Madness (54 page)

Lucinda tried to get off the ground, and Gabrielle was torn between helping her and going after Oxnard. “Simon! Help us!” she shouted as loudly as she could. Then she and her sister both started to run after Oxnard.

She prayed to all the gods that her beloved could hear her and help save them all in time.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Simon was holding the reins of two of the children’s ponies when he heard his beloved shriek for help.

Pressing the reins into Michael’s hands, he ran down the path in the direction he was sure the shout had come from.

He could hear rustling, but saw nothing. “Where are you, Gabrielle! Gabrielle!”

Then he heard his sister-in-law wailing, and the sound of a gunshot.

He stiffened for a moment with horror, and then ran even faster. But by the time he got near the arbor, it was already too late.

Lucinda was down on the ground bleeding profusely from her left shoulder, and Gabrielle was weeping and trembling with fear, doing her best to stanch the blood with her own petticoats, which she was rending and then wadding up.

He knelt just long enough to hear the words Lucinda gasped out, “It’s Oxnard. He’s stolen Christopher. Please, Simon, we must get him back! He’s heading for the road. Hurry, please.”

Gabrielle nodded. "Go. We'll be fine. Blake will be here in a moment, I'm sure. You're the one who told me blood always looks worse than it is. Just hurry, please."

He took in the scene in one all encompassing glance. Oxnard had tried to shoot his own wife through the heart. This was war. And he knew what to do in a battle.

He kissed Gabrielle hard, and then began to charge through the woods as though trying to breach the defences of a beseiged city. Damn the man, he was not going to take….

To his shock, he soon spotted Oxnard up ahead dragging an unfamiliar woman toward a coach he could see waiting at the foot of the lane.

He had no idea who the dark-haired damsel in distress was, but she was clearly putting up a struggle. Simon was damned if he was going to let anyone else become yet another of Oxnard's victims.

Simon could hear Gabrielle shouting for Blake Sanderson, and the tall dark woman struggle with the demented earl shouting the name George.

She tried to break free, but Oxnard was relentless, though that was to Simon’s advantage, since the desperate woman was only serving to slow the earl down in his attempt escape.

Simon’s heart leapt into his chest when he realised that the girl had a pistol with her. Would she be desperate enough to shoot Oxnard even at the expense of the child?

But no, she brought the weapon back down when she saw the infant squall and flail. She shouted for the man called George once more as she was towed inexorably toward the coach and what Simon was sure would be certain doom.

Simon saw Lawrence Howard emerge from the path leading to their house with another tall dark-haired man. They looked around to try to discern where the screaming was coming from.

The stranger put his hand over his brow as a visor, then froze.

“Miranda!” he shouted. Then he began running around the house and up toward the main bridle path, armed with only a bow and quiver full of arrows.

He had evidently seen Oxnard fleeing with the screaming child and knew the woman.

Simon ran on himself, and heard the man let out a bellow which shook the trees.

The man he guessed to be George dropped his weapons and began to charge like a bull. “Oxnard, you bastard! Let her go!!”

Simon felt his heart lift slightly. He now had an unexpected ally, and plunged onwards after the kidnapper of his beloved nephew.

Oxnard had been heading for the road, but the second man in hot pursuit caused him to veer off. The woman struggling furiously, slowing him down, finally caused him to cut his losses. He let her go, and ran on with only the babe.

Simon felt his heart lurch in his chest at the sight. Lord in Heaven, it was up to him now. He simply couldn’t fail his wife and Lucinda.

“Miranda!” the man gasped, running up to kiss and comfort the woman, who fell into his embrace.

Simon heard their voices in the distance, the word
baby
, and ran on. He could see the man grab the pistol out of her hand, though she begged him not to kill Oxnard, and charged off after the fleeing earl.

Oxnard ran on blindly, trying to find a place to conceal himself. Simon kept a close eye on him as he stormed through the forest. The tree branches were all too high, the road now a good distance away. There were few ferns or bracken to offer much cover.

Simon could hear another set of running feet nearby, and saw Lawrence Howard had tried to skirt around the house in order to cut off the insane earl.

Oxnard was forced to swerve and head back into the forest, almost directly in the path of the other outraged man, George, who was continuing the pursuit despite his lady being safe, and who looked fit to kill him.

Well, Simon himself would undoubtedly have been if he had grabbed
his
woman, he thought as he hurried on. And would be fit to kill him if his sister-in-law Lucinda didn’t recover from the gunshot wound Oxnard had inflicted upon his own wife.

