Elizabeth Thornton (14 page)

She’d forgotten about the hammer. She gently pulled it back.

“Now cover them.”

Keeping close to the wall and with her pistol pointed at the man who seemed to be in charge, she followed them along the lane until they’d cleared the chaise. “That’s far enough,” bawled Harper.

Harper shoved his pistol into his waistband, swung over the rail of the gallery onto the wall, then lightly dropped down. Abbie heard the coach door open, and Harper entered the coach. It seemed to take forever before he came out. She allowed herself one quick glance. Hugh was slung over Harper’s shoulder.

“How is he?” she asked.

“He’ll live.” When she sucked in a harsh breath, Harper said quickly, “No, no. He’ll be fine. Really. God, he weighs a ton!”

Abbie thought she was going to laugh, but the sound came out a sob. Hugh was safe. Now she could think about other things. She didn’t want the authorities to take these men into custody, not as long as they held the power of life and death over her brother. And she had to act quickly. At any moment she expected the curricle driver to return with a band of armed men.

She edged toward the back of the chaise to conceal her movements from Harper. Keeping her voice low and her eyes fixed on the man in the brown coat, she said, “Now get out of here and don’t come near me until I reach London.”

“Miss Vayle?” It was Harper’s voice, and he sounded suspicious.

She raised her pistol and fired into the air. Several things happened at once. Hugh’s assailants took off down the lane. The horses reared up in their traces and tried to bolt. Harper flung himself clear. And a bullet plowed into the snow right at Abbie’s feet.

Abbie yelped and dove for the cover of the wall beside Harper. The horses, maddened with fright, plunged and reared, dislodging the wheel that was stuck, and made a dash for it, only to become stuck in another snow drift a few yards farther on. They were now blocking the exit from the courtyard into the lane.

“Where did that shot come from?” Abbie quavered.

“There’s a man on the gallery.”

A voice from the gallery called out, “They’re over there, behind the wall. In the lane, man, in the lane.”

Abbie looked at Harper in stark horror. There was no way out, no way for Hugh’s coach to get through the
gateway and into the back lane, not when the chaise was blocking the exit. “We’re trapped.”

“Then,” said Harper, “we’ll just have to leave the way we came in.”

“We’ll never do it. There isn’t enough room to swing a cat in the courtyard, let alone maneuver a carriage. That’s why there’s a separate exit.”

Harper’s reply was to put two fingers to his mouth and emit a shrill whistle. She heard wheels rattling over cobblestones in the courtyard, then the voice of the man on the gallery again.

“You, down there! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Who me?” Tom’s voice.

“Yes you!”

“I’m not doing anything, guv’nor. It’s them bleeding ’orses of mine. Now why don’t you lower that pistol before I blasts your ’ead off with my brown Bess? That’s better. Thank you, sir.” Then he yelled, “Ready, Mr. ’arper!”

“Now!” said Harper, giving Abbie a shove toward the gap in the wall. Then hoisting Hugh more securely on his shoulder, he went after her.

Hugh’s carriage was hard by the exit now. Abbie squeezed past the chaise that was stuck in the snow, went through the gap into the courtyard, then she opened the carriage door. She clambered in, then turned to give Harper a hand with Hugh. When Hugh was settled on the floor, Harper said, “Stay on the floor. And brace yourself!”

She looked worriedly down at Hugh. He’d been badly battered about the face and blood trickled from his nose. But there were no serious wounds that she could detect, no patches of blood on his clothes. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over. She heard Harper’s voice. “Clear the way or my friend here will blast you away.”

“Don’t be stupid, man!” The voice of authority. “You can’t escape.”

She jumped when the blast came, but it wasn’t the blast of a pistol or a blunderbuss. It was the blast of a tin horn.

Hugh moved restlessly. “Maitland?” he murmured. “Maitland? What’s he doing here?”

The coach suddenly lurched forward, then tipped backward as the horses reared up. Abbie was thrown back against the banquette. She heard the scrape of metal on stone as the coach hit the wall, and in the next instant she was thrown to the floor as the horses jolted forward.

“What the devil—?” gasped Hugh.

