Jennifer Horseman Read Online Free PDF Page B

Stoddard cried, "Just who the devil do you think—" "Ah, the very devil indeed," Garrett said easily. Unlike his emotions, neither words nor thoughts nor actions were in anyway tempered by his drunkenness. "I am your worst nightmare come to life, a man whose reputation follows the name Black Garrett." He added as if commenting on the weather, "And I've come to kill you."
    "Black Garrett? Kill me?" Stoddard's gaze widened dramatically as he looked up at the unusually tall, handsome man who claimed the famous name. His mistake was to laugh derisively. "The same name used by every lawless criminal on sea and land. Forgive me if my credulity stretches to break—"
    Leif motioned once. A tall savage looking man brought his mount up and before another word could be uttered, he sent his booted foot hard into Stoddard's stomach. Wilson screamed from within the carriage as he saw his employer double over with an unnatural grunt, the pain of it seizing the whole of his body. Then Stoddard rose slowly, cautioned now.
    Garrett watched dispassionately. "The point, my doomed man, is that I forgive you nothing. Least of all the horror of the way you put my brother, Edric Van Ness, to his death. A horror I shall watch you endure before very long now."
    Nothing on earth could have saved Stoddard; likewise, Garrett could not imagine anything that could make his own pain worse. Nothing until he heard Stoddard gasp, still trying to recover from the force of the blow: "Edric Van Ness? I don't know who you're talking of, and if you think-"
    Garrett moved before any other man could comprehend the implication of those awful words. In a sweep of motion, he swung off his horse and pinned Stoddard to the carriage door, towering over him with the sudden evidence of his rage. He held him there with the strength of one large hand. "My God, man," his eyes blazed with unspeakable emotion, "tell me that isn't so! You know Edric's name! You know what heinous crime I speak of!"
    Yet when Garrett saw he didn't, it filled him with horror; his long fingers tightened around the fleshy neck. "Just how many men have you discovered your precious daughter laying with? How many men has she accused of rape? And how many men have you had castrated and gutted and left to bleed to death?"
    For the first time the terror of what was happening worked its way into Stoddard's face, as Garrett choked the air from the passage to his lungs. So crazed was he with his rage that Garrett had no awareness of the great strength he brought to bear on the man's neck, no awareness of Stod-dard's sputtering gasps as his face blanched first white then blue. Stoddard's life might have ended mercifully then and there but for Leif. The only man who could or would do it, Leif swung off his horse and put his huge arms around Garrett to pull him away. Stoddard dropped unconscious to the ground and Garrett stepped back, staring in shock. "Rouse him," he said, feeling a sick pleasure—he recognized it as such—at the sight. Gayle landed two hard slaps to his face and Stoddard opened his eyes to hear: "Aye, such a quick death will not be your fate. I will make you live just long enough to watch the great show I will make of your daughter's rape, then to feel your own castration." He turned away. His disgust with himself finally reached the depth of his soul. "Tie and sack him."
    Juliet sat perfectly still on the window seat, staring ahead without seeing the garden below. The familiar mist shaded the landscape grey, a vast grey emptiness like unto of hell, a place devoid of shades of light and color, devoid even of the finality of black. She tried to sweep the thought from her mind but her fear kept returning to it, a warning.
    The same fear filled her eyes, and while her tears never fell, they hung there like the grey mist outside the window, and this light in her eyes revealed the inner turmoil of her heart. Strange dreams had visited the few restless hours of her sleep, dreams filled with Tomas