Authors: Jillian Hart
They hit the hedgerow again. The sharp crunch of a broken wheel came seconds before the back right side of the carriage dropped to the ground. Sparks burst up as the metal axle struck rocks beneath the hedge.
The front of the carriage struck something in the hedgerow and slammed to a stop. Cat flew forward, banging into the other seat. The heat box careened toward the door, but did not break open. Sophia fell to the floor and moaned.
Cat pushed herself up by grasping a window. The carriage slanted toward the hedgerow but not so much that they would not be able to get out.
“Sophia?” she whispered, unable to speak louder.
Her sister slowly raised her head. A bruise was already darkening along her left cheek. “Are you all right, Cat?”
“Yes.” Every muscle ached, and she guessed she had bruises of her own.
A horse screeched in pain and terror.
Cat exchanged a glance with her sister and then reached for the door.
It opened before she could touch it. Jonathan called, “Are you all right? Are either of you hurt?”
“We are fine,” Cat replied. “What about you?”
“Nothing that time won't heal.” He pulled his hat lower as a line of blood seeped out of his hair.
“You are bleeding!” She pushed the door farther open and grabbed the sides to pull herself out. She ignored his caution about her thin slippers being useless in the rapidly accumulating snow. Jumping down, she cringed when she heard the horse scream again.
“I am fine.” He pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of his greatcoat. Jamming it beneath his hat, he flinched as the cotton brushed against his wound. “One thing you learn in battle is that even the most minor injury to the skull causes a lot of bleeding.”
“What happened?”
“Something burst out of the hedgerow and onto the road in front of us. The horses panicked.” He looked down at his gloves that were torn from where he had held the reins so tightly that the leather had cut through them. “I need to check the horses.”
Cat put her hand on his arm to steady him as he reeled forward. How badly
was
he hurt?
As if she had asked that question aloud, he shrugged off her hand. He walked stiffly through the snow toward the front of the carriage, and she followed. She gasped when she saw both horses down, tangled in the straps connecting them to the carriage. Jonathan motioned for her to stay where she was. Biting her lower lip, she watched, hoping that he would not be kicked by one of the panicked horse's hooves.
He sliced the straps from the traces. One horse scrambled up. It turned and raced toward Meriweather Hall. He leaped forward to grasp the leather flapping from the other horse as it came to its hooves. The horse screamed and rose on its back legs. He stumbled back, pushing Cat out of the way.
When the horse came down on all four hooves, he jumped toward it. His fingers closed on nothing as the horse sped after the other one.
Cat stared after it, too shocked to move.
When Jonathan put his hand on her arm, he said, “You should get back inside the carriage. You are going to freeze your feet. My toes are cold, and I have boots. Get inside while I see what the damage is to the carriage.”
She started to protest, then became silent as he walked away. She went to where Sophia called to her from the open doorway. Her sister gently probed the bruise on her cheek. Scooping up some snow, Cat handed it to Sophia who held it against her cheek.
“Thank you, Cat. That eases the throbbing.”
“Use it only for a few seconds. Otherwise it will give you frostbite.”
Sophia nodded. “Where is Mr. Bradby?”
“Checking the damage to the carriage. He needs to get in out of the storm, too. I will be right back. I wantâI shouldâ” Cat was startled to realize she had no idea what she wanted. That was not quite true. She wanted Jonathan to love her as she loved him. That did not seem likely, because she was adrift as she never had been, not even after Roland died.
Sophia gave her a gentle shove. “Go. With that wound on his head, he must feel even worse than we do.”
She wondered if that was possible.
* * *
Jonathan was not surprised to see Cat had not gotten back into the carriage. He had hoped thatâfor onceâshe would heed his request. Trying to make his eyes focus, he strode to her. He was determined not to show any sign of how much his head swam with each step.
He was not very successful, because she rushed forward to put her arm around his waist and steer him into the lee of the carriage where the wind was less biting.
“How are you?” she asked.
Instead of answering her, he checked under the coachee's seat. He found a gun, but if there had been more balls and powder, they must have fallen out when he lost control of the carriage. By now, the snow would have buried them.
“You need to get in the carriage and stay warm as long as you can,” he said.
When she began to protest, he scooped her up in his arms and slogged through the snow. There must be more than two inches of new snow on the ground, and, if possible, it was falling even faster. He had never seen snow pile up so fast. Maybe the wind was making it drift, but he knew better than to expect the weather to change because he wished it to. He had learned that during his months of living through blistering heat on the Iberian Peninsula.
