Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3) (33 page)

Hades grinned. “Good thing I wore Hoby boots. Best leatherworker in London. I banked on that when I pushed the snakes aside outside your cupboard with my feet. Didn’t feel a thing.”

“They didn’t manage to bite through?” Melissa said disbelievingly. “You were lucky.”

“About the only time in this whole episode,” Hades said, kissing her hand. “Melissa, I want you to get out of the house. I need to find the professor and deal with him, dead or alive.”

Melissa started to protest. He was shutting her out again!

“Darling, this is for your own good. I can’t marry you if you are dead.”

Stunned, Melissa fell back. Marriage? Beyond her wildest dreams she had not even contemplated marriage. She hadn’t thought it was possible.

Hades’ face darkened. “You don’t want to marry me?” he said quietly. He shook his head from side to side. “Never mind, we’ll talk after this episode is done. Will you just do as I ask for once?”

CHAPTER 33

Hades ran through the rooms towards the front of the house as a horse’s wild neighing echoed from the drive. He scrambled down the front steps as Professor Lisle looked at him, aghast and turned back to fasten the back gate to the cart in place, forcing the wood so hard it bumped the cart pony forward.

Stretching forward, Hades gave one last leap onto the drive, stumbling as his knee collapsed beneath him to the stony ground. Gasping and clutching at his knee, he braced himself against the hard earth, turning sharply as a wild thundering of hooves echoed up the circular drive. Carter swung into view, wildly riding one of Hades’ prime horses in a fashion that no gentleman would ride. The horse neighed again as Carter threw the reins against its neck.

Glancing back at Lisle, Hades saw with horror that the man had abandoned his attempts to close up the cart and had cut the pony’s traces, climbed onto its back and was already cantering across the gardens at high speed.

Scrabbling to his feet, Hades patted frantically at his waistcoat. But it was useless; he had left all the precious guns that he had been loaned on his horse at the inn outside the house gates. It was too far to run to reach the inn and then go after Lisle. He would be long gone before Hades had even mounted his horse.

“Sir! Sir!” Carter called, slowing his horse to a trot as he neared the front steps to the house. “What do you want us to do?”

“Have any of you got a gun?” Hades called out desperately. He could see Charles and Carlos in a carriage entering the estate gates, wildly gesticulating.

Carter shook his head. “No,” he shouted. “Just some kitchen knives—” Carter pointed towards the carriage—“and your mother.”

Hades’ eyebrows crawled up his hairline as he took in the carriage. Now that the crest on the side was evident it was clear that it belonged to his mother. With much protesting, he observed Carlos draw his head back in and Dowager Lady Harding push hers out.

He supposed his mother could be in the dangerous weapons category too along with kitchen knives.

“Hades, your man is getting away!” his mother called.

As Hades swung his head, Lisle brushed past a large rhododendron and disappeared into the back garden. He cursed and ran towards the cart that still stood in front of the house.

“Strategy, strategy. Where are my strategies now when I most need them?” he chanted. He swung his head between Carter’s horse and the trunks that still sat on the waiting cart. “I don’t think this is a very good idea,” he said as he ran down the steps and swung himself onto the cart.

Gingerly, Hades lifted the lid on one of the trunks. The trunk stayed quiet as he laid the lid down on the cart floor. Carter drew up on the panting horse.

“What can I do to help?” Carter said wildly, bouncing in the saddle.

“Put this in one of the saddle bags. Do it quickly, quietly and carefully,” Hades said, handing a wicker basket from the trunk to Carter.

“What’s in it?” Carter asked curiously as he stowed it in the saddle bag.

“No time to explain. Now, get off the horse and get up here on the cart. I need to swap positions with you.”

“Yes sir!” Carter slid off the chestnut horse who immediately quietened. Hades stepped straight off the side of the cart onto the horses back.

“Now get up there and hand me two more of the wicker baskets,” Hades ordered. “Quickly, Carter!”

