by Lynn Collum
The girl’s thoughts settled on that man who had grown into a dashing figure in her imagination. She opened her eyes and gazed at Nurse, who sat stitching away at something black and shapeless. “Have you heard from Johnny?”
The servant’s brown gaze flew to her charge. “Never ye mind about me brother. Go to sleep, child.”
Jacinda scooted higher on the pillows. “I would never tell a single soul about him. Is he in Somerset?”
Nurse glanced at the door as if fearful someone would hear her. “Aye, he’s back. I keep urgin’ him to find an honest livin’ here, but he swears he’s no longer workin’ the Pike. He’s a good man but I worry so for him and his wanderlust. He’s a son of his own, so it’s high time he settled down at his age.”
“A son?”
“Aye, little Ben.” Nurse’s face grew soft at the thought of her nephew. “His mother worked at The King’s Arms and lives with the boy near Bristol. Johnny comes to visit regular and is always full of promises.”
A shiver of excitement raced through Jacinda. With all the innocence of youth, she still believed such a life was full of adventure, ignoring the danger. “Can I meet him next time he comes?”
“Not as long as I draw breath. Go to sleep, Miss Jacinda.”
The girl well knew that tone. She would get nothing else from Nurse. She snuggled down into the covers and soon fell asleep, despite her apprehension about what lay ahead.
Apollo’s hooves pounded the hard gravel road rhythmically as Andrew pressed him to lengthen his stride. He wanted to be far away from his father and that sickly child they were trying to foist on him. In heated anger, he passed several riders along the road but who they were he couldn’t say, so deep was his grievance against his sire.
Perhaps the worst part was that if this settlement were signed, within six months the baron would be right back where he was at the moment—in need of funds. Only then, Andrew would be obliged to marry that plain child at the time and place of their fathers’ choosing.
He reined his horse to a walk and stared out at the green valley he loved. In the distance to the south, he could see the villages of Westbury and Wookey where he’d spent so much time. This was his home and had been for generations of his family before him. He’d always thought that he would live, marry, produce his heir, and die here. Had his father robbed him of his legacy with his excessive gaming?
At the thought of his own marriage, his father’s warning echoed in his head. Would Squire Amberly really refuse to allow him to pay his addresses to Mariah? A flash of memory from the spring Horse Fair filled his mind. The old squire had followed behind Lord Chesterfield, one of the wealthiest landowners in this part of the county, and behaved like the man’s servant instead of a country gentleman.
An overwhelming desire to see Mariah rose in him. He would not be denied his true love by his father or hers. He would elope, take her to Gretna and marry over the anvil. But as that image seeped into his brain, his lip curled in distaste. Perhaps it was his age that made him see life as black and white and such a shoddy, scandalous marriage was not for him and his Mariah. Besides, he hadn’t enough money to hire a carriage and horses, much less to pay for inns and marriage.
A wave of despair washed over Andrew and he sagged in the saddle, a gesture his horse interpreted as a signal to stop. The lad sat in the middle of the road, his dark thoughts gripping him. His father was right. Mariah wouldn’t be allowed to marry him, and the very thought made him ill. A title would not be enough to sway the squire. There were easily five men in the neighborhood with fortunes and titles. Squire Amberly would never allow Andrew near her with his pockets to let.
Pain radiated through his chest as that truth struck him hard. He ground his teeth in frustration. But his youth helped him to rally and he soon determined there had to be a way. He must have funds before he could present himself as Miss Amberly’s suitor. Not just funds, but a fortune of his own since his father was like a giant hole in the ground that sucked up every cent that came within his reach.
Andrew’s eyes narrowed as he put his mind to the problem. How did an English gentleman make money except from his land? The very thought of trade made a chill race over him. Nothing would put a period to his hopes with Mariah more than to have her father discover that the future Lord Rowland had soiled his hands in such a manner.
