Carola Dunn (21 page)

As Danny drove out of the inn yard, Mr. Daviot extracted the chest from under the seat. Tending his bleeding hand, Miranda thought back to the first time she had done so. She had known no more of him then than that he was a self-confessed adventurer with a great deal of quizzical charm and absolutely no sense of decorum.

No, she had already known he was kind and considerate: he had offered to restrain Mudge while she rescued the cat he thought hers, and he had slept outside rather than rouse his sleeping aunt.

And his quick reaction had saved Lady Wiston from a nasty tumble down the stairs. What if he did rely upon her generosity to support him? Was that not what families were for? Should Miranda ever find herself destitute, she knew she could always claim a temporary home with her brother—heaven forfend!

It might come to that, if they failed to rescue Lady Wiston. After interfering with Lord Snell’s plans, Miranda could not expect him to keep his promise to provide for her, if, indeed, he had ever meant it. She would have to look for a new position, and she would never find one half so comfortable. Instead of a busy, useful life with a lively old lady she held in great affection, she would turn back into a mouse scurrying about with shawls and smelling salts. Worse, for the rest of her life she would carry the guilt of her responsibility for Lady Wiston’s confinement.

Worst of all, she would never see Peter Daviot again. Her hands trembled as she bound a strip of linen around his wound.

She forced her voice to remain steady. “There, that will keep it clean. Be careful not to dislodge it when you put your gloves back on.”

“Uh.” His hand flopped as she let go of it. Looking up, she saw that his chin was sunk on his chest, his eyes closed. He slumped back in the corner of the seat, dislodging the indignant pug.

While she tormented herself with a thousand dire possibilities, the wretch had fallen asleep!

Chapter 17

Long before they reached St. Neots and the end of another stage, rain was pelting down, drumming on the landau’s double hood and running down the sides with a gurgling swish. On the box, with no top-coat, Danny must be soaked through.

He seemed to be coping admirably, despite Mr. Daviot’s doubts of his competence in bad conditions. Miranda left the other two to their repose.

In the circumstances, she marvelled at their capacity for peaceful slumber. Though her lids were weighted with lead, her eyes dry and scratchy with fatigue, a fitful doze was the most she contrived to snatch. This was partly due to Mudge, who had appropriated her corner so that she could not lean back in comparative comfort.

Last night she had made use of Mr. Daviot’s shoulder, but to do so deliberately in broad daylight was far too unseemly to be considered. She doubted she could sleep properly anyway. A sense of urgency gnawed at her.

However well Danny drove, or even if Ted Coachman took the reins again, rain and mud were bound to delay them. Lady Wiston and her captors, twelve hours or more ahead, were probably unaffected as yet by the foul weather blowing in from the south-west. Indeed they had very likely arrived at Northwaite Hall some time since.

Lady Wiston must be sunk in the depths of despair, if not yet subjected to torturous remedies. Her oblivious nephew slept on.

He and Ted both woke when the landau pulled up at the Cross Keys in the marketplace at St. Neots.

“Danny Potts driving?” said Ted. “Well, he ain’t overset us yet, but he don’t know nowt about horses. I’ll just hop down and see they give us a decent team, and get ‘em harnessed up right.”

“Don’t tweak Danny’s nose,” advised Mr. Daviot.

The coachman grinned. “I’m not dicked in the nob, sir. I’ll tell him I need to stretch me legs, the which I do.”

Through the open door, Miranda saw Danny, his sodden clothes plastered to his skin. She called to him.

“You will take a chill,” she said anxiously.

“Lor’ bless you, miss, not I. ‘Tis August, arter all, not Janu’ry, and there be a mortal sight o’ me to keep meself warm. Don’t ‘ee fret.”

“Are you good for another stage, Danny?” Mr. Daviot asked.

“Why, surely, sir. Dunno why I never thought to take up for a coachman, saving I wouldn’t want to leave my Mary home alone. Here, now, the rain’s a-blowing in. You’ll be wet as I be ifn I don’t close the door.”

“Get yourself something to eat from the hamper. No, wait, better bring it here. I’m peckish myself, and you must be ravenous, Miss Carmichael. You scarcely swallowed a bite last night or at breakfast.”

Miranda was touched that he had noticed her lack of appetite. Though she still was not really hungry, when he cut the cold chicken from the bone for her, shelled an egg, buttered a roll, quartered and cored a pear, she could not refuse to eat.

