Nicole Jordan (31 page)

Irritation gripping him, Thorne started to draw his head back inside, intent on fetching the loaded pistols he always carried for precisely this purpose. But without warning, a shot rang out. A cry from his coachman told Thorne the servant had been hit—a theory instantly confirmed when the man fell from the box and rolled to the side of the road.

Just as suddenly, the coach lurched violently forward, causing the footman to lose his grip and tumble off to land near the prostrate coachman. With no one driving, the four-horse team bolted.

Gathering speed, the vehicle rushed past the mounted highwaymen. Thorne had only a split second to realize the brigand on the right was aiming a second pistol directly at him. Cursing, he ducked inside and shoved Diana sideways, just as a bullet whizzed past his head.

He heard her give a sharp gasp as she sprawled on the cushions, and fear clenched his chest. Dear God, had she been hit?

Clumsy with panic, he reached for her, but then Diana struggled to sit up, and fierce relief flooded him. She was white-faced, but with a grim look of determination fixed on her features.

Just then the jolting sway of the carriage nearly knocked Thorne to the floorboard and reminded him of the danger they were in, caught inside the speeding vehicle.

He fumbled for the case beneath the seat and managed to open it, revealing a brace of pistols. Grabbing one, he lunged for the window.

“How can I help?” Diana demanded.

“Get the other pistol!” He didn’t know if she knew how to shoot, but he wanted her armed.

As she dropped to her knees on the floor, he thrust his head out the window, looking toward the rear for the two masked riders—only to see them galloping after his runaway carriage.

Taking aim, Thorne got off a shot and thought he might have wounded one man, but he had no time to waste. The coach had picked up more speed as the panicked horses began to race wildly.

Bracing himself against the jarring rock, Thorne eased his shoulders all the way out the window and turned to sit on the frame.

“What will you do?” Diana shouted from inside.

“Try to stop the team before we wreck!”

He would have to climb from the window onto the coachman’s box so that he could take the reins himself.

Clutching precariously at the roof for balance, Thorne raised himself up to stand on the window frame. By straining, he could just grasp the edge of the coachman’s box. Another sickening jolt almost caused him to lose his grip, but he clung tightly. If he was thrown to the ground at this speed, he risked breaking a limb or worse.

The wind roared in his ears along with his pounding heartbeat as he inched forward. He hooked one leg over the box rail, then pulled his chest even with the front of the roof. Then feetfirst, he heaved himself over the rail and into the box, and landed half-kneeling, half-sprawling on the driver’s seat, on his stomach.

Swiftly righting himself, Thorne searched in the gathering dusk for the reins. There they were, dangling down past the center pole between the two pairs of galloping horses, flapping on the ground beneath the churning hooves.

And the clattering, bumping coach was close to careening out of control. If it turned over at this speed, Thorne knew it would likely shatter on impact. He might be able to jump free, but Diana was trapped inside, which could mean her death.

Fear momentarily knotted all his muscles, but he couldn’t afford the luxury of emotion. Without letting himself think, he carefully climbed onto the dash of the box, then lowered one foot to the splinter bar. From that, he sprang forward, making a wild leap for the flexing hindquarters of the off wheeler.

His chest landed hard on the animal’s muscular rump. When it squealed in fright, Thorne grabbed for the bulky leather surcingle that wrapped the horse’s belly.

The ground was a blur beneath him as he pulled himself up and forward, till he could grasp the neck collar and make a desperate grab at the near rein.

At the sudden jerking pressure of the bit, the off leader stumbled, nearly going to its knees, while the horse Thorne rode gave a responsive lurch as it struggled for balance.

He hung on for another instant, the rein still clutched in his hand, but then felt himself falling sideways, between the racing horses, so that his left knee ground against the center pole while his left foot dragged the ground.

Thorne grimaced, then clenched his teeth at the sharp pain when his inner ankle was struck by a churning hoof, but he clung frantically with his right arm to the surcingle, while his left pulled with all his might on the rein. He felt another searing pain, this time in his left palm, but miraculously the lead horse responded the barest measure. Eventually the team slowed enough for Thorne to regain his perch, where, despite the pain, he kept giving repeated, rhythmic yanks on the rein.

After what seemed an eternity, he managed to bring the panting, lathered horses down to a trot, then to a walk, and finally to a quivering halt.

The moment the coach rolled to a stop behind him, Thorne slid to the ground, but he failed to account for his weakened limbs or his injured left ankle. His left leg gave way beneath him, so that he slumped to one knee.

For several heartbeats he stayed that way, all his muscles quivering after his struggle with the horses, his blood pumping with rage and pain. Yet he had to see to Diana…. He climbed to his feet with an effort just as he heard the carriage door swing open.

Diana stumbled out, still holding the second pistol. She was pale and trembling and disheveled, he saw, and the upper left sleeve of her pelisse was drenched with blood—

Thorne’s heart lurched. “Damnation, you
were
hit—”

“I’m all right,” she murmured, moving unsteadily toward him. “The ball just grazed the top of my shoulder. What about you—? You’re limping!” she exclaimed as he rapidly closed the distance between them.

Without replying, he roughly pulled her against his body and wrapped his arms around her, his breathing ragged.

Sagging against him, Diana buried her face in his shoulder. “I can’t believe you managed to stop the team…. You saved our lives, Thorne.”

Behind him, the panting, heaving horses simply stood, too weary to rebel any longer. Thorne felt himself shudder when he realized how close they had come to catastrophe, and he felt Diana’s similar reflexive shudder.

She was badly shaken after the ordeal, and he wanted nothing more than to hold her until her shivers ceased. But belatedly he recalled that the highwaymen could still be after them. And his missing servants could be in danger, as well.

