CHAPTER 7

C HAPTER 7

T amsyn and Hansen watched in horror as Cade was attacked. Several gunshots sounded along the waterfront and Cade collapsed, his body obscured by the French cavalrymen. Tamsyn screamed but she couldn’t go to him because French foot soldiers were closing in on her and Hansen.

Hansen made an instinctive movement toward Cade, but Tamsyn grabbed his arm and said fiercely, “Board the ship and tell the captain to set sail!”

Her companion hesitated, looking agonized. “But I must help your brother!”

“I’ll take care of him, but you have to board the ship now ! ” she ordered. “You have a family in England that needs you.”

Hansen took her arm. “Come with me! You have a family also, and they won’t want to lose you both.”

Tamsyn broke free of his grip. “I’ll be fine, I promise you! Now go !” She shoved him toward the gangway. “I will find Cade and I will bring him home !”

“Then go with God, Lady Tamsyn!” Hansen pivoted and raced up the gangway. The ship was in the process of casting off and a watery gap was opening between the dock and the ship even as the gangway was hauled aboard.

Certain the ship would get away successfully, Tamsyn swung around in time to see Cade’s body being loaded into the carriage. He wasn’t dead, he couldn’t be dead!

Tamsyn forced herself to calm down and looked around for a place to hide. An empty cart had been abandoned to her right, so she ran toward it and dived underneath. Some French soldiers had gathered at the dock and were shouting at the departing Princess of Wales . A few muskets were fired, but Tamsyn guessed that was out of sheer outrage rather than a serious attempt to shoot the passengers. She huddled into a ball under the cart, trying not to sneeze at the acrid black powder smoke.

One of Tamsyn’s gifts was to be easily overlooked. She wasn’t invisible, but when she didn’t want to be seen, she usually wasn’t. Huddled under the cart in a plain brown cloak, she was safe enough. Even if she were discovered, no one would take her for a man eligible for arrest, and with her flawless French, she could pass as a Frenchwoman who had been caught in the turmoil and had hidden for safety.

She drew in a deep breath, releasing it slowly to help calm her mind before she reached out to Cade. Even when she was a child, she was always aware of him when they were apart, and he’d told her that the awareness was mutual.

He wasn’t there. He wasn’t there!

Her heart began pounding frantically as she tried to analyze his absence. She would surely know if he was dead, but this felt different, as if he was out of reach because he was blocked by some kind of barrier.

She had a sudden memory of Merryn, her new sister-in-law, whose mind had been paralyzed by a gifted woman who could take away a victim’s memory and awareness. She’d done so to Merryn, who was powerfully gifted but had been untrained at that time. Could something similar have happened to Cade? He was both powerfully gifted and very experienced.

The Scorpion!

She and Cade had both sensed that the man was a powerful and a dangerous enemy. If he had the ability to block another person’s mind, he could have done that to Cade before taking him away in the carriage.

She needed to search mentally for Cade not as the mature, powerful man he was now, but as someone whose mind had been dampened. She sought for calm, then reached out again, this time looking for the faintest shadow of Cade’s essence.

As she opened her mind, she sensed the members of her family whom she was closest to. Her mother, Gwyn; her father, Rhys; Bran and Merryn; other members of the Tribe of Tremayne. Each had an emotional signature like a clear, pure note of music, and they made up a choir of love in the back of her mind. Cade’s note had always been deep and rich and resonant, but he was no longer there.

Suppressing her fear, she summoned memories of things they had done together, of the times when they had been closest. When he’d first come to Tremayne House and she’d healed him. Riding together across the green acres of the Tremayne family estate; Cade teaching her how to swim, and how to fight in ways suited to her small size; cooking together in a country kitchen on their recent mission to help Bran and Merryn.

Those memories flowed through her mind until . . . there! She sensed a shadow trace that was unmistakably Cade. His mind was suppressed much more thoroughly than if he were sleeping or unconscious, but it was him. Cade was alive and she thought he wasn’t seriously injured physically.

His mind must have been blocked as Merryn’s had been. Well, she’d cleared the block from Merryn, and she could do it for Cade once she located him.

Soon she would inventory her resources and start thinking about how to find him, but for now, she concentrated on maintaining and strengthening her connection to her brother. She doubted that she could remove the block unless they were within touching distance, but maybe she could reduce it a little through their nearly lifelong connection.

She stroked that connection as gently as if it was one of the Tremayne family cats. “ I’m here, Cade, and I’ll find you no matter how long it takes. I will find you—I swear it! ”

As she sent him her energy, she felt the connection grow a little stronger. She kept up the flow until she felt tired and depleted. “ Good night for now, Cade. I shall return. Stay strong! ”

As she was gathering her physical strength, a voice barked, “Come out from under there, Englishman, or we’ll drag you out!”

Jerked back to her present circumstances, she said in a shaking voice, “I’m no Englishman, sir, but a French girl! I’ll come out. Please don’t shoot me!”

Donning her meekest expression, she crawled out from under the cart, clutching her cloak around her. The man who had spoken was a French soldier, a sergeant.

Looking surprised, he offered a hand to help her up and said not unkindly, “Were you here with an Englishman? If so, he’s been arrested.”

She shook her head and said in the soft accent of a French girl who might work in a rather superior shop, “No, sir, I live in the town. On fine days I like to come down to the harbor to look at the ships. I didn’t expect the madness today! The soldiers, the shooting! That’s why I hid.” She shuddered. “What was the rioting about?”

“War has been declared and our job was to stop all Britons of militia age from going home and taking up arms against us,” the sergeant explained.

She looked at the nearly empty harbor. “Did they all escape?”

The sergeant shook his head. “A few did, but we arrested most of them.”

She widened her eyes. “What will become of them? There were women and children as well as men.”

The sergeant shrugged. “The women and children could leave or stay with their menfolk. The men will be detained till the war is over, I expect. France has the best army in Europe, so that won’t take long.”

“I hope you are right and this ends soon.” She tugged her cloak around her more closely. “You be careful in the fighting, monsieur le sergeant !”

“I always am,” he said with a smile. “Do you need an escort home?”

She shook her head. “It isn’t far. Thank you for your kindness.” She turned and walked briskly away. She must now find a place to stay and decide what to do next.

And do some praying as well.