Bystanders helped carry the coachman back to the duke’s coach house on a litter.
Some of the blood Marchmont had seen was the coachman’s, apparently.
But most of it must have been the horses’, given what the servants told him later.
It took a while to sort things out.
There were witnesses, as there usually are, but everyone told a different story, and all told it at the same time. In any case, Marchmont refused to wait about to listen.
John Coachman had had the best view of events. He was in no condition to be interrogated, though, even had Marchmont wished to question him. He didn’t. He left his servant in the physician’s care, waiting only to be sure the man was not fatally injured.
Then he returned to Zoe, whom he’d carried up to his bedroom.
He wouldn’t have left her, even to see about the coachman, but she’d assured him she was unhurt—and she wanted to bathe.
By the time he returned, she was clean and dressed in one of her pretty nightdresses, sitting up in his bed, propped up by a brace of pillows. If she hadn’t sat there so quietly—too quietly for Zoe—wearing a small furrow between her brows, he might have believed the accident had not disturbed her in the least.
He went to the bed, sat down on the edge, and took her hand.
“It’s no use,” she said. “I really don’t know what happened. It’s a great jumble in my head. I know Jarvis was talking about Almack’s, but I was looking the other way. Before I turned, I heard noise—shouting and screaming—and then…” She frowned. “But I don’t know what came next. One moment all was well. Jarvis was speaking. Then there was a dreadful noise.” She considered. “Did I think it was a riot? No, it was the horses. It was like Grafton Street. The cry they made because they were frightened and hurt. Then there was a great thump…I think. The next thing I knew, I was looking up at the carriage door and there you were, looking down at me. And I thought it was so curious that the carriage door should be up there and you should be looking down at me.” She shook her head. “I am useless. You had better ask Jarvis. She saw something.”
He looked at the maid, who was fussing over the tea tray she’d carried up herself.
“Jarvis, can you enlighten us?”
She frowned as she placed the tray on Zoe’s lap.
She looked from Zoe to Marchmont and back again.
“Tell him,” Zoe said. “Whatever you saw, tell him.”
“If the coachman was derelict, I want to know,” Marchmont said tightly.
“Your Grace, I don’t think he was,” she said. “I was looking out of the window, and there was Almack’s, and I said, ‘Your Grace, that’s Almack’s,’ because I wasn’t sure my mistress knew where it was. Then I saw a man run out from Cleveland Yard straight into our path. I screamed, because I thought we’d run him down. When the horses started jumping in the air and making such a noise, I thought that’s what happened: They’d trampled him or he’d got under the wheels or something. But that’s as much as I thought, because the next thing I knew, we were going over—and I don’t remember much of that. I know I grabbed for my mistress. All I could think was she would hit her head. I d-didn’t want her to hit her h-head.”
And then, to everyone’s amazement, the stolid Jarvis burst into tears.
Late that afternoon
Marchmont having sent word to Lexham House, Zoe’s mother came to look in on her.
The duke returned to his study. During the crisis, his solicitor had carried on without him. Evidently, Marchmont’s directions were clear enough, because Cleake had narrowed down the selection to half a dozen charities.
The last thing Marchmont wanted to do at present was to find positions for untrustworthy minions. However, he’d played Solomon, and had to carry through his decision.
“Cook to the orphanage,” he said. “Dove to the home for aged and infirm soldiers. And Hoare to the school for the blind.”
Leaving Osgood and Cleake to make the arrangements, he proceeded to the coachman’s quarters at the coach house.
John Coachman had a broken collarbone and a sprained wrist and many bruises. He was not happy about being immobilized, and furious about the accident, his first since he’d entered the duke’s service.
“Your Grace, I never in all my time seen anything like it,” he said. “Like a madman he was—running out of the yard into the street and attacking the poor creature.”
“Attacking?” Marchmont said. “He went after the horse?”
“He had something in his hand, Your Grace. Didn’t know what it was then, but it’s clear it had to be a knife. What I knew was, he was making for the horse, and meant trouble. I went for him with the whip, the bastard, and took a strip off him, I’ll warrant. He howled at it. I heard him howl. But I wasn’t quick enough, sir.” With his good hand, the coachman wiped a tear from his eye. “I reckon they had to put down the near side grey, did they, Your Grace? The one he was bent on killing? They took me away before I could look at the poor beast—either of ’em.”
“The second coachman and the others will do what’s necessary,” Marchmont said. If the horse—or both—had to be destroyed, that would have been done promptly. “They are only waiting for me to leave before they speak to you.”
