Chasing the Heiress
Page 2
If the pallet broke apart before he could remove it, he’d have to sacrifice the carriage, and then he could offer little protection to Marietta. He pulled hard once more, and the pallet fell onto the green verge next to the road. Then, to protect neighboring crops and livestock, he dragged the pallet, flames licking at his hands, into the middle of the road, where it could burn without harm. Once carriage and countryside were out of danger, he hunched over, hands on his knees, and tried to breathe without expanding his lower rib cage.
After a few minutes to recover his breath, Colin looked up at the carriage. Fletcher remained at his post, his body slumped forward.
Colin climbed the side of the coach, gritting his teeth against the pain. Blood oozed through the hair at the back of the coachman’s head. Pressing his fingers to the older man’s neck, Colin felt the beat of the artery. Alive.
Listening and watching for trouble, Colin weighed his options.
They needed to move, to get off the open road. But for that, he needed Fletcher conscious. At least he wouldn’t have to explain to Cook how her man had been killed on a quiet English road after surviving a dozen campaigns against Boney.
Still unable to hear, Colin retrieved a water flask from under the coachman’s seat. Tenderly cradling the older man’s head, Colin washed the blood away. The wound was a long gash, slantways from the back of Fletcher’s ear toward the back of his head. He pressed his fingers against the gash. Long but not deep and worst at the curve of Fletcher’s head where the weapon bit hardest through the skin.
Fletcher moaned.
Colin lifted Fletcher’s chin. “Pistol shot. Can’t hear.” Colin picked up the fallen reins and held them out. “Can you drive?”
Fletcher took the reins in one hand. Then, raising his eyes to Colin’s, Fletcher held out his other hand, palm down, as one does when indicating a person’s height.
“Bobby?” Colin looked around for the postilion. Fletcher’s nephew had grown up on the ducal estate. The loss of Fletcher or Bobby would devastate the household.
Fletcher nodded yes, then scowled. Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his knees and supported his head with his hands.
“I’ll find him. Stay with Marietta.” Colin took the rifle and the cartridge bag from beneath the coachman’s seat, loaded the gun, then placed both on the bench. Fletcher put his hand on the gun.
Colin leapt from the coach, gritting his teeth against the pain as his feet hit the ground. Then, walking back along the road, Colin began looking for the boy, searching through the overgrown verges and dreading what he might find. A child’s body bleeding and broken after a fall from the carriage. Let him be alive . . . and, if wounded, with wounds that can heal.
Colin turned at the curve.
About a tenth of a mile beyond, he saw the boy’s body at the verge of the road. Colin ran to the boy and knelt beside him, checking his wounds. No gunshots. Colin felt his relief like cool water on a parched tongue. Bobby’s arm was twisted before his chest, as if he had been flung from the coach-top or dragged down from it. But Bobby was alive. Fletcher, Bobby, Marietta, all alive. At least their deaths wouldn’t weigh heavy on his conscience.
The boy struggled to lift himself up and began to speak. But Colin shook his head, pointing to his ears. “Can’t hear.”
Bobby pointed to his ankle. Colin felt it. No obvious broken bones. “Can you stand?”
The boy shrugged and held out his uninjured arm for help. Ignoring the arm, Colin lifted the boy to his feet. Luckily Bobby was still small and lithe, not the strapping youth he would be in another year. Colin supported Bobby’s weight gently as the boy tested his ankle, gingerly at first, then with more pressure. When Bobby tried to step fully on the ankle, he recoiled in pain.
“Let me help.” Colin wrapped his arm around Bobby’s waist, avoiding his injured arm. The two walked slowly back to the carriage. There, Fletcher and Colin helped the boy to the seat next to Fletcher, and Bobby took up the pistols.
When Bobby was settled, Colin motioned for Fletcher’s attention. “Where’s the other one? The one the stable master insisted would care for the horses?”
Hit me, Fletcher mouthed, demonstrating a blow to the back of his head.
Colin’s strength suddenly faded. “How far to the next inn?”
