Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) Read online

  "Now, you are going to tell me precisely what you did. I will find out anyway, you know," he purred as his crippled hand stroked the bruises he'd put on her throat.

  Cybill had observed him taunting his victims like this many times before. He played with them like a cat with a crippled bird, but he had never done it to her. And all over a woman he was obsessed with, a gauche, clumsy bluestocking, fat with another man's child! The anger she had struggled to hold in check bubbled over.

  "I'll tell you what I've done!" she spat furiously. Tears of sheer rage brightened her eyes as she leaned forward and glared at his arrogant face. "I've spent all of our wedded life furthering your career, pandering to gouty old generals and pompously dull cabinet ministers. I've lived for nearly a year in this hellish backwater town swatting mosquitoes and watching my ankles swell in the heat while you panted after that pregnant sow without touching her!"

  "You incited her to escape—you helped her, didn't you?"

  "Yes! And what's more I saw to it the job was done to a cow's thumb! She's dead! And so is her brat! Willie was only too happy to follow her into the swamp and see that she ended up alligator food!"

  "Kent!" he roared, losing all composure abruptly. "You sent Kent after her?"

  "Yes, and you're too late, Rupert. 'Tis done, finished," she shouted back, coming up out of her chair at him with her long nails curved into claws.

  He struck her with his good hand, hard across the face as a blind red haze enveloped him. When she fell backward against the chair, he reached down and clamped both hands around her throat, squeezing, squeezing...until she ceased her struggles. Her head plopped limply against his wrist and the long tangled black hair fell like a stringy curtain over her face.

  With a sniff of distaste he released his hold and stepped back, looking down on the wreckage of what had once been a beautiful woman. "Bitch," he mouthed softly as he turned and left the room without a backward glance. Let that fat, stupid commandant see to burying her. He was going after Jocelyn, Kent and Blackthorne.

  * * * *

  Alex paddled slowly, his eyes watching the shoreline with increasing desperation. The sun was sinking low on the horizon and time was running out. Very soon the night would catch them in its immobilizing inky grasp. The dog sat at the front of the canoe, nostrils twitching in the evening breeze for a hint of Joss's scent. Several times over the past hours when they came to a division in the waterway headed north, he had relied on Poc's instinct to choose the right path. He knew it was probably hopeless, but he also knew he'd remain in this bayou until he found her or died here himself.

  Suddenly Poc started barking, breaking the low hum of insects and rhythmic croaking of night creatures coming to life. A faint whiff of smoke teased Alex's nostrils. A campfire? His heart suddenly began to pound as the dog's barking intensified frantically.

  "Joss!" he cried, paddling toward the aroma of smoke, repeating her name over and over until he was hoarse. "Joss! Joss! Are you here, darling?"

  She came up as from a deep well as the wave of pain ebbed, thinking she had heard Alex calling her name. "Wish for something desperately enough and you hallucinate," she said through parched lips. She fumbled for Kent's canteen on the ground beside her, and started to take a sip when the sound echoed across the water once more.

  "Joss! Joss! Answer me, please!" Following the cry a dog's sharp bark sounded.

  She nearly dropped the precious water. It was Alex with Poc! He'd found her! "Alex, here—I'm here," she responded hoarsely, but her strength had been ebbing steadily over the last hours as the contractions grew closer together. She had used up much of her precious reserve of energy building a fire, cleaning the knife and preparing everything as best she could for her child's birth.

  Could he hear her? Frantically she repeated the cry and was rewarded by an answer. "Joss? Is it you?" Poc's barking grew louder, more frantic. She struggled to her knees and peered out at the river. Evening mist veiled it in soft shades of gray.

  Joss squinted, seeing a dim shape moving toward the bank. Because of the fading light and her cracked lenses she could not determine who it was. Then a small part of the apparition separated itself with a loud splash, jumping into the water. In a moment she could make out the little dog as he scrambled up the muddy bank, spraying water everywhere as he raced across the clearing and leaped into her arms, licking her face with joy.

