Dilemma in Yellow Silk (30 page)

Viola was already undressing. But even when she stripped off the jacket and skirt she was perfectly correctly attired. Except for the lack of a hoop. She surprised Marcus when she turned the skirt upside down and pulled at a thread. The hem came down. “I sewed it roughly last night,” she said. “I assumed none of you would be my height. You will have to stoop when you climb back in the coach. So who is to be me?”

Ivan waved at her. He was the shortest of the group, which was not saying much. The Emperors had considerable height, all of them.

Under her petticoats, Viola had on a pair of breeches.

Marcus nearly grabbed her and called the whole affair off. The sight of his wife dressed in that fashion gave him ideas he really should not be having at this time. He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath, concentrating his mind once more. But the sight of Viola in those breeches—damnation!

Ivan did not look half as attractive in the riding habit as Marcus’s wife had. But her careful selection of the outfit showed when he buttoned the jacket, which was loose on her. It barely fit him. The hat would cover his head. Ivan’s dark hair matched Viola’s, dark and tied back in a queue, and he’d shaved particularly well. He would do.

Heedless of his cousins and brothers, Marcus took Viola in his arms and kissed her. “Take care, my love,” he said. “I’ll be with you soon.”

Nobody said a thing. She clung to him for a minute. “You’re the one who must take care.”

He moved closer and murmured words for her alone. “Don’t take off those breeches.”

Her cheek heated next to his, so he held her a moment longer before he released her.

The door opened, admitting the coachman. “All right and tight, my lord,” he said. “I gave the footmen permission to wet their whistles before we start up again.” The coachman nodded and left the room.

Time for the switch.

With one last glance back at Viola, Marcus left the room with Ivan and his brothers, passing the two footmen on the way. They did not acknowledge each other, even though one of them was the redoubtable Tranmere. Together with Darius and Val, they would form an escort for his wife. The only way Marcus would allow her anywhere near this action was if she promised to be safe for him. Tony and Darius stopped at the door, showing remarkable skill at blending with the crowds rushing to get on the coach that waited in the yard. Their coach waited just outside the doors. Swiftly, Marcus and Ivan took the short distance to the coach and climbed in.

At the last moment, when the street was thronged with people, Tony and Darius leaped in, one after the other. Darius slammed the door behind him. He sat on the floor, and complained as the coachman drove off. “Throw me a cushion, can you? Much more of this and my arse will be too sore for me to stand.”

“And you traversed half Europe with the army?” Marcus snorted, but tossed a cushion down for his cousin.

“What do you think they will send?” Ivan asked.

“They might not send anyone. We made enough noise about our leaving, but they could have given up. If we are not attacked, I’ll take it that nobody wanted us enough to take us when we present them with a sitting target.” He took care not to look at Tony on the floor. “I am praying they try to take us on the Heath. A single coach, how can they resist?”

Viola, Val, and two of Marcus’s strongest footmen would ride for their house. Not the one in Leicestershire, but another smaller house owned by Julius, one he was careful to retain as a private residence. It lay barely ten miles from London.

Even that ten miles had worried Marcus, but he could not work out how to get his wife back to the London house without anyone seeing. Particularly as they did not know who was watching them. Julius had promised to keep a watch, or rather, put his mysterious “people” to watch them, but he had reported nothing so far.

Too late now.

They would be on the heath very soon now. Nobody would attack them before that. The Heath was just too tempting a target. As, Marcus hoped, were they. To overcome the people they had with them, the Pretender would need a troop of some size.

“How do we introduce Viola to Imogen?” he asked Tony.

“As Viola and Imogen. They have certain physical similarities.” Tony paused. “So much so that I miss Imogen more now. She is waiting for me. They are not so foolish. They’ll guess. Imogen will be overjoyed to have a sister at last. I hope Viola will be, too.”

“Since she recently lost the man she still regards as her father, I think she will be delighted to find she is not alone anymore.” He paused. Even if Imogen and Viola took instant dislike to each other, Viola would never fear that melancholy fate again.

