Dreaming (31 page)
Without the support of the excise men, he and Hunt had discussed the possibilities of capturing the kidnappers, and both were loath to do so with only a few footmen, a butler, and a coachman. One of the younger footmen volunteered to follow whoever picked up the ransom. They decided that would have to do.
Seymour
moved ahead and tapped Hunt on a shoulder. “How much farther?”
“I’d wager it’s only a few more feet. Never seen fog so thick.”
And true to his statement, they made the top of the rise a moment later. The group huddled around the lantern light, each man on guard.
Hunt leaned closer and asked, “What time is it?”
Seymour
checked his pocket watch. “Ten.”
“Two hours.” Hunt turned and whispered, “You men surround the grounds. Find positions behind the walls, near rocks, someplace where you can watch the drop site but still have some cover.”
The men faded like ciphers into the fog.
Seymour
lifted the lantern and tried to see past the uneven stone wall that was in front of him. It was barely two feet high.
He shifted, holding the lantern higher, and moved slowly and carefully along one wall of the ruin. He could hear the soft crunch of Hunt’s
bootsteps
following close behind him. They moved along the wall until they came to a corner.
From this vantage point there was a better angle of the ruins. The fog wandered slightly, giving random glimpses of what lay beyond. He could make out the outline of the chapel walls. All but one had crumbled into a short pile of stones.
Although deteriorated, the
moorstone
walls seemed to form part of what he assumed was a rectangle. Within, there was nothing but a dark and soggy-looking plane of dirt broken only by a time-scattered stone or an occasional clump of heath grass.
“Do you see anything that looks like an altar?”
“Hold the lantern a little higher.” Hunt paused, then pointed. “What’s that over there?”
Seymour
saw it. It was little more than a large stone block that stood in front of the only high wall left standing.
Hunt stood behind him, the other dueling pistol in his hand. He seemed poised, on guard and ready for anything. Quietly he said, “I’ll stay back here out of the light. They could be nearby now, watching us.”
“I doubt they could see us. There are moments where I can’t see three feet in front of me. Dirtiest bloody weather I’ve ever seen.”
“It does seem unusually thick. I can’t recall seeing weather like this in the fifteen years since we moved here. But then I’ve never been out trouncing through the ruins in the middle of the worst of it, either.”
Seymour
pulled the other pistol out and cautiously moved toward the altar. Again the fog faded in, then drifted out. It almost seemed to move with each step, as if he stirred the air into doing so with his trespassing.
He could see a few feet beyond the altar, and a little above. But mostly there was just white misty fog with an occasional shadowed outline where remnants of some wall remained.
He set the glowing lantern on the stone altar and looked around him. Nothing but his shadow. He pulled out the leather sack and set the ransom on the altar, then he slowly moved back through the fog to where he took his watch position behind one of the corner ruins.
Hunt squatted down next to him. “Did you notice anything?”
Seymour
shook his head.
“Nor did I.” Hunt peered over the wall. “I suppose there’s not much we can do now.”
Seymour
settled down into a better position and held his watch up in the dim light that spilled from the altar over the edge of the wall. He frowned and tucked it back in his pocket. He stretched his legs out and crossed his boots. “One hour and fifteen minutes. Nothing to do now except wait.”
As dreams went, it was perfect.
A great stone castle, majestic and magical, reigned from a hilltop. The bright summer sun, high in the blue sky, peeped out from behind a cloud—the whimsical shape of which appeared to be a fluffy cotton unicorn.
Off in the distance the sea winked with silvery lights, as if the night before, it had been kissed by the stars, and the dank dark moors of winter were tucked snugly under a summer blanket of lavender heather.
Absolute perfection was the image of a knight on a white horse riding up to the castle, with Gus loping happily alongside. The helm of the knight’s helmet was up, showing that Richard’s loving gaze was only for her.
And
Letty
had titian hair.
An instant later it was as if someone had called her name. She opened her eyes, waiting for the golden edges of her dream to fade.
