Some instinct told her that she need only follow the road to Brisbane. She wouldn’t have to find Jamie’s captors; they would find her.

Tears were streaming down Maggie’s face as she knelt beside a half-delirious Duncan on the floor and stared up at her husband, who had just returned with the supplies she’d asked for. “They’ve got Jamie,” she sobbed. “Oh dear God, Reeve, they’ve got Jamie! And Bliss has gone after him!”

Reeve swore, torn between Maggie and the brother he’d failed once before, however inadvertently. “Yank,” he whispered brokenly, “can you ’andle things ’ere, if I go?”

Maggie nodded, after only the briefest hesitation. “God be with you, Reeve McKenna,” she whispered. “And no matter what happens, don’t you forget that I love you!”

Reeve bent to kiss her briefly, then, after collecting a rifle and scabbard from a locked cabinet in his study, ran out of the house and around toward the stables. He’d have given nearly anything he had for one of the racehorses he kept at Parramatta, but there was little point in making wishes. He saddled a buckskin gelding and set out after Bliss.

It was no real surprise that she’d vanished, even though she’d been only minutes ahead of him. That was the kind of day it was turning out to be.

Walter Davis came forward, wearing rough, bushman’s clothes rather than those of a gentleman, when Bliss was brought into camp. “You little fool,” he rasped, gazing up at her with misery in his eyes.

Bliss was weary and dirty and afraid, and she looked around the strange little compound with rounded eyes. There was no sign of Jamie, although she could see Peony lying on the ground, a stone’s throw away, motionless.

Bliss dismounted, shunning Walter’s offer of help, and raced toward Peony. It took only one look to realize that she was dead.

Her head spinning, Bliss battled back the sickness burning in her throat. It was then that she heard the cry, like the keening of a furious, tortured animal. Lifting her eyes, she saw Jamie, bound to a tree, with his hands behind him, his face so bloody that his features were barely recognizable.

“Oh God, Bliss,” he choked out, “not you, not ’ere—”

She ran to Jamie before any of them could stop her, and put her arms around him, resting her head against his shoulder. His medallion was still clutched tight in her fingers. “I love you,” she said softly.

Jamie’s whisper was a grating sob. An anguished prayer. “Sweet Jesus, no—no—”

Bliss lifted her hands to his bloody face, her heart breaking within her. Hard, thin fingers curled around her arm and tore her away from Jamie. She was stunned that Increase, that tremulous old man, had such strength.

She soon saw that it was the hatred within him that gave him power, and the terrible, fathomless evil. He laughed with delight at Jamie’s agony.

“I told you, didn’t I, you filthy little mick? I warned you that you’d pay, and pay dearly, for what you and that whore did to me!”