Julia Justiss (11 page)

“Everything, ma’am, a kind hostess could provide, save her charming presence to brighten the journey.”

“Gallantly spoken, Captain, but I’m sure you will both be more comfortable without a third person inside.”

“Why not heed the captain and join us?” Mae urged. “You’re so slender, you’ll scarce take up any room.”

“Thank you, Mae, but I’ve had few opportunities of late to enjoy a long ride though the countryside. I’ve been looking forward to one today.”

“Won’t you have tea first?” Mae asked. “The wind be fearful sharp. I worry you’ll be frozen to the bone.”

Belle cast an affectionate glance at her companion. “My gown being a good deal warmer than the charming ensemble you’ve chosen, I shall be fine. If we wish to reach Bellehaven by nightfall, we should be on our way. I promise to share a cup with you later.”

“We shall look forward to your company,” Jack said.

She nodded in acknowledgment and then, to his surprise, pulled a pistol from the pocket of her cape. “I know you worry about leaving London, Mae. Though it is highly unlikely we shall encounter trouble, I thought you might feel better having this at your feet.”

Paling, Mae stared at the weapon. “It won’t go off…all on its own, will it?”

“No, you must cock it first—which I did not mean for you to do. If there should be some disturbance, simply point it out the window. That should be enough to give pause to any ruffian who considers approaching.”

From the fearful gaze Mae had fixed on the pistol, Jack wasn’t sure she found its presence reassuring. “Shall I take charge of it, ma’am? I’m fully trained in its use.”

“Please do, Captain!” Mae said at once. “Iff’n a high
wayman did appear, I’d more’n likely blow off my own foot than manage to scare him away.”

“Nay, Captain, you needn’t exert yourself,” Belle said, waving him away as he reached for the weapon. By chance, their fingers touched, sparking a shock he felt all the way to his toes. From her ragged gasp and the jerk with which she drew back her hand, she had felt it, too.

Avoiding his glance, Belle set the weapon down in the corner. “The pistol will be fine here. ’Tis only to make Mae feel safer.”

“Then she should feel perfectly at ease, knowing I can fire it, if necessary. It does have shot and powder?”

“Y-yes, but it cannot be good for you to—”

“We’ve both just assured this lady I shall not need to,” Jack retorted, a bit exasperated at being treated as if he would collapse at the slightest exertion. “Now, can we not coax you to a cup of something warm before we go?”

Looking as if she were considering arguing further, Belle shook her head. “No, I’d rather mount up and depart. Please, do have something yourself, though.”

She turned from him to give Mae an encouraging smile. “We shall be all right,” she said softly, patting the woman’s hand before drawing the carriage door closed behind her.

Mae busied herself pouring ale and tea. Soon after, in a jingle of harness, the carriage jerked to a start.

Mindful of his goal and trying to set his companion, who still appeared nervous, more at ease, after they’d finished their refreshments, Jack asked, “Do you usually stay with friends when Lady Belle visits the country?”

“No, for I’ve only been with her a month, though we’ve been friends this age. When Lord B died, Belle’s maid and butler both left. Not that she couldn’t afford them, for Lord B left her pretty well set, but they was hired by Bellingham himself and always thought themselves too high in the instep to be serving the likes of Belle. As if she don’t act more the lady than most of them society beldames what won’t walk on the same side of the street as her! Anyways, I come round soon’s I heard about Lord B and found everything at sixes and sevens, the butler having walked out the minute he knew Lord B’d cocked up his toes.”

“You stayed to help her put the household back in order?” Jack prompted when Mae stopped for breath.

“So I did. Always giving himself airs, Randall was, as if he didn’t button up his trousers like any other man! And that dresser, Winset, was just as bad, though Belle got back her own on that one. The downstairs maid told me Winset asked Belle right off for a raise, saying she’d need to make up for the big comedown in the world of tending Belle now that Lord B weren’t there. Belle told her cool as you please that she was free to go—but since she were Lord B’s employee, not Belle’s, she’d need to see Lady Bellingham for her references.”

Mae went off in a peal of laughter. “Wish I’d been a fly on the wall to watch the old prune-face’s lips turn blue! I’ve never, before or since, seen Belle be anything but kind to any soul, but Winset deserved that!”

Knowing on what poor terms Lord Bellingham had stood with his legal wife—and surmising how that wife must have resented the mistress whom her husband had
preferred to her—Jack had to smile at how neatly Belle had cut the dresser out. “And so Belle asked you to stay on?”

