Chapter 1 #2
On its way down, a hoof struck a glancing blow to her shoulder, but the horse didn’t rear again and began to settle. Allegra winced in pain as she began the job of releasing him from the wreck of the carriage.
“Well done,” she said, and smoothed her trembling fingers over the horse’s face, checking that the bit and bridle were still serviceable. “You’ll be fine now.”
She turned her attention to the second horse, which had already quietened considerably, and freed it from the tangled mass of reins.
“There you are, my beauty, all safe now.”
The bay nuzzled her throat, and for a moment tears threatened at the gentle touch.
Grabbing both bridles, she led the horses away from the wreckage and over to where she’d left the man who’d abducted her.
He lay on his back, oblivious to the world, snoring slightly through his open mouth.
Allegra barely resisted the urge to kick him as the enormity of the situation threatened to overwhelm her.
She was on a narrow country road with high hedges that obscured almost everything around her.
The driver of the carriage might be lurking, waiting to abduct her, and her kidnapper was of no help at all.
Should she go in search of the driver? She shivered as a sharp breeze cut through the thinness of her traveling dress under her sensible cloak.
The light was fading fast, and her first priority should be to find shelter for herself and the horses.
She looked ahead of her, but there were no friendly lights on the horizon, no inn with an obliging innkeeper, no well-kept cottage or farm to welcome her.
She found her reticule farther along the ditch and unearthed a knitted scarf that would suffice to lead the horses with. She went back to the man and knelt beside him on the ground.
“Sir, you need to get up. You cannot stay here. It isn’t safe.” There was a faint groan and she shook him harder. “Wake up!”
Something in her tone must have registered, because his eyes fluttered behind his mask, and his gaze suddenly fastened on her.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
Allegra set her jaw. “That is quite irrelevant. We are in the middle of a country road, the carriage is damaged beyond repair, and we have to get these horses into shelter before it starts to rain.”
“Horses …” He attempted to sit up, and Allegra assisted him. “Why am I wearing a damn mask?”
“To assist with my abduction?” Allegra asked sweetly. “Because I don’t know what game you’re playing, but when I find out who you are, I can assure you that your life won’t be worth living.”
“Then why don’t you leave me here?”
“Because I need your assistance with the horses. Can you stand?”
He managed it, but swayed like a willow tree in a breeze, what she could see of his face a ghastly white in the gloom.
“Is your friend likely to return, sir?” Allegra asked.
He blinked at her. “What friend?”
“The man who drove the carriage.”
“How the devil would I know?”
Allegra sucked in a breath and led him over to the horses and placed his hand on one of the bridles.
“Hold on to this.”
She returned to pick up her reticule and used the broken leather traces on the horse’s back to tie it securely to the horse she intended to lead.
“We didn’t pass any villages recently, so I think our best course is to keep going forward and hope we come to a farm or hamlet soon,” Allegra said. She turned to her companion, who was now leaning against the horse, his face buried in the mane. “Are you able to walk?”
“Not sure,” came the muffled reply. “Must’ve hit my head at some point.”
Allegra suppressed a slight surge of guilt. “Would you prefer to ride if I lead the horse?”
“Not sure I can get up there.”
Allegra looked around, spotted a milestone, and led both the horses over to it. Her shoulder was hurting, and she had to keep swallowing back tears, but she was determined not to give in to hopelessness.
“Come on.” She nudged her companion. “Climb on the stone and hoist yourself up.”
It took him several attempts, but with her help, he eventually managed it and grabbed fistfuls of the horse’s mane to hold onto. Allegra attempted to attach the second horse’s bridle to the first’s with her wooly scarf.
“Hold on, sir.”
Another groan rent the air. Ignoring him, she stared ahead into the gathering gloom.
There was nowhere else to go but forward and no help available but her own wits.
Biting her lip, she started walking, hoping against hope that they’d reach a village with a smithy or an inn before it got too dark to proceed any further.
A few minutes later, Allegra caught a glint of light to the left of the road, indicating there might be some kind of building ahead.
She immediately began looking for a lane or passageway that might lead them to it.