Cat put her arm around his shoulders and nestled her head against his neck. He savored her slight weight in his arms, as he turned her so her heart beat against his. Holding her strengthened him and made his steps more sure, even as he struggled to keep his mind on getting her into the carriage, when all he wanted to do was kiss her again.
When he placed her on her feet in the sloping carriage, his arms felt too empty. He climbed up behind her and closed the door.
“Sit here,” Miss Meriweather ordered, shifting on the seat so Cat could sit facing her. “You both need to be close to the heat box.” She frowned when Jonathan opened his mouth. “Do not resort to gallantry, Mr. Bradby. I have been sitting by it the whole time. If you don't get warm and dry out a bit, then both of you will be sick. I shall not have you sneezing during my wedding.”
Cat chuckled as he sat beside her. Sophia edged closer to the heat box, and they took care that their knees did not bump.
He looked from Cat to her sister and back. “Miss Meriweather, we are stuck here. We have no horses, and the weather is getting even worse. You and Cat are not dressed for walking any distance.”
“Then we shall wait,” Cat said with a courage that he had to envy. “Someone will be along soon when we fail to show up at the church.”
He shook his head.
“Of course they will,” Cat insisted. “They will come looking for us.”
“Not here.” The carriage door blew open. He pulled it closed and latched it. “I took a different route than the other carriages.”
“What?” gasped Miss Meriweather.
“Randolph told me the road closer to the cliffs is quicker. I saw the storm coming, and I thought we had a chance of beating it if we came this way.”
“So he knows where we are?” Cat hunched into her pelisse as an icy wind chased snow into the carriage.
“No. He mentioned that to me days ago, so, if anyone asks him, he most likely will assume that we took the usual road into the village.”
Cat flinched along with her sister. “So nobody knows where we are?”
“The first horse was headed in the direction of Meriweather Hall. When it gets there, the stablemen will know something is amiss. They can track its hoof prints back to us.”
“See?” Cat said to her sister. “All is not lost.”
But Jonathan's eyes were shadowed with worry. He was trying to give them hope, when he had little. The snow was piling up, and any sign of the horse's route would quickly disappear.
He stretched past Cat and began rolling down the curtain on the window in the one door they could still open. He looked to tie it down, but the hooks were broken off. He tried tying it to the small piece left. It was futile.
“Can I help?” Cat asked.
“Do you see any way to keep this from flapping in the wind?”
She moved to sit on the other seat and ran her fingers along the side of the carriage. “No, there is nothing close enough.” Suddenly she smiled. “Wait a minute.” She took off her bonnet and undid the ribbon holding up her hair.
As the dark waves washed down over her shoulders, Jonathan stared. Her lush curls teased his fingers to comb through them as he brought her mouth to his. Even from where he sat, the light fragrance of cinnamon drifted from her hair. It was intoxicating, and he fought to keep a new wave of dizziness from sending him into oblivion.
He forced his eyes to focus and discovered that she had tied her ribbon to a curtain cord. She was able to lash it around a hook beneath the window beside her. The curtain still flapped, but only on one side.
“Excellent,” he said. “We need to conserve what little heat we have in here. We might be here for a while.”
Miss Meriweather collapsed into sobs, startling Jonathan. He had never seen Cat's sister lose control of her emotions.
Cat put her arms around her sister. “We will be fine,” she said, giving Jonathan a silent plea to help her console her sister.
He took Miss Meriweather's hands in his and waited until she looked at him. Pulling a second handkerchief from beneath his coat, he handed it to her.
“You don't want those tears to freeze to your face, do you?” he asked.
He was rewarded by Miss Meriweather's smile and Cat's quick nod. He was glad he had chosen the right way to bring Miss Meriweather out of the dolefuls.
“You always carry two handkerchiefs?” Miss Meriweather asked.
“Any wedding I have ever attended has more tears than handkerchiefs, so I thought to be prepared.”
“But now there isn't going to be any wedding,” groaned Miss Meriweather.
“Nonsense,” Cat said. “Whether it is today or another day, you and Charles will get married. Think how you will laugh in the years to come as you tell the story of our misadventures.”
