The Duke's Holiday (32 page)

Montford’s horse bucked in response to the shot, unseating
the Duke. But he was not thrown entirely. His foot was caught in a stirrup. The
horse shot forward, dragging Montford along the dusty road. Astrid cried out in
dismay, just as Lightfoot smashed his fist into her cheek, sending her into a
gray void of unconsciousness once more.

IN WHICH
THE HERO MOUNTS A DARING RESCUE ALONG THE NORTH ROAD

MONTFORD
MANAGED to pull his recalcitrant horse alongside the coach long enough to wave
his pistol at the driver. He was a huge beast of a man, with a scarred face and
not a hint of fear in his dark eyes. He snarled and whipped his team into a
sprint.

Words were useless. He’d not convince the man to pull over.
So he did the only thing that had any chance of succeeding. He pulled the trigger.

His shot was not entirely successful. The bullet caught the
man in the shoulder, throwing him off his perch, causing him to drop one of the
reins. The coach horses, startled by the gunshot, jerked forward and veered off
course. But the man must have been made out of iron, for he soon shook off his
injury and picked up the fallen rein, pulling the horses back on course.

Montford was not so lucky. His own mount was more than
startled from the shot. It whinnied in terror and began to jump wildly beneath
him, jerking abruptly to the right, nearly colliding with the coach. Montford
cursed and attempted to bring the creature back to its senses. It was all he
could do to keep his seat.

Then the window of the coach shot open, and a dark, balding
man, purple-faced with fury, leaned out, shouting abuse at him and leveling a
gun at his head. Montford tried to reach for his second pistol, still stuck in
the saddle behind him, but his mount was too out of control to let him. He
cursed and attempted to pull his mount back, out of line of the man’s aim. But
the horse was determined to keep pace with the coach, instinct pulling it along
with the team of four. The damned beast was going to get him shot.

The man at the window pulled the trigger, the explosion so
close Montford could feel the acrid, burnt gunsmoke choking his lungs. He
flinched and braced for the impact of the bullet with his flesh. But the bullet
went whizzing over his head, his hair parting in its wake. A fraction of an
inch, he feared, and he would have had a bullet in his brainbox. He could barely
believe his luck.

But his relief was short-lived. His mount was now beyond
control. It bucked so violently that Montford was thrown from his seat. For the
second time in as many days, he went flying through the air, then smashed to
the road on his back. The impact took the breath from his lungs and jarred
every bone of his body. He couldn’t breathe, could barely focus his vision. He
knew nothing but the dust of the road, the ache of his bones, and the searing,
burning sensation of his body being dragged over sharp stones. He was still
moving, and it took him several moments to realize why. His left foot was still
caught in the stirrup, and the horse was galloping onwards, pulling him along.

Adrenaline coursed through his veins, powering his battered
body, as some part of him recognized that he was fighting for his life. He had
to get loose, unless he wanted to be dragged to his death. He clawed at the
road, twisting on his stomach, feeling every rock and rut scrape the length of
his body, but he pushed aside the pain. Nothing mattered except getting loose
and saving Astrid.

He kicked out with his foot until at last – by
chance, or the grace of God – it fell free of its prison. He skidded
forward a few more feet by sheer momentum, and then finally stopped moving. He
lay sprawled for a moment, his face in the dirt, every bone, muscle, and tendon
he possessed in agony, and his hands and arms scraped raw from the road.

He realized he’d not breathed since he’d been thrown. Black
motes danced in front of his eyes, presaging oblivion. He rolled onto his back
and schooled his lungs to work, trying to bury his pain enough to focus on his
next move.

Which was to sit up. All of his muscles were in revolt, and
his hands burned. He didn’t dare look at them, knowing they would be bloody and
mangled. His vision spinning, he looked down the road. He saw his mount
prancing nervously fifty yards ahead, throwing its head from side to side and
neighing in distress.

Bloody useless
creature
! he wanted to shout. But he couldn’t find his voice. It was hard
enough to breath, much less form words.

He turned his attention to the coach. It raced down the
lane at a dangerous pace, careening erratically from left to right. Whatever
the state of its driver, however, it didn’t seem in any danger of stopping.

