by Mary Brendan
‘How much longer will that wretched man be?’ Mrs Jackson wailed. ‘I’m frozen stiff and will catch my death of a cold.’
‘Hush, my dear, I’m sure Toby is doing his best. He will be back before you know it.’ Mr Jackson again rubbed his wife’s sleeve in comfort. When he turned a glance on Fiona his expression showed his deep concern. His wife was likely to take a chill from the soaking, as she regularly suffered from such ailments, but it was the vulnerability of their predicament that was frightening the life out of the farmer.
Beneath his breath he was castigating himself for not bringing along a weapon of his own. But he’d taken this route in the past and was aware that Toby Williams always kept a couple of loaded guns on the vehicle as protection for himself and his passengers. An hour or more ago, Toby had unharnessed the youngest horse and taken his pistol with him as his own protection on his gallop back to the Fallow Buck. So now they had just a young apprentice and a single weapon to protect them all.
‘A rider is coming!’ Bert had whipped open the coach door to yell that news over the cacophony of wind and rain.
‘Close it before we are awash in here, you stupid boy,’ Mrs Jackson screeched, beating away a torrent of raindrops with her hands.
Mr Jackson had grown pale at the news of a stranger approaching, but said manfully, ‘Let me sit at the front, by the door.’ He surged forward, pushing his wife’s quivering figure behind him. ‘Hold up that gun, young man,’ he ordered Bert. ‘I take it you’re familiar with how to use it and reload it if the need arises?’
Bert wobbled his head in agreement, looking terrified.
‘How many riders?’ Mr Jackson croaked. He realised it might be Toby Williams returning, but doubted it was; insufficient time had passed for their driver to have reached the Fallow Buck, let alone return with help.
‘Just the one, I think, and I only glimpsed him in the distance, through the trees.’ Bert swung about at the unmistakable thud of hooves. The lad had sensed that the farmer shared his fears about what might be about to happen: with a whistle, the approaching stranger might bring the rest of his gang swarming out of the undergrowth once he realised how vulnerable they were. Or it could be a lone highwayman, who’d chanced upon them...
* * *
Luke slowed to a trot and cursed beneath his breath on seeing the calamity before him. He was only a short distance from his destination and for a split second felt tempted to ride on towards it. He was cold, wet and hungry, but he knew he could not leave the wretches stranded. The least he could do was offer to fetch help, while hoping to hear that it was already being summoned. A horse was missing from the harness and he guessed one of the coachmen had ridden off on it. The young fellow with the blunderbuss looked trigger happy so Luke supposed he ought to quickly declare himself friend rather than foe. But he understood why these folk would be nervous of strangers; since Thornley’s daughter had told him of smuggled spirits coming ashore, he’d heard from other sources, too, that the Collins gang were busy.
At the window of the coach he could see a round male face and a woman’s pop-eyed stare beaming cross the fellow’s shoulder. Dismounting, Luke gave a friendly salute, then tethered his stallion to a low branch and squelched through mud to the far side of the lopsided carriage to assess its damage.
As soon as the rain had started hammering down, he’d rued his decision to travel, but he’d set out in fine weather that afternoon, travelling west, with the intention of visiting Drew Rockleigh who had a hunting lodge in the neighbourhood. He’d visited the place before, then under far more pleasant circumstances than drew him there now. But if a fight between the two men were unavoidable, then Luke would as soon get it over with than it hung over them both like the sword of Damocles.
He squatted, saw the axle was in two pieces and stood up almost immediately. It would be quicker and simpler to get another coach out to rescue these unfortunates than try to repair the sorry contraption. He sensed he was under close scrutiny and through a blur of water dripping off the brim of his hat saw a woman’s indistinct features.
‘Where were you heading?’ A hand swiped the worst of the wet from his face as he walked closer and got a better view of her. She was younger than he was by some years, although not as youthful as Becky, and her severe expression made her look plainer than she probably was.
