Archie chose that moment to leap onto the floor and then up to the bench beside her.
“Of course, now you decide that you like me,” she muttered, her voice sounding thready and dry—not because she was thirsty but because the unease she’d experienced a moment before had manifested into outright horror.
She had made a terrible, terrible mistake.
She couldn’t go through with this.
Chapter 4
My Hero
Whereas Stone and Creighton ought to have easily overtaken the duke’s entourage, a series of unforeseeable catastrophes ensured they stayed at least a day behind. If, that was, the duke had even taken this road.
Barely outside of London, one of Westerley’s matched pair threw a shoe, and it had taken Stone and his manservant nearly half an hour to locate the damn thing. After determining the hoof itself wasn’t injured, they’d had to walk for two miles before locating an establishment where the shoe could be reattached.
Circumstances only went downhill after that when a day later, Chaswick’s “baby” struck a hole, landing at just the perfect angle to snap a wheel in two. Both Stone and Creighton managed to leap off before riding into an adjacent gully, but the evasive maneuver had left his outrider with a twisted ankle.
Unable to affect anything more than a temporary repair, to either the vehicle or mangled joint, they lost even more time hobbling along until coming across the village of Ramstail Quarry. Once there, Stone had reluctantly decided to forsake both Westerley’s baby and Creighton at the Pig and Hen taproom and inn, where hopefully, by the time he returned, the former would be repaired and the latter would be healed. He couldn’t very well force the man to ride the rest of the way to Scotland with his ankle twice its normal size, now could he?
Discouraged but undeterred, Stone rented a saddled horse and renewed his chase on his own. For all he knew, Culpepper had, in fact, taken Tabetha to Bowcliff Heights. Or perhaps he hadn’t taken her at all, and she was sitting at home laughing that he’d embarked on this fool’s errand in search of her.
But if he was right, and they were headed for Scotland… He’d be lucky to arrive in time to save the chit.
He persistently rebuked himself for not suspecting that Culpepper would try something like this. A nobleman with empty pockets was a desperate man, indeed.
Riding alone for two days by now, he’d slept a scant number of hours in order to rest his horse and depended mostly on the meager rations in his pack, but he was finally beginning to think he had a chance at catching them.
The sign readingGretna Green, six furlongsaheadought to have brought relief but instead, sent a bolt of urgency through him. Forgetting the frustrations of the journey, Stone spurred the horse beneath him into a run.
If he’d been traveling in a carriage, as they would have been, and had not met with a shoeless horse, a broken wheel, and a hobbled outrider, they would likely be arriving right around now.
If they hadn’t already.
Judging by the position of the sun, it was likely one or two in the afternoon.
They would stop at an inn, freshen up, perhaps take a meal, and then go to the nearest blacksmith.
A thin stream of smoke snaked up and into the sky just ahead, and Stone reconsidered his assumption.
With a blacksmith so handy, at the edge of town, would Culpepper be more inclined to secure his wife and dowry first?
He clenched his fists. The duke would be feeling anxious at the length of the journey. Culpepper might be a money-grasping nobleman but he wasn’t a fool.
Running all out for a few minutes now, his horse was beginning to perspire. Leaning forward, Stone rubbed her neck. He was pushing her too hard. “Just a little farther, Poppy, and I promise you a thorough rubdown and then the finest oats in all of Scotland.”
The horse faltered, causing Stone to glance up.
A lone figure approached, walking toward them in the center of the road.
He wiped the sweat off his brow and squinted.
Because the figure was a petite, feminine one, and she was struggling to carry a medium-sized valise. She wore a floppy green bonnet, a dark overcoat, and a mint-green dress, the hem covered in mud.
Was he hallucinating?
The girl made a smoothing motion down her skirt.
He was not hallucinating. She was talking out loud and shooing at something behind her. It was obvious she had no idea who he was.
