The Lady Risks All

by Stephanie Laurens

  Kempsey, meanwhile, thinking her nothing more than potential prey, having no clue that she was, instead, bait, came lumbering down to join her.

  First stage accomplished. By now Roscoe would be inside the cottage, which meant the second stage of their plan was either in progress, or already accomplished, too.

  As Kempsey drew nearer and no ruckus erupted from within the cottage, she concluded that stage two was indeed finished with. Now for stage three.

  She kept her smile in place—the smile of a gentle, sheltered lady who assumed the brute bearing down on her would, of course, assist her.

  Kempsey halted in front of her. Beady eyes regarded her and her heavy reticule, then he dipped his close-shaved head. “Missus. What’s the problem?”

  She fed self-deprecation into her smile. “Well, you see, I’m staying at the manor and I came out for a walk, but . . .” She bent her head, raised her gloved hand as if to wipe a tear from her eye. “I . . . got lost in my thoughts, and now . . .” Raising her head, her expression now bewildered, she waved and glanced around. “I don’t know where I am.”

  Before Kempsey could reply, she sucked in a wheezy breath, clapped her hand to her upper chest, made a choking sound, then wheezed again.

  Kempsey stepped nearer as if to catch her if she fell.

  “Oh, dear me.” Straightening, she waved him off, but graciously. “Thank you, but I believe I’ll be all right. That is . . .” She glanced at the cottage. “Perhaps if I could have a glass of water?”

  She’d remembered Gallagher’s warning that Kempsey was clever, yet he saw what she wanted him to see—someone very much weaker than he, a pigeon ripe for the plucking.

  “Yes, of course.” Kempsey’s smile returned, oilier, wider, and even more predatory. “Let’s get you up to the cottage and you can have some water and a sit-down.”

  He stepped closer, to her side, and she had to clamp down on an instinctive urge to move away. She definitely did not like this man—didn’t like him being near her at all. He and his friend had hurt Roderick; if she’d had a weapon, she would have used it on him.

  Instead, she smiled artlessly, inwardly steeled herself, and let him take her arm, supposedly to solicitously help her up the sloping track.

  Mimicking Gladys’s occasional wheezing attacks, she used her supposed weakness to put off any questioning. Kempsey had taken her right arm; she gripped her reticule tightly in her left. It didn’t qualify as a weapon, but the body was made of embroidered hessian and she’d had the thought to fill it with rocks. Now she’d seen Kempsey up close, the precaution was laughable—it would take more than a few rocks to dent his thick skull—but gripping the reticule reassured her, illusory though its protection might be.

  As they neared the cottage, she strained her ears but heard nothing. This was the part of the plan she had to play extempore. She had to assume Roscoe lay in wait inside the cottage and—

  “Hmm-mph!”

  The inarticulate sound was followed by the crack of a chair crashing on flags.

  Instinctively Kempsey released her and stepped back—then his eyes swung her way, his lip curled in a snarl, and he lunged for her.

  She swung her weighted reticule and he wove back, then she whirled and raced for the cottage as if hellhounds were snapping at her heels.

  The door swung open.

  She glanced back, saw Kempsey, powering after her, glance at the door.

  She looked back at the cottage as Roscoe emerged, a pistol in his hand.

  Kempsey slid to a halt, then turned tail and fled.

  Fast.

  Halting, panting, beside Roscoe, Miranda turned to watch Kempsey tear down the slope toward the lane. “He’s getting away.”

  Roscoe wanted to give chase, but he wouldn’t leave her alone with Dole, even if the man was tied and gagged, and was now definitely unconscious. “I know.” He shook his head, then slid his pistol back into his pocket. “But where can he go?” He waved her into the cottage. “And we need to deal with Roderick.”

  She stepped over the threshold, paused as her eyes adjusted, then she gasped and rushed across the single room to the pallet at the far end. “Oh, my God! Roderick!” Falling to her knees beside the crude bed, she gently cradled her brother’s pallid face. “Roderick?”