Carter scrambled onto the cart and pushed two baskets into one of Hades’ large hands.

“Let’s hope Hannibal had it right,” Hades said as clutched the reins in his free hand and kicked his laboring horse into a gallop. “Death to the Pergamums!” he yelled.

Glad to have a more experienced rider on his back, the horse responded with a pace that astonished Hades. Hades set a course for the rhododendron bush in the hope that he would catch up with Lisle. It was easy to see where the pony had fled; large clumps of hoof shaped pieces of turn were upturned across the garden.

The tracks made a sharp turn around the bush and set off in a new direction at an angle to the previous path. Pulling madly on the horse’s reins, Hades leaned into the turn as a small untidy creature fled out of the bushes and into his path, yapping wildly.
Bloody hell – Arturo!
The dog slowed and looked back at him, the wildness that Hades felt reflected in the spaniel’s eyes. His coat was bloody, the strokes of a whip evident on his back, and his tail hung at an odd angle. He must have followed Melissa and the Viper all the way from London.

“I’m coming Arturo!” Hades tucked his head in and pressed his knees into the horse’s heaving flank as Arturo surged ahead towards the galloping pony in the distance. But something soft brushed against Hades’ head as he leant lower. Taking his eyes momentarily off the tracks in front of him, Hades flicked a glance towards his hands.

In shock he could see that one of the tops to the wicker baskets had come off. Hades squeezed his eyes shut and offered a quick prayer to any God that might hear him, and looked forward again, avoiding the specter of the open basket in his hand.

He could see Lisle in the distance. Arturo had already caught up with the stout cart pony and was obviously giving Lisle some trouble, nipping at the pony’s flanks causing it to sidle backwards uncertainly. Squeezing his legs together, Hades extracted even more speed from the horse.

In slow motion, Lisle turned round and grinned. The man was unhinged. But then he brought up his arm to reveal the same pistol that he had used to masquerade as a highwayman. He pulled the trigger back. In the same instant Hades ducked his head down and pulled his horse’s reins to the left.

As the horse screamed and banked sharply, the high whine of a bullet zinged across his right hand shoulder, scorching him. In shock, he hunched quickly away to his left, only to come face to face with the curious contents of the open basket that he held. A snake’s head swayed in the air as it balanced on its impressive muscles. Its mouth was wide open and its tongue darted in and out. It followed his head’s every move.

Hades couldn’t even manage to curse. This really had been a bad idea. Forcing himself not to blink, he brought his horse back onto course. He risked a quick glance away from the snake towards Lisle. Within four seconds he estimated that he would reach the man who had stopped to hit out with the stock of his gun at Arturo’s dancing head. Hades was just in time to see Lisle’s smile of satisfaction as he struck the dog with a round blow between the eyes. Arturo fell quietly back to the ground unmoving, as Lisle whipped the pony forwards again.

“No!” Hades squinted away, back down at the waving snake in his hand, crying out again as it brought its head back to strike. The sudden yells drove his horse onwards, past Arturo’s prone body and alongside Lisle’s straining pony.

With a yell, he threw the two baskets in front of him towards Lisle. They hurled through the air and landed on top of the man, who batted one of the baskets away easily but screamed as the open basket deposited its contents right in his lap.

With practiced ease, Lisle plucked the snake from his trousers and flicked it to the floor.

“You’ll have to do better than…” he yelled at Hades

But Hades had not stopped. He forced his horse into a tight figure of eight. Before Lisle could finish speaking, Hades whipped the tops off the baskets from his saddle bag and tossed the baskets back at Lisle again.

The snakes were already upset from being in the jolting saddle bags. As soon as the tops were taken off the baskets they had begun to rise, hissing madly, venom dripping from their mouths. As the baskets tumbled through the air, Lisle’s mouth opened.

But he had no time to scream. The first snake landed in his lap again and immediately struck into his inner thigh, piercing straight through the soft trousers of his breeches.

