A Valentine Wedding (33 page)

“Aye, Paolo?” Luiz slowed his horses and leaned down from the box.

“Find a place to turn off. I want a secluded field. No houses in sight. Nothing within earshot,” he said in a short staccato burst of instruction.

Emma began to tremble deep inside. Her skin was cold and clammy. She looked at him fearfully.

“We might as well start our little discourse now,” he said in conversational tones. “I had hoped you’d prove to be a little more sensible. A little more accommodating. But, no matter.” He shrugged. “It’s all the same to me how I get what I want.”

The carriage swung abruptly to the right. The iron wheels thudded along a deeply rutted track. He had left the blind up at the window, and Emma saw the dark bulk of the hedge, so close to the side of the carriage that it brushed the varnish with a lonely scraping sound. They must be on a very narrow cart track.

“This’ll do,” Luiz called down, as he reined in the horses. “No one for miles around that I can see.”

Paul opened the door and jumped down. It was bright moonlight, a crisp, cold night. He looked along the dark track, then jumped over a narrow ditch into a stubble field where a stand of poplars served as a windbreak. There was no sign of habitation.

“Bring the woman.”

Luiz hauled Emma out of the chaise. She stumbled to her knees as she half fell from the high step. He
yanked her up and propelled her across the ditch and into the field.

“I’ll be taking care of the horses,” he said to Paolo. “You don’t need me for this business.”

His discomfort was apparent and Emma had a faint flicker of hope that maybe he would come to her aid. But it died immediately when he turned and stomped out of the field, and the two thugs who’d been riding the horses crossed the ditch and came over to them.

“Light a fire,” Paul instructed. “Over by those trees.”

No one seemed to be taking any notice of her. Emma looked around. Could she make a run for it? But even as she assessed the hopeless prospect, Paul swung back to her. “Get over by the trees.” He prodded her in the small of her back, pushing her forward.

She stumbled over the hard-packed stubble to the stand of trees, where the two men were busy gathering kindling and bigger branches. Why was he lighting a fire? Because he was cold? Because he liked to be comfortable when interrogating his victims?

Numbly she watched the kindling catch, and then the bigger branches. Smoke curled, a flame shot up.

“Put her down.” Paul’s instruction came out of the night like a pistol shot. The two men caught Emma and forced her to the ground beside the fire; one of them held her shoulders against the ground; the other unlaced her boots.

And then she understood. She could feel the heat of the fire on her bare feet. Horror filled her.

“Your brother’s last letter to you,” Paul said kneeling beside her. “Let’s see how much you can remember, shall we?”

Chapter Fifteen

“Looks like they were goin’ quite a clip,” Jemmy observed, examining the tracks of the chaise and its six horses. “Them ’osses are beginin’ to tire about ’ere. What d’ye think, Sam?”

Sam dismounted for a closer look. “Aye,” he agreed. “The leaders’re pullin’ to the left.”

“Well, let’s get on.” Alasdair was impatient with this and yet he knew it was necessary. If the chaise left the turnpike at any point and they weren’t watching for it, they could overshoot it. Neither did he want to come thundering down upon them. They were outnumbered already, and he’d be no good in his present condition in hand-to-hand combat. Stealth and surprise were his only advantage.

They rode on under the moonlight. Jemmy and Sam knew how to get the best out of their mounts, and their horses fairly skimmed the ground. Phoenix
matched them easily. But Alasdair knew that they had to make up a two-hour start.

The laudanum had dulled his pain and it existed now on the periphery of his awareness, waiting in the wings. His mind was clear, examining and discarding options. Should they spring their attack on the road or wait until they reached London? An ambush would be the best chance, but they’d have to get ahead of the chaise for that. Once it was daylight, opportunities would be fewer.

Finchley Common. An ambush on the heath. There were any number of suitable places there. If they could get there first, they could lie in wait.

“Eh, they’ve gone off ’ere.”

Sam’s hissing whisper snapped against his absorption, and he looked up.

“See.” Sam gestured to the ground with his whip. “They’ve turned the chaise right ’ere. Gone off down that cart track.”

“Bleedin’ stupid thing to do,” Jemmy opined. “It ain’t ’ardly wide enough for a gig.”

“Why?” Alasdair said, staring around. He thought he could detect the faintest lightening of the eastern sky. The false dawn. Did Denis have a hideout somewhere around? Was he not taking Emma to London after all?

But the questions were pointless. He swung Phoenix onto the path. “No sound now,” he murmured. “They may be close.”

They followed the tracks in the mud until the lane curved around. Alasdair drew rein and beckoned to Sam to come up beside him on the narrow path. “Dismount and take a look,” he mouthed, the words little more than a soft rustle in the cold air.

Sam swung down and moved into the deep shadows
of the overgrown hedge. He crept around the corner.

Alasdair waited, his heart in his mouth, hideous dread clutching at his soul. Was he too late?

Sam was gone for what seemed an eternity, during which Alasdair became aware of every bruise on his body. The laudanum was wearing off and the effects of his two hours on horseback became screamingly evident.

