“Who are you talking about, Charlie?” she asked, though she already knew what he was going to say.
“Mr. Lightfoot! He said he were gonna marry you, and that it was what was best for everyone. I don’t know, but it seemed right to me when he said it!”
“Oh, Charlie! He’s not right at all! How could you have listened to him? How could you have shot at Montford?”
“He offered me a job. Good wages. What were I to do with the threat of the workhouse looming? What were I to do, watch you and yer sisters end up there with me?”
“But I can’t marry Mr. Lightfoot. Dear God, Charlie, he’s crazy! Insane!”
Charlie’s brow creased. “D’ye think so?”
“Charlie, he should be in Bedlam. Surely you have noticed.”
Charlie scratched his head. “Thought he were a bit off,” he murmured. “Oh, Miss Astrid, I wish I’d known this before! Now it’s too late!”
He took up the reins and whipped the drays into as fast a trot as they could manage.
Astrid braced herself against the bench, a chill racing up her spine. “What’s going on, Charlie?” she demanded. “Why are we going so fast?”
“Mebbe we can reach Hawes before he’s upon us. He’ll not be able to take you there,” Charlie said, a strange light gleaming in his eyes.
Astrid’s stomach bottomed out. “What are you talking about?”
“Mr. Lightfoot. He’s comin’ to take you off to Gretna Green.”
Fear made her body go stiff.
“Such a fool, such a bloody fool,” Charlie kept murmuring to himself over and over again, urging the drays faster and faster.
“This can’t be happening,” Astrid said, more to herself than Charlie, when she heard the unmistakable thundering of hooves coming up behind them. She turned her head enough to see Mr. Lightfoot’s imposing black coach barreling down on them, piloted by one of his giant thugs in a black cape. It looked precisely like a scene out of one of Alice’s horrid novels.
Oh God, she thought to herself. She was about to become the hapless heroine of her own personal melodrama.
“I didna mean it, I swear I didna mean to kill Cyril,” Charlie babbled beside her.
She just stared at him, too stunned to talk, holding on to her seat with every ounce of strength she had. They were going at a reckless pace, and the wagon had no shocks to speak of. Her backside felt every bump, rivet, stone and branch the wheels encountered. Her pain brought home the fact that what was happening was all too real. Pain in her backside, and pain in her heart for Charlie’s betrayal.
How could he have killed Cyril? How could he have turned his back on the years and years of friendship between them? Or had they ever been friends at all? Had Astrid once again failed to see what was so plainly before her? She’d made that mistake with her own sister. It didn’t surprise her to know she’d made similar misjudgments.
But to turn her over into Mr. Lightfoot’s keeping – that was simply beyond her comprehension. Charlie wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but surely he must have some inkling of the idiocy of such a plan.
“Why, Charlie? Why?”
“Thought I done it for yer own good. Fer my own family’s good. Ach but I’ve made a muck of it!” He glanced behind him, and his expression crumbled. “We’ll never outrun him.”
“Try, for God’s sake, try!” she exhorted.
But it was no use. Two aged drays were no match for a team of four. Mr. Lightfoot’s black carriage quickly drew abreast of them. She could see Mr. Lightfoot’s beady eyes gleaming from the window. Her stomach turned over.
Gretna Green indeed!
The black-caped driver of the coach pulled his team sharply to the right, running the drays off of the road, The coach drew up, pinning the wagon in. Charlie was forced to pull on the reins, bringing the wagon to a complete stop.
He stared at Astrid in terror. “Run,” he whispered. “Into the forest.”
Astrid rose on unsteady feet and began to climb out of the wagon. It was the first sensible thing Charlie had said in the last quarter hour.
“Not so fast!” boomed a voice from the doorway of the carriage. Astrid glanced up and saw Mr. Lightfoot standing on the runner, brandishing a pistol directly at Astrid’s head. She froze. Fear coursed through her veins, and her heart was in her throat, though she still couldn’t quite believe this was happening. Everything swam before her, as if happening underwater.