Fletcher held up two fingers, then three. Two to three miles.
Colin moved slowly to the open carriage door, calling out in case Marietta’s ears had recovered from the pistol shots. “Marietta, there’s an inn within the hour.”
He stepped in front of the open door. Marietta was seated on the floor, leaning against the backward-facing seat riser, her legs bent at odd angles. Her eyes closed, she held one hand to her chest; the other cradled her belly. At her shoulder, blood seeped through her fingers, covering her hand and staining the front of her chemise. Blood pooled on the floor below her.
Colin’s chest clenched. He swung himself into the carriage, yelling “Fletcher! Drive!” as he pulled the door shut behind him.
He pulled off his cravat and tore it into strips to make a bandage, then crawled beside her.
To stage an attack and steal nothing . . . not robbery. Murder. He needed to think. But first he needed to slow Marietta’s bleeding.
The carriage began to move, first slowly, then faster, and faster still.
* * *
Lady Arabella Lucia Fairbourne plunged her hands into the wash water, reaching for another dish. By pure luck, she’d found work as a scullery maid at an inn—and with it servant’s lodgings. A place to hide.
Several times in the last fortnight, the innkeeper’s wife, Nell, had offered her the easier work of waiting on guests in the dining hall, but each time she had refused. The dining hall was too public. Someone might recognize her.
She pulled her hands from the water and examined them, first on one side, then the next. Fingers puckered, cuticles split, palms roughened and red. Her hands looked like those of a woman who worked for a living. The hands of a scullery maid doing hard but honest labor. She smiled. She was exhausted, but free.
She preferred useful labor to idle luxury, even if that work was washing dishes rather than caring for the wounded in her father’s regiment. Others would consider working in a tavern kitchen a reversal of fortune, but then, they had never lived in her cousin’s house. She pressed her palm against the seam of her dress on the outside of her leg. She felt the comforting thickness where she had sewn in the papers her great-aunt Aurelia had entrusted to her. “Take this letter to my old love, Sir Cecil Grandison.” Aurelia’s frail hand had patted Lucy’s gently. “He’ll understand what to do.”
A curl of jet-black hair tickled her cheek. Drying her fingers against the rough wool of her skirt, she tucked the curl back under the edge of her soft mob bonnet. At a secondhand clothier, she had traded her best walking dress for an ill-fitting servant’s dress dyed a somber blue, and she’d bought the shopgirl’s silence with a pair of embroidered slippers barely worn. Lucy the scullery maid looked nothing like the lady her cousin’s men sought.
She dried the platter with a soft cloth. From the windows far above her head, a soft light suffused the kitchen. Evening. Her favorite time of day. Guests, servants, and family all fed, the kitchen cleaned for the night, and Alice, the cook, leaving her alone to finish the washing. Even so late in the day, the autumn sun would be out for another hour or two, allowing her some time in the inn’s private garden. Separated from the public yard by a high wall on the courtyard side and thick hedges on all others, the garden made her feel almost as safe as she felt in the kitchen.
But feeling safe was different from being safe. The roads were still too full of her cousin’s men to try another move. Only that afternoon, she’d seen the one called Ox (“Oaf” she thought would be more appropriate) looking around the stable yard while his horses were changed.
He hadn’t seen her. She had been looking out of the window of the attic room she shared with Mary, the cook’s helper.
Garrulous Mary noticed all the men in the stable yard, and it was easy to learn anything she noticed. Ox hadn’t spoken to any at the inn, save for calling for a new horse. He hadn’t even haggled over the price, Mary had added with surprise.
Lucy placed the last dish in the drying rack. She let the water drain from the sink as she wiped her hands on a rag. Perhaps she should stay another week.
From the hook beside the garden door, she lifted a long black knit shawl Nell had loaned her for her evening walks in the kitchen garden and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Behind her, she could hear raised voices and shouts coming from the dining hall. Footsteps ran toward the kitchen. Alarmed, she stepped outside, pulling the door quietly shut behind her. She put her ear to the door, hearing muttered curses, and the kitchen being searched. She pulled the shawl over her head and slipped to the side a few feet—into a darkened corner where the garden wall met the house. There a trellis covered with roses climbed the face of the wall, creating a small declivity where she could step out of sight. She had found it weeks ago when she’d examined the house and yard, looking for places to hide should she need them.
