A Season Beyond a Kiss

  Suddenly a loud barking rent the peace, and a large dog raced across the lawn toward the cat, who hissed in sudden fear and scurried to the safety of several large, encompassing shrubs, through which the canine could not readily pass. Frantically searching for an opening, the dog raced back and forth in front of the bushes until a loud whistle drew his attention. A tall, young man with short-cropped black hair strode into view and issued a brusque command, sending the dog lumbering back toward the house where a servant put him on a leash. The nice man squatted near the shrubs and coaxed the cat out of hiding until it came into his arms where it purred contentedly beneath the long, slow, gentle strokes of his hand.

  Tossing a glance toward the gate, the gentleman broke a flower from its stem and came forward with a grin. Smiling into the aqua-blue eyes that watched him intently through the bars, he swung open the iron portal and stepped through. He whisked the animal to the ground and then, with a gallant bow, offered the flower to the little girl.

  Smiling timidly, she accepted the young knight’s gift and sampled its fragrance. The petals tickled, and she wrinkled her nose as she giggled. Leaning her head far back, she peered up at the one who loomed over her. The early afternoon sun shimmered behind his head, and the brilliance of the halo around his dark head made her squint and rub her eyes. Yawning, she dropped her head and fingered the petals as she examined the pretty flower.

  “Looks like it’s your nap time, little miss,” the handsome knight remarked with a chuckle. “Perhaps I should take you back to your parents before you fall asleep out here.”

  Bending low, he lifted her up into his arms and followed the winding trail back toward the neighboring mansion. After another yawn, she began to sing a tune her mother had taught her. Her tall knight joined her. He had a nice, soothing voice, and soon he was waltzing her along the path, evoking more giggles.

  Once they gained the clearing near the place where her mother had been gathering flowers from their garden, the young man sat her to her feet and was about to turn away, but she caught his hand and grinned up at him until he squatted down. Throwing her arms about his neck, she kissed him on his cheek and then ran laughing to her mother, who had turned in time to witness the exchange. Smiling, her parent invited the man in for a cup of tea, but his uncle had invited guests over to meet them, he explained, and hurried back along the trail.

  Tilting her head from side to side, she began to chant a singsong ditty as the sun smiled down upon her and a butterfly flitted past.

  RAELYNN CAME AWAKE WITH A START, NOT ENTIRELY sure why she had been snatched so abruptly from her dreams. She lay for a moment, trying to discern what was wrong, all her senses keenly attuned to the sounds of the house. A distant thump intruded and, in trembling apprehension, she waited to hear more, hoping it had come from a neighbor’s house.

  Another thud and a chair scraping over a bare floor downstairs brought Raelynn out of bed in an instant. Shaking uncontrollably, she searched down the length of her bed, patting her hands over the rumpled covers as she sought to locate her robe. She found it near the foot and donned it in frantic haste. She stumbled over her slippers and slid into them, all the while mentally sorting out what she must do. If the noises had indeed been created by a human, then she could entertain no hope that it was her husband returning. Before departing, Rhys Townsend had taken time to assure her that he would be keeping Jeff locked up for his own safety. Nor could she believe that it was Elizabeth or Farrell returning. When the newly wedded couple had left, they had said they wouldn’t be coming back until Sunday night at the earliest, still a good many hours away.

  Cautiously Raelynn crept through the impenetrable blackness until she reached the door. Once there, she turned the doorknob ever so carefully and eased the portal open. She was thankful for the shaft of moonlight streaming through the windows at the far end of the hall, for it allowed her to see her way clearly. A concern for Jake and her servant drew her down the corridor toward Tizzy’s room. Slipping within the cubicle, she paused within the door to let her eyes adjust to the dense shadows until she could make out the girl sleeping soundly in her bed. Raelynn approached and, leaning across, pressed a hand over the maid’s mouth.