‘Dartmouth...’ Fiona knew to be careful with her answers. They didn’t yet know anything about this fellow to be able to trust him. Mr Jackson’s instinctive alarm at knowing a stranger was in their midst had made Fiona suspect the area was populated with criminals. ‘Where were you heading?’ she countered, blinking to get a better look at him. When she did focus properly on his lean, rain-sleek visage her breath caught in her throat. He was the most disturbingly handsome man she’d ever seen.
‘Lowerton...a village a few miles distant,’ Luke explained hoping to put her at ease. One of her hands was holding the open window ledge and he could see the tension in her grip.
‘Has somebody gone to fetch help?’ Luke angled his head and included the others in the coach in his request for information.
‘Our driver has and is expected back at any moment. Would you introduce yourself, please, sir?’ Mr Jackson insisted, peering across Fiona’s shoulder at him.
‘My apologies... Luke Wolfson...at your service...’
‘I am Peter Jackson, and this is my wife and these two ladies are the Misses Beresford, and the lady nearest to you is...’
‘Miss Fiona Chapman,’ Fiona quietly introduced herself as Mrs Jackson’s coughing drowned out her husband’s voice.
Fiona was feeling more relaxed than she had moments ago. Mr Wolfson had spoken just a few sentences, yet there was something about his tall, imposing presence that now seemed reassuring rather than threatening. He spoke in a calm, cultured way and was dressed in expensive clothes, so would indeed be an odd highwayman—although she’d heard that wily miscreants sometimes garbed themselves in stolen finery to mislead their victims as to their true characters.
She sensed that her fellow travellers were becoming equally glad that Mr Wolfson had happened by. Another man—especially one of Luke Wolfson’s age and muscular stature—could only be of help, if he stayed around. Fiona wondered if he might soon bid them farewell now he knew help was on its way.
Bert had trotted around the coach to stand by the newcomer’s side and gaze at him deferentially, the blunderbuss pointing at the ground.
‘Are you cold?’ Luke had seen Fiona huddle into her cloak and pull the hood forward over a bonnet.
‘Very cold, sir. We all left the coach earlier so the driver might better attempt to mend it...alas, to no avail.’ She gave a small shake of the head. ‘Toby Williams has given up on it and returned to the Fallow Buck for a wright with better tools. The trees gave us little shelter from the storm and we all got drenched through.’
‘I’d say this one’s beyond quick repair and out of action for a while. Your driver should bring out a fresh vehicle.’
A groan of dismay from Mrs Jackson met Luke’s bad news about their transport. Fiona nodded acceptance of his verdict, she’d come to a similar conclusion herself.
‘I hope that Toby will return very soon.’ She glanced in concern at Mrs Jackson as the woman again started to cough.
‘I’ll light a fire—you could gather around it and dry your clothes while you wait for your man to show up.’ Luke frowned at the nearby copse as though assessing its suitability as a shelter.
‘Fire?’ Peter Jackson left off thumping his wife’s back to bark an incredulous laugh. ‘I’d like to think he might manage it, but I doubt it somehow.’ He gazed at Luke’s retreating figure. ‘He’ll not find a stick of dry kindling about anywhere.’
‘It’s good of him to try,’ Fiona murmured, also watching Mr Wolfson’s impressively broad back.
* * *
/>
Twenty minutes later the farmer was eating his words. The driving rain had slowed to a drizzle and meekly Mr Jackson followed the ladies towards the trees where a welcoming blaze could be seen. In a clearing, further into the wood than the little party had previously ventured, a fire was steadily taking hold, protected by a tent of evergreen branches that Luke had propped over the flames. Intermittently there was a hissing sound as raindrops slithered through ivy on to glowing embers.
‘I should get out of these wet things—I will be laid up for weeks, I know I will,’ Betty Jackson grumbled through chattering teeth.
‘Stand close to the fire, my dear, to keep warm.’ Mr Jackson took off his greatcoat and used it to shield his wife from view as she shed her sodden outer layers. The Beresford sisters took up position on the opposite side and performed similar tasks for one another, Ruth giggling the while.
Fiona moved away to allow them some privacy while they juggled their coats and shawls and attempted to pat dry their damp bodices. She held out her hands to the flames, but now being a distance from the fire she gained scant benefit from it.
