Authors: Lynsay Sands
“Get out,” he snapped, waving the pistol toward the door the moment the carriage stopped.
Suzette got out, and glanced back to see him eyeing her father grimly. Apparently deciding it was safe enough to leave the seemingly unconscious man, he muttered under his breath and followed her out, and then scowled when he saw her waiting for him. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get to it.”
“Here in the middle of nowhere?” she asked with feigned surprise.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “Get to it or we shall continue and you can wet yourself, alone. I shall ride on the top . . . where I can shoot your father if the two of you should try to jump out,” he added dryly when she considered his words.
Grimacing, Suzette sighed and turned toward the trees, muttering, “Very well.”
“Where are you going?” Jeremy asked
“Where do you think?” she asked sarcastically, continuing forward. “I am hardly going to tend matters here in front of you and your driver.”
Much to Suzette’s relief, he released a frustrated growl, but otherwise didn’t protest. Not that it would have prevented her carrying her plan forward, but he could have made things difficult. She continued to walk for several feet until she found a nice wide stretch of bush for coverage. Suzettte considered it briefly and then glanced around to survey the area before hunkering down. Once assured she was out of sight, she called, “Sing or something.”
“What?” Jeremy asked with amazement.
“Sing or recite a poem or something,” Suzette ordered. “I cannot go if I know you are listening.”
“Oh, for the love of—”
“It shall speed things along,” she promised him.
Suzette heard him mutter a string of oaths and then Jeremy shouted, “You sing or speak then.”
“I will not be able to concentrate on what I am doing if I am trying to sing or recite. Besides, I might grunt in the middle of it, and that would be as embarrassing as—”
“Oh, very well,” Jeremy snapped, interrupting her. Apparently, he didn’t have the stomach to want to hear exactly what she was claiming to be doing. In the next moment, Danvers began to recite the Lord’s prayer, which was rather sacrilegious to her mind considering that she suspected he’d burst into flames if he dared enter a church, but she wasn’t going to complain. Staying hunkered down, she moved to the side under the cover of the bushes until she reached a line of trees, then she raised to a half crouch and moved more quickly, weaving her way toward the lane, using the trees and bushes as cover. She continued forward until she was almost at the edge of the trees behind the carriage. Suzette then paused and glanced back, waiting for him to grow tired of reciting. She didn’t have long to wait.
“Are you not done yet?” Jeremy bellowed impatiently after the third recitation.
She remained silent.
“Suzette?” he called, suspicion entering his voice. When silence was his answer, he cursed in a most impious way and started trudging forward into the woods. “Dammit! Where are you?”
She watched silently as he stomped up to where she had been and began to search the area, not surprised when he turned back toward the carriage and bellowed, “Thompson! Get over here and help me find the little bitch.”
A slow smile spread Suzette’s lips, the first she’d enjoyed since receiving the letter she’d thought was from Daniel. Jeremy was doing exactly as she’d expected. She watched the driver climb down from the carriage and tramp through the high grass until he reached the trees and then she caught up her skirts and sidled closer to the edge of the trees offering her cover. The moment the man had joined his employer, Suzette slid out of the woods, hurried around the carriage and climbed quickly up onto the driver’s perch from the far side of the vehicle. She hadn’t even settled on the seat before she had the reins in hand, then Suzette grabbed up the driver’s whip and cracked it over the horses’ heads.
The horses burst forward at once, nearly sending her flying backward off her perch. She managed to keep her seat, and slapped the reins now. The horses immediately began to pick up more speed. Suzette glanced around then, not surprised to see Jeremy and his driver running toward the road. Knowing they would never catch up, she wasn’t concerned . . . until Jeremy suddenly stopped and aimed his pistol. She immediately ducked down, trying to make herself as small a target as she could.
At first, when Suzette heard the weapon’s report and felt nothing, she thought Jeremy had missed, but then she saw the horse on the side closest to Jeremy stumble and slam into the horse on the left as he fell. In the next moment, both horses were going down and pulling the carriage to the side with them. Suzette didn’t have time to think, she simply pushed herself up from the seat as the vehicle started to turn and threw herself away from it. She hit the ground with a bone-jarring crash and then, afraid she hadn’t thrown herself far enough and the carriage would crash down on top of her, she instinctively rolled several times before stopping.
Suzette raised her head then to glance around. She couldn’t see Jeremy and his driver, but the carriage had come to rest on its side several feet away. Ignoring the aches and pains assaulting her, she pushed herself to her feet and staggered back to the carriage, her only concern for her father. Still tied up, he would have been helpless to protect himself as the vehicle had rolled. Worry eating at her, she reached the carriage and—using the spare fifth wheel, coachman’s step and seat irons—managed to climb up onto the upturned side of the carriage. Once there she could see Jeremy and his driver rushing toward her, but ignored them and crawled to the carriage door to pull it up and open.