  She held the soaked, muddy terrier, petting him soothingly as her eyes fastened on the tall shadowy figure nimbly leaping onto the bank and beaching the canoe. "Alex? Alex, is it truly you? I've hoped and prayed and dreamed for so many months..." Her voice broke as another contraction began to tighten her belly, squeezing off breath.

  "Joss," he cried, kneeling beside her and taking her in his arms as she doubled over, panting. "What is it? What's wrong—are you injured?"

  Relief flooded her in spite of the building contraction's painful intensity. Her love had found her at last! She shook her head, then gasped, "Nothing...wrong...baby's coming."

  Alex paled as he helped her lie back on the rude pallet she'd made beside the fire. "Nothing is wrong when you're about to...you're having the...you can't, Joss—not here without help," he sputtered frantically.

  As the contraction eased, she took a deep breath and chuckled weakly. "But I'm no longer without help, Alex."

  "But I can't...you can't...we can't—"

  "Yes, we can. We have little choice and little time for a male version of the vapors," she said firmly, taking no pity on his typical male mutton-headedness in the face of impending fatherhood.

  He looked around the campfire and saw a Baker rifle leaning in the crook of a swamp oak, the knife gleaming on top of a pile of clean rags, the blanket she reclined on. "How did you do all this?"

  "The supplies are Kent's. He is dead," she said with surprising calmness. "He followed us."

  "Us?"

  Quickly she explained that Cybill had tricked her into slipping out of the fort with an old Frenchman as guide. "She lied to us both. She'd sent Kent to kill us here and leave no trace."

  "I take it Kent killed the Frenchman?"

  Joss nodded, then described the struggle that ended in Kent's death.

  Every few moments she had to pause as a fresh contraction came. She concluded, saying, "So I found this clearing high enough above water to keep the alligators away, brought his supplies from his canoe and built the fire."

  He shook his head, grinning in spite of his fears. "You are one hell of a remarkable woman, Jocelyn Blackthorne," he said with admiration. Just then another contraction began. She squeezed his hand and began to pant with it. He blanched, feeling her pain so keenly he gasped.

  She waited until it eased, then patted his hand reassuringly. "Never fear, Alex. Everything is going on quite normally. I should have realized what the low backache meant this morning, but I was too excited at the prospect of escape to think of it."

  "Are you sure Kent didn't hurt you—the struggle with him—"

  "No, I'm certain he did not. After all, it isn't as if I have not assisted at the delivery of dozens of babies at hospital, Alex. The child is full term." She smiled and looked away, faintly embarrassed. "I knew within two weeks precisely when my delivery date must be."

  He knew at once what she meant. They had made love only two nights in Coweta, almost exactly a fortnight apart. "You seem to have thought of everything," he said, still frightened for her yet beginning to calm. Poc, as if understanding the need for levelheadedness, had stretched out beside her pallet, quietly observing their exchange. "What must I do? Only explain and I'll do it," Alex said, praying he was not making a false promise.

  " 'Tis pretty much up to nature to take its course, but you can be of great assistance just being with me. Hold my hand and talk to me through the contractions...." As if on cue, another one began. Tell me you love me, Alex.

  Alex swallowed nervously and stroked her forehead with his free hand while she held the other in a death grip. Too rat
tled to think of the obvious things he should tell her—had been burning to tell her all these hellish months—he instead explained how he had received her letter when everyone was certain she had died at the wilderness fort. Then he described his rush to Mobile, where he had encountered Cybill, about whom he now uttered some choice epithets.

  "Did you really swaddle her in bedding and tie her on the mattress?" she asked, chuckling in spite of everything at the image of the cool and haughty noblewoman gagged and sweating in silent fury.

  "It was the only way to keep her quiet. I had to make time before she sicced pursuers on me." Joss and Alex were so intent on each other they failed to notice the dog bristling and growling as Alex continued, "Without Poc I would never have found you in this labyrinth of water, Joss. I doubt anyone could have followed my trail."

  "Your doubts are quite unfounded, Blackthorne. A pity, after all you've both gone through to be reunited. So touching, father and mother awaiting the birth of their firstborn child," Sir Rupert Chamberlain said conversationally as he stepped into the circle of flickering light. A Red Stick guide shadowed him. Both held cocked weapons. The Indian's musket was trained on Alex's chest. The colonel's .69-caliber Egg dueling pistol was pointed at Joss's stomach. "I wonder, should I kill her now ... or allow you both to live and watch as I kill your brat first?"

