Even as he watched in horror, the rider turned the massive mount toward the abbey and started down the hill toward them.
He jiggled Melody fully awake. “Mellie, quick—we got to hide!”
Melody blinked at him. “Hide? Why?” Then another flash of lightning revealed the oncoming rider, a devil astride a red-eyed snorting demon!
Evan shrank back, hoping that the light had not reached into their dark shelter. “Come on, before he spots us!”
But Melody, mad little thing that she was, ran into the doorway and waved excitedly. “Hi! Hi!”
Evan scooped her up and carried her into the darkest corner, hoping the giant hadn’t seen the tiny girl or heard her piping cry over the sound of the storm.
No such luck. The next time the lightning flared, it was to reveal a great black silhouette, blocking the low doorway.
Evan pushed Melody behind him. He didn’t have anything! Not a stick or a rock or anything! Remembering the iron-and-glass lantern, whose candle had burned out long ago, he hefted it. He might get a swing or two in, maybe beat him off long enough for Mellie to run for it—
Melody ran forward, slamming her body into the thick legs of the giant, shrieking in . . . fear?
The massive intruder swept her up and swung her about. “Little Milady!”
Melody’s shrieks were, in fact, glee. “Billy-billy-billy-wick! You have a lightning horse!”
Evan lowered the lantern and frowned. “Billy-wick? He’s real? I thought you made him up.”
The demon was now revealed by a flash of lightning to be a blond young man with a funny, lopsided grin. He seemed to be as glad to see them as Melody was to see him. He stepped forward and held out his hand to Evan. “I be Bailiwick, young master. Now, how did you find yerself out in the storm with Lady Melody, sir?”
“We’re hiding from pirates,” Melody stated with authority.
Bailiwick shot Evan a look. Evan shrugged. “More or less. What’re you doin’ here?”
The big horse chose that moment to push his head into the shelter. A great snort sent up a shower of leaves and dust and horse snot, making Melody giggle.
Bailiwick let out a sigh. “That monster brought me.”
Evan frowned. “Ain’t horses s’posed to do what the rider says?”
“Well, someone forgot to tell ’im that!” Bailiwick scratched his head. “I’m dead lost, I am. Goin’ in circles out in that storm, lookin’ for some inn I heard about this mornin’. I think there might be some bad blokes on Sir Colin’s trail.”
“Pirates,” Melody said knowingly.
CHAPTER 29
In the darkened public room, six men slept. Stretched out on benches and tables and even the rickety bar, they snored and snorted and scratched in drunken repose.
Slowly, carefully, Olive Rugg picked her way across the room. Stepping lightly, shielding her small candle flame with her hand to keep it from falling across anyone’s eyes, Olive maneuvered her way across the wooden floor without triggering a single squeaking board.
Well, it was her floor, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she scrubbed and sanded and waxed it back into gleaming condition with her own hands?
At the door, she quickly slipped out, not wanting a rain-soaked breeze to chill anyone’s nose. Once outside, she stood beneath the brief overhang and sent a quick, uneasy prayer heavenward.
Don’t let Rugg come home unaware.
Then, with a deep breath, she pulled her shawl up over her head and plunged out into the rain.
The first cottage door she banged on belonged to the farmer nearest, the one Miss Pru had whispered that she’d sent the children to.
After what seemed like hours of knocking, the door finally creaked open to reveal a man with a candle and a very peeved expression.
“What ye knockin’ for, ye crazed cow?” He peered at her, then snarled. “Oh, it’s ye, alewife.”
Olive pushed at the door, letting herself in. “Are the children all right?”
The man scratched his head. “Me brats are up in the loft, sleepin’ like they orta be. What d’ye care?”
Olive stared at him. “Your children? What about the two little ones, Evan and Melody? Did not a boy and a girl come knockin’ at yer door this night?”
The farmer, who had been none too pleased at the reopening of the inn in the first place, for he claimed the customers would trespass into his fields and frighten his sheep, scowled at her.
“What ye playin’ at, woman? No one’s broken down me door tonight but yeself.”
Behind him, Olive saw the fellow’s thin, shy wife peering from another room. “Missus! Did you not take in two children tonight?”
