Lord Somerton’s Heir

by Alison Stuart

Pausing only to replace Peter’s gag, Freddy hustled the women out of the house. The carriage, with Jenkins on the driving box, stood waiting by the front door. Without gentleness, Freddy pushed Isabel inside and the coach began to move off before the door had been shut.

  Chapter 25

  Beyond the door, Sebastian could hear the crackling of flames. Acrid smoke had begun seeping into the room.

  He coughed and swore. Beside him, Harry groaned as he flexed, trying to loosen his bonds.

  ‘How did we get ourselves into this, Alder? Been in some tight spots before, but I think this takes the prize. We must be losing our touch.’

  ‘Roll over with your back to me,’ Sebastian ordered.

  His friend complied and, with his fingers, Sebastian worked the knots on Harry’s wrists. They had been well tied by an expert hand but he gradually got purchase and, as the ropes began to loosen, Harry freed himself. He shook off the ropes and began on Sebastian’s bonds. When he had been freed, Sebastian turned to his brother who sat slumped against the wall, like a broken toy.

  ‘Matt!’

  Matt didn’t move and Sebastian bent over him. Even in the dark, he knew from long experience that Matt had probably lost a good deal of blood and needed to have the wound tended, but first they had to get out of this room.

  Flames were now licking around the doorframe and the room had filled with smoke. In a moment the chaff room would be ablaze. From beyond the door and outside in the stable yard he could hear screaming horses and the shouts of men and women.

  He heard Bennet’s voice. ‘Cap’n Alder!’

  ‘The window,’ Harry coughed.

  The only exit from the room was a small window set some five feet off the floor.

  ‘Pull the table over,’ Sebastian said.

  As Harry manoeuvred the table over to the window, Sebastian searched the room for a club. He found a wooden spade and, being the taller of the two men, climbed on the table. Swinging the spade at the window, he knocked out the glass.

  He heard Bennet again. ‘There he is. Praise be… Quick, you, fetch a ladder.’

  Sebastian carefully knocked all the glass from the frame. He jumped down from the table and crossed back to his brother.

  ‘Matt!’ He slapped Matt’s pale cheeks.

  Matt groaned but didn’t open his eyes.

  ‘Matt, look at me.’

  Matt coughed and his eyes half opened. Harry was on the younger man’s other side and, between the two of them, they hauled his brother’s dead weight over to the table. Bennet’s face appeared in the window.

  ‘Rope!’ Sebastian choked.

  Bennet disappeared. A stout end of rope coiled through the window.

  ‘Here, my lord!’ Bennet said.

  Sebastian tied it under his brother’s arms and pulled him to his feet.

  ‘Matt, I need you to wake up.’

  Matt moaned and his eyes fluttered open.

  ‘I’m going to help you up. Bennet?’

  ‘I’m here, sir!’

  Sebastian shouted instructions at his corporal and, between Harry and he pushing and Bennet, Thompson and the men below pulling, they managed to haul the semiconscious man up and across the lintel. Sebastian gave one final shove and Matt’s legs disappeared out of the window.

  Flames had eaten the door and were now creeping with long fingers along the ceiling beams.

  ‘You go,’ Harry ordered.

  Sebastian didn’t have time to argue and Harry outranked him. With a monumental effort, he hauled himself up and over the sill. His hand scraped on a piece of broken glass but there were strong hands on the other side ready to pull him out and he tumbled to the ground.

  ‘Thank god! We had no idea you were in there. Are ye hurt, my lord?’ Thompson, the groom, bent over him.

  Sebastian looked back at the stable that was now well alight, the flames licking up into the rooms occupied by Thompson and his family.

  ‘Your wife… We must get her out.’

  Thompson nodded. ‘Already done, my lord. She’s safe. Can’t find my boy though.’

  ‘Where’s Freddy Lynch?’ Sebastian hissed, his lungs screaming for air as Harry fell to the cobbles with an audible thump.

  Bennet, his face streaked with soot, looked down at him and shook his head. ‘Lynch? I’ve not seen him.’

  Sebastian grimaced. Freddy must have slipped away in the dark with his hostage as the alarm was being raised. He looked around the courtyard, now filled with people and horses.

