Craning over the side of the phaeton, Edith looked wildly through the trees, sweeping her gaze this way and that. “Oh, dear Lord, is he hurt?”
“Devil a bit, miss! The master is behind the gun.”
Sorrell’s words gave her scant reassurance. Her heart was beating a painful tattoo in her breast, and it was all she could do to stop herself leaping from the phaeton and rushing to find Niall.
An answering shot came, a little distant, yet loud enough to cause the horses to panic. One of them emitted a terrified whinny and reared, trying to rid itself of the encumbrance behind.
“Whoa, there, Rufus, whoa!”
But his fellow’s distress upset the second animal, who added his strength to the attempt to flee. The phaeton began to drag through the glade despite the groom’s efforts, slowed only by the difficult terrain.
Her heart leaping into high gear, Edith acted on instinct, making a grab for the reins. She’d not driven since her youth, and then only her uncle’s gig. But she knew enough to haul on the reins. It took every ounce of strength she had, and she was almost dragged over the front of the vehicle from the force of the pull against her. The phaeton moved a good few feet before the horses came to a halt.
“Well done, miss! Hold ’em hard a moment.”
She did as Sorrell asked, keeping the reins taut while he held the two horses at the bridle above the bit and soothed them, murmuring and stroking until they were quiet again. It seemed many minutes she sat thus, her ears alert for another shot, her muscles poised to pull again at need.
At last the groom looked across, speaking in a near-whisper. “You can let go now, miss.”
Edith relaxed her grip, but kept the reins under her hands as she flexed them. Her fingers felt strained and her palms were stinging. She pulled off one of the cotton gloves she was wearing and found a red weal across the palm and lower part of the fingers, where the reins had cut into them.
She regarded it with interest, not unmixed with relief. Her injuries could have been so much worse. Indeed, if Niall had not been so skilled, she might have lost her life.
It struck her the woods were quiet. Too quiet? Her heartbeat sped up again as fear for Niall’s safety returned. She strained to hear, extending her attention out towards the unseen road. No clop of horses. Had Kilshaw gone?
She distinguished sounds near at hand. A whiffle from one of the horses, the slight jingle of harness as a hoof shifted in the grass, the cheep of a bird, a cracking twig. The last brought her head round. Niall’s tall figure appeared between the trees, and Edith almost cried out in relief.
Instinct urged her to climb down from the phaeton and run to his arms, but caution won. She ought not to let the reins fall away again. Besides, she’d not yet won the trust that could permit her to make free with Niall’s regard for her.
He addressed the groom as he approached. “Is all well here?”
Sorrell threw up his head in an exasperated gesture. “As well as it could be, my lord, with these two taking exception to them pistol shots. If we’d had ’em with us in India, it’d be different. But they ain’t trained for battle, my lord.”
“It’s scarcely battle, Sorrell, but I’m relieved you held them.”
“It were miss there as saved the day, my lord. Seized the reins and hauled on ’em hard.”
Niall had reached the phaeton and he looked up with a startled frown, his eyes going to the reins caught under Edith’s wrists. She forestalled comment.
“Between us, we managed to hold them.” Anxiety surfaced. “Has he gone? I was afraid he might have fired on you and killed you, it was so quiet.”
“He tried, but I was a moving target and knew better than to give him a clear shot.”
“But has he driven away?”
“For the time being. I can’t depend on his having gone for good, however.” He looked at the groom. “Did you take note of his groom up beside him, Sorrell?”
“Not particular, my lord. Didn’t have no call to be watching him. Why?”
“I’m pretty certain he’s the man who ran off from the Cock, back when I was hunting for Kilshaw along the road south.”
Edith eyed him. “What man? You said nothing of this before.”
“He had the look of a groom and was mighty anxious not to be seen by me. Or so I thought, at the time. If he is Kilshaw’s groom, it fits.”
“Would you recognise him again?”