It was nearly dark now, but was darker still in the carriage, and at first she couldn’t make out much; but then Suzette began to be able to distinguish her father’s form crumpled against the door on the ground. Her breath caught in her throat as she noted how still he was, and for one moment, she feared he was dead.
“Father?” she breathed, not wanting to believe she’d killed him with her escape attempt. Much to her relief his dark shape shifted as if he were trying to turn and look at her and Suzette breathed a heartfelt, “Thank God.”
In the next moment she was grabbed from behind and dragged away from the opening. Danvers spoke, his breath brushing her cheek as he snapped, “Get the old man out of there, Thompson.”
Suzette glanced back to see the driver moving to kneel at the opening and survey the situation inside the cab of the carriage, and then Danvers was throwing her off the side of the overturned carriage . . . literally. He tossed her to the ground like she was a sack of waste. It wasn’t a far fall, perhaps six to eight feet, but even so it was painful. Suzette knew she no doubt had more new bruises on her body, which was already carrying several from her first hard landing. She was slower to rise this time and had to bite her tongue to keep from groaning as she became aware of her body’s complaints over its recent rough handling. It seemed to her it was worse now than the first time she’d got up, but supposed her worry for her father had raised her blood enough to keep her from noticing then.
“Get up,” Jeremy ordered grimly, but then grabbed her arm to jerk her up without waiting to see if she’d obey. He then gave her a shake with his grip on her arm and roared, “I ought to kill you right now.”
“My lord?”
Jeremy glared at her for another moment, and then turned to raise an eyebrow at his servant. “What?”
“He’s tied up,” the man said uncertainly with a nod toward the open carriage door.
Jeremy’s jaw tightened and he asked sharply, “Is that a problem?”
The man considered the question, and then tilted his head and said cagily, “Not if you were planning to give me a bonus or something . . . a permanent raise, say.”
Jeremy’s eyes narrowed grimly. “Very well. Now, get him out.”
The driver nodded and then lowered himself down through the open carriage door.
“Sit,” Jeremy snapped.
Suzette hesitated, but then sat on the grass at the side of the carriage. It seemed the smartest move at that point. Jeremy looked angry enough to throttle her, and she couldn’t run and just leave her father behind. Besides, her legs were a little shaky anyway. Sitting seemed like a good idea.
The moment she was down, Jeremy moved to the carriage and began poking around the driver’s seat area. A moment later, he headed back toward her with a second weapon in hand. She thought it was a blunderbuss, and supposed she shouldn’t be surprised the driver carried one. The roads were filled with highwaymen and bandits. No doubt the weapon came in handy.
Pausing beside her, Jeremy tucked the blunderbuss under his arm and proceeded to reload his pistol. The sight reminded Suzette of the horse he’d shot and she glanced toward the animals. The wounded one appeared to be dead, though she couldn’t tell for sure; however, it wasn’t moving. The other horse was still alive but tangled up in the reins and works and pinned to the ground by the dead horse. He was struggling to free himself, but wasn’t getting anywhere.
Suzette frowned and turned to Jeremy. “One of the horses is still alive, but it’s pinned. He can’t get up.”
Jeremy glanced toward the horses as he finished reloading, but then turned his attention to the carriage when the driver, Thompson, suddenly emerged from the cab. As they watched, he perched on the side of the carriage with his legs dangling into it through the opening. He then bent and pulled her father up and out to lie beside him, still bound. Within moments Thompson had both himself and her father on the ground.
Suzette eyed the older man with worry, glad to see that while he, like her, was a bit banged up, he seemed mostly fine.
“Good,” Jeremy said as Thompson led her father to stand in front of him. “Sit him on the ground next to his daughter.”
Thompson urged her father around to her side, and pushed on his shoulder to make him sit. He then glanced to Jeremy for further instruction.
“Now go see if the one horse can be saved.” Jeremy waved his freshly reloaded pistol toward the struggling animal.
The driver glanced to the horses and frowned. In the short time since she’d first looked, the live horse’s struggles were already growing weaker. She suspected the weight of the horse on top of him, along with his position, was smothering the poor creature, and guessed the driver had decided as much too when he said, “He won’t last the amount of time it would take me to free him. Besides, two carriage wheels broke in the turn, we can’t use the carriage anymore anyway.”
“Just check the damned horse,” Jeremy snapped.
