‘Isabel, you really don’t understand your position, do you.’ He moved closer to her and tucked a curl of her disordered hair behind her ear. ‘Your value to me is priceless. God willing, we will reach the coast before our pursuers catch us, but if they don’t, sweet Isabel, you are a valuable hostage. I will see you dead before I give myself up to be hanged.’
Her stomach lurched. She had no doubt Freddy would carry out his threat.
He jerked at the cord. ‘We’ve no time to waste. Move, Isabel.’
When she didn’t respond, he grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the muddy road. Trailing her bedraggled skirts, Isabel had no choice but to let herself be dragged along through themud and the rain to what now seemed an even more uncertain fate.
The small threads of hope to which she had been clinging began to fade.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Sebastian swore aloud as his horse laboured through the mud. After the heavy rain, the track which passed for the road to Lidiford was mired and difficult going. They could follow the erratic path of the coach with ease but the men were making poor time. The horses struggled through the mud, each footstep adding another layer of cloying mud to their hooves and legs.
Bennet, riding ahead of the party, drew his horse to a sudden halt. The little corporal jumped down and ran over to inspect a dark shape half submerged in the flooded ditch beside the track. As Sebastian and Harry drew level, they could see it was the body of a man. The broken wheel and axle of a coach protruded from a large, water-filled pothole.
They pulled the body from the ditch and Harry turned the man over. Sebastian shook his head as he looked down into the heavy, uncompromising face.
‘Jenkins.’
‘His neck’s broke. Nothing we can do for the poor bastard.’ Bennet rose to his feet.
The trail left by the broken carriage stretched ahead of them.Dreading what he might find, Sebastian indicated for Bennet to remount and they followed the mangled vegetation and freshly carved ruts until the wrecked carriage came into sight.
Sebastian reined Pharaoh in, fighting back a wave of nausea as the sight recalled another coach: a dead coachman sprawled on the dusty road, the escort of Portuguese soldiers lying tangled in pools of their own congealing blood, their bodies thick with flies, and Inez’s broken and bloodied body...
He flung himself off his horse and was violently ill on the side of the road.
‘Alder?’ Harry’s hand fell on his shoulder.
Sebastian shook off his friend’s hand, his heart leaping in hope as he heard a woman’s voice coming from behind the wrecked coach.
‘Help me!’
Isabel?
With Harry following, he ran around to the back of the coach while Bennet dealt with the surviving coach horse. For a man who didn’t like horses, Bennet had a good way with them.
Sebastian’s heart fell when he saw Fanny, not Isabel, lying under a roughly constructed shelter that did little to keep out the persistent drizzle. Despite Freddy’s attempts to provide his sister with some sort of shelter, the rain had soaked the blanket in which she had been wrapped. Her lips were blue with cold and shock and she looked up at them with grey-ringed eyes, her teeth chattering as her fingers plucked at the sodden blanket.
Sebastian looked down at her and, for a moment, he felt genuine pity, but then he recalled what this girl had done to him and the pity vanished. Lynch had probably relied on the rescuers stopping to give the girl aid and slowing down their pursuit of him. Every precious moment wasted on this girl put more time and distance between him and Isabel.
‘Where are you hurt?’ Harry knelt down beside her.
‘My leg,’ she moaned.
Harry lifted the blanket and her skirt away, revealing the truth of her statement. The lower part of her right leg twisted at an awkward angle through the torn stocking, the bruising and swelling clearly visible.
Sebastian stood over her, chafing with impatience. ‘Where’s your brother, Fanny?’ he demanded. He had no more time or sympathy to spare for this lying, cheating girl.
‘I don’t know,’ she sobbed.
‘Where were you heading?’
‘A village with fishing boats,’ Fanny said unhelpfully.
Sebastian crouched down. He took Fanny’s chin between his fingers and twisted her head so she looked straight at him.
‘And Isabel? Was she hurt?’
