She saw him; her love, the only one who could still her heart. She wondered in that moment if she would ever see him again.
Shadow whinnied and Nadia's eyes flashed open as a bullet whizzed past, only a mere inch from striking the steed in the flank. She realized that the bandits had no interest in harming her - they instead wished simply to isolate her, kidnap her, so that they might ransom her, or use her for... rather more nefarious purposes. She swallowed hard, gripping with all the strength her body could to Shadow's reins, but she felt Shadow pacing slower, and slower; the bandits laughed as they began to keep pace, surrounding Nadia on each side.
"Shadow! Here, hya!" she directed her horse along a side path, through some trees; the bandits closed rank behind her, but two clumsy riders moved slowly and found themselves acquainted rather harshly with the ground when their steeds stopped suddenly in the thicket of trees, launching their riders careening into the dirt. Still, six men on horses galloped along behind her ailing mount, and when the trees cleared they rode side-by-side now with Nadia, two of them pulling to each side of her.
"Help! Help me! Please, stop," Nadia exclaimed, tears forming at her cheeks. Laughing the laugh only a creature of seething, slimy scum could laugh, one of the bandits pawed at Nadia's breast, trying to tear her from her mount in the lewdest manner he could. She pulled away, kicking at the man and his horse; Shadow whinnied and rammed sideways into the man, though another bandit rode up behind and took his place. They'd surrounded her now, and her chest hurt; her throat grew hoarse as she screamed for anyone to help.
"Oy! Look 'head!" one of the bandits warned his comrades as the others grasped at Nadia, who tried to pull ahead. She couldn't open her eyes; she couldn't dare look at the fate that had befallen her.
"S'time ta have some fun with you, girly!" one of the filthy bandits crooned, moving in close with a sinister laugh on his tongue. Her heart pounding, she gripped Shadow close, listening to the horse's pained cries over the round of horseshoe gallops and sleazy chuckles.
CRACK!
An explosive sound poured across the fields; at first she took it to be thunder, but she heard a loud crash and looked to her side. The awful bandit who had been keeping pace at her flank shouted in pain as the force of something threw him from his horse; the other bandits fanned out, exclaiming in fright. Another crack rang out - and she recognized it as a musket shot, the bullet striking another bandit and knocking him clean off his horse.
Hope suddenly gleaming in her heart, she looked ahead and saw a carriage pulled off to the side of the desolate roadway. She led Shadow close to the carriage, but the bandits drew closer; she saw no one at the vehicle, but when the mass of horses and bandits passed close enough a man like a wild, confused blur of color appeared suddenly from behind the vehicle, a using the lengthy butt of his musket to ambush one of the bandits, knocking him off his horse with a powerful swing that cracked against the malicious rider's jaw. Her breaths ragged, her chest sore and her eyes reddened and muddled with tears, she swung around in a wide circle, traipsing back in a wide, arcing circle, back to the carriage. The bandits chased her, and as she drew close to the vehicle she leapt from Shadow's back, rolling along the rode with a pained grunt, taking cover beneath the carriage. She closed her eyes, covered her head, hoping that whoever this phantom savior had been, that he hadn't yet vanished before finishing the job. She heard the bandits do the same; their horses whinnying, hooves pattering, she soon heard their feet and their greedy, grubby and wanting exclamations fill the air. The sound of steel drawn against scabbards startled her as the bootfalls and growling voices drew closer. Nadia shook, her eyes clasped shut tight, when she heard the voice grow loud.
"Oy, 'ere she is! Get 'er, and whoever helped—" the grungy voice was suddenly and quite violently silenced by a resounding, skull-cracking THUMP. Nadia winced as she heard the noise ring over the rumble of thunder; then, another, and another, as the scuffle grew wilder and faster. She heard a bandit cry out in pain and finally dared to open her eyes, just to catch a glimpse. She saw a single pair of tidied boots amid a dozen scrounging, dirtied feet, squaring off with skillful, quick movements. Another loud CRACK filled the air, sounding so particularly disgusting in what it meant for the recipient of the attack that Lady Havenshire recoiled beneath the carriage in vicarious pain. She saw a bandit drop, his sword clattering to the cobblestones of the road; horses whinnied as they came around for another pass, and she noticed two other groaning bandits, already taken down, crawling helplessly along the roadway, wracked with pain from their encounter with this mysterious savior.
