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“Scott!” she called out, trying to stop him. It would be so much better if they approached from stealth.
He apparently did not hear her—not, she thought, that he would have stopped to listen. Shots blasting on the open road made her heart quake. Only one reason she could think of for this: highwaymen!
She and Scott had often been told by his father, the squire, that these men were the worst kind of bloodthirsty men, sneaking about in the dark, attacking women and invalids on
the king’s roads.
It was Scott’s father’s opinion that every last one needed to be put to the dust.
Felicia arrived to find that Scott had charged onto the scene where high tobys were in the midst of their crime. They had brought a coach and four ill-matched horses to a standstill, and their horse pistols were held high and threateningly.
The driver of the vehicle had his hands up and was reciting in frightened accents that he was not armed.
One of the highwaymen pulled an elderly gentleman out of the coach. This gentleman appeared to be sadly foxed and fell to the ground in a drunken stupor, which caused the four highwaymen to roar with mirth.
Scott raced his horse forward and demanded, “Hold, you blackguards. I am armed!”
One toby turned and let off a shot, appeared surprised when it hit its mark. He called to his men to hurry it up and put away the jewels and the ready.
A moment later they rode their horses hard into the night.
The driver of the coach picked up his employer, stuffed him back into the coach, and climbed up into his seat. Felicia rushed her horse forward. Scott was lying sprawled and unconscious on the ground, and even as her horse was still slowing to a walk, she nimbly jumped off and raced to his side.
With a shock she heard the driver start his team off, and she looked up to call after him, “Stop, you, we need help!”
“Can’t … have to get sir home … now,” he answered as his coach rolled onward.
From what Felicia could see, Scott had taken a shot to the shoulder and had the wind knocked out of him when he had then fallen off his horse.
He made a valiant attempt to smile at Felicia, but as she watched in horror he closed his eyes and went unconscious.
* * *
“Scott!” she cried desperately as she tore off a piece of her underclothes and applied it to his wound, where blood was flowing freely.
Blood! Blood had stained his coat and was already forming a small pool near his upper body. What was she supposed to do? She knew about wounds. She had witnessed two hunting accidents when her father was alive. She had to keep him still, but what … what could she do, out here in the middle of nowhere without help?
He was unconscious and did not respond when she repeated his name. “Scott. Oh no, oh, Scott!”
Very well, she told herself. This is my fault—all my fault. I allowed him to accompany me at night on the open road, and look—just look what has come of it.
Think! What to do? She couldn’t let him die. The thought actually made her feel faint. She wouldn’t allow him to die. No. She had to do something.
Where was his horse? Deuce take the beast for running off!
She had to get help, but she couldn’t just leave him. She had to find a way of getting help. How? What to do? “Scott … Scott … open your eyes, please, Scott.”
He did not move a muscle. His lashes did not flicker. She had a sudden impulse to cry, but that was for later. Now, she simply had to do something.
~ Five ~
THE ERRANT DUKE of Somerset blinked, squinted, and blinked again, for although the moon was nearly full and the dark sky glittering with stars, he was only able to make out the immediate road that lay before him.
He had lingered over a good meal and a glass too many of ale at the inn where he had stopped for dinner. Evidently a sporting event had taken place there earlier in the day, for he found two of his cronies in the main galley. Before he knew it, one thing had led to another.
One ale had turned into two, and he was quite proud that he had declined a third and bid his friends farewell.
However, it had still taken some doing before he was finally able to wrest himself from his friends and make his way out the door to fetch his curricle from the stables where his horses had been hayed, watered, and rested.