Thompson scowled belligerently, but turned and stomped toward the horses. He hadn’t taken three steps when Jeremy retrieved the blunderbuss from under his arm and shot the man in the back. The driver barely seemed to hit the ground before Jeremy tossed the empty blunderbuss aside and turned his newly reloaded pistol on Suzette and her father. “Up.”
Suzette gaped at him and then turned to peer at the unmoving driver and back. “You just shot him. In the back. For no reason.”
“No one blackmails me,” he said coldly. “Now get up.”
She stared at him with disbelief, unable to believe anyone could be so cold. “But—”
“Shall I shoot your father too? Would that make you more agreeable?” he asked grimly.
“Hardly,” she snapped, her shock giving way to anger. “You wouldn’t be able to get me to do a damned thing if he was dead.”
“I didn’t say I’d kill him, I said shoot him,” Jeremy pointed out calmly. “A warning shot in the arm, perhaps?”
Suzette got abruptly to her feet, and then turned to help her father up as well, when he was incapable of doing it on his own with his arms bound behind his back.
Once they were both upright, Jeremy caught her arm and jerked her so that her back was to him. “Hands behind your back.”
Suzette hesitated, but supposed she didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t risk his shooting her father, so slid her hands behind her back, her mouth tightening when she felt him binding them with some sort of cloth. His cravat, she realized when he finished and moved up beside her.
“Now, start walking,” he ordered, gesturing with his pistol.
Suzette hesitated, her eyes sliding to the horses. “What about the horse? He will suffocate to death if we just leave him.”
“That’s his problem,” Jeremy said with unconcern. “Thanks to your foolish attempt to escape, he’s useless to me now anyway. His death can be on your conscience.”
Suzette didn’t respond, but she scowled and thought
bastard
very loudly in her mind as she began to walk.
W
hy are we slowing?” Daniel asked with a frown, leaning to the window to peer out. It was full night now, but with a new moon that cast the landscape in shades of gray. Still, he didn’t at first see anything that would cause them to stop.
“It looks like there has been an accident,” Richard said, peering out the opposite window.
Daniel slid along the bench seat to peer out the window Richard was looking out. Sure enough there was an overturned carriage on the side of the road ahead.
“You don’t think it could be Danvers’s carriage, do you?” Robert asked, slipping from the bench seat he and Richard were sharing to crouch on the floor and look out as well.
Daniel frowned at the suggestion and banged on the wall of the carriage to signal his driver to stop. This time he did not leave Richard or Robert to get out while he waited in the carriage. Daniel had the door open and was climbing out the moment the carriage stopped. He even managed to do it without grunting in pain, though he would have liked to. Damn, his back hurt.
“All right?” Richard asked with concern as he followed him out.
Daniel ground his teeth together, but nodded and started toward the overturned carriage.
“What is it?”
Daniel heard his mother call that question from the carriage the women were riding in, but left Richard to answer. “An accident. We are checking it out.”
The carriage lay on its side, two wheels broken. Daniel eyed the crest on the back as he approached, able to just make it out in the gray light cast by the moon, but he didn’t recognize it and continued around to the front end. He spotted the body on the side of the lane as he neared the front wheels and immediately moved toward it with Robert and Richard following.
“The driver?” Richard suggested as the three men circled the body.
Daniel considered the man’s livery and nodded grimly.
Robert knelt beside the body and examined him briefly, before announcing, “He’s dead.”
“He must have been thrown in the accident,” Richard suggested.
Robert shook his head. He was still kneeling, but was now examining his own hands, rubbing his thumb and forefingers together. “Blood,” he announced and tugged up the back of the man’s coat, revealing what even in that light looked a messy wound. The driver’s back was a mass of small bloody holes.
“Looks like the work of a blunderbuss,” Richard said with a grimace.
Robert let the coat drop back and straightened. “Highwaymen?”
“This is Danvers’s carriage.”
Daniel turned sharply toward the back of the carriage as Lisa made that announcement. The three women were gathered there examining the crest, and Christiana now nodded in agreement. “I recognize the crest too.”
Cursing, Daniel turned and moved toward the front of the carriage, but Richard moved past him and quickly climbed up on top of the upraised carriage before he could do so himself.
“Empty,” Richard announced a heartbeat later as he knelt to peer into the cab interior.
“Then where are Suzette and her father?” Lady Woodrow asked with a frown.
“They could be walking,” Lisa suggested.
Daniel glanced to the dark form of the driver. It seemed doubtful to him that Danvers would shoot his own driver, which would suggest they had been attacked by outsiders, highwaymen or bandits. Swallowing the worry that thought instilled in him, Daniel said, “Spread out and search the area. If we don’t find anything, we’ll continue on and hope to find them walking further along the way.”