  ‘Where’s my brother?’

  ‘They’ve carried him to the house,’ Bennet said.

  Harry held out his hand. ‘Going to lie there all night, Alder?’

  He took Harry’s hand and rose to his feet. He shook his head. ‘I’m a fool, Dempster. How could I have underestimated Lynch so badly?’

  Harry put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You had no way of knowing quite what a villain the man was.’

  Sebastian raised his voice and addressed the throng. ‘Did anyone here see Lynch or his man?’

  The men gathered around him shook their heads.

  Sebastian put out a hand to Thompson. ‘He’s got your boy.’

  Thompson’s eyes widened, starkly white in his sooty face. ‘Peter?’

  ‘Lynch would have gone for his sister,’ Harry said.

  Sebastian stared at his friend. Fanny was at the dower house… Isabel was in mortal danger. He turned and set off at a run with Harry and Thompson behind him.

  His heart jerked as he found the front door to the dower house wide open. Inside, he stopped and stood for a moment in the front hall, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness. He heard a moaning sound and fixed on a huddled figure on the stairs.

  For a brief moment he thought it was Isabel, but the boy, Peter, looked up at him over a gag with large frightened eyes. Sebastian unbound him and Peter flung himself at his father who had followed Sebastian into the building.

  ‘He took Lady Somerton!’ The boy’s voice was muffled by his father’s coat.

  ‘How long ago?’

  The boy shook his head and turned to look at him. ‘Not long. My lord, the stables! He set the straw on fire. I thought you were dead. The horses…’

  Before Sebastian could respond, the boy took to his heels, running back toward the burning building with Sebastian behind him. Sebastian’s only thought was to find Pharaoh and take off after the coach with Freddy and his hostage aboard.

  By the time he got back to the stables, flames licked high into the night sky from the roof. The whole household had been turned out and a bucket line ran from the wells, but the buckets of water barely impacted the inferno. The noise of crashing timbers was almost deafening.

  ‘How many of the horses have they got out?’ Sebastian shouted at one of the grooms.

  ‘All of them except Lady Somerton’s mare,’ the man yelled back.

  Peter looked up at him, his face anguished.

  ‘My Lord, we’ve got to get her out.’

  The fire had not yet reached the far end of the stables where Millie and her foal were stalled. It would break Isabel’s heart if her gentle mare were to die in such a horrible manner.

  The boy turned and sprinted toward the burning building.

  ‘Peter! Stop him, Bas.’ At the sound of Connie’s voice, Sebastian turned to see his sister running towards him.

  ‘He’s gone inside!’ Connie screamed as she reached him.

  Sebastian snatched up a blanket from the pile being used to beat at the flames.

  Thompson caught his sleeve.

  ‘My Lord, you can’t go in there! He’s my son, I’ll go after him.’

  ‘Stay here!’ Sebastian commanded and ran toward the building, pausing for a moment in the doorway to wrap the blanket around his head and shoulders.

  The smoke that billowed out towards him was so thick that Sebastian could hardly see. Above him, wood cracked and the roaring of the flames almost sent him back. Drawing the blanket around his mouth, with his eyes
watering, he groped his way along the stalls until he could make out the shadowy figures of the boys and the horses in the furthest stall.

  Peter wrestled with the terrified horse. The mare, docile as she was, plunged around her stall in panic as the boy tried to secure a lead rope to her.

  Coughing, Sebastian grabbed the scruff of the boy’s neck and hauled him out of the stall. The boy had managed to get a rope around the mare’s neck but the mare’s eyes rolled and she pulled against the rope as he tried to lead her out. Her foal leaned against her, nickering in terror.

  Sebastian slackened his hold and held the mare’s nose, looking into her eyes, making soothing noises.

  ‘Come on, old girl. Only one way out of here. Trust me.’

  Grunting, he picked up the foal, knowing Millie would follow her foal to hell and back. The mare’s eyes rolled white and terrified in her head, but as he moved towards the door to the stall, she followed. Peter sat on the ground outside the stall, coughing.

  Sebastian set the trembling foal down and hauled the boy up, flinging him bodily across the mare.

  ‘Keep low and hang on for your life,’ he said hoarsely.