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Poc growled more menacingly as Chamberlain approached. Alex made a quick motion with his hand, quelling the dog before one of the men shot him. How could he move the fight clear of Joss? She clutched his hand, gasping in horror when Chamberlain made his vile threats. "Your wife told me that you planned to keep my child and raise it to spite me," he said, slowly standing up, placing himself in the line of fire between Joss and the men.

  "Ah, dear fellow, that was before you so conveniently placed yourself into my hands to do with as I please. The chap with me is Devil Dancer, a Red Stick who hates marauding colonials. He is your sworn enemy and a most inventive torturer, I'm told," he added with relish.

  "No, you can't—" Joss's cry was breathless and desperate, coming through another rising contraction. They were very close together now. It would not be long. She could not let this twisted madman have her baby or her husband! Sensing his mistress's distress, Poc licked her hands, which were now clenched in a death hold on the blanket. If only she could see what was going on more clearly!

  When she tried to sit up, Chamberlain looked past Alex at her pale, drawn face. That split second of distraction gave her husband the only opening he might get. With a loud cry of "Now, Poc!" he leaped at the colonel, knocking the elegant pistol aside so it discharged harmlessly in the air. The two men went tumbling to the ground at the same instant that Poc, with blurring speed, slammed into the Red Stick's chest, knocking him backward before he could get off a shot. He dropped his weapon as he fell.

  Devil Dancer tried to pull his knife from its sheath, but he was dealing with a trained fighting dog whose killing instincts had been honed in dozens of bloody London pits. The Red Stick raised his arm trying to ward off the lethal terrier as Poc went with deadly intent for his jugular.

  Alex and Chamberlain rolled across the clearing, coming dangerously close to the edge of the bank before breaking apart. Each man scrambled to his feet and drew a weapon. Alex had only the wicked Muskogee hunting knife that had caused Drum such consternation back in London, but the colonel unsheathed the long gleaming cavalry saber from its scabbard slung across his back.

  "Now, you mongrel bastard, 'tis long past time we finished our business, don't you agree?" he asked as Alex circled warily, keeping out of the far greater range of the sword.

  "You couldn't best me in a fair contest before. I suppose you're entitled to a second chance since I robbed you of the use of your good right hand," Alex replied, watching the eerie glow of madness in Chamberlain's eyes.

  "Yes, a second chance you will regret, you bloody savage. I'm as good now with my left hand as I was with my right—better than good enough to cut you to ribbons," the Englishman snarled as he lashed out, slicing Alex's shirtsleeve.

  A narrow weal of blood seeped from it, but Blackthorne ignored the fiery sting, all too aware of Joss lying behind them, helpless and in pain. If only Poc could do away with the Red Stick scout, he could handle Chamberlain—he would handle Chamberlain. Alex called upon every trick of feinting, thrusting and parrying he had learned as a backwoods brawler and every advantage he had learned from wrestling contests with the Muskogee.

  Chamberlain's blade was far longer than his, but it was also heavy and clumsy. He could not wield it as effectively as he would have a foil. "Thrash and swing, Chamberlain. You fight like a scullery maid wielding a broom," he scoffed, goading his foe as he got inside and nicked the colonel's crippled arm. In spite of using his left hand quite proficiently, Chamberlain still suffered under the disadvantage of restricted movement in his right arm.

  "Scullery maid, indeed," the colonel echoed arrogantly. "Before I finish with you I'm going to hack off both your hands and this is just the weapon with which to do it." As he spoke, Chamberlain's blade flashed, opening an ugly gash on Alex's forearm.

  It was not deep enough to disable him or cause him to drop his knife, but the blood loss would be fatal if he did not end the contest soon. Joss's swift heavy breathing indicated that she needed him desperately. He could hear Poc and the Red Stick thrashing and rolling as his attention remained on the colonel's blade.

  Poc made a last snarling lunge and tore out half the Red Stick's throat. Blood spurted like a fountain while Devil Dancer gurgled his last, then went still. The dog remained rigid, straddling the body, still growling.