  Tizzy came upright with a muffled gasp and searched about with widened eyes, until her gaze lit on her mistress. The spark of fear shining in her dark eyes ebbed as her brow gathered in confusion.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Raelynn whispered, leaning near the girl’s ear. “There’s someone moving around downstairs, so listen very carefully, and please, please don’t make any noise. Slip into your robe, wake Jake up, and wait for me at the landing. I’m going to fetch Miss Elizabeth’s pistol from her room, and then, if I can, I’m going to try and lure the intruder away from the kitchen. Make sure the path is clear before you slip downstairs, so watch and listen very carefully to determine where the man may be. You’re to leave by the back door. Go directly to Mr. Farrell’s apartment, and tell him that I’m here by myself and that there’s a prowler in the house. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Miz Raelynn,” the girl whispered back worriedly, “but if’n it’s Mistah Fridrich downstairs, yo’ gonna be in mo’ trouble than ah’d be if’n ah stayed. Why don’t yo’ let me draw him ‘way from de back door whilst yo’ leave an’ take Mistah Jake ta Mistah Farrell’s. Dat way yo’ll be safe an’ sound.”

  “No argument, Tizzy. Just do as I say,” Raelynn insisted. “Mr. Fridrich won’t kill me. He wants me too much. You, he might. Now get yourself up, and hurry! If I get a chance to slip out the house, I will, but I’ve got to make sure you and Jake are safe before I do.”

  Tizzy heaved a reluctant sigh, but she had no other option. She had to obey. She set about fulfilling the behest as quickly as possible and, some moments later, waited at the top of the stairs with a cautious hand over Jake’s mouth as her mistress began a cautious descent.

  Raelynn winced as the step upon which she had cautiously lit popped beneath her weight. In the next instant, she heard a bump in the dining room. In Elizabeth’s absence, the draperies of the front parlor had been left open, and one glance confirmed that there was no one in the room. In a rush Raelynn completed her descent and flew to the parlor from whence she dared to call out, “Who’s there?”

  No verbal answer came, only another thump.

  “I know someone’s here in the house!” she cried in quavering tones. “Now who are you?”

  A strange scrape, much like a foot being dragged across a section of floor, made her start and clasp a trembling hand to her throat. If she had had any doubt before, then her suspicions were now thoroughly confirmed. There was an intruder prowling around.

  “Gustav, is that you?” she called in a faltering voice and tried desperately to pluck up her courage. “If it is, you’d better be warned. I have a loaded pistol in my hand, and I’ll use it if I must.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Raelynn saw Tizzy and Jake scurrying into the hall. Lest the man hear them moving about, she continued talking. “You shouldn’t have come, Gustav. Sheriff Townsend will see your intrusion into this house as reason enough to arrest you. This time you won’t be able to claim innocence.”

  Another scrape of a chair almost sent Raelynn flying back upstairs in spiraling trepidation. By dint of will, she held her ground even though it took every effort for her to remain where she was. If not for her shaking, she might have felt a lot braver about the situation.

  A large dark shadow emerged from the dining room, and Raelynn gasped as she realized it wasn’t Gustav at all, but their cloaked and hooded assailant. She screamed, totally forgetting about the pistol she clasped, and raced into the hallway. She fully expected to be caught by a man whose swiftness had aroused the sheriff’s awe, but much to her bemusement, he lumbered after her, as if impeded by some unknown hindrance. Indeed, he seemed to be dragging a foot behind him.

  Now recognizing an imminent threat to her life, Raelynn darted into the dark kitchen and tore around the huge hearth in a
n anxious quest to get to the back door, only to cry out in sudden alarm as she went flying over an overturned chair, an obstacle that had been deliberately placed in the shadows across the path to the back door where it wouldn’t be readily seen. No doubt Tizzy had been creeping cautiously through the kitchen when she had come upon the chair, but Raelynn had been too caught up in a frenzy to escape to notice.

  Tumbling forward, Raelynn made every effort to spare her baby injury by twisting to the side. Alas, she forgot about the large crock that stood at the far end of the brick hearth. Her head caught the brunt of the impact, leaving her senses jarred.

