To Chase the Storm Page 5

  The cries above swelled. The crowd was eager again, hungry. Shouts of triumph rang out, and Rafe could almost see the murderers falling upon their prey. He felt a stirring of relief as he heard the crowd recede from the ledge above, but he couldn't banish from his mind thoughts of the poor woman they still held, and the gruesome rite that awaited her. There was nothing Rafe could do for her, but the girl...

  The still-burning torch cast a faint light into their tiny lair. Gently, Rafe stroked the hair away from Tessa's face, intending to search again for any sign of life, but before his probing fingers could find a pulse, they stilled upon the girl's face, his breath catching in his throat.

  A sea sprite. Madre de Dios, the girl had the face of a sea sprite. A delicate nose, upswept dark brows, a mouth seemingly molded to tease and torment, and crescents of sooty lashes that fell rich upon high cheekbones. Yet it was her chin that caused hope to surge anew through Rafe. It was the most wondrously resolute chin he had ever seen on a woman. It revealed a stubbornness that would not be defeated by the hatred of a cursed mob or by a tumble from a mere cliff.

  "Wildwitch." Rafe felt his heart slam against his rib cage. "Don't let them win!"

  He caught his breath, stunned as he detected the tiniest of sounds.

  The anguished moan pierced Rafe, as the delicate fingers clutched his tattered shirt in a desperate grasp. "Mama..."

  Rafe cradled her tightly against him.

  "Have to find her." The woman’s voice trailed off as she sank back into the void of unconsciousness, but her fingers stayed clamped, iron-tight, about Rafe's shirt, as though she fought to cling to life. A jolt of joy and protectiveness shot through Rafe, driving back even the pain burning in his leg.

  Maybe it was because he had seen so many die upon his ship, maybe it was because he had nearly drowned himself, but life suddenly seemed the most precious gift.

  "Alive! Damn them all to hell, you're still alive!" he repeated, his voice harsh with victory. "And I vow you'll remain so, if it costs me my very soul."

  * * *

  The phantom was calling, snaring Tessa in a gossamer web of sea foam and salt spray. She struggled against him, wanting to follow the rough-velvet voice that lured her, yet knowing there was some reason she must not.

  "Wildwitch," the wine-dark tones urged her, fingers woven of mist caressing her cheek. "Come away."

  Yet though her whole body ached to touch the sea phantom's hair, longed to kiss the arrogant curve of lips obscured by diamond-bright haze, she could not keep her dread at bay.

  "Promised..." She forced the word through stiff lips. "Promised Hagar I wouldn't."

  But the mystical world Tessa was floating in only threw back at her a dozen images of Hagar, no longer broken by life, but young and alive and laughing.

  "Hurry along, Tessa babe," her mother bade her, tugging one of the girl's dark curls. "We always knew you would go away with him."

  Tessa hung back, hating the stark vulnerability sluicing through her, feeling it deepen into unaccustomed fear. "Nay, Mama, I cannot... cannot leave you. Jervis—"

  "Do you not know, poppet?" Hagar's laugh rippled out. "Jervis cannot touch me now. And in truth, the love I shared with William was worth the pain I suffered under Jervis's heel."

  Tessa reached out toward her mother, picturing again the bruises discoloring Hagar's fragile skin during the time with Jervis, hearing Hagar's cries. "Nothing... nothing could be worth risking—"

  " 'Tis worth risking anything, Tessa babe. Worth risking everything."

  "Wildwitch."

  The phantom's voice throbbed with longing, tugging at something deep inside Tessa, something even her fear could not make her deny. As she ran toward him, his cloak of midnight whirled about his broad shoulders and his lips parted in welcome. He stretched out sinewy arms to embrace her, but as she flung herself against him, he melted away. She cried out, feeling herself hurtle through the mist. Yet it was no longer spun of rainbows and light, but rather of suffocating darkness.

  "Nay!" Tessa cried, clawing at the blackness where the images had vanished.

  But her fingers only bared hideous scenes of Jervis Keegan's brutal face, and of flames licking hungrily at flesh.

  Burning her... Jervis was burning her!

  Tessa cried out, wrenching at the bonds wrapped around her, but it was no longer the mist that chained her, rather it was the folds of a midnight-dark cape.

  "Let me go!" she cried to the ghostly figure. "I have to help her."

