Chapter 43
Harry hasn’t asked for my hand again and I have to wonder how I will feel compelled to answer when and if he does. I love him so dearly and know now that he loves me just the same.
So what is it that is holding me back?
––––––––
“Dare I ask where we are going?” Fiona asked as he took the next street, turning left. “Shouldn’t we go to the authorities?”
“Aylesbury isn’t normally a hotbed of criminal activity.”
“You have no police?”
“None that would be of any assistance,” he grumbled, turning the team again until they were racing west out of town. “I’ll head back to the golf club.”
“Yes, the golf club,” she nodded solemnly, unpinning her hat and tossing it aside before the wind tore her hair from her head. “A stronghold for Scotland Yard.”
Aylesbury shot her a dry look but, from the corner of his eye, caught sight of their pursuer on horseback nearly drawing even with them on her side. Trying to run Crumpky off the road with the phaeton would do no good. Such a high-sprung contraption would tip easily enough without such provocation.
A sharp crack sounded. The bastard was shooting at them!
To her credit, Fiona didn’t scream as a typical female might.
She did, however, string out a number of profanities.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered one of his own, transferring the reins into one hand and leaning forward to open the tack box fastened to the floor by their feet. “Thank God!”
When he pulled out a long-barreled revolver, she gaped at him. “A gun? How on earth did you know there would be a gun in there?”
“It’s where I keep mine. Most men with a gig like this carry them just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“Robbery.” He shrugged. “Situations like this.”
“Dear Lord.” She sighed, reaching into the tack box to pull out the small silver flask she spotted there among the other tack. Uncapping it, she tilted back her head and took a swallow with a wince. “Ugh, that’s dreadful.” She took another swallow.
Their circumstances bordered on the dire, Aylesbury reminded himself. He shouldn’t be enjoying such a misplaced sense of amusement.
Another shot buzzing by over their heads properly sobered him.
Twisting about, he leveled the pistol at the horseman.
Unfortunately, the action also sent the phaeton veering left a, the well-trained horses sensitive to even the lightest pressure on the reins.
They careened from side to side before Aylesbury steadied their pace once more.
With another curse, he tried again to aim but the shot he needed, turning far enough to shoot from behind her back, again threw off his balance.
“For Heaven’s sake, Harry! Give me the gun,” she yelled over the pounding of the hooves when he was once again unsuccessful in getting off a shot.
He shot her a dubious look, and she rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Harry! Either give me the reins or hand over that pistol before either he kills us, or you do.”
Still, he shook his head. “You might have forgotten, but I cannot forget you’re a lady.”
“I was raised by and among ten brothers who taught me everything they know. There’s a good chance I might be more of a man than you, Harry Brudenall!”
Insanely, he couldn’t help the grin that leapt to his lips as he looked at her.
Just as madly, Fiona grinned back until a high-pitched whistle marked another bullet as it whizzed by.
They both unconsciously hunched their shoulders as if that would help either one of them if a bullet struck its mark.
“Bloody hell! I’m not some wilting lily,” she shouted. “Give me the pistol or the bloody reins! One or the other!”
While he wasn’t sure of her skills with the ribbons, he had no doubt she was a good shot. Reluctantly, he handed her the gun, steadying the horses with both hands so she could aim. She brushed her wind-blown hair from her eyes and sighted the gun but didn’t take the shot.
Crumpky had no such difficulties. Another shot sounded, and he yelled, “Shoot, Fiona!”
“I don’t want to hurt the horse!”
An aggravated growl escaped him, and he stared at her in disbelief. “Give you the gun, you said! Isn’t that what you said?”
“I’m sorry,” she cried. “But what if I miss and hit the horse?”
“Fuck the horse, Fiona!”
She narrowed her eyes at that. “Well, that’s completely unnecessary, I think.”
Another shot, this one splintering the wooden backrest between them. Surprised, they both gawked down at it before looking at one another in shock. Close. Too close.
“I’ll take the reins.”
“Give me the gun.”
They said at the same time and put action to their words. The phaeton hardly wobbled a bit as Fiona dropped the flask and took the reins in both hands, slapping them down on the horses’ rumps with a loud cry of encouragement.
“Haw!”