“Yes, but I doubt you would, which is more to the point.”
The tattoo started up in Edith’s bosom again. “You think Lord Kilshaw might employ him for his tricks?”
Niall nodded. “Which is why you’ll take no messages from any man you don’t know, is that understood?”
She was nettled. “I would not in any event. I’m not a fool, my lord.”
A slight smile deprecated her irritation. “No, I know.”
Brisk, he addressed the groom. “Go up to the road and keep watch, Sorrell. If he comes back, fire into the air. If we’ve heard nothing from you within ten minutes or so, I’ll drive us out of here.”
“Right you are, my lord. Though you’ll have the devil’s own job, if you’ll pardon me, to turn them in this here glade.”
Niall agreed to this and jumped up into the phaeton, taking the reins from Edith, who dropped her glove and bent down to retrieve it.
“You’d best help me guide them back onto the track first.”
It took several moments to manoeuvre the horses into turning the phaeton in the enclosed space, but when the vehicle was finally set in position to reach the track, Niall halted his pair. The groom went off on his mission and Edith was at last alone with Niall. There was so much to say and so much to ask, she scarcely knew where to begin.
He was silent, his hands lightly holding the reins, staring ahead of him in a kind of brown study. Edith eyed his profile, aware of a stronger male scent than she had before associated with him, due no doubt to his recent exertions. It was not unpleasant to her nostrils. The opposite indeed, arousing an odd sensation within her that made her yearn to close in to him and breathe it in more intensely.
Impelled, Edith broke into his abstraction. “What are you thinking?”
He started slightly, looking round, his brows still drawn close together. “I’m wondering if the vicar would permit me to take you to Lowrie Court.”
Startled, Edith stared at him. “Your home?”
“It’s possibly the one place Kilshaw could not get into.”
Edith shivered involuntarily. “I would not count on it, Niall. He’s like a spectre, appearing just when you least expect him. Even at the Academy, with Lord knows how many persons in the place, he got into my —” She stopped, aghast at having been betrayed into saying it.
“Into your —?”
Niall’s tone was sharp. She swung her gaze away, biting her lip. She’d forgotten caution. In all the ferment of the hair-raising chase and the subsequent wild ride through the woods, she had lost control of what she said to him.
“Don’t leave it there, Edith. Your bedchamber, is that it?”
She drew a gasping breath as the memory of that fell day swept into her mind, blotting out everything else. “I can’t…”
“Yes, you can, Edith. Tell me!”
His tone was gentle, yet the command within it had power to loosen her tongue.
“I see him in my dreams, standing before the door. It was like a nightmare at the time… I was still hazy with the remnants of the fever.” Remembrance brought the image back. Lord Kilshaw’s handsome features, his predatory eyes fixed on her as he approached. “I was so weak … could barely rise from my bed as yet. I could not understand why he was there, where he had no business to be.”
She hardly knew she was speaking, haltingly as the memories crowded in from the secret place to which she had banished them.
“I was half asleep … thought it a delirium, a dream of some kind. Later I learned he’d bribed young Lucy. She was dismissed, poor girl.” Her ch
est tightened. She could hear his voice in her head, the silky tones still with power to chill her. “When I asked him what he wanted, he said I knew very well. He came to the bed … smiling in that unctuous way. He said I wanted it too, but I didn’t. I didn’t! I knew by then what he was.”
Her breath came short and fast, as it had that awful day. She was only half aware of the tears trickling down her cheeks, of the still, tense figure beside her, listening to the words she’d sworn she could never speak.
Too late now. She’d said too much. She had as well say it all. Once it was known, it would not matter. Nothing mattered any longer. The feeling swamped her just as it had then, when ruin stared her in the face even as it now did with Kilshaw’s madness at full stretch and ready to take her into oblivion.
“Did he rape you?”
The question, uttered low and with a deep intensity that echoed in her core, brought her head round. She gazed directly into Niall’s eyes, slits of steel in the swarthy features. So much the opposite of that other countenance in every way.