  Roscoe watched long enough to confirm that not even for his sister’s voice was Roderick going to stir, then he bent and grabbed hold of the now thoroughly unconscious Dole. “Careful,” he warned Miranda as he lugged the man and the broken chair he was tied to out of the way. “I think his collarbone’s broken as well.”

  When she didn’t fall apart but after a moment lifted the rough blanket to take stock of Roderick’s injuries, he went on, “From the aging of his bruises, he fought when they ambushed him in Chichester Street. All the injuries look that old. Both his collarbone and his foot need to be set as soon as possible.” He was already considering where they might find an experienced doctor.

  She pushed back from the bed and rose. “I’ll go and fetch my supplies. We can bind him up well enough to move him.” She turned to the back door.

  He opened his mouth to tell her to wait until he could go with her—who knew what Kempsey might think to do?—when a distant noise from the front of the cottage had him glancing out of the front window and down toward the lane.

  He swore. Virulently.

  She didn’t seem to register the crudity but went quickly to the window—and saw what he had.

  The men who’d come looking for them at the hotel had just arrived. Kempsey had run into their arms, and they were comparing notes.

  She swung around, looked at him, then at Roderick. “What now?”

  He was already striding to the pallet. “No time to bind him up. We go out of the back door and through the copse to the curricle.”

  Reaching the bed, he hauled the blanket off Roderick. Taking his friend’s good arm, he drew him up, bent, and hoisted him over his shoulder. “Just as well he’s unconscious.”

  Turning, he saw that his quick-witted partner had closed and was barring the cottage’s front door. “Good idea.”

  Dropping the bar into place, she whirled and raced to the back door. Hauling it open, she held it while he angled Roderick out, then she followed and quietly closed the door behind her.

  He headed straight up the steep rise to the copse. As she drew alongside, he caught her eye and tipped his head forward. “Go ahead.” Carrying Roderick’s dead weight, he was going to be much slower.

  Her lips set in a mulish line. “Don’t be idiotic. And don’t waste breath arguing!”

  Clamping his lips shut, he swore mentally instead.

  And, of course, fate proved her right. Several branches snagged on Roderick’s coat. She quickly pulled them free, but if she hadn’t been there . . .

  Grim-faced, he slogged on through the copse, then across to where the sheep track they’d followed from the curricle curved over the shoulder of the hill.

  Angry voices reached them. Their would-be pursuers had come out of the cottage and were casting about, trying to determine which way they’d gone.

  Still hidden by the copse, he paused to resettle Roderick’s body over his shoulder. He glanced at Miranda as he set off again. “They’re going to see us as we go over the hill. From there, we’ll need to run.”

  She looked at the open stretch of track ahead, then glanced back at the cottage, gradually coming into view as they emerged from the copse, and nodded.

  Sure enough, as they rushed along the unscreened section, howls went up from the men milling behind the cottage.

  “There they be!” someone entirely unnecessarily shouted.

  And the chase was on.

  The men came after them, baying like hounds. Roscoe blocked out the sound, intended to instill fear, and concentrated on where he was placing his feet. He couldn’t afford to stumble. With Miranda immediately behind, he hurried down the track as fast as he dared.

  He needed her ahead of him. Nee
ded to be able to see she was safe.

  The instant the curricle came into sight, he called to her. “Run ahead, get in, and untie the reins. Leave the brake on and hold the reins in your hands.” He caught her eye as she drew level. “Go!”

  He put every ounce of command he possessed into the word.

  Her lips compressed—he thought she was going to argue—but then she nodded, lifted her skirts higher and ran ahead.

  He forged on as fast as he could, but Roderick was no lightweight. By the time he reached the cart track and had to slow to drop from the raised bank to the rutted surface, the Kempseys and Doles were pounding down the hill hot on his trail.

  Landing in the track, jaw clenched, he pushed up and on.

  Reaching the curricle, he shrugged Roderick from his shoulder and manhandled him onto the curricle’s seat, shoving his limp body against Miranda. Grabbing the reins from her, leaving her to seize and hold Roderick, he pulled out his pistol, turned, took fleeting aim, and put a ball into the earth just in front of their pursuers’ feet.

