‘Change of plans.’ Blade skimmed a glance down the bill and found it accurate.
‘You’ll be careful on the road,’ the landlord said. ‘I hear there are rabble-rousers going around the countryside stirring up sentiments as ought not to be stirred.’
‘Do you know any specifics?’ he asked casually as he got to his feet.
‘Not me, sir. I hear things. Mutters and so forth. No specifics.’
Hardly helpful. ‘Have your man come up for my valise in ten minutes.’ Ten minutes he could hardly afford, but it would take him that long to pack without help from Ned. ‘Have a note taken round to Shaw’s Livery for me, would you please?’
Ned would have his horse ready by the time he arrived.
Blade hunched deeper into his greatcoat. Naturally, it would rain all day. And naturally he’d missed Mrs Falkner at the King George.
Fortunately, his batman-cum-groom had taken the change in plan in stride. An excellent fellow, Ned. He’d been with Blade since the day he set foot in Lisbon and had proved a loyal and worthy comrade-in-arms. Blade was determined to keep the man employed, since work for soldiers returning from war was scarce, there being so many of them. Hopefully, Charlie would agree with the extra expense. If not, he would have to pay him from his own salary.
‘House steward’ was what Charlie had called the position he’d offered. Not something Blade would have thought of doing in his wildest dreams. He’d never thought of any career but the army from the time he could handle a wooden sword. And with the army reduced to a fraction of its former size, there wasn’t a hope in hell of selling his commission quickly. If at all. He could just see the earl looking down his nose in his autocratic way and pretending he understood perfectly, while not understanding at all. Likely wishing him in Jericho, too. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Not that Blade cared.
The odds had been against him from the start. Even his mother hadn’t wanted him. He’d been in the way from the day of his birth and likely before. Nothing but a bloody nuisance. His mother’s words still had the power to carve a slice out of his heart.
He’d tried his best not to be in the way at his father’s house when he’d gone there at the age of ten. Tried to do nothing that would make him or his lady wife regret offering him a place in their home. He hadn’t stood a chance. What man wanted his mistake thrust under his nose on a daily basis?
Thank God and Charlie, he didn’t have to return to his father like the beggar he’d always been.
He hunched deeper into the folds of his scarf, but it didn’t prevent a trickle of rainwater finding its way down the back of his neck. And that didn’t take his mind off the water splashing up from his horse’s hooves and soaking his breeches. Pretty soon his backside would be soaking wet, too.
While the dry and warm Mrs Falkner, when he caught up to her, would not be the slightest bit pleased with him or his news.
The woman certainly offered a challenge to a man known for his charm when it came to lonely widows. A reputation he’d worked hard to acquire. Pleasurably hard. Those words in conjunction with thoughts of Caro Falkner had him shifting uncomfortably in the saddle. Was it her obvious disapproval that had him thinking of seduction each time he saw her or the beauty she tried so hard to hide behind her severe demeanour and dress? Or was it the mystery behind her facade of unbending respectability? The picture she painted of the vicar’s perfect daughter, when he remembered her so very differently. Was she hiding something that might prove dangerous to his friend and his friend’s wife?
An intriguing question.
He rounded a bend to a scene of utter disaster. A carriage tilted crazily on the verge. A shattered wheel some distance off. A team—Tonbridge’s team, for goodness’ sake—trembling and shifting in the harness, ready to bolt. His heart rose in his throat.
He galloped the intervening hundred yards and leaped down. His gut clenched at the sight of the coachman sprawled face up in the ditch. Blade had seen enough death to recognise a broken neck. Why had he not caught them up sooner? Had the woman’s distaste for him made him deliberately hang back? Idiot.
‘Mrs Falkner?’ His shout was met by a resounding silence. Heart in his mouth, he approached the carriage door swinging free on its hinges and peered inside. The sight of her pale face, her closed eyes and the way she lay on the floor in a heap brought bile to his throat. He leaped aboard. She groaned softly and her eyelids fluttered.
Alive, then. Relief flooded through him.
He rubbed her cold hands. ‘Mrs Falkner?’ he repeated. ‘Come on, let’s get you out of here.’ It would be cold in the wind and rain, but he could feel the carriage shifting as the horses moved restlessly. At any moment the animals might take it into their foolish heads to run.
‘Mrs Falkner,’ he said again, more demanding this time. Louder.
She opened her eyes and put a hand to her head. For a moment she stared at him blankly, then frowned. ‘Mr Read? Where is Josiah? Mr Garge?’
He thought about lying, but she was going to see how matters lay the moment he got her out of the carriage. ‘Dead, I am afraid. Broken neck. Here, let me help you up. Put your arm over my shoulder and hang on.’ With only one hand, he had to get her to help herself. Fortunately, her eyes cleared and, with his aid, she pushed to her feet. He helped her to the ground, where she swayed slightly, then found her feet and her balance.
Out in the grey light of the morning, his blood chilled as he saw the red lump on her forehead, already turning blue, and the blood streaked across her chin. ‘You are hurt.’
She stared at him blankly, then glanced down at her hand where more blood welled. ‘A scratch, I think.’
He guided her to a boulder and sat her facing away from the coachman. ‘I must see to the horses and then we will see what we can do about that injury.’ He’d seen men die from less on the battlefields of Europe.
A quick check of the horses confirmed his impression that while nervous, they were unharmed. He found a length of rope beneath the coachman’s box and used it to hobble the leaders. There was no way for him to repair the coach. They needed help.
He went to his own horse and pulled down his saddle pack before going back to Mrs Falkner. Her colour was already better. A good sign. He put a finger beneath her chin to lift up her face so he could see to tend her forehead. Her eyes widened in shock. ‘You have a bump,’ he said by way of explanation for his forward behaviour. ‘Do you have a headache?’
She shook her head. ‘It only hurts if I touch it.’
Another good sign. He pulled out a bottle of witch hazel and dabbed at the bruise and then at the cut on her hand.
‘Did you say Garge is...?’
No sense beating around the bush. ‘Dead. Yes.’
‘How can that be?’
‘He must have struck his head on a boulder when he came off the box.’
‘But...he