Drawing back, he took Diana’s pistol from her and kept it aimed at the gloomy road behind the coach while, with his left hand, he withdrew a handkerchief from his coat pocket to press it against her shoulder wound.

She winced, but her sharp gasp was not for herself. “Thorne, you
are
hurt!”

Still watching the road, he took stock of his injuries. His left palm was bleeding where the skin had ripped open. His coat was torn, and the left leg of his pantaloons was bloody near the ankle. He had a gash on his right cheek where he’d scraped it against a harness buckle, and he ached in every bone. But none of the injuries was serious.

“I’ll live,” he assured Diana in a hushed tone. “Now keep quiet. We may still be targets.”

He waited for a moment in the gathering darkness, listening for hoofbeats, until finally he was satisfied the highwaymen hadn’t followed them.

Clenching the pistol in his teeth then, he started to tie his handkerchief around Diana’s upper arm, but she would have none of it. With trembling hands she took the handkerchief from him and gently looped the cambric around his savaged palm, murmuring her sorrow at his pain while tears slipped unheeded down her face.

Thorne felt a surge of tenderness lance through him. Diana had been struck by a bullet, yet
she
was worried for
him.

A fresh wave of fear and anger washed over him. Diana could so easily have died. And even now his coachman might be lying dead on the side of the road.

What was more, Thorne thought grimly, his jaw hardening, he had no doubt the murderous assault had been deliberate.

Fourteen

N
early two
more hours passed before Thorne had time to reflect on the attack and the possible motives of the perpetrators. His first priority was seeing to his fallen coachman.

After lighting the carriage lamps, Thorne turned the coach around and climbed into the box to drive. Diana sat beside him, since she refused to remain alone inside. Moreover, he needed her help in searching for his missing servants.

He found them more than a mile back. The coachman was clearly not dead, indicated by his alternating curses and groans. The footman was supporting the injured man’s head, trying to keep him comfortable. Both men asserted that the highwaymen had fled back in the direction of Richmond, with the coachman terming the brigands “bloody cowards” and lamenting that he’d had no chance even to draw his blunderbuss before they shot him.

The coachman had been struck in the shoulder, Thorne saw when he knelt to inspect the damage. The wound was unlikely to be fatal, but the ball would have to be removed as soon as possible.

“He needs a surgeon,” Diana said, voicing Thorne’s thoughts.

He nodded, deciding it best to head directly for his own mansion in Mayfair, where his surgeon could be quickly fetched. He considered taking Diana to her studio house first, but he disliked delaying when his servant was so severely injured. He also wanted her shoulder professionally examined, to satisfy himself that her flesh wound wasn’t serious. Even more crucially, he didn’t want Diana going home until he could install some of his own servants there to protect her. If he was a target for murder, then she could be, as well.

In any case, Diana wouldn’t hear of putting her own welfare before that of his coachman. Thus, in a few more moments, the vehicle was conveying them all to Cavendish Square.

The footman drove the now-spent team, while Diana and Thorne rode inside the coach, bracing the injured man against the worst of the jolting while trying to stop the bleeding. He was in obvious pain, even though he tempered his expletives in Diana’s presence and settled for mumbled groans. So Thorne gave him a flask of well-aged Scotch whisky to dull his senses.

The coachman was thoroughly sotted by the time they arrived home, where Thorne’s capable staff leapt into action, fetching the surgeon and making preparations for the operation—the speed of which made Diana suspect his household had dealt with bullet wounds before. The surgeon, too, showed no surprise at the type of injury, but went straight to work on his patient.

They dug out the ball in the kitchen, with Thorne himself helping to hold down the wounded man.

Refusing to be sent away, Diana waited quietly in one corner of the vast kitchen. Thorne had given her a brandy to settle her nerves, but her tension didn’t ease until the surgeon finally pronounced himself satisfied and said that nothing more could be done tonight.

Once the now unconscious coachman had been carried upstairs to sleep in his own bed in the servant’s quarters, the surgeon looked at Diana’s shoulder wound and confirmed that it was not much more than a graze but needed to be washed and bandaged. The injury to Thorne’s palm, however, was a bit more serious, and so the surgeon proceeded to attend to it right there in the kitchen.

When he poured brandy on the raw flesh, Diana winced at the pain she knew Thorne must be feeling, but when she met his eyes, he only winked at her and brought the brandy bottle to his lips. He kept drinking as the surgeon cleaned and wrapped his left ankle, which to her dismay was not only severely bruised and swollen, but lacerated down to the bone.

Thorne favored that leg when he escorted her and the surgeon upstairs to a guest bedchamber, along with his housekeeper and a maid to attend her. Diana had never been inside his mansion before, and she had a vague impression of elegant decor and excellent taste.

The bedchamber had obviously been prepared for her, for basins of hot water awaited her, a cheery fire blazed in the hearth, and several lamps had been lit to illuminate the green and gold furnishings and bed hangings.

Thorne remained outside the room while Diana was stripped of her ruined pelisse and gown. For modesty’s sake, she kept on her shift and wrapped a quilt around herself before sitting in a chair beside the washstand. The surgeon washed away the dried, crusted blood, dusted the wound with basilicum powder, and fashioned a bandage beneath her armpit and over her shoulder.

“This will likely be tender for a few days, Miss Sheridan, but it should heal without too noticeable a scar. You should refrain from overexertion of the musculature, of course, else you could start the gash bleeding again.”

He made no comment about how a lady had come by a bullet wound, but merely smiled professionally and took his leave.

When the surgeon had gone, the housekeeper bustled around the room, turning out all but one of the lamps. “I shall bring you some dinner shortly, Miss Sheridan,” the elderly woman told her as the chambermaid picked up Diana’s discarded, bloodstained clothing.