Everyone spread out at once, searching the immediate area, and even widening the search to the edge of the woods on both sides of the lane. Much to Daniel’s relief, other than a spent blunderbuss and the dead horses, they didn’t come up with anything else.
“What now?” his mother asked as they congregated together after ending the search.
“Now we travel forward but more slowly,” Daniel decided, when everyone peered to him for answers. “I want everyone watching out the windows in case they are walking through the trees rather than along the side of the road. If we don’t come across them by the time we reach the next inn we’ll regroup and decide what to do then.”
“O
ff the road! Quickly, quickly!” Jeremy snapped, giving Suzette a push toward the trees that nearly knocked her down.
Managing to keep her feet under her, she followed her father off the road and across the grass into the trees. Lord Madison continued walking until he came to an area with thick brush that offered cover, and then dropped to his haunches to duck behind it without Jeremy’s ordering him to. Suzette wasn’t surprised. They’d already done this twice before when carriages had approached. At this rate it was going to take a very long time to get to Gretna Green. Not that she cared. She had no desire to go anywhere with the man.
Under normal circumstances, Jeremy would probably be waving down the carriages for a ride to the next inn where he could rent a hack to finish the journey. However, he could hardly do that when he was holding them at pistol point, which made her wonder how he planned to get them to Gretna Green and force her to marry him.
“Down,” Jeremy snapped when she didn’t follow her father’s example and duck quickly enough. He also shoved down on her shoulder until she dropped to her haunches.
“Just how are you planning to get to Gretna Green like this, Danvers?” her father asked suddenly and Suzette glanced at him with a combination of surprise and relief. He hadn’t spoken a word since regaining consciousness and she’d begun to worry he’d taken more injury than she’d realized. She was glad to hear him speak at all, but was also interested in the answer to the question and after giving her father a small smile, turned her head to peer through the darkness to Jeremy.
His face was pale in the darkness, seeming to reflect the moonlight, and she saw his jaw clench before he said, “We are going to walk until we reach an inn, and then I am going to leave you two tied up in the woods while I rent a hack to take us the rest of the way.”
“Another driver to shoot?” she asked dryly.
“I will take the reins myself,” he said shortly. “Now shut up.”
Suzette scowled, but then turned her attention to the road as a carriage came into view on the lane. It was moving much slower than the last two that had passed. They had both been traveling at a gallop, obviously heading somewhere and eager to get there. But the driver of this carriage was keeping the horses moving at a slow trot, as if out for a ride through the park. There was also a second carriage traveling behind it at the same gait, Suzette noted, and narrowed her eyes on the vehicles as the hairs on the back of her neck began to stand up.
“It’s the boys.”
Suzette spotted Daniel and Richard through the open windows on the near side of the first carriage even as her father breathed those words beside her. The two men were leaning out of the windows, peering over the grassy verge and trees lining the road as if searching for something.
Them, she knew at once, and smiled as her father said, “There’s Daniel. I told you he wanted to marry you.”
“Shut up,” Jeremy hissed as the second carriage drew close enough for them to see two women leaning out its windows much as the men were doing in the first. They too were scanning the surroundings they were passing through. Suzette recognized that one of the women was Lisa, but had no idea who the older woman was.
“Must be Daniel’s mother,” Cedrick Madison muttered.
“If either of you makes another sound, I will shoot Lord Madison,” Jeremy warned in a grim whisper.
Suzette stared at the pistol that suddenly appeared before her face, pointing toward her father’s head, and briefly considered chomping her teeth into Jeremy’s hand and throwing herself forward, hopefully forcing the pistol away. But there was a chance it would go off before she got it pointed away from her father and she couldn’t risk that, so she sat still and watched helplessly as the carriages continued past and then moved out of sight around the next bend.
Suzette started to rise then, but Jeremy caught her arm and jerked her back to a squat, barking, “Stay put.”
“Why?” she asked with irritation. “They have gone.”
“I want to be sure they continue and don’t turn around,” he said shortly. “Now shut up and just stay put.”
Suzette grimaced, but did as she was told and remained squatting. However, it was becoming uncomfortable and she sighed impatiently several times as the seconds dragged past.
“Stop that,” Jeremy hissed. “I am trying to listen.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said sharply. “They’ve continued on. Can we not move? I am hungry, cold and need to relieve myself for real now.”
Jeremy glowered at her with displeasure and growled, “If it weren’t for your rather handsome dower I’d be tempted to kill you right here and now.”