“That’s better,” he said approvingly. “You must keep your strength up, you know, for Aunt Artemis’s sake. Lemonade or wine? No, I withdraw the choice. A drop of wine will warm you since tea is, I fear, impossible.”

“How can I complain? Cook has done us proud. Stop, stop! That may be a small tankard, but if you fill it more than half full I shall be tipsy in no time.”

“What happens when you’re foxed?” Mr. Daviot enquired with interest. “Will you serenade us, or do you grow belligerent, or am...amusing?”

He had been going to say “amorous,” Miranda was sure. She had heard of wine having such an effect. What would he do if she became amorous? Would he be pleased, or disgusted?

“I do not choose to find out,” she said primly, taking the half-full tankard.  She sipped slowly, warmed more by her thoughts and his teasing solicitude than by the wine. Mr. Daviot crunched a crisp pear, while Ted munched stolidly on his fourth or fifth ham-filled roll. Suddenly a loud belch resounded.

Mr. Daviot looked down at the floor, but not in embarrassment. “Mudge,” he accused. “How can so small a beast produce so mighty a wind?”

“He’ll be doing it t’other end soon,” grunted Ted, “begging your pardon, miss. He’s ate every scrape o’ that slice o’ ham Mr. Daviot dropped.”

“Good gracious,” Miranda said in dismay, “it was huge. I think I had best take him out, just for a minute or two, if you will tell Danny to stop.”

“No need for you to get wet,” said Mr. Daviot. “I’ll take him.”

“I shall be glad of a chance to move about a little.” Every limb was cramped, every joint ached, but she was not going to tell him so after his fears that she would hold him back. “I ought to have got down at the last inn.”

“You would have been soaked in a moment. At least the downpour seems to have turned to a mere drizzle now. Ted, tell Danny to pull up, and then take what more you want from the hamper. We might as well get it out of our way.”

Mudge, although in obvious need of relief, had to be bribed with the last comfit to jump down from the carriage.

“You should not have spoken in his hearing of abandoning him,” Miranda said to Mr. Daviot, and he laughed.

He and Ted stowed away the hamper. Mudge scrambled anxiously back up the steps and curled up on the floor. Miranda left his leash on. She repossessed her corner, the men climbed in, and once again they set off.

Slowly, so slowly the miles slipped behind. The wine sent Miranda into an uneasy sleep. She dreamed she was in Peter’s arms. A rare serious look in his bright blue eyes, he asked if she was feeling amorous—then he kissed her. Lord Snell appeared and dragged her away. He forced her into a curricle which somehow had barred windows. This he drove at a terrifying speed around a twisting circuit which yet carried her farther and farther away from Peter.

The carriage stopped, and she was vaguely aware that the landau had really come to a halt. Peter climbed out and Danny climbed in, a huge, dripping mass. Then Miranda drifted off again. This time in her dreams shackled madmen gabbled, gibbered, screeched, then shrieked in pain as a pair of huge, yellow-eyed carrion crows pecked viciously at their helpless bodies.

“Kill or cure,” cawed one. “Kill or cure.”

“Drive the devils out,” the other croaked.

The nearest human figure took on Lady Wiston’s features, and Miranda knew she was Prometheus being punished for her gifts to mankind.

Miranda awoke as the landau again pulled up. She felt not at all rested, wearier and stiffer than ever in fact. Her head ached, and the horror of her dreams loomed over her like menacing storm clouds.

Outside, though the rain had stopped, a funeral pall of sloe-black clouds hung low across the sky, shutting out the evening light. Inside the carriage dusk had already come and lamps shone in the windows of the Haycock Inn.

Ted opened the door and clambered down. Miranda heard him say, “‘Twill be dark soon, sir. There’s a nasty hill in Stamford, seven mile on, wi’ a tricky spot at the top and then a fork where we turn off the Great North Road t’ward Oakham, easy to miss in the dark. ‘Tis time I earned me keep, methinks.”

Opposite Miranda, Danny stretched and yawned enormously. “Have a good sleep, miss?” he asked.

“Well....”

He grinned. “I reckon you’d give your eye-teeth, same as me, for a floor as don’t joggle and sway about, and a nice feather bed.”

Miranda tried to smile. “I don’t know about my eye-teeth, but I should give a good deal.”

“Never fear, miss, Ted says we’m past half way.”