Jonathan listened as Cat continued to bolster her sister. He remained silent, while he tried to decide what they should do. He was not exactly sure how far they had come. If Randolph was right, and this road was shorter, they must be about halfway between Meriweather Hall and the church. None of them were in any condition to walk the distance.
“I saw something!” Miss Meriweather pulled back the loose curtain on the door.
“What?” Jonathan sat straighter.
“Look! A light!” She jabbed a finger toward a faint glow coming along the road from the direction of the village. “We have been found.”
Jonathan smiled and quickly untied the curtain. He rolled it up so they could watch the lights come closer. “We still may get there in time for the wedding.”
“By the motion of the lights, I would say they are walking.” Miss Meriweather squinted through the snow. “They won't have any way to help us reach the church.”
“If they are out in this storm,” Cat said, “they must live close by. Maybe they will have a wagon or horses to hook to the carriage.”
Miss Meriweather's smile returned. “I hope you are right.”
“We should gather what we don't want to leave behind.” Cat bent toward the floor, groping around the metal box that gave off less heat with every passing second.
Tearing his gaze from the lights, Jonathan asked, “Did you lose something important? Leave it for now. We can come back once the storm blows itself out.”
“My book! It must have fallen out of my pocket when the carriage rocked.”
He bent to join the search, and she had to draw back so their heads did not bump. He stretched out his arm to sweep the floor with one smooth motion. Was that her book back in the far corner?
“Cat, don't move!” Miss Meriweather screamed in terror.
He dropped what he had found. Straightening, he asked, “What...?”
He stared in disbelief at a pistol stuck through the window. It was aimed directly at Cat's heart.
Chapter Fifteen
J
onathan heard Cat's quick intake of breath. He kept his eyes focused on the men standing beside the carriage. Even if it had not been snowing so hard, he doubted he would be able to describe any of them other than greatcoats with raised collars and felt hats with brims that sagged over their faces almost to the kerchiefs covering their mouths and noses. Beneath the clinging snow on the wool coats were more white lines that could have been salt stains, but he did not need that clue to warn him that these men were some of the faceless Sanctuary Bay smugglers.
When the man motioned with the pistol for them to get out, Jonathan considered for a brief second begging the men to have compassion for the women. He said nothing. If the men cared about the Meriweather sisters, the pistol would have been pointed at him instead of Cat.
He stepped out of the tilting carriage, then helped both women. He kept his hands on their backs as they walked around the carriage and to the middle of the narrow road. A quick shove might be the only way he could save their lives if one of the smugglers decided to use a gun. When they stopped, facing the mob, he stepped in front of the women. He was one man against twenty or more, but he would fight to protect Cat and Miss Meriweather.
Be by my side, Lord. Turn the tide in our favor, and watch over us. Be our shepherd and hold off these sea wolves.
“What are you doing here?” demanded a muffled voice.
Jonathan wondered if it was only his imagination, but the voice sounded almost familiar. And why not? He probably had greeted each of these men at some point on the beach below the village. Then they had been pleasant, giving no sign of the treachery hiding deep in their souls.
“We slid into a snowbank on our way to Miss Meriweather's wedding.” He saw no reason not to be honest. Maybe if they thought he was going to be straight with them, they would not suspect if he had to resort to lies to protect Cat and her sister.
The men conferred among themselves, surprising him. He clenched his hands by his sides. That not all the men knew about the wedding at the village church suggested that not every smuggler was from the Sanctuary Bay village. The network must be far larger and better organized than anyone at Meriweather Hall had guessed.
That was a disturbing discovery, not just for him, but for Cat who had clearly come to the same conclusion. Her face was so colorless that he could see a large bruise on her chin. He had not noticed it before, and she had not complained. Not that he would have expected her to.
For one minute, then two, the smugglers whispered so Jonathan could not hear. Were they arguing about what to do? Or were they debating how to do it?
He looked past them but could not see far into the snowstorm. Had they been missed at the church yet? Lady Meriweather had seen her daughters get into the carriage, so she knew they should have arrived right after her. How he wished he had Meriweather and Northbridge at his back now!
A man who had not spoken before stepped forward and said, “We will tek t' bride wi' wee.”
“Pardon?” He could not understand the man's thick Yorkshire accent.
The man pushed his face closer to Jonathan's and snarled, “Ah sez we will tek t' bride wi' wee.”
“Shout all you want, but I can't understand you. Speak the King's English, man.”
The man pulled his hand back as his fellows egged him on, and Jonathan prepared himself to block the blow. It did not come because Cat stepped in front of him.