“It’s all right,” she soothed. “It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t all right. Harper, she was convinced, had taken leave of his senses. Brace yourself, he’d said, and that’s what she did. She flung herself full length on the floor and clasped Hugh tightly, trying to cushion him against her softness. Out in the courtyard, it sounded like an insane asylum—men shouting, women screaming, a dog barking.

“Hold your fire!” The man on the gallery. “They’re not going anywhere. Hold your fire. There are too many innocent people here to take chances.”

Harper’s voice. “Clear the way! Clear the way or I’ll run you down.”

Abbie shivered in apprehension. Hugh had told her that Harper could be a daredevil when the occasion arose, and she had scoffed at the idea. She wasn’t scoffing now.

They struck something with an impact that jarred her teeth, then they struck something else. Screams. Shouts. She sensed the horses check and falter, but either Harper or Tom cracked the whip, for they sprang forward as though they were on the open road.

She clambered to her knees and braced herself with
one hand on either banquette, then winced as her ears were assaulted by the piercing blast of the tin horn. She looked out the window. “Oh no!” she breathed. “Oh no!”

Harper was going to drive them straight through the entrance into the High Street. That’s why he had made Tom give a blast on the horn, to warn other vehicles to keep out of his way.

The horn gave another piercing blast, and she braced herself for a collision. When they entered the tunnel under the archway, it was as if someone had suddenly put out the light. Though she could not see, she could still feel and hear. They were going too fast, rattling over the cobblestones, making straight for the houses on the other side of the road. “Oh, dear Lord!” The words were wrung from her as she heard two more blasts in quick succession, one from Tom’s horn and a fainter blast from an approaching vehicle.

They shot out of the tunnel like a ball from a cannon. Abbie saw a coach bearing down on them and she gasped. Before she could scream out in terror, the coach tilted as it turned the corner and she fell in a heap on top of Hugh. The carriage righted itself with a resounding thud, and Hugh made a movement to push her away.

His eyelashes fluttered open. “Abbie,” he said faintly.

She had pulled back to her hands and knees. “Yes, Hugh?”

“My head aches.”

She probed his skull with her fingers. There was a bump as big as a cricket ball on the back of his head, and her fingers came away sticky. “You’ve taken a nasty knock,” she said.

He made a feeble attempt to get up, then sank back. “Abbie, there’s a bottle of whiskey under the seat.”

She pulled herself up and looked out the small peep
window at the back of the carriage. The snow was falling so heavily that it was impossible to tell if they were being followed. Harper evidently wasn’t taking any chances. He had not slackened their pace. “Slow, slower, and stop” Harper had certainly fooled her.

She found the whiskey and held Hugh’s head as she dribbled some of it into his mouth, but most of it went down the front of his shirt. “Just a little,” she said. “It’s not the best thing for you if you have a concussion.”

She considered helping him onto the banquette and decided against it. If Harper made another sharp turn, Hugh could topple to the floor. She reached for the sheepskin blanket and was surprised to discover that it was wrapped around hot bricks. Hugh must have seen to the bricks before going off with the man who attacked him. She sniffed.

She wrapped him with the sheepskin blanket and tucked the hot bricks at his back and feet. It was too cold to strip off her coat and use it as a pillow, so she used her muff instead.

“Don’t fall asleep,” she said. “You may have a concussion, and it’s the worst thing you can do.”

“Abbie?”

“Yes, Hugh?”

“Who were those men?”

“I don’t know.”

“I was careless. I should have expected … but next time … next time …” Silence, then, “Where are we going?”

“Hungerford, I presume.”

“Is that wise?”

“Don’t worry about it, Hugh. Harper knows what he’s doing.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

Hugh smiled at this. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Maybe not, but I’ve seen Harper in action now, and I’ve changed my mind about him. No, don’t go to sleep.”

“I won’t.”

He looked so vulnerable, with pain etched in his pale face, so vulnerable and mortal. If anything happened to him, she knew she would never forgive herself. This was all her fault. She’d let a silly quarrel cloud her judgment. She should never have allowed Hugh to accompany her, never have allowed him to share a carriage with her. She’d been warned of what they would do if she didn’t travel alone, but she’d been so caught up in her grievances against Hugh that she hadn’t been thinking straight.