The woman’s eyes widened to be addressed, but she shook her head quickly. “No, alewife. None here but ourn own.”
Olive bit her lip. She must have got it wrong from Miss Pru.
Turning to the farmer, she waved her hands. “I’m that sorry to wake ye, but there’s bandits takin’ over me inn! I need to gather folk to fight them off!”
The farmer laughed in her face. “I knew that sin house o’ yours would bring ye evil luck! Fight ’em off yeself!”
Olive eyed the man coldly. “Sin house, is it? And what would ye be doin’ there on a Wednesday ever’ week, sir?”
The man slid an uneasy glance toward his wife. “Need a bit o’ warmin’ up, I do, after a day at market.”
“Hm. I know what you want. I brew the best ale in three counties and ye know it.” Olive folded her arms. “So ye might care to know that them bandits are in me inn right now. Drinkin’. All. Me. Ale!”
The farmer’s brows went up and his jaw dropped in horror. “All of it?”
Olive nodded. “Ever’ drop. Won’t be another cask ready for weeks yet.”
The farmer straightened then, resolve evident in every inch of him. “Wife, fetch me pitchfork!” He slung on his heavy wool coat and tugged a woven cap down over his eyes. When his scurrying wife returned, he armed himself and turned to Olive.
“Well, what ye waitin’ for, woman! Let’s rouse the village!”
Attack began at dawn. When the first barrage of fist-sized rocks struck the front door of the inn, six burly fellows scrambled to their feet in the public room, gazing about them in hungover panic.
“The ’ouse is fallin’ in!”
Manx rubbed at his aching head. “Fetch Gaffin!” He gave another man a push toward the stairs.
Gaffin was already on his way down, alert and fully dressed. “Oy, shut it, ye bunch o’ little girls!” Striding into the room, he looked around at them all. “Some idiot let the alewife get out and now she’s brought down the village on us.”
Manx went to the window and blinked at the frightening assemblage of hodgepodge weaponry. “Pitchforks? Torches? What’re they huntin’, werewolves?”
“Pitchfork’ll gut ye without the man ever comin’ into reach.” Another man pressed his face against the glass. “Cor, that’s a big ’orse!”
Manx’s eyes widened. At the front of the attacking horde, like the point of a spear, loomed a nightmarish sight. A giant, holding a three-tined hayfork like a lance, sat mounted on a great, snorting dragon of a horse, a colossal creature as pale as death itself. Even through the wavy glass, one could see the grim countenance of the giant. Like a merciless spirit, he seemed prepared to trample them all in his vengeance. “I know that ’orse!”
“Fools!” Gaffin pulled them away from the window. “It’s naught but alewives and farmers! We’re in no danger from them!”
Still, he couldn’t resist another look at the giant on the horse. “Blimey,” he whispered.
Then he turned to face his men. They looked confused and hungover and thoroughly rumbled. Bloody hell. You simply couldn’t hire good criminals anymore.
Seven pistols. Seven shots and then no more until everyone had reloaded and tamped their powder. Plenty of time for a crazed horde to charge the inn and take them all down in a wave of pitchforks and axes and God-knows-what-else.
Outnumbered and outgunned, so to speak.
Another barrage of rocks struck the front door. Gaffin narrowed his eyes, noting that none of the missiles broke a window. The villagers obviously wanted their inn and their ale intact. He’d never used a cask of ale as a point of negotiation before, but there was always a first time.
Then a call came from outside. “Throw out yer ’ostages!”
Hostages? Ale casks? Then Gaffin remembered that he did indeed hold at least one very valuable hostage.
“Get those two up out o’ the cellar,” he ordered, striding to the center of the room. “We’re about to get out o’ here with our skins intact!”
When Gaffin’s men came to drag Pru and Colin out of the damp and chill of the root cellar, Pru had made up her mind. She avoided the men’s hands with a grimace of disdain and stalked out of the darkness under her own power. Blinking in the dawn light that wasn’t much brighter, she picked Gaffin out of the group and strode up to him, her hands clenched into fists at her side.
Despite the grimness on the faces of his men, Gaffin smiled and tilted his head to gaze at her approach with approval. “You got somethin’ to say to me, then, pretty Pru?”
