Was that a muffled scream?
Thinking of lovely Lavender in that horrifying office with its haunted couch. . . No, never again.
Kate grabbed a hefty piece of wood, darted into the hall, and ran for the office.
The door was locked. Without thinking twice, she slammed the key plate with her log. Her best Sunday gloves split at a worn seam, only adding to her rage. Shrieking her fury, she smashed the wood into the lock again and again.
Thirty-seven
Fletch
When no one answered the Hall’s front door, Fletch tested and found it locked. Not wanting to waste effort on beating in Damien’s solid door, he tried a different tactic. He drove the team back to the lane and tied it directly in front of the drive so no one could leave. Any farmer trying to pass by would curse, but he’d take his chances.
He'd heard faint shouting in the distance. Someone was here. Had Kate already made her way around? The shouts were too coarse to be hers. A lady like Kate was unlikely to attack scoundrels. She’d sensibly stay hidden until he had time to reach her.
Making his way around the outside of the workshop, he recognized female cries of. . . rage? . . . closer than the coarse shouting. Kate?
His heart stopped. She should be safe in the bushes, waiting for him. What the devil. . . ?
Where was Kate?
Abandoning any semblance of rationality, Fletch raised his rifle to his shoulder and ran toward the rear— Before his brain overtook his berserker, and he halted, out of sight. If anyone held a weapon on Kate, they’d hurt her before he could stop them.
As a soldier, it had never mattered. He’d simply shot the enemy on sight.
He wasn’t a soldier anymore. How did civilians do this? Not very well, he suspected.
But this was Kate, the perfect lady who had cared about his rotten carcass, understood when he reached the edge, and accepted his surliness with understanding. Women like that were rare. He’d die before letting anything happen to her. He’d die simply knowing he’d sent her into danger.
Fearing what he’d find, Fletch crept up on the back corner of the house, trying to actually think about how to reach Kate without harming her. Where was the guard? Who the devil was in the house?
More screams, followed by loud crashing. He couldn’t think past Kate lying in a pool of blood. The house was huge. Where did he begin?
Outside, clear the ground of the enemy.
To keep from seeing nothing but red, Fletch ran up the woodpile to the roof of the shed and sprawled on the tin roof. He now had the yard in sight. Aiming his rifle, he swept the scene. If he concentrated on eliminating the villains. . .
He could swear that was the black wool of Wilma Jameson’s fat backside waddling into the shrubbery where Kate ought to be hiding.
Don’t shoot. . . not yet. He scanned from the far side of the yard to the barn, seeing nothing untoward. The crashing and screams continued, somewhere nearby. That sounded more like fury than a brutal beating. . . He could be wrong. Ever the proper lady, Kate did not do furious.
The man he’d sent to guard the barn finally peered around the corner. Fletch whistled, and the man had the sense to look up. He pointed him toward Wilma. The man nodded and cautiously studied the shrubbery. The chances of Wilma being armed were slim.
Where was Morgan? With Kate? Panic and rage raised their ugly heads. Kate’s life depended on him throttling the monster. . .
Logic underlaid his madness. He didn’t know the Hall’s layout. He had to reconnoiter. Fletch slid down from the roof and peered inside the shed. Dark and musty, nearly empty, it contained no dead bodies, but a door had been left open into the house. The furious thuds emanated from there.
Kate needed him to be calm, rational, not a berserker. With his heart pounding at his ribcage, he fought instinct. Learn the terrain, go slowly, monitor the situation. . . do not blast holes in the walls.
He peered into a dark, narrow hall.
A crash to his left cast caution to the winds. He dashed past damp, enormous. . . pink drawers? He smacked enveloping petticoats aside and heard definitely unladylike cursing. Kate? His blood raced and he nearly swallowed his tongue to keep from crying out.
The sight of a door half off its hinges escalated his alarm to terror. Who was in there with her? Were they touching her? That frantic fear cast any scattered threads of caution to the winds. He sprinted past the rest of the damp undergarments, rifle raised.
Kicking the shattered plank of a door aside, Fletch swept the weapon around the room, searching for a target to take down.
Kate kneeled on the floor beside a couch, swearing and frantically picking at ropes tied around a woman’s slender wrists. Arms tied behind her, the prisoner lay on her stomach, moaning and gagging into the saggy cushions. A huge bonnet decorated in flummery covered most of her head.
