The Sherbrooke Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 1)

“And another thing,” he began, really warming up to his theme now, then stopped cold, for she’d pulled a small pistol from her reticule.

“I also took this. I’m not stupid, Douglas. That man couldn’t have harmed me. I didn’t leave the house without thought and preparation. I was bored, Douglas, please understand. I was bored and I wanted to do something. All went just fine. He tried but he failed. I also hit him on the head with Sinjun’s novel. He didn’t have a chance.”

Douglas could but stare down at her. She looked so proud of herself, the little twit. She was completely convinced she was in the right of it. She was innocent and guileless. She had no more chance than a chicken against a man like Cadoudal. He took the pistol from her, his muscles spasming at the thought of having that damned thing turned back on her, and then walked very tall and straight and very quietly from the room. He didn’t say another word.

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Alexandra looked at the closed door. “He is trying very hard to control himself,” she said to no one in particular.

He wasn’t at home for dinner. He didn’t come to her that night.

They left London at eight-thirty the following morning. Summer fog hung low and thick throughout the city, clinging like a dismal chilled blanket until they were well onto the road south.

Douglas sat silently beside his wife. She, curse her nonchalance, was reading Sinjun’s novel. The Mys-terious Count. What bloody drivel. Then he remembered Sinjun telling him about his Greek plays, and shuddered. This was probably filled with heroines swooning rather than taking off their clothes. “Why do you read that nonsense?” he asked, thoroughly irritated.

Alexandra looked up and smiled at him. “You don’t wish to speak civilly to me, the scenery is nothing out of the ordinary, and I don’t wish to nap. Have you a better suggestion than reading? Perhaps you have a volume of moral sermons that would elevate my thoughts?”

“I’ll speak to you,” he said, his voice on the edge of testy.

“Ah, that is very nice of you, Douglas.”

He searched her words and tone for irony but couldn’t detect any. He sighed. “Very well. I was worried about you. You must give me leave to worry, particularly when there is danger I know exists and it could touch you. All right, I apologize for leaving you alone, but you should have obeyed me.”

“That is kind of you. I do appreciate your concern. I should appreciate it even more if you would explain the nature of the danger to me.”

“I don’t wish to. I wish you to trust me. Don’t you understand the need to trust me? Tell me you understand.”

She looked at his austere profile and said, “Yes, Douglas, I understand.” She returned to her novel.

Douglas brooded in solitary silence for nearly an hour. Then he called out the window of the carriage for John Coachman to stop. They were deep in the country. There were no people about, no dwellings, no cows, nothing of any particular interest, just trees, blackberry bushes, and hedge rows.

Alexandra looked up, alarm in her eyes.

“No, it’s just that I imagine you would like to stretch a bit, perhaps relieve yourself, in the woods yon.”

She did wish to relieve herself, but she imagined that it was Douglas who had the need as well and thus the reason for their stopping.

He helped her down, clasping his hands around her waist, swinging her to him, hugging her close for a brief moment, then setting her on her feet. “Go to the maple copse. Be brief and call if you need me. French isn’t necessary, but if you would like to, I shall be listening.”

Alexandra smiled at him, saying nothing, and gave him a small wave as she walked into the midst of the maple trees. It was silent in the wood, the maple leaves thick and heavy, blocking out the sunlight. She was quickly done and was on the point of returning to Douglas, when, quick as a flash, a hand went over her mouth and she was jerked back violently against a man’s body.

“This time I’ve got you,” the man said, and she recognized Georges Cadoudal’s voice. “This time I’m going to keep you.” She had neither Douglas’s pistol nor James the footman nor John Coachman. But she had Douglas if only she could free herself for just a moment, for just a brief instant.

She bit his hand and his grip relieved for just a moment. A scream was ready to burst from her mouth when she heard the whoosh then felt something very hard strike her right temple. She went down like a stone.

Douglas was pacing. It had been a good ten minutes since she’d walked into the maple wood. Was she ill? He fretted, then cursed, then walked swiftly toward the wood, calling, “Alexandra! Come along now! Alexandra!”

Silence.

He shouted, “Aidez-moi! Je veux aller à Paris demain avec ma femme!” Even as he shouted that he wanted to go to Paris on the morrow with his wife, he felt his muscles tensing, felt his mouth go dry with fear.

There was more silence, deep, deep silence.

He ran into the woods. She was gone. He looked closely, finally seeing where two people had stood. There’d been no struggle. There hadn’t been a sound. Georges had taken her and he’d either killed her or knocked her unconscious. No, if he’d killed her, he would have left her here. Douglas continued his search. He quickly found where a horse had stood, tethered to a yew bush. He saw the horse’s tracks going out of the woods, saw that the hooves were deeper because the animal was now carrying two people.

He had no horse. There was only the carriage. He couldn’t follow. It was another hour before the carriage bowled into Terkton-on-Byne and he was able to obtain a horse that wasn’t so old and feeble it swayed and groaned when it moved.

He was furious and he was scared. He was back at the maple wood in half an hour and he was tracking the other horse within another ten minutes.