“The stables,” Aaran responded without looking at his brother. He pressed himself to stay in the lead, knowing that Beaufort would attempt to talk him out of his mission if Navan knew what Aaran had planned.
“Riding instead of walking?” Beaufort asked.
“I want to know Lady Freya is safely on her way back to London,” Aaran said without looking to his brother. “I know it is foolish, but I want her safe. The coaching routes twist and turn to reach various villages. If I go across the river road, I can see them when Mr. Jamison reaches the main toll road.”
“You will hear no complaints from me. I placed myself as Annalise’s protector long before I rescued her from the fire at Amgen House.”
They ordered the stable hands to saddle their horses.
“Marksman’s denials of your courting his sister are minor to Cunningham’s dislike of my person,” Aaran said. This was not a conversation he wished to have with anyone, not even his most trusted brother.
“Do you have an inkling of the reason for Cunningham’s true dislike of your person?” Beaufort asked.
“Not with any accuracy,” Aaran admitted, “but I assume it has something to do with the clans, perhaps several centuries old. Scotland is archaic in that manner. There is a notation of a payment from Cunningham in one of my father’s estate books, but there is no explanation as to what the payment was meant to resolve.”
Following Aaran’s admitting his ignorance of Cunningham’s dislike, he and Beaufort stood in companionable silence until two young stable hands brought out a pair of horses, one for each of them. Without speaking, they mounted, kicked their horses’ flanks, and set out across the Kent countryside.
Freya stared mindlesslyout the coach’s small window. She had made herself say her farewell to her new friends, making the necessary promises to keep in touch, though they all knew this farewell was the end of their relationship. Once she returned to her father’s house and married Sir Patrick, she would be forbidden to acknowledge any of the women she had come to adore even if they passed each other on a shadowy lane in a London park or in a well-lit ballroom. That was sadness enough, but the loss of Lord Graham’s affections was nearly more than Freya could bear.
“Affections,” she whispered into the stillness of the coach. “Yes, though it would sound foolish to speak of how much Lord Graham claims not to affect me, he does. His kiss said the words he will not permit himself to believe. We could have a wonderful life, and, yes, we would, upon occasion, encounter rejection, but we would be together. For me, that would be enough.”
Her gaze settled on the line of bare-leafed trees, though she knew they each held buds waiting to open once spring arrived within the next month. “The world shall come alive again, just as the death of hope claims me,” she murmured.
Freya smiled to herself. “I now understand what Lady Emma and Lady Annalise meant. Lord Graham is definitely a take charge kind of man. He takes charge of the future of others, but not his own.”
She had been lost in her thoughts when Mr. Jamison pulled hard on the horses’ reins, and she was tossed forward, slamming into the opposing seat. She heard someone call, “Stand and deliver!” But she saw nothing, for her bonnet had tilted forward to cover her eyes.
“Dear God!” Aarangasped as they crested the hill to look down on where the main road to London connected with the smaller country roads leading to Thom Manor and the village of Pavian. He did not wait for Beaufort to respond. Instead, Aaran kicked his horse’s sides and tugged on the reins so he might reach where Mr. Jamison held the coach in place, while looking down the barrel of a rifle. The danger in which his servant and Lady Freya found themselves was surely his fault. How? He did not know, but Aaran’s gut said it was him that had brought all the violence into their lives. The person holding Jamison and Lady Freya at a standstill was dressed all in black, just as had been Duncan’s shooter, as well as every other attack on Aaran’s family over the past year.
“It is not Duncan!” he growled as he leaned forward over the horse’s neck. “It is me the killer wants!”
Freya managed toright herself and tug both her bonnet and her gown into place, before someone called, “Stand and deliver!”
“This is not a typical time nor place for a robbery of this sort,” she reasoned as she managed to see a bit out of the side window. “This is a busy road to England’s capital,” she told herself as she craned her neck in an attempt to view what was happening.
“Nothing to deliver,” Mr. Jamison stated with more calm than she expected. “Just returning my mistress to London. Attended a wedding of a friend.”
“No jewels?” the stranger demanded.
“Nothing of that sort. Just the marriage of the son of a local vicar and the daughter of another man of the cloth. Simple folks. A simple carriage,” Mr. Jamison explained.
“Tell your mistress to step down,” the stranger ordered.
She felt Mr. Jamison shift on the seat. He opened the trap. “Are you well, mistress?”
“Yes,” she assured him.
“The man who has a gun on me wishes you to step out of the carriage, miss,” Jamison said, “but the master would be most displeased…”
The driver’s next words were drowned out by the sound of horses and someone yelling. The noise broke the tenseness in her limbs, which had been holding her in place. Freya scrambled to open the door, but a bullet pierced through the side of the coach, barely missing her and lodging itself in the opposing bench seat, exactly where she had been sitting only moments earlier. She dropped to the floor and scrunched herself into a tight knot while covering her head with her hands.
The coach rocked as Mr. Jamison also evidently sought safety. A round of bullets was exchanged, while Freya prayed that both she and the driver would survive.
Both Aaran andBeaufort fired at the man dressed all in black, who raced away from the stopped carriage. “I have the shooter!” Beaufort called as he kicked his horse and gave chase.
Meanwhile, Aaran reined in before the coach, kicked out of the stirrups, throwing his bum leg over the horse’s neck before he dropped from the saddle, landing solidly on his good leg.
“Jamison?” he called as he hobbled towards the carriage and Lady Freya.
