An Unwilling Conquest (Regencies 7)

“Me, Joshua and the wainwright all thinks the same.” Dawlish set down his tankard and wiped the froth from his lip. “Thought as how you should know.”

“Know what?”

“That the cotter-pin on that wheel was tampered with—half-sawed through, it was—before the accident. And the spokes had been got at, too.”

Harry frowned. “Why?”

“Don’t know as how you noticed, but there were a curious lot of rocks strewn about that stretch of road where the carriage went over. None before—and none after. Just along that stretch. No way a coachman could miss all of ’em. And they were just round a corner so he couldn’t see them in time to pull up.”

Harry’s frown was intense. “I remember the rocks. The boy cleared them away so I didn’t have to drive over them.”

Dawlish nodded. “Aye—but the carriage couldn’t avoid them—and as soon as that wheel hit, the cotter would have snapped and the spokes after that.”

A chill swept Harry’s nape. Five mounted men in frieze, with a wagon, hiding in the trees, moving towards the road just after the carriage went down. And if it hadn’t been a race-week, that particular stretch of road would almost certainly have been deserted at that time of day.

Harry lifted his gaze to Dawlish’s face.

Dawlish looked back at him. “Makes you think, don’t it?”

Grim-faced, Harry slowly nodded. “It does indeed.” And he didn’t like what he thought at all.

Chapter Three

“I’ll have y’r team out in a jiffy, sir.”

Harry nodded absentmindedly as the head-ostler of the Barbican Arms hurried off towards the stables. Pulling on his driving gloves, he strolled away from the inn’s main door to await his curricle in a vacant patch of sunshine by the wall.

Before him, the courtyard was busy, many of the inn’s guests departing for a day at the track, hoping to pick a few winners to start the week off on the right note.

Harry grimaced. He wouldn’t be joining them. Not, at least, until he’d satisfied himself on the score of one Mrs Babbacombe. He had given up telling himself she was none of his business; after the revelations of yesterday, he felt compelled to brave her dangers—long enough to assure himself of her safety. She was, after all, his aunt’s guest—at his insistence. Two facts which undoubtedly excused his interest.

“I’ll get along and see Hamish then, shall I?”

Harry turned as Dawlish came up. Hamish, his head-stableman, should have arrived yesterday with his string of thoroughbred racers; the horses would be settling into their stables beyond the racetrack. Harry nodded. “Make sure Thistledown’s fetlock’s sufficiently healed—I don’t want her entered unless it is.”

Dawlish nodded sagely. “Aye. Shall I tell Hamish you’ll be along shortly to see it?”

“No.” Harry studied the fit of his gloves. “I’ll have to rely on your combined wisdom this time. I’ve pressing matters elsewhere.”

He felt Dawlish’s suspicious glance.

“More pressing than a prime mare with a strained fetlock?” Dawlish snorted. “I’d like to know what’s higher on y’r list than that.”

Harry made no effort to enlighten him. “I’ll probably look in about lunchtime.” His imaginings were very likely groundless. It could be no more than coincidence, and two likely females travelling without major escort, that had focused the attention of the men in frieze on the Babbacombe coach. “Just make sure Hamish gets the message in time.”

“Aye,” Dawlish grumbled. With a last keen glance, he headed off.

Harry turned as his curricle appeared, the head-ostler leading the greys with a reverence that bespoke a full appreciation of their qualities.

“Right prime ’uns, they be,” he averred as Harry climbed to the box.

“Indeed.” Harry took up the reins. The greys were restive, sensing the chance of freedom. With a nod for the ostler, he backed the curricle preparatory to making a stylish exit from the yard.

“Harry!”

Harry paused, then, with a sigh, drew in his impatient steeds. “Good morning, Gerald. And since when do you arise at this ungodly hour?”

He had spied his younger brother amongst the crowds in the tap the night before but had made no effort to advertise his presence. He turned to watch as Gerald, blue-eyed and dark-haired as was his elder brother Jack, strode up, grinning broadly, to place a familiar hand on the curricle’s front board.