They were within a few minutes of the Heath now.

Sparse trees and scrubland adorned this bleak area north of London. Once they had passed the Spaniards Inn, they would be on Hampstead Heath, a notorious area for highwaymen and footpads.

Their luck held, and no coach waited by the inn. Sometimes coaches would wait until several came along, and then they would band together for safety. That was the last thing Marcus wanted. He drew his pistol and laid it on his lap. On the floor, Tony noiselessly drew three swords and laid them where they could reach them easily. He had a beltful of pistols, two one side and three the other, looking like nothing so much as a pirate readying to board a vessel.

Even then, a stray shot from anyone lying in wait for them could prove fatal.

The coachman had a prearranged signal, and so did the footmen.

Half way across the heath, Marcus despaired. Surely they would not have to continue as far as Leicestershire?

But a yell and the sound of thundering hooves from outside told them they had been right, and their attackers were upon them.

“Stand and deliver!” came the words that fooled nobody.

Highwaymen generally worked in ones and twos, but approaching the coach now was a veritable phalanx of men on horseback. Marcus counted six as he waited for them to come within range. “Don’t forget I want one taken alive.”

“Shame,” Tony said.

The coaches came to a halt, seemingly obedient to the command of the men confronting them. They all wore their hats pulled down low rather than masks and sported clothes more suited to the ragbag than a person, no doubt in character.

The coachman drew the horses to a halt.

In contrast to their appearance, the weapons they held were lethal in appearance, modern and well cared for. Most had other weapons thrust in their belts.

“When I give the word,” Marcus said. “Attack. If they are highwaymen, they deserve this fate. If not, they deserve it anyway.”

“What do you do if one of Northwich’s sons is among them?”

“That is his problem. We are attacked by highwaymen, we must defend ourselves.”

“To the death,” Darius said grimly.

That almost came true when a bullet pierced the coach at the level of the doors and whistled out the other side.

Darius gave a strangled yelp. “The bastard caught me!”

He had spoken too loudly. Another shot came through the window, too high to hurt anyone. They could not stay in here. They were sitting ducks.

Tony had his hand on the door. He counted. “On three. One, two, three!”

At that instant, he opened the door and leaped out, a pistol in each hand. Darius, his sleeve covered in blood, crouched behind him, holding his pistol higher. One of the men outside screamed and fell from his horse on Tony’s first shot.

Highwaymen would have turned tail and run for it. These men did not.

Marcus aimed his own weapon at one of the men and managed to wing him. The damned pistol shot to the left, but at least he’d rendered one side of the bastard harmless.

He grabbed another pistol, cocked, and fired it. The store under the coach seats held a dozen. Then they would have the satisfaction of hand to hand fighting.

His pistol refused to discharge. If he had not dropped it in the same moment, he might have had his hand blown off. The pistol fell to the scrubby ground outside the coach, already a mess of black powder and flames.

One of the horses screamed and bolted, its rider clinging on for dear life.

From a tree they had just passed, another rider galloped out, his black horse going full tilt. Were there more?

The six men who had lain in wait for them were shocked, but fought back. They whipped out their weapons as fast as possible, but they were no match for Tony. The ex-soldier had two of them off their horses and writhing on the ground before they’d had a chance to fire. One shot went over Marcus’s head as he followed his cousin and brother from the coach.

Ivan had a sporting rifle and a shotgun behind him. He stayed in the coach, hampered by his skirts, but perfectly able to hold a gun to a man’s head.

Marcus flung himself across the short distance and dragged one of the men’s feet from his stirrup, disturbing his balance as he was about to fire. He kicked back, catching Marcus in the ribs, but his shot went wide, lost in the scrubland of Hampstead Heath.

Marcus gasped and clapped his hand to his side, but fought on. He had his sword in his hand, but instead of slashing the rider, he cut the girth under the horse’s belly. The man teetered sideways, unseated, but as he went down, Tony shot him. He was dead from the hole in his head before he hit the floor.

They had killed them all, except for the one that got away.

