Parfit Knight (4 page)

It occurred to
the Marquis – but being precisely what he had expected, he did not
allow it more than a passing thought. Indeed, he considered the
episode both trivial and finished … and would have been very
surprised had he known then how much trouble was still to come from
it.

*

By two o’clock
the Marquis’s elegant travelling-chaise was bowling north towards
Ware and at a half after four, it halted at the Green Man in
Waltham Cross for a change of horses. After one glance at the
rapidly darkening sky, his lordship declined to enter the inn but
stayed only while the change was completed. He had known before
leaving town that he had no chance of reaching his destination
before nightfall but he certainly hoped to do so before the
promised snow became a reality. The weather, he thought resignedly,
was already responsible for his making the journey inside the
chaise with Saunders instead of perched behind his greys in the
phaeton – and that was more than enough. He had no wish to
benighted.

In the eyes of
those who served him, Lord Amberley was possessed of only one
eccentricity – a minor foible which did no harm except to establish
a lively rivalry between his head coachman and his chief groom. It
was simply that he preferred, whenever possible, to drive himself –
which meant that while the coachman sat behind the kitchen table
staring morosely into a pint of ale, the groom sat behind the
Marquis and enjoyed the freedom of tap-rooms the length and breadth
of the country. And today, as he hauled himself back on to the box,
Chard could not help dwelling bitterly on the fact that life was
demonstrably unfair.

Inside the
chaise, the Marquis leant back against the velvet squabs with
closed eyes. His breathing was even, his body swayed easily with
the motion of the carriage and anyone seeing him could have been
pardoned for thinking that he slept.

Jim Saunders,
though he rarely travelled in his master’s company, knew better.
Amberley was not asleep and neither was he as relaxed as he
appeared. It was almost as though the very fact of being driven was
sufficient to make him tense – an odd trait in one otherwise so
rational. There did not seem to be any accounting for it.

By the time
Ware was reached it was pitch dark and the weather was worsening.
Flakes of snow settled on the coachman and his attendant groom and
stuck. The groom folded his arms tight across his chest in an
attitude of endurance. Chard, on the other hand, was audibly
unhappy.

‘Rot it!’ he
muttered as the off-leader stumbled in a rut. ‘Rot the lousy road
and rot the lousy weather. But ain’t it always the same?’

The groom did
not reply. He might be young and new to his position but he was
able to recognise a rhetorical question when he heard it.

‘Do I ever get
a nice little trip in the sun?’ Chard went on, warming to his
theme. ‘Do I ever go to Merton or Richmond or get a day at the
races? Oh no! It’s Keele as gets all that. I’m just the poor sod as
has to keep us out of the ditch in the dark – and if that ain’t
enough, I have to catch me death while I’m adoing it! Come hail,
come rain, come thunderstorm, here I sit driving his perishing team
– and now here we are heading into a blizzard in the bloody dark.
It ain’t fair!’

‘Why don’t you
leave him then?’ asked the groom unwisely.

‘Leave him?
Leave
him?’ Chard swelled with indignation. ‘I’ve been
driving him for ten years – and afore that, I drove his father. And
afore
that
, my
father
did it!’

This was
confusing. ‘But if you don’t like working for him … ‘ the groom
began.

‘Who said I
didn’t?’ demanded Chard, incensed. And then, ‘Idiot!’

Startled, the
groom begged pardon, dropped his chin on his chest and retreated
into the comparative safety of silence while he pondered the
incomprehensible complexities of human nature. And then he was
jerked suddenly upright by the sound of a shot passing over his
head.

‘What the --
?’

‘Fool!’ yelled
the coachman. ‘Use your blunderbuss!’

While the groom
fumbled with nerveless fingers for the weapon lying at his feet,
Chard whipped up his horses with the intention of running down the
two mounted figures in the road ahead. Then there was a second
explosion and the reins fell slack as the coachman slumped heavily
against his terrified companion.

At the sound of
the first shot, Saunders had leant swiftly across to drop a hand on
the Marquis’ arm.

‘Yes, Jim. I
heard it.’ His lordship did not move but his eyes were open and
alert. ‘I’d say the new man was a little slow with the gun,
wouldn’t you?’

And then came
the second shot and the vehicle lurched to a shuddering
standstill.