  Dazed but still determined to find safety, she forced herself to keep moving and managed to crawl beneath the table where she huddled in the shadows near the far corner. Barely a moment later, the darkly clothed shade stumbled into the kitchen and then came to a halt, evidently mystified by her whereabouts. Very slowly he crept to the back door. He snatched it open abruptly, wrenching a surprised start from Raelynn, but she clasped a trembling hand over her mouth, stilling herself for that moment when he would turn and start searching the kitchen for her.

  Hardly daring to breathe while her assailant was so near, Raelynn waited in heightening anxiety, her heart thudding wildly in her chest as she crouched in a small knot within the gloom. She became increasingly mindful of the man’s laborious panting and considered that very odd indeed for one who could run so swiftly. Indeed, he wheezed as if afflicted with some strange malady. Considering the physical prowess he had already exhibited, the man should have displayed no exertion at all, especially from so simple a task as walking into the kitchen, but that didn’t appear to be the case at all. Then she recalled that moments earlier she had heard him lumbering behind her. That memory certainly didn’t conform to Rhys’s premise that their attacker enjoyed running. Perhaps she had been mistaken about this being the same man who had launched his attack upon them in the fog, Raelynn thought. But then, the hood and the cape were the same, weren’t they?

  Crouching in her lowly hiding place, Raelynn debated her chances of reaching the dining room door before the man became aware of her hiding place and blocked her path. The way he was plodding along, she just might be able to do it.

  In the waiting silence, Raelynn heard the front door open, bringing her to alert attention. The visitor’s footsteps were too quickly muffled by the hall rug to allow her any hope of recognition, but her eyes widened in sudden apprehension as she saw the darkly cloaked intruder draw a knife from the enveloping shroud he wore. Turning, he advanced toward the dining room with a rapid, but halting gait.

  Raelynn’s mind flew. Tizzy hadn’t been gone long enough to allow any possibility that the new arrival was Farrell. So who, other than Jeffrey, was making his way into the house?

  Finding no other name but her husband’s to lay to the one who had just entered, Raelynn scrambled out from underneath the table and, behind the man’s back, dashed through the doorway leading to the hallway, trying desperately to cock the weapon she clasped as she ran. Such a task proved much harder than she had supposed, and she cursed the foul thing as a tool of Satan as she raced with all of her heart and strength in a frantic effort to outdistance the masked prowler. When she reached the parlor door, the culprit was just leaving the dining room.

  Rhys Townsend glanced in her direction, having heard swiftly racing footfalls approaching from down the corridor. Oblivious of the intruder entering the parlor, he never saw the knife hurtling toward him.

  “Rhys, look out!” Raelynn screamed.

  The lawman threw himself to the side, but much too late. He gasped as the blade sank into his chest and staggered unsteadily as his legs slowly gave way beneath him. In the next moment he collapsed against a chair and then slowly slid to the floor where he sat, feebly trying to clasp the hilt of the weapon.

  Intent upon this murderous game, the villain advanced upon the sheriff with an awkward hop and a skip. Raelynn gnashed her teeth in fierce determination and drove the side of her palm downward upon the firing mechanism. It clicked into place just as the man jerked the knife from Rhys’s chest, wrenching an agonized cry from the lawman. The assailant drew back his arm, fully intending to plunge the knife in again for good measure. In the next instant the pistol exploded, sending a lead ball through the culprit’s hand. The devilish demon roared in pain as the blade went flying out of his grasp. Clutching the wounded extremity, he seemed to writhe in agony as his breath slashed harshly through the air holes in his mask. Then he stumbled about to face Raelynn, and the moonlit glow streaming through the parlor windows glinted off the eyes hidden beneath the slitted openings, making the hooded beast seem truly demonic as he rasped in guttural tones.

  “Bitch! I’ll kill you yet!”

  Lurching toward her, he snatched a handkerchief from a pocket in his cloak and wrapped it about his bleeding hand. Then he put into play his hitching gait that, though clumsy, seemed far too fast for her to escape.

