Suddenly frightened, she glanced back over her shoulder. A man bent low over the neck of a big roan horse was coming around the bend, moving at a pace that she would have thought too fast for the pitted road. At that speed, she thought, he would overtake them in a matter of seconds.…
“Isabella, get down!”
Alec’s hand was on the top of her head, pushing her down on the floorboard even as the rider urged his mount abreast of them. Isabella no sooner was pushed to her knees than a terrible trio of sounds separated by no more than a fraction of a second ripped open the peace of the afternoon.
First, a musket exploded seemingly right above her head.
Then another shot, from a little farther away, echoed the first.
And finally, Alec cried out. Her head jerked up just in time to see him fall back against the seat.
XXXIV
Terrified by the sudden explosion of sound, the horses bolted. Even as Isabella struggled to climb onto the seat, to help Alec, whose face, she saw to her horror, was awash in blood, she was thrown back to her hands and knees on the floorboard by the crazed leapings of the carriage. The animals galloped down the road in a wild frenzy of terror, pulling the tilbury behind them as if it were weightless. The flimsy vehicle bounced and jolted over the ruts, the wheels sometimes losing contact with the pitted road altogether. Their speed was such that it made the trees beside the road seem as thick as box hedges.
“Damn it to bloody ’ell!”
Alec’s profanity had the novel effect of reassuring Isabella. Surely he would not be swearing so on the brink of death—or would he? She tried again to reach him, only to be sent sprawling by a jolt that nearly catapulted her from the carriage. Only a hasty grab at a side strut saved her. The musket Alec had snatched up as he had recognized their danger bounced from the seat beside him to land with a clatter on the floorboard beside Isabella’s hand. Instinctively she flinched. Then she remembered. Alec had fired it—that was the explosion she had heard just above her head. Empty, it was no threat to her, but still she recoiled from it as she would have from a live snake. She was relieved when another series of rattling bounces sent it sliding overboard, to be lost somewhere in the blur of greenery on the side of the road.
“Grab the musket—no! Christ Almighty!”
Alec, seeing the musket go, cursed again, savagely. He grabbed at the reins that trailed loosely over the box, caught them and tried to rise, only to fall back with a groan, one hand going to his badly bleeding head.
“Alec!”
Sheer terror helped Isabella claw her way up the seat. Clinging to the seat back for her life, she leaned over him as he half sat and half lay against the upholstery, his booted feet braced under the box to keep him from being jounced from the carriage. What looked to be a long, jagged cut poured blood from the left side of his forehead. Blood trickled from his chin onto his once pristine shirt, staining the cloth an ugly shade of red-brown. The other side of his face was streaked and spattered with blood too, but what struck her most was the sudden pallor of his skin. He was conscious, certainly, but for how long? People who had suffered fatal injuries had been known to remain alert and even active for some minutes before collapsing and dying. There was so much blood she couldn’t even be certain of the depth or dimensions of the wound. She leaned closer, balancing precariously as she sought to see the size of his pupils.
“Sit down, you bloody little fool, before you get yourself killed!”
Isabella sat, not because he ordered her to but because the bouncing carriage threw her back against the seat. He was pulling on the reins, but she thought from the horses’ lack of response, he must be dangerously weakened. Ignoring the profanity with which he ordered her to get back down on the floorboard out of harm’s way, Isabella reached out to add her strength to his as he sawed on the reins. First they must stop the runaways, or they would both likely end up in the hereafter before they were ten minutes older.
She never even touched leather. Even as Alec bared his teeth at her in another hissed warning to get on the floor, there was the clatter of hooves on planks, and then the tilbury leaped into the air like a startled rabbit. Instants later came another bone-jarring jolt as the wheels touched down on a bridge. The chaise snapped upward again like a stone fired from a slingshot, tethered to earth only by the horses that shrieked and bolted anew in an effort to get out of the way of the airborne vehicle that this time seemed determined to leapfrog them.
