Page 94 of By the Sword
‘Ah, no, Mistress Ashley. It was you who said he was playing truant, I just chose to let you think I had him or you would not have come quite so willingly.’
‘Prescott, this does not involve Kate. Let her go,’ Jonathan said.
Prescott looked down at Kate. ‘You’d be proud of dear Mistress Ashley, Thornton. A dissembler and a liar just like you–pretending to be a godly and virtuous widow while all the time she was your bedmate, your paramour.’ Prescott let go of her arm and wrenched the chain from her neck. ‘This,’ he said, holding up the ring. ‘When I saw this I knew you for what were. Thornton’s whore.’
Without warning, he struck her across the face with the full force of his hand. Kate fell back in the hay, and the world dissolved into bright lights and then blackness.
***
Jonathan glanced at the fallen woman and his hand tightened on his sword. She lay quite still, blood trickling from a cut lip.
‘Rot in hell, Prescott,’ he said between gritted teeth.
‘Drop your sword Thornton,’ Prescott replied, swinging the long muzzle of his pistol around to point at Kate’s head.
Jonathan took a slow, shuddering breath as he weighed up the situation. At such a short range Prescott would not miss. He could kill Kate and turn the other pistol on Jonathan without blinking. They would both be dead by night’s end and there was nothing to be done.
He had badly misjudged his opponent and Prescott had bettered him–for the moment. An old cavalry sword against a brace of pistols? What had he been thinking? That Prescott would fight a gentlemanly duel?
With as much contempt on his face as he could muster, he laid his sword on the ground at his feet.
‘Now get down on your knees,’ Prescott gestured with the weapon, grinning as Jonathan fell to his knees, his gaze fixed without blinking on the other man’s face.
Prescott strutted over to Jonathan. Standing behind him, he gripped his left shoulder. Jonathan gritted his teeth, determined not to show pain as the fingers tightened on the wound that Prescott himself had inflicted.
‘You should not have escaped me last year,’ Prescott said. ‘My men thought you must have been in league with the devil to have vanished into thin air but I know you are real enough and the person you were in league with was not the devil, for all she may yet prove to be a witch.’
Prescott paused and the grip tightened. ‘It was her, wasn’t it? The virtuous widow Ashley. It seems she has the power to make men disappear. I will have the greatest of pleasure in seeing her hang as a witch when I am done with you.’
As he spoke, Kate moved and groaned and started to pull herself up. Prescott’s grip on Jonathan momentarily relaxed and Jonathan took advantage of the lapse. Lunging backwards with his right elbow, he hit Prescott in the knee, throwing the man off his balance and forcing him to release his grip.
Twisting, Jonathan jerked Prescott’s legs from beneath him and both men fell to the ground. The pistol scudded into the hay beyond the reach of either of them.
Although Jonathan was the taller of the two by at least a head, Stephen Prescott was solidly and powerfully built and Jonathan knew he could not better him in hand-to-hand combat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kate rise unsteadily to her feet, dashing the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Kate, the pistol,’ Jonathan gasped.
She dropped to her knees, scrabbling in the hay for the elusive weapon.
‘I have it,’ she cried.
Her hand shook as she brought the heavy weapon up, pointing it at Prescott. As the muzzle wavered, Prescott broke Jonathan’s hold and grabbed at her, catching her ankle and pulling her foot from underneath her. The pistol discharged, the ball striking the door of the barn as Kate fell backwards, striking her head on a post.
Jonathan let out a groan of rage and frustration as Prescott struggled to his feet, drawing his second pistol from his belt. It caught in his jacket and Prescott lost precious seconds freeing it.
In that instance, Jonathan dived toward his discarded sword. Freeing the weapon, Prescott drew the hammer back and fired.
Nothing happened.
In the breathless pause that followed, Jonathan’s hand closed on his sword. Prescott lunged at him, bringing the butt of the pistol down like a club. It caught Jonathan on the forehead and he crumpled to the floor.
Above him, he dimly heard Prescott’s heavy breathing and felt a boot in his ribs. He went still, feigning unconsciousness. Prescott needed time and concentration to reprime the pistols and Jonathan braced himself, coming to his feet with all the speed and agility he could muster, striking the pistol from Prescott’s hand.
Prescott stumbled backwards, losing his footing and hitting the floor with a thud.
Blood from the cut on his forehead running down his face, Jonathan held the deadly, unrelenting point of the sword just below Stephen Prescott’s left ear. He glanced across at Kate. She lay quite still where she had fallen. Only the faintest rise and fall of her breast indicated that she still lived.
‘Get up, you bastard.’
