tell the others to return to the coach,’ Fiona spluttered through the icy rain pounding her face. As she bolted back towards the copse it ran through her mind that the little group would be bitterly disappointed—as was she—to hear the vehicle couldn’t be repaired so they could get quickly under way.
* * *
‘Shall we keep our spirits up by playing a game? We could sing a song?’ Fiona suggested in desperation as the weather outside continued to batter and shake the coach. Despite the drumming of the rain on the roof Fiona could hear Valerie Beresford snuffling in one corner of the vehicle. In the other, Mrs Jackson was crying with more abandon while her husband patted alternately at her hands and her shoulders to try to quieten her.
‘Well...this is an adventure...’ Ruth Beresford said and gave Fiona a nervous grin.
‘Indeed...and one I’d sooner not have experienced.’ Fiona sighed wryly. She was determined to keep buoyant. She was the youngest woman in the party so should be the strongest, mentally and physically, she’d reasoned. She lifted a corner of the leather blind at the window and peered at poor Bert marching forlornly to and fro, the blunderbuss up in readiness to be aimed. It was getting dark and Fiona feared that before too long nightfall would overcome them, hampering their rescue team and also throwing her companions further into the doldrums.
‘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