She turned to face him, then flung her arms around him. Snide remarks filled the air, but she whispered, “He said they want to take the bride with them. Don't let them take her, Jonathan.”
“C'mun,” growled the man. “We dooant 'av orl day. Wea'ar takin' t' bride. Naw!”
He did not need anyone to translate that for him. He understood enough to know the smugglers were getting impatient.
“Why do you want the bride?” he asked.
“So you and the other one will be mute as a fish until we are done with our business.” That was the first man who had spoken; the man did not use the hard-to-understand Yorkshire pronunciations. “We will bring her back unhurt by morning's first light, if you do not try to follow us. Come after us, and she dies.”
“Do you think I will agree to such an absurd offer?” He clenched his fists, ready to defend them.
The smugglers swarmed forward. He pushed Cat behind him but heard her scream. He whirled to see her in the clutches of a stocky man. He leaped forward to drive his fist into the man's face.
He stopped when he saw something flash behind Cat. A knife! A deadly knife aimed at someone he would give his life for.
Instantly the cold vanished, and sun blinded him. Shouts battered his skull. He could not grasp the words but recognized the sounds of panic and fury. Guns firing. Men screaming. Men dying. The odors of blood and death sickened him. He coughed, but the reek tainted every breath he drew. The roar of cannon fire escalated until he thought his ears would burst.
But he focused on the blade. He raised his gun to knock it away. Where was his gun? He did not have a gun! With a roar, he launched himself at the man holding it. This time, he would not trip over his own feet. This time, he would keep the blade away. This time, he would be a true hero.
Something struck him from behind. He heard Cat's scream. What was she doing on the battlefield?
Cat! Cat, run away!
Her horrified expression went with him into a black nothingness lit with bright flashes of pain.
* * *
Pain.
Flashes of red-hot pain.
Even thinking hurt.
He had to get out of there. Before the French overran their position and killed them all. He could not be dead. Not yet. He hurt too much.
“Slowly,” a soft voice crooned. “Don't make any sudden moves until you are wide awake.”
Sudden moves were the last things Jonathan would consider doing when his head was wrapped with fiery iron and someone was striking it with a hammer.
He faded in and out of consciousness, but the pain never diminished. Each time he was slightly awake, the soft voice offered comfort and never prodded him to do more than listen.
A soft voice that spoke in English.
A soft voice that belonged to a woman.
Then he opened his eyes.
He blinked, trying to make sense of what he saw. A low dark roof that seemed to be at an angle. He shifted his eyes and stared at a snowy branch sticking through a window. He raised his gaze to see Cat's pretty face above his, barely lit by the faint glow from the flickering lamps near the roof. He was lying with his head on her lap.
He pushed himself up to sit as memories burst into his head. Memories of the smugglers. Memories of the French. Memories that seemed to be a mixture of both. What had happened? Was any of it real? Pain rippled in the wake of the memories, and he had to support his head on his hands. Icy hands. The cold as much as anything else stripped away the last of the cobwebs in his mind.
The battles against the French were in the past. Not today. Yet he would have taken an oath that a knife had been aimed at Cat by a Frenchman. He remembered how Northbridge suffered from horrible nightmares. Had Jonathan had a waking one? Was that even possible?
He had no answers for that, and Cat would not, either. But there was one question he had to ask her.
“How long?”
Cat said, “At least a couple of hours. I have lost track of time, but the sun went down some time ago.” Her words were bitten off by her chattering teeth. “I don't know how much longer the lamps will last.”
As if on cue, the lamp closer to the hedgerow sputtered and died.
He looked outside the carriage. It was snowing so hard that he could not see the hedgerow on the other side of the narrow road. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
He glanced around the carriage, then wished he had made the motion more slowly. “Where is your sister?”
“They took her. Just as they said they would.”
He moaned. Less from the pain than from his failure to protect those who depended him.
Again.
“They shoved you back in here,” she went on, “and left after reminding me that Sophia's life depended on us complying with their orders.”
Jonathan rubbed his cold hands together near the heat box which gave only a faint ghost of warmth. “Will you be all right here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I am going after them.”
“Don't be absurd.” She seized his coat sleeve so hard that he heard threads snap. “You can't go after them.”
“Cat, I know how to take care of myself. I survived the war, after all.”