Nadia covered her head as another series of loud thwacks, jerks and spins followed; her eyes closed, she just begged silently for all of it to be done; she wanted just to see Lord Beckham again. A brush with death had perhaps made her realize more than anything that she just wanted to be near him - even if she didn't prove stubborn enough to convince him of her feelings of how they ought to be together, she would give anything to simply see him again before she died; to see the man she had fallen in love with.
Finally, the sound of the violent scuffle subsided, the crack and smack of blunt rifle-butt against bone and flesh replaced by the long, pained groans of battered, beaten outlaws. Horses kicked up dust and dirt, galloping along without their masters upon their backs. When all the chaos seemed to die, Nadia opened her eyes, her breaths quivering, to see if anyone remained standing after the great battle.
She saw only the decimated remains of the melee - men in patchwork armor and weather-beaten cloaks, scarves covering their faces, bruises and welts freshly beaten into each of them as the struggled for consciousness. She didn't see the fresh pair of boots, and feared the worst. Closing her eyes again, she felt tears along her cheeks, murmuring quietly to herself.
"Please. Please. I just want to see him again. Please. Please. I love him. I'll do anything, please, just let me see him again. You can take me, you can kill me, you can do whatever you will, be I just want to see him again, please," she begged, prayed to some silent power, for anything - just a moment of reprieve, just to see him again.
"See who?" she heard boots clasp as the carriage creaked, and her strange savior appeared. She recognized the voice; it filled her heart, brimming with joy.
"You—wh—" Nadia, startled and confused, saw his face come into view as he knelt down to help her out from beneath the carriage.
"It's not safe for women to travel these paths, you know," Lord Beckham chided her playfully, taking her hand.
"How..." Nadia asked, utterly dumbfounded. He smirked.
"I may not have spent my time learning to ride, m'lady," he quipped, "but I must've spent that time learning to do something worthwhile... right?" he gripped his musket in his free hand, tugging her out from beneath the carriage with the other.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Nadia say at the side of the ride, her gown a mess of dirt and dust, admiring the other skill her love appeared to have spent quite a great deal of time practicing - tying knots. More specifically, incapacitated with rope each of the scoundrels who'd survived the battle, wrists bound tightly together and ankles to follow. Groaning in anguish, three of them lay half-conscious and muttering curses at the dutiful duke as he leashed their comrades; she smiled in quiet awe at him, having shown a side she had never yet seen.
"You'll pay for 'is! The other mates'll be 'ere to finish you and yer little harlot off!" one of the wrapped-up bandits angrily protested; Lord Beckham rolled his eyes, quite confidently and unconcernedly striding back to the carriage, grasping the weapon leaned against it, and bashing the rather angry, odious little man in the cheek with the butt of the gun.
"I'd be delighted to see them - I need the exercise, after all," Lord Beckham quipped, exhaling sharply and tossing the weapon to the ground beside him. "Harlot - what sort of language is that for a proper gentleman?" he scoffed jokingly. He threw a glance to his 'harlot', who grinned brightly, her heart full of warmth - but her mind, and her face, w
racked with confusion.
"Marshall, it's certainly... pleasant, to discover so many secret talents, of yours," she quipped, her breath still quavering, body still wracked with excitement and fear and bafflement at this precarious turn of events. "Though, I must admit the talent of yours that most entices me in just this moment is your rather mystical power of precognition," she added lackadaisically. Shadow stood at Nadia's side, whinnying and clopping her hooves on the roadway in agreement; Nadia gently tugged on her loyal steed's reins to calm the beast, her heart racing nearly as fast as Nadia's was.
"And just what are you implying of me, Lady Havenshire?" he asked playfully, a bandit groaning as the dutiful duke tugged the ropes binding the scoundrel up tight.
