continue on and hope to find them walking further along the way."
Everyone spread out at once, searching the immediate area, and even widening the search to the edge of the woods on both sides of the lane. Much to Daniel's relief, other than a spent blunderbuss and the dead horses, they didn't come up with anything else.
"What now?" his mother asked as they congregated together after ending the search.
"Now we travel forward but more slowly," Daniel decided, when everyone peered to him for answers. "I want everyone watching out the windows in case they are walking through the trees rather than along the side of the road. If we don't come across them by the time we reach the next inn we'll regroup and decide what to do then."
"Off the road! Quickly, quickly!" Jeremy snapped, giving Suzette a push toward the trees that nearly knocked her down.
Managing to keep her feet under her, she followed her father off the road and across the grass into the trees. Lord Madison continued walking until he came to an area with thick brush that offered cover, and then dropped to his haunches to duck behind it without Jeremy's ordering him to. Suzette wasn't surprised. They'd already done this twice before when carriages had approached. At this rate it was going to take a very long time to get to Gretna Green. Not that she cared. She had no desire to go anywhere with the man.
Under normal circumstances, Jeremy would probably be waving down the carriages for a ride to the next inn where he could rent a hack to finish the journey. However, he could hardly do that when he was holding them at pistol point, which made her wonder how he planned to get them to Gretna Green and force her to marry him.
"Down," Jeremy snapped when she didn't follow her father's example and duck quickly enough. He also shoved down on her shoulder until she dropped to her haunches.
"Just how are you planning to get to Gretna Green like this, Danvers?" her father asked suddenly and Suzette glanced at him with a combination of surprise and relief. He hadn't spoken a word since regaining consciousness and she'd begun to worry he'd taken more injury than she'd realized. She was glad to hear him speak at all, but was also interested in the answer to the question and after giving her father a small smile, turned her head to peer through the darkness to Jeremy.
His face was pale in the darkness, seeming to reflect the moonlight, and she saw his jaw clench before he said, "We are going to walk until we reach an inn, and then I am going to leave you two tied up in the woods while I rent a hack to take us the rest of the way."
"Another driver to shoot?" she asked dryly.
"I will take the reins myself," he said shortly. "Now shut up."
Suzette scowled, but then turned her attention to the road as a carriage came into view on the lane. It was moving much slower than the last two that had passed. They had both been traveling at a gallop, obviously heading somewhere and eager to get there. But the driver of this carriage was keeping the horses moving at a slow trot, as if out for a ride through the park. There was also a second carriage traveling behind it at the same gait, Suzette noted, and narrowed her eyes on the vehicles as the hairs on the back of her neck began to stand up.
"It's the boys."
Suzette spotted Daniel and Richard through the open windows on the near side of the first carriage even as her father breathed those words beside her. The two men were leaning out of the windows, peering over the grassy verge and trees lining the road as if searching for something.
Them, she knew at once, and smiled as her father said, "There's Daniel. I told you he wanted to marry you."
"Shut up," Jeremy hissed as the second carriage drew close enough for them to see two women leaning out its windows much as the men were doing in the first. They too were scanning the surroundings they were passing through. Suzette recognized that one of the women was Lisa, but had no idea who the older woman was.
"Must be Daniel's mother," Cedrick Madison muttered.
"If either of you makes another sound, I will shoot Lord Madison," Jeremy warned in a grim whisper.
Suzette stared at the pistol that suddenly appeared before her face, pointing toward her father's head, and briefly considered chomping her teeth into Jeremy's hand and throwing herself forward, hopefully forcing the pistol away. But there was a chance it would go off before she got it pointed away from her father and she couldn't risk that, so she sat still and watched helplessly as the carriages continued past and then moved out of sight around the next bend.
Suzette started to rise then, but Jeremy caught her arm and jerked her back to a squat, barking, "Stay put."
"Why?" she asked with irritation. "They have gone."
"I want to be sure they continue and don't turn around," he said shortly. "Now shut up and just stay put."
Suzette grimaced, but did as she was told and remained squatting. However, it was becoming uncomfortable and she sighed impatiently several times as the seconds dragged past.
"Stop that," Jeremy hissed. "I am trying to listen."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," she said sharply. "They've continued on. Can we not move? I am hungry, cold and need to relieve myself for real now."
Jeremy glowered at her with displeasure and growled, "If it weren't for your rather handsome dower I'd be tempted to kill you right here and now."
