Sally James (6 page)

‘Back, my friend, it is not you I want,’ he said, his voice muffled by the silk scarf he wore about the lower part of his face.

He dragged open the door of the coach and Julian had to release it hurriedly to avoid being pulled onto the ground. The highwayman thrust him onto the seat and then, so quickly that none of them could move to prevent him, he tucked the pistol into his belt and leaned into the coach to grasp Susannah by the arm.

‘Come, wench!’ he ordered and dragged her to her feet. Before she could resist he had his arm about her waist and pulled her onto the saddle in front of him, then wheeled about and galloped into the wood, while his henchmen, one of them keeping the coachman covered while the other moved round to guard the door, indicated to the coachman the wisdom of driving on.

Julian’s protests were unheeded and another shot across the heads of the coach horses set them in motion, so that it was some way further on before Julian’s anguished commands to the coachmen to halt could be obeyed, and by that time there was no sign of any of the men who had held them up and abducted Susannah.

Jane was weeping hysterically, but Julian paid her no heed. He leaped down and went to the front of the coach, demanding to know where the nearest inn was to be found.

‘A three or four miles on, my lord. My lord, I could not help it, I swear I could not! If I’d had a footman, armed, we could have shot them, but by myself, wi’ the horses terrified out of their wits - ‘

‘Yes, yes, you’re not to blame,’ Julian said, cutting short his apologies. `I want a horse, for I think I know what it is. Hurry, then, man, to the nearest inn!’

Julian had been thinking hard. Susannah’s cryptic words about looking after herself had seemed to imply she and Everard had met on the day following his disastrous dinner party. He knew Everard did not easily give up any course of action and it seemed he was determined to take what he considered due to him. The voice of the supposed highwayman had been muffled, but Julian thought it could have been Everard’s, and he had a suspicion he had seen the black horse in his friend’s stables. It was clear Susannah had not enlightened Lord Chalford as to her true identity, for had he known she was of his own class he would never have attempted to abduct her. Julian deduced that Everard would most likely take Susannah to his own house, Monkswood, which was not many miles away, and he determined to follow them as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, a short distance from where the coach had been stopped, Lord Chalford, for it was indeed he, had halted and forced Susannah into a chaise which was partly concealed behind a clump of holly bushes. Paying no heed to her furious protests, he shut the door and immediately the postillion set the chaise in motion, Lord Chalford riding close beside it, and soon the other two men caught up with them to ride at the other side.

Susannah sat inside, fuming with anger. The chaise was going too fast for her to risk jumping out of it and in any case Lord Chalford would catch her again if she did. She could tell him who she was, but she somehow doubted whether he would believe her. And even if he did she could not be sure he would release her. Indeed she might be in even more danger, for if he knew she was a considerable heiress he might think it a good plan to compromise her and so force her to marry him. It was not unknown for such plans to be made, and as many of Julian’s other cronies were impecunious young men, wild to a fault, Lord Chalford might well be the same and have such a scheme in mind. She would have to rely on her own wits to save her again.

She looked about the chaise. There were holsters at the side and she found, to her delight, that there were pistols inside. Even better, they were loaded. Susannah’s father had taught her to shoot and she had no fear of firearms, so she quickly transferred one of the pistols to the pocket of her cloak. She had but the one pocket and both pistols could not fit into it. Since she had no means of concealing the second she reluctantly had to leave it in the holster.

She considered shooting Lord Chalford as he rode alongside the chaise, but there were the two other men, beside the postillion, and they would overpower her. She had to wait until they were alone.

It was therefore with a disdainful, calm air that she descended from the chaise when it drew up before an old, rambling Elizabethan mansion an hour later. Lord Chalford, who had been prepared to deal with tears and hysterics, looked at her in surprised approval. This girl was decidedly unusual, he concluded, and would amply repay the efforts he had been forced to make to capture her. When he moved to take her arm she turned aside, avoiding him, and walked composedly through the huge oak door which a manservant had opened.

‘I do not require your assistance,’ she said coldly. ‘When do you propose to return me to my guardians?’

‘Come, my dear, we have much to discuss. Time to talk of such matters when we have dined.’