The Marquis
discouraged his valet from jumping down with a brief shake of his
head, while his right hand slid unhurriedly into his pocket. Aside
from that, he still did not move.

There was a
good deal of noise outside. Two rough voices were raised – one
commanding the groom to throw down his weapon and the other
berating someone called Joe for not shooting wide of his mark.
Amberley’s mouth tightened into a grim line and then the door of
the coach was wrenched open and the muzzle of a large pistol
inserted through it.

‘Empty your
pockets and be quick about it!’ said the voice responsible for
disarming the groom.

‘Go to hell,’
replied the Marquis calmly. And his hand came swiftly out of his
pocket.

There was a
sharp report; a little tongue of flame momentarily lit the darkness
and the shape at the door dropped where it stood. Almost before it
hit the ground, Amberley was out of the chaise into the swirling
snow and levelling a second pistol at the other highwayman who,
equally quick to react, dived headlong into the cover of the
trees.

The Marquis
lowered his arm and turned round to find his valet dispassionately
regarding the still body of Joe. ‘He’s dead, my lord. Half his head
blown off, by the look of it.’

Nodding curtly,
as if the matter held no interest for him, Amberley focussed his
attention on his coachman.

His arms still
frantically clutching Chard’s still figure, the young groom look
down into his employer’s unusually stern countenance and hurried
into speech.

‘My lord, I
swear I did my best. But we was took by surprise and Mr Chard
wouldn’t - -‘

‘Is he dead?’
The cold question halted the boy’s faltering excuses.

‘I – I d-don’t
know.’

The Marquis
lifted his foot to the step and swung himself lightly up to examine
Chard as best he could in the dark. His fingers located a
sluggishly-beating pulse and then, having opened the man’s coat,
came back wet with blood. The groom looked on horrified and began
excusing himself again.

‘Be quiet and
help me get him down,’ his lordship ordered crisply. ‘Jim – come
and lend a hand.’

‘Is it bad?’
asked Saunders, panting a little from the exertion of lifting the
coachman into the chaise. Chard was not a small man.

‘I don’t know.’
Amberley folded his handkerchief into a pad and then, finding it
insufficient, pulled off his ruffled cravat to press it over the
wound. ‘The bullet’s high in the shoulder but he’s bleeding very
heavily and needs better attention than we can give him here.’ He
cast his cloak over the inert body and stepped back on to the road.
‘Where the devil are we?’

‘I’m not sure,
my lord – but I think we’re three or four miles short of Hadham
Cross.’

‘Damnation.’
For once the Marquis was plainly unamused. ‘And nothing behind us
for the same distance back to Ware. Well, it won’t do. He’ll bleed
to death before we can get him there. Devil take it, there must be
something closer – even if it’s only a cottage!’ He picked up the
abandoned blunderbuss and tossed it up to the groom. ‘Here – and
try to keep it ready this time. Jim – get inside with Chard and
hold him as still as you can. I’m going to drive on and see what I
can find.’

The snow made
visibility uncertain and, within minutes, Amberley’s hair and coat
were thickly powdered with white. The groom, huddled inside his
frieze coat and nervously clutching the gun, wondered how his
lordship could drive without gloves – for even with them his own
hands were freezing.

But if the
Marquis felt the cold he gave no sign of it, tooling the chaise
expertly down the road whilst keeping a watchful eye over the top
of the hedgerow. Suddenly, he found what he’d hoped for; a pair of
wrought-iron gates and a lodge with lights at the windows. Swinging
his team off the road, Amberley sent the groom to rouse the keeper
and within minutes they were on the wide, curving drive which led
up to the house. Lights showed here too and the arrival of a
chaise-and-four outside the colonnaded entrance was enough to bring
the butler to the door before the Marquis had even reached the top
step.

‘Good evening,’
said his lordship briskly but with a hint of his usual charming
smile. ‘I apologise for the intrusion but I have a wounded man who
needs shelter and medical attention – preferably from a doctor.
Will you ask your master if I may bring him inside?’