"Nothing, m'lord, simply that I find it rather fortuitous for you to happen upon my predicament, having been traveling the same road, at the same time as I," Nadia coyly murmured, her cheeks blossoming a slight tone of rose. She thought to continue her sheepish little line of curious questions, when she heard a bristling from the brush behind her and nearly leapt in a panic. Glancing to her rear she saw a suit-wearing man wrestling with a tangle of thorny brush, emerging from the forested fields dotting the side of the roadway. Though she kept her guard up at first, she sighed a hefty breath of relief when she recognized the man as James, Lord Beckham's loyal butler.
"M'lord, m'lord, I heard gunfire! Gunfire, and shouts, and, I know you told me to stay hidden in the brush, but—" James blinked as he came upon the rather righteous carnage strewn about the roadway, his master tying down the criminals one-by-one. "—Oh," he murmured in shock, gulping. "I didn't know your fighting skills had come such a long way, m'lord. You must've been practicing." He at once took notice of Lady Havenshire and jumped out of his skin at the sight, shock on his face, followed swiftly by pleasant surprise. "Oh- oh! Lady Havenshire, what a fortunate set of circumstances that we happened upon you at so critical a time," he said. A loud thunderclap echoed through the sky and the winds began to whip quicker and wilder. "Oh, blast it, just my luck," the butler grumbled. "Blast the weather on these miserable moors. Not a day can pass peaceful without thunder grousing on about it."
"Yes, a critical time, just the sort of question I had meant to ask your master," Lady Havenshire said.
"Well, I had need of traveling a quick route back to the Emerys estate, and James suggested this side path," Lord Beckham murmured innocently, hoisting a groggy criminal onto his feet, dragging the man to the carriage and throwing him unceremoniously inside. "James spied a group of roustabouts harassing a young lady, rather roughly, and when I saw them carrying dangerous weapons, I felt it necessary to act," the duke recalled, a hint of the precocious gleaming in the little smile working its way through his steely expression. "Fortunately, the bandits around these parts have far more courage when it comes to harassing lone women, than they do skills with those sabres and pistols they carry," Marshall scoffed.
"You bloody ambushed us, you coward!" one of the bandits grumpily groaned, before receiving a swift kick to the sides by Marshall, who hoisted him up next and threw him into the cabin of the carriage along with his lowlife brethren.
"Ambushed, coward," he joked. "Not, of course, that I wanted you to think I thought you incapable of saving yourself, of course, m'lady," Lord Beckham added playfully. "I'm certain if you'd had the same advantages I had in position, you'd have dealt with them quite as handily as I did. I simply wanted to offer some assistance."
"Your assistance is appreciated, though you glossed over a rather important bit in your explanation, m'lord," Nadia said, breathing deep.
"Did I?" Lord Beckham crossed the road with concern in his face.
"You mentioned that a matter of some importance drove you to seek a faster path to the Emerys estate... or did I imagine that part?" Lady Havenshire asked, her cheeks burning bright pink.
"You did in fact hear correctly," Lord Beckham said, his voice rattled; he could tackle a dozen bandits, but the matters of their affair still shook him to his core. She smiled. She could certainly appreciate that sort of humility in a man.
"And what purpose, might I ask..." she broached the question calm and coyly. "...would you have, being present at Emerys manor, m'lord?..." He approached her cautiously, slipping his hand into his jacket and retrieving a piece of paper - crumpled, crushed, and ripped, with ink stained in swirling circles along its surface. He unfolded the parchment and revealed it to be the contract - the one she had thrown at him, had trod angrily upon. She breathed a sigh of displeasure, looking away.
"You haven't signed this contract, m'lady." Suddenly she felt strong hands upon her; grasping her chin, cupping it close, turning her face back in his direction; she resisted, tears welling up again, shivering as another wind pressed along her back.
She winced as she heard the slow shrrrrk of him tearing the contract in half. He did it again, and again, until only tiny pieces fluttering in the kicking winds remained. And when he opened his palms he threw the shreds into the air, letting the wet whirlwinds carry them off across the treetops. She exhaled shakily, the hand on her chin feeling so strong; so divine. And he needn't say another word; trancelike and wanting she rose to her feet, her legs wobbling and rubbery; but she felt strength fill her anew when their lips met again, the fire sparked fresh; the desire renewed.
