“And the men—is it true they lack manners and are as handsome as sin?”
Elizabeth’s remark caught Madeline off guard. When she recovered, she burst out laughing. “Handsome and dangerous. Your English rakes are like tamed domesticated animals in comparison.”
Elizabeth clapped, her smile transforming her face into a very wicked glow. “I knew it. How do I get one of my own?”
A spark of light, followed by a gunshot, shattered the tranquility of the forest.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The driver of the carriage screamed and fell, crashing into the underbrush. Frightened, the horses cried out in protest. Unfettered from the control the driver had held on the reins, the animals leapt forward, sending Madeline and Elizabeth careening against the inner walls of their carriage. The speed increased as each second passed, rocking the carriage precariously from side to side.
Madeline braced her hands on either side of the carriage, Elizabeth did the same, and the horses raced through the forest out of control as the sun set, deepening the shadows.
Tree branches scraped against the carriage as it rounded a sharp turn in the road, tilting dangerously to the side before righting itself.
“We are under attack! How could this have happened?” Elizabeth shouted, her face pale with fear. “Robert hired outriders to protect us against highwaymen.”
Madeline had been thinking the same thing. When they started their journey this morning, she had noted the number of men the duke had hired to protect the caravan and believed it excessive. After all, she had mused, she had seen nothing of the dangers she had heard about from her fellow travelers on the ship she and her mother had taken from New York to London.
According to their accounts, she could well understand the necessity in parts of London for protection, but not in the serene countryside. In London, they had spoken of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, areas where crime was uncontrolled and families lived on rat-infested streets. They talked about places like Covent Garden and St. Giles Rookeries as being the worst of the worst, where if a visitor, new to London, ventured in, they might never find their way out.
But not here. Not in the countryside of serene and protected estates owned by landed gentry. Here she had felt safe…until now.
“Wait,” Madeline said as a chilling thought occurred to her. “When was the last time you remember seeing the outriders?”
Elizabeth’s attention snapped toward Madeline. “When we stopped for a meal this afternoon. I did not think anything of it until now. I suppose I assumed they were behind us. And then when our driver told us he had taken another route…”
“You did not see them, did you?”
Elizabeth shook her head slowly. “I did not.”
“Which means we are unprotected and in real danger. What could the men want who shot the driver?”
“To rob us…or worse.” Elizabeth’s eyes opened as wide as saucers. “We should jump.”
Madeline stole a glance out the window to try and calm down before panic gained a foothold. She must think clearly. The forest sped past in a blur. A person consumed with fear lacked the ability to survive—another of her mother’s many lessons. This was not the time to panic. This was the time for clear thinking.
“Jumping is a possibility,” Madeline shouted back over the constant clatter of the wheels as they churned over uneven ground. “But we’re the last carriage and the others are too far away to know what happened to us. By the time they realize we are not behind them, it will be too late.”
Elizabeth’s chin trembled as she gave a quick nod, understanding their predicament. If they jumped, there were no guarantees they would survive the fall. If by some miracle they did survive and hadn’t broken every bone in their body, they were alone. Alone in the woods, with it growing darker by the minute. The snow had increased and the temperature was dropping. Prime hunting time for four-legged animals or whoever had attacked their driver.
But they must gain control of the carriage.
Madeline saw that as their only chance. At the speed the carriage traveled, it would not take long for it to turn over or crash against a tree. None of which bode well for their survival.
They had only one option. They had to take control of the carriage.
“Please assist me out of my clothes.” Madeline said, trying to reach the drawstrings on the back of her dress as she turned around. “If I can reach the driver’s seat, and by some miracle the reins are there, I might be able to take control of the team of horses.”
Voicing her plan out loud appeared to soften the fear-lines around Elizabeth’s eyes. It had the opposite effect on Madeline.
The list of things that could go wrong was endless. Even if she managed to reach the driver’s seat, and even if the reins were there, controlling a team of four frightened horses seemed daunting.
The carriage rocked back and forth as Elizabeth fumbled with the drawstrings on Madeline’s dress. “You are mad. We should jump.”
“Whoever killed the driver is still out there. I’d rather we take our chances and try to outrun him in this carriage than on foot. And if we jump, there is a high probability that either one of us could break our legs, and then where would we be?”
“At the mercy of the men responsible for killing our driver,” Elizabeth said with a catch in her throat. She shuddered, her fingers pausing for a brief moment before resuming her task of loosening the ties on Madeline’s dress. “Promise me you will be careful. Have you done this before?”