"Instead you'll wait and kill us both after you have married her," Lord Madison said dryly.
Jeremy's expression closed, and then he said, "Don't be ridiculous. I have no desire to kill either of you. I just want to marry Suzette. Once that is done, I shall cut you free, my lord. I shall even allow Suzette to live with you if she prefers and keep the marriage in name only once it's consummated and cannot be annulled."
Suzette didn't believe him for a minute. He would have to kill them both. Consummated or not, the marriage could still be overturned if she went to the authorities and told them she'd been forced to it. Jeremy couldn't risk letting them live.
"Are you really so stupid you think we would believe that?" she asked dryly. "If so, you have even less sense than I first thought."
"You thought I had little sense, did you?" he asked, appearing more amused than offended. "And yet you agreed to marry me."
"My lord, I only agreed to marry you because I was desperate. No woman would agree otherwise," she assured him.
Jeremy ground his teeth and growled, "If Dicky weren't already dead, I think I'd kill him myself for saddling me with you."
Suzette wasn't terribly surprised he knew Dicky was dead. She merely shrugged and said, "You would have been standing in line, many wanted him dead." She then smiled and added, "I'm certain just as many would like to see you dead as well. I'm sure one of them will succeed eventually and you'll get your comeuppance."
Jeremy's eyes narrowed with dislike. "I'm starting to think even your sizable dowry isn't worth having to put up with your sharp tongue for any length of time."
"But then the plan has always been that you wouldn't have to put up with her long, wasn't it?" her father said sharply.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Jeremy muttered, his gaze turning back to the road.
"Although I suppose that wasn't exactly the original plan, was it?" her father corrected himself grimly. "Originally, it was supposed to be all three of my girls tricked into marriage through my supposed gaming. They were to be wedded, bedded and then dead. But I would have been left alive to mourn the loss while you, Dicky and some third man enjoyed their dowers."
"They were going to kill all three of us?" Suzette asked with a frown, wondering just how much she'd missed while she was in the parlor with Lisa. She'd already figured out Jeremy must be planning to kill her and her father once he'd forced her to marry him, but learning that Dicky's grand scheme had been to force all three girls into marriage and then kill them seemed so cold. He must have planned it out before even meeting them, and then had the patience to wait until each of the girls could be forced into marriage before seeing the end of it. It had already been a year since Christiana had married Dicky. How long would it h
ave taken for them to get her father drugged and drag him to the gaming hell again? It could be another year or more if he followed the same pattern he had after the incident leading to Christiana's marriage. He'd spent most of the last year locked away in his office, hiding from his own shame and self-loathing for what he'd thought he'd done--gambling his daughter away. No doubt he would have done the same thing again after she was forced into marriage. Another year could easily have passed before they could trick him into thinking he'd gambled again, forcing Lisa to marry. The patience needed to carry out this plan was as frightening as the cold-bloodedness of it.
"All in one fell swoop," her father said in answer to her question. "The three of you were going to die in a tragic carriage accident."
"How do you know all that?" Jeremy asked with alarm.
"George's valet, Freddy, told all," Lord Madison announced, sounding pretty cold himself.
"Freddy," Jeremy spat the name furiously. "He was to find the markers and bring them to me. I would have claimed the money and given him some coin for his trouble." He scowled and asked, "How the devil did he get himself caught?"
"By being no brighter than you," Suzette snapped before her father could answer.
"God, you are a fishwife," Jeremy said with disgust and then muttered to himself, "It figures Dicky would marry sweet little mousy Christiana himself and stick me with the sister who was a harpy."
"Oh, boo hoo, poor you, having to put up with my sharp tongue to get all my money. You--" Suzette paused and blinked as what he'd said about Freddy sunk in. He was to find the markers and bring them to me. That had to be what he had been looking for in the office when he took Christiana there. He'd just died before he could find them. Turning an amazed look on Jeremy she accused, "You don't even have the markers."
"No, I don't," Jeremy acknowledged, and then a cruel smile stretched his mouth. "Imagine, if either of you had just been bright enough to ask to see it, you wouldn't be in this mess. In fact, that was my one big worry when I approached you at the inn. I knew I could woo you around to the idea of marrying me." He chuckled and boasted, "Even without money I'm a catch. Wooing was the easy part, but I worried about being asked to present the marker. However, neither of you even thought to ask." He raised an eyebrow and said dryly, "Now who is the bright one?"