  But the phantom only clutched her tighter, his voice oddly rasping, tinged with sorrow.

  "I wish to God we could."

  There was anguish in that dark, silky voice that filled Tessa with foreboding.

  Desperately she fought to wade through the suffocating numbness besetting her senses, but the throbbing pain in her head blinded her, leaving her adrift in a sea of darkness.

  Darkness haunted by a phantom? Nay, it was not some misty sound born of dreams. Those deep tones were painfully real, sweeping away her fantasies and leaving behind a reality far darker.

  "Witch!" The cry ripped through Tessa's consciousness, raking wide her terror.

  She shook her head in an effort to clear it, white-hot spikes seeming to pierce her skull. But hands, infinitely gentle, held her firm.

  "Hush. You'll do yourself harm."

  "Mama... they're burning her."

  "There is nothing you can do, nothing you can give her now but your prayers, your love, and your determination to stay alive yourself."

  "Nay!" Tessa shoved at what seemed a solid wall of iron, yet warmer, smooth. She opened her eyes and saw a dark, mystically handsome face whirling above her in circles. Pulse racing, she clutched at the arms that held her as the crash of the waves and the sound of the screams snapped into focus. This was real, she thought wildly. Her horrible dream was real. She was by the sea, and Hagar...

  Thrusting herself upright, Tessa screamed a denial, her eyes fixing upon the hellish scene painted red and orange upon the beach below—villagers shrieking with glee, drowned in the light of flames, writhing about a blaze even now consuming a huge stake... a stake to which was bound a limp figure, its once silver tresses afire.

  "Don't." The deep voice of her captor seemed filled with pain. His large hand cupped the base of her skull, pulling her face against his broad, muscled chest. "For God's sake, don't look."

  A horrible animal sound rose in Tessa's throat.

  She drove her balled fist into her captor's chest, heard the man let out a grunt of pain. Breath hissed between his bared teeth, but his grasp upon her loosened for only an instant. With all the strength she possessed Tessa wrenched free, nearly hurling herself from the ledge in her desperation to reach Hagar.

  "Stop, blast it!" Rafe called after her, gritting his teeth against the pain lancing through his bruised ribs. "They'll kill you!"

  Kill her? Rafe thought grimly. The mob would get no chance to work their evil upon her. The girl was flinging her own life away, dashing madly down the crags in a crazed rush certain to send her crashing to her death.

  Rafe grasped the hilt of his dagger, his scalp prickling as he heard the crowd roar when they saw her—a wolf pack, blood-maddened, turning upon its next prey. He launched himself after Tessa, stones jabbing at him, the wound in his thigh, scarce noticed before, raking him now with razor-sharp claws.

  He saw the girl slam to a halt, facing the mob, and even from a distance Rafe could sense her courage and the mob's... what was it? Fear?

  A chill rippled down Rafe's spine, but he kept on bolting downward, toward her.

  "It's Tessa!" he heard someone within the mob cry out. "She be alive!"

  "Impossible! It is impossible!" Gasps rippled through the crowd. "We saw her fall from the cliffs!"

  "God save us, she do be a witch."

  It was as though the girl held them all in a mystical spell, the sea winds lashing her hair, her face pristine white against the twisting flames.

  "
A curse upon all of you!" Tessa's hysteria-tinged voice trailed chill fingers down Rafe's spine. "I wish I could could hurl you all into hell!"

  The strength in her voice held the mob at bay. Their pinched gray faces told Rafe that they expected the earth to split open and swallow them at her command.

  But the next instant Rafe sensed something crumbling within the girl. He did not know whether it was because the wind shifted, carrying with it the stench of charred flesh, or because the breeze rolling in upon the waves now had a soft, mournful sound.

  A hopeless sob rent Tessa's breast, and she crumpled to her knees in the white sand.

  A murmur rippled through the mob, her show of weakness feeding again the fires of their cruelty and superstition.

  "Seize her!" a bull of a man bellowed. "We'll make an end to her as we did the old hag!"

  Rafe saw several cruel-faced figures step toward Tessa, but he sensed in them some hesitation. In that instant he saw his only possible chance to save the girl, aye, and to save his own cursed skin.

