She laughed into his waistcoat, but the chuckle transformed into a sob between one breath and the next. He held her tightly as she cried, feeling the heat of her tears through his waistcoat and shirt, like brands on his chest. There would be scars left there, though he’d be the only one who ever saw them.
It was going to kill him to let her go.
THE CARRIAGE SAT unmoving, parked on the side of the road, when Stickley and Wolfe caught up with it. They stayed across the road, hiding in the shadows. The brush on the side of the road was wet and clinging from the recent rain.
“What are they doing?” Stickley hissed. “I thought they were going to the opera?”
Wolfe brushed at his smudged and torn finery. “They had better not go now. I’ll never pass in the opera hall in this state.”
Stickley worried the buttons on his weskit. “We’d better call this off. It’s all wrong now. I don’t like this dark and quiet. There might be bandits or some such about.”
Wolfe grinned, his teeth flashing white in the darkness. “Ah, Stick, you’re a genius. Give me that pistol of yours.”
“I will not! I need it for when I make deposits at the bank. I am very careful with other people’s money, you know.”
Wolfe nodded. “Absolutely. I know that. And right now, I’m going to save Miss Millbury and her money from a murdering lord with a crumbling estate—if that’s all right with you, of course.”
Stickley drew back in horror. “You’re going to kill him?”
Wolfe closed his eyes and sighed.
Stickley frowned. “You’re the third person to make that noise at me this week.”
Wolfe raised a brow. “Can’t imagine why. Now, Stick, I’m not going to kill Brookhaven. I’m going to capture him, just as we’d planned. This is better than trying to grab him at the opera, for there was no one to deal with but a coachman and a footman.”
“And Miss Millbury. You won’t frighten her too badly, will you?”
Wolfe raised both hands. “I am here to save Miss Millbury, remember? We are the heroes in this piece, right?”
Stickley smiled tightly. “Right. Of course.” He handed the pistol over to Wolfe. “Be forceful, but not too violent. And don’t give away your identity!”
Wolfe pulled a blue silk handkerchief from his pocket. “Does this look black in this light? Good enough, I suppose.” He used a sharp stick to poke eyeholes, then tied the silk about the upper half of his face like a mask. “There. Neither Brookhaven nor Miss Millbury has ever met me, so I’ll be safe enough. You stay back here.”
“But it’s my pistol. I want to be a hero as well.”
“Stickley, stay.” Wolfe turned toward him, his eyes suddenly sinister in the mask. “I mean that.”
Stickley subsided. “Very well.”
But Wolfe was gone, a shadow among shadows drifting toward the parked carriage.
Chapter Thirty-six
Phoebe lifted her head from Rafe’s chest and brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Did you hear that?”
Rafe turned his distant gaze outside. “Hear what? Are the servants back?”
Phoebe frowned. “I could swear I heard someone calling out for ‘sand and liver.’”
Rafe made a noise. “Sand and—” He jerked upright and pressed her back into her seat. “Stay here!”
In one smooth motion, he opened the door on the wooded side of the carriage and slid out and down, out of her sight. Phoebe stayed where she was told, fear beginning to boil beneath her heart. When Rafe was gone, she got down onto all fours to peer out the windows on the road side.
“Stand and deliver, damn you!” The voice was hoarse and deep. A dark figure appeared in the moonlight, a man all in black with a mask over his eyes. One hand carried a pistol, aimed directly at her!
She ducked down, although she wasn’t at all sure that the walls of the sleek, lightweight carriage would stop a bullet. Should she follow Rafe out the other door? Should she stay put, to do as she was told?
If she were a highwayman, she’d check the carriage first.
So be it. She scuttled backward, cursing the full skirts of her opera gown. If she could rip them up the side for better motion she would, but the sound would ring through the night like an alarm bell. For the moment, she was just going to have to hike them high and hope no one could see her pantalets—oh, criminy, she’d not worn pantalets. All in the cause of seducing Calder.
All right, then, perhaps she wouldn’t hike the skirts quite so high.
