by Jody Hedlund
Yes, she should have figured out months ago that she needed someone different, someone stronger.
Her gaze darted around with growing panic, her expression stricken. From the stiffening of her arms and firm set of her chin, he could sense she was about to turn around and run. And all he could feel was relief.
But just as soon as the unexpected emotion wafted through him, a bolt of guilt punched him in the gut. He had no right whatsoever to find any satisfaction in her insecurities. If he was half a man, he needed to go to her, soothe her nerves, and ease her fears.
She pivoted so that she was fully facing the front of the Cole beach house. Even though Victoria referred to their Newport home as a cottage, the three-storied stone mansion resembled a castle with its tall front turret and long windows and crenellations.
“Wait!” He bounded toward her. She hesitated, which allowed him to catch up with her and block her path so she couldn’t retreat. He waited for her to push him aside and stride around him with anger flashing in her eyes—anger that had been there often this past week.
But instead, her eyes were wide and frightened.
“Victoria,” he began, not knowing quite what to say, except that he had to reassure her somehow.
She waited as though everything hinged upon what he had to say. He could tell her to walk away, that Nathaniel wasn’t right for her, and she’d do it. But deep down, he knew that he couldn’t be the one to dissuade her.
“You’ll be all right,” he started again. Before he realized what he was doing, he reached for her arm and gripped it firmly, hoping to give her some of his strength. She glanced at his hold and he quickly released her. He had no right to touch her. He simply needed to encourage her. “You can do this. You’re strong enough.”
She searched his face, all of her doubts out in the open for everyone to see. Fortunately, only her three maids and coachman were witnesses of this moment of insecurity. From the anxiety wreathed on the faces of the servants, Tom had no doubt they were well aware of Victoria’s wedding day history and were afraid she was about to repeat it.
“Nathaniel is a good man, Victoria. And he loves you.”
She nodded, but the movement lacked conviction.
“He’ll take care of you. And give you the kind of life you deserve.”
She stared at him a moment longer before the stiffness began to ease from her shoulders, and she released a long breath.
“You can do this,” he said again holding out his elbow.
She gave him a wobbly smile and hooked her hand around his arm.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Okay.”
Delicately, as though she were made of fine lace, he escorted her down the front walkway to the waiting carriage. He swung open the door and started to help her inside when she paused. “Thank you.”
He nodded and attempted to keep his expression from reflecting the swell of melancholy that was rising within him.
She climbed inside and sat on the bright red velvet cushion. He stepped aside to allow her maids to situate her train and the folds of her skirt. The carriage gave a sudden lurch that sent two of the maids toppling to the ground.
Tom assessed the teams. Nothing seemed amiss. Before he could move, the carriage began to roll forward.
“Hey!” Tom called. “We’re not ready.”
Davis didn’t turn. Instead he slashed the reins and urged the horses to move faster.
The maid still inside with Victoria gave a cry as she fell back against the opposite seat. The carriage door was unlatched and swung open and closed.
“Davis!” Tom yelled again. “Give us another minute.”
At the sight of the coachman, Tom’s pulse careened. The man driving the carriage wasn’t Davis. Although he wore a white suit and top hat identical to Davis’s, the man’s shoulders were thinner and his wrists showed beyond the coat sleeves, unlike Davis, whose suit had been tailored and fit to perfection. Beneath the hat, this man’s hair was an inch longer and a shade lighter.
“Stop!” Tom called, but the horses were already galloping forward and picking up speed. Without waiting to make sense of the situation, Tom sprinted after the carriage. He couldn’t let anything happen to Victoria. He had to stop the imposter before he got away.
Tom forced his legs to move faster, but the gap between himself and the carriage widened. The driver glanced briefly over his shoulder, giving Tom a glimpse of hard-set features, a thin nose, gaunt cheeks, and a long forehead. He didn’t recognize the man from any of the places he’d been with Victoria over the past month. But from Arch’s sketchy description of the man who’d attacked him, Tom had a feeling they were one and the same.
The man slashed at the horses with more force, but with a corner up ahead, he’d have to slow the carriage or risk toppling it. Tom glanced around for residents or servants who might be able to help him, but unfortunately, the large estates with sprawling yards were deserted. Everyone was already at the church awaiting Victoria’s arrival.
He sucked in a deep breath and ran harder. His heart rammed against his ribcage in tempo with his hard slapping footsteps. Without slowing his chase, he dislodged the small pistol he wore strapped beneath his vest. He didn’t want to shoot. But he would if he had to.
As the carriage neared the corner, Tom eyed the terrain at the bend—two willow trees, one long hitching post, and four boulders. If the carriage turned over and Victoria or her servant fell out, they could easily hit one of the barriers. And at that speed, the blow could be deadly.
Victoria needed to close the door.
As if she’d heard him, she grabbed the swinging door and poked her head out.
“Close it!” he shouted.
She leaned out further, her veil flapping in the wind. The carriage hit a bump, causing her to lose her balance. If not for the maid grabbing Victoria’s arm, she would have fallen out.
The corner was fast approaching, and the driver showed no signs of slowing down. Panic spurted through Tom. “Get back inside, Victoria! Now!”