Mr. Lightfoot glanced in Charlie’s direction, his black eyes gleaming strangely, a horrible smile curving his lips. “I do believe you were attempting to escape us, Mr. Weeks. How odd, when I thought we had an arrangement.”
Charlie blanched, his eyes transfixed on the gun, sweat dripping down his face. “I’ve changed my mind. Miss Astrid don’t wanna go with you,” he managed.
Mr. Lightfoot just laughed. “Of course she doesn’t, you idiot. That’s why we arranged for this little roadside meeting, or don’t you remember?” He turned back to Astrid, his smile fading, his eyes growing hard. “Now come along, my dear. Hop into the carriage like a good gel, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Never,” she replied with rather more bravura than she felt.
Mr. Lightfoot signaled to his black-caped driver, who dismounted from his high perch and approached Astrid. Astrid swallowed. The man was at least two feet taller than she was, and about as wide as a pianoforte. His face was equally grim, with a deep scar running down one side of it, pulling his lips into a permanent frown. Where had Mr. Lightfoot found this man? Hades?
And why was he still carrying the whip? she thought wildly, her heart sinking.
Then she realized it wasn’t the whip he was holding, but rope. Astrid tried to climb back into the wagon, but the man seized her from behind. He was terribly strong. She struggled with all the strength she had inside of her, but she might as well have been kicking a mountain, for all the good it did her. He clamped her arms behind her with a single hand. The other one held her off the ground as if she weighed no more than a feather. He began to bind her hands together with the rope.
Astrid stared hopelessly at Charlie, who just watched in growing horror, tears streaming down his face.
“But I don’t want to go,” Astrid said in a strangely calm voice. She squirmed against the giant until she was facing Mr. Lightfoot. “I don’t want to marry you. I don’t want you, and I never shall. What good will it do to take me against my will? I’ll never stop fighting you.”
Mr. Lightfoot grinned in a manner Astrid could only term lascivious. She shivered uncontrollably. “Precisely, my dear. Precisely. It shall be my utmost pleasure to break you. And I will break you.”
She nearly laughed then, as the giant carried her towards the coach. She had no hope left, no means of escape. She’d never felt so hopeless, so damned sorry for herself in all of her life. Mr. Lightfoot was going to abduct her. Perhaps he was going to marry her or at least attempt it. She wasn’t sure about that. But she was a hundred percent sure he meant to rape her. She didn’t need to be a genius to figure that one out.
Then some memory tugged at the back of her mind. What was it?
Montford! It couldn’t have been but a few minutes since they’d left him behind. Surely if she screamed loud enough he’d hear her. Though it quite escaped her what good he could possibly do. Even if he did hear her and did not ignore her, as he most likely would, given that he hated her, he’d not get here in time to stop her from being taken by these blackguards. And even if by some miracle he did manage to sprout wings and fly here in a trice, how could he possibly prevent her abduction?
Would he cast up his accounts all over the villains, render them helpless with disgust?
She actually laughed at this thought.
Mr. Lightfoot and Charlie both looked at her, askance. Even the giant carrying her paused and glanced down at her as if she’d lost her mind. But she couldn’t help herself.
She’d officially become hysterical.
So even though she had no hope in the wo
“Shut up, damn you,” Mr. Lightfoot roared, covering his ears. “No one’s going to hear you, you little fool!”
She screamed in his face.
“Hurry up, get her inside!” he growled at the giant.
The giant stuffed her through the carriage, but she twisted her body so her legs caught against the door. She screamed, kicking out, attempting to dislodge the villain. She landed a few direct kicks to the giant’s chest, but if they affected him at all, he didn’t show it. He grabbed up her feet and tied them together with his remaining rope, then shoved her the rest of the way inside the coach. She screamed and screamed until she thought she would pass out.
Then the sound of a gun exploded across her senses. Her breath seized and her heart skidded to a halt as she watched Charlie clutch at his side and tumble down from the wagon and onto the road. He’d been attempting to pull the rifle they carried for highwaymen out from underneath his seat, foolish man, in an effort to save her. But it remained clutched to his side, unused, as he bled onto the ground. Astrid thought she might be sick. Charlie had not deserved to be shot. The poor fool hadn’t deserved to be tangled up in any of this.