“At first, for just a few days ’til she found a new maid, me being good at making a woman look her best, if I do say so. Then I come to find myself…between engagements, so to speak, and Belle asked me to stay on permanent. We’ve always gotten on famous, and I just wish…but here I go, rambling again. You mustn’t talk long, Belle reminded me, but won’t you tell me something about you, Captain? Do all your people live up north?”

Turning out not to be as malleable as Jack had hoped, Mae brushed off Jack’s subsequent inquiries, saying she’d jawed on enough. Not wishing to alienate this amiable source of information, Jack knew he mustn’t press her too hard.

Somewhat to his surprise, after turning the talk to him, Mae showed herself to be a skillful conversationalist, drawing him out about his family, his army days and his plans for a future at Carrington Grove.

By the time they’d reached the countryside beyond London, however, the bounce and jolting of the vehicle had set Jack’s chest and shoulder to throbbing, prompting him to bring the chat to a temporary halt. Instantly solicitous, Mae advised him to get a few winks, there being nothing of interest to see now that they’d left the City.

Mae settled herself in her corner, obviously ready to take her own advice. However, Jack’s discomfort was by now sufficiently acute that he knew sleep was not a possibility. Wryly concluding that it was fortunate he’d vowed to make the journey regardless of the pain, he had just de
cided to try dulling it with a second mug of ale when, after a shout followed by the unmistakable explosion of a discharging musket, the carriage squealed to a halt.

I
N THE SILENCE
that followed Mae’s shriek and the report of the musket, Jack heard the carriage door rattle. In one practiced motion he seized the pistol at Mae’s feet, cocked it and fired at the hand clawing open the latch. Beneath the shrill of Mae’s second scream came a lower, hoarser cry and the hand fell away. The pain in his chest forgotten, Jack struggled to his feet and launched himself through the now-open door.

Landing hard, he saw a man on the ground, clutching his arm…Watson struggling with a masked ruffian at the door of the baggage carriage behind them…and Belle bringing her whip down on the head of a masked man trying to grab the reins of her sidling, rearing horse.

Rage seized him, a desire to rip the arms off the miscreant who dared threaten her. Cursing the now-empty pistol, Jack thrust it in his coat pocket and looked about wildly for something, anything he might use as a weapon.

His gaze caught on the dancing end of the whip dangling from the hand of the coachman struggling to control the plunging horses. Grabbing it, Jack loped off to where Belle still grappled with her attacker.

He arrived just as Belle managed to strike a blow hard
enough to set her attacker back on his heels. Using his good arm, Jack lashed out at him with the heavy coach whip.

He watched with savage satisfaction as the trailing thong coiled like a noose about the man’s upper torso, pinning his arms to his chest. Jack then ripped the whip free, spinning the attacker onto the ground. Seizing the empty pistol, he struck the man a blow to the head that left the attacker facedown and motionless in the dirt.

He turned to Belle, his relief that she had escaped her attacker changing to alarm when he saw she was urging her horse toward the coach where Watson still struggled…a raised pistol in her hand.

Before he could shout a warning, he realized that, fully aware of the danger of shooting at the attacker with the two men so close together, she was controlling her mount with one hand, gun leveled in the other, waiting for a clear line of fire.

Then, in a move that would have won him roars from the crowd during his days in the ring, Watson managed to rip free of his assailant and deliver a full roundhouse punch to the man’s ear. Jack heard the crack of shattering bone before the ruffian dropped like a log to the ground.

Belle thrust the pistol into her cape pocket and leapt free of the sidesaddle. “Watson, Jane, are you all right?” she cried as she ran to the coach.

“I be good, Lady Belle, and Jane, too, though she done fainted straight off. This gallows-bait didn’t never get more’n his hand on the door.”

“Are
you
all right?” Jack gasped, halting behind her.

“I’m fine,” she tossed over her shoulder. An instant later
she turned back, as if only just realizing who’d called to her. “What are you doing out of the coach?”

Watson glanced from Jack to the unconscious man on the roadway to the one whimpering beside the carriage. “Been doing a right good bit of soldiering, looks like.”

Jack shrugged—and immediately regretted it, as fire shot through his chest and shoulder. “Couldn’t expect me to cower inside while we were being attacked.”

But with the end of the encounter, his strength seemed to ebb away. He had the dismaying sensation that he was starting to sway on his feet.

