Tearing a strip from the tail of his shirt, he tied it around the mare’s eyes. Her nostrils flared, but no longer seeing the licking flames, she seemed calmer. Sebastian threw the boy across her back again. Giving a quick tug of the leading rope, he pulled the singed blanket over himself and, holding his breath, he ran for his life as the roof timbers buckled and collapsed around him.
Dimly, he heard the sound of cheering as he emerged into the stable yard with horse and boy. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath, and the world went black.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Wedged in a corner of the rocking coach, her hands and feet securely bound with cords from the coach’s curtains, Isabel could only just make out the shadows of her travelling companions. She shifted her weight to try and find a more comfortable position but nothing helped.
‘Are you uncomfortable, my dear Isabel?’ Freddy’s voice came out of the dark.
She ignored the question.
‘Where are you taking me?’
Freddy took a moment before answering. ‘A little jaunt to the seaside. We can pick up a fishing boat or coastal trader that will take us to France for the price of one of your earrings.’
‘And me?’
Freddy shrugged. ‘Oh, I think you may need to come with us, dear Lady Somerton.’
‘Why? What purpose would that serve?’
Freddy shrugged. ‘You make a useful hostage, and maybe I enjoy your company.’
‘You don’t think that they will have already connected the fire in the stables with your disappearance? And when ...’ shepaused to deal with the catch in her throat, ‘ ... when they find Lord Somerton’s body, they will certainly put up a hue and cry for you.’
It felt easier to say ‘Lord Somerton’ rather than Sebastian. When she thought of Sebastian, she wanted to howl with grief.
Freddy snorted. ‘Fanny, bind her mouth. I’ve heard enough from her ladyship for the moment.’
His perfect consonants had slipped into a coarser accent, betraying origins that were far from gentlemanly.
Fanny complied, with whispered apologies to Isabel before subsiding into her corner of the coach opposite her brother. A grey light had begun to creep in through the gaps around the curtains and Isabel squinted through the narrow gap, trying to make out something of the landscape, but all she could see was the lightening sky and wondered, for a moment, if this might be the last sunrise she saw on this earth.
After the first mad flight from Brantstone, the coach’s pace had slowed, the horses no doubt exhausted. They would need to be rested.
The coach rolled slowly on for a few more yards and stopped. She heard the man jump down from the box and the coach door opened. Jenkins’s ugly face appeared at the door, and he grunted unintelligibly, gesticulating at the front of the coach.
Freddy sighed. ‘Very well, Jenkins. The next inn we come upon, we’ll rest the horses.’ He glanced back at the two women. ‘My travelling companions could probably do with some breakfast.’
As the coach jerked off again, Freddy leaned across to Isabel.
‘Now, my fine lady, I am going to untruss you and, if you are a good girl, you can refresh yourself and have something to eat. Just promise me you’ll behave.’
Isabel nodded and gasped with relief as Freddy undid the gag and bonds. She shook her hands, trying to restore some feeling to her numb fingers.
Freddy handed his spare pistol to Fanny as the coach clattered into an inn yard.
‘One thing you should know about our Fan: she is a dead shot with the pistol. Ain’t you, Fan?’
‘I am,’ Fanny agreed. ‘Freddy taught me.’
The door swung open. Freddy jumped down first, looking around the quiet inn yard before striding into the inn.
‘Fanny, you don’t really want to shoot me, do you?’ Isabel said in a low voice.
Fanny’s chin came up. ‘I can’t let you go, Isabel. He’d kill me as well. You don’t know him.’
Isabel had no chance to say anything more as Freddy appeared at the door again. He took the pistol from Fanny, concealing it underneath his cloak.
