Brighton Road (12 page)

Green.

Ravenel's startled gaze registered a splash
of green bare seconds before his body struck the ground. But it
couldn't be grass, the ridiculous thought flashed through his mind.
Grass couldn't possibly be so damned hard.

The impact of his fall drove the breath from
his lungs and sent him rolling over and over until he at last
thudded to a halt. Closing his eyes tight, he attempted to dispel
the black webbing that danced before him, to banish the ringing
from his ears. His mind was a blur of confusion, except for the
urgent need to draw a gulp of air into his pain-racked chest.

Several shuddering breaths later, the world
finally seemed to stop spinning beneath him. He was lying flat on
his back and something cold was brushing against his face. Forcing
his eyes open, Ravenel focused on Spotted Bert's nose but a
fraction from his own. The dog whined, then licked his cheek.

With a low groan, he shifted onto his side
and cursed, trying to prevent Bertie from nuzzling his ear. One
hand crushed a dandelion. He glanced down at it, his mind yet
numbed with shock, trying to make some sense of his surroundings.
He appeared to be sprawled in a pasture, marooned in the middle of
nowhere with not so much as a cottage visible or another living
thing except Miss Vickers's dog.

Miss Vickers! The carriage. Memory sliced
through his throbbing head like the cold, sharp edge of a razor. He
had been thrown from the carriage. Regardless of the pain that
throbbed along his bruised flesh, Ravenel jerked up onto one elbow,
his gaze whipping down the narrow ribbon of dirt road to a point
some hundred or so yards distant. His blood froze when he saw the
carriage tipped into a ditch, the only figure in sight that fool of
a coachman weaving on his feet as he struggled to cut the snorting,
plunging horses free of the traces.

But where was Miss Vickers? Jarvis? Dreadful
imaginings jolted through the baron, of both the lady and his valet
yet trapped inside the coach, possibly bleeding and unconscious.
Spurred by panic, he managed to drag himself to his feet. He limped
from the meadow with Bertie trailing at his heels.

As soon as he drew near the road, he was
relieved to see Miss Vickers and Jarvis helping to ease the footman
on the grassy bank just above the ditch. James was wailing in a
most unmanly fashion.

When Bertie barked, Miss Vickers's head
snapped in Ravenel's direction. Releasing her hold on James, she
came running down the road, her bonnet flying back, held only by
its strings. Ravenel was excessively grateful to note that except
for the pallor of her cheeks and the tear at the waist of her gown,
she seemed to have taken no ill effects from the accident. As
Bertie raced toward his mistress, the baron paused, expecting that
Miss Vickers, overjoyed to find her pet unharmed, would embrace the
dog.

He was therefore unprepared when she shoved
past Bertie and flung herself against him, the fierceness of her
hug nearly sending them both tottering over backward.

"Thank God," she cried, muffling her face
against his chest. "I thought you must have been killed."

"Er, yes," Ravenel said gruffly. He could not
recall anyone ever becoming this distraught over the prospect of
his death, There was no doubting the genuineness of her distress.
She was making no attempt to weep prettily, as Miss Carruthers
would have done. Her breath came in great gulping sobs as she
wreaked absolute havoc upon what remained of his cravat His arms
closed about her and he patted her back. "There now, Miss
Vickers... Gwenda, my dear. Please, you must not upset
yourself."

"B-but you terrified me half to death:' She
sniffed. "What possessed you to try such a mad thing?"

"I will admit it was not the most prudent
thing I have ever done," he agreed soothingly. He cradied Gwenda
closer, finding the sensation of her soft curves molding against
him very agreeable.

But his sense of propriety and responsibility
all too quickly reasserted itself. He could not stand here in the
middle of the road embracing Gwenda while Jarvis stood anxiously
awaiting him, the footman continued to howl, and that dolt of a
coachman was doing God knew what to those horses.

Ravenel eased Gwenda away from him. She wiped
her eyes with her knuckles, looking a little flustered and
mortified by her own tears. "It would seem the only one injured is
poor James," she said with a quavery smile. "What good fortune we
have had."