The butler gave
a slight but very stately bow. ‘That will not be necessary, sir.’
The man in front of him might be excessively dishevelled and have
arrived on the box of his carriage, but Josiah Lawson knew a
gentleman when he saw one. Waving a lordly hand at a pair of
matching, green-liveried footmen, he said, ‘Thomas, Claude – your
assistance will be required.’ And, bowing again to Amberley, ‘If
you would care to step inside, sir?’

‘Thank you – in
a moment.’ His lordship was already on his way back to the chaise
with Thomas and Claude. ‘Lift him carefully and mind his left
shoulder. He’s been shot. Gently now.’

Once inside the
house, Chard was lowered full length on a satin-covered sofa while
the butler addressed himself once more to the Marquis.

‘My mistress
has been informed of your arrival, sir, and has instructed me to
have your man put to bed and to send a groom for the doctor -
subject, of course, to your approval.’

‘I would be
most grateful.’ Amberley’s eyes were still on the coachman’s ashen
face. ‘It’s a bullet-wound – did I say? The doctor will need to be
told.’

‘I will ensure
that he is informed of it, sir,’ replied Lawson. He motioned the
footmen to resume their burden. ‘The yellow chamber – and you may
undress him before summoning Mrs Reed.’

The Marquis
looked round at his valet. ‘Go with them, Jim and give what help
you can. I shan’t need you.’

Saunders, his
professional and artistic soul in torment over the picture of his
master – wet, blood-stained and lacking his cravat - would dearly
have loved to voice his disagreement with this statement but he
knew better than to attempt it. With a small, wooden bow which he
hoped conveyed some small part of his disapproval, he followed in
the wake of Thomas and Claude.

A gleam of
humour flickered in his lordship’s eyes but his mind was occupied
by matters a good deal more important than the state of his dress
and he turned back to the butler, saying rapidly, ‘I’m afraid that
I shall have to impose on your mistress’s hospitality at least
until I hear what the doctor has to say – but after that, I’ll
naturally remove myself to the nearest inn. Meanwhile, perhaps my
groom could take my horses to your stables? They will need rubbing
down if they’re not to take cold.’

Lawson bowed
but, before he could answer, the Marquis added one final request,
palpably an after-thought. ‘Ah yes – and while your man is out
fetching the doctor, it might be possible for him to deliver a
message to either the parish constable or the magistrate. My
coachman was shot when we were set upon by two highwaymen. One of
them made good his escape but the other is lying on the road about
a mile south of your gates. He ought, I imagine, to be
removed.’

‘Is he dead?’ a
musical and undoubtedly feminine voice enquired interestedly from
behind him.

‘He is most
certainly dead,’ responded Amberley, swinging round to face the
speaker. ‘I’m afraid that I … ‘ And there he stopped, his breath
deserting him with an impact that was almost painful.

She stood at
the foot of the stairs, gowned in amber silk and cream lace, one
small hand resting lightly on the carved newel; and she was the
most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Softly gleaming hair,
black as night, rippled back from a smooth, white brow and left
tiny, curling tendrils around a heart-shaped face of ineffable
sweetness. Eyes, heavily fringed with sweeping lashes and so dark
he knew not if they were blue or black, gazed steadily at him from
beneath narrow, winged brows, while a faint smile tugged at the
soft curves of her mouth.

‘Yes?’ she
prompted him. ‘You are afraid that … ?’

‘That I killed
him,’ replied the Marquis mechanically. He was aware that he was
staring at her like a doltish schoolboy but there seemed to be
every excuse. Then, collecting his scattered wits, he smiled and
made her a deeply elegant bow. ‘I’m very grateful for your kindness
to my servant. Without it, I fear he may well have died.’

‘It’s nothing,’
she said pleasantly. Strangely, she did not curtsy in response to
his bow but started to cross the hall, her walk slow and infinitely
graceful. ‘We are more than happy to be able to help.’

The butler
moved to open the doors in front of her and then stepped back to
let her pass.

‘Thank you.’
She paused, half-turning towards Amberley. ‘Do come in to the fire,
sir. They tell me that it is snowing quite hard now and you must be
very cold.’

The Marquis was
suddenly acutely conscious of what five minutes ago had bothered
him not at all. His hair was wet and windswept, his coat creased
and blood-stained and his cravat upstairs with Chard. A faint flush
stained his cheeks and he hesitated, casting a glance of comic
appeal at the butler.