Catapulted head over heels from the carriage, Isabella screamed. Bridge and stream and a brushy bank whirled sickeningly below her as she somersaulted toward them. From somewhere just ahead of her and to her right came the rending crash of splintering wood, the screaming of the horses, Alec’s yell. But Isabella had no time to wonder at Alec’s fate, or the horses’, or that of the chaise. The ground rushed up to meet her. She barely had time to shut her eyes before she landed.
Both breath and sense were driven from her body by the jolt. For long moments she remained motionless, barely conscious of lying spread-eagled over a bush, her feet trailing in the icy water of the small creek that had caused their disaster.
In the distance came shrill, shuddering screams.
Alec? With returning awareness came the memory of his being shot, and the knowledge that only the worst kind of mortal agony could wrest such sounds from him.
Gasping at the agony of airless lungs, Isabella nevertheless managed to draw in a deep, shuddering breath that told her that she still lived. Taking the next one was marginally easier, and then, with the screams still ringing in her ears, she struggled to get up. She had to get to Alec.…
That thought drove her to her knees, and then, shakily, to her feet. The screams continued unabated. It was not until she had scrambled the short distance up the bank to the road that she realized that the screams were not from Alec at all: they were from the horses.
Isabella had always had a special affinity for animals, and horses were no exception. Her heart twisted at the pained whinnies of the poor, shuddering creatures as they thrashed in a tangle of reins and snapped shafts. Lying on its side, the chaise was little more than a pile of kindling. As they fought to free themselves, the horses lashed it with their hooves, rocking it back and forth. The uppermost wheel, the only part that appeared to be relatively whole, was still spinning dizzily, which meant that her collapse could only have been momentary.
The contents of the picnic basket, her carpetbag and Alec’s valise were scattered over road, bridge and bank. The bottle green pelisse that they had disputed earlier floated in the creek.
There was no sign of Alec.
“Alec!” she cried, frightened. Then, louder, “Alec!”
There was no answer save the frightened nickerings of the horses, and the whisper of the slowing wheel. The possibility that Alec might be trapped in the crumpled carriage, or, worse, crushed beneath it, made Isabella survey the wreckage with frightened eyes.
The horses had managed to drag the tilbury to the far side of the narrow plank bridge. What was left of it lay just beyond where the bridge turned again into rutted roadway. Isabella realized that she must have been thrown from the carriage seconds before the actual crash.
Had Alec been as lucky?
“Alec!” she called again, with still no answer. Cold with fear, she hurried to what was left of the tilbury, and peered inside as best she could. She saw no sign of him, though blood liberally stained the seat that had been turned on end, poking out at a drunken angle through the side of the carriage.
If Alec was beneath the tilbury, she would need help to drag it off him. Even in its splintered state, it was far too heavy for her to budge on her own.
There was no help available. At least, no human help. But perhaps she could make use of the horses.…
“There, now, hush, shhh.” She approached the animals carefully, picking her way through broken shafts and tangled lines. The horse that had been down had managed to get to his feet. Both now stood quietly, heads low
ered, sides heaving as they wheezed for breath.
“Poor boys. Good boys.” Seemingly indifferent to whatever disaster fate might throw next in their paths, the animals allowed her to get close. She stroked the nose of one—Blaze, she thought, or maybe Boyd—and then, gently, tugged on its nosepiece. It threw up its nose and whinnied in terror. But by pulling on the reins of both horses she managed to coax them to take a single step forward, then another, and a third, dragging the wreckage behind them. The shattered chaise was fortunately lightweight. Though the wood creaked and tumbled in protest, the traumatized horses managed to drag it far enough so that she could be certain that Alec did not lie in the roadbed beneath it.
True panic hit her then. If he was not in the chaise, nor under it, nor anywhere along the bank that she could see, where was he?
“Alec!”
