He was here. Somewhere.

Here, where the ground was rough and overgrown and the banks of a creek fell away from the fertile soil, there were hundreds of places that a wounded dog could crawl to die.

She could hear him clearly now. His whimpers increased as she called him.

The branches were thick over her head, barring her path. Swearing softly to herself, Jessie slung her bag over her shoulder and dropped to the ground again.

She’d have to crawl.

Her knees were bare and the twigs and branches littering the ground dug into them-but if she stood up she wouldn’t be able to see. She’d have no hope of finding him.

‘Harry,’ she called again. ‘Harry…’

Jessie pushed her nose through a thicket of undergrowth and stopped dead.

A pair of black boots blocked her path.

And a gun.

Jessie practically yelped in fright. She jumped about a foot and when she finally came down to earth her heart was thumping like a battering ram.

The island children had done their job well. The Ogre of Barega had been built up to such a fearsome figure that it was all Jessie could do not to scramble to her feet and run.

Instead, she forced herself to squat back on her heels and look up.

It was hardly a position of dignity. To be caught crawling on all fours on someone else’s land was scarcely a desirable fate at the best of times-but to be caught by a Mountmarche…

Niall Mountmarche…

Ogre of Barega…

Jessie’s first impression was of size-and of darkness. The man wore black knee-length boots over dark riding jodhpurs, and a black short-sleeved shirt open almost to the waist. The wind-tossed hair around the man’s lean, harsh face was jet black as well and his angry eyes were as dark as night.

The Ogre was in his mid-thirties, Jessie guessed.

The Mountmarche she’d seen-old Louis-had been short and stout but Jess saw no similarity between Louis and his nephew. This man was over six feet tall and hadn’t an ounce of spare flesh on his strongly built body.