A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy 3)

“My friends and neighbors,” Montague addressed the crowd, “our noble country faces a threat. An enemy more pernicious than any Moorish infidel or encroaching barbarian. ”

Who on earth did he refer to? Surely not Napoleon. The Battle of Waterloo was three years ago now.

“No, our enemy attacks not from without,” the old man continued, “but from within. ” His voice trembled, as did his raised fist. “Yes, I speak of traitors. Those vile betrayers who would raise arms against their own king. ”

Now Bel was thoroughly confused. At the moment, England wasn’t even under the rule of a king. No one in the crowd seemed especially concerned about infidels or traitors, however. The general mood remained one of amusement.

“We must quell the rebellion,” Montague went on. “It is the moral imperative of every Englishman to stamp out the uprising, seek out the treasonous brigands, and bring them to justice. Secure England’s rule and God’s dominion, before the traitors come after you. ” He leveled one bony finger at the assembly and swept it in an arc, pivoting to stare down individual members of the crowd.

For a moment, his bent finger and wild-eyed gaze rested on Bel, and she shifted nervously on the carriage seat. She began to understand the large turnout for these proceedings. This was high drama indeed. How the carriage driver could sleep through it all was beyond her.

“Attack is imminent,” the old man warned, his voice cracking as its pitch soared. “The peril is real. ” With a shaking hand, he withdrew an old-fashioned pistol from his coat and waved it in the same arc his finger had just traced. The general mood of the onlookers went from amusement to concern. Apparently, this was not part of the script. A nervous murmur rippled through the square, and the horses danced with unease.

“I call on every able-bodied man to join us. To take up arms with the Montague Militia. To secure our home county by answering the call: Duty! Honor! Vigilance!”

Montague pointed the pistol heavenward and called out, “Make ready!”

From behind her came a chorus of loud clicks. Bel pivoted in her seat to see a half-dozen men lining the rear edge of the square. One of them was the burly fellow who’d helped Colonel Montague onto the platform. In unison, the men lifted muskets to their shoulders, pointing the barrels high into the air above the assembly. Accordingly, the people in the assembly threw themselves to the ground. Somewhere a woman screamed. Bel wasn’t certain, but it might have been her.

“Aim!” the colonel ordered, tightening his own bony finger over the trigger of his pistol.

“Fire!”

A salvo of shots fractured the silence, and then panic poured through the cracks. Deafened by the booming shots and smothered in acrid smoke, Bel could scarcely tell her boots from her bonnet. All around her, people swarmed and shouted. The pair of carriage horses reared and whinnied, and the landau rocked on its wheels before lurching forward into the crowd. And now there was no doubt about it. Bel really did scream.

The carriage driver, finally startled awake, hauled on the reins. “Ho, there! Ho!”

But the horses’ panic would not be quelled. They charged forward, dragging the carriage on a wild, serpentine course through the square. Before them, people leapt and dove, scrambling out of the way. Bel clung to the door sash and prayed, expecting at any moment the carriage wheel would meet with a human obstacle and leave a maimed or lifeless body in its wake. Instead, the carriage wheel met with an inanimate obstacle—the stone border of the sidewalk—

and for a heart-stopping moment, the landau teetered on its two left wheels. Bel was thrown against the side of the cab, and the driver—

Oh, God. The driver was thrown completely. The landau righted itself with a bouncing jolt, and Bel looked up to see the driver’s box empty and the reins dangling. Then the reins, too, slipped from view.

With them went her last shred of hope. There was no way she could stop this carriage. Even if she could somehow leap the gap to the driver’s seat; even if she could somehow retrieve the reins—if an experienced coachman could not slow these horses, Bel had no hope of doing so herself. In their panic, the horses would drag her on until one of them stumbled or the carriage overturned. In all likelihood, she was going to die. It was only a matter of how many human and equine lives went with her.

Her impulse was to shrink low in the carriage and simply close her eyes until it was all over. But she couldn’t even bring herself to move that far. Instead, she remained frozen, clutching the seatback and door sash in white-knuckled grips as the horses continued their frenzied rampage through the square.

Between the threats of musket fire and an out-of-control carriage, much of the crowd had already dispersed, the people squeezing into any available building or doorway. The remaining onlookers huddled around the hustings platform itself—on it, under it, clinging to its girders. And, having careened off the sidewalk and altered their course, now the horses were headed straight for them.

No.

No, no, no. Not all those people.

“Run!” she cried. And the people obeyed, fleeing the spurious safety of the wooden platform for the edges of the square. They scattered in different directions, but wise souls that they were, they all ran away.

Except for one. One man was running straight at her.

Toby.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Bel’s pounding heart rate kicked into a gallop.

Dear God, no, she prayed. Not Toby.

While everyone else in the square had spent the past thirty seconds fearing for his life, Toby had apparently used the time to shuck his topcoat. His arms were blurs of white linen as he leapt from the hustings platform and dashed out to meet the stampeding team.

“Toby, no!” she screamed. “Muévete!”

Madre de Dios. She needed to warn off her English husband, and suddenly her tongue could only work in Spanish. He was going to die, and it would be all her fault. Even now, the horses were gaining speed, bearing down on him. Any moment, he would be trampled, dragged under the carriage. She only prayed God would be merciful enough to take her with him.

