“Good gracious!” Robert exclaimed, as the carriage began to slow. “What caused such a thing?” He rapped on the roof, only for the driver to let out a shout that seemed to reverberate all through the carriage itself. There came another shout, the sound of something thudding hard against the roof of carriage and then a shadow fell down across the window.
It was the driver.
“Goodness!” Robert shouted, throwing open the door and thrusting the box at Lord Millerton. “Hold this, if you please!”
The driver was lying on the ground, groaning aloud, his eyes half closed and one hand pressed against his side. Looking all around, his instincts telling him that all was not well, Robert slowly bent town towards the driver, putting one hand on his shoulder.
The rest of the street remained eerily silent, and even though there were a few others standing on the pavement, none of them moved. In fact, Robert could see a small cluster of ladies, their hands pressed to their mouths and an expression of shock ripping across each of their faces.
“What happened?”
The driver groaned again, his hand still pressed against his side.
“Horse and rider,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “Came hurtling towards us. Couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. Thought he was gone but he came back. There was a gun,”
A cold chill ran down Robert’s spine. Surely this could not be a coincidence.
“Call a hackney!” he shouted, seeing a tall, thin man walking slowly towards them, an expression of concern on his face. “I must take Millerton’s driver to the house and have the doctor called.”
The gentleman who approached them was a little older than Robert had thought on first appearance. He wore fine clothes, gloves and hat and carried a thin cane that caught the sun. Robert glanced at him once, then twice, feeling a strange sense of recognition, although he did not have time to dwell on it.
“Of course, of course,” the man answered, his grey eyes fixed on the driver. “Is he badly injured?”
A little irritated by the delay, Robert frowned and stood up. “I am no doctor, so I cannot tell.” Casting a glance over his shoulder, he looked at Lord Millerton, who was still clutching the box and looking at the driver in horror. “Are you quite all right?”
“I am,” Lord Millerton replied, a little hoarsely. “The driver, is he...?”
“He is alive,” Robert murmured, looking back at the thin man bending down over the driver and wondering why he had not yet gone for help as Robert had asked. “I will not be long. I must go and find a hackney.”
Hurrying away and more than a little frustrated that the onlookers were doing nothing other than watching the scene, he made his way to another, busier street and managed to very quickly hail a hackney. Within a few minutes, he was rushing back towards Lord Millerton, only for a scream to rend the air.
His heart seemed to stop in his chest as he waited for the noise to end. His feet felt like blocks of ice, his legs as though they were made of wood, pulling him down. So much had happened in the last few minutes that if felt as though a fog was swirling all around him. Something in him did not want to return to the carriage, did not want to see what had occurred, but he forced himself forward, seeing the hackney he had had just called already rolling forward.
Everything was almost precisely as he had left it. The group of horror-struck ladies were still standing on the pavement, their eyes still wide and their expressions still frozen in shock.
But, as he neared the carriage, he saw precisely why one of the ladies had screamed. Lord Millerton lay, as though sleeping, against the seat of the carriage. The driver was still on the ground, his eyes closed, his hand still pressed tightly against his side, but no groaning came from his mouth now. There was no sign of the thin older man who had been there before.
Robert hurried forward, his heart thumping against his chest as a cold fear wrapped around him. What had he done? He should never have been so foolish as to leave the driver and Lord Millerton with a stranger, not when he knew what had happened before at Lord Watt’s home. Closing his eyes, he put one hand out towards Lord Millerton, already fearing the worst.
“Lord Millerton?” he asked, hoarsely, as the driver of the hackney climbed down from his seat, clearly willing to assist. “What happened?” He half expected there to be no response, fearing that Lord Millerton had already succumbed, only for a low, long moan to come from Lord Millerton’s lips.
Relief coursed through him.
“We will return to my townhouse,” he said, quickly, looking behind him to see the hackney driver trying to lift the carriage driver from the ground. “Do you have enough strength to step forward?” His heart was in his throat as he threw one of Lord Millerton’s arms over his own shoulders, his hand around his waist as he helped him down the steps. Lord Millerton’s head lolled forward but he managed still to stumble towards the hackney. There was no presence in how he was now, no play acting the part of someone unwell. He had clearly been injured but even as Robert helped Lord Millerton into the hackney, he could see that he was unable to speak even a word about what had occurred.
Shaking his head and turning back to help the hackney driver bring the carriage driver into the hackney so that he might sit opposite Lord Millerton, Robert fought down a sense of fear and anxiety, forcing himself to instruct the driver in as calm and in as quiet a manner as possible. The driver nodded, hurried up into his seat and soon Robert, Lord Millerton and the carriage driver were on their way back to Lord Millerton’s townhouse.
Robert only prayed that, once there, he might find some answers as to what had just occurred.
Chapter Six
It did not take long for Lord Millerton to recover but Robert asked him to wait with his explanations until the rest of the League—or as many as he could muster with such short notice—arrived. Lord Millerton was wheezing rather badly still and Robert had insisted that he take a large brandy followed by a hot concoction of some kind from Robert’s cook. The doctor had arrived a short time ago and, having looked over Lord Millerton thoroughly, had stated that there was nothing that Lord Millerton needed to do other than rest. The driver had been taken down to the servant’s quarters and Robert had been assured that the doctor was already taking care of the wound that the driver had sustained.
Lord Millerton was now resting on the chaise longue whilst Robert paced back and forth, before finally dropping into a chair by the fireplace. Lord Millerton was still breathing quite heavily but appeared to be breathing a little easier now, for which Robert was very glad indeed.
And yet, he felt his guilt pile up in his heart. It had been foolish to leave Lord Millerton with that box sitting in the carriage. It had been even more foolish to leave a complete stranger sitting over the driver, especially given that Robert had not any clear understanding of what had just occurred. He replaced the scene over and over in his mind, knowing just how badly he had failed and how much of this now rested solely on his shoulders.
“There is a caller, my lord.”