Her voice was a whisper on her breath as she answered. “Very nearly. I could not fight him, though I tried. I had no strength to scream, though I tried. I whimpered rather.”
She recalled Kilshaw’s hot breath on her face, the heavy body holding her down, the rough hands parting her thighs. She shuddered at the memory, closing her thighs tight as she always did when it came again, as if to repel the beast that had come so close to conquest.
“One of the girls saved me. Oh, not directly. I heard the latch of the door as she crept into the room. She’d been charged with bringing the dose prescribed by the doctor. She screamed and ran, calling for Mrs Vinson. She was only seven. She had no notion what that man was doing there.”
“But it stopped him?”
Edith could hear the vibrant rage behind the question. Her gaze had shifted as she talked, but now she looked at him again, sobbing in a taut breath.
“You would think so, would you not? But you’ve seen what kind of man he is. He threw himself off me only briefly, turning to see who it was. Then he said — he said… ‘We’ve not much time’ as if he meant to pursue his purpose even then. Indeed, he began to cover me, but the interruption had dragged strength in me from somewhere and I resisted. I think I rolled away. However it was, I fell out of the bed. By the time he could come around to drag me up again, the cacophony outside the door prevented any further assault. Mrs Vinson flung open the door and…” Her voice died and she drew an unsteady breath, waving an impatient hand. “You may imagine the rest.”
“I think I may safely do so.”
His tone was heavy and Edith turned away, staring into the trees. She felt exhausted, as if she’d run for miles. She spoke without thought. “I thought I had endured enough this day, but it seems I was mistaken.”
Niall did not answer this. Instead, he caught the hand she had not known she was flailing. His voice changed. “You’ve hurt your hand. Had you no gloves?”
Edith held up her other gloved hand. “Cotton ones only.”
“No protection at all.”
A faint laugh escaped her. “I had not anticipated being obliged to take the reins.”
Niall lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. A shiver of a different sort ran through Edith. She met his gaze, finding his expression unfathomable. But she was encouraged by his action, and allowed him to retain her hand in his.
She had not meant to ask, but the words came nevertheless. “Do you believe me, Niall?”
“I should have believed you at the outset. Lord above, I’m as bad as Kilshaw!”
She drew an unsteady breath, her eyes pricking. “You are as unlike him as you could possibly be.”
He stroked her cheek with one finger. “This Mrs Vinson of yours sent you away, I presume? Could she not have given you the benefit of the doubt?”
“She was generosity itself, but she had no choice. Too many people had been witness to the event, and you may imagine how gossip spread.”
“She believed in your innocence?”
As you did not, Edith wanted to say, but she was too relieved to find he had not turned from her in disgust to pinch at him. “She would have let me remain until I was well again, although of course I could have nothing further to do with the girls.”
“But you were too proud to wait,” he said, a mix of understanding and disapproval in his voice. “You left before you were returned to strength.”
“Too proud and too ashamed. And afraid of what Lord Kilshaw would do, if you want the truth.” A riffle of anger swept through her. “Would you believe he had the audacity to write to me by the agency of one of his daughters?”
“I’d believe anything of that fiend.” Niall’s tone had hardened again. “What did he write?”
“What do you suppose? That he was not done with me. That he cared for me too deeply to let me go. That if I was sent away, I need not fret for he would find me again and succour me from disgrace and love me forever.” She could not help the embittered note, knowing now how false had been the words. “Any number of lying sentiments that I was fool enough to take at face value. I did not respond, but it hastened my departure.”
Niall’s hold tightened on her hand. “And you’ve been on tenterhooks since you came home, worried he might find you?”
“Yes, exactly so. And of course he did, just as I knew he would.” She turned to him, gripping his wrist with her free hand. “He is insane, Niall. I am convinced of it now.”