Her shoulder hurt, her head hurt—in truth, everything hurt—and it was all the fault of the damnable gentleman slumped over the back of the horse.
As she turned off the road, she amused herself by imagining the grisliest ending possible for the fool who’d dared to abduct her.
She almost stumbled on the rutted, muddy track that led toward what looked like a barn.
A light drizzle settled on the surface of her cloak, and she knew they had to take whatever shelter appeared, regardless of its cleanliness.
Her fingers fumbled with the five-bar gate leading into what appeared to be a farmstead, but she managed to get through and led the horses into the stone-walled space.
Allegra blinked, trying to see details of the barn in front of her. To her relief, there didn’t appear to be any animals housed within, which, as the structure was open to the elements, made sense. There were bales of hay stacked against the back wall, and she led the horses over toward them.
“You may get down, sir.” Her voice was shaking with tiredness as she prodded her unwelcome companion on the thigh. “I’ll spread out some hay for the horses and for us to sleep on.”
He muttered something unintelligible and, after watching her spread the hay, slid inelegantly off the back of the horse and onto the ground, where he immediately started snoring again. Allegra took care of the horses and made herself a bed of hay as far away from her companion as possible.
She sat with her back to one of the bales, her cloak tightly clasped around her, and stared out into the blackness topped by an intricate pattern of stars.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t know what to do next, and that was frightening.
What would her family think when she wasn’t at the house when they came to collect her? Would they raise an alarm?
A terrifying thought gripped her. What if no family member came with the coach? If it was just a driver come to fetch her, how long would he wait for her before leaving? How many days would it be before her family realized she was actually missing?
A shudder of tiredness ran through her, and she clenched her jaw.
She couldn’t give up. In the morning, she’d find the farmer, explain the situation, and ask for his assistance.
Surely any reasonable man would recognize her plight and do the right thing?
She glanced over at the shadowy lump in the shelter of the hay bales.
What her abductor chose to do was entirely up to him.
His choices wouldn’t matter, because once she discovered who he was, she’d make it her life mission to ruin him.
Something was tickling him … and not in the way he preferred to be tickled. Even before he opened his eyes, he knew this was not the amorous caress of his mistress’s hair on his thighs as she prepared to take his cock in her mouth.
In fact, he felt damned uncomfortable all around. Lord Max Devereux opened one eye and swiftly closed it again. Bright sunlight was streaming in through an aperture that was definitely not part of his rooms in Albany.
He cautiously inhaled and experienced the full richness of the countryside in all its glorious potency. Was he at Barfleur Hall? He rather thought he’d been forbidden to visit since his last argument with his father.
This had to be a dream, then. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself back to sleep, only to be woken by violent shouting and someone prodding him with what appeared to be a pitchfork.
He yelped and held up his hands. “Wait! Let me stand!”
His attacker, who appeared to be a stocky man with the surly expression of a prize bulldog, took a step back, the pitchfork still raised threateningly at Max’s face.
“Get out of my hay!”
“I’d be delighted to do so, sir,” Max said. “And I am more than happy to recompense you for any damage I might inadvertently have caused.”
The bulldog’s scowl eased slightly. “I should bloody well hope so. I don’t stand for gentlefolk turning up in my barn in the middle of the night with never a by-your-leave.”
“I can only apologize,” Max said, although he had no idea how or why he’d ended up in the man’s barn in the first place. “It was most remiss of me.”
Perhaps some of his friends had played a trick on him, got him drunk, and dumped him somewhere in the countryside. It was just the sort of thing his friend Landon would find hilarious and that Max was beginning to think juvenile and tiresome.
“As I said, I’m happy to pay for any damage.” Max put his hand in his coat pocket, and it came out empty. He tried his other pocket with a rising sense of panic. Had his so-called friends left him with nothing? “I—”
“Your sister’s already taken care of it, sir,” the farmer said.
“My sister?” Max had a vague sense that he should know more about this person who definitely didn’t exist, but in the moment, the information eluded him.
“She’s up at the farmhouse having breakfast with my wife.”