With a cold shaft of fear she remembered the man who had ridden up so fast behind them, the man who had appeared out of nowhere to shoot Alec, and her hands grew clammy. Had he circled back after the wreck and finished the job, perhaps even making off with the corpse? But the wheel had still been spinning when she’d reached the road, so surely there hadn’t been enough time.…
“Alec!” This time her voice was a shriek. It brought the horses’ heads up. Their ears flicked back and forth nervously, their sides quivered.
“Alec!”
“Over here.”
At first the voice was so faint that she thought she might be imagining it. Then came a heartfelt, though weak, curse, and Isabella knew that Alec, no matter in what shape he might be, still lived.
He lay on the bank on the other side of the creek from the one she had landed on, nearly hidden by a large lilac that, from its broken branches, had done a great deal to cushion his fall. Blood still oozed from the wound in his forehead, running down his face to soak his shirt, making him, at first glance, a truly gruesome sight. He lay on his back, his eyes closed until he heard her approach. Then, as she knelt beside him, frightened anew at the dreadfulness of his appearance, he opened his eyes and looked at her.
“You hurt?” he asked immediately.
“No. But you—your head …” Distressed, she forced herself to look closely at the wound, half-afraid of what she might find. But the ball did not seem to have penetrated. Rather it had gouged out a jagged, six-inch-long gulley on the left side of his forehead that ended just above his temple. It bled dreadfully, but he seemed in full possession of his faculties, and she did not think that the wound was as grave as she had at first feared. But what of the rest of him, flung from the carriage like a sack of meal? Anxiously Isabella ran her eyes and her hands over him, looking for injuries other than the wound to his head. His limbs appeared to be intact, but there was no telling what kind of internal injuries he might have sustained that were invisible to her inspection.
But the first order of business was to stop as best she could the heavy flow of blood from his head. She looked around.
“Lie still; I’ll be right back,” she said, and went to retrieve one of his shirts that had ended up flung over a nearby bush. It would serve as an adequate bandage until something better could be devised. Returning to him, she swathed his head in the shirt, wrapping the sleeves around twice and knotting them over the wound.
“My skull’s thick, praise God. I doubt that the damage is serious.” He shut his eyes as she finished, then almost immediately opened them. “The bloody bastard! Did you get a look at him?”
Isabella shook her head. “Not really. It all happened so fast. Are you in much pain?”
“My head hurts, is all. I’ve had hangovers that hurt worse.”
Isabella suspected that he was lying to hearten her, but despite her suspicions, she did feel absurdly comforted.
“I winged him, I think. Christ, when I get my hands on the bloke responsible for this, HI—” He broke off, lifted his hand to dash a maddening trickle of blood from his eye, then grimaced as he saw the bright crimson that stained his fingers.
“Don’t move,” Isabella said sharply as he started to sit up. “Just lie still. Please.”
“I can’t just lie here in this bloody bush forever.”
“I think it’s best if you stay still while I try to find some help.”
Alec made a sound that was equal parts a snort of derision and a groan of pain, and managed to sit up despite Isabella’s restraining hands. “We’ve no time, love. Unless I injured him sore, the bloody bastard could well turn around and come back to finish what he started. He’s not likely to find me more vulnerable than at this moment, and if he’s a modicum of sense, he knows it.”
Shock had stripped some of the polish from Alec’s voice. Despite his injury he looked suddenly very formidable, and Isabella had another glimpse of the life-hardened man beneath the surface charm. If the assassin came back, he would have a fight on his hands. Alec, injured or not, would be a fearsome opponent.
But the other man had a gun, while they were unarmed.
Alec winced as he tried to get to his feet. He managed to rise a few inches off the ground before his knees misgave him and he collapsed, flat on his back once more.
“You’ve the sense of a child, Alec Tyron! Just lie there, do you hear me? And don’t so much as move! If you make yourself faint, then what will we do? If you’ll just wait, I’ll … I’ll bring one of the horses to you. The carriage is past using, I’m afraid, but we can ride astride.”