  Despite the danger, a grim amusement stole through him, and his teeth flashed white in a feral smile. In a dozen different courts—in Spain, France, and countless exotic islands lost in the great seas—beautiful women had told him he was as handsome as el diablo and thrice as tempting. Perhaps if he could play the part for these cowardly English dogs... Madre de Dios forgive him.

  Driving back the tide of pain in his thigh by force of will, he closed the distance between himself and Tessa, then thrust his dagger into its scabbard and planted his hands on his narrow hips. "It is folly to threaten the devil's bride." His voice was velvet over steel, resonating through the night, dark, mysterious. "You cannot know what demons she might summon."

  A rustle went through the crowd, and he could see the women clutching at their men's arms, could see the bull of a man who had seemed to be the mob's leader sink back against the dark shadows of his minions, his smithy's apron stained where it covered his quivering belly.

  "Who—who are you?" The bravado in the hulking smithy's face was shot through with fear, fear the man was obviously fighting to conceal.

  Rafe saw Tessa straighten and turn her face toward him, but he wrenched his gaze away, loosing upon the sea winds a sinister chuckle. "You know me right well, do you not, smith? Have we not met in the flames of your forge a dozen times?"

  "The flames? I—I do not know you."

  Rafe let a terrifying laugh rake the night. "You lie."

  "Nay, I—Jemmie, Tate, grab the murderous bastard."

  "Ah, but they know me, too. I crawl into their souls at night, listen to their lust, their lies." Rafe took another step toward them, sneering as they shrank back. "You have already done enough this night, burning the old woman. Before you pluck away yet another life, I shall steal one of you for my own, to replace—"

  A sharp surge of triumph pulsed through Rafe as he saw a good portion of the crowd skitter away and disappear into the night. He glanced at Tessa, meaning only to make certain that she was still all right. But this time it was he who felt a sudden urge to step back—from the tempest raging behind the girl's perfect features.

  Her face gleamed like bleached ivory, her flawless skin drawn tight across the dainty curve of cheekbone and chin. Her eyes glittered onyx: her berry-red lips trembled not with fear but with fury, indignation. It was the face of a savaged Madonna, or was it the face of a dark angel?

  With one graceful sweep Tessa got to her feet and moved toward him, regal as an empress, despite her rags.

  "My mother was no witch." Crystal clear, Tessa's voice lashed the night, her gaze locked upon Rafe's face. "I will not let her lie in her grave with that legacy."

  Rafe felt an odd tingling of embarrassment heat his cheekbones; then it flamed into anger. What was she doing? He was trying to save her life.

  His hand shot out and closed in a bruising grip upon Tessa's arm. "Don't be a fool," he whispered. "They'll burn you."

  The girl choked out a wild little laugh, tears welling up on her lashes. "You think I care?"

  "Your mother would have!"

  Tessa flinched, and Rafe saw her catch her lip between her teeth. The gesture was achingly childlike, and he felt a sudden urge to pull her into his arms, comfort her.

  He heard the rumble of the crowd and cursed himself. He had become lost in Tessa's eyes for only a heartbeat. But that heartbeat might well be his last.

  The superstitious fear that had rippled through the mob moments before had vanished, leaving the rage of men who had been made to look like fools.

  The light of the torches still gripped in the villagers’ hands glittered red in their sunken eyes, and Rafe could smell the blood lust upon them.

  His hand closed on the hilt of his dagger. He was just one man—one man who knew when Dame Fortune had cast her dice against him.

  "He is a murderin' Spaniard!" a voice called out. "A devil-spawned Spaniard shielding the witch!"

  The men at the front of the mob surged forward a step. Rafe forced Tessa behind him and drew his weapon.

  "Kill them!" a feminine voice shrilled.

  The smith lunged at Rafe, wielding a flaming torch as though it were a sword. The makeshift weapon hissed toward him. He leapt back, evading the full force of the blow, pain searing his forearm as the flames licked his skin. He ignored it, lunging toward the hulking smith with panther-like grace, his blade biting flesh. But the swift movement cost Rafe dearly; a hot, sticky flow of blood dampened the bandage on his leg. The mob roared.

  Hopeless. Rafe knew it was hopeless. He spun toward the girl, meaning to give her a quick, merciful death away from the stake. But at that moment he saw one of the other villagers dive toward him. Rafe prepared to meet his charge, but something pale, the size of grapeshot whizzed past him. With a horrible crack, the object slammed into Rafe's assailant's face, and blood burst from the man's bulbous nose as he fell, half conscious, to the sand.