His gaze drifted west toward Bristol Channel, some fifteen miles away. He remembered his last trip to the coast before his mother had died, when he’d sat and watched white sails of ships going about their business. He’d longed to experience great adventure back then, but everything had changed. His eyes widened as an idea took root. There was only one way to avoid this betrothal and earn the funds he needed. He would have to leave.
Where did everyone go to get rich? India! His hands tightened on the reins. That was it, he would go to India and make his fortune. For the first time that day, a smile tipped his mouth.
But first he must secure Mariah’s pledge to wait for him. She must know that he would do all this for her. Full of romantic notions and convinced that he had come up with the perfect solution to his dilemma, he set off for Amberly Court, determined to have a private conversation with his beloved.
Despite the day’s excitement, Jacinda slept soundly. Trudy shook her awake just after five. She was quickly dressed in her blue velvet gown with a white lace collar that Aunt Devere had brought back from London last fall. Jacinda’s hair was brushed and tied with a matching blue ribbon. She wore the gold locket with two entwined ruby hearts that had once belonged to her mother. It always made her feel as if her mother were watching over her. One glance in the mirror and she knew that the fussy gown did little to improve her looks and that the locket was overlarge for her frail frame. As usual, a gaunt, pale ghost of a child looked back from her glass.
At six o’clock sharp Trudy led Jacinda down to the great hall, where Cousin Millie was in a heated argument with Mr. Blanchett. The gentleman was elegantly dressed in evening attire, and his brown hair, shot with red highlights, was neatly groomed and gleaming in the candlelight. A riding accident that very week had forced him to use a gold-topped cane, but he’d declared it made him look more the fashionable swell, which always seemed important to the foundry-owner-turned-country-gentleman. To Jacinda’s eyes he was quite a handsome man, even at fifty.
Aunt Devere, all blond curls and rouged cheeks, was off to one side, listening but not voicing her opinion one way or the other. The widow rarely disagreed with her late sister-in-law’s husband. She would only face his wrath when it came to pleading for him to increase her son’s allowances or begging him to be lenient when Giles had engaged in some folly that displeased Mr. Blanchett. Otherwise, she had little to say to him.
“Enough!” Blanchett roared at last. “I’ll not have you ruining the evening with your sour face and attitude, Millie. You shan’t go.” He turned to Mrs. Devere, who turned her back to the gentleman’s and gave a shake of her head. He shrugged, then looked at Nurse. “What is your name?”
The young servant quaked, but she curtsied. “Trudeau, sir. Aggie Trudeau.”
“You’re old Ben’s daughter?” When the girl acknowledged her father had been the gentleman’s head groom before his death, Mr. Blanchett nodded his approval. “Your father was a good man. Well, Trudeau, you will be Jacinda’s companion this evening. Go find a wrap.”
Without a word, Nurse hurried up the stairs even as Millicent Markham began a new round of haranguing the gentleman. “This is beyond foolish, sir. The child has only just recovered from an inflamation of the lungs and you intend to take her out into the night chill.”
He searched his daughter’s gaunt face and saw nothing worrisome. “That was two months ago, and she will never regain her strength locked forever in her rooms. She looks fit to me; therefore, she shall go.” His tone brooked no further argument, even from Millicent.
They stood in strained silence until Nurse returned, then Mr. Blanchett softened his attitude
, turning on his charm. “Take heart, Millie. We won’t be late. I shall have Jacinda home before eleven, I promise. Then you may cosset her to your heart’s content.”
The lady’s lips pressed together in a grim line and she made no comment other than to remind her niece to heed her manners. In frosty silence, the spinster marched up the stairs in a huff.
Millie’s display of pique did little to deter Mr. Blanchett. He ushered his daughter outside with Nurse on their heels. Her father directed that a small leather-bound chest be put in the carriage. The trio climbed into the large family coach and traveled the five miles to Rowland Park, which lay beyond the small village of Wookey. All the while her father kept telling her that one day she would be thankful for what he was doing.
The only thing of note about the evening was Andrew Morrow’s absence. His father made excuses about a prior engagement, but even Jacinda’s father seemed skeptical. For Jacinda it was simply an excessively long, boring night with bad food and no real company while the gentlemen retired to the library to transact their business.