The door opened, the light from the kitchen creating a tall shadow on the ground. She remained very still.
“Lucy!” One of Nell’s sons called into the garden from inside the house. “Lucy! Alice!”
She did not move or answer. She would not show herself until she knew why she was wanted and by whom.
“What are you doing, boy?” Alice’s voice joined Ned’s. “Lucy’s done for the night. Leave her be.”
“B-b-but there’s a duke in the yard. His carriage was attacked by highwaymen,” Ned stammered. “Ma said to find you and Lucy.”
Not Ox or her cousin. She stepped out from beneath the roses and returned to the kitchen, as if responding to Ned’s call. If there were wounded, she might be of use.
* * *
“Oh, my, oh my.” The innkeeper paled when he opened the door of the carriage to see Colin sitting on its floor, cradling the body of a woman covered in blood and in labor. “My wife, Your Grace, we need my wife.” Flustered, the innkeeper shut the door.
The door opened again immediately. This time, a round-faced woman with kind eyes who was clearly used to taking control when others hesitated silently assessed Marietta and Colin for a moment.
“I’m Mrs. Newford, Your Grace. Nell, you may call me. You needn’t worry. We can care for you and your lady.” Then she turned to issue instructions to her husband and the servants behind her.
And Mrs. Newford was right. Within minutes, she had helped Colin out of the coach, wrapped Marietta in a cloak to keep her arm from moving too much, and transferred the wounded princess carefully to a litter.
Colin had not interfered, admiring the skill with which Mrs. Newford marshaled her troops. Wellington would have done well to have had her as one of his adjutants.
The boys—Nell’s sons—carried Marietta’s litter not into the inn itself, but into an adjoining two-story lodge sharing the rear courtyard. Unlocking the main door, Mr. Newford revealed a hall with six doors. “Three rooms en suite on each side. Two bedrooms joined in the middle by a sitting room. And the same upstairs.”
His round-faced wife hurried in ahead, opening the door of the first room on the right and motioning her sons to place the litter on the bed. A maid with black hair turned down the bed linens, then stepped out of the way.
Colin moved to raise Marietta off the litter, but Mrs. Newford shooed him to the end of the bed. “Leave it to Alice and me. We know what to do.” The two women shifted Marietta’s weight, lifting her slightly so that the boys could pull the litter free. Their efficiency made him grim: he had neither protected Marietta nor participated in helping her now.
“The bullet needs to be removed.” He pointed at Marietta’s shoulder, still weeping blood. “Do you have a surgeon and a midwife?”
“I am the midwife.” Mrs. Newford patted his arm. “I have delivered all the babes within five miles for the last twenty years, excepting those at the manor house.”
At that moment Marietta cried out in pain. Another contraction pulled her forward over her belly.
Mrs. Newford stroked Marietta’s hand, cooing softly. “Nell is here, lass, Nell is here. This is a safe place. You be in a safe place.” Marietta fell back, eyes closed, her chest rising weakly in shallow breaths.
“We should wait to remove the bullet until after the babe is born.” Nell turned back to Colin. “Let me dress your lady’s wound and attend her labors. My boys will draw you a bath. There’s nothing for you to do here. ’Tis woman’s work.”
At Nell’s capable management, Colin felt his strength drain away. The room began to sway, and he gripped the back of a nearby chair to keep his balance. “I have also been shot.”
Nell looked up sharply. Her gaze moved from his face to his beige pants, which were mottled with blood, not all of it Marietta’s. “Lucy, help His Grace into the drawing room and care for his wound while his bath is drawn. If need be, call the surgeon. Alice will help me with the lady.”
The dark-haired maid came forward from the dark corner of the room behind him. He was used to servants seeming to be part of the walls, but something in her manner suggested she had been hiding, present if needed, but out of sight if she wasn’t.