Simon charged on, and saw with relief two more men now appeared at the top of the bridle path.

Simon squinted into the sun, but recognised a thatch of sandy hair. “Jonathan!” Simon shouted. “Stop that man! He’s got Christopher, my nephew!”

Jonathan, lowering himself in his saddle to duck under the branches, immediately went in pursuit straight down the bridle path.

Oxnard switched direction again and began to crash through the trees. He could feeling his breath burning in his lungs as he ran like a fox, knowing any moment that one or the other of the two men was going to snap his neck like a pullet if he didn’t find a safe haven soon.

He certainly hadn't expected so much resistance. Trust those little whores to already have male protectors…

Simon prayed that the other man George would refrain from shooting the fleeing Oxnard. He would die if anything happened to little Christopher.

He would have shouted at him not to fire, but his breath was coming so hard and fast he could scarcely make a sound.

If anything happened to that baby, Simon swore in his heart, he would take great delight in squeezing the life from Oxnard. Assuming the other man haring through the trees didn’t beat him to it first.

But no, Simon decided, he would do it. He had killed before. He would gladly kill again to protect his family. There was no sense in the other man damaging his soul, when Simon was sure he was already damned for all the people he had killed, or sent to their deaths.

He offered up thanks to the gods for the heaven on earth he had found with Gabrielle. There would be a price to pay, he knew. There always was.

But her love was all that mattered. And he would do anything to keep it, keep
her
. Oxnard was a fiend. He had shot his own wife. God only knew what he would do to the baby.

Simon had no doubt that the mad earl was now desperate enough
 
that it had come to the stage of kill or be killed. After all, he had pretended to be dead in order to trick them all.

Simon slipped on some leaf marl at this thought, and prayed again that Oxnard would finally get what he deserved.

Simon looked up ahead and could see the three men in pursuit, and this spurred him on. They were all determined to save the child. Four were stronger together than one man on his own, and two of them had mounts.

He had no idea who the other chap was with Jonathan, but he knew the worldly vicar had served admirably in the war for a number of years. He hoped he was someone with a similar resourceful background. They would catch him. They just had to. He needed this to be over at last.

“Put the baby down now, Oxnard!” the other man who he guessed to be George shouted as he wove in and out of the trees.

“Put him down and just keep on running. I’ll give you one chance to let him go, and then I’m going to kill you with my bare hands.”

“This is nothing to do with you, Davenant!” Oxnard shouted back. “What I do with my own son is my concern! Stay out of this, or I’ll be sure that whore you consort with never knows a day’s peace. Or a night’s once I snatch her out of your grasp again.”

Simon was about to repeat the demand to let the baby go when George growled low in his throat, a primal sound that sent shivers up and down the spines of everyone who heard it.

The thudding of approaching hooves suddenly echoed throughout the forest. The huge dark man on the fine black horse snatched the infant right out of Oxnard’s arms, grabbing him by the collar of his little shirt and settling him into the saddle in front of him, cradling him tenderly.

“I’ve got him, he’s all right!” he called.

Simon offered up a prayer of thanksgiving, but neither man slowed in their pursuit.

Oxnard looked left and right and saw them bearing down upon him now. Sheer terror spurred him on.

Up ahead he saw the walls of an old ruined monastery, and ran on as if his life depended on it. Which it did, for he was sure he could not count on an ounce of mercy from either man.

He had no idea who the other chaps were, but he was sure if Davenant caught him, he was a dead man for what he had done to Miranda…

He veered left across the path of the second man, wondering who the hell all these blokes were and why they were willing to help his wife of all people.
The little whore....

He broke cover at last, and frantically tried to find a place to hide. Suddenly the ground underneath him was no longer solid, and he felt himself hurtling downwards like a stone into the black abyss.

His limbs flailed, and with one last terrified scream Oxnard tumbled into the dark cavern head first. He landed with a sickening thud fifty feet below.

The trees at the edge of the clearing all shimmered, their leaves dancing with joy in the glorious sunshine. The wind whispered through them, and then was still.

Simon and the other man had by now both reached the edge of the clearing, and stared into the gaping maw a foot away. Both shook their head incredulously. Had Oxnard not seen the great canyon?

They hung onto each other’s shoulders and upper arms as the ground shook. They tumbled backwards as the edges of the cavern began to slide downwards, burying Oxnard under a mountain of rubble.