving through the curtain of rain, the Frenchman loped from the shallows – the lone impediment between Jack and the woman he cherished above all others.
This devil incarnate had abducted, killed, caused terror and misery, families torn apart.
