‘Thunder an’ turf,’ he muttered to himself. Something had happened to Hope, he could feel it in his water. Grace could deliver him all the faradiddles she liked; Augustus Shackleford knew his offspring.
In truth, though they might all vehemently deny it, his children all thought like he did. Act first, think later. He hated to admit it, but that was why they were in this deuced hobble in the first place.
Sighing, he looked down at the letter again. Clearly, he should leave the problem to Nicholas. He was entirely certain the Duke had everything under control.
Well, mayhap notentirely. But it wasmost likelyhis grace knew exactly what to do.
Well, mayhap notexactlywhat to do.
Devil take it, this called for another brandy.
∞∞∞
At first light, Gabriel was woken to a hard kick in his back. ‘Time to get moving.’ Wincing at the sudden flare of pain in his ribs, the Viscount eased away from Hope who was still sleeping. Closing his eyes, he gritted his teeth and pushed himself up to a sitting position. He still felt wretchedly unsteady but realised the thudding in his head was gone. Glancing over at his companion, he wished with all his heart he could let her sleep, but he knew if he didn’t wake her, their kidnappers would. Before he could touch her however, Hope stirred, brought to waking with the sudden loss of Gabriel’s body heat.
Suddenly terrified he’d left her, she came wide awake and sat up with a gasp, only to groan as every muscle in her body protested against the abrupt movement.
Gabriel put out his hand to touch her shoulder reassuringly. ‘It seems we are to continue our journey. If you wish to see to your needs, I will stand watch to ensure our captors cannot observe.’
Damn,now he’d mentioned it, Hope realised her bladder was uncomfortably full. If she tried to hold it much longer, she would simply end up embarrassing herself.
‘May I have your word that you will notobserveeither sir?’ she commented tartly, climbing to her feet with a grimace.
The Viscount raised his eyebrows. ‘Whatever you think of me Miss Shackleford, I am first and foremost a gentleman and as such I would not dream of witnessing your personal activities.’ His voice was stiff, and it took a great deal of effort to reject the ungentlemanly thoughts of Hope baring her legs. Not to mention ignoring the memory of the distinctly ungentlemanly position they'd slept in for the last few hours. Coughing to cover his awkwardness, Gabriel climbed painfully to his feet, swallowing a groan as he did so. God’s teeth he felt as weak as a kitten. Taking a deep breath, he indicated that Hope should remain behind him and stepped outside the shed.
‘Both the lady and I wish to attend to our needs,’ he commented coldly. ‘We will be but a moment.’
In the cold light of day, their captors truly looked a slovenly pair. Clearly, neither had seen a bucket of water in a very long time and the clothes they wore were threadbare at best. It was easy to see why they had taken such risks. Undoubtedly, neither had sixpence to scratch with. As he guided his companion around to the back of the shed, he wondered whether they were from the village and asked Hope as much while he stood with his back to her.
‘I do not think so,’ she murmured. Her words were breathless and accompanied by a rustle of skirts that had Gabriel’s imagination running overtime. Gritting his teeth, he stared resolutely ahead.
‘I don’t think I’ve seen them before at any rate. And don’t forget, we were accosted on the way to Ravenstone.’ She hesitated and Gabriel imagined her frowning. ‘The faces of the men who waylaid our carriage were covered apart from their leader and neither of these two gallows birds is he.’
Another rustle of her skirts interrupted her speculation. ‘In any event,’ she continued eventually, ‘It’s my belief your cousin has long suspected you alive.’ There was another pause, then, ‘You may turn round now, I am finished.’
Her face was flaming as he twisted round, but the sudden insistence in his own bladder, put a halt to further carnal thoughts. ‘If you would be so kind as to turn around,’ he commented drily when she remained simply staring at him.
‘Oh,’ she gasped, her face now the colour of a ripe tomato. Then, squeezing her eyes shut in an entirely superfluous gesture, she hurriedly faced the opposite direction.
‘Bloody hell, how long does it take a nob to ‘ave a piss?’ shouted one of their kidnappers crudely. ‘If yer not back ‘ere in five seconds, I’ll come round there and fetch yer.’
Swallowing his anger with effort, Gabriel swiftly fastened up his breeches. Now was not the time for a confrontation, but how he longed to plant the bastard a facer he’d never forget.
Ten minutes later, they were back on the path. Gabriel was no longer secured to his saddle, but his hands were tied together behind his back which made riding extremely difficult. Even then their kidnappers clearly believed him capable of escaping his bonds and warned him that one wrong movement on his part would see his companion’s throat cut. Their conviction in his ability to escape might have been flattering if not for the desperate look Hope cast him, her face white with fear. That and the fact that he was actually incapable of even moving his fingers.
Grinding his teeth, he glared at their captors backs as the horses broke into a slow canter and promised himself that he’d see the bastards cropped before this was all over.
Chapter Eighteen
Reverend Shackleford was entirely convinced he’d not closed his eyes once during the night and by first light he was dragging a bewildered Freddy out of his warm bed and tethering Lucifer yet again to the cart. To say the stallion was not happy was an understatement and by the time he was climbing onto the seat, the Reverend was not absolutely sure if he still possessed ten fingers. Clicking the reins, he gritted his teeth when the horse refused to move. Clearly Lucifer’s unexpected compliance the day before had been down to Hope’s presence.
Uncharacteristically, Augustus Shackleford felt a lump come into his throat at the thought of what could have happened to her and felt a renewed determination to get the truth out of Grace. He had no doubt that Nicholas would already be abroad so the Duchess would be unable to hide behind her husband’s coattails.
In the meantime, he had to somehow persuade the stallion to deuced well move. Sighing, he climbed down and went to fetch a bag of apples.
An hour later the Reverend was red faced, sweating and had run out of apples. In fact, the damn beast had eaten so much fruit, he very much feared that Seth would be mucking out the stable hourly for the next week. That’s if he actually delivered the bad-tempered beast back to his stable. At this point in time, Reverend Shackleford was entirely tempted to hand him over to the knacker’s yard instead. He glanced enviously back at Freddy who had long since given up running beside the cart and was now curled up in a ball, snoring.
Fortunately for Lucifer, though the stallion was blissfully unaware of his close call, Blackmore’s gates appeared round the corner and given that the sun, such as it was, was well and truly up, the Reverend trusted that Grace would be unable to come up with an excuse not to see him. Certainly not on such short notice anyway.