Richard was the first thing she saw. His look was naked, not clothed in that everyday coat of studied indifference.
She could sense some incomplete part of him reaching out, toward her, with a desperate sense of wanting and bleakness that said he thought he was locked outside in the cold and could never get in.
Seeing that overwhelming sense of isolation within him robbed her of breath. She had always looked at Richard as a symbol of her dream, her knight. Yet now she saw him as a desperately lonely man.
They sat there in the close confines of a cave with six other people and Gus, yet at that instant the two of them seemed to be completely alone. She glanced around the cave to see if anyone else saw it.
The others were busy talking around the fire.
Perhaps, she thought, it was because she loved him so much that she could see this part of him.
She stood up and closed the short distance between them, then sat down beside him, stretching her own legs out as he had his.
She said nothing.
She didn’t look at him, but she knew he now stared into the hypnotic fire that flickered a few yards away. She laid her hand upon his.
It was cold, and larger than her palm, the skin seeming tougher than hers. Tough like the Richard he showed the world.
Yet from what she’d seen, a snatch here, a look there, she now knew that toughness provided cover for a man who purposely kept himself alone.
“I’m here,” she whispered.
His hand went rigid. He slowly turned and looked at her, his thoughts masked.
She wondered what he was thinking.
He broke his stare and casually glanced down at their hands. With a droll laugh he looked up and said, “Trying to rescue me, hellion?”
Silently she searched his eyes, wanting to see some of the isolation fade, wishing ever so much that she could be a little necessary to him, even if it were only for a brief instant.
He reached out and ran a finger over her lips, then tapped her gently on the chin. “So very serious.” He slid his thumb and forefinger under her chin and tilted her head up. “I can’t be what you want me to be.”
“I want to mean something to you. I’m not asking for much, just a small part of your life.”
“My life, hellion? I thought you wanted my heart.”
“I’ll take either one.”
He stared at the fire again, one arm resting on his raised knee. “We need more wood.”
“Please,” she whispered.
The fire crackled and snapped.
He blinked, then looked down at her.
Don’t turn me away. Not again.
“You can’t be part of my life. There is no part of it you could understand, or . . . ” He laughed bitterly. “
Withstand
.”
He stood swiftly and brushed off his breeches.
His rejection hurt, but part of her had expected it More painful, though, was the knowledge that he had to get away from her. It was there so plainly written in his expression.
She closed her eyes, half expecting to see him gone when she opened them. Finally her tears forced them open, and she looked up at him.
He was still there, standing before her in a tall blur.
“You want part of my heart?”
She nodded.
“I don’t have one.” He turned and left the cave.
“What time is it?”
Seymour
looked down at his pocket watch sitting on the top of the ruined wall. “Five minutes ’til
.”
Hunt edged up the wall and peered over it.
“See anything?”
He shook his head and edged back down. “The sack is still there and nothing.”
Both men sat there, waiting, as they had for almost two hours.
“I suppose we’ll hear them coming.”
“I suppose.”
There was utter silence. Time seemed to freeze.
Seymour
nudged Hunt, then, raising his pistol, he nodded at the wall. Both of them moved slowly into position.
Pistols ready and aimed at the drop site, Seymour and Hunt kept their eyes on the ransom sack.
The fog drifted through the air, passing by as slowly as the seconds of waiting. Light from the lantern made the fog look like dense, wet sunlight.
. Nothing.
It crossed
Seymour
’s mind for the first time that perhaps they wouldn’t show.
. And still no sound.
The money sack sat on the altar, untouched.
He wondered if the felons had arrived before them. Perhaps they were watching them. And waiting.
Two minutes after
.
He asked himself how long the lantern would burn. A few more hours worth of oil. It could be a standoff—who would outwait whom.
Three minutes after
.
Bloody hell
. This was taking a toll on his nerves. Hunt shifted.
Seymour
’s breath caught, then he slowly exhaled. He glanced at his watch. Five minutes after
. The lantern went out.