"I had to away to Emerys to ensure that you never signed it," he said, their noses touching; their hearts beating together, their souls afire. "Because I don't want a loveless marriage. I don't want convenience, I don't want any of that - what I want, what I've wanted since that night we sat together, since the night we made one another smile - is you. It's all I've wanted, Nadia. And if you tell me that I can't have that, that I've ruined that with my stubbornness, with my self-loathing, with my dedication to failing, then I will leave here and never speak with you again. But I will never forget you, or the time we shared, or the love that I let die in my heart."
"I don't want to let that feeling go. Since I saw you, I knew you were different," she admitted tearfully, grasping onto his waist with all her strength, her spine shivering as the leaves whipped up around them. "I've wanted freedom my whole life, but it's only with you I've learned freedom doesn't preclude the touch... the love, of a man," she admitted with a shudder. "In fact, I... I think... it's only with you at my side... I'd ever truly feel free." Their lips met again with all the passion and power in the world; not even in their most passionate moment together had they known this sort of full and freed desire. He swept her into his strong arms, holding her close and warm against the batter of the breeze; and as a cloak of red-orange autumn leaves swirled around them, their lips embraced and their bodies surrendered and they became one another. A sound of soft sobbing interrupted them, their kiss breaking as they looked to roadside to see old James, his suit muddy and lopsided, crying his eyes out at the sight of the two of them embraced and exchanging words of passion.
"She's broken that spell you've been under for so long," James sobbed, the old man's face ruddy. "Ms. Cauthfield and I've wanted nothing more than your happiness for so long, m'lord. To hear those words come from your lips, and to hear them so lovingly reciprocated, from someone so deserving of your affection..." he blubbered. "I can scarcely contain the joy, m'lord."
"James, has Ms. Cauthfield left our service yet?" Marshall asked pensively.
"Oh, come now, m'lord, you know that old witch couldn't ever leave us," James said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Try as you might, m'lord, you'll never be rid of the two of us. She'd never have it, and she certainly will be brimming in pride to take credit for having forced you to confront yourself and realize you needed to make right with Lady Havenshire."
"I'm certain she'll badger me until the end of times about that," Lord Beckham sighed wistfully. His arm slung around his love, he looked down to Nadia, who herself had begun to cry streams of joy.
"I've never truly felt freer, Marshall, than you've helped me be," she admitted.
"Unf
ortunately, we've some more detritus to attend to, haven't we," Marshall grinned; a single bandit remained knotted down on the side of the road, groaning in pain. Lord Beckham approached the lawless cretin, hoisting him to his feet; as he dragged the man to the carriage, Nadia followed along with an impish smile.
"You've been practicing your fighting and shooting techniques, I would assume," Lady Havenshire teased, "...have you perhaps been practicing your riding techniques, as well?"
"M'lady, Ms. Cauthfield often enjoyed reminding me that love and relationships are about a great many things, one of which is sacrifice and giving to your lover," Lord Beckham responded facetiously, tossing the groaning criminal into the carriage and slamming the door shut, sealing it by placing his rifle across the latches to the door. "Unfortunately, there's one sacrifice I won't make - even for a woman as amazing and as beautiful, as talented and intelligent, and as free as you," he teased.
"Come now, m'lord, was Pierre certainly that difficult a horse to get along with?" Lady Havenshire laughed. "I could teach you, you know. It's not quite too difficult a task. Particularly, I would imagine, for a man capable of trouncing an entire half-dozen bandits with only a long stick to help him."
"A half a dozen bandits couldn't dare stand up to the stubbornness of old Pierre," Lord Beckham grumbled. "I think I'll be riding at the head of the carriage instead. James?" The loyal butler mounted the front bench of the carriage, still wiping tears from his eyes; her smile absolutely infectious, Lady Havenshire hopped upon Shadow's back, sighing in satisfaction as her steed clopped to life excitedly.
"Are we making our way back to the Emerys estate, m'lord?" Nadia asked excitedly.
"No, unfortunately - I feel we have a few stops to make first," Lord Beckham responded.
"Where to, then, m'lord?" James asked, so full of pride at seeing his master broken from the stupor that had afflicted him for so long.
The Duke's Headstrong Woman: True Love In London (Regency Romance: Strong Women Find True Love Book 2) Page 15
