His wife was so far ahead of him on the steep trail, he couldn’t even glimpse her tall, slim figure swinging up the hill. Damn her long legs—. He began running, clawing his way past the heavy boulders lining the pathway. This was the most exertion he’d attempted since his beating. His head was pounding, his vision blurring. But he had to get to Willa before someone tried to end her life. Not, by damn, if he still had a breath left.
Although the miniature on the locket that had caused so many trials in Willa’s life looked very similar to Ariadne, the woman sitting across from her, handing her a steaming cup of tea, did not. The woman who claimed to be married to the absent First Lieutenant Towle was definitely French, but seemed not to have anything in common with the French Royalist spy.
Suddenly, everything fell into place. Willa understood. She lifted the cup to her lips and then stood, turning her back to the woman. She walked toward a rear window in the neat farmstead and pointed outside before absently setting down the teacup. “Oh, look. Chickens.” Willa pushed briskly through the back door out into the midst of a flock of gabbling hens and two wary roosters. They marched to her side and tilted up their heads, inspecting her gravely. Was she a threat, or merely an odd, new hen?
The dark-haired woman followed her, a look of clear annoyance on her face. “Madame, the weather up here, it is so hot and humid, please come back inside and finish your tea.” She stopped for a moment, seeming confused by the determined look on Willa’s face.
“As you say, it is beastly hot up here. I seem to have lost my taste for hot tea. My husband will be wondering where I’ve been.” When she began to stride away, the French woman, who clearly had nothing in common with Ariadne, made her move. She tripped Willa with her parasol and then dragged her toward a wooden shed. Willa, who was having none of it, snatched at the abandoned parasol and gave her attacker a sharp crack on the side of the head.
Willa gazed at Mrs. Towle, if that was her real name, who had a bluish lump forming on her forehead. She was still breathing, which was more than she deserved, but she’d awaken to a deadly headache. Willa walked away without looking back and hastened down the nearby path toward the Armitage cottage.
Her mind raced through a series of possible ways she’d explain what had happened to Mrs. Towle. She stopped suddenly. She didn’t care. If the woman’s husband hadn’t guessed what she was really up to on this godforsaken island, then Willa had no intention of enlightening him. On a hunch, she turned around and walked back to the house where she’d left the untouched cup of tea. She lifted the cup of hot liquid to her nose and sniffed carefully. The bitter almond smell made her drop the hot drink, the delicate cup smashing on the stone floor.
She raced away in the direction of the Armitages. She’d gone only a few steps when she felt a hard metal cylinder pressed painfully against her head and someone with her arm in a tight grip. From the looks of the man she could almost view without moving and possibly losing part of her ear, he would not be amenable to reason. And she couldn’t be sure, but his bright red uniform jacket might be evidence that there was indeed a Lieutenant Towle.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When Cullen finally arrived at the Towle cottage, his already heavily taxed brain had a hard time understanding what he was seeing. First Lieutenant Towle held a cocked pistol to the side of Willa’s head, his thumb hovering in preparation to fire.
An angry woman he assumed to be Mrs. Towle sat on a stone bench next to the front stoop with a piece of wet linen pressed to her forehead. The tall and glorious Mrs. MacCloud nearly matched the lieutenant in height, and he was having a hard time controlling her movements. As usual, she maintained the look of a self-righteous and unrepentant Royal Navy officer. Fortunately, she was not, because with a mess like the one this scene suggested, an officer might be court-martialed and end up in the brig.
Cullen calculated a quick size-up of the man. He had at least two or three stone on Towle, and was a head or so taller. The lieutenant was too busy trying to subdue Willa to notice Cullen’s presence behind him, and the man’s wife was too absorbed in her own misery to notice his approach. It was ridiculously easy to wrest away the man’s service pistol, letting it discharge into the air. Sometimes it was a blessing to be a hulking, thick-headed Scot. He towered over most men which gave him considerable leverage in a mill.
After throwing the man’s service pistol as far as he could into the jungle-like undergrowth surrounding the cottage, he turned and made a reasonable suggestion.
“I require the pleasure of the company of all of you inside…now.” Cullen stretched his arm in the direction of the cottage. When he turned to Willa, she gave him a dark look before falling in behind the Towles. In a whisper-like growl, she assured him, “I had everything under control before you showed up to meddle.”
He gave her a not-so-subtle firm push from behind and said, “You’re welcome.”
Once they’d all settled in around the wooden plank table in the tiny kitchen, Cullen decided to be blunt and save time.
Lieutenant Towle immediately accused Willa, pointing his finger and waving his hands about.
Cullen slammed a fist down onto the table so violently that all the china in the corner cabinet shook and clattered. “Stop and
