Lord Somerton's Heir (32 page)

‘And me?’

Freddy shrugged. ‘Oh, I think you may need to come with us, dear Lady Somerton.’

‘Why? What purpose would that serve?’

Freddy shrugged. ‘You make a useful hostage.’

‘You don’t think that they will have already connected the fire in the stables with your disappearance? And when…’ she paused to deal with the catch in her throat, ‘…when they find Lord Somerton’s body, they will certainly put up a hue and cry for you.’

It felt easier to say ‘Lord Somerton’ rather than Sebastian. When she thought of Sebastian, she wanted to howl with grief.

Freddy glared at her. ‘Fanny, bind her mouth. I’ve heard enough of her words for one day.’

Fanny complied, with whispered apologies to Isabel. Isabel watched as the girl subsided in her corner of the coach, watching her brother. A grey light had begun to creep in through the gaps around the curtains that covered the window. Isabel squinted through the narrow gap, trying to make out something of the landscape, but all she could see was the lightening sky and wondered, for a moment, if this might be the last sunrise she saw on this earth.

After the first mad flight from Brantstone, the coach’s pace had slowed.

The horses must be exhausted
, she thought.

The coach rolled slowly on for a few more yards and stopped. She heard the man jump down from the box and the coach door opened. Jenkins’s ugly face appeared at the door and he grunted unintelligibly, gesticulating at the front of the coach.

Freddy sighed. ‘Very well, Jenkins. The next inn we come to, we’ll rest the horses.’ He glanced back at the two women. ‘My travelling companions could probably do with some breakfast.’

As the coach jerked off again, Freddy leaned across to Isabel. ‘Now, my fine lady, I am going to untruss you and, if you are a good girl, you can refresh yourself and have something to eat, just promise me you’ll behave.’

Isabel nodded and gasped with relief as Freddy undid the gag and bonds. She flexed her fingers, trying to restore some feeling to her numb hands.

Freddy handed his spare pistol to Fanny as the coach clattered into an inn yard.

‘Now, one thing you should know about our Fan: she is a dead shot with the pistol. Ain’t you, Fan?’

Fanny nodded and the door swung open. Freddy jumped down first, looking around the quiet inn yard before striding into the inn.

‘Fanny, you don’t really want to shoot me, do you?’ Isabel said in a low voice.

Fanny’s chin came up. ‘I can’t let you go, Isabel. He’d kill me as well. You don’t know him.’

Isabel had no chance to say anything more as Freddy appeared at the door again. He took the pistol from Fanny, concealing it underneath his cloak.

‘I’ve taken a private parlour. We have an hour, and you,’ he addressed Isabel, ‘don’t even think of crying out. All right you two, out. Lady Somerton first.’

He twitched back the fold of his cloak to reveal the pistol trained on her. As she climbed down, he took her by the waist and the muzzle of the pistol pressed against her ribs. ‘Now lean on me as if you are faint. That’s it.’

In such close proximity, he smelled rank and she wondered if it was the scent of fear. Holding her close, Freddy marched her into the inn and upstairs to a small, private parlour where a breakfast of bread, cheese, bacon and small beer had been set for them.

‘Eat up, ladies. It may be a while before we get a chance to eat again.’

Isabel complied. She recognised that nothing would be served by a refusal to eat and she needed all her strength to keep her wits about her.

Fanny, however, picked at the food, prompting an angry outburst from her brother that reduced the girl to tears.

‘Finish it, Fanny,’ Isabel urged in a low voice as Freddy strode across to the window.

Fanny raised her head and turned her miserable face on Isabel. Isabel smiled encouragingly. Fanny’s faith in her brother must have been sorely shaken by the events of the previous night and she could see the girl was frightened. If she could win Fanny’s confidence, there was a faint hope that, between the two of them, they may be able to overcome their tormentor.

But Freddy, no doubt instinctively alert to the danger of letting the two women any time alone together, ensured that they were not afforded an opportunity for conversation, even escorting Isabel to the privy. After an hour’s respite, they were back in the coach.

Isabel noticed that the bays were still hitched to the coach, their heads drooping with exhaustion. Even if Freddy could have changed them, leaving two such recognisable horses would make their tracks easier to follow, but their progress from here would be slow.

Freddy tied her hands, this time in front of her, leaving her feet free.

‘Where are we going?’ Isabel asked as he fastened the knot.