  Raelynn’s hands still stung from the force of the exploding pistol. Had she been given enough time to reload the weapon, such a feat would have been difficult, for now she was shaking uncontrollably. Gritting her teeth to still the tremors, she raised the useless flintlock behind her head and threw it at her adversary. It caught him alongside his darkly garbed cheek, causing him to curse and bat it away with his good hand.

  The moonlight touched upon his hooded head, illumining the cloth to a midnight gray while darkening the eyeholes to a flinty black. His gaze now seemed centered unrelentingly upon her as he hobbled toward her.

  Raelynn whirled, knowing full well where she was going this time. Out! Spurred on by the realization that the man would kill her if he caught her, she raced for her life, back over ground she had covered moments earlier. Already breathing heavily from her attempt to reach the parlor ahead of her assailant, she was nevertheless desperate to get away. That goading fear put swift wings to her feet.

  In the kitchen she fairly sailed over the same chair that had brought her down earlier. In the next moment she was yanking open the back door and flying across the roofed porch. Hearing swiftly lumbering footfalls following in her wake as she ran into the yard, she threw a fearful glance over her shoulder to find the man crossing the porch in hot pursuit. An instant later her breath left her in an audible “Ooph!” as she ran full bore into something very solid. A tree trunk might have gained the same results, but this solidity proved all too human as long arms came around her, wrenching a scream from her. In her panic her mind settled on the obvious. There was not only one madman after her; there were two!

  “Raelynn!”

  The familiar voice was the last she had expected to hear, but it was definitely the most welcomed. Still, there was a demon with a knife behind them, seeking to reap a grim harvest. The man would kill them both if he could.

  “Jeffrey, look out! He knifed Rhys!”

  Jeff had left the jail without a single weapon in his possession. Still devoid of one, he pushed Raelynn behind him and braced himself to meet this oncoming foe barehanded and head-on. His adversary lifted the blade high for a downward thrust into the chest of this new threat, but Jeff grasped the front of the black mantle and, with a hard-driving knee to the groin, brought the knave crumpling forward with a half-wheezing, half-gagging groan. For good measure, Jeff repeated his assault with every hope of crushing any little pebble that remained in the other’s loins.

  The cloaked miscreant collapsed in a billowing heap of writhing torment upon the ground at Jeff’s feet. That worthy snatched the hood off with such force that the culprit’s head lolled loosely around his darkly clad shoulders. Jeff was intent upon rendering the fellow his just due and once again seized the front of his cloak. Hauling the man upright, he slammed a hard fist into his jaw, jerking that one’s face about. He wasn’t above turning the other’s cheek with another driving blow. Indeed, he proved unrelenting as he slammed another right into the now sagging jaw and followed it with several more blows until their wo
uld-be assassin drooped unconscious within his grasp. Jeff finally relinquished his hold and allowed his opponent to collapse in a dark heap upon the ground. Only then did Jeff reach down and turn the other’s face to the meager light of the moon.

  “None other than Lord Marsden,” he sneered.

  “Marsden!” Raelynn gasped, stepping beside her husband. “But why, Jeffrey? What did we ever do to him?”

  “The key to this, my love, may well be what he did to your father. He’s an English lord, is he not? And he said he knew of your father’s trouble, so undoubtedly he came from England fairly recently, perhaps on your heels. Let us even suppose that he didn’t come for the purpose of acquiring land for his daughter, but on a definite mission to find something of great value or importance, possibly even a letter that verified your father’s innocence, which, at the same time, might have proven Marsden’s guilt in the matter. If he had thought your father had sequestered such evidence in his coffer, then that would explain why someone, perhaps even Marsden himself, tried to pry open the secret compartment. When I discovered it, it held nothing at all, but that’s not to say that Frye didn’t steal what it contained when he had it within his possession.”

  “You found such a niche?” Raelynn asked in amazement.

  “Aye, I did, the night you ran away from Oakley.”