The door had never truly closed, so it was a simple matter to push open the well-oiled hinges and slither, silk and all, into the mud beneath the carriage. Sheltered and dark, yet she could see danger coming. Hopefully, no one would think to look for a lady between the wheels.
The mud made her progress more difficult but blessedly silent as she slithered on her stomach to the other side. Her elbows planted deep in the mud, she pushed her hair out of her eyes with filthy hands and looked for the highwayman.
He still stood, alone in the center of the road, brandishing his pistol. “I know you’re in there, Br—guv’nor! Come out peacefully and I won’t harm the lady.”
Phoebe didn’t put much stock in the word of a bandit. He looked the proper brigand, tall and powerful, his gold buttons gleaming in the moon’s glow—gold buttons?
Thievery must pay better than she’d thought.
A hand, cold and slimy, closed over her ankle. Phoebe started violently but made no sound.
“I thought I told you to stay in the carriage.” Rafe’s whisper was nearly soundless, coming from just behind her.
Phoebe closed her eyes. He was going to pay for that—perhaps not now, but soon. “I didn’t like being a bird in a cage,” she whispered back.
Rafe slithered up beside her. “Then don’t get caught.” He peered out at the highwayman, who looked as though he were losing his patience. “I don’t think this fellow has much experience.”
Phoebe nodded. “Yes, he does have the air of a beginner. Is that a good thing?”
“It might not be. An accomplished thief is in control of the situation and of himself. I don’t think this fellow is either.”
The man moved, approaching the carriage. “Shh!” Rafe pushed her down, hiding her face in his shoulder—his wet, muddy shoulder. Phoebe pulled away to breathe and spit out a taste of mud.
Rafe pressed his mouth to her ear. “When I give the signal, slip out the back and hide in the woods. I’ll come find you.”
Phoebe nodded, the fear turning hard and spiky within her. This was real, the bandit was real, and his pistol was very, very real. “Be careful,” she breathed.
Rafe dropped his head to press a quick kiss to her lips then stopped a half-inch away. The kiss ended up on her cheekbone. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I’ll be there to dance at your wedding. Now … go.”
Phoebe pushed herself back as Rafe sprang from the concealing darkness, a silent and lethal leap at the armed man. Slithering backward until she was free of the carriage, hiking up her leaden, muddy skirts with both hands, turning to run, she listened every second. She heard a shout of surprise, grunts, and the sound of scuffling. She took a few steps into the wooded copse, stepping over a fallen branch, one hand before her as she left the revealing glow of the moon.
A cry of pain sounded from the scuffle—Rafe!
To hell with obedience.
Phoebe turned and reached for the branch on the ground. Heavy, but not too much so for a country girl. She wrapped both hands about it and raised it high, then took a deep breath and rounded the carriage screaming like a banshee.
There were two highwaymen now, pulling at Rafe’s still form on the road. Phoebe’s screech became a howl of rage as the two men looked up just in time to catch the branch across their faces.
They scrambled backward, out of range, cursing—one voice high, one deep. She could see them clearly, but the masks had held—except the slighter man seemed to have made his mask from a sleeve of a shi
rt. The cuff flapped behind his head with every motion.
Bloody beginners.
She planted a foot on either side of Rafe’s still form and brandished her weapon with a snarl. “Get out of here, you goat-rutting bastards!”
The slight man gasped. “Language!”
The larger man pushed his companion back with one big hand to his chest. “Shut it, St—Stone.”
“What?” The smaller man slipped in the mud, then recovered. “Oh. Right … Fox.”
The big man snarled at his companion, then turned back on Phoebe. “Now, miss … there’s no need for you to get so upset. We have a bit of business with this gentleman, but we’ve no intention of harming you.”
Phoebe bared her teeth. “That’s too bad, for I’ve every intention of harming you.”
She took a mighty swing, making the branch whistle in the night air. Both men jumped back, staggering in the quagmire they’d created in their struggles with Rafe. She cocked the branch back again, braced like a cricket player.