“But I want
everyone
to survive this. Don't go after them. If you do, they will not hesitate to kill both Sophia and you.”
He stared out the door. It would be simple to track the smugglers. Even though the snow had filled in their footprints, there were other ways to track them. He had refined his skills by creeping up on French camps to reconnoiter before a battle. So many men could not travel without leaving some signs of their passage. All he had to do was follow them to find the smugglers...and Sophia. He could rescue her, making sure she was uninjured, and he could unmask the smugglers.
At last, he would be the hero everyone already believed him to be.
He heard a sob and swiveled with care on the seat to look at Cat. She had her hands over her face, and her shoulders quaked with fear.
Putting a hand on her arm, he brushed her loosened hair back beneath the crushed brim of her bonnet. When had she put her bonnet back on? How had her bonnet been damaged? “Cat, I will be careful. I promise you. I willâ”
“Didn't you hear them? If we give chase, they will kill her.” With a sob, her voice broke. “On her wedding day, they will kill her. Please, Jonathan, I know you are a brave man and a great hero, but you are only one against all those smugglers. They mean what they say, just as they did when they hung that effigy of Jobby in the wood.”
He almost told her that he must go after the smugglers, so he could prove he truly was a hero.
Then his shoulders sagged, and he sighed. No argument he could give Catâor himselfâwould lessen the risk to both women if he chased after the smugglers. He had no doubts that, if he were caught, the criminals would come back and kill Cat.
He could not risk Cat.
He could not risk Sophia.
He could not be a hero.
The price of making the lie into the truth was too high.
Cat must have seen his decision on his face. “Thank you, Jonathan.”
He ached to kiss her, but the thought of moving brought a fresh rush of pain. He had only enough strength to lean his head back against the tilted seat.
Lord, I hope I made the right decision. Watch over Cat and Sophia and keep them safe. What happens to the lie doesn't matter any longer.
* * *
Cat said nothing as Jonathan closed his eyes. She gauged the slow rise and fall of his chest. When that beast had struck him with a pistol, she had feared that Jonathan was dead. Her ears still rang with their malicious laughter, as they had tossed him into the carriage as if he were a net of fish. She had resisted when they had ordered her into the carriage, too, and she had paid with more bruises. Her left eye was sure to be black by the morning. She had gotten in a few blows of her own, but no satisfaction, because, while she was forced into the carriage by some of the smugglers, others took Sophia away.
How long would it take those curs to finish whatever business they had? And would they bring Sophia back when they were done? She had no reason to believe their promises.
But she had to believe them. Otherwise, she would have to accept that her sister might already be dead.
Staring at the storm, she leaned her head back against the seat. The wind did not blow so hard when she huddled into a corner of the carriage. It was a bit warmer. Not enough to be comfortable, but enough so that every breath she took was not an icy knife in her lungs. The box on the floor gave off so little heat she could no longer feel it through her pelisse.
She drew up her feet beside her and leaned into the carriage's wall. How much longer before Cousin Edmund and Charles found them? She closed her eyes. It would be for the best if they did not come until Sophia was delivered back to them. Otherwise, the smugglers might believe that the men from Meriweather Hall were hunting them.
How dismayed her family and friends must have been when their carriage never arrived at the church! Mr. Fenwick would have done his best to keep everyone calm, so the children were not frightened. Dear Vera would have sat with Mother, keeping her company while the men debated what to do.
Come now,
Cat wanted to shout, but the words never reached her lips. Not that it mattered because her friends and her family were too far away as the storm roared around them. She wished she could see their faces outside the carriage, and they all could return to Meriweather Hall and get warm. Warm beneath a stack of blankets with a cup of hot chocolate.
She imagined holding the steaming cup in her hands. The rich aroma of chocolate made her mouth water. As she raised the cup, she heard, “Cat...”
She waited for the speaker to continue. When he did not, she started to take a sip again.
“Cat...”
Why wouldn't he just let her have a sip of the hot chocolate? Just breathing it in made her feel nice and warm.
“Cat...” Jonathan! Why was Jonathan keeping her from having her hot chocolate?
“Cat...”
“Cat...”
“Cat...”
At the repetition of her name, she tensed. Why didn't someone say something other than her name?
“Cat...”
Vexed, she whirled to face the man. Her cup flew from her hand and shattered. She jerked out of her reverie.
No, not reverie.
Dream.
She had fallen asleep. Sleeping in this cold would lead to freezing to death.