Mr Lightfoot stood over Charlie, the pistol in his hand still smoking. He turned away from the man, tucking the pistol into his waistband, and approached the carriage, a dull gleam in his eyes.
Her blood ran cold, and her voice seized in her throat. Mr. Lightfoot pushed her back and climbed into the carriage. He settled himself onto a seat, pulled out a handkerchief, and bound it over her mouth. She inched her way back to the far corner of the coach, struggling against her bonds, staring daggers at her abductor.
Mr. Lightfoot just laughed at her efforts and slammed the coach door shut.
And with it, all hope she had of rescue.
Chapter Nineteen
IN WHICH THE DUKE ENTERS HIS THIRD RACE OF THE WEEK
AFTER a half hour’s trek up the King’s Highway, half-running, half-hopping in an effort to relieve a god-awful cramp that had taken up residence in his left leg, Montford was ready to give up. He had almost managed to convince himself that he had imagined the whole thing – the screams, the gunshot – but just when he’d decide to stop and turn back around, the dread would return, settling in his gut, worse than any nausea or cramp he’d ever known. He didn’t understand it or appreciate it, but it would not allow him to turn around, as much as his body wanted to.
“I’m going to kill her,” he muttered to himself, in between his pants. “This time, I really am going to kill her.”
Though for what, he wasn’t quite sure.
God, he almost hoped he found her on the roadside bleeding to death. Then he’d be justified for running down the lane like some bloody lunatic.
Then his gut would clench up again at the very thought. No, he did not want to find her bleeding to death. The mere thought of it was…
Unbearable.
He’d rather he was insane, he decided. He’d rather he ran all the way to Hawes and discovered her in one gloriously uninjured piece. But just when he decided that that might indeed be the outcome, he rounded a bend in the lane, and let out an involuntary cry. The wagon lay at an odd angle off to one side of the road, the two drays pacing nervously in their harnesses. A form lay next to the cart, unmoving. It was human, but he could tell from the size and color of the clothes that it wasn’t Astrid. It was Charlie.
Relief and concern washed over him in equal parts. He darted in Charlie’s direction. Fear, which was only moments before theoretical, now came into sharp, poignant focus. He’d not been imagining things after all.
But as he approached Charlie, he felt his knees begin to go weak, his vision to go dark. The man was bleeding heavily from a wound in his shoulder.
Not now! he cried out inwardly. He couldn’t faint now, of all times!
But it was no use.
He pitched forward, into the void.
SEVERAL SECONDS later – or several hours, he couldn’t be quite sure – he came back to consciousness, pushing the dark memories that always surfaced at such inconvenient times back into the recesses of his mind. His eyelids fluttered open. He was staring up at the sky.
Then someone groaned. He rolled over and spotted Charlie crawling in his direction, oozing blood from his shoulder, his face as white as the clouds in the sky.
Montford forced himself to look away from the blood.
Charlie managed to make it a few more inches, then he collapsed into the dirt. Montford gathered his nerves and went over to assist him, stripping off his jacket and applying it to the wound at the man’s shoulder, staunching the blood as best he could.
“What happened?” he demanded. “Where’s Astrid?”
Charlie tossed his head from side to side, clenching his jaw, in unbearable pain. “Didna mean for it to go so far,” the fellow muttered. “Honest to God, thought I were doing it for her own good.”
“What? What have you done?” Montford nearly cried.
“It’s Lightfoot, sir. ‘E’s taken her.”
“Taken her? What do you mean, taken her?” Montford cried, the icy tentacles of dread slithering up his spine, into his blood.
“’E’s come and stole her. Bound for – Gretna Green – to have her – for his – wife–” Charlie managed to grit out.
“Mr. Lightfoot,” Montford repeated, trying to wrap his head around their current situation. Mr. Lightfoot was the reason he was in Yorkshire in the first place. He’d yet to meet the man, but he’d gleaned enough to know that he was an ass, and that Astrid had no intention of marrying him.