The big man held up both hands. His smile beneath the mask was white. “There’s no call for that, miss.” His deep voice was smooth and cajoling. “You’re much too pretty to be so violent.”
Phoebe faltered, letting the branch sag slightly. “I—I am?”
Encouraged, the fellow took another step. “You certainly are. A fine figure of a woman, if I may be so bold. Why, this fellow isn’t man enough for the likes of you!”
Phoebe looked down at Rafe, facedown in the mud. “He isn’t?” She let the branch rest on her shoulder as she thought about it. Then she looked back up at the man in black. “Are you?”
He chuckled and took one more step toward her.
One more step had been all she needed. She swung with all her might, snapping the branch up and across his jaw. She heard teeth shut hard and a deep grunt of pain as the impact sent shocks reverberating up the branch to her hands. The big man seemed to float backward for a long moment before hitting the road hard, his big body sliding in the mud.
“Wo—Fox!” The slighter man ran forward and dropped to his knees beside his companion. “Fox! Can you hear me?”
The big man groaned. “Bloody Paris can hear you, St—Stone!” He pushed the other man aside and rose, one hand feeling gingerly at his jaw.
In his other hand, he held the pistol, pointed directly at her heart.
Oh, damn. She’d forgotten about the pistol.
The smaller man gasped. “What are you doing? You can’t shoot a lady!”
The big man growled. “Oh, yes I can. She hit me!”
Stone backed away a step. “You’ll do nothing of the sort.” His voice seemed different, authoritative and sharp. “Kindly remember who you are, sir.”
Fox seemed to have trouble remembering that, whoever that was. Phoebe waited, her breath coming short, her hands shaking, her rage fading under the onslaught of her terror. Then the big man let the pistol drop.
“Another day, then,” he said wryly. He tipped the pistol at her like a hat. “Miss.”
Then the highwayman raised his pistol and fired over the heads of the Brookhaven carriage horses. The animals started and lunged and fled off into the night, their bunched haunches carrying away themselves and the carriage and any hope Phoebe had of an easy course to rescue.
“Oh, dear,” Stone said softly.
Fox smiled meanly. “Have a nice walk, my dear. I do hope his lordship isn’t too heavy.”
Then the two melted into the shadows—well, sort of. She heard a great deal of crashing and cursing before their voices faded away completely.
Only then did she dare toss her weapon aside and kneel beside Rafe. She rolled him over and wiped the mud from his face, peering at him closely in the moonlight. “Rafe? Rafe, my darling, can you hear me?” Heavens, did everyone say that when someone was unconscious? “Rafe, please wake up! We must get away from here!”
Chapter Thirty-seven
After a quarter of an hour of slipping and skidding beneath the weight of Rafe’s stumbling body, Phoebe spotted the bodies of the two servants sprawled on the side of the road. After carefully letting Rafe slip to his knees, she ran to them. Both men were unconscious, but had normal breathing and heartbeats and she couldn’t find any wounds other than lumps on their heads.
For a moment, she contemplated leaving Rafe with them, but he was too disoriented. He might stumble off into the wood and never be found.
Hiking Rafe’s arm higher over her shoulders, she turned resolutely toward the inn. “Two miles. Two tiny, little miles. Piece of cake.”
Rafe revived enough to maintain a stumbling walk, although it was as if he were sleepwalking. She was getting desperately worried about his dazed state. Surely he ought to have roused by now?
Once he turned to her and said very clearly, “Phoebe, my head hurts.” Then he returned to his confused state, muttering about Brookhaven and Calder and “his damned factories.”
Phoebe answered him when he seemed to require it, and if he went too long silent, she threw down fodder for argument. “Calder’s plan for his factory is brilliant” or “It’s Calder’s estate, he can do what he wants with it.” Such contributions were guaranteed to stir a response.
Then his thoughts apparently returned to her. “She’s the one,” he said, over and over, breaking her heart every time. “I found her.”
“She doesn’t love me,” he said once, quite clearly. “I can’t make her love me.”
“Oh, I think you’re doing a damned fine job of it,” she whispered back to him, but he was off again on Calder.
