“I will take my chance.”
Exasperation seized Alex. “You won’t have one, you birdwit!”
“Nor will you.”
“Want to spend your life in prison? Or hang, more like?”
“Even hanging would be preferable to marrying Mr Cumberledge!”
“You’re off your head, my girl!”
“And you are wasting time!”
Alex threw up his eyes. “I don’t believe this.”
He heard a click and his veins froze. She’d cocked the gun!
“I will say it only once more, sir. Tell them to drive on.”
Why he did it, Alex was never afterwards able to fathom. He released the blind and his hand went to the catch to drop the window down. At the same time, he moved his body to cover the opening and block the girl from the groom’s sight.
“All’s right, Carver. Up you get, and tell Laycock to proceed.”
He raised the window and sat back, regarding the girl in silence. She held her posture until the coach began to move, when she was obliged to adjust it.
Alex watched her push back into the seat, waiting for the moment when she would lose concentration and lower the pistol. Her wrists must be aching by now from holding it aloft. Inevitable she would tire.
His chance came sooner than he hoped. One of the coach wheels struck a rut, and the subsequent lurch set the girl off balance.
Alex swung himself across to the other seat, dropped into it beside her and at the same moment, grabbed the barrel of the gun and wrenched the weapon out of her hands.
She gave a gasp, but to her credit, did not shriek.
Without waiting for her reaction, he got back into his own seat and made himself comfortable, the pistol in his grasp. He released the hammer with care, letting out a breath of relief. He’d half-forgotten she’d cocked it.
“Lucky it didn’t go off just then.”
She did not reply, huddling back into her corner and wrapping the cloak about her. She pulled the hood forward, and Alex could no longer see much of her face.
What the deuce he was to do with the chit, he had no notion. Probably have to turn around and take her back. He remembered there had been a second coach pulled up before the inn. Had she come out of that? In all the kerfuffle, he hadn’t thought to ask.
He inspected the weapon in his hand. No ball. No powder in the pan either. He looked across at the girl. “Wouldn’t have done much damage with this.”
Her head came up. “Of course not. I am not a murderer.”
“You knew it wasn’t loaded?”
“My guardian has never loaded it, as far as I know.”
“Ah. Stole it from him, did you?”
“I am not a thief!”
She had straightened in the seat, the hood falling back.
“Whatever you’re not, one thing you are is a runaway.”
The defiant chin lifted and she closed her lips firmly together.