"Yes," he agreed, dubiously, rolling his eyes
skyward. If this was Gwenda's notion of good fortune, she was going
to be positively ecstatic when those storm clouds gathering over
their heads broke. He turned and strode toward the embankment as
quickly as his bruised hip would allow.

For a moment Ravenel feared even his stately
Jarvis meant to fall upon his neck and weep for joy to find him yet
in one piece. But although appearing much shaken, the old man as
ever maintained his dignity. Gwenda skirted past Ravenel to bend
down beside the footman, who sniveled and clutched his ankle.

Encouraged by Gwenda's murmur of sympathy,
James wailed, "Ohhh, It is me leg, miss. I've broken it sure."

"Nonsense," she said bracingly. "If you had
done that, the shaft of the bone would likely be protruding through
your flesh and—"

Before she could reduce the lad to total
hysterics, the baron nudged her aside and made a cursory inspection
of James's foot himself. It was not easily done since the footman
screeched like a banshee before Ravenel had laid so much as a
finger on the injured area.

At last he pronounced, "No, It is not broken.
Most likely the bone is but chipped, or it is a very nasty sprain.
As soon as we—"

Ravenel broke off as another squeal pierced
the air, but this one did not originate from the unfortunate James.
Rather, it was an equine cry of fear. The horses and Fitch. The
baron straightened abruptly, feeling harried.

He spun about to peer at the front of the
upset carriage. Fitch had managed to cut the horses loose, but now
as the overexcited animals milled about, the coachman cowered back,
wielding his whip as though surrounded by a pack of savage
beasts.

"Stop that!" Ravenel bellowed, heading toward
the man, but Fitch had already caught one of the leaders on the top
of its nose. The horse reared back and then charged down the road,
rapidly followed by the other three.

"No! Damnation!" Although every muscle in
Ravenel's body shrieked in protest, he leaped down the bank and
over the ditch and tore off after the horses. But even if he had
been in top form, the pursuit would have been futile. The last
horse he had backed at Newmarket should have set such a pace as
those four, Ravenel thought bitterly.

He staggered to a halt, clutching his side,
and watched their only hope of riding for help vanishing in a cloud
of dust. Gwenda drew up breathlessly at his side, holding up her
skirts.

"Well," she said, "At least we know that none
of the horses were injured, either. We really have been remarkably
lucky. I am sure the team will not go far and we will have no
difficulty finding them."

The glare Ravenel shot her caused even
Gwenda's unquenchable smile to waver. He thought he had held up
well until now, considering he was not in the least accustomed to
being flung out of carriages or finding his traveling schedule
overset by unnecessary accidents. But this last bit of idiocy on
the part of the Vickerses' coachman was entirely too much for any
sane man to bear.

"Madam," he growled, "if I were a horse, I
would flee all the way to hell before I let that cow-handed fool
come near me again."

Whipping about, Ravenel advanced on Fitch,
his wrath swelling with every painful step. But the coachman showed
not the least sign of alarm, not even when the baron seized him by
the collar of his driving cape. Rather, it was the baron who
recoiled at the heavy odor of stale gin reeking from the man.

Despite the goose egg forming on his
forehead, Fitch was obviously feeling no pain. He went limp,
directing a muzzy smile past Ravenel at Gwenda.

"Was brave thish time, Mish Vickers," he
mumbled. "Took care 'o the 'orses to the lasht."

With that, Fitch rolled up his eyes and sank
against the baron in a heap. Ravenel lowered him to the ground none
too gently, but the man still curled up on the stone-strewn road as
blissfully as though it were a feather bed.

"Oh, dear." Gwenda sighed. "Fitch is foxed.
Again."

The word
again
went through Ravenel
like a cannon blast. "Again?" he asked with a most deadly calm.
"Miss Vickers, what do you mean `again'? Are you telling me that
your coachman has a habit of drinking?"

"I would not call it a habit, precisely. But
he does like a drop now and again to steady his nerves because ..."
She faltered in the face of his furious stare, then concluded
meekly, "Because he's afraid of horses."

"Afraid of horses?" Ravenel said through
clenched teeth. It was probably ridiculous to even ask for an
explanation, but for the sake of his own sanity, he felt he had to
know. "Then why the blazes did you allow him to drive your
coach?"

