“Be quiet!” snapped the captain, working furiously at harness. “And get in!”
“Nora,” said Lucy, taking a cautious step forward. “You can come with me.”
“To hell with you, Miss Fanshaw!” snarled the captain, picking up Nora and forcibly lifting her into the gig.
Lucy met the frightened girl’s eyes for a moment, debating her options before turning and running to the front of the inn. Her heart leapt. There, in conversation with the coach driver, was Jack.
He spun around as she cried his name, a grin breaking across his face. “Ah-hah! I reckoned we’d found you the minute I saw all those canvases strapped to the roof. I know howyoupack in a hurry. Essentials only—if one’s planning to open a gallery, that is.”
“Jack! Nora is here! And Captain Sedgewick! I think he’s abducting her!”
Jack’s grin snapped off. He turned and called over his shoulder. “We’ve found both of them!”
In a very pretty barouche, pulled by a pair of very familiar chestnut horses, were Miss Sedgewick and George Simmons. Caroline waved. George, nervously preoccupied with holding the fretting horses, only managed a nod.
“Where, Lucy?” urged Jack.
“In the coach yard.”
But as they both turned to hurry back there, the rickety farm cart, pulled by two frightened horses being mercilessly lashed by the captain, burst out, nearly knocking them down. Jack pulled Lucy clear as the captain passed them, flashing a rictus grin at Jack. “All’s fair, Jack, in love and war!”
The cart nearly turned over as the captain wrenched the horses around the corner and onto the road. Nora screamed. Jack’s chestnuts half reared, George somehow keeping them in check, and by a miracle neither got tangled in their traces.
The cart careered wildly for a moment, wheels bouncing over ruts. Then it veered too close to a long wagon loaded with bullock calves, scraping all down the side and sending the animals into a fearful frenzy of lowing and stamping. The side of the wagon, as rickety as the captain’s cart, gave way, and a brown surge of bullocks began to pour into the street.
Jack, seeing what Lucy herself saw—that the tangle of bullocks would soon block the barouche’s path and prevent any chase being made—cried, “After them, George! Spring ’em, by God!”
Who knew whether it was George’s intention or the impossibility of holding Jack’s horses a moment longer, but the barouche did just that, surging forwards and rapidly disappearing down the street, Caroline grimly holding onto the side.
Jack turned to Lucy, eyes wild, a laugh in his throat, but it died because, again, he saw what Lucy did. A stampede of bullocks heading their way. He pushed her to safety. But he couldn’t save himself.
Jack always slept like the dead, Lucy reminded herself. But it was scant comfort as she sat at his bedside in the room the inn had given them with his skin so pale against the vivid bruiseson his temple. His arm was set and splinted—and she was glad he’d been unconscious for that. The grate and snap of bone as the surgeon worked still made her shudder. But worse was the memory of the first bullock hitting him and watching him sink under the pounding, mad-eyed mass, dust and screams choking her throat.
But he’s alive,she reminded herself. And it’d only been eight hours. Eight hours of waiting, assuring the innkeeper that yes, she was his wife. Eight hours of the sun sinking and night falling and guttering candles and the dim incessant noise of the inn below while Jack slept, even his breathing sounding painful.
Trust you to be asleep at a time like this,she tried to scold the sleeping figure. But the only answer was the prick of tears in her eyes.
“I can’t believe…you’re sleeping…at a time like this.”
Lucy roused with a start, her neck stiff from sleeping in a chair. Someone had been in and opened the curtains. Morning light illuminated Jack—still pale, still horribly bruised, but awake. He was smiling at her sleepily, the wince of pain in his voice. “I’m at death’s door, and you’re having a lovely nap.”
“Jack!”
She rushed to her feet but stopped her impetuous movement before she jostled the bed. Instead she knelt carefully by its side. “How are you?”
“Like a man who got hit by a herd of bullocks. But a nurse of some description came in while you were sleeping and poured something vile down my throat. Laudanum, most likely. Am I being coherent? I’m not so sure.”
“You saved my life!”
“Of course I did.”
“You…yousacrificedyourself for me. You could have died! For me!”
“Would have been worth it.”
“Jack!”
“What? What are you scolding me for?” He winced. “Oh. The money. I was going to tell you, Lucy. But everything happened so fast, and everything was so perfect, and I was selfish enough not to want to ruin it, not then, when it was all so new…and I was afraid…afraid what you would think of me…” He trailed off, wincing again. Despite the laudanum, it clearly took a great effort for him to talk. “It’s alright, though. I haven’t got you under false promises. My income will be what it was before long, and in the meantime, I’ve got a position, so we can afford to marry right now—well, perhaps when I’m able to stand up before the altar. Tomorrow. Maybe this evening. Or we can do it in this room. I don’t care, so long as you’re mine. You are, aren’t you? I haven’t ruined it?”
