Isabel lay still as the memory of the helter skelter ride in the damaged coach came back in jerky pictures. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked up at the grey, lowering sky. She lay on her back in the open, rain stinging her face and eyes.
She gingerly turned her head. The shattered remains of the coach lay on its side some yards away. One of the horses still stood in the traces, its head lowered, its sides heaving. Its comrade had fallen beside it and lay unmoving.
She must have been flung out—or dragged—from the wreckage.
She did an inventory of her limbs: feet, legs, hands, arms and, tentatively, her neck. Her wrists were still bound and her right wrist hurt but, as she could move her fingers, she guessed it was nothing worse than a sprain. Her head hurt and she wondered if she had banged it just before the coach came to rest.
Awkwardly, she pulled herself into a sitting position and looked around her. She saw no sign of the coachman. Jenkins must have been thrown when the coach had first shed its wheel. She hoped he was dead.
A dark figure moved in the wreckage of the coach thatresembled nothing more than a pile of shattered tinder wood. Freddy emerged, hauling Fanny with little gentleness up through the broken remains of the door that now stood open to the heavens. He jumped down and carried the girl’s inert body over to where Isabel sat.
Ignoring Isabel, he laid Fanny down and kneeled beside her, his hands moving over his sister’s face. Isabel read what seemed to be genuine distress in his furrowed brow as he looked up at her.
‘Is she dead?’ he asked Isabel, his voice hoarse with emotion.
‘Untie me and I’ll tell you,’ she said without sympathy in her voice.
He glanced at her bound wrists and, with shaking fingers, complied. Isabel flexed her sore wrist and decided it was not badly hurt. Gathering herself together, she bent over Fanny’s inert body. A strong pulse beat in the girl’s throat.
She looked up at Freddy and nodded. ‘She’s alive.’
Freddy’s shoulders relaxed for a moment before he frowned again. ‘But she’s badly hurt, isn’t she?’
Isabel ran her hands along the girl’s limbs, lifting the torn skirt to reveal what her fingers told her. Fanny’s right leg, below the knee, was already swollen and fell at an unnatural angle.
‘Her leg’s broken,’ Isabel said.
Freddy’s face crumpled in genuine emotion, but just as quickly as he had revealed himself, he resumed his inscrutable demeanour and looked at her.
‘Are you hurt?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Good. Get to your feet. We haven’t a moment to spare.’
She stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re still a few miles from the coast.’
‘Then you go on. I’ll stay here with Fanny.’
His lip curled, all trace of concern for his sister gone as he said, ‘Someone will find her soon enough.’
Isabel looked around at the desolate marshy land. The chances of imminent help for the girl seemed remote unless a search party was on their tail. A small spring of hope welled in her heart. Surely there had to be a search party.
Freddy yanked her to her feet and told her to fetch the travelling blanket and some cushions from the coach. As she leaned into the smashed carriage searching for these objects, Freddy carried his sister back into the shelter of the coach.
With some ingenuity, he rigged up a rough shelter from the broken coach panels. Wrapping his sister in the blanket, he bent and kissed her on the forehead.
Only when he was satisfied Fanny was as comfortable as she could be, Freddy got to his feet and pulled his pistol from his belt, waving it in the direction of the coach.
‘Fetch your jewels.’
She found the bag under a torn cushion and handed it to Freddy. He tucked them into his jacket before retying her wrists in front of her. He looped a second cord around the bindings so he could pull her along like a dog on a lead.
‘Freddy, there is nothing to be gained from taking me with you. I will only slow you down. You will move faster without me.’
He looked at her, and a smile curved the corners of his lips.