Which meant, of course – obviously, as Charlie was lying on the road bleeding to death – she’d been taken against her will. Mr. Lightfoot intended to force her into marriage. And the only way Montford could see that happening was if…
If the blackguard gave her no other choice.
Montford heaved Charlie up by his good shoulder. He climbed in beside the man and laid him as gently as he could against the footboards. He removed his jacket from the wound and bound Charlie’s shoulder tightly with a length of canvas from the wagon bed to stop the worst of the bleeding. Charlie groaned in pain, then seemed to faint.
Montford was unequipped to deal with such drama. He’d never had a man die on him before – aside from his parents, but he wasn’t even going to think about that right now. He gazed down at Charlie worriedly as he picked up the reins. “Don’t die, for pity’s sake!” he muttered. “Don’t even know how to drive this blasted thing.”
He shook the reins as he’d seen Charlie do earlier in the day. The drays just stood there, eating dandelions. “Damnation, move!” he roared in frustration. He jerked on the reins, bringing them down as hard as he could on the animals’ rear ends. They jumped forward, then stopped again. He brought down the reins again and again, until the poor creatures were grunting and kicking up a storm down the road.
The wagon lurched along behind them, teetering to the left, and then to the right. Montford had no idea how to control the animals once they got moving. He braced his body against the seat and held onto the reins until his fingernails were digging into his palms. At least the animals seemed to know what they were about, more or less, because he sure as hell didn’t.
Charlie moaned weakly when they hit a deep rut, and Montford cursed. His backside was killing him, and his stomach was heaving. It seemed driving the vehicle was no better than being a passenger. He gritted his teeth and willed his nausea aside. He had no time for his delicate constitution. He had a woman to save from a fate worse than death.
He just prayed he wasn’t too late already.
The thought of Astrid – Astrid! When had he started thinking of her by her first name? – being mauled by this unknown villain curdled his blood, made his mind go blank with a fear far greater than he’d ever known before.<br />
It seemed an eternity passed before he finally saw a village up ahead. He whipped at the drays to make them pick up the pace. Then, when the wagon began careening down the main street of the village, he began to wonder how he was going to get them to stop. He passed several gape-mouthed rustics navigating the road in their own carts, and a few unlucky pedestrians who just managed to scurry out of the way, shouting curses at him.
The village was bigger than he had imagined, and he hadn’t the foggiest idea where he was going. Finally, he spied a sign up ahead advertising an inn called The Barley Mow, and his brain began to work with a half-conceived plan. He attempted to pull back on the reins, half expecting the action to have no effect.
He was wrong. The drays lurched to an abrupt halt, and he nearly flew off his seat and onto their backs.
He cursed again and righted himself on the seat. He stared about him, his heart racing. He was on the edge of the road near a muddy, bustling inn yard. Its denizens had stopped what they were doing to stare up at him in alarm.
He singled out one of their numbers and pointed at him. “You there, fetch me a doctor.”
The rustic just gaped up at him.
“I’ve an injured man,” he explained, gesturing towards Charlie. “He needs a doctor, blast you!”
The man dropped the sack he’d been carrying and hurried off.
The yard emptied as Montford descended from his perch. He swayed on his legs and clutched the side of the wagon, cursing his weakness.
A man emerged from inside the inn, dressed in a soiled apron. He studied Montford suspiciously as he approached.
“There is an injured man in that wagon,” Montford informed him. “He needs a doctor. And I need a horse. Your fastest horse. And be quick about it, man!”
The innkeeper just squinted at him. “Aye, an’ how ye’ll be payin’ for that?”
Montford gaped at the man. He’d not thought as far as monetary transactions. He’d not thought he’d need to. “I’m the Duke of Montford. You’ll be paid.”
The man’s glance swept from Montford’s soiled boots to the top of his hair. Then he burst out into laughter. “A Duke? Oh, that’s rich, gov. An’ I’m the bloody Regent!”
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