Well, she was thinking straight now. She’d been taught a lesson. These people meant business, and the first chance she got, she would hire her own chaise and do what she was supposed to do.

“Abbie?”

“Yes, Hugh?” She fished in her pocket, found her handkerchief, and blew her nose.

“Is it raining in here?”

She gave a teary laugh. “No,” she said.

“Then you’re crying. Why?”

Because everything was in such a muddle. “Because I misjudged your coachman,” she said.

The coach was slowing down. Abbie looked out the window and saw that they’d come to a crossroads. One way led to Hungerford the other to Endicote. The coach made the turn onto the Endicote road.

“Looks like we’re going to Endicote,” she said. “So you’ll see Mrs. Deane after all.”

“We’d never make Hungerford in this weather,” he replied.

She sighed. “No. I suppose not.”

She wouldn’t get the book George’s abductors wanted in three of four days now. In silent misery, she looked out the window and watched the snow fall.

Nemo was fit to be tied. He was dressed as an English country gentleman and he’d watched the whole thing from under the gallery. He could not believe how stupid his accomplices were. They’d ruined everything. He’d ordered them to maim Templar and put him out of action for a long time to come. When they saw that Templar was getting away, they should have used their initiative and killed him on the spot. They must have known that he, Nemo, couldn’t do anything. He was in full view of two of the men who had trained their guns on Templar’s coach. But his men had panicked when British agents had suddenly appeared. And now Templar and the woman had vanished into the snowstorm, taking the book with them.

He’d been told that Templar was harmless, that he wouldn’t know anything because he was no longer in the service. But when Templar had unexpectedly turned up with Miss Vayle that morning and they’d left the Castle in Templar’s coach, he hadn’t known what to make of it. His first instinct had been to kill Templar when he caught up
to
him. Now he wished he’d paid attention to his instincts.

And his instincts were telling him right now to cut his losses and make for London as long as the roads were passable. He was far more important than the book, and
now that British agents had arrived on the scene, it was time to take himself out of the game. Like it or not, he would have to leave his accomplices in charge of finding the girl’s trail.

The ostler led his horse out of the stable and Nemo mounted up. They’d already exchanged a few words on the coach that had run amok.

The ostler shook his head. “You’ll never get far on them there roads, guv’nor.”

“I’m not going far.” Nemo’s glance shifted to two men he knew were British agents. They were mounting up as well. “Only to Newbury,” he added absently.

“You’ll be lucky to make it that far.”

Nemo focused his attention on the ostler. “What did you say?”

“You’ll be lucky to make it that far, guv’nor, sir.”

Nemo threw back his head and laughed. “But I am lucky.”

And it was true. If he hadn’t been lucky, Napoleon would never have favored him. The Emperor was superstitious that way. When he chose his generals and closest aides, he didn’t ask about their years of service or what schools and universities they’d attended. He wanted to know only one thing: Were they lucky?

As he rode out of the courtyard and turned his mount’s head toward Newbury, Nemo felt his spirits rise. He’d had near misses, but his luck had always held.

No one could beat him. He was unstoppable.

E
ndicote was only three miles from the main highway, but the road was treacherous and their pace slackened. The village was no more than a church, a smithy, and a cluster of thatched cottages, and there wasn’t a person in sight. A mile farther on, they turned into the drive of a modest two-story stone house. There were no lights in the windows and no smoking chimneys.

“It looks deserted,” said Abbie.

Hugh was sitting on the banquette with the sheepskin blanket draped around his shoulders. “Mrs. Deane must have gone to her sister’s in Newbury,” he said, looking out the coach window. “She said she might. The house is for sale, so I suppose she got tired of waiting for a buyer.”

When the coach came to a stop and Abbie tried to open the door, it was stuck. Harper finally got it open and she quickly jumped down. She marveled at the condition of the coach. There were several dents and the paint was badly scraped, but nothing more serious than that.

Hugh stepped down gingerly and halted. “No,” he told Harper, “you’re not going to sling me over your shoulder. I’ll walk on my own two feet, thank you very much.”

He took one step, staggered, and sank to his knees.