  The report and the sudden eruption of earth had the pack backpedaling, scrabbling and falling over each other.

  Then they realized, untangled themselves, and came raging on.

  By then he’d leapt onto the curricle’s seat, wedging Roderick between Miranda’s body and his. Dropping the spent pistol to the floor, he released the brake. “Hold on!”

  His horses weren’t known for their easy manners, and they hadn’t had a real run in days. Given their heads, already spooked by the shot, they took off.

  The curricle swayed and rocked, hit ruts and bounced, but his carriage-maker was the best in England; the carriage held up under the rough treatment, and with the horses almost bolting, they rocketed along the track, leaving the Kempseys and Doles howling in their wake.

  Only when Roscoe finally reached a decently surfaced lane and deftly turned his horses—the devil beasts—onto the smoother surface did Miranda succeed in swallowing, and dislodging her heart from where it had wedged high in her throat.

  As that organ settled into its accustomed place, into beating at its usual pace, the vise about her lungs released and she could finally draw a decent breath. She glanced across Roderick—who she was holding between them, both her hands locked in his coat—at Roscoe. And couldn’t think of what to say. Thank you didn’t come close to expressing her feelings.

  She studied his face. His expression looked entirely normal. More or less impassive, relatively unreadable.

  As if feeling her gaze, he briefly met her eyes. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. You?”

  “No damage.” He cast an assessing glance at Roderick, slumped and still very much unconscious between them. “We need to get him to a doctor.”

  “Yes. But where?” She looked around, trying to gain some clue as to where they were; in the panic of their escape she hadn’t paid attention to their direction, so now had no idea.

  The countryside about them was verdant and green with low rolling hills and no sign of any town. They were, she thought, heading roughly north, which meant away from Birmingham and, if she recalled aright, into an area where there were no towns, only tiny hamlets. “Do you know where we are?”

  “Yes.” After a moment, Roscoe went on, “Kempsey and Dole will try to follow us—we have to assume they’ll do everything they can to hunt us, and Roderick, down. We need a place where we can get Roderick the treatment he needs, and at the same time be safe from attack.”

  He knew of such a safe haven. He would have thought the decision to take her and Roderick there would have been fraught, a step he would have found difficult to take, to accept . . . instead, even before he’d realized what he was doing he’d turned into the familiar lanes. “I know where we can go.”

  She was pushing and tugging Roderick into a more secure position. “Where?”

  He didn’t answer until, satisfied with her efforts, she looked his way demandingly.

  “Somewhere safe.” And that, he realized, was the deciding factor. He needed—beyond question or argument or reason needed—somewhere he could be sure she was safe. He kept his gaze on his horses. “I’m taking you to a relative’s house. It’s not far.”

  “I’m taking you to a relative’s house.”

  Miranda replayed Roscoe’s words yet again, faintly stupefied as he tooled the curricle around the wide, circular drive of a massive country house. They’d driven onto the estate via the rear drive; recalling her suspicion that he was the illegitimate scion of some noble house, she’d initially assumed that his relative was, perhaps, a manager at one of the farms. The further he’d driven she’d successively revised her assumption, first to the manager of the Home Farm, then, when they’d approached the huge house’s outbuildings, perhaps the coachman or stableman. But he’d continued driving toward the house itself, so she’d amended his relative’s status to the butler or housekeeper at the great house itself, but he’d confounded her by taking the loop of the drive that circled one wing of the three-storied Palladian magnificence, and continued on . . . not to the gatehouse, her final possibility, but around the sweep to the gravel forecourt before the imposing front steps.

  When he drew his horses to a halt before said steps, she turned to stare uncomprehendingly at him.

  Roscoe felt her gaze but didn’t meet her eyes, didn’t glance her way. Two grooms were already running up, wide—welcoming—grins on their faces.

  Stepping out of the curricle, bracing Roderick with one hand, he held up the other—before the grooms could utter their customary welcome. “Jenks, go and tell Cater we have a wounded man. Tell him to send for Doctor Entwhistle immediately, and we’ll need a few footmen to carry Mr. Clifford indoors.”

