The Mercenary Major (6 page)

“Perhaps another time, Tory,” Reg said. “You girls wouldn’t want to come with me just now.”

“Where are you going?” asked Katie.

“To a . . . scientific . . . thing.”

Katie looked down, as if willing to concede.

“What scientific thing?” asked Victoria.

“Actually, it’s a balloon ascension,” Reg admitted.

“Oh, Reg, you must take us,” said Katie. Victoria said nothing, allowing the wonder and delight in Katie’s eyes to work on her reluctant brother.

“It’s way out of town,” Reg demurred.

Victoria gave him a hard look.

“Very well,” said Reg, “but my pair is fresh so you must be prepared to hold on and keep quiet. These London streets are too busy by half, and a fellow can’t be distracted by female chatter.”

Reg spun on his heel, but even so the footman was there to pull open the door. Victoria caught Katie’s eye and grinned.

Once outside in the air of a particularly brisk autumn morning, Reg turned expansive. He took a large bite of one of the flaky biscuits. “What do you think?” he asked the girls as the groom brought up the horses and curricle.

The girls exchanged glances. Neither could be so mean-spirited as to deny that it was a very pretty carriage, gleaming and neat, with golden wheels and light-blue side panels that made it look like something out of a fairy tale. The restive black horses were another matter.

“It is something, isn’t it?” Reg polished off one of the biscuits and offered a hand to his sister. “Took me all week to find a fellow that had a worthwhile rig to sell. And Thunder and Lightning are a prime pair.” He turned to hand Victoria up and, between bites of biscuit, continued his account of the difficulties and ultimate success of his negotiations with the unlucky gambler who had sold him the carriage.

So much for our investigation
, thought Victoria.

The groom stood away from the horses’ heads, and Reg started the pair in motion. From the first, the skittish animals seemed disinclined to go precisely where their driver wished. At the clatter of a passing cart, the pair swerved, nearly brushing the curricle against a lamppost before Reg brought them to order. Katie squealed, and Victoria took a firm hold of the edge of her seat, resisting a strong impulse to berate Reg for wasting his time negotiating the purchase of such showy but unsteady horses. Any remark of the kind would doubtless have been wasted.

They made a dash down Grace Church Street, feathered the corner neatly, and set off for the Thames at a spanking pace, drawing glances from those they passed. It was not going to be easy to impress Reg with the importance of their neglected investigation.

Letty was being quite strict with herself on this outing. She had won several victories in her campaign to get Jack accepted by the
ton
. Now she could afford to be patient and think carefully about her strategy. Lackington’s had been a good ploy. Jack had found her library intriguing and had not been able to resist the opportunity to look at more books. True, he had become instantly wary when he realized how many of the fashionable frequented the place, but he had stayed by her side and allowed her to introduce him to several young ladies.

She glanced at him again. The young man beside her had lived wild in the mountains of Spain and fought in the bloodiest battles of a long war. It would not be easy to coax him into the tame drawing rooms of London. Though she knew he was bothered by his lack of funds, Letty had scrupulously avoided telling him about his inheritance. She was certain he would leave the minute he believed he had something to gain from the Favertons. His pride would not allow him to appear mercenary.

She had said nothing about Jack’s appearance, although she had probably let her admiring gaze fall on him one too many times. He remained restless in his new clothes—today a coat of blue superfine, buff pantaloons, and a cravat of white linen above which his eyes were distinctly light-blue. With his mustache and beard shaved, the lean lines of his face and his fine sensuous mouth drew the eyes of every miss and not a few matrons in London. More than five years of town gossip had taught Letty how women rated men. She sighed and turned her attention to the road, looking for some unexceptional topic with which to distract her nephew.

The small village ahead was the site of a famous battle that might interest Jack, but as they approached, it became clear that the main street was entirely blocked by a milling crowd. Several other carriages had pulled up, obviously unable to pass. Jack leaned forward and spoke to their coachman, then he jumped lightly down from the barouche.

“Lady Letitia, Bob is going to pull off to the side. Stay with the carriage until I find out what’s happening,” Jack ordered.

