Jilting the Duke

by Rachael Miles

  Marietta moaned and tried to shift her weight. Why—he berated himself for the fiftieth time—hadn’t he borrowed a better carriage to carry her to London? One with ample seats, thick comfortable bolsters, and better springs. Why hadn’t the Home Office informed him that his charge was increasing? Had they intentionally withheld the information? Or had they not known?

  He forced his attention back to the map. If Marietta gave birth on the road with only him and Fletcher for midwives, Colin would kill someone in the Home Office. He wasn’t yet sure who. Perhaps the lot of them, but he would begin by strangling Harrison Walgrave.

  The carriage began to slow, the springs creaking into a new rhythm. Colin waited for Fletcher to offer the usual signals: two slow taps for an inn, a fast double-tap for a crossroads, and a heavy heel-kick for danger. But no taps, kicks, yells, or pistol shots alarmed Colin, except perhaps the nagging absence of any warnings.

  Colin tapped on the roof and waited. No response.

  He shifted one foot, then the other—both numb from inactivity—from the opposite seat to the floor. Colin slid several inches toward the middle of the bench and moved the cushion aside to reveal a built-in pistol cabinet, added by his brother, the Duke of Forster.

  The door handle moved slightly as someone tried to open the door. But Colin had bolted it from the inside. Their attacker grew frustrated, pulling against the door handle several times.

  Colin wrenched the pistol cabinet door open as the window glass shattered inward and the curtains were torn away.

  Colin tried to stand, needing to place himself between Marietta and the broken window. But his feet found no solid purchase, just a river of down shifting beneath his weight. Losing his balance, he fell backward onto the seat.

  Two hands in long leather gloves, each holding a pistol, reached through the window frame into the carriage.

  As in battle, everything slowed. Both pistols pointed at a spot in the middle of Colin’s chest. At this range, he had no hope of surviving. And he felt more relief than fear.

  Colin held out his hands to show he was unarmed. He could see nothing of the highwayman. Only a dark duster and a mask.

  The guns didn’t fire.

  One pistol shifted to the opposite seat. But Marietta wasn’t there. Seeing her on the floor, the highwayman repositioned his sights.

  Colin moved, flinging himself between Marietta and the barrel. He heard the cock of the trigger, saw the flash of fire, and felt the hit of the ball in his side. Black powder burned his flesh.

  Dark smoke filled the cabin, and he choked, coughing.

  His ears rang from the boom of the gunshot, but he saw the flash of the second pistol firing, along with a shower of sparks from the side and barrel of the gun. He felt Marietta’s scream. He pulled himself up, half-standing, one hand against the carriage roof to steady himself. His side stabbed with pain at each expansion of his lungs.

  Marietta tried to rise behind him, choking as well. She pulled against the clothes on his back, but he pushed her hands away. When the smoke cleared, his body would stand between Marietta and their assailant. Marietta beat the backs of his legs. Some of the lit sparks from the pistols had fallen onto the down-filled bed. Colin assessed the dangers automatically. Once the embers ate past the woolen cover and fire caught the feathers, the danger would spread quickly.

  Still on the floor, Marietta pushed herself to the opposite door, kicking the smoldering bolsters and pallet away from her. With each kick, she further entangled his feet. He couldn’t reach her, at least not easily. And he couldn’t reach and load a gun without stepping from his defensive position in front of her. Thick smoke burned his eyes.

  With neither sound nor sight to help him, he had to choose: the dangers of the fire, growing with each second, or those of the highwaymen who could be waiting outside to rob or murder them. Tensing, he unbolted the door, pushed it open, and leapt out. His leg hitting wrong, he fell and rolled into the ditch beside the road. He raised himself cautiously. The highwaymen were gone, having attacked, then left. Not robbers then.

  He pulled himself to standing. He should worry about Fletcher, but there was no time. Smoke from the feather-stuffed pallet billowed from the coach. He could see Marietta’s legs, vigorously kicking the smoldering bed away from her. She was alive, but trapped against the locked door on the opposite side of the carriage.

  Ignoring the pain below his ribs, he pulled hard on the pallet, dragging a portion through the coach door. Already, the smoldering feathers were breaking through the wool in patches of open flame. He heaved again, releasing all but a third from the coach. Flames began to dance across the pallet.

  If the pallet broke apart before he could remove it, he’d have to sacrifice the carriage, and then he could offer little protection to Marietta. He pulled once more, hard, and the pallet fell onto the verge next to the road. Then, to protect neighboring crops and livestock, he dragged the pallet, flames licking at his hands, into the middle of the road, cursing at each step. Once carriage and countryside were out of danger, he hunched over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath without expanding his lower ribcage.

  After taking a few minutes to recover his breath, Colin looked up at the carriage. Fletcher remained at his post, his body slumped forward.

  Colin climbed the side of the coach, gritting his teeth against the pain. Blood oozed through the hair at the back of the coachman’s head. Pressing his fingers to the older man’s neck, Colin felt the beat of the artery. Alive.

  Listening and watching for trouble, Colin weighed his options.

  They needed to move, to get off the open road. But for that, he needed Fletcher conscious. At least he wouldn’t have to explain to Cook how her man had been killed on a quiet English road after surviving a dozen campaigns against Boney.

  Still unable to hear, he poured water from the flask under the coachman’s seat over the back of Fletcher’s head. Tenderly cradling the older man’s head, Colin washed the blood away. The wound ran in a long gash slantways from the back of Fletcher’s ear toward the back of his head. Colin pressed his fingers against the gash. Long but not deep and worst at the curve of Fletcher’s head where the weapon had bitten hardest through the skin.

  Fletcher moaned.