‘I am in no condition to sit at table,’ Susannah replied calmly. ‘Pray order one of your maids to conduct me to a bedchamber so that I may tidy myself.’

Amused, he beckoned to a maidservant who was hovering in the background, and gave orders, watching Susannah mount the stairs, her head held high, before turning himself, a smile on his lips, to talk with the butler waiting stolidly behind him.

Susannah was conducted to a large, pleasant room, low ceilinged, with white walls and a beautifully embroidered set of hangings, old but exquisite. She went straight to the window and from it could see the stable yard, behind a wall that joined the house a few feet below her window.

‘What luck!’ she whispered and turned to the maid to smile sweetly and beg her to find a comb, since her hair was in sad disarray. The moment the girl had left the room, Susannah swung open the window, scrambled over the wide sill and eased herself down onto the wall.

It was a much longer drop down into the stable yard, but she lowered herself as far as she could and then jumped, to roll over as she landed, fortunately unhurt.

Picking herself up she looked round. The black horse her captor had ridden was standing a short distance away, tied to a ring in the wall and still saddled. Voices came from one of the loose boxes and the chaise could be seen through an archway. Susannah crept across and untied the horse and then, leading him swiftly to the mounting block, she hitched her skirts up high and scrambled into the saddle. She turned the black and headed for the gateway and was galloping across the park, making for the lodge gates they had driven through a short time earlier, when a shout from behind told her she had been seen.

Grimly she crouched low in the saddle and urged the horse to his maximum effort. He was tired and reluctant to be taken away from his stable, but she drove him on, and when she had passed through the lodge gates, risked a glance behind, to see several figures running about near the stable yard gateway.

They had passed through no large village where she might seek help, so she rode for some woods she could see across the large strip field. She had almost reached the shelter of the trees when a shout from behind informed her she was being followed. Twist and dodge amongst the trees as she could, she could not shake off her pursuer and for some miles she rode on, the black gallantly responding to her commands, until she rounded the corner of the small spinney, to see that she had been cut off. Coming straight for her, only a few yards away, was Lord Chalford.

Desperately Susannah dragged the pistol out of the pocket of her cloak and pointed it at him.

‘I know it is loaded, and I shall fire if you come closer, my lord!’ she announced.

Lord Chalford laughed, amused.

‘Don’t be foolish, my dear. I’ll not harm you, I swear. You’ve no cause to fear me. Let us talk over what I can offer you.’

He rode closer, clearly determined to ignore her warning, and she pursed her lips and fired. The bullet hit him in the upper arm and she saw the look of astonishment in his eyes before the chestnut he was riding reared in fright and, as Lord Chalford’s attention had been distracted, threw him to the ground before turning and bolting back the way he had come, while Lord Chalford struck the ground heavily and lay unmoving.

Chapter Four

Aghast, Susannah stared at the man lying supine on the ground. Then, terrified she might have killed him, she threw herself from the black’s saddle and dragging him after her ran across the few yards separating her from Lord Chalford. The wound in his arm was bleeding, though sluggishly, and he was still breathing. It seemed likely he had struck his head on falling, and there was little she could do until he regained his senses.

She hitched the black’s reins over the branch of a nearby tree, then took off her cloak and rolled it up to cushion Lord Chalford’s head more comfortably. Looking at the wound in his arm, she saw that the bullet had passed right through the sleeve and the fleshy part of the upper arm, causing little more damage than a graze. She loosened his cravat and eased it from his neck, then fashioned it into a bandage to bind tightly about his arm. It was impossible for her on her own to remove his coat and she had to hope that the makeshift bandage would help to stop the bleeding until she could find assistance.

That was the next problem and she bent her mind to it, trying to think how far back it had been since she had seen a road. She had been concentrating so exclusively on the need to escape from this man that all she could recall was crossing a deeply rutted lane and rejecting it for her own use after thinking it was more dangerous for a galloping horse than the open fields. It had not looked much used and would probably lead nowhere helpful if she did go back to investigate it. Probably she would do better to go on and she was just deciding to do that when the black whinnied and an answering whinny came from some distance away, behind the trees that formed the spinney.