Freddy cast an irritated glance. ‘I’m not telling you. Suffice to say, I know of a small harbour and a friendly fisherman who’ll not ask too many questions.’

In the gloom of the curtained coach, Isabel sat back and considered this intelligence. Freddy had not appeared to be in possession of it before their stop, so it could only have been gleaned from someone at the inn. This thought gave her some confidence. If anyone was in search of her, which by now they would surely be, Freddy had left a considerable clue. He would be hoping they could make good their escape before his pursuers caught up with them.

She closed her eyes. Like food, she needed rest if she were to keep her wits about her. The coach moved at a walking pace and she willed the familiar swaying to lull her into a doze but the thought of Sebastian lying dead in the burning stable and her own possible death at the hands of this monster kept her from sleep.

A sharp, frustrated cry from Freddy, accompanied by a rapping on the roof, startled her into full consciousness.

‘Get on, you fool. We need to reach the coast by the turn of the tide.’

Isabel peered around the curtain. It had begun to rain, no doubt turning the road to mud. She thought of the two beautiful bays, labouring to pull the coach.

‘Freddy, you’ll kill the horses,’ she protested.

She couldn’t see his eyes in the gloom. ‘Do you think I care about horses?’ he snapped. ‘It’s my neck or theirs.’

They heard the snap of the whip and the coach creaked into a faster pace, lurching from side to side. Isabel, with her hands bound, could not prevent herself being flung against Freddy, seated on the opposite seat. He caught her by her forearms and leered into her face.

‘I’ve wondered what it would be like to kiss a woman,’ he said.

She squirmed in his grasp but could do nothing when he kissed her on the lips, a wet, grasping coupling, accompanied by his tongue, which he tried to force between her tightly clenched teeth. When he broke away, laughing, she spat in his face. He rewarded her by slapping her across the face and throwing her back in the corner of the coach.

‘Bitch!’

‘Untie me!’ she demanded.

‘Freddy, please,’ Fanny implored.

Freddy laughed.

The momentum of the coach seemed to be getting stronger. Isabel braced herself as the coach lurched to the right. She heard a sickening crack from the rear axle and a loud animalistic cry from the driver. A horse screamed as the coach began to topple onto its side but the momentum did not cease. The panicked horses, still attached by the traces, must have broken into a wild gallop, dragging the stricken coach, now fully on its side.

The occupants churned inside the broken coach as if caught in a river in spate. As she scrambled to get a finger hold on something, anything, to stop her wild tumble, Isabel heard Fanny screaming.

This was it. She was going to die. She closed her eyes and let her body go slack as the coach came to a shuddering halt.

Sebastian woke with a headache, a sore throat, and a sore hand. He lay still, staring up at the silk bed hangings as the events of the night seeped back into his consciousness. He sat up, coughing, and cast a disparaging glance at his bandaged right hand. He turned his head and smiled at the sight of his sister dozing in the chair beside his bed.

‘Connie?’ His voice sounded hoarse and the act of talking caused him to cough.

She woke with a start and, seeing him awake, smiled. ‘The good lord in his wisdom built you tough, Sebastian Alder.’

He sat up. ‘Isabel! What time is it, Connie? How long have I been asleep?’

Connie glanced at the window where daylight clawed its way around the folds of the curtains.

‘I’ve lost hours!’ Sebastian said.

‘Harry put together a search party, Bas, but they came back an hour ago. No trace of the coach in the dark. Where are you going?’ she added as Sebastian swung his legs out of the bed.

‘I’ve got to find Freddy.’

Sebastian stumped around the room, trying to find where Bennet and Pierce hid his clothes. He gave a groan of exasperation and sank into the chair.

‘I’ve got to find Isabel.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘I’m an idiot, Connie. I underestimated Freddy’s capacity for evil.’ He looked up at his sister, seeing the distress in her face. ‘Where’s Harry?’

‘Downstairs. When I last saw him he had his breakfast plate piled high.’

Sebastian nodded. ‘Connie, tell Harry I’ll be down in a few minutes — and can you find Bennet? I’ll take him along as well. I’ll need Pharaoh saddled and ready as soon as possible.’

‘M’Lord, you’re surely not thinking of going after the man yourself.’ Pierce chided him from the door.

‘Clothes, Pierce. Now! Where’s Bennet?’