Something inside of him withered. The coach would get away,
and with it, any hope of Astrid’s rescue.

He rose to his feet and attempted to walk, but his legs
felt disconnected from his body, his left ankle throbbing. He dropped to his
knees and watched helplessly as the coach moved farther and farther from him. He’d
been so close. He’d even heard her screaming inside the coach. The pain and
terror in her voice had been palpable. He could hear her voice even now,
reverberating through his mind, filling him with renewed fury and a sense of
helplessness.

His heart clenched in his breast and a strange moisture
filled his eyes.

He’d failed her. He’d never see her again – at least,
not as she had been. He’d known her so briefly, yet it felt as if it had been
forever. He could not recall what he’d been before he’d met her. She’d changed
something inside of him, jarred something loose. She’d made him feel. Rage.
Confusion. Doubt. A thousand ugly emotions.

But for all of her faults, she did not deserve this. No one
deserved this.

Montford let out a ragged moan of frustration, defeat, and
sorrow.

How could he have failed?

Then something caught his eye up ahead. The coach lurched
to one side, and the door sprang open. He saw Astrid standing on the runner one
moment, then sailing through the air. He was too far away to see anything but
the haze of her fiery hair, the vibrant orange color of her pelisse, a pale
face. Whatever she felt – her terror, her urgency, her pain – was
hidden from his view, but he could feel it all the same, as if it were his own.
She landed in a ditch, tumbling head over heels until at last she came to a
stop in a mangled heap of legs and skirts and hair.

The coach continued to roll away, the sound of a man
bellowing with rage reaching Montford’s ears.

He ignored the screams and clambered to his legs, his
stomach hollow and his mouth dry. He felt no relief that she was free of the
coach’s prison. In fact, he was choked with fury. The foolish creature had
jumped from a moving carriage and likely killed herself in the process. He’d
throttle her!

Somehow he made his body work, though every fiber of it
cried out in protest. He ran, his lungs burning with the effort, his mind
sinking by increments into his worst nightmare. He could not but help recall
the coaching accident that had killed his parents, the way his mother had lain,
in a ditch so very similar to the one he now approached, her body twisted,
bloody, and unmoving. He’d been there with her, in the blood, clinging to her
corpse, wondering why she would not wake up, not understanding why she would
not hold him or comfort him.

He could smell the old terror, the muck, the blood, the
decay of death, as if he were still there. The thirty years that had passed
since then were stripped away, and he was that four-year-old boy once more,
filled with confusion and fear. His eyes burned and clouded over, and an
inhuman sound was ripped from his lungs as he fell to his knees beside the
orange lump.

She didn’t move. He couldn’t see her face. He feared that
when he did, he would see his mother.

But the hair was not right. His mother had dark hair, like
his own, and the hair he glimpsed through his clouded eyes was the color of a
bonfire, spiraling and twisting out of control. And his mother would have never
worn such a hideous, orange coat. No one of his acquaintance would have worn
such a garment. Except for one.

“Astrid!” The name was torn out of him. The past and
present collided in his mind as he seized the prone figure by the shoulders and
pulled her into his arms. She smelled of lavender and sweat and the dirt of the
roadside. She smelled wonderful.

He held her tightly against him, not daring to breathe or
move. She was warm in his arms and limp. Her head flopped against his shoulder.
His heart pounded with fear. Was she dead? He hadn’t the courage to discover
for himself. All he could do was rock back and forth, trying to master his
rollicking emotions. She couldn’t die. Not her, not now, not ever. He didn’t
think he could bear it.

But then he felt her chest expand and contract underneath
his hands and the warm, feeble brush of her breath against his nape.

He shuddered in relief. He could hardly believe he was
holding her and that she was alive. He pulled back and dared to look at her.

He did not like what he saw. One of her eyes was swollen
and beginning to go black. He brushed back the halo of her wild hair and
discovered an ugly red welt on her temple. God knew what the rest of her body
had suffered.

A blind rage swept through him. He’d kill Lightfoot. He’d
chop him into pieces and feed him to Petunia.

He clutched Astrid tight against him and lifted his head to
stare down the road. The coach was still racing away. Lightfoot was leaning out
of the door, shouting at his driver to turn around.