  I have to back him toward them, Alex thought, taking the risk of going on the offensive in spite of Chamberlain's longer reach with the sword. The blunt tip of the blade nicked Blackthorne's face, narrowly missing his eye as he gave Chamberlain's crippled arm an arcing slash. Alex dodged the worst of Chamberlain's counterblow but felt the sharp sting on his cheek. Blood oozed from it but he had the satisfaction of seeing Chamberlain's right arm hang at his side, dripping blood and utterly useless. The man's balance would now be severely impaired.

  A wild light of panic shone in the colonel's eyes as he said shrilly, "You maimed me as if I were a damned dog in a bear baiting. All I have now is this deformed claw." He backed another step, stumbling as Alex's blade flashed with lightning speed, this time slicing his sword arm.

  Just one more step. Poc had quieted now, still standing on Devil Dancer's chest, seeming to understand Alex's plan.

  At the last second, Chamberlain sensed the stumbling block behind him. He chanced a look over his shoulder, then whirled with an oath, raising his sword to slash down on Alex's extended knife arm. But Blackthorne was too quick. He slipped inside, and quickly sliced the Englishman's neck, jumping back out of reach.

  Chamberlain's sword clattered uselessly to the ground as he lost his balance, falling over the Red Stick's body. Blood gushed from his wound.

  "The last time I did it Drum's way. This time I did it mine."

  Lying dazed, Chamberlain tried in vain to reclaim his saber but could not. "Then kill me, you bastard! Kill me and be done with it!" he screamed.

  "I have," Alex replied grimly.

  Sir Rupert Chamberlain's eyes glazed over as he stared at the gushing blood soaking his uniform an even darker shade of red. He fell back and sighed, then was gone.

  Alex turned from the two dead men and rushed back to Joss, who was panting without respite now, her breaths coming in and out ragged and low like an animal in terrible pain. As he knelt beside her, frantic with fear, she gasped, "It's coming...the baby is...coming soon, Alex. You must...pull it free...when the head pushes out...then tie off the cord and cut it.... Use Kent's knife....I cleaned it in the fire...."

  Terrified, Alex listened as she described, in far more vivid detail than he had ever wished to know, exactly what was going on. His arm was bleeding copiously. As she talked, he tore
a wide piece from the hem of her skirt and bound it as best he could. He dared not pass out from blood loss while his wife needed him. Then he washed his hands in water from the canteen and dried them on a piece of clean cloth.

  Poc sat patiently at Joss's side offering moral support. Alex wished he and the dog could change places as he knelt beside her spread legs and waited. When the small head began to emerge, his fears and uncertainties were swept away in the miracle of birth. This was their child, created in the wonder of a love he had not even recognized. He felt humbled and proud all at the same time as he gently pulled his newborn daughter from her mother's body and held her in his hands.

  "So tiny yet so perfect," he breathed in awe.

  Joss smiled, exhausted but enraptured, while he followed her instructions, laying their lustily crying little daughter on her breast and disposing of the afterbirth. "You're as efficient as any London nurse," she said, caressing the wet cap of hair on their baby's head.

  "I didn't think I could do it," he confessed.

  "You were splendid," she replied.

  They stared at each other through the flickering firelight until the baby gave another fretful wail, breaking the spell. "She should be bathed and wrapped in some of that cloth," Joss said, then added, "and then your wounds must be tended." She reached up and touched the bloody gash on his cheek. "I wish I had the materials to stitch it. It will leave a terrible scar to mar your beauty."

  He scoffed. "My 'beauty' is the least of our concerns now, Joss." He soaked a cloth with water and gently cleansed his daughter, then swaddled her lovingly and returned her to his wife's arms. "What shall we name her?"

  "I had thought Elijah for my father if we had a son, but since we have a daughter I would like to name her for your mother."

  "Barbara it shall be. She saw what I was far too blind to see, Joss. Can you ever forgive me for being such a fool?" he asked as he watched her hold the baby to her breast. "I never told you I loved you, Joss. I never even realized it until it was too late. I didn't know how much until I lost you."