  “Aye, m’lord.” Jenks snapped off a salute and raced up the steps to the front door.

  “Here.” Roscoe handed the reins to the younger groom. “Hold them steady.”

  Then he returned his attention to the occupants of the curricle, Roderick still unconscious, Miranda still staring. Disbelievingly.

  He met her gaze. “You’ll be safe here. Both of you.”

  She blinked, frowned. “What about you?”

  Before he could clarify even that much confusion, people came streaming out of the house. Not just Cater and the footmen, as Roscoe had hoped, although they were in the vanguard; in their wake, an array of skirts came sweeping over the porch to pour down the steps.

  “Julian! You’re home!”

  “How wonderful!”

  “We didn’t expect you!”

  “How long will you be staying?”

  “Who are your friends?”

  “How badly is the gentleman injured?”

  His mother, his three sisters, his sister-in-law, and his nephew—wisely bringing up the rear—gathered around him and the curricle, the females all pulling his head down to kiss his cheek, before lining up to smile delightedly at Miranda, then peer with concern at Roderick.

  He remembered, too late, that his mother had written that his sisters were gathering at Ridgware to plan Edwina’s wedding. Glancing at Henry, who’d gallantly offered his hand to Miranda to assist her down, he met his nephew’s laughing gaze and very nearly groaned. But . . .

  By the time he’d managed to rein in his female relatives’ understandable curiosity and perform the required minimal introductions, dusk was falling.

  Luckily, Roderick’s state precluded further socializing. Two footmen lifted him from the curricle with all due care, then carried him indoors. Cater and the housekeeper, Mrs. Viner, had already conferred; under Cater’s direction the footmen carried Roderick up the wide stairs to a room in the west wing.

  Despite being utterly distracted by being suddenly dropped into the middle of his family, a family she could have had no notion he had, Miranda had managed the requisite greetings with aplomb, and to give them their due, his mother, sisters, and sister-in-law were understanding and supportive when she excused herself and followed her still unco
nscious brother up the stairs.

  Somewhat cravenly, he used Roderick as an excuse to follow at her heels, leaving his family standing in a group in the hall, watching him and Miranda climb the stairs, intrigued and frankly delighted expressions on their faces.

  He wasn’t sure what had provoked such delight—his unexpected appearance, the anticipation of entertainment and insight into his other life that Miranda and Roderick promised, or something else? Shaking aside the suspicion that all three causes were, in fact, actively contributing, he followed Miranda, who was in turn following the footmen and Roderick, to the large bedchamber a pair of maids and Mrs. Viner had just finished making ready.

  “The poor lad.” From the opposite side of the four-poster bed, Mrs. Viner helped Miranda direct the footmen in just how to lay their burden down, then, when the footmen retreated, Mrs. Viner helped settle Roderick more comfortably. She tutted. “Collarbone, and his foot, too.” She glanced at Miranda. “Doctor Entwhistle’ll be here in two shakes—he lives not far away. While we’re waiting, if you’d like I can fetch my shears, and we could cut your poor brother out of those clothes and make him more comfortable.”

  Miranda met the housekeeper’s earnest brown eyes. “Thank you. That would help, I suspect.”

  The motherly woman beamed. “Don’t you worry, miss. I’ll fetch my shears and be back in a jiffy. If you need anything else”—she pointed to the bellpull hanging by the mantelpiece—“just ring, and someone will be up straightaway.”

  Shooing the maids out of the room, the housekeeper left. The footmen had already gone, leaving her alone with Roscoe and a still unconscious Roderick. She honestly couldn’t say who was the bigger distraction.

  Roscoe had halted at the foot of the bed. “In case you didn’t catch it, the housekeeper’s name is Mrs. Viner.”

  He shifted, then prowled around the bed toward her. She turned to face him.

  Halting before her, he searched her eyes, then his impassive mask fractured and his lips twisted ruefully. “I apologize. I’d forgotten my sisters and nephew would be here. Normally this is a much . . . quieter household.”