Hastily Susannah rose to her feet and ran in the direction of the noise. Now she could hear the wheels of some heavy vehicle and as she came round the corner of the spinney she saw a lane, deeply sunken and edged with bushes. A man, a farmer by the looks of him, was driving an empty cart along the lane and she called to him urgently.

‘I beg of you, pray help me!’

He stopped and looked slowly round at her.

‘What be the matter?’ he queried.

‘There is a man, hurt. He hit his head, I think. Please, where is the nearest inn? Can you help me take him there?’

He halted the cart and ponderously clambered down, leaving his horses contentedly pulling grass from the side of the road. Susannah smiled at him briefly before turning to lead the way back to where Lord Chalford lay. As she came up to him she could see him move slightly and breathed a sigh of relief. She stood looking down at him while the farmer caught up with her and it occurred to her that he was the best-looking man she had ever seen. Hastily dismissing such a thought and firmly reminding herself of his outrageous behaviour, she knelt beside him as he opened his eyes.

‘Oh, are you better?’ she asked quickly. He tried to raise himself on his elbow, but winced at the pain in his arm and then put his other hand to his head.

‘What happened?’ he asked, evincing no sign of recognition for her.

‘I - you were thrown,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Does your head hurt very badly?’

‘Like the devil! Who are you?’

‘Never mind that! If we assist you, can you sit up?’

With the other man’s help she raised him to a sitting position and after a quick but competent examination the farmer said cheerfully there were no bones broken. In a short while Lord Chalford’s reeling senses steadied sufficiently for him to be helped over to the cart, where he lay, his head cradled in Susannah’s lap, while the farmer drove them to the nearest inn, promising Susannah he would send his own boy to fetch the horse she had left tied to a tree. Having decided it would be wisest not to reveal either of their names, unless it appeared that Lord Chalford was recognized, Susannah then found the landlord of the inn was exceedingly reluctant to accept such a guest, being vociferously supported by his tall and scraggy wife.

‘I’ve no time to be running up and down the stairs all day tending to an invalid, who’ll probably be a corpse before long!’ that lady declared belligerently.

‘He’ll be a corpse the sooner if you refuse him a bed!’ Susannah returned sharply, looking anxiously at Lord Chalford, who had swooned again with the shaking he had received on the short journey in the cart. ‘All I ask is a bed for him, and you need do no more than provide food and drink. I will take care of him until some of his own servants can be sent for.’

‘To cause more trouble,’ the woman grumbled and at that Susannah lost her temper and told the innkeeper and his wife exactly what she thought of them, castigating alike their lack of Christian charity and poor business sense to be turning away a gentleman who would certainly, if the quality of his riding coat and boots were any guide, pay generously for proper care and attention.

‘Fighting talk, my dear,’ Lord Chalford said in a weak but amused voice and Susannah turned quickly to him, relief in her eyes that he seemed to be recovering from the blow to his head.

He smiled faintly at her and cut into the excuses the landlord was offering in a quiet voice that nevertheless made the innkeeper pause. ‘A bed if you please, and no more talk. I trust I shall not have need of it for long, and there’s gold enough in my pocket to pay for it,’ he added faintly and, overcome by the effort, passed again into insensibility.

Susannah glared at the innkeeper and thrust her hand into Lord Chalford’s pocket, pulling out a heavy leather bag full of gold coins.

‘Is that enough for your trouble?’ she demanded scornfully and the innkeeper, albeit reluctantly, nodded.

‘For a day or so I’ll keep him, then, so long as you do the nursing. I’ve no one to do that. Betsy, go and see to some broth. Sam! Here, man, help me carry the gentleman upstairs.’

Lord Chalford was lifted from the cart and taken into the inn and Susannah retreated to the room opposite, which had been offered for her own use, to tidy her ruffled hair and wash her hands. The landlord and one of his minions undressed Lord Chalford and put him, clothed in one of the innkeeper’s own nightshirts and a tasselled nightcap, between the sheets. Then, as the man would have lingered to offer his advice, she drove him out of the room, saying she had other work for him to do.