Hanging on with one hand, she lifted her other into the air.
Tom squinted. She was holding something. Was it her shoe? Before Tom could shout further instructions, she flung the item, which was indeed one of her wedding slippers. She missed the driver by a league. In fact, she couldn’t have been further away from him than if she’d purposefully thrown the shoe the opposite direction.
“Get in and close the door!” he yelled again, irritated at her for her dangerous stunt. She was already in enough danger without dangling halfway out of the carriage.
Once again, rather than listening to him, she leaned out and lifted her arm in readiness to throw. She flung her other shoe toward the driver. And this time, much to Tom’s surprise, the pointed slipper hit the man in the back. The impact startled the driver so that he jumped and knocked his hat loose. He fumbled after his falling hat, but in the process, he leaned too far to the left and jerked the horses that direction. The movement propelled Victoria back inside the carriage and thankfully slammed the door closed behind her.
Instead of careening dangerously around the corner, the horses continued straight, running off the road and narrowly missing one of the willows. Swerving between two of the boulders and continuing across a lawn straight through a flower bed, the driver yelled curses at the team as he attempted to bring them back under control. The grass and dirt did their job to slow down the carriage, but the frightened horses were no longer responding to the driver’s frantic efforts to direct them back onto the road. They rumbled past a stately home and clattered down a small hill that led to the beach, picking up speed in the process.
As soon as the wheels hit the sand, the vehicle slammed to a halt. At the unexpected force, the driver flew off and landed on his back near the horses, which were straining to move forward and kicking up sand. But the carriage was stuck and wouldn’t budge.
Tom raced to catch up, but he was already spent and his lungs burned from the effort of r
unning. He watched in frustration as the driver scrambled to his feet and started to sprint away. Thankfully, the man’s feet sank into the sand, slowing his progress. Even so, by the time Tom neared the edge of the beach, the driver had already reached the neighbor’s yard and was disappearing around the side of the house. Tom hesitated for only a moment before deciding to follow the driver. If he lost the man, he’d have no way of getting valuable information that could tell him who was behind the attacks, and why.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the carriage door open and Victoria fall out onto the sand. She had her hand cupped over her mouth and nose, but blood dribbled between her fingers and streaked the front of her wedding dress.
At the sight of her blood, Tom’s own blood ran cold.
Immediately, he spun around. His feet couldn’t carry him fast enough through the sand. When he reached her side, he dropped to his knees. “Victoria.” His breath was ragged, and he could hardly speak past his air-starved lungs. “Where are you hurt?”
From the amount of blood, he guessed she’d hit her nose. She wasn’t favoring any limbs, which hopefully meant she’d hadn’t broken a bone.
He jerked his shirt out of his trousers and ripped off a swath of linen. Then he moved Victoria’s hand out of the way, used the fabric to stanch the flow, and pinched her nose closed.
She winced.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It doesn’t hurt too much.” Her voice was nasally.
But his apology went deeper than the nose bleed, especially as the reality of what had happened began to sink in. Victoria had almost been abducted. And it was his fault.
“This shouldn’t have happened.” In the hot sand with the sun beating down on him, sweat trickled down his back.
“I fell against the opposite seat,” she said.
The maid hadn’t fared as well. She was sitting in the doorway. From the way she cradled her arm, Tom suspected she had a fracture.
He could only shake his head in frustration. “I should have noticed that man wasn’t Davis.”
Victoria pushed Tom’s hand away from her nose and took the ripped piece of his shirt from him. “He looked exactly like Davis. None of us noticed.”
“I should have. That’s my job.” How had he missed it? His powers of observation were usually so keen. What had caused him to make such a terrible mistake?
She dabbed at the blood still flowing from her nose. “Don’t blame yourself. At least I’m free. And you scared him away.”
He’d been captivated by Victoria when she’d come out of the front door, and he hadn’t been paying attention to the carriage or Davis at that point. He’d been admiring her instead. Then she’d started to run away, and he’d been distracted while trying to calm her down.
Inwardly, he groaned. He’d let his personal feelings and interactions affect his ability to do a thorough job for his client. Just as he had the night he’d almost kissed her. This time his ineptness had been disastrous. Victoria could have been taken away to only God knows where and held for ransom. Or worse.
“Let’s look on the bright side.” Victoria smiled tremulously. “I’m perfectly fine, and once my bleeding stops, we can make it to the church without being overly late.”
He raised a brow. He hadn’t expected her to want to continue on her way to the wedding so soon. He figured he’d have to send a messenger ahead and let everyone know about the delay and, more specifically, inform Mr. Cole about what had happened. “Your maid needs medical attention first.”
“Yes, of course.” Victoria gave the woman an apologetic smile.
“And I’ll need to find someone to help me pull the carriage back to the road.”
Victoria nodded. “Very true.”
“While I do that, you can clean up and put on a different dress.”
A frown creased her forehead. “A different dress? That’s absolutely unthinkable.” She glanced down to the white satin that had pooled around her. Then she uttered a cry as she took in the blood that streaked through the tiny pearls sewn into the bodice. Against the unblemished white, the red stains were vibrant. There was too much blood to hide with quick cosmetics. In fact, she was covered with so much blood, it looked as though she’d just come off a battlefield. He’d seen enough during the war to know.