‘You’re soaked, too—take off your cloak and wear my coat while it dries.’
Startled by the mild command, Fiona stuttered, ‘Thank you...umm...for the...kind offer, sir. But it would hardly be fair—it is still drizzling and your shirt will get wet.’ She gave Luke a fleeting smile, averting her gaze as his dark eyes bored into her. She turned up her face to the heavens, shivering as a chill mist bathed her complexion. ‘I will take this off, though,’ she added lightly, removing her bonnet and giving it a thorough shake by the brim to remove rain that had settled in the straw.
Her heart had begun to pound at an alarming rate and confusingly she was uncertain whether she wished he would go away. Yet he’d been unfailingly polite and helpful. Without turning to check if it was so, she was sure their Good Samaritan was still watching her while he removed the long leather riding coat he wore.
‘Here...take it... I’m used to braving the elements,’ Luke said firmly, settling the garment around Fiona’s shoulders before walking off.
With no time to properly protest Fiona pressed together her lips and held on to the garment by its lapels. It trailed on the ground, so long was it, and she tried to hoist it up a bit to prevent the hem collecting mud. The leather held a scent redolent of her dear papa’s study. Once the room had been crammed with cracked hide sofas and cigar smoke, but all had been removed and sold since Cecil Ratcliff had married her mother.
Jerking her mind to the present, Fiona quickly slipped out of her soaked cloak and, with Mr Wolfson’s replacement garment about her narrow shoulders, she gave her own a good shake to dislodge water from the woollen surface.
The two gentlemen and young Bert were hanging the ladies’ outerwear on sticks they’d rammed into the ground about the perimeter of the fire, creating a humid atmosphere as steam rose from the clothes.
Luke returned to Fiona and took her cloak to hang it up.
‘I’m famished,’ Valerie Beresford moaned, fiddling with the pins in her straggling hair. ‘I hope that Mr Williams will bring us back some food.’
‘He will,’ the absent fellow’s nephew assured the company. ‘He’ll turn up with every possible thing to make you comfortable.’
‘A refund on the fare would make me easy,’ Mr Jackson snorted. ‘The contraption could not have been roadworthy to sustain such damage. I took a look at that pothole that overset us. It was not so great an impediment for a vehicle in good order. Highway robbery indeed! These coach companies charge a ransom for inferior transport.’
Mrs Jackson joined her husband in carping about the cost of their tickets and Valerie Beresford added to the debate, making poor Bert sidle off into the shadows, looking chagrined.
Having found a low tree stump that might serve as a seat, Fiona dusted a pool of moisture from it with a gloved palm, then sat down with a sigh to wait for Toby to return.
Chapter Four
‘Whereabouts in Dartmouth are you headed, Miss Chapman?’
Having stretched Fiona’s cloak over two staves to aid its drying, Luke had strolled closer to her to ask his question.
After a slight hesitation Fiona told him. She realised there was no reason not to. Mr Wolfson didn’t seem a person given to gossiping. Besides, they would never meet one another again after today so it was unlikely that any confidence she bestowed would be of note to him. Even were it to be repeated, who would care—apart from a few people dear to her—that Fiona Chapman, spinster, had left home, so unpleasant had her life become, to take up employment as a governess.
She had heard her chosen profession could be quite wretched and lonely. A governess was not quite a servant, yet neither was she a member of her charges’ family. Her position fell somewhere in between, and she risked being resented by her inferiors and despised by an employer who’d deem her presence an irritating necessity. And the children might be horrors, too...but Fiona was confident she was a capable, resilient sort, content with her own company if no other were to be had.
‘Are you travelling on business or pleasure?’ Luke asked, turning Mrs Jackson’s coat so the lining faced towards the fire.
‘Business...’ Realising she was staring, Fiona dragged her gaze from where his linen shirt, dampened by drizzle, clung to the muscled contours of his ribs. The buttons at the throat were undone and his swarthy skin gave him a dangerously foreign air. Yet he was a refined Englishman, of that she was sure, although he’d disclosed nothing about himself.