As if he’d come to his senses, Toby drew to a halt. Just in the perfect place for the horses to brush past him and the carriage wheels to grind him up.

But it never came to that.

As one horse came abreast of him, Toby changed course, now running alongside the panicked beast. He grabbed its mane with both hands and jumped, vaulting onto the horse’s back. Bel looked on in disbelief as Toby grabbed the reins near the bit and tugged with one hand, pulling the horse’s head to the side. The team and carriage followed, turning in a tight spiral. Flung against the side of the cab once again, Bel muttered incoherent prayers and imprecations in her mother’s tongue. All the while, Toby soothed the horses, and her, with his deep, steady baritone.

“Ho, there,” he told them. “Easy now. ”

Holding the reins firmly, he kept the team turning in a circle, murmuring succinct commands and words of assurance. Gradually, the hoofbeats slowed. Bel’s thundering pulse slowed, too. Toby eased up on the bit, steering the team off the green and onto a side road. They ambled on for several minutes thus—Toby droning on in a hypnotic monologue, holding tight to the reins, never turning his attention from the horses. As they moved away from the center of town, the dwellings they passed grew smaller, further apart. The cobblestones paving their path gave way to dirt, muffling the horses’ hoofbeats. The world felt very quiet. Finally, Toby drew the team to a halt where a wooden stile marked the boundary between town road and country lane. Sliding down from the horse’s back, he lavished pats and verbal praise on the mare as he looped the reins around the stile.

Then—at last—he turned to Bel.

“Softly now,” he said, approaching the carriage door and unlatching it with a gentle click. “We don’t want to startle them again. ” He held out a hand to her.

Bel stared at it. Sh

e’d been clutching the onto carriage with both hands for so long, she couldn’t muster the courage to release them.

“It’s all right now,” he said, in the same deep, soothing tone in which he’d spoken to the mare.

“Give me your hand. ”

That tone worked on her, too. She gave him her trembling hand, and he helped her down from the landau—slowly, cautiously—supporting her with one arm about her waist. There were no people milling about the nearby cottage; presumably its occupants had assembled at the square. Wordlessly, he led her over to a low wall of stone, beyond which farmland spread like a rumpled quilt.

Lifting her effortlessly, he set her on the wall and stood back a step. His eyes scanned her from head to toe as he assessed her condition. “Are you well?” he asked, frowning with concern. With sure fingers, he untied her bonnet and set it aside. He lifted one of her arms, then the other, running his hand along each to test the soundness of her bones and joints. “You’re not injured? You took such a blow with that turn, I’m concerned for your ribs. ” He placed his hands flat against her torso, framing her ribcage.

“Toby,” she said quietly.

He did not lift his head. “Are you hurt here at all? Any difficulty drawing a breath? Do you feel any pain when I—”

“Toby. ” Bel raised a hand to his lips, damming the stream of anxious speech. Then she slid her palm along his smooth-shaven jaw.

Exhaling slowly, Toby closed his eyes.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “I’m unharmed, thanks to you. ”

His hands slid around her waist, and he gathered her to him tightly. Tightly enough that, had she truly suffered a broken rib, there would have been no denying it.

“My God,” he said, sighing into her hair and gently rocking her in his arms. “My God. ”

Bel buried her face in the linen of his shirt, now softened with heat and the scents of both man and horse. And then she began to weep.

“Yes, darling,” he murmured, stroking her back. “Go ahead, cry. The danger is over and you are unharmed, and for that you may weep just as long as you wish. Shed tears enough for us both, if you’d be so good. ”

“Oh, Toby. ” After a time, she sniffed against his waistcoat. “I’ve never been so frightened in all my life. ”

“That makes two of us, then. ”

“Does it?” She lifted her face to his.

“No,” he said, his brown eyes growing thoughtful. “No, I think it makes us one. Doesn’t it?”

Bel nodded as he lowered his lips to hers. Yes, she understood perfectly. Nearly a week ago, they’d been married. She’d lost count of the times they’d engaged in the marital act since. But only now, in this moment, did she feel truly wed to him. As though they shared one future, one life. For better or worse, in safety and in peril. He’d risked his life to save hers, and now—now there was no more “his life” or “hers. ” This was their life now. And their life began with a sweet, tender kiss.

The kiss didn’t stay sweet or tender for long.

Toby tried to hold back. He really did. But one stroke of her tongue against his, and the reins of his passion slid straight out of his grip.

So he filled his hands with Isabel instead.

With artless greed, he clutched at her hips, her breasts, her bottom, her thighs. He wound the fingers of one hand into her hair and cinched it so tight, she gasped.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her throat. “I’m so sorry. But Isabel… Christ, I need this. ”

“I know,” she said, tugging at his cravat. “I need it, too. ”

He needed to feel her. All of her. Every living, unharmed inch of her body. For a terrifying moment, she’d been lost to him. She’d been safely returned, thank heaven, but it wasn’t enough to simply see her alive and hear her say she was well. He needed to feel it. To verify with his hands, lips, tongue that each glossy strand of hair and silky curve of her flesh remained exactly the same.