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“It’s fast, and though it won’t take us directly to The Farm, it will bring us within a few miles.”
Cal agreed, and privately he thought they would be wise to surround themselves with other travelers. There was safety in numbers. He didn’t mention this to Bridget because he didn’t want her to worry. He thought it unlikely Sean MacDonald would come after them.
At the same time, he had the urge to hurry.
A few hours later, at close to midnight, Bridget had squeezed into the crowded mail coach while he rode on top of the conveyance. He didn’t mind as it wasn’t raining, and his position gave him a view of the road behind and before them. He pulled the collar of his coat up against the wind, crossed his arms, and settled back, eyes sharp. At the rate they were traveling, they’d reach The Farm tonight. Tomorrow he could be on the train back to London, the money Baron had promised him lining his pockets. He could pay off the last of his debts, find a decent flat, and have a little left over to hold him until he could secure a respectable job. He was done thieving and gambling. He would turn over a new leaf as a...
Cal rubbed his stubbled chin. What exactly could he do? He didn’t have the experience or skills needed for honest work. He supposed he could work in a shop—measure men’s heads for hats all day or some such thing. Except he wouldn’t last a day. Clerks needed to be deferential, and Cal didn’t have a deferential bone in his body. He supposed that meant a position as a servant in a wealthy household was out of the question as well.
He could work for the Metropolitan Police. He knew the rookeries and could sniff out the criminals and the swindles—except he didn’t much like the thought of arresting his former friends and partners.
He could do manual labor. There was always a need for strong men to do thankless, backbreaking work. That sort of work paid mere pennies and Cal would end up missing an arm or leg with nothing to show for his labors.
Really, the only skills he had were those he’d honed at The Farm. Working for the Crown had been one thing when it meant he could use the British government as a cover and to make some blunt. But he had no love for the English. Why would he want to serve the Crown as an agent?
The image of Bridget pulling his face to hers for a kiss crossed his mind. She was a powerful incentive, but he wasn’t fool enough to think she would want him after they returned. He wasn’t anywhere near good enough for her. Sure and she’d taken him to her bed, but they’d both been under the influence of lust. Once they returned to The Farm, she’d go her way and he would go his—whatever his way might be. That was the way it should be. He was not the sort of man a woman married. Who would want him for a husband or a father?
They’d been traveling five or six hours, stopping every ten miles at posting houses to change horses, when Cal spotted the riders. He didn’t think anything of it at first. As the sunrise had approached, there had been other vehicles on the road as well as single riders. This group of three needn’t alarm him. And yet, as he watched them approach the large, heavy coach, he sat up. He didn’t like the look of the man in front. He seemed...familiar.
The horse he rode closed more distance between the two, and Cal’s heart pounded. It couldn’t be. Cal was tired and cold and seeing things.
But when the man pulled a pistol from his coat and yelled for the coachman to stop, Cal recognized the voice instantly.
Sean MacDonald.
Cal had thought him smarter than this. Everyone knew the mail coach drivers shot first and asked questions later. The coach didn’t even slow as the driver turned and fired a warning shot from the musket he stowed under his feet.
The shot went wild, and MacDonald and his men didn’t slow. In a minute or two they’d be even with the coach. Cal hauled himself over the other passengers, hunched down on the roof, and bent over the side of the coach, banging on the window. “Open up!” he yelled.
A moment later, the window lowered. “Bridget!” Cal yelled.
Silence then her muffled voice. “What’s wrong?”
“Our friends are here.”
More silence, then Cal spotted the musket barrel just in time to jerk his head back up and out of the way of the musket ball. When he looked back down, Bridget was staring up at him, her face white and drawn. “It can’t be!”
“We can argue it later. Be ready to run.”
In answer, she closed the window. Cal didn’t know if that was a good or bad sign. He pulled himself back up to the roof, holding on to the mail and luggage strapped there tightly as the coach had begun to move erratically. The wheels jounced over a particularly deep hole, and Cal clamped his teeth together as others inside let out cries of alarm. Finally, Cal heard an ominous crack and the coach careened from side to side before shuddering to a stop.
Cal didn’t hesitate but jumped down from the roof and tore the passenger door open. Bridget was there, and he hauled her out and started for the nearby field. There was no cover, nothing to hide them from MacDonald. Cal pushed Bridget in front of him, guiding her in an irregular pattern to make it harder for MacDonald to shoot them in the back. He heard the coachman yell something about the axle and then more shots were fired. Shouts echoed across the field, and Cal spotted a low stone fence. Bridget must have seen it too because she turned in that direction.
Cal could hear the hoofbeats behind him now. The men were riding hard and gaining on them. He shot ahead of Bridget, took the fence in a leap then lifted her over and crouched behind it.
“What now?” she panted.
“We keep moving. Not that way.” He grabbed her wrist when she started for the open field, dotted with sheep edging away from them. “Keep low.”
Hunched down, he ran along the line of the fence, Bridget’s hand in his, keeping her beside him. They could hear the men shouting and calling to each other back at the fence. They hadn’t wanted to risk jumping their horses and now stood arguing as to whether to leave them and go on foot or coax them over the stone barrier.
“There!” Cal pointed to a hedgerow just a few yards ahead. It either marked the boundary of the farmer’s property or separated fields. It was thick and tall and perfect.
“Now what?” Bridget asked. “We can’t go through that. It’s too thick.”
“We hide inside it,” Cal said.
“We’ll be scratched bloody.”