Luke turned to glance at her with an elevated eyebrow, wordlessly requesting more information about her plans.
Again Fiona was tempted to tell him and that was odd for she was normally an extremely private person. In one way she found this gentleman’s virility daunting, yet his confident, capable manner was soothing too. The dark, romantic atmosphere of flame-daubed shrubbery and the sound and scent of spitting kindling was having a peculiar effect on her, she realised. She felt enchanted, bound to this good-looking stranger’s side, and willing to confess her life’s secrets until he chose to draw a halt to their conversation.
‘I’m on my way to take up a position as a children’s governess,’ Fiona said.
‘You’re brave, then, as well as...foolish...’ At the last moment Luke had substituted something truthful yet unflattering for the compliment that had almost rolled off his tongue. He’d astonished himself by being uncharacteristically familiar with a genteel woman he barely knew. Fiona Chapman wasn’t beautiful... She wasn’t even conventionally pretty despite the sweet halo of fawn curls fluffing about her heart-shaped face as the glow of the fire dried her off. Earlier, when her hair had been sleek with rain Luke had thought her a brunette and her features, though small and regular, were nothing much out of the ordinary. Yet something about her was undeniably attractive to him...and he’d almost told her so.
The spell had been broken; Fiona shot to her feet from her makeshift stool, wondering if he was being sarcastic. She was sure he’d been on the point of calling her beautiful and she knew she was nothing of the sort. Fiona came to the depressing conclusion that Mr Wolfson, despite his worthy practical skills, had a shallow side and it was hardly the time or place for insincere flattery.
‘Foolish?’ she echoed coolly, hoping to convey she wasn’t impressed and wasn’t playing his game. ‘Pray, why do you think that of me, sir, when we barely know one another?’ No doubt he believed she’d be better served seeking a husband to care for than children to tutor.
‘You’re travelling alone, aren’t you?’
‘I am,’ Fiona crisply owned up.
‘Then I’ll amend what I said and call you extremely foolish. These are dangerous roads stalked by violent criminals, as I’m sure your coachman or Mr Jackson must have told you by now.’
‘Even could I afford her, how might a
lady’s maid protect me from such as highwaymen?’ Fiona snapped. ‘A female dependant would be a burden, not a comfort, to me for I would fret constantly for her safety as well as my own.’ Fiona spun away, ready to march off after her parting shot. She’d taken just two steps when hard fingers clamped on her wrist, arresting her.
‘And who will you burden with your safety, Miss Chapman? A middle-aged coachman, or a youth unable to handle a gun correctly? A farmer who has his wife to attend to? Me...?’
Fiona twisted her arm free, glaring at him with tawny eyes that held a feral spark. ‘I expect no one to look after me, sir. Least of all you. I can care for myself.’
‘Can you indeed?’
The murmured words held a soft mockery that brought high spots of angry colour to Fiona’s cheekbones. ‘Yes...I can,’ she vowed sturdily.
He gave a slow nod, accepting what she’d said, but Fiona knew he was still laughing at her even if he had dipped his head to prevent her seeing the expression beneath his long black lashes.
‘Are you going to castigate the Beresford ladies for travelling without a servant?’ Fiona demanded. ‘Or is it just me you wish to condemn as a nuisance for having the temerity to do so?’
‘Just you...’
‘And why is that?’
‘You are younger and more comely than the other ladies, as I’m sure you’re aware. If your coach were held up, you would draw the attention of felons who might want to take more than just material valuables from the women they rob.’
That took the wind out of Fiona’s sails and put a deeper blush in her cheeks. She swallowed, said hoarsely, ‘You seem to know a worrying amount about it, Mr Wolfson.’
Luke’s mouth quirked. ‘Over the years I’ve learned lots of things.’
‘I’m sure...and have you now learned not to stop and help stranded travellers, lest they irritate you?’
‘I confess I was tempted to keep going.’
Fiona found that admission rather shocking, given that he’d helped enormously, keeping them safe and sound by lighting a fire and drying their clothes. ‘It’s good to know that your conscience got the better of you in the end, sir,’ she said faintly.