From the concerned expression on Belle’s face, he must not be looking very well. “Captain, that was incredibly brave, but you should never have stirred from your seat! Watson, get Thomas and John Coachman to help you tie up these fellows while I walk Captain Carrington back.”

“I can lend a hand, Watson,” Jack said, not sure whether he could in fact make good on that offer. “The coachman is still busy with the horses.”

“At least two of them fellows—” Watson indicated the man Jack had bashed with the pistol and the one he himself had felled “—ain’t goin’ nowheres, and it appears you shot the fight out of the other when you winged his arm. I can handle ’em for now, Captain. You go rest.”

Belle handed Watson her pistol. “Thank you, Watson.”

Watson took the weapon and trained it on the one still-conscious bandit. “They was so anxious to catch us, let’s see how them prison rats like traveling with us—trotting behind the coach ’til we turn ’em over to a magistrate. Appreciated your help, too, Captain,” Watson added. “Not
sure I coulda gotten to the other two in time, what with having to take care of this one here.”

“Your assistance was timely indeed—if most reckless!” Belle agreed. “You’re hardly ready to run a race with footpads. Please, let us return to the coach at once.”

In truth, Jack was feeling the imprudence of his intervention in every limb and with every painful breath. His chest was on fire, beads of sweat had popped out on his brow and a wave of nausea was threatening to swamp him.

“Perhaps I should return,” he admitted, hoping he managed it before he disgraced himself by getting sick in front of her. Fine soldier you are, he thought in disgust.

His disgruntlement was tempered when a moment later she took his hand and wrapped her other arm about his waist. “Lean on me, Captain. You’re pale as Mae’s face powder, and if you fall, I may not get you upright again.”

He wanted to say something gallant, but he couldn’t summon words or breath. Still, despite his afflictions, he felt the burn of her arm touching his body even through the thickness of his coat. Would the lavender scent filling his nostrils, the brush of her cape against his chin, help clear his head or make him dizzier? he wondered.

The idea of her almost in his arms hardened other parts of his body in a slow rush of sensation that, for the moment, triumphed over the nausea, reassuring him that he must not have reinjured himself too badly.

All too soon they reached the coach. While they stopped for him to rest, Watson loped over.

“Left the coachman guarding them Newgate nasties. Let me help, Captain. Don’t want that chest wound opening up.”

Realizing he would only look more foolish if he refused Watson’s assistance and ended up falling, Jack allowed the big man to half lift him into the vehicle.

While he settled gratefully into the cushions, Belle dispensed a dose of hartshorn and some soothing words to a still-agitated Mae, who alternated between exclamations at Jack’s bravery and claims of having been frightened out of ten years of her life. Not until Belle, after complimenting Mae on her fortitude, said that she was depending on Mae to tend the heroic captain once they resumed their journey did that lady calm herself.

Pausing on the carriage step, Belle said to Jack, “Though I still wish you hadn’t left the coach, I know I owe you a tremendous debt for your assistance. Those ruffians might have injured some of my household, had you not so gallantly come to our aid. I only hope you have not aggravated your injury or set back your recovery.”

Then her lovely face warmed in a half rueful, half appreciative smile whose brilliance sparked that now-familiar shock to run along his nerves. “This has not been the ‘easy’ journey into the country we both hoped for.”

“A journey in your company is a pleasure, whatever befalls us.”

The compliment seemed to bubble out before he could stop it, and he cursed himself as a shuttered look replaced the warmth in her face. She obviously thought his words mere practiced flattery—although, he realized with some dismay, the sentiment had been impelled by an emotion stronger and more instinctive than judgment or prudence.

“Perhaps you should have some ale before we set out
again,” she said, once again the concerned but remote hostess. “Mae, would you pour some while I check on the others?”

Annoyed with himself, he watched her walk away.

“Ah, Captain, you be wondrous brave!” Mae exclaimed. “When that man started climbing into the coach, I thought my heart would bust right out of my chest! But Belle be right, you ought not to have strained yourself. Here you be now, looking about as healthy as the corpse at an Irish wake! Sip some of this ale. Don’t need you coming down with an inflammation of the lungs.”

Jack took the ale, but though his dizziness abated, the pain in his chest continued to intensify. Worse still, he now sensed wetness in the linen padding his wound.

A carriage rumbling through the chilly English countryside was hardly a suitable place to redo bandages, however. Easing deeper into the pillows, he told himself it would keep until they reached their destination.