She thought he hesitated for an instant, but then he closed his eyes and nodded, wincing. “Aye, get one of the horses. They weren’t injured?”
“Not that I could see. Just wait here, and be still, will you, please?”
Alec opened his eyes again then. “Isabella, be as quick as you can, and be careful. If you hear a rider approaching, run and hide, do you hear me?”
Isabella met those pain-filled golden eyes, and realized what he was trying to tell her. If he was attacked again, he wanted to deal with the would-be killer alone. There was absolutely no possibility that she would do as he wished, of course, but she had neither the time nor the inclination to argue with him at the moment. So she nodded, and turned away to fetch one of the horses.
It was amazing how quickly she managed to free the animals from the tangled lines, spurred on as she was by the knowledge that the assassin could return at any minute. As she worked, sweating, cold-handed with fear, she strained her ears for any out-of-the-ordinary sounds, but heard nothing except the normal peaceful stirrings of a spring afternoon. The stream gurgled, birds called, the horses stamped their feet, and a slight breeze rustled the just-budding branches of the trees beside the road.
Blaze—or was it Boyd?—seemed the calmer of the two, and she chose him, shooing the other away. The poor animal still shivered in the aftermath of its ordeal, but it was docile enough as she led it down the bank toward where Alec waited.
“Alec.”
It was a struggle, she could tell from the way his face tightened beneath the mask of blood, but he managed to sit up as she stopped the horse beside him.
“So you got the bloody beast, hmm?” There was something odd about his tone, but she was too busy wrapping her arm around him and helping him to his feet to think about it.
“Do you think you can get on?”
She helped him the few paces to the animal’s side. Without saddle or stirrup, mounting would be tricky, but unless he was extremely weakened, he should be able to heave himself up and over.
“Oh, aye. I think I can do that.”
He was swaying, eyeing the horse with an expression that she couldn’t quite fathom. Then he looked from it to her with a grimace that she almost thought looked shamefaced.
“Well, then, get on. Shall I try to help you?”
“Perhaps you’d better get on first, and I’ll ride behind you.”
“But you may need me to give you a boost, or some such.”
“Countess, I need you to steer the bloody beast. I’ve never done such in my life, and now is not t
he time to learn.”
“What?” The confession was so stunning that she just stood there staring at him, sure she could not have heard correctly.
“I’m dab hand at driving, because for a while I earned a few coppers as a hackney driver, but I’ve never had occasion to throw a leg over one of the bloody beasts and ride it. I’m London-bred, remember? There weren’t too many horses around for me to practice on when I was a lad.”
He sounded defensive, and the look he gave her was truculent, as if daring her to think less of him because he could not ride. To Isabella, riding a horse was as natural as breathing, but she realized in that moment that it was because she had been doing it from the time she could walk. To her knowledge, all members of her class rode, just as they rose up from their beds in the morning and retired to them at night. It was a skill that required no thought.
“Very well then.” Isabella thought that she recovered from her momentary surprise with aplomb. Without another word she reached up for a handful of mane and hitched herself astride, which was no easy task without a saddle, and in a narrow skirt to boot. To the horse’s credit, he stood still for this indignity—after all, he was a carriage horse, not a saddle horse, and being ridden, particularly bareback, particularly after such a trauma as he had suffered, might reasonably have been expected to send him into high fidgets. Perhaps his senses were still disordered from the shock he had suffered, or perhaps he was just naturally mild-natured. But for whatever reason, he suffered her to mount him with a minimum of trouble. Seated at last, and baring a considerable expanse of stockinged leg, she looked down to find Alec surveying the animal as he might have Mount Kilimanjaro.
She dared say nothing as he heaved himself up behind her. It was obvious from his set expression that his need to depend on her in this situation galled him, but she could think of no way to alleviate his embarrassment. In any case, there was no time for a long, conversational delving into his feelings. Alec had just narrowly missed being murdered, and the killer could well return. It behooved them to make themselves as hard to find as possible, and fast.
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