“Instead you’ll wait and kill us both after you have married her,” Lord Madison said dryly.
Jeremy’s expression closed, and then he said, “Don’t be ridiculous. I have no desire to kill either of you. I just want to marry Suzette. Once that is done, I shall cut you free, my lord. I shall even allow Suzette to live with you if she prefers and keep the marriage in name only once it’s consummated and cannot be annulled.”
Suzette didn’t believe him for a minute. He would have to kill them both. Consummated or not, the marriage could still be overturned if she went to the authorities and told them she’d been forced to it. Jeremy couldn’t risk letting them live.
“Are you really so stupid you think we would believe that?” she asked dryly. “If so, you have even less sense than I first thought.”
“You thought I had little sense, did you?” he asked, appearing more amused than offended. “And yet you agreed to marry me.”
“My lord, I only agreed to marry you because I was desperate. No woman would agree otherwise,” she assured him.
Jeremy ground his teeth and growled, “If Dicky weren’t already dead, I think I’d kill him myself for saddling me with you.”
Suzette wasn’t terribly surprised he knew Dicky was dead. She merely shrugged and said, “You would have been standing in line, many wanted him dead.” She then smiled and added, “I’m certain just as many would like to see you dead as well. I’m sure one of them will succeed eventually and you’ll get your comeuppance.”
Jeremy’s eyes narrowed with dislike. “I’m starting to think even your sizable dowry isn’t worth having to put up with your sharp tongue for any length of time.”
“But then the plan has always been that you wouldn’t have to put up with her long, wasn’t it?” her father said sharply.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jeremy muttered, his gaze turning back to the road.
“Although I suppose that wasn’t exactly the original plan, was it?” her father corrected himself grimly. “Originally, it was supposed to be all three of my girls tricked into marriage through my supposed gaming. They were to be wedded, bedded and then dead. But I would have been left alive to mourn the loss while you, Dicky and some third man enjoyed their dowers.”
“They were going to kill all three of us?” Suzette asked with a frown, wondering just how much she’d missed while she was in the parlor with Lisa. She’d already figured out Jeremy must be planning to kill her and her father once he’d forced her to marry him, but learning that Dicky’s grand scheme had been to force all three girls into marriage and then kill them seemed so cold. He must have planned it out before even meeting them, and then had the patience to wait until each of the girls could be forced into marriage before seeing the end of it. It had already been a year since Christiana had married Dicky. How long would it have taken for them to get her father drugged and drag him to the gaming hell again? It could be another year or more if he followed the same pattern he had after the incident leading to Christiana’s marriage. He’d spent most of the last year locked away in his office, hiding from his own shame and self-loathing for what he’d thought he’d done—gambling his daughter away. No doubt he would have done the same thing again after she was forced into marriage. Another year could easily have passed before they could trick him into thinking he’d gambled again, forcing Lisa to marry. The patience needed to carry out this plan was as frightening as the cold-bloodedness of it.
“All in one fell swoop,” her father said in answer to her question. “The three of you were going to die in a tragic carriage accident.”
“How do you know all that?” Jeremy asked with alarm.
“George’s valet, Freddy, told all,” Lord Madison announced, sounding pretty cold himself.
“Freddy,” Jeremy spat the name furiously. “He was to find the markers and bring them to me. I would have claimed the money and given him some coin for his trouble.” He scowled and asked, “How the devil did he get himself caught?”
“By being no brighter than you,” Suzette snapped before her father could answer.
“God, you are a fishwife,” Jeremy said with disgust and then muttered to himself, “It figures Dicky would marry sweet little mousy Christiana himself and stick me with the sister who was a harpy.”
“Oh, boo hoo, poor you, having to put up with my sharp tongue to get all my money. You—” Suzette paused and blinked as what he’d said about Freddy sunk in.
He was to find the markers and bring them to me.
That had to be what he had been looking for in the office when he took Christiana there. He’d just died before he could find them. Turning an amazed look on Jeremy she accused, “You don’t even have the markers.”
“No, I don’t,” Jeremy acknowledged, and then a cruel smile stretched his mouth. “Imagine, if either of you had just been bright enough to ask to see it, you wouldn’t be in this mess. In fact, that was my one big worry when I approached you at the inn. I knew I could woo you around to the idea of marrying me.” He chuckled and boasted, “Even without money I’m a catch. Wooing was the easy part, but I worried about being asked to present the marker. However, neither of you even thought to ask.” He raised an eyebrow and said dryly, “Now who is the bright one?”
Suzette closed her eyes, mentally kicking herself several times for not thinking of that.