Chapter 6
Six
The duke made Jarvis ride with Filby the groom in the seat behind the carriage.
Neither servant was happy with the arrangement. This was perfectly plain to Zoe.
But she knew it was not Marchmont’s business to make servants happy. It was their job to make him happy, and judging by the set of his jaw, they were making a hash of it.
The groom, plainly, was mortified to be seen sharing his seat with a female. Jarvis, equally plainly, was terrified of the curricle and her high perch thereupon. But there was no room for her inside the carriage. It was built to hold the driver and a companion.
Zoe was not sure what the proper procedure was for a maid in such cases. She only understood that Jarvis must accompany her to the dressmaker’s, and this was the simplest way to do it.
In any event, it was Marchmont’s curricle, he was the master, and everyone else must like it or lump it.
If he did not want to keep his restive horses waiting, then everyone had better move quickly—or be moved quickly, as Zoe discovered.
His way of helping her into the high vehicle was to wrap his gloved hands round her waist, lift her straight up off the pavement, and toss her onto the seat.
She was still tingling from the contact when his big body settled next to hers. He muttered something about “damned finical servants.” Then, more clearly, he addressed the horses: “Walk on, my lads.”
Though they seemed as eager to be gone as he was, the beautifully matched horses set out slowly from St. James’s Square and proceeded calmly through the narrower and more crowded streets.
This sedate pace did not last for long, though.
The driver, Zoe was aware, was as restive as the horses. She had been taught to be keenly sensitive to a man’s moods. She was acutely aware of tension. The impatience or restlessness or whatever it was throbbed along the side of her body nearest his.
At last they reached a broader thoroughfare.
The horses began to move, faster and faster.
Zoe heard Jarvis shriek each time their pace increased.
Yet they moved so steadily, stepping beautifully in time.
They were big, powerful, high-couraged animals, yet Marchmont controlled them absolutely, without seeming to do anything.
The lightest flick of the whip—and that not touching them—the slightest motion of his hands on the reins, were the only outward signs.
The wind ruffled the fair hair under his sleek hat. Other than that, he seemed almost still on the outside, all the power fiercely contained within him—something the animals, surely, sensed and responded to.
The buildings and lampposts sped by, giving way to greenery, then buildings again. She held onto the side of the carriage as they passed riders, coaches, wagons, and carts and while the world went by in a blur, as though it were a dream.
It was like flying.
It was wonderful.
She laughed. She was a bird, flying, free. He glanced at her, and when he turned away he was smiling a little.
Then, by degrees, they began to turn into narrower streets again, and the pace slowed. After a time she recognized Bond Street, where Jarvis had found the ancient hackney.
Zoe had expected him to return to St. James’s Street, where Mrs. Bell’s Magazin des Modes stood. Mrs. Bell was very fashionable. She featured prominently in La Belle Assemblée.
But he turned into an unfamiliar street.
“Grafton Street,” he said, though she had only glanced inquiringly at him and he had not appeared to be looking anywhere but at the way ahead. “We start at Madame Vérelet’s.”
She was about to ask him who Madame Vérelet was when another vehicle barreled round a curve ahead, straight at them.
Marchmont saw it coming: an antiquated coach and four, overburdened with baggage and traveling far too fast for this busy street. It had shaved the corner of Hay Hill to half an inch, but then the vehicle went wide.
The duke easily stopped his pair in time, but the bloody fool on the coach box drove straight on at them.
At the last instant, he pulled the horses hard to the left.
He missed the curricle, but the weight on top of the coach shifted, overbalancing it.
The coachman fell off his box. One of the wheelers shrieked at the same time the duke heard the crack of splintering wood.
After that, it was difficult to sort anything out, amid the din and confusion.
Horses plunged and screamed, people ran into and out of shops, shouting and shrieking and getting in the way.
Marchmont leapt down from the curricle, leaving his team to Filby, who was on the pavement as quickly as he.
The duke started toward the overturned coach. It had fallen on top of some of the luggage and lay precariously on a great trunk.