When Sam materialized out of the shadows of the hedge, Alasdair controlled the impulse to yell at him. “Well?” he whispered.

“They’ve stopped about a hundred yards down the track. One man’s left in charge of the ’osses. T’others are in a field. They’ve lit a fire.” He looked up at Alasdair, still on his horse. “Reckon they’re attendin’ to Lady Emma by the fire,” he said steadily.

Alasdair’s already white face was ghastly, the moonlight giving it a greenish, waxen tinge. But his brain was now as cold and deadly as a rapier. If they were working on her, they hadn’t killed her. That was all he needed to think about.

“Sam, can you take the man with the horses? Silently!”

“Aye, reckon so.” Sam fingered the cutlass at his belt.

Alasdair dismounted stiffly, but he no longer felt pain. His body moved as his brain directed, ignoring every other signal.

Jemmy dismounted beside him and swiftly tethered the three horses.

“Go now, then. Take the man and release the horses from the traces,” Alasdair instructed Sam. “We’ll give you ten minutes before we make our own move.”

Ten minutes!
He would not think what they could
do to Emma in ten minutes. “Jemmy and I will approach across the field here. We need to make it seem that we’re many more than we are. When you hear Jemmy’s blunderbuss, you drive the horses at the men in the field. I want chaos. You understand me?”

Both men nodded immediately. Jemmy reached up for his blunderbuss. It was primed with lead shot that would spew forth in a wide scattering arc of destruction.

Alasdair took his pistols. He would have one shot with each. They would have to count. And Paul Denis would have one of them.

Emma was sweating. The ground she lay on was hard, frozen mud, but her body was bathed in sweat. The fire’s heat was intense and the soles of her feet, although not yet burned, seemed to curl and shrivel in dreadful anticipation.

Paul Denis had pulled the gag from her mouth and now he was talking quietly to her. She could feel hands banding her ankles. As he spoke they pulled her shrinking feet closer to the heat. She wanted to tell him what he wanted, but something, some deep, stubborn cell of pride, would not let her.

She thought of Ned. She thought of Alasdair. She let her mind drift back to childhood. To all the things they had done together. She thought she could hear Ned’s rich laugh, Alasdair’s teasing voice. They were in the summer fields, following the haymakers. She could hear the steady swing of the scythes, the swish of the flails. She could taste strawberries on her tongue.

She screamed.

Alasdair heard the scream. He heard it on some distant plane. He continued to move around the field, clinging to the hedge, Jemmy just behind him. The flames of the fire lit the scene. The three crouched figures around one on the ground. He judged the distance carefully. They would have to be close enough for the blunderbuss to do damage as they charged, but not so close that they would be detected before they were ready.

His pistols were in his hands. His body was moving as fluidly as water now. It didn’t seem to belong to him, but that didn’t matter. He backed up against the hedge when he could see the outline of the chaise on the track through the bare branches. Then he nodded to Jemmy.

Jemmy leaped from the shadows with a great skirling yell of triumph. He ran forward a few paces before he fired the blunderbuss. Alasdair was just behind him, his pistols ready as he searched for his target.

Sam fired a pistol from beyond the hedge, and the entire team of horses plunged across the ditch and into the field, driven by Sam, cracking his whip. The horses raced toward the fire before they realized what it was, then they reared back, nostrils flaring at the smell of smoke, the heat of the flames. Sam whipped at them and they careened forward again, rearing, hooves flailing.

The men at the fire leaped to their feet, trying to get out of the way of the flailing hooves. The shot from Jemmy’s blunderbuss swept through them.

Alasdair raised his pistol and sighted. Paul Denis stood outlined against the flames. Alasdair squeezed
the trigger. Paul fell to his knees, clutching his shoulder.

Sam’s pistol sounded as he waded into the fray. He cast aside the gun and his cutlass flashed. He was grinning with the sheer joy of the fight as he slashed to left and right.

Paul’s men struggled to recover themselves but it was too late. One of them managed to get off a shot from his pistol, but it flew harmlessly across the field to bury itself in the trunk of a poplar. Sam’s cutlass slashed across his arm, immobilizing him. The other fell beneath a blow from Jemmy’s cudgel, kept in reserve.

Emma had tried to roll herself clear of both the fire and the rampaging horses. But with her hands still bound at her back, pressed to the ground beneath her body, she could get no leverage. She curled herself into a ball and held her breath.

Then suddenly there was silence. A great calm seemed to settle over them. Emma wrists were suddenly freed. She still couldn’t feel her hands, but a great wash of relief flooded her.

Alasdair bent over her. He tried to lift her but couldn’t, and it was Sam who hoisted her into his arms. “Eh, you all right, lass?” he asked, his voice thick with concern.

“Just about,” she said, looking at Alasdair in wonder and disbelief. “I was so afraid they’d killed you.”

He shook his head in swift dismissal and took her feet in his hands. He swore a vile oath as he saw the blisters. He turned to Paul Denis, who had staggered to his feet, his hand pressed to his shoulder. Blood welled from between his fingers.