As she walked toward the adjoining room and her eyes met his, he could see why she might hide. No one could ignore the depth of those dark eyes, the clearness of her skin, or the richness of her mouth, and all framed with curls of black hair slipping out of the confines of her bonnet. Suddenly, he imagined burying his fingers in that thick hair, kissing that beckoning mouth until she pressed her willing body against his.
He shook himself: after Octavia, he had avoided all women. Perhaps the blood loss had made him nostalgic.
Marietta cried out again, reminding him where he was and why. He felt his face return to a scowl. It wasn’t like him to forget his duty at the sight of a pretty face. Oh, but what a face.
The dark-eyed maid pushed open the door to the drawing room and stepped through, holding the door open for him to follow. The evening light from the windows revealed a fireplace, a table and several chairs, and a connecting door open to another bedroom beyond. In silhouette, she was shapeless. A disappointment and a relief. The attraction was just an illusion of his weakness.
He moved to follow her, but stumbled at the edge of the rug.
She was at his side before he could fall, lifting his uninjured arm and placing it over her shoulders, then wrapping her own arm around his side for support. She was careful, he noted, not to touch the wound in his lower side, but slipped her hand under the tails of his coat and grabbed the waistband of his trousers to hold him upright and tight against her. She fit under his arm neatly, and he tensed at the feel of her body, so soft against his side. Despite her unappealing shape, she was still too appealing by half.
Aware of his weakened state, he allowed her to direct him. She moved him efficiently to a wooden armless chair next to the table. She arranged him so that his uninjured side was next to the table; then she brushed his coattails out of the way and helped him lower into the chair. She lifted his arm onto the table. “There, a little support if you need it.”
Over the dark-headed maid’s shoulder, he watched as Alice shut the adjoining door, muffling the sounds of Marietta’s labor. Tightening the muscles in his jaw, he steeled himself against her cries. Marietta would have had the babe soon anyway. At least here she had a midwife, and an accomplished one at that. No, it wasn’t the birth that made him anxious, but the gunshot. The g
unshot was his fault.
He waited for the maid to notice the closed door, to realize that they were alone together. But, disappointingly, she seemed unaware of him in anything but that remote way that nurses are aware of their patients.
A tap at the hallway door drew her away. Despite her unappealing shape, her bearing was elegant, her spine straight, her carriage graceful. Perhaps a governess in disgrace.
At the door, one of Nell’s sons held out a tray covered with linen. The maid set it on a low table to the right of the door, then turned back to the innkeeper’s son, conversing in low tones. He could not hear the words, but she was motioning with slender hands. She wanted something large, with a handle, and something small, in a jar or bottle, kept up high. He watched her, mesmerized. When the blond boy left, she kept the door ajar. Ah, he thought with satisfaction, she had noticed being alone with him.
Bringing the tray to the table, the maid lifted the linen to reveal bread, a substantial portion of Stilton, and a small pot of honey. Beside it stood a decanter of dark liquid and a glass.
“Mark will return with bandages and salve. Since his mother and the cook are helping with your lady, he put together the tray himself. If you wish something more substantial, I can prepare it while you bathe.”
No “sir” or “my lord.” But he made no comment. Everyone else at the inn had made the mistake of calling him “Your Grace.” He hadn’t corrected them, anticipating the error would spread to his advantage. What had made this maid realize the truth?
“Later. I’ll eat later.” His stomach turned at the thought of eating.
She covered the food and unstopped the decanter. She poured, filling the glass almost to the top.
“Drink this.”
An imperative. Interesting. Suddenly, he wished to challenge her, to see her mettle.
“What if I refuse?” He accompanied the question with his most high-born glare. It was a gaze that never failed to succeed in getting him whatever he wanted from tenants or innkeepers and other servants. It only failed with his family—and of course he would never use such a look on a woman of his class. “And we are not equals, miss. I expect an appropriate courtesy from a maid—for myself and my . . . companion.”