‘Who the hell are you?’ He looked down at his hand. A red tide of blood dripped from his fingers. The damned blade had got an artery, he thought, suddenly light-headed, though he shook his head to dispel the gathering haze and held his wounded arm tight against his body, balancing as he calculated the seconds left before they rushed him.
They came together and the remembered moves of fighting learned in the hot compound of the Caribbean returned to him. Effortlessly. The sharp clean noise of a broken bone and a knife falling to the floor, to a quick curse of anger as his assailant’s heads met.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he bellowed again as the second thief rose uncertainly up. He had no more energy to fight, though already he could hear the running footsteps of those in the house. Evidently the other man heard it too. He grabbed his accomplice around the shoulders and they crossed to the window and were outside even as he slid to the floor.
Asher looked up as Taris, Lucinda and four servants entered the room. ‘Get a doctor,’ he said as spurts of his blood rose into the air before him.
He came to in his bed. His sister sat beside him and he could see that she had been weeping. Taris watched him from the window and for a moment the world lightened and his ears hummed. Then it refocused, but strangely. He had never felt so tired in all of his life.
‘What happened?’ Even words were hard to say.
‘You nearly bled to death, Asher, and would have done so had not Lady Emma turned up at the exact same moment that this all happened.’ Taris spoke carefully.
‘Emma?’
‘She arrived just as Lucinda and I came downstairs to see what all the noise was about and she almost certainly and single-handedly saved your life.’
‘How?’ Nothing made sense.
Lucinda carried on the narrative. ‘She stripped off your sleeve with a knife she kept and wound the ties of the curtains tightly around your upper arm and kept it raised. I think she pressed down on the wound as well and when the bleeding had slowed she took the blade to the fire and heated it before searing your flesh. All in the space of a few moments. When Dr MacLaren arrived, everything was over. All he did was to bandage the wound.’
‘Is she here?’
‘No. She left. Without a word to us. Grabbed the two knives on the floor and left.’
‘I want her here.’
‘She has gone from the Haversham town house.’ Taris walked forward and sat on the bed. ‘I had the only servant the place boasted brought here and she intimated that Emma and Miriam were with other friends in London. She had no idea where.’
Asher tried to rise and fell backwards, the pain in his arm radiating around his whole body and making him feel dizzy.
‘Doctor MacLaren said to warn you that if you move too much you will rupture the artery and bleed to death. He also said you were to have this.’ Lucy emptied the contents of a sachet of powder into a glass of water and handed it to him.
‘To stop it hurting,’ she explained as he hesitated, and then smiled as he finished the lot.
‘Stand guards around the house, Taris, and if you find Emma keep her here. Safe.’ Asher felt the floating dizziness reach out and already the day was fading but he had to be certain his brother had heard. ‘It is dangerous here. Everything is dangerous.’
He was pleased when Taris nodded, the tight anger on his face suggesting that the house would be watched over.
It was midnight when he woke again.
Emma sat in lad’s clothes at the side of his bed, the tight line of her trousers emphasising the curves of her body. She held an assortment of sharp pins in her hand. Ungloved, he noticed. The searing red of the scars caught his attention, but tonight she did not seem to care.
‘Stay still,’ she whispered and placed a pin into his skin below the elbow, twirling it this way and that. A small dull pain radiated up into his armpit.
‘It will take away any infection,’ she explained when she saw him looking. A dozen other such needles graced his arm and chest, catching the quiet dance of lamplight in their shivering thinness.
He tried to raise his hand to touch her, but he couldn’t.
‘Why…?’ At least his voice still worked. She moved back, the frown on her brow deepening, but he was too tired to try to patch the story together tonight. All he wanted to know was Emma’s part in it. He could not quite bring himself to say what he was thinking.
Why did you want me dead?
His eyes flickered uncertainly to the needles.
‘They were island men,’ she said quietly, anger resonating in every word.
‘Are there more of them?’
‘Yes.’
‘They wanted to kill me.’
She was silent, though he could see the quick flash of temper that stormed through turquoise eyes. The unusual shade was muted tonight. Smoky. Distant.
‘I will not let them.’
The absurdity of her vow almost made him laugh. He had no idea of how much time had passed since he had been hurt. One day? Two days? A week? Everything was blurred and difficult and when she bent down he tried to summon up his last reserve of energy.
‘Look under the bed, Emma,’ he instructed, pleased when she did not question him, but leant down. ‘Is that what they were after?’
A sharp spike of adrenalin raced through Emerald. Her father’s ebony cane lay before her. Confused she laid it on the quilt. If Asher did not know of the secret compartment, she could slip the map out once he fell asleep. When she looked at him, however, she knew that the game was up.
‘It was easy to open.’
‘Open?’ She tried to inject a great sense of surprise into the word.
‘Move the catch and turn the body of wood to the right.’ Said flatly as though he was running out of patience with the whole pretence. With trepidation she did as he instructed.
Nothing was inside save a sheet of paper twisted strangely to stop it from disappearing down into the sharp end of the cane. Removing it, she ironed it flat with the palm of her hand.
If you want what was in here you will need to trust me.
The ornate Carisbrook baronial seal was stamped on to the bottom in red wax and her shock was compounded by the wariness on Asher’s face. It was all she could do to stop her voice from shaking.
‘Where is the map?’
‘I want a promise first.’
She stayed silent, not trusting her voice enough to speak. Where the hell would he have hidden it? Her eyes flashed around his room in a quick survey of possible places.
‘Not here,’ he continued. ‘Falder is the only place I will return it to you and I want your promise to come there with me.
‘I cannot—’ He didn’t let her finish.
‘Where are your men?’
‘Outside.’
‘Bring them in.’
‘Now?’
‘Now.’ The lighter webbing in his eyes was easily seen, giving him a dangerous and predatory look. Not willing to chance a denial, she walked across to the window and lifted a candle, waving it twice.
He