“If obsession may be considered an insanity, I agree.” He drew out his pocket watch and consulted the time. “We have given him long enough. There’s been no signal from Sorrell, so let us assume Kilshaw has done his worst for today.”
“A worst that could readily have proved fatal.”
He had no answer to this, and Edith supposed he knew it as well as she.
“My horses are in dire need and must be watered and well rubbed down. And I must get you home.”
His earlier proposal leapt into Edith’s mind, and she spoke before she could think. “Not your home, Niall. Only think of the scandal. Things are bad enough.”
He had released her hand to take better hold of the reins, but at this he caught her face and caressed her cheek. “Not if you will agree to marry me.”
She hesitated, meeting his eyes, uncertainty in her heart. He was waiting for her answer and she felt suddenly breathless.
“Niall, I…” She stopped and his brows drew together.
“What is it? You don’t care for me, is that it?”
“Oh, I do, Niall! Too much, if truth be told.”
His brow cleared. “It could never be too much for me.”
She smiled a little, but as he moved closer, she reached up a hand to his chest to hold him off. “Don’t, pray!”
His eyes clouded. “You’re afraid!”
“A little.”
“I won’t hurt you, Edith. I only want to kiss you.”
She shifted back a little. “But if you do that, there’s no going back, Niall.”
“And?”
She drew a breath and out it came in a rush. “I want to be free to accept you. I don’t want to say I will marry you with this threat still hanging over my head. If he should succeed —”
“He won’t succeed. My word on it.”
“But it’s a word you may not be able to keep, Niall, don’t you see?”
For a moment, he looked as if he might overbear her protests and kiss her in any event. And then he sighed and spoke with obvious reluctance.
“I am being selfish, am I not? I want you safe so badly it half kills me to let you out of my sight, and that’s the truth.”
She released her hold on his chest and instead touched her hand to his cheek, stroking along the scar, a rush of tenderness in her breast. “Indulge me in this, if you please, Niall. Let me come to you with a full heart, not one burdened by fear of another man.”
He eyed her for a moment in silence. Then a sm
ile crept into his eyes and he leaned toward her, dropping a light kiss on her forehead. “Your word is my command, my lady.”
Edith’s vision blurred. “My perfect gentle knight.”
He laughed and looped the reins through his fingers, clicking his tongue at the horses, who had been standing quietly throughout.
“Did your reverend uncle teach you to drive?”
His tone was conversational and Edith responded in kind, yet feeling perfectly battered as they began the short journey back to the vicarage.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The last thing Edith needed was to be obliged to entertain the ladies from the Manor. She had barely recovered from the appalling adventure in the phaeton, with its hideous culmination of confession, when young Lady Tazewell and her friend made a wholly unexpected appearance at the vicarage, agog with excitement.
“My dear Miss Westacott, what in the world is this I’m hearing? Such stirring doings in Itchington and we’ve missed it all!”
Feeling a flush rise into her cheeks, Edith hardly knew whether to scream or burst into tears. Distress, rage and frustration rose, rapidly succeeding one another in her breast and she uttered ill-considered words, bitter in tone. “You might have had my place for the asking. And if you suppose I’ve had the least bit of enjoyment in being hunted like a hare, you must have windmills in your head!” Dismay overspread the charming countenance, and Edith was instantly smitten with guilt. She put out a shaking hand. “Forgive me. You could not know. I have been overset for some days and have little control over my temper.”
Lady Tazewell gazed at her mumchance, but Delia Burloyne, whose face had mirrored her friend’s at the outset but now sported a deep frown, stepped into the breach.
“No, you must forgive us, Miss Westacott — or rather, Edith. We didn’t think.” A deprecating smile creased her mouth. “We never do, you know.”
Edith gave her an answering smile, though she felt little amusement. Young Lady Tazewell pushed in again, her eyes suspiciously bright.
Knight For A Lady (Brides By Chance Regency Adventures Book 3) Page 21