James turned and waved wildly to the driver of his travel coach. He was not going to wait for Guy Dannon or Tobias Shepherd to appear out the front door too. As best man, they would expect him to go chasing after the bride. While, he fully intended to do just that, James was also determined that he would be the only one following in the direction that Leah had taken.
Fortunately for him, the driver and his mate were still seated on the top of the coach. They had witnessed the whole scene. The driver flicked the reins and the coach started forward. James ran up alongside and grabbed hold of the door.
“Follow that hack, and don’t lose it!” he bellowed.
He swung up into the coach and slammed the door behind him. Then, pulling the glass window down, he put his head out, watching as the hack in front turned into Little Brooke Street. He gripped tightly onto the doorframe as the coach tilted when it followed the hack into a sharp right turn at New Bond Street.
“Hurry!” he cried.
Where are you going, Leah? Where are you going?
They met a body of traffic as they reached the main thoroughfare at Oxford Street. The coach stopped, waiting for a gap in the flow of carriages and coaches, before it could make the turn. The hack, which was a smaller and nimbler vehicle, made it around without any trouble. James screwed up his face in frustration. He was going to lose her. “Fuck!”
When his coach was finally able to turn onto Oxford Street, the hack containing Leah was already out of sight. A panicked James was forced to risk a throw of the dice.
“Duke Street! Turn left at Duke Street!” he cried.
If Leah was attempting to flee her own wedding, there was every chance she was headed for home. It wasn’t the best place for her to go, but he doubted she had many other options. He had to trust to his instincts. He could only pray they were right.
As the coach pulled up out the front of the Shepherd family home in Duke Street, James slapped himself on the head. Of course, she wouldn’t have gone to the front door.
“The laneway! Try around at the back of the house.”
His heart was beating a thousand miles an hour in his chest. His mouth was dry with the rush of adrenaline as it coursed through his body.
As his coach pulled into the rear laneway, James caught a glimpse of Leah climbing back into the hack. She had a brown travel bag in her hand.
He pulled his head back inside the coach. From the look of it, she had not seen him. The hack now pulled away from the rear of the Shepherds’ house at a more sedate pace. He turned and looked out the rear window of the coach. No one else was following. He was the only one in pursuit.
They followed the hack down to Piccadilly, where it pulled into the courtyard of the Gloucester Coffee House.
“Where are you going?” he muttered.
The Radley family travel coach slowed and pulled in a little way behind the hack. James waited. He did not wish to startle his quarry.
He delayed stepping from the coach until Leah had climbed out of the hack and walked toward the door of the coffee house. He sighed with relief when she didn’t look back. If she had, she would have seen the Strathmore crest emblazoned on the side of his coach. The game would have been up.
After she had gone inside, James took the opportunity to check the mews. The coffee house was a well-known staging place for the mail coaches travelling to the west country of England. Next to the stables at the back of the building stood one solitary mail coach. It was being loaded with boxes and bags.
The driver from his own coach climbed down and hurried over to James.
“If that young lady is doing a flit, then it looks like she is taking that coach. It is the only coach ready to leave the yard. The other mail coaches usually go late at night so that the mail can be delivered early in the morning. Do you want me to go inside and take a look?” he said.
All of James’s plans to go to Derbyshire and take up his new career as a painter came to a sudden halt. Before him stood his very last chance to come to Leah’s aid, to show her what she really meant to him.
She may well have succeeded in fleeing the church, but she was now alone. And she was still in great danger. Any moment now, someone could come into the yard looking for her. And if that someone was Tobias Shepherd, he would seize his daughter and drag her back to the church. Her father would force her to marry a man she detested.
Here and now, James would do what he should have done all along. He would stand up for the woman he loved. He would protect her. Today, he would become the hero she needed.
Nothing else mattered.
James nodded. It was too great a risk for him to venture inside. It was critical at this moment for him to be slow and steady with his moves. Leah had to think she had escaped undetected, all the while he would be standing guard just in case one of her family members came looking for her.
He dug into his coat pocket and pulled out his leather coin pouch, handing it over to the coach driver.
“If you can find out where Miss Shepherd is travelling to and then purchase me a ticket for the same coach trip, I would be most grateful. Your discretion, of course, would be appreciated,” he said.
The driver raised an eyebrow, then nodded.