The leaders had broken loose, but some men farther along the street caught them. The wheelers, meanwhile, were wild, one bleeding and clearly maddened by pain and fear, the other in a panic.
Marchmont shouted orders. A boy ran up and nearly had his head kicked off, but he caught hold of the injured animal. The duke caught the other one and was calming the frantic beast when he heard a familiar voice cry, “Someone fetch a doctor!”
He looked back and saw Zoe, half under the coach and pulling at the door of the insecurely balanced vehicle.
“Get away from there!” he shouted. “It’s going to collapse!”
She ignored him and tugged at someone inside. The trunk bulged and the coach sagged downward.
“Zoe, damn you, get away from there!”
To his horror, she crawled under the coach.
“Someone hold this curst animal!” he shouted.
All that held up the old coach was the trunk. One wrong move and it would fall…and crush her.
Someone came and took over the animal. At the same instant, before he could get the wretched girl away from the coach, she gave another pull.
The trunk gave way.
The coach seemed to fall so slowly, while he was still lunging for her, before it landed with a great crash and a choking cloud of dust.
“Zoe!” he roared, and plunged into the wreckage.
She’d seen the boy hanging out of the door. Zoe feared he was badly injured, but she hadn’t time to check. She pulled him out and dragged him out of the way. An instant later, the coach hit the ground and flew apart.
“You idiot.” Marchmont’s voice easily penetrated the clamor about her.
He took the boy from her and carried him into the nearest shop. He demanded a doctor, and one soon arrived. Then he went out and supervised those tending to the horses and damaged coach.
When a constable arrived, Marchmont ordered the coachman taken into custody and charged with drunkenness, disturbing the King’s peace, and endangering public safety. The coachman was taken away.
All this happened in a remarkably short time. Zoe watched the street’s concluding events through the shop window while behind her the physician attended to the boy.
Marchmont, she saw, could be remarkably efficient when he chose—or when he had to be. Or perhaps he was not so much efficient as impatient and intimidating.
He came back inside the shop at last. He didn’t look at her but folded his arms and leaned against the door, stone-faced, until the boy came to his senses and proved able to remember his name, the date, and the present sovereign.
Zoe caught only the last part of this, because the boy said it loudly: “King George the Third. Everybody knows that.”
He had a lump forming on the back of his head and a number of bruises and scrapes, but the doctor pronounced him fit to return home.
“My groom will take him home in my carriage,” Marchmont said. These were the first words he’d uttered since reentering the shop.
He watched them drive away until they were out of sight. Then he turned his attention to Zoe, who’d followed him out of the shop. He eyed her up and down.
She was dirty and bedraggled, she knew, but she didn’t care. She was still exhilarated, because she’d saved the boy from serious injury, perhaps death. The big, cumbersome coach could have crushed him when it fell. He could have been impaled on a jagged piece of wood or metal.
She’d saved him. She’d been free to act, free to help, and she’d done something worthwhile.
Marchmont did not look either exhilarated or bedraggled.
He still had his hat on. His neckcloth seemed crisply in order.
The coat that so closely followed the contours of his big shoulders and upper body showed spots of dirt here and there but no tears.
The green waistcoat hugging his lean torso hadn’t ripped anywhere or lost buttons.
The pantaloons clinging to his long, muscular legs were very dirty, though.
Her gaze trailed slowly down, to his boots. They were scuffed and coated with dust.
She became aware of a soft, slapping sound. He had taken off his gloves. He slapped them against his left hand.
Slowly she brought her gaze up.
His face was as hard as the marble in his house’s entrance hall. His eyes were angry green slits.
“That way,” he said, jerking his head toward a shop.
She looked in the direction he indicated. The shop bore a black sign with the word VéRELET in gold letters. That was all. On either side of the door, bay windows held a splendid array of colorful fabrics and delicious bonnets.
“Clothes?” she said. “Now?”
“My curricle is on its way to Portland Place with that wretched boy. What do you suggest instead? Perhaps a leap off Westminster Bridge?”
She had trained herself ages ago to keep her temper in check, because survival in the harem often depended upon keeping a cool head. She told herself she could do it at present.