Letty nodded and watched him stride off toward the mob.

Jack estimated that nearly a hundred persons surrounded the front of a shop on the main street of the village. There were men, women, and children, grim-visaged, stiff and bulky with the layers of dark clothing in which poverty cloaked itself. It was a crowd he would have entered without hesitation at any other time in his life, but now his finery set him apart.

The crowd’s mood was ugly, and Jack considered that his wisest course would be to walk away from a confrontation he had little hope of softening. Those near the shop itself were shouting oaths and slogans at the shiny black door, which remained firmly shut. A sign swinging from a pole above the door proclaimed the establishment a bakeshop, and Jack wondered if the baker had anything more substantial than his loaves with which to defend himself from the siege.

The shrill neighing of horses mingled with an angry rumble from the crowd. An elegant sporting carriage drawn by two glossy black horses was trapped in the center of the street by the milling villagers. Even from the back there could be no doubt that the three passengers were fashionable pleasure-seekers, who perhaps had been headed for the balloon ascension. The driver, a young gentleman with carroty hair under a beaver hat, was apparently torn between reining in his cattle and shouting at the crowd to give way and let him pass. At his side two young women clung to the rocking vehicle, one in a jacket the color of rich wine, vivid against the muted hues of the sullen crowd below.

The mob, bent on reaching the beleaguered shop, grumbled and pressed sullenly forward, pushing people against the sides of the carriage and across the path of the frightened horses. The low rumble of voices resolved itself into a chant of “Bread or blood!”

Jack judged that the horses would not tolerate much more of the jostling and pushed his way into the crowd, indifferent to hostile glares and rude remarks. He wondered that the driver did not get down to take the horses’ heads, but then he saw that the young woman next to the driver had grasped his arm and appeared to be holding on for dear life. Jack twisted and sidestepped, working his way through the press, keeping his eye on the carriage. If there was one thing he knew, it was how to move through a crowd.

A sharp crack sounded against the wooden sign above the shop. Then a hail of stones rattled the windows. Jack pushed harder. Another rock hit the hindquarters of the horse on the right, and the animal tossed its head and backed abruptly. The carriage lurched toward Jack, knocking several people into one another. A woman screamed, and the crowd’s anger suddenly turned against the three in the carriage.

“Get the hell out, you bloody toff,” someone shouted, and a rock knocked the young gentleman’s hat off. Jack had reached the back wheel. He opened his mouth to shout at the driver when the young woman in burgundy jumped lightly down from the carriage and began to work her way toward the horses’ heads. It was remarkable, Jack thought, that leap from the comfort and safety of a superior position into the danger of the mob.

The animals were on the verge of lunging out of control, and Jack swore as he saw the peril to the slim wine-clad figure. He shouldered his way roughly toward the horses’ heads and reached them just behind the girl as the nearest horse reared, hooves lashing out. People screamed and shoved wildly.

Jack shot out a hand and caught the girl about the waist, pulling her against his body as he stepped between her and the horses. A hoof caught him in the thigh, and he grunted, still holding the girl, who spun in his grasp, her hands coming up to brush his chest and push at his shoulder. He grasped her waist with his other hand, steadying her and keeping himself between her and the horses’ plunging hooves. Her chin came up, and Jack looked down into her face. The wine-dark bonnet had slipped from her head, and its fall had loosened golden-brown tendrils about her cheeks. Her eyes, gray and clear and unafraid, fringed with the longest, blackest lashes he had seen outside of Spain, met his briefly.

“The horses,” she pleaded.

Run, Jack
, said the voice in his head.

He released the girl, and, springing forward, grabbed the chin harness of the nearest horse with his left hand and pulled the tossing head down. Lunging to his right, he reached the harness of the second horse and pulled down again. Slowly, he increased the downward pressure on the leather straps, curbing the rearing animals.

When the horses had settled to a snorting, eye-rolling measure of tranquility, Jack looked over his shoulder at the people blocking the road. Directly in his path was a gaunt ruffian with an evil scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to the black beard on his jaw. The fellow clutched a tattered blanket the color of pond scum around his shoulders, but what struck Jack was the wide cuff of the man’s sleeve with its distinctive strips of braid. He met the man’s gaze which was proud and unyielding.