The melée had given them no time to think. Five men lay dead on the ground. Tony kicked at one disconsolately. “No doubt about it. My aim is as true as it ever was. Perhaps their bodies will show us something.”

“That’s hardly likely,” said someone from behind them—a voice Marcus knew.

Lord Alconbury was in the process of sheathing a wicked looking saber. He had the reins looped around his wrist and a pistol in his other hand. Once he’d sheathed his sword, he changed the reins to his free hand and unhurriedly shoved the pistol in a pouch of his saddle. “Excellent shots,” he said calmly.

The man who had tried to escape was sitting on his horse, his head down.

“You think to kill us personally?” Marcus asked.

Alconbury rolled his eyes. “I told you. This is none of our doing. This is the Pretender’s idea, and in my humble opinion, a foolish one. Which is why this fellow will return with you and admit it for me. I want no part of this ham-fisted affair. It would offend me if it were put at our door. My father is too subtle to throw men at a plan like this. He would have known what you were at instantly, as did I. I merely wished to prove this fact to you. This is your prisoner, gentlemen. Do with him what you will.”

Calmly, he turned around and cantered across the wide stretch of ground between them and the inn on the edge of the Heath.

Tony made haste to motion the man off his horse with a twitch of his pistol before handing his weapon to Darius. He strode across to fasten their prisoner’s hands behind his back. The man stubbornly refused to move until he shoved him in the back.

Then he came out with a torrent of Italian. They had not even the wit to employ an English speaker. Nothing would have proved his guilt as much as that, someone speaking the language of the court in exile.

Marcus beckoned to Tony and murmured to him, “I’ll have him talking before we reach the house, and I care not what language he uses. I presume the others have nothing to identify them. We shall report the unfortunate incident on our return to town.”

“We’ll do that,” Darius said. “No need to even say you were there. According to our story, your wife was taken ill and you decided to cut your journey short. Tony and I decided to go ahead to Leicestershire.”

“And what about me?” Ivan demanded.

Darius snorted. “If you think I’m taking you to Leicestershire looking like that, you had better think again.”

Marcus turned his back on the carnage. The men were evidently dead. Their horses nuzzled at their bodies, but they would leave the animals here. The next traveler along would find them. The air stank of blood and burning powder, a pungent, offensive smell he would probably associate with this scene for some time to come.

“I have business ten miles away,” he said. “This is done.”

Viola had not ridden astride for some time, but she found the task easy once she recalled her childhood racing around the estate. Once learned, never forgotten. She hardly noticed the distance as she rode, surrounded by her protectors, for ten miles. The journey was uneventful, and in other circumstances, she would have enjoyed it, but anxiety for her husband took all pleasure away for her.

If she had been less concerned, the house they arrived at would have enchanted her. A riverside villa, the sun warming its honey stone, greeted their eyes. The man at the gate swung it open for them, as if expecting them. Of course he was. Marcus had been meticulous in his preparations. He would not have been Marcus if he had not.

Her stomach in knots, she let Val help her dismount, gave him a brief word of thanks, and let Tranmere take her indoors.

They entered by a side door into a cool, black-and-white marble tiled hall. A maid bobbed a curtsey. “Good afternoon, my lady. May I show you to a room where you may change and refresh yourself?”

“Thank you.”

The cantilevered stairs led to a broad corridor painted cream with landscape paintings adorning the walls—very restrained and not at all like what she would associate with the flamboyant Julius. This appeared more like the home of a moneyed Cit or a well-to-do gentleman.

Tranmere and she followed the maid to a set of double doors.

The maid opened them with a flourish and bowed her through. “You need to get something to drink and perhaps rest,” she said.

The redoubtable footman shook his head. “I’ll stay here, my lady, until somebody comes to relieve me. Master’s orders are to guard you until he comes, or until we receive news.”

Her heart sank when she heard the rider. That meant he didn’t know if he would come or not, the implication being he could be killed. Her throat tightened in anticipation of tears she refused to allow to fall. Not yet. Not at all. She refused to think of the alternative.