The second snake landed across his shoulders. Initially stunned, it lay dormant. But Lisle didn’t notice. He was too busy screaming and pulling at the snake that was holding on to his legs.

Hades backed his horse away from the screaming man. He watched as the snake around Lisle’s shoulders awoke from its stupor as Lisle shifted this way and that, pulling at his trousers. Incensed, it reared up and buried its fangs into Lisle’s neck.

Lisle’s body arched and his mouth opened. The pony beneath him had had enough and bucked hard. Lisle flew through the air and fell to the ground with a sickening crunch. He gasped, clawing at his legs and his neck.

Without looking back Hades wheeled his horse towards where Arturo lay. Pushing his muscles with one last effort he slid from his horse and picked up Arturo’s unmoving body. Laying the small dog carefully across the horse’s mane, he pulled himself up again into the saddle and turned back to Lisle. . He did not know where all four of the snakes had gone, and he certainly wasn’t going to allow them to get to Arturo, although it seemed that one of the snakes at least was still attached to Lisle’s body. He pushed his horse close to the fallen Lisle.

“Help me, man!” Lisle gasped, prostrate on the floor. “You need to suck the venom out before it enters too far into my bloodstream.”

Hades looked down at the Viper impassively. This man had condemned his love to an awful fate. One that Lisle was now experiencing himself. Any compassion he had felt from hearing the man’s tale had left him long before. He touched Arturo’s still, warm body in front of him, and stroked lightly at the blood matted fur.

“Not until you tell me where the Government documents are,” he said calmly.

“I can’t!” Lisle said, writhing, “I can feel the venom rising through my body, oh quickly help me, please!”

“The documents, Lisle,” Hades said again, “where are they?”

“I, I, can’t breathe…” Lisle said, gasping. His face twisted slightly in a semi-smile, “Bad luck H…H… Harding, Moreno has them. Oh!”

Lisle’s body twitched once and stopped moving. Hades stared at the still body, the macabre half-grin still spread across its face.

He answered it with a small grim smile of his own. “Bad luck Viper. I, myself, have Moreno,” he murmured.

CHAPTER 34

Melissa looked sideways at Hades in the reflection of the dressing room mirror. It had been a bone-jolting ride away from Melissa’s childhood home to Hades’ house in Mayfair.

“I don’t understand why I had to ride with your mother in the carriage.” Melissa wrinkled her nose. “She wanted to ask me all sorts of questions!”

“It was for propriety,” Hades said in even tones. “And it was the least I could do for Arturo.”

Melissa narrowed her eyes at his reflection through her spectacles. “Propriety? You didn’t care about that when you brought me here at first!”

“I thought you were the Viper at first.”

“Mmm.” Melissa fell silent. She had been exploring the house in Chalfont St. Peter when movement outside had attracted her to a window. She had screamed as Lisle had felled Arturo, and then watched unmoving the twisted death of the man who had ruined her family.

She had also nearly fainted when Lisle had shot at Hades.

“Who is Pergamum?” she asked faintly.

“Pardon?”

“Pergamum. You shouted ‘Death to the Pergamums’ and then chased after
that
man.”

“Oh. Yes. I had been thinking for the past few months about strategies related to snakes. I couldn’t get the Viper out of my mind. Then I remembered a piece I had read in Polybius about how Hannibal threw jars of snakes at the Pergamum’s ships in order to defeat them. He knew that he would not be able to take them on directly. When I saw that trunk of baskets…”

“Yes, quite.” Melissa shuddered. After having been imprisoned in a room full of snakes she had no love for smooth creatures. She had almost screamed when Carter had curiously opened up one of the baskets to see what he had passed to Hades. Carter hadn’t been too impressed either. He had fallen off the cart in a dead faint.

“So have you thought any more about—” Hades stopped again midsentence as the counterpane on Melissa’s bed moved slowly. “What the hell?”

“Ah, yes. About that.”

A small comical nose poked out from underneath the blankets followed by smiling bright eyes.