  Colin lifted Fletcher’s chin. “Pistol shot. Can’t hear.” Colin picked up the fallen reins and held them out. “Can you drive?”

  Fletcher took the reins in one hand.

  Colin’s strength suddenly faded. “How far to the next inn?”

  Fletcher held up two fingers, then three. Two to three miles.

  Colin moved slowly to the open carriage door, calling out in case Marietta’s ears had recovered from the pistol shots. “Marietta, there’s an inn within the hour.”

  He stepped in front of the open door. Marietta was seated on the floor, leaning against the backward-facing seat riser, her legs bent at odd angles. Her eyes closed, she held one hand to her chest; the other cradled her belly. At her shoulder, blood seeped through her fingers, covering her hand and staining the front of her chemise. Blood pooled on the floor below her.

  Colin’s chest clenched. He swung himself into the carriage, yelling “Fletcher! Drive!” as he pulled the door shut behind him.

  He pulled off his cravat and tore it into strips to make a bandage, then crawled beside her.

  To stage an attack and steal nothing.... Not robbery. Murder. He needed to think. But first he needed to slow Marietta’s bleeding.

  * * *

  Lady Arabella Lucia Fairbourne plunged her hands into the wash water, reaching for another dish. By pure luck, she’d found work as a scullery maid at an inn—and with it servant’s lodgings. A place to hide. She’d even taken a servant’s name: Lucy.

  Several times in the last fortnight, the innkeeper’s wife, Nell, had offered Lucy the easier work of waiting on guests in the dining hall, but each time she had refused. The dining hall was too public. Someone might recognize her.

  She pulled her han
ds from the water and examined them, first on one side, then the next. Fingers puckered, cuticles split, palms roughened and red. Her hands looked like those of a woman who worked for a living. The hands of a scullery maid doing hard but honest labor. She smiled. She was exhausted, but free.

  She preferred useful labor to idle luxury . . . even if that work was washing dishes rather than caring for the wounded in her father’s regiment. Others would consider working in a tavern kitchen a reversal of fortune, but then, they had never lived in her cousin’s house. She pressed her palm against the seam of her dress on the outside of her leg. She felt the comforting thickness where she had sewn in the letter her great-aunt Aurelia had entrusted to her. “Take this to my old love, Sir Cecil Grandison.” Aurelia’s frail hand had patted Lucy’s gently. “He’ll understand what to do.”

  Lucy dried a silver platter with a soft cloth. From the windows far above her head, a soft light suffused the kitchen. Evening. Her favorite time of day. Guests, servants, and family all fed, the kitchen cleaned for the night, and Alice the cook leaving Lucy alone to finish the washing. Even so late in the day, the autumn sun would be out for another hour or two, allowing her some time in the inn’s private garden. Separated from the public yard by a high wall on the courtyard side and thick hedges on all others, the garden made her feel almost as safe as being in the kitchen.

  But feeling safe was different from being safe. The roads were still too full of her cousin’s men to try another move. Only that afternoon, she’d seen the one called Ox (“Oaf,” she thought, would be more appropriate) looking around the stable yard while his horses were changed.

  He hadn’t seen her. She had been looking out of the window of the attic room she shared with Mary, the cook’s helper.

  Ox had seemed preoccupied, almost as if he wished not to be noticed, keeping to himself rather than joking with the other stableman as he typically did. Had they given up on finding her? Certainly no one would expect her to be so close. After all this time, she had hoped that they would have moved the search to London by now. She watched until Ox mounted a horse and rode away.

  Garrulous Mary noticed all the men in the stable yard, and it was easy to learn anything she noticed. Ox hadn’t spoken to any at the inn, save for calling for a new horse. He hadn’t even haggled the price, Mary had added with surprise.

  Lucy placed the last dish in the drying rack. She let the water drain from the sink as she wiped her hands on a rag. Perhaps she should stay another week.

  From the hook beside the garden door, she lifted a long, black knit shawl Nell had loaned her for her evening walks in the kitchen garden and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  Behind her from the dining hall, she could hear raised voices and shouts, then footsteps ran toward the kitchen. Alarmed, she stepped outside, pulling the door quietly shut behind her. She put her ear to the door, hearing muttered curses, and the kitchen being searched. She pulled the shawl over her head and slipped to the side a few feet—into a darkened corner where the garden wall met the house. There a trellis covered with roses climbed the face of the wall, creating a small declivity where she could step out of sight. She had found it weeks ago when she’d examined the house and yard, looking for places to hide should she need them.

  The door opened, the light from the kitchen creating a tall shadow on the ground. She remained very still.

  “Lucy!” one of Nell’s sons called into the garden from inside the house. “Lucy! Alice!”

  She did not move or answer. She would not show herself until she knew why she was wanted and by whom.

  “What are you doing, boy?” Alice’s voice joined Ned’s. “Lucy’s done for the night. Leave her be.”

  “B-b-but there’s a lord in the yard. His carriage was attacked by highwaymen,” Ned stammered. “Ma said to find you and Lucy.”

  Not Ox or her cousin. Lucy stepped out from beneath the roses and returned to the kitchen, as if responding to Ned’s call. If there were wounded, she might be of use.

  Credit: Richard E. Porter

  ABOUT THE THE AUTHOR

  Rachael Miles has always loved a good romance, especially one with a bit of suspense and preferably a ghost. She is also a professor of book history and nineteenth-century literature whose students frequently find themselves reading the novels of Ann Radcliffe and other gothic tales. Rachael lives in her home state of Texas with her indulgent husband, three rescued dogs, and an ancient cat.

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  Copyright © 2016 by Rachael Miles

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  ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4086-6

  ISBN-10: 1-4201-4086-8

  ISBN: 978-1-5831-4086-4