“Half way! Is that all?” she cried to Mr. Daviot, who climbed in and sank wearily to the seat beside her.

“Past half way,” he said soothingly as the carriage began to move, “and that’s half the journey from London to Northwaite Hall, remember. Before we started out this morning we had travelled over a hundred miles already. We have not near so far still to go.”

“But the night will be utterly black. Even Ted will not be able to drive faster than a snail’s pace. Oh, I wish we had not gone first to Redpath Manor!”

“It’s a pity, I agree, but I still believe it was the sensible thing to do. Though of course I’m sorry Aunt Artemis will be confined for a few extra hours, in the end it will not make much difference. I daresay she will sleep it away. The worst must have been the first shock of Snell’s betrayal and her abduction.”

“If only that were the worst! Do you know how physicians try to cure madness?”

“No, but—”

“They told us, Lady Wiston and me, when we visited the New Bethlem Hospital.” The horror of her dreams swept over Miranda again. “First they isolate the lunatic from all friends. Then they beat him to make him afraid, so that he will be obedient. If he protests, he is immobilized in a strait waistcoat and shackles, and they burn his scalp with hot irons and—”

“My dear girl, listen!” Mr. Daviot took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. “I’m sure all sorts of horrors go on in the public hospitals, but Aunt Artemis is in private care.”

Miranda felt tears pouring down her face. “They did all those dreadful things to poor King George,” she said flatly. “Right there in Windsor Castle, his own home. They told us.”

“Well, I am very sorry for the unhappy King, but the case is quite different. His doctors were desperate to restore his sanity. Snell does not wish to cure Aunt Artemis; indeed, quite the contrary. If she were judged rational, he would lose at a stroke his control of her funds, which I am convinced is the sole motive for the whole affair. The last thing he’ll do is pay for treatment.”

“Makes sense, miss,” said Danny.

It did make a sort of sense, but Miranda was too tired to be consoled by mere reason. At that moment Mudge, who had been trying in vain to draw her attention to his desire to join her upon the seat, lost his minimal patience and bit her knee. That was the last straw. The sobs she had so far restrained burst forth.

Peter Daviot gathered her into his arms and held her close, her cheek pressed to his already damp lapel as he stroked her hair. “My poor girl,” he murmured, “you are quite burned to the socket.”

“I did not mean to behave like a watering-pot,” she wept. She ought to pull away, but the warm strength of his embrace was so comforting she clung to him. “I’m sorry.”

“Balderdash! You have every excuse. I’ve been admiring your composure, and it’s the more to be wondered at if you have been imagining such horrors.”

“She has been like a mother to me. I cannot bear to think—”

“Hush, Miranda. Hush, love.” He rocked her gently, like a small, unhappy child. “Don’t think about it. It will not happen. The villain is rapacious and callous, but we have no cause to suppose him to be deliberately cruel, and he has no reason to desire a cure. Trust me.”

“If only I had trusted you in the first place, instead of him!”

“Well, of course, you should have guessed at once that when I described myself as an adventurer I meant it as a synonym for knight errant.”

She looked up to smile at him, grateful for his effort to cheer her. In the gloom their gazes locked. Miranda could not stir; her breath caught in her throat; a flood of heat washed through her as he bent his head. His lips touched hers.

Mudge yelped and made another attempt to clamber onto the seat. Miranda was suddenly conscious of Danny, tactfully snoring scarce three feet away. She jerked back.

Mr. Daviot let her go. Unlike the first time he had kissed her, he made no apology—but this time she had not slapped his face.

Lifting Mudge onto the seat between them, he glanced at Danny with a rueful grimace. His eyes on Mudge he said in a casual tone, “The beast bit you, did he not? We shall stop at the next inn for you to treat the wound and—”

“Oh no, it is nothing.”

“Show me.”

“Certainly not!”

“Then give me leave to doubt, and to insist that you—what was it you told me?—do it right in the first place to avert the need to amputate! And, as I was going to say, we shall stay for a few hours rest.”

“Unless you mean to make me drive a stage, which I cannot advise, I can rest perfectly well as we go along,” Miranda protested.

“That’s a taradiddle if ever I heard one. One may fall asleep in the carriage but one does not awake rested. I’m not speaking only of you. We are all exhausted. Besides, however warm the day, the night will grow chilly. Ted and I are damp, and Danny is sodden. I should not dare to return him to Mrs. Potts with an inflammation of the lungs.”