Pierce opened his mouth to utter another protest but Sebastian fixed the man with a cold glare.

‘Mr Bennet is with young Mr Alder, sir,’ Pierce replied.

Still half dressed, Sebastian threw open the door to Matt’s bedchamber. His brother, deathly pale, appeared to be asleep. Bennet sat in a corner, polishing Matt’s boots.

‘Get the pistols, Bennet.’

Bennet’s eyes gleamed. ‘Action, sir?’

‘I hope not, but I need you. Snap to it, Bennet, I’m leaving now.’

As Bennet scuttled from the room, Matt turned his head on the pillow. ‘Bas? Give me a few minutes, I’ll come with you.’

Sebastian crossed to the bed and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

‘Damn it. He shot me, Bas.’

‘And I should never have put you in so much danger, Matt. I’ve got to go.’

Matt plucked at his sleeve. ‘This is my fault. I let him dupe me into going in search of the bloody saddle. Somehow he made it sound like it was all my idea. I heard everything he said, Bas. I don’t think anyone could have guessed how evil he truly was. Is it true about the baby?’

Sebastian thought of Isabel’s unrequited grief for her son. How much cruelty could one man inflict on a woman? He shook his head. He knew. He had seen cruelty first hand. Inez had not died easily.

He cursed himself for passing out. A bit of smoke, that was all, and now Isabel was in the hands of a man who thought nothing of killing a helpless baby. What would he do to a full-grown woman?

Was every woman he loved doomed to suffer?

‘We’ll talk later, Matt.’ He turned and, pulling on his jacket, ran from the room.

In the daylight, the route taken by the fugitives proved easier to follow. It soon became clear that Freddy was heading for the Wash and, no doubt, a fishing boat to the continent.

More fool Freddy for taking such a readily recognisable coach and pair
, Sebastian thought grimly, as he dismounted from Pharaoh and peeled off his gloves.

Despite the ample bandaging, his hand hurt, and an exhaustion he had not felt since his army days tugged at his mind and body.

The search party had stopped at an isolated inn, partly because it seemed an obvious post for the fugitives to pause in their headlong flight and partly because they themselves were tired and hungry and their own horses needed resting.

Obedient to their request for haste, the landlord obliged with a hearty meal that the men set about with a vengeance. They stayed the man and questioned him about the coach.

‘A gentleman and two ladies? Aye, they stopped here about nine. Stayed about an hour. I counselled ’im to stay longer but he were set on ‘is way. Didn’t even change the horses even though they was done in. Them poor beasts.’ The landlord shook his head.

Sebastian caught Harry’s eye and allowed himself a grim smile. That meant they were now only a few hours behind Freddy and, if he was now travelling slowly with tired horses, they could overtake him by late afternoon.

‘And the ladies… Did they appear to be well?’ Sebastian asked

The landlord frowned. ‘Well, now you mention it, one of ’em seemed poorly. Himself all but had to carry her in.’

Isabel! Had that fiend hurt her?

‘What do you mean?’ he asked in a neutral tone.

‘Well, he had his arm around her, holdin’ her close. Couldn’t see her face. She kept the hood of her cloak up.’

‘Did you serve them food?’

‘Aye, but he wouldn’t let me in the room. Insisted it was all set out afore the ladies alighted.’

‘Did he say where they were bound when they left here?’ Harry asked.

The man shook his head. ‘The coast,’ he said unhelpfully.

Sebastian’s heart sank. ‘Any idea where on the coast?’

‘Well, I’m guessing it would be Lidiford on the Wash,’ the landlord said with utter certainty.

The men stared at him.

‘How can you be so sure?’ Harry asked.

The innkeeper shrugged. ‘I saw him talkin’ to young Bob over there.’ He pointed out of the window at a swarthy lad, mucking out the stables. ‘Bob’s from Lidiford way. He’d know all the fishin’ villages on’t Wash.’

Three sets of forks clattered onto empty plates.

Shouting instructions to Harry to settle the account, Sebastian, with Bennet scuttling in his wake, all but ran from the room.

Young Bob confirmed that he had advised the fine gentleman that he’d find a boat at Lidiford that would be willing to take him across to the continent if the price was right.

The three men swung into the saddles of their barely rested horses and, putting their heels to the beasts, regained the road. Through the rain and the mud, they followed the tracks of the coach in the direction of the sea.