Montford rather hoped that they did so he could exact his
revenge. But at the same time, his rational mind knew this would be very
difficult under the circumstances. Lightfoot was armed. Montford didn’t even
have a horse anymore. The damned beast was about as useful as a sack of manure.

He turned his attention back to Astrid. She was coming
around, her uninjured eye opening. He noted somewhat hysterically that it was
her blue eye. She stared up at him unseeingly for a moment, then she seemed to
realize who he was. Relief – fear – pain – flashed across her
swollen face, and her eyes welled with tears, her lips trembled.

“Montford …” she rasped.

She sounded as terrible as she looked.

“Fool! Little fool!” he cried, shaking her shoulders.
“Throwing yourself from a moving coach! What were you thinking!” He knew it was
a stupid thing to say as soon it was out of his mouth, but it was better said
than the thousand other half-formed words hovering on his tongue.

She looked at him with disbelief. Then, in a move that shocked
him, she let out a laugh. Or a croak. “I’d no other option.”

“You could have killed yourself.”

“Rather that than remain where I was.”

He shook his head, but he couldn’t refute her. He raised
his hand and cupped her chin. She winced and drew back as if his touch pained
her, which it probably did. He wanted to howl.

“You came for me,” she said, smiling feebly at him.

“Of course I came for you!” he said with great irritation.

The flurry of movement up the road intruded upon his
consciousness. He raised his head and glimpsed the coach turning around in the
road, preparing to return in their direction. Damnation, what was he to do now?

Astrid followed his glance and inhaled sharply. He could
feel her grow rigid in his arms. “Tell me you have a plan to get us out of
this, Montford,” she said.

Montford glanced at her battered face, her torn, soiled
dress, then down at his own ragged clothes, scraped arms and hands. He raised
his eyes and met her wild glance, and saw in it that she knew just as well as
he did they were doomed. They had nothing but each other and the rags on their
backs. No wonder she was smiling.

He couldn’t help himself. He began to laugh.

EVEN
THROUGH the fog around her brain, Astrid knew that Montford had become
hysterical. He was on his knees in the dirt, shredded, scraped, bloodied, and looking
like something that had come out the business end of a sieve. And he was
laughing.

Astrid could barely focus her vision, and her head was
pounding. Her relief at having escaped the carriage was greatly diminished by
her aching body, the renewed threat thundering down upon them, and her mounting
irritation at Montford.

But oddly enough, she felt like laughing too. Their
situation was hopeless. He knew it just as much as she did. And it was funny,
in an awful sort of way.

Her mouth lifted at the edges of its own accord, but she
soon regretted it. The muscles in the left side of her face howled their
protest, and her vision went black with pain.

He must have seen her wince, for his laughter ceased, and his
face went grim. He glanced down the road, then around them, and she could see
the cogs churning in his brain. “Can you run?”

She didn’t know. Her doubt must have shown in her eyes, for
he gave her a weak, humorless smile. “Me neither,” he muttered. He took her by
the elbow and hauled her to her feet.

She cried out from the pain in her cramped arms, realizing
they were still bound behind her.

His expression darkened with fury. He spun her around and
worked at the knots at her wrists. Her hands finally sprang free of their
bonds, and she gasped as pinpricks of feeling rushed back into them. She rubbed
them together in front of her, her wrists chafed and ringed with ugly black
bruises.

She raised her eyes and saw Montford studying her wounds
with a thunderous rage gripping his features. “I shall kill them,” he said in a
strangled voice, emotion thickening his words. “I shall rip them apart.”

Some part of her thrilled at his words, another part of her
went cold. He was quite serious. “As much as I would enjoy that, it’s neither
the time nor the place,” she said as evenly as she could.

Montford tore his eyes from her, into the thick forest
bordering the road. “Come on,” he said gruffly.

He tugged her arm, and together they stumbled into the
undergrowth. She could hear the coach behind them and the sound of Lightfoot’s
angry voice. The thought of being caught again was enough to make her sore legs
work. Her head spun, and she could barely keep from falling over. Only the
strength of Montford’s grip on her arm kept her from pitching headlong to the
forest floor. He pulled her over bushes and logs, ever deeper into the gloom,
their pace as slow as it was frantic.