I flailed my arms and struggled and suddenly I was free.
‘Cassie?’ said the voice again. ‘She is waking up, thank God. No, damn it James, I do not need to see the doctor, get him to look at Garrick again if you need to fuss over someone. Cassie, come on, open your eyes. You fainted.’
It was Lucian with a bandage around his head and a cut down his right cheek and blood all over his torn shirt. His coat had gone.
‘You’re not dead? He said he’d killed you and Garrick.’
‘No. Not dead.’ He hauled me up into his arms again and I realised that I was on the bed where I had woken up and that what had been bundling me tight was Lucian’s embrace. ‘Garrick has broken his shoulder and cracked some ribs. We were both knocked out. I had a spike of splintered wood through my shoulder, but we will both be fine, thanks to James.’
‘Where is Arabella?’ He turned me so I could see the other side of the room and there she was, sobbing in Sir Clement’s arms. ‘And Cottingham?’
‘In the custody of two local Justices and their men. They are taking him to Bow Street. Then they are going for de Forrest.’
‘Good,’ I managed. Then, ‘I thought you were dead. He said you were dead. But there was only anger, I couldn’t feel anything else. I wanted to kill him.’ I was feeling it now, waves of reaction rolling through me. ‘Lucian, take me home. And kiss me.’
He did, very thoroughly.
James, who seemed to be in the grip of the controlled rage that huge relief sometimes brings, prized us apart finally and got us down to one of the fleet of carriages that were occupying the driveway. ‘For God’s sake get in that and go back to Albany and send for the doctor. Two doctors. Here’s Garrick at last. Get in, man.’ He slammed the door on the three of us and turned away, a whirlwind of furious energy.
Garrick, his arm in a sling, sank onto the opposite seat and closed his eyes with a groan. ‘I am getting too old for this, my lord.’
‘Nonsense,’ Lucian said and the older man opened his eyes and winked at me.
It was going to be all r
ight, I realised, finally allowing myself to believe that Lucian was safe, Garrick and Arabella were safe. And I was still alive and still in 1807.
As we drove away I saw James was in animated discussion with a tall, thin gentleman with grey hair, one arm and an air of authority. He seemed to be in charge of the dozen or so grim-faced men who were striding about the place.
‘Who is that?’ I asked.
‘General Sir William Abernathy. Chief magistrate for the area and itching to fight someone now they have invalided him out of the army. He is a distant relative of my mother’s, he tells me, and like a terrier down a rabbit hole as far as I can see. De Forrest has no hope.’
‘Good,’ Garrick said.
‘Absolutely,’ I agreed. ‘Do you realise that Cottingham intended Arabella to marry de Forrest and then he would have sex with her himself under cover of darkness, pretending to be her husband. That is what the reference to the cologne in that note was about. Cottingham gave de Forrest the possibility of heirs, to say nothing of Arabella’s fortune, and in return he could satisfy his own obsession with her.’
‘I suspected as much as soon as I saw him there,’ Lucian said as Garrick swore under his breath. ‘He must be unhinged.’
‘He is quite mad, I think,’ I said. ‘What will happen to him?’
‘He will stand trial for kidnapping, false imprisonment and attempted murder. I suspect that de Forrest will talk once he is caught and certainly the men Cottingham employed to attack the carriage are holding nothing back in the hope of escaping the noose.’
‘He threatened to put me in Bedlam.’ My voice was thin and shaky now the adrenaline rush had subsided. With relief and safety came weakness and the strong desire just to turn my face against Lucian’s chest and cry. I bit my lip and told myself that I might have behaved like a Too Stupid To Live heroine, but I was not going to turn into a weepy one now.
Lucian’s arm tightened around my shoulders, but all he said was, ‘What poetic justice if he ends up there himself as criminally insane.’
‘Will Arabella be all right? This will be a terrible scandal if word of what happened and what her step-brother intended gets out.’
‘If we can keep Cottingham’s plans for her secret, then it should not affect her too badly. The story to stick to is that Cottingham had an insane hatred of Selbourne. Everything after that can be admitted – the false elopement, agreeing to de Forrest marrying her to keep her, as Cottingham saw it, safe from Clem. The attack on us can be explained as his over-reaction because he thought we were in league with Clem to snatch her back. There is no need for there to be any mention of Cottingham’s real intent. Or for Arabella to ever know of it,’ he added grimly.
‘Will I have to give evidence?’ The bang on the head must be affecting me, I thought. Garrick’s solid figure seemed to waver and for a moment I could not feel Lucian’s arm around me. Perhaps it was simply the shock.
‘No. We will keep you out of it. The last thing we need is for you to have to stand up in a court of law and pretend to be my cousin.’
Garrick wavered back into focus and my head cleared as he closed his eyes and leaned back into the corner of the carriage, cradling his injured arm in its sling. After a moment he began to snore softly.
‘I am going to take you back and put you to bed,’ Lucian began.