Biting back another inappropriately timed grin, Aylesbury rotated in the seat and lifted his arm until his nemesis was in his sights. “Go to hell, old Crumpky!”
The shot rang out, garnering a terrified whinny from the horses but, more importantly, catching Crumpky in his chest. The force of the bullet spun him out of the saddle and sent him tumbling to the ground in a cloud of dust.
“Did you kill him?” Fiona asked, still watching the road before them.
Aylesbury watched the riderless horse rear, then trot away, shaking its mane. “Relax, the horse is fine.”
“Not the horse. Did you kill that man?”
“I doubt it. I caught him in the chest but on his right. He might survive.”
“That’s too bad.”
He grinned. “You are a bloodthirsty minx, aren’t you? Ah, Fates be damned.”
“What is it?”
“Ramsay is still behind us,” Aylesbury told her, taking the flask from where it had fallen in her lap and uncapping it to take a long swallow.
Wincing, but drawing on it once more. Fiona was right.
It was dreadful. “He’s a ways back, but I think he must have stopped to pick up that other fellow. I see two men.”
Relinquishing the reins when he reached for them and turning around for herself, she asked, “What should we do? And don’t tell me that we’re going back to the golf club. Even I can see there would be no help there.”
“I’m going to let you off.”
“What? No!”
Aylesbury nodded, setting his jaw. He’d be damned if he was going to see Fiona hurt by that bastard Ramsay.
The matter should have been settled the moment they knew Ramsay was behind the kidnapping attempts.
Settled firmly and permanently. The MacKintosh men, warrior Scots they were descended from, might not think he was a violent man—and perhaps he wasn’t in a normal situation—but Aylesbury would bury Ramsay in the ground before he ever had another chance to threaten the woman he loved again.
And he couldn’t do that with Fiona by his side.
Where he would have to worry over her. Where she might be hurt in the crossfire.
“I’m going to slow down around that next bend.
The road to the club is not far from there.
I want you to jump out and get your brothers.
I’ll lead Ramsay off toward Dinton Grange.
Get your brothers and have the club manager ring up the magistrate in Oxford. Do you got that?”
“I’m not getting out.” Fiona crossed her arms stubbornly. “No, I’m coming with you.”
“Obstinate wench,” he muttered, slowing the horses as he rounded the bend and spotted an area of high grasses. Turning, he grasped Fiona by the chin and pulled her toward him, kissing her hard. “I love you, Fiona, and I know I’m going to be bloody sorry for this later but...”
“But what?” Fiona hardly had a chance to squeak out before Aylesbury half stood and scooped her up in his arms as the phaeton slowed almost to a stop.
Before she had time to latch on to him, Aylesbury swung her feet out from under her and sent her over the side of the carriage.
He lowered her as far as he could but let her drop the last few feet.
Fiona stumbled back and fell into the grass.
Before she had a chance to curse him soundly, Aylesbury whipped up the horses again and left her behind, hoping she would have the good sense not to chase after him.
* * *
Fiona sat up, spitting a piece of grass out of her mouth with an outraged screech.
How dare he! How dare he leave her at the side of the road like so much trash!
Climbing to her feet, she caught her shoe on the inside of her skirt and fell forward, raking her palms along the sharp stalks of the grass.
“Damn you, Harry,” she muttered, slapping her hands together.
“I might have loved you forever, but I don’t like you a whit right now. ”
Hooves clattered on the road heralding the approach of Ramsay’s carriage. Fighting the urge to flag him down and deal with him herself, Fiona crouched in the grass until it had passed.
Watching the carriage racing away, the anger leeched away, leaving Fiona cold with the thought of Harry facing Ramsay and his cohort alone.
The confrontation of her imagination was harder to bear than watching the fight in person as she had done when he’d fought for her in London.
Somehow being there had given her confidence.
Now, alone, she was left with nothing but ominous visualizations.
She couldn’t lose him over something so senseless.
She couldn’t bear to lose him at all.
A terror like she had never known before nearly rooted Fiona to the ground, but some part of her still had the wherewithal to follow his instructions if she didn’t act.
Lifting her skirts, Fiona climbed out of the ditch and set off at a run toward the golf club.
Connor and Ian had better be done with their second round.
She’d be damned if she was going to tarry about the short course looking for them.
They’d be lucky if she didn’t take their carriage and go after Harry alone.