  He collected the foal again and pushed on towards the exit.

  As they neared the stable door, the roof above him cracked and a burning beam crashed to the ground behind him. The rope in his hand jerked out of his grasp. The mare screamed and Sebastian turned, seeing the beam had come down between him and the mare. The little horse had reared, depositing Peter on the floor, and now she backed away from the flames that separated her from her baby, screaming.

  Sebastian bolted for the door, pausing only to thrust the foal at the nearest person he could find, before turning back into the inferno. He pulled the blanket from his shoulders and began beating at the flames and kicking at the burning timber, clearing enough to get through to the small corner where the semi conscious boy and terrified horse cowered against the wall.

  Tearing a strip from the tail of his shirt, he tied it around the mare’s eyes. Her nostrils flared but, no longer seeing the licking flames, she seemed calmer. Sebastian threw the boy across her back again. Giving a quick tug of the leading rope, he pulled the singed blanket over himself and, holding his breath, he ran for his life as the roof timbers buckled and collapsed around him.

  Dimly, he heard the sound of cheering as he emerged into the stable yard with horse and boy. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath, and the world went black.

  Chapter 26

  Wedged in a corner of the rocking coach, her hands and feet securely bound with cords from the coach’s curtains, Isabel looked into Freddy’s pale blue eyes.

  Seeing her looking at him, he smiled. ‘You look uncomfortable, my dear Isabel.’

  ‘I am. Where are you taking me?’

  Freddy appeared to consider this question a moment before answering. ‘A little jaunt to the seaside. We can pick up a fishing boat or coastal trader that will take us to France for the price of one of your earrings.’

  ‘And me?’

  Freddy shrugged. ‘Oh, I think you may need to come with us, dear Lady Somerton.’

  ‘Why? What purpose would that serve?’

  Freddy shrugged. ‘You make a useful hostage.’

  ‘You don’t think that they will have already connected the fire in the stables with your disappearance? And when…’ she paused to deal with the catch in her throat, ‘…when they find Lord Somerton’s body, they will certainly put up a hue and cry for you.’

  It felt easier to say ‘Lord Somerton’ rather than Sebastian. When she thought of Sebastian, she wanted to howl with grief.

  Freddy glared at her. ‘Fanny, bind her mouth. I’ve heard enough of her words for one day.’

  Fanny complied, with whispered apologies to Isabel. Isabel watched as the girl subsided in her corner of the coach, watching her brother. A grey light had begun to creep in through the gaps around the curtains that covered the window. Isabel squinted through the narrow gap, trying to make out something of the landscape, but all she could see was the lightening sky and wondered, for a moment, if this might be the last sunrise she saw on this earth.

  After the first mad flight from Brantstone, the coach’s pace had slowed.

  The horses must be exhausted, she thought.

  The coach rolled slowly on for a few more yards and stopped. She heard the man jump down from the box and the coach door opened. Jenkins’s ugly face appeared at the door and he grunted unintelligibly, gesticulating at the front of the coach.

  Freddy sighed. ‘Very well, Jenkins. The next inn we come to, we’ll rest the horses.’ He glanced back at the two women. ‘My travelling companions could probably do with some breakfast.’

  As the coach jerked off again, Freddy leaned across to Isabel. ‘Now, my fine lady, I am going to untruss you and, if you are a good girl, you can refresh yourself and have something to eat, just promise me you’ll behave.’

  Isabel nodded and gasped with relief as Freddy undid the gag and bonds. She flexed her fingers, trying to restore some feeling to her numb hands.

  Freddy handed his spare pistol to Fanny as the coach clattered into an inn yard.

  ‘Now, one thing you should know about our Fan: she is a dead shot with the pistol. Ain’t you, Fan?’

  Fanny nodded and the door swung open. Freddy jumped down first, looking around the quiet inn yard before striding into the inn.

  ‘Fanny, you don’t really want to shoot me, do you?’ Isabel said in a low voice.

  Fanny’s chin came up. ‘I can’t let you go, Isabel. He’d kill me as well. You don’t know him.’

  Isabel had no chance to say anything more as Freddy appeared at the door again. He took the pistol from Fanny, concealing it underneath his cloak.

