worried you, and so I followed you. I knew I couldn’t help you once they had thrown the blanket over you, so I waited until the carriage started up, then I jumped on the back.”
“You’ve always been an excellent tiger.”
“Yes.” He watched her fiddling with her hair. He could only marvel at her bravery. But she wouldn’t see it like that, not at all. She would simply say it was the only thing to be done and wouldn’t he have done the same thing as well? No, he would have gone after their throats, immediately. And maybe gotten himself killed.
He squeezed her dirty hand. “I was trying to figure out how to get off the rope around my ankles without Augie seeing me, and then I thought I heard something on the roof. Augie was already half-asleep and didn’t hear a thing. You gave me the time. That was clever of you. You’ve a good brain.”
She beamed. “Truth is, I nearly broke my leg getting on the roof. And you know that some of the planks on the roof are quite rotted through? I thought for a while there that I would crash through and land right on Augie’s lap.”
He laughed, then sobered very quickly. “I have some money so we’re not destitute. However, we both look like we’ve been in a fight. Try to think up a story to explain our condition.”
She shook her head, said quite seriously, “No, when we reach a farm, all we’ll have to do is make sure the wife gets a good look at you. Even with all that smoke and soot on your face, she’ll swoon and sigh and give you her husband’s food, and bed. If she looked beyond your beautiful face, she’ll get to your evening clothes. That will surely do the trick if your face hasn’t.”
“A bad jest, Corrie.”
“It wasn’t a jest, James. You just don’t realize, do you that-well, never mind. Now, a farmhouse, that’s just what we need. I don’t know what would happen if we had to walk into a village.”
They walked. Exactly twenty minutes later, they heard horses’ hooves coming toward them. James pulled her up and they stepped farther into the trees. They watched Augie, riding the lead horse, bareback, with a makeshift bridle, leading the second bay, carrying both Billy and Ben, a dirty bandage tied around Billy’s arm.
“Only one bridle,” James whispered. “It looks quite amusing, actually. None too steady, any of them. I’ll wager that our three villains are London born and bred, far more comfortable slithering about in a back alley than trying to ride down prey in the open.”
If he’d been alone, he would have tried to take one of the horses, but with Corrie present, he wasn’t about to take the chance of her getting hurt since she’d already taken too many chances. What if the roof had collapsed? What if the horse hadn’t obligingly crashed through the cottage door? What if-He was making himself quite mad. She’d survived and so had he. But no more, he didn’t think his heart could survive it.
She whispered against his cheek, “I think we can take them, James. You get Augie, who seems the most competent, and I’ll bring down Ben and Billy. Just look, they’re sliding all over that poor horse’s back. Let’s just scare them off.”
He could only stare at her. She was right. “No, it’s too dangerous.”
“Climbing up on that damned roof was more dangerous than this would be, not to mention riding in like a knight with a lance into that cottage. Give over, James. Be sensible.”
This from a girl who was wearing a ball gown in the middle of the night, on the side of a rutted road, with three bad men ready to slit her throat.
It was taken out of their hands. At that moment, a huge boom of thunder sounded. Lightning slashed down, once, twice. The horses reared, terrified, throwing all three men to the ground. Another boom of thunder, another streak of lightning and the horses were off, racing madly, right down the road, away from them.
Ben was moaning, holding his foot, weaving back and forth. “Damn ye, ye bloody bugger!”
“Well, me bloody ’orse threw me too,” Augie said, walking gingerly toward Ben and Billy.
“No, not the ’orse,” Ben yelled. “Billy’s the bloody bugger wot landed on me foot! I’m goin’ to carve yer gullet out fer ye, Billy!”
“Ye’ll not be able to catch me fer a good month, so shut yer trap. Besides, we was already wounded by that little chit who shouldn’t have been there, the good Lord knows. Maybe she were some sort of ghost come to torment us.”
“Ye’ve got a right big ’ole in yer brain,” said Augie in disgust. “The truth of it is that a little girl done brought us low. T’weren’t no ghost even though she was wearing that white dress.”
Billy said, “Don’t she know ’ow she’s supposed to garb ’erself? Coming after the three of us dressed like that, her shoulders white and bare as Ben’s ass when ’e’s in the bushes. Boggles the brain, it does.”
“Now that’s a thought,” Corrie whispered.
James was trying very hard not to laugh. They watched the three of them arguing in the middle of the narrow road. They watched until the skies opened up and rain flooded down.
It needed only this. James said, “Willicombe’s mother was a little late in her prediction. It was supposed to rain around midnight.”
“I can’t imagine Willicombe having a mother,” Corrie said, then winced when Ben cursed the rain and his foot blue. Billy joined in, cursing Corrie for the pitchfork in his arm. Augie stood there, hands on hips, watching his two companions in obvious disgust.
Since the leaves protected them a bit from the deluge, both were loathe to get out into the open. They stood another five minutes until the three men managed to hobble down the road.
“We’re all going in the same direction,” Corrie said. “Well, drat.”
“That settles that,” James said. “We’re going to angle back toward the coast. There’s bound to be a fishing village of some sort not too far from here.”
“All right. At least we won’t have to worry that those three buffoons will creep up on us. You know, James, we could get them now. What do you think?”
He shook his head. “Too much risk.” Then he stopped cold. “If we could get Augie, maybe we could make him tell us who paid him to kidnap me.”
Her eyes shone even as she was blinking furiously to keep from being blinded by the rain. “They certainly won’t be expecting us, now will they?”
Lightning struck again and they heard a man yell.
“Let’s go, Corrie. We certainly can’t get any wetter than we are now, well, not much more.”
They ran out of the woods and down the road after their villains, rain lashing against their faces, no moon now, only bloated black clouds. They could barely see the road ten feet ahead of them.
They came upon them quickly since Billy’s foot was evidently hurting him, and Augie and Ben had to support him, Ben with only one good arm.
They slowed, listening to the men cursing.
“I never heard that word, James. What does-”
“Be quiet. Don’t you ever say that word, you understand me?”
Corrie wiped her hand over her eyes and shoved her hair back from her face. “But it sounded like tit-”
“Be quiet. Now, here’s what we’re going to do.”
Three minutes later, James moved quite close to the three, raised his gun, and fired directly at Augie’s arm. A shot and a yell and more cursing.
As James thought, Ben dropped Billy to the ground, and Augie didn’t know whether to grab his arm or draw his gun, and so he did both. The shot brought down a tree branch. Billy, hobbling, and Ben holding his arm, went for the underbrush.
They’d disabled all three of them.
“Drop the gun, Augie,” James called out, “or the next bullet will be through your head. I have two guns, you know, so don’t doubt me.”
“Young ’un! Is that really you?” Augie’s hand was protecting his eyes, desperately trying to see James through the heavy rain. “Why would you want to shoot ole Augie now? I ain’t done nothin’ really bad to ye-not even wot I was paid to do-I jest worried ye a bit, gave ye jest a bit of a tap.”
“Drop the gun, Augie, this is the last time I’ll tell you.”
Augie dropped the gun, although the chances were good that it had held only one bullet and was now quite empty. But better not to take any chances.
“Good. Now, Augie, I’ll not put a bullet in your head if you tell me the man’s name who hired the three of you to kidnap me.”