“Bloody know-it-all. Bloody perfect heir.”
It wasn’t hatred, really. More of a strange sort of rivalry, like two hounds living too closely together. And apparently, the fate of Brookhaven was the bone.
It was fascinating stuff, and did a great deal to explain the events of the last week, but Phoebe was fast losing strength. Even country girls didn’t last forever.
At last she saw the glow of lanterns ahead. The relief was such that her knees weakened and she nearly went down with Rafe on top of her.
“Not what I had in mind, my love,” she laughed damply as she strained to resituate him. “Perhaps after we’ve bathed.”
She threw Rafe’s unresisting arm over her shoulders and hefted his weight as best she could. Heavens, he was big! She made it through the inn yard and was coaxing Rafe’s stumbling feet up the steps when someone came out and spotted them.
“Great Scott! Here, let me help you!”
Phoebe turned Rafe’s greater weight over to the stranger with relief, for spots were beginning to form before her eyes from the effort. As it was, her knees were trembling greatly, although that might have been from the sudden realization that it was over—they had survived.
She placed one shaking hand against the doorframe for balance as the stranger helped Rafe into the inn. She wasn’t done yet—not quite. “Sir, our driver and footman are injured. Please send help back down the road for them!”
The lights and sounds of the inn struck her like a welcome fire glow when she stumbled through the door at last. She heard cries of alarm at their appearance and the shuffle of hurried feet as people sprang up to help them inside. Someone took her elbow gently and guided her to a seat by the fire. She was seated much too close, for the heat scorched her face, but it felt wonderful.
Safe, and apparently unrecognized. Now, it was time to come up with some story that would save—
“Lord Marbrook! What has happened to you?”
Oh God. Phoebe jerked her head up to see a handsome young man leaning over Rafe, prodding him in the arm. Rafe’s head rolled and his eyes blinked rapidly—he was trying to regain his awareness, but what might he say before he had his thoughts in order?
Phoebe jumped up and put herself between Rafe and the newcomer. “Sir, I beg you not to question him now. We have been through much tonight.”
The fellow frowned. “Rafe is my friend. You, I do not know.”
<
br /> “I? I am—” This was where a planned story would have come in handily. “I am his sister, of course.”
The fellow blinked suspiciously. “I’ve known Rafe since we were in school. He never mentioned a sister.”
Oh, God. Not just a friend, a good friend. “Well … I … I keep close to Brookhaven.”
His eyes narrowed. “What is your name?”
Lady. Rafe’s sister would be Lady Something, or would she? “I am Lady Nan—” No, too common. “Dei—” Oh, God no. Deirdre would kill her! “Tess—” Criminy, even worse!
“Lady Nanditess?”
Phoebe raised her chin. “It’s a family name.”
The man raised a brow, as if he could suddenly see why the family had kept her under wraps all those years. “I see.” At last, he shrugged, unable to confirm or deny her. “How may I aid you, Lady Nanditess? Should I obtain two rooms for the night?”
Phoebe refrained from mopping her brow in relief. “Yes, thank you … ah …”
The man bowed. “Forgive me. I am Somers Boothe-Jamison.”
Since she was teetering on the edge of exhaustion and panic that Rafe had not yet truly regained consciousness, Phoebe merely nodded regally and waved the fellow on. “If you don’t mind … those rooms?”
When he’d gone, she sat next to Rafe and examined his wound by the light of a small candelabra from the center of a table. There was a nasty bump and a cut which had bled heavily but was not terribly large or deep after all. His pulse seemed strong and his pallor was improving by the moment. She framed his face in her hands.
“Rafe darling … wake up. Wake up, please.”
He twitched and his eyelids fluttered, but he did not wake completely. Beside herself with worry, Phoebe scarcely noticed when Mr. Boothe-Jamison returned with help to carry Rafe to his room.
It turned out to be “their” room, actually. Mr. Boothe-Jamison shrugged apologetically. “It was the only guest room left. I took one in the attic for your injured servants, as well, but I thought you’d want to be close by—”
Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01] Page 20