"It's rather a long story. You see, Papa
organized this musical society and Fitch has the most wonderful
baritone for singing catches and glees—"

"Perdition, madam!" Ravenel roared. "Do you
people ever hire your servants for normal, sane reasons like
everyone else does? Did it never occur to your father that a
coachman should have some experience, should feel comfortable
handling a team?"

Gwenda's chin jutted upward in a defensive
manner. "Papa always says that lack of experience should not bar a
man from obtaining a situation. If everyone thought the way you do,
my lord, how would anyone gain any experience to begin with?"

She sounded so entirely reasonable; it was he
who was shouting like a lunatic. That realization did nothing to
help Ravenel curb his temper. He raised his hands in a gesture rife
with frustration.

"You and your entire family are stark raving
mad. And I must be madder still to have ever traveled one inch in
your company."

Gwenda flushed bright red, but before she
could voice whatever comment trembled on the tip of her tongue,
Jarvis appeared, wedging himself between them.

"That will do, Master Desmond," he said
sternly, making Ravenel feel all of nine years old again. "Shouting
at the young lady will do naught to remedy our situation."

"There is not much else to be done," Ravenel
said, "when here we are, left stranded in the middle of who knows
where."

Gwenda bent sideways around Jarvis to peer at
Ravenel. "I know precisely where we are. Or almost. There is an inn
not more than a mile from here. I shall walk there and fetch
help."

"Hah!" Ravenel said. "You'll do nothing of
the kind. Do you think I would set you loose upon an innocent
countryside?"

"Master Desmond!" Jarvis looked positively
scandalized.

But the baron felt pushed well past the brink
of civility or any kind of gentlemanly behavior. Considering the
condition of the coachman and James's injury, it was patently
obvious to him who would be obliged to go trudging in search of
aid. But Miss Vickers hotly refuted the suggestion.

"You? You could not possibly find the place.
I have only the vaguest notion myself and would have no way of
giving you directions."

"And this," Ravenel sneered, "from the woman
who declares she knows precisely where we are."

As Gwenda bristled with indignation, Jarvis
quickly interposed, "It would seem that the most sensible solution,
my lord, would be for you to escort Miss Vickers—"

"I should as lief be escorted by Bertie,"
Gwenda interupted.

The baron also voiced his own objection to
this scheme. "No, Miss Vickers must stay with you, Jarvis. Do you
expect me to leave you alone to cope with one man injured and
another drunk?"

Jarvis drew himself up to his full dignity.
"I have been coping with all manner of disasters since well before
you were born, Master Desmond. But if you now think me such a
feeble old man, perhaps it is time I served you notice."

Ravenel bit back an oath. To add to all the
other disasters, now he had offended Jarvis. He paced a few furious
steps down the road, experiencing a discomfiting feeling of having
no control over the situation. At last he conceded with bad grace,
"Very well, I shall take you with me, Miss Vickers."

"How utterly noble of you," Gwenda said in a
voice dripping sarcasm.

"Because I am sure Jarvis will be far safer
if I do."

"Why, you—you—"

But his lordship did not give Miss Vickers a
chance to think up a name bad enough to call him. He moved quickly,
dragging the inert coachman off to the side of the road. He
examined the wrecked carriage to see if it would prove steady
enough to provide some sort of shelter and then settled Jarvis and
James inside, making them as comfortable as possible. With a mighty
heave, he managed to thrust Fitch's unconscious form onto the coach
floor.

He paused briefly in the midst of these
exertions to warn Gwenda, "We are going to have to hasten. The next
we know, we shall be caught in a thunder shower."

"It is not going to rain," she said loftily.
"I have seen those sort of clouds frequently before. They may
threaten all day, but the storm never breaks until well after
dark."

An hour later, Ravenel, Gwenda, and her dog
were yet shuffling wearily down the road, the woodland thickening
around them and overshadowing their path.

The baron hunched down, drawing up his
collar. "It is raining, Miss Vickers," he informed her in
long-suffering accents.

"I am perfectly aware of that, my lord,"
Gwenda snapped, feeling one large drop splash and trickle down the
back of her neck. Even Bertie's tail drooped, the water starting to
bead on his glossy black-and-white coat.