She’d slipped the cloak off sometime before; Sir Freddie didn’t seem to notice—there was no reason he should care. He’d stepped forward to speak to the coachman; she strained her ears and caught the words she’d hoped to hear.
“Wait here until I return.”
When she’d first emerged from the coach at an inn, there’d been no footman; she assumed he’d been set down in London. The coachman had avoided her eye; she knew better than to expect help from that quarter. All she needed was for the man to wait until his master returned. If things went her way, his master wouldn’t return, not before she did and raised help from the cottages she could see just ahead, lining the road.
Sir Freddie turned to her. Again, he studied her; as she had all along, she met his gaze stonily.
He inclined his head. “Your composure does you credit, my dear. I really do regret putting an end to your life.”
She didn’t deign to answer. Sir Freddie’s lips quirked; with a wave, he indicated a path leading from the narrow road. Within yards of the hedge, the path plunged into a dark wood; beyond, the moors rose, alternately illuminated, then shrouded in gloomy shadow as clouds passed over the moon.
“We have to walk through the wood to reach the moors and the mine.”
Sir Freddie reached for her arm, but she forestalled him and turned, and calmly walked to the opening of the path.
Tony swore; hauling on the reins, he swung the latest pair he’d had harnessed in Exeter onto the road to Hatherleigh.
Why here, for heaven’s sake? Was it the isolation?
He’d had hours to consider what Sir Freddie was about while following his path across the country. It had been decades since he’d driven at breakneck speed—he’d been pleased to discover he hadn’t forgotten how—but even the exigencies of managing unfamiliar cattle hadn’t stopped him from thinking first and foremost of Alicia, of the danger facing her.
Up behind him, Maggs was hanging on grimly, every now and then muttering imprecations under his breath. Tony ignored him. He’d caught up with Maggs at Yeovil; before then, whenever Maggs had stopped to change horses he’d sent a rider wearing a red kerchief back along the road. Tony had stopped each flagged rider, and thus known which road to follow.
As it happened, it was a road he knew well—the same road he’d traveled countless times between Torrington Chase and London. The familiarity had helped; he’d have missed their turning to Hatherleigh if he hadn’t known to ask at Okehampton.
Sir Freddie taking Alicia so far from London had been a boon initially, giving him time to catch up. Even though Sir Freddie had been rocketing along, always using four fresh horses, Tony knew he was close on their heels.
While they were traveling, he had no fears for Alicia. Once they stopped…
His experience lay in pursuing someone he needed to catch, not save. Every time he thought of Alicia, his heart lurched, his mind stilled, paralyzed; shutting off such thoughts, he concentrated on Sir Freddie instead.
Why this route? Was Sir Freddie intending to drive through to the Bristol Channel and rendezvous with some lugger? Was Alicia a hostage? Or was she intended as the scapegoat Sir Freddie had from the first sought to make her?
That was Tony’s blackest fear. The landscape, the desolate sweep of the moors rising up on either side of the road fed it. If Sir Freddie intended to stage Alicia’s murder and make it appear a suicide, and thus quash the investigation…
Tony set his jaw. Once he got hold of her, he was taking her to Torrington Chase and keeping her there. Forever.
Sending the whip swinging to flick the leader’s ear, he drove the horses on.
TWENTY-ONE
ALICIA EMERGED ONTO THE MOOR WITH A SENSE OF RELIEF; the wood had been dark, the trees very old, the path uneven and knotted with their roots. Here, at least, she could breathe—dragging in a breath, she looked up, tracing the path they were following to where it skirted a pile of rocks and earth, the workings of the disused mine in which Sir Freddie planned to drown her.
Every
nerve taut and alert, she kept walking, head high, her pace neither too fast nor yet slow enough to prompt Sir Freddie to hurry her. Scanning the area, she searched—for a rock, a branch, anything she could use to overpower him. Closer to the mine would be preferable, yet the closer they got…
She was supremely conscious of him walking steadily at her heels. He seemed relaxed, just a murderer out to arrange another death. Quelling a shudder, she looked again at the mine. The path rose steadily, steeper as it led up the shoulder of the workings before leveling off as it skirted the lip of the shaft itself.
The clouds were constantly shifting, drifting; there was always enough light to see their way, but when the moon shone clear, details leapt out.
Like the discarded spar she glimpsed, just fleetingly, to the right of the steepest section of the path.
Her heart leapt; her muscles tensed, ready…
Quickly, she thought through what would need to happen. She had to distract Sir Freddie at just the right spot. She’d already decided how, but she needed to set the stage.
Reaching the spot where the steep upward slope commenced, she halted abruptly. Swinging to face Sir Freddie, she found the slope was sufficient for her to meet his gaze levelly. “Do I have your word as a gentleman that my brother won’t be harmed? That he’ll be released as soon as possible in Upper Brook Street?”