  Rafe's eyes flashed back to see Tessa scoop something up from the shore. A stone! She had hurled a stone!

  Rafe felt a sudden wrenching in his chest at the girl's courage, courage as innocent and moving as that of the cabin boy Rique who had perished on Rafe's ship. Pain lashed him as he poised his dagger, ready to plunge it into her breast.

  But at the last instant something stayed his hand—a sound in the distance, which made the mob fall silent, listening. Hoof beats. A dozen riders, at least, crashed through the gnarled brush at the end of the beach. Rafe glimpsed bright silver armor and destriers dripping with velvet and steel.

  "Warburton."

  The name rippled through the crowd in whispers, and that single word seemed to hold more power than the threat of the devil. Even in Spain Rafe had heard rumors of Neville, Lord Warburton, a man who would suffer anything to lay the head of a hated Spaniard before his queen.

  Rafe stiffened, his gaze flashing to the stony cliffs that beckoned to him like the islands sailors' eyes conjured after voyaging too long—mirages, untouchable, impossible. And yet if he could grasp Tessa's hand and bolt for the stone rim—

  "Hasten!" He caught her wrist and started to run. "The cliffs. Head for the rocks."

  Suddenly the earth before him seemed to erupt in a mass of sweat-sheened sorrels and bays, their massive hooves slicing the turf all around him.

  "We’ve found a Spaniard, milord!" one of the armored men bellowed. The others sent up a cry of triumph.

  Before the soldiers could fall upon him, Rafe dredged up all the strength and daring remaining within him. With a guttural roar, he flung himself through the mass of horsemen and maneuvered Tessa into the crowd of fleeing townspeople.

  Eager cries rang out behind them from men-at-arms hungering for their Spanish prey. Rafe heard the villagers' screams as the horsemen plunged heedlessly among the crowd, trampling anyone in their path. He cursed as the terrified mob engulfed the two of them, blocking the narrow trail that was the only access to the cliffs above and escape.

  He and Tes
sa would never reach the top of the cliffs before the English riders overtook them.

  "This way! Run!" Tessa's voice cut through the panicked shrieks of the crowd. Rafe's eyes caught hers for a heartbeat; then she tugged him through the crush of villagers toward a wall of solid stone.

  Rafe started to pull away from her. But suddenly the moonlight glinted on a break in the jagged rock. A break too small to admit a destrier—almost too narrow for Rafe himself. An amusing thought flashed into his mind: He, the grand adventurer, the bold seafarer, was being rescued by this slip of a girl.

  The thought vanished as vicious cries slashed the night like a blade.

  Rafe saw Tessa fling a glance over her shoulder, caught a glimpse of her beautiful, tormented features. Then they plunged into a maze of darkness lit only by the faintest of hopes.

  Chapter 4

  The barren hollow lay in a tangle of brambles as though God himself had scorned it. Tessa moved closer to the meager flames. Soreness drummed dully through the score of scrapes and bruises she had suffered in her fall, but she scarce felt the pain.

  She only stared blankly into the maze of thorns and stone, glad that she was lost among them, wishing she could lose herself there forever. For she didn’t think she could ever bear to look upon sapphire summer skies and heather and feel joy again.

  A movement a cart's length away caught her eye, and Tessa gazed at the stranger, who was hunkering down beside a pile of twigs, driftwood, and grasses. The flowing seafarer's shirt clung to the rippling muscles of his back, covering the broad shoulders that tapered down to a narrow waist and hips encased in breeches of blue-gray. Hair, dark as sin and thrice as tempting, fell in disarray over his collar. The clean, sharp lines of his face were half hidden by the silken waves.

  "That fire will bring Warburton down upon us," she bit out. "You might as well raise up a banner and be done with it."

  But the Spaniard only turned, regarding her with enigmatic indigo eyes before he bent to coax bigger flames among the bits of kindling. "Are you warm yet?"

  She started at the soft-spoken words, stunned to find that the fire now blazed hot and bright. How long had she been lost in grief? Minutes? Hours? Her gaze locked with the dark-haired man's, and she sensed that he had been watching her for some time.