“My dress is ruined,” she wailed, spreading out the material even as more blood dripped from her nose onto the skirt. She buried her face in her hands as though she couldn’t bear to see the dress a moment longer. “And now my wedding is ruined too.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“It is,” she said into her hands. “It’s utterly and completely ruined.”
“We can postpone—”
“I thought this time with Nathaniel, I could do it. I really did,” came her teary voice. “But I should have known it wouldn’t work. I should have known I’d end up doing something to ruin it.” Her sobs were muffled but heart-wrenching.
Tom sat back on his heels and wiped the perspiration off his forehead. He was accustomed to crying women. He’d been around theatrics and tantrums and drama as long as he’d been a bodyguard. But this was different. She wasn’t putting on a show or attempting to manipulate him. Her pain was genuine and went deep.
He watched her, unsure what to do. She didn’t need his platitudes or promises. And she didn’t need to hear all his doubts, especially that he hadn’t thought Nathaniel was right for her in the first place.
All he could think to do was lay his hand on her back. At his touch, she leaned into him and pressed her forehead against his chest. Her body shook with sobs. He knew he should set her away from him or, at the very least, help her stand and walk back to the grassy embankment. But with the warmth of her body so near, with her tears soaking into his shirt… He hesitated for only a moment before pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her.
She melded against him, and he held her, knowing he shouldn’t. But he was helpless to do anything else.
Chapter 7
Victoria leaned against the closed door of her father’s study. She shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but after saying goodbye to Nathaniel, she hadn’t been able to ignore her father and Mr. Cushman’s voices deep in conversation, discussing all that had happened earlier in the day.
Mr. Cushman had been relaying details about the investigations he’d done that afternoon. He’d attempted to follow the perpetrator’s trail, had gone into town and asked around, had visited all the haunts where a criminal might hole up. He’d even questioned Davis several times. But the coachman hadn’t seen the attacker who’d knocked him out before climbing up and taking his place. Mr. Cushman had found Davis hidden under a hedge, unconscious and bleeding from a head wound.
Now her father and Mr. Cushman were talking about a letter that had been placed on the front step of the house only an hour ago. She trembled at the thought that the kidnapper was still on the loose and might try to come after her again.
“Do you think the letter and this morning’s attack are related?” her father asked.
“Yes.” Mr. Cushman’s voice was low and earnest. Victoria could picture him sitting in a chair across the desk from her father, his shoulders straight and stiff, the muscles in his jaw flexing, and his brows slanted in frustration. “Which means we can’t have the wedding tomorrow.”
Victoria had been so convinced earlier that she ruined everything again. That perhaps she was the one sabotaging her attempts at getting married. That her fears were rising up and causing all the problems.
When Nathaniel had reassured her that none of day’s events were her fault, she’d wanted so badly to believe him. He’d promised her that any dress she chose for the wedding would be sufficient, that he didn’t care what she wore. And he’d very gently and sweetly convinced her to reschedule the wedding for tomorrow.
The tables and chairs and decorations for the wedding breakfast were all still set up on the spacious veranda at the back of the house. The guests were still in town. M
other had insisted that the flowers could be put in water and preserved.
Even now her mother was down in the kitchen speaking with the cook about what could be salvaged from the food they’d prepared for today and what would need to be remade. Already, her mother had hired several more cooks who were willing to work through the night to prepare another lavish feast for the wedding guests.
“We have to postpone,” Mr. Cushman insisted.
“But if I hire a few extra guards, plan a different route—”
“It would still be too dangerous.”
When her father didn’t contradict Mr. Cushman, Victoria guessed the threat that the letter contained must be serious.
Mr. Cushman lowered his voice so that Victoria had to press her ear against the keyhole to hear him. “I suggest putting Victoria into hiding.”
Her father didn’t respond. She guessed he was sitting back in his leather desk chair, his hands pressed together at his chin, and pondering Mr. Cushman’s advice thoughtfully. Finally, her father spoke in the same low tone as Mr. Cushman. “For how long?”
“A month should be enough to find the attacker.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“Arch has offered to search for him. If he can’t track him down, we’ll bait him.” The words were spoken so softly she almost didn’t hear him. She didn’t understand exactly what Mr. Cushman intended, but the deadliness of his tone made her shiver.
Again, her father was silent in contemplation. “Do you have any suggestions for a safe hiding place? One of my horse farms? Perhaps my home in Chicago? Or do you think Europe would be best?”
“None of those. It can’t be any place connected with you.”
What if she didn’t want to go into hiding? Did either of them consider that? Surely they were exaggerating the seriousness of the situation.
But even as she attempted to stay positive, the memories of the dangerous ride down Ocean Drive came crowding back. The terrifying moment of not knowing who had captured her, where he was taking her, or what he would do to her. The terrible feeling of helplessness. One look into the maid’s frightened eyes had spurred Victoria to try to do something to save them while she still could. Of course, Mr. Cushman had scolded her severely for leaning out the carriage and throwing her shoes, but he had reluctantly admitted that the distraction had likely saved them.