At nine o’clock, Jacob Blanchett insisted he must take his daughter home for it was well past her bedtime.
Lord Rowland grinned, his red-shot gaze settling on the girl. “Ah, yes, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to our future baroness, now would we?”
A chill raced down Jacinda’s spine. She understood that was exactly what he and his son did hope. She pulled her shawl tighter round her shoulders and looked to her father, but he seemed to see nothing wrong in the baron’s words.
Trudy was summoned along with the carriage, and they set out for home. Mr. Blanchett settled back into the squabs, greatly satisfied with the night’s work. They rode in silence for much of the way before her father spoke. “You are destined to be Baroness Rowland one day, my dear. Never forget that. The baron might think he can wiggle out of our agreement, but the paperwork he signed tonight will go to my solicitor in the morning post, just in case.”
There was something in her father’s voice that frightened Jacinda. “In case of what, Papa?”
He stared at her in the dim light of the carriage. Jacinda had always sensed his disappointment that she was not as pretty as her mother. Her father liked pretty women and she was not.
“Perhaps it’s nothing, but even though I chose to allow my brother to run the Foundry and retired to a gentleman’s life in the country, I’m not an utter fool. Everyone thinks I—”
A pistol discharged in the nearby darkness. A shouted “Stand and deliver” penetrated the closed carriage. Mr. Blanchett moved to lower the window and look out. To Jacinda’s surprise, the coachman disobeyed the barked demand. The crack of a whip sounded and the carriage began to sway back and forth as the horses thundered forward.
“Papa, what is happening?” Jacinda grabbed at her father’s hand.
He didn’t answer her. Instead, he spoke to Nurse. “Trudeau, if they get the carriage stopped, protect the child with your life.”
“Yes, sir.” Nurse’s tone was surprisingly brave to Jacinda’s ears.
The dark shadows of the countryside flashed by the windows as they fled from the highwaymen. Jacinda had never ridden so fast and the sharp sway of the carriage made her feel queasy. Another shot rang out and a strange thud sounded above them.
“They’ve shot the coachman.”
Jacinda recognized the concern in her father’s voice. The carriage began to sway from one side of the road to the other as the horses sensed the loss of control. Mr. Blanchett swore under his breath as they were thrown about inside the small space. The swaying grew more pronounced and her father shouted, “Brace yourself, I think we’re going to crash.”
Jacinda flew forward as the sound of cracking wood and breaking glass filled the air. The air was knocked from her and for a moment she couldn’t breathe.
A strange stillness filled the carriage. Stunned, it took several minutes before Jacinda’s senses registered that the vehicle was no longer moving. The carriage lay at an angle against a boulder. In the darkness she could hear the groans of her father and Trudy as well as the distant sound of their team hurling away, still harnessed to the broken shaft.
“Papa?” Jacinda reached out for her father but he was already climbing out the door, now positioned over their heads.
“Hurry!” he called as he jumped to the ground and grabbed her hand. Roughly, he pulled her from the wreckage. Minutes later Trudy stood beside her. The sound of riders approaching made her father cry, “Take my daughter up into those rocks.”
“Aye, sir.” Trudy clamped a hand over Jacinda’s arm and dragged her across the road. Jacinda looked back to see the dark shape of her father standing in the moonlight, leaning heavily on the cane he’d salvaged from the wreck as he stared in the direction of the highwaymen.
“Papa? Are you not coming?”
“Not a word, child, and don’t come out until Trudeau says its safe.”
The two females scrambled up through the rocks and found a large boulder that jutted out. Trudy pulled the child down into the circle of her arms, and whispered, “Not a peep, Miss Jacinda, no matter what you hear.”
Jacinda nodded her head. What was going to happen to them? Why had those men chased them? In the darkness she couldn’t tell how close they were to home. She had never wanted to see Cousin Millie as much as she did at that very moment.