  ‘I’ve taken a private parlour. We have an hour, and you,’ he addressed Isabel, ‘don’t even think of crying out. All right you two, out. Lady Somerton first.’

  He twitched back the fold of his cloak to reveal the pistol trained on her. As she climbed down, he took her by the waist and the muzzle of the pistol pressed against her ribs. ‘Now lean on me as if you are faint. That’s it.’

  In such close proximity, he smelled rank and she wondered if it was the scent of fear. Holding her close, Freddy marched her into the inn and upstairs to a small, private parlour where a breakfast of bread, cheese, bacon and small beer had been set for them.

  ‘Eat up, ladies. It may be a while before we get a chance to eat again.’

  Isabel complied. She recognised that nothing would be served by a refusal to eat and she needed all her strength to keep her wits about her.

  Fanny, however, picked at the food, prompting an angry outburst from her brother that reduced the girl to tears.

  ‘Finish it, Fanny,’ Isabel urged in a low voice as Freddy strode across to the window.

  Fanny raised her head and turned her miserable face on Isabel. Isabel smiled encouragingly. Fanny’s faith in her brother must have been sorely shaken by the events of the previous night and she could see the girl was frightened. If she could win Fanny’s confidence, there was a faint hope that, between the two of them, they may be able to overcome their tormentor.

  But Freddy, no doubt instinctively alert to the danger of letting the two women any time alone together, ensured that they were not afforded an opportunity for conversation, even escorting Isabel to the privy. After an hour’s respite, they were back in the coach.

  Isabel noticed that the bays were still hitched to the coach, their heads drooping with exhaustion. Even if Freddy could have changed them, leaving two such recognisable horses would make their tracks easier to follow, but their progress from here would be slow.

  Freddy tied her hands, this time in front of her, leaving her feet free.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Isabel asked as he fastened the knot.

  Freddy cast an irritated glance. ‘I’m not telling you. Suffice to say, I know of a small harbour and a friendly fisherman who’ll not ask too m
any questions.’

  In the gloom of the curtained coach, Isabel sat back and considered this intelligence. Freddy had not appeared to be in possession of it before their stop, so it could only have been gleaned from someone at the inn. This thought gave her some confidence. If anyone was in search of her, which by now they would surely be, Freddy had left a considerable clue. He would be hoping they could make good their escape before his pursuers caught up with them.

  She closed her eyes. Like food, she needed rest if she were to keep her wits about her. The coach moved at a walking pace and she willed the familiar swaying to lull her into a doze but the thought of Sebastian lying dead in the burning stable and her own possible death at the hands of this monster kept her from sleep.

  A sharp, frustrated cry from Freddy, accompanied by a rapping on the roof, startled her into full consciousness.

  ‘Get on, you fool. We need to reach the coast by the turn of the tide.’

  Isabel peered around the curtain. It had begun to rain, no doubt turning the road to mud. She thought of the two beautiful bays, labouring to pull the coach.

  ‘Freddy, you’ll kill the horses,’ she protested.

  She couldn’t see his eyes in the gloom. ‘Do you think I care about horses?’ he snapped. ‘It’s my neck or theirs.’

  They heard the snap of the whip and the coach creaked into a faster pace, lurching from side to side. Isabel, with her hands bound, could not prevent herself being flung against Freddy, seated on the opposite seat. He caught her by her forearms and leered into her face.

  ‘I’ve wondered what it would be like to kiss a woman,’ he said.

  She squirmed in his grasp but could do nothing when he kissed her on the lips, a wet, grasping coupling, accompanied by his tongue, which he tried to force between her tightly clenched teeth. When he broke away, laughing, she spat in his face. He rewarded her by slapping her across the face and throwing her back in the corner of the coach.

  ‘Bitch!’

  ‘Untie me!’ she demanded.

  ‘Freddy, please,’ Fanny implored.

  Freddy laughed.

  The momentum of the coach seemed to be getting stronger. Isabel braced herself as the coach lurched to the right. She heard a sickening crack from the rear axle and a loud animalistic cry from the driver. A horse screamed as the coach began to topple onto its side but the momentum did not cease. The panicked horses, still attached by the traces, must have broken into a wild gallop, dragging the stricken coach, now fully on its side.