“The Third Foot?” asked Jack.

The man’s eyes registered his surprise, but he nodded, and gave Jack a keen look.

“The 95th,” said Jack.

“I know you,” replied the stranger. “You’re the Bandit.”

It was Jack’s turn to nod.

“If you let us pass,” he said, “I’ll come back to help.” The man seemed to weigh his words, but Jack was more conscious of the girl at his side. He was careful not to look at her again.

The tattered soldier nodded once, twisted around, and shouted at the crowd to make way. With a grudging shuffle people began to open a space before the carriage. Jack looked back and nodded at the driver, who eased up slightly on the reins. Then Jack drew the horses forward. He heard the girl speaking in a low voice that coaxed and cajoled, steadying the scared animals. Slowly, they inched their way through the crowd. Beyond the confusion in the main street, the little village was quiet, and just off the road was a massive old oak. Under its spreading branches Jack brought the horses to a halt and turned to the girl. He had not forgotten his voice speaking to him.

He studied her briefly. She was tall, with hair the color of the sun-browned hills of Spain above those gray eyes and black lashes.

“You’re safe,” he said. He could see it would be no use to comment on her foolhardiness in leaping from the carriage. The gray eyes had a glint of steel in them.

“Thank you,” she answered.

Even without her bonnet, she was every inch a proper young woman of fashion, exactly what Letty had in mind for him. Therefore untouchable. Their encounter was, he supposed, one of those ironies of meeting your fate as you sought to avoid it. He smiled.

“I promised I’d go back,” he told her.

“Go then,” she said.

He nodded and with considerable self-mastery turned and strode toward the angry mob.

Victoria watched the stranger slip back into the crowd. For a moment she had felt powerless as the villagers closed in on the carriage. Reg had shouted and protested to no avail. The sea of faces and bodies had surged around them as unreasoning as a tide. Victoria had been sure that the horses would trample women and children and that she and Katie and Reg would be pulled from the curricle and beaten. The instant she had understood the danger, she had known what she must do. It had been easy, really. Once she had jumped from the carriage, she no longer felt frightened, only intent on reaching the horses’ heads. The truth was that she had relished it.

Then the stranger had grabbed her. Except for that one surprised moment when their eyes met, he had acted as she meant to act and in that unity of purpose was a shocking intimacy. For however brief a time, his thoughts and feelings had been hers, hers his. The realization had shaken her so that she had struggled afterward in their brief conversation to regain her customary coolness.

“Tory.” Reg leapt down and came to her side. “Are you crazy? You could have been killed.”

“For once, Reg, you are not exaggerating.” Tory turned back to the carriage. Katie still sat on the seat of the curricle, hiccoughing softly, her face pressed into a handkerchief. Victoria lowered the steps and climbed up to put an arm around her friend.

“I’ll just look over my pair,” called Reg.

“Katie,” said Victoria, “we’re quite safe. Can you get down?”

“I think so,” came the watery reply, followed by a renewed struggle with tears. Victoria helped her friend down, murmuring consoling words until Katie dried her tears.

“Horses are fine,” called Reg. “Shall we go on?”

Victoria frowned at him. Now that she had collected herself and Katie, she felt the encounter was incomplete.

“Well, we don’t want to miss the balloonist, do we?” Reg asked.

“Shouldn’t we stay to . . . see what happens?” Victoria countered. She could not explain her reluctance to leave the scene, but the adventure that had stirred her felt unfinished.

At that moment there was a great cry from the distant crowd. Victoria looked back, expecting to see the mob push into the little shop, but instead it appeared that something very different was happening. The people were shifting around and soon formed a great curved line from the door of the shop across the road. As they watched, a carriage drove up to the line, and a man from the crowd waved a hat under the driver’s nose.

“My hat,” cried Reg.

“What are they doing?” asked Katie.

The crowd parted, and the carriage made its way through and swept past them, giving them only a glimpse of the driver’s angry face.