A moment later, a draft of cool air wafted Belle’s lavender scent to him as she entered the carriage and seated herself beside Mae and unstoppered a bottle that released the pungent tang of brandy.

“I thought you might wish for a restorative,” she said, pouring a glass.

“You are prescient, ma’am,” he replied, accepting the cup and gratefully throwing down its fiery contents.

“I also brought this,” she said, holding up a small bottle of laudanum. “I advise you to take some. We’ve a long journey still, and some of the roads are rough.”

Little as Jack liked the idea of dosing himself with the
drug, he knew the jolting he’d endure for the rest of the carriage ride was bound to make his chest worse. It would only be prudent to medicate himself.

Though he’d prefer to keep his mind clear. Now that he’d had time to consider it, the attack on them did not seem the work of common highwaymen. There had been no demand to “stand and deliver,” nor would highwaymen have troubled their baggage coach, knowing a wealthy traveler would normally keep his coin and valuables in his own vehicle.

But the sharp pain throbbing in his chest was already making coherent thought difficult. Wiser, perhaps, to leave analysis of the incident for later and accept a small dose of the drug. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said at last, reaching for the bottle.

After several days seeing her only briefly, it was almost worth feeling so wretched to have her near him again. Despite his throbbing chest and recurrent nausea, he found himself focusing on her every movement: the slender fingers in their gray kid gloves gripping the bottle…the classic loveliness of her downcast profile…the rosy blush with which wind and exertion had painted her cheeks…the impossibly blue eyes gazing at him with concern. Bracing himself for it, welcoming it, he savored the sharp thrill of contact when he deliberately let his hand graze her fingertips as he took the bottle from her.

Though the impact of that touch registered in her eyes, this time she did not jerk her hand away. As if she, too, had known to expect it.

“Take good care of the captain, Mae,” Belle said as she exited the carriage. “We’ll be starting again soon.”

Wistfully Jack watched Belle leave, feeling the loss of her presence as if a chill wind had blown through the coach at her departure.

Jack my lad,
he warned himself as he settled painfully against the cushions,
you’re a fair way to being lost….

Though he would have sworn it impossible, the exhaustion brought on by his unexpected exertions compounded by brandy, laudanum and the warmth of blanket Mae swaddled him in, managed for a time to lull him to sleep. That period of relative easiness ended when he woke at their next stop. By lunchtime, he gave up trying to mask a misery that, despite more brandy and another dose of laudanum, had increased to the point of nullifying even the pleasure of Belle’s company during a meal he couldn’t pretend to eat.

By the time well after dark when Watson, with relief in his voice, stopped by to announce that they had just turned onto the drive leading to Belle’s manor, Jack was wishing he had stayed in London. Not since the retreat to Corunna when weak, bleeding and half-frozen, he’d lashed himself to his horse, knowing if he fell off, he’d be left behind to die, had he felt so wretched.

Although, he thought, stifling a cry as the carriage took a particularly hard jolt, the idea of dying was beginning to seem rather attractive.

B
ELLE FELT FEAR
stab through the uneasy mix of anxiety and guilt weighing her chest when the white-faced captain,
without a murmur of protest, allowed Watson to virtually carry him from the coach into her house. Captain Carrington must be in bad straits indeed to not even attempt to move unassisted.

She trailed Watson up the stairs and into a guest bedroom, wincing in sympathy when Carrington groaned as Watson eased him onto the bed. Where, she noted with deepening concern, he simply lay unmoving, his eyes closed.

She should have insisted he remain in London. Still, she’d never imagined Waldo would be persistent enough to track them out of the City. Assuming the attack on them
had
been the work of Mrs. Jarvis and her henchman, at this far distance from the metropolis they were probably safe, Belle thought as she watched Watson gently ease the captain out of his greatcoat. If the woman had a steady supply of new innocents from the country, she would probably content herself with the money Belle had sent and simply replace Jane. Her chief worry, then, was that the captain might have a relapse here in the country, far from his London doctor.

Her concern deepened as, his face gone from pale to gray, Carrington’s eyes flickered open briefly and he uttered a stifled cry. He’d been foolhardy to risk himself as he had, but wondrous brave, as well. No thought of self-preservation had stayed him when he’d abandoned the relative safety of the coach to confront their attackers, despite his still much-weakened condition. She had hardly been able to credit her eyes when she’d turned and saw him, the ruffian he’d downed lying in the mud beside the coach.