Page 51 of Lady Beast's Bridegroom
“Certainly,” Peter said, as he hoisted his bag into the vehicle. He leaped up, took the reins, and released the brake. Despite his confident words to Edwards, he had an indefinable sense of something wrong, and years of military experience warned him not to ignore it.
He gave the groom the nod to step away from the horses and encouraged them into a fast trot. He should be in London by mid-afternoon. If Arial had already left, he would continue north, and catch up with her at her preferred inn.
He pulled up at the gates to wait for them to be opened and heard hoof beats behind him.
The resident of the gate lodge, one of John’s ex-soldiers, limped out of his front door tucking his shirt into his trousers. He tossed Peter a casual salute and hurried to the gates. The hoof beats had stopped.
Peter set the horses trotting, then pulled them up between the gates. Again, he heard the hoof beats. Again, they stopped abruptly a couple of seconds after his own halt. He turned back in his seat to exchange greetings with the gatekeeper and ask how he was, and also to examine the carriageway behind him, and the home wood that stretched between him and the house on either side of the carriageway.
He saw nothing, and perhaps it was nothing. Just a groom exercising one of the horses and stopping coincidentally when Peter did. The instincts honed by his years at war were tingling, but the war was over. This was England, and he had not yet even left his own estate.
Waving goodbye to the gatekeeper, he turned the curricle into the lane, and headed for the highway to London.
Twice more, when he rounded a corner with enough cover in hedgerows or trees to hide him from any pursuer, he pulled up and listened. Both times, he could hear hoof beats. It was possible that one of his neighbors was riding this quiet lane rather than going cross-country, or a local farmer wealthy enough to own riding stock was heading in the same direction as Peter. Still, his instincts had the hair on the back of his neck standing on end and every nerve alert.
On his third stop, the tone of the hoof beats had changed. They were no longer falling on the hardpacked earth of the lane. He caught movement from the corner of an eye and turned to peer over a hedgerow. A horse had just leaped a stone wall on the other side of that field to disappear into a small covert. The rider was off on his own business.
Or perhaps not. There was a spot that would work for an ambush not far from where the lane emerged onto the road to London. The lane dipped into a depression within an unkempt wood. If the rider intended to attack Peter, that would be a good spot. On the other hand, if Peter got there first, he could hide and see what transpired.
It was a good team, and fresh. The lane was dry and baked hard by the summer sun. The curricle flew along it at a pace that would be dangerous if they met anyone coming the other way. Fortunately, they didn’t.
Peter slowed the horses as they cantered into the hollow, gently applying the brake to reduce the momentum of the vehicle as the horses dropped to a fast walk and then a complete stop.
With a sharp crack, followed by a series of crashes and creaks, one side of the curricle suddenly dropped from beneath Peter. He fell, mostly onto the grass at the side of the lane and picked himself up to see that the wheel had collapsed. He fetched one of his pistols from its holster in the curricle and hurried to the heads of the horses. They were stamping and twitching and rolling their eyes as they tried to figure out what threat had made that noise behind them.
He did not have time to settle them, though, because there again were the hoof beats.No. Two sets of hoof beats.The one to the side of the road and slightly behind him ceased, to be succeeded by the sound of something large pressing through the undergrowth. The other was coming towards him along the lane from the direction of the road to London.
Leaving the horses, he leaped the ditch on the other side of the road, climbed the bank, and wriggled into the bushes. He turned and lay on his stomach to keep watch from behind screening weeds.
Beyond the curricle, at the top of the opposing, slightly lower, bank, the undergrowth waved vigorously and then stilled. From his vantage point, Peter could see a pair of hands part the grasses and a head peer down at the scene of the collapse. Then the figure stood to have a better view. It was the groom who had prepared the curricle. Peter had not yet learned his name. He was one of the new hires added to the staff since the infusion of Arial’s money.
Any doubts about the man’s intentions were put to rest by the rifle he carried, which he raised to his shoulder as the other rider Peter had heard rounded the corner of the lane, caught sight of the crashed curricle, and nudged his horse into a trot.
Peter recognized him as he dismounted—John!—fortunately on Peter’s side of his horse. Whether the groom recognized him too, or whether he simply did not want witnesses, he sighted his rifle, leaning out over the bank, waiting for a clear shot. Peter shot him first. He aimed for the man’s shoulder, and at less than ten yards, he couldn’t miss.
John pulled a weapon from his saddle holster and dropped to roll into the ditch.
Peter called out, “It’s me, John. Peter.”
John rose out of the ditch, dusting himself off with his free hand, and looking around for the groom.
The groom lay dazed at the foot of the bank, the rifle just out of his reach. His fall had probably done him more immediate harm than the bullet. John reached him first and picked the weapon up.
“Were you planning to have a party without me, Peter?” he asked, flippantly.
“This man invited himself, too,” Peter said, grimly. “He is one of my grooms, John, and if we look at the curricle wheel, I imagine we’ll find it has been sabotaged.”
The groom still had a pulse, but Peter’s hand checking the back of his head came away covered in blood. “Help me to get the horses out of the traces and put him over the back of one. We’ll take him to the constable in the village. I am glad to see you, John, but you nearly missed me. I am on my way to London.”
“Are you going after Arial?” John asked.
And when Peter nodded, he added, “I’m glad. With these new caricatures and rumors, I can’t be easy in my mind about her heading off to Greenmount on her own. That’s what I came over to say. If you hadn’t been able to leave the girls, I intended to go back to London myself.”
Peter’s mouth went dry, and his heart pounded. His muscles trembled with the effort to stay still and hear John’s news. Arial needed him! He had to get to London! “New rumors?” he croaked. He tried to calm his breathing. He had to know what was happening so he could help her. “She hasn’t mentioned them. Ride beside me, John and tell me what has been happening.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Two carriages containingArial’s servants left London not long after dawn, accompanied by several outriders. They would stop at the inn where Arial had spent the night on the journey up and leave two maids and several footmen to wait there for Arial and Clara. Sergeant Miller was in charge of the party, and had instructions to commission rooms, stable space, and an evening meal. The rest of the servants would continue on to Greenmount, taking advantage of the long midsummer day.