Pru fixed her furious gaze at his middle weskit button. “I been thinkin’.” She wiped her dusty face with one hand and lifted her baleful gaze to meet his amused one. “I been thinkin’ that bitch ain’t my burden. I been thinkin’ that she’d be laughin’ at how I had me eye on his highness over there.”
She shot a resentful glance to where Colin stood, awake and blinking in the dimness but still groggy enough to need the support of two of Gaffin’s men. He turned his head in time to meet her eyes, then he frowned when he realized that she was talking to Gaffin—and that no one was restraining her as they did him.
He pulled weakly against the hands that held him. “Pru . . . what is this?”
She turned her back on him and folded her arms, tucking her fists in hard, her shoulders high. “I got me pride, you know,” she told Gaffin, her voice flat. “I got blokes what want me. I don’t need him.” Then she lifted her chin, letting her hot eyes fill with the shine of betrayal. “But I don’t want her to get him, neither!”
Gaffin nodded, pleased understanding on his face. “Yer doin’ the right thing. You got no place with the likes of ’im. Posh bastard don’t deserve you or Chantal. Tell me where she is and I’ll make sure Master Collie don’t get to drink at that well again.”
Behind her, she heard Colin struggle against his captors. “Pru, don’t do it, please! You don’t underst—”
The sound of a thick fist hitting something came and Colin’s protest subsided.
Don’t turn around. Don’t falter. It must be done. Pru sniffed mightily and then let out a long breath. “She’s on her way to her mum’s,” she told Gaffin. “In Black—”
“Blackpool!” Gaffin’s eyes lit. “O’ course! She told me she was done w’ that town forever, but—”
Pru nodded grimly. “But where’s a woman to go when she got no one else?”
Gaffin’s second in command approached. “There be more folk outside the yard.” He looked frazzled. “It’s like a forest o’ pitchforks out there!”
A long, slow smile took over Gaffin’s handsome face—a carnivorous smile that made Pru’s spine twitch in alarm. For the first time she felt a flicker of sympathy for foolish, selfish Chantal. What a dangerous man for any woman to become involved with!
Gaffin turned to his men. “Hold ’em here. I got an appointment with an alewife.”
Pru watched as Gaffin went to the door and opened it carefully. Her eyes widened as he ducked back to avoid a rain of flying rocks. What in heaven’s name?
Gaffin pulled out a handkerchief and waved it through the partially open door. “Truce!”
When no more rocks flew, he cast a bitter smile back at Pru and then exited the inn with his hands in the air.
“What is going on?”
Manx growled at her. “Village’s gone mad. Like rabid dogs out there. Pitchforks and giants and what-not. We just want to get out o’ this hellhole.”
Giants? “Mad, indeed,” she murmured.
In a moment, Gaffin had reappeared. “I got ’em to back off a bit. Manx, you and another man take Himself and Pretty Pru here out in the yard and hold ’em there where the village idiots can see ’em right plain. The rest o’ you, go to the stable and get the ’orses ready.”
He turned to Pru and smiled. “Ye got me what we both wanted anyway. I’ll take Chantal away from this blighter and ye’ll get out in one piece.” Though his eyes were cold and glinting, his smile widened. “I’ve had worse days.”
Outside in the yard, Pru stumbled along with her hands high and Manx’s meaty fist around her arm. It took two men to keep Colin on his feet. They stood facing an unimaginable army.
It was a forest of pitchforks and axes and shovels, lighted by torches and furious faces, led by a demon on a monstrous steed.
Beside her, Manx let out a breath. “Blimey, this lot likes their ale.”
“Best ale in three counties,” Pru said proudly.
The rest of them brought out the saddled horses and packed them hurriedly. Gaffin approached Pru and Colin.
“Toss ’em,” he ordered. “We got somewhere else to be.” He strode to his horse and mounted. As he rode past Pru he put a fingertip to his hat brim and gave her a gentlemanly nod. “Good mornin’, Miss Filby.”
Colin did not enjoy such a thoughtful farewell. Gaffin’s men tossed him, just as they were ordered—tossed him into the pigsty. Then they mounted their horses, laughing, and rode out after Gaffin.