The horses thundered up. A gunshot exploded in the darkness. Both girls flinched at the report. Trudy leaned forward to peer round the rock’s edge, then gasped and drew back. She whimpered and prayed, “Oh, sweet Lord protect us!”
Jacinda strained her ears for her father’s voice but all she heard was the gravelly rasp of the highwayman’s question. “Is he dead?”
Jacinda bit her lip to keep from screaming and tears welled in her eyes. They had shot Papa.
“Not yet, but it won’t be long,” a second voice answered. “ ’E’s got a nice plump purse.”
“Stubble it and find the child. We ain’t done until we take care of the child.”
The air froze in Jacinda’s lungs even as Trudy’s arms tightened protectively. They wanted her. Why? She had no money. Her fingers suddenly clamped over her mother’s locket. She prayed they wouldn’t take that from her.
Footsteps sounded on the wrecked carriage then a voice called, “She ain’t ’ere.”
“Search the area. Ain’t no pay unless we finish the job.”
For the next few minutes Trudy and Jacinda lay in their hiding place holding their breath as the two brigands roved over the rocks across the road where the wrecked carriage lay. They had just reached the base of the hill on the other side of the road when the leader stopped. He swore loudly, then shouted, “Someone’s coming. We’ll ’ave to get the brat later.”
Within minutes, sounds of the horses galloping away filled the night. Jacinda shoved Trudy’s arms aside and scrambled down the hill to her father. The servant protested, but followed her charge back to the roadway. Jacinda fell to her knees while Trudy stood and peered into the darkness in the direction the highwaymen had ridden. In the opposite distance the jangle of a slow-moving vehicle rattled.
“Papa, Papa.” Jacinda grabbed her father’s coat, tears streaming down her cheeks.
A weak hand came up to grab her wrist. “Where—where ... is ... your nurse?”
Trudy came to his other side. “Here, sir.”
“Trudeau,” Mr. Blanchett coughed, and they could hear a strange rattle as he breathed. “Listen to me. You must leave Somerset and take Jacinda with you.”
“Leave, Papa, no! I won’t go without you.” Tears rolled unchecked, dropping on her hands as they clutched at her father as if she could hold on for him.
“Hush, child. This is too important. Trudeau ... did you hear those men?”
“Aye, sir, I did. They was wantin’ to hurt Miss Jacinda.”
“No, to kill her. You must protect her.” Jacinda openly sobbed at her father’s words, but he continued, knowing
his time was running out. “Make certain my solicitor gets these documents.” He was scarcely able to lift the leather pouch and his hand fell limply to the ground once the servant had taken the papers. “I am asking a great deal, but in the end my daughter will reward you, Trudeau. Take the diamond stick pin in my cravat and whatever else I have and sell it. That should keep you in funds until perhaps the truth will be revealed about this night’s evil work. Don’t trust anyone, girl. Not my family or my friends. Protect her until she’s old enough to recognize the danger. When you send the documents, have Jacinda write a letter to my solicitor, Thomas Wilkins, in London. She’s to inform him that only when you deem it’s safe, she will return to claim her rightful heritage. Make certain she never tells him her location. He would be duty-bound to return her to Chettwood.”
Jacob Blanchett took another rattling breath, then tightened his grip on his daughter’s arm. “Jacinda, my dearest child, things are going to be difficult for you, but you must be strong. Do as Trudeau tells you. Always remember that someone wants my fortune and that they are willing to kill you to get it. I—I’m sorry, my dear. I have ... have done many things I regret. I should have done something sooner when ... when I ... began to suspect a ... danger ... after ... my riding acc—accident. I love ... you... .” there was a soft rush of air, then the gentleman fell silent. His hand dropped from her.
Jacinda fell prostrate over her father’s body and wept bitterly but Trudy turned in the direction of the approaching vehicle. The servant peered into the darkness at the light from the carriage lantern that flickered in the distance. She straightened as if coming to some decision. She leaned over and grabbed the child’s arm. “Hurry, Miss Jacinda, someone’s comin’ and if we don’t leave now, I won’t be able to follow your father’s directions.”