Pru ran to where Colin sprawled in the muck and leaned over the low rough-hewn fence of the pen. “Give me your hand.”
He only glared at her as he attempted to get on all fours. His knees slid out from underneath him and he went back down into the filth with a nauseating squelch. “Bloody hell!”
“Colin, take my hand,” Pru ordered.
His head whipped around and he fixed her with such a furious gaze that she drew back. “How could you . . . tell that hyena that she went to Blackpool?”
He awkwardly made it back onto his hands and knees, cursing. “I should have thought of it. She told me . . . of her life there . . . how she was mistreated, how she fled to London with a traveling theater troupe—” He went down with another squelch. This time he stayed down and simply rolled over onto his back so he could look at her with accusation. “If you knew . . . why didn’t you tell me?”
Pru rested her elbows on the fence and dropped her chin onto her laced fingers. “Because Chantal isn’t on her way to Blackpool.” She smiled at the confusion on his face. It was over and he was awake and unharmed and her relief was so great she could have taken wing with the lightness in her heart.
“She isn’t?”
The opium was obviously still at work in his system, for his anger disappeared in an instant, to be replaced by a rather loopy expression of hope. Such continued eagerness to find Chantal even in the face of the truth dampened Pru’s joy slightly. She straightened to stand with her hands resting on top of the fence. The fact that her knuckles were white with the strength of her grip on the old wood bypassed Colin completely.
“No, she isn’t. Chantal Marchant is precisely where she told me she was going nearly a week ago. I simply wasn’t listening.” She gazed at the handsome, wealthy, kind, and generous man who lay covered in pig shit before her. Bloody undeserving Chantal was going to win again, because Pru couldn’t lie to Colin Lambert, not even to save him from himself.
She took a deep breath. “Chantal has gone to take the waters in Bath.”
CHAPTER 30
The situation, which would undoubtedly be forever known to the locals as the Battle of the Ale, was over. The villagers mingled, comparing pitchforks and tall tales, which were growing taller by the second.
Pru pushed through the crowd in the inn and spotted Olive, who hurried over at her urgent s
ignal. Her second-best pitcher sloshed happily and there was a triumphant glow on her round face.
Pru had no time for mutual congratulations. “Have you found the children? I sent them to the cottage down the lane!”
The giant young man who had led the charge stepped forward. “I got Lady Melody and the lad. Found ’em in the old abbey last night during the storm.” He jutted his chin toward Olive. “Left ’em with the lady’s old mum. She says to save ’er a pint.”
Pru’s spine melted in relief and she found herself sitting in a hastily procured chair. The fellow hovered worriedly.
“You all right, miss? You look right pale, you do.”
She smiled up at him weakly. “Thank you.” Then she blinked. Lady Melody? Her brow furrowed as she realized that he was dressed differently than the people of the village. “Who are you, sir?”
He puffed up a bit. “I’m Bailiwick, miss. Third underfootman of Brown’s Club for Distinguished Gents in London, I am.”
Billy-wick. “Heavens,” she breathed. “The very best service, indeed!”
Dropping her head into her hands, Pru started to giggle. She was still shaking with weak half-laughter when Colin passed her, supported by a burly villager.
“Oh, Bailiwick. Good to see you, lad,” Colin said cheerfully. “Did you know I was captured by opium runners? It was very exciting.”
“Yes, Sir Colin, it were a right adventure,” Bailiwick replied.
Pru went very still. Lady Melody. Sir Colin.
“Could you go fetch the children, Bailiwick? I don’t like to have Mellie out of my sight.”
Bailiwick nodded. “Yes, sir, but they only just nodded off two hours ago. I’ll go and watch over them while they get a bit o’ rest, all right?”
Colin waved a hand. “Yes, thank you.” Then he seemed to see Pru for the first time. “Miss Filby! You need a bath.”
His cheerful accusation made Pru grimace. “As does yerself, Mr. Lam—Sir Colin.”
The big man supporting Colin boomed a laugh. “I’m gettin’ a bit mucky meself. Pig shit is contagious-like.”
Rogue in My Arms: The Runaway Brides Page 21
