A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)

With them went her last shred of hope. There was no way she could stop this carriage. Even if she could somehow leap the gap to the driver’s seat; even if she could somehow retrieve the reins—if an experienced coachman could not slow these horses, Bel had no hope of doing so herself. In their panic, the horses would drag her on until one of them stumbled or the carriage overturned. In all likelihood, she was going to die. It was only a matter of how many human and equine lives went with her.

Her impulse was to shrink low in the carriage and simply close her eyes until it was all over. But she couldn’t even bring herself to move that far. Instead, she remained frozen, clutching the seatback and door sash in white-knuckled grips as the horses continued their frenzied rampage through the square.

Between the threats of musket fire and an out-of-control carriage, much of the crowd had already dispersed, the people squeezing into any available building or doorway. The remaining onlookers huddled around the hustings platform itself—on it, under it, clinging to its girders. And, having careened off the sidewalk and altered their course, now the horses were headed straight for them.

No.

No, no, no. Not all those people.

“Run!” she cried. And the people obeyed, fleeing the spurious safety of the wooden platform for the edges of the square. They scattered in different directions, but wise souls that they were, they all ran away.

Except for one. One man was running straight at her.

Toby.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Bel’s pounding heart rate kicked into a gallop.

Dear God, no, she prayed. Not Toby.

While everyone else in the square had spent the past thirty seconds fearing for his life, Toby had apparently used the time to shuck his topcoat. His arms were blurs of white linen as he leapt from the hustings platform and dashed out to meet the stampeding team.

“Toby, no!” she screamed. “Muévete!”

Madre de Dios. She needed to warn off her English husband, and suddenly her tongue could only work in Spanish. He was going to die, and it would be all her fault. Even now, the horses were gaining speed, bearing down on him. Any moment, he would be trampled, dragged under the carriage. She only prayed God would be merciful enough to take her with him.

As if he’d come to his senses, Toby drew to a halt. Just in the perfect place for the horses to brush past him and the carriage wheels to grind him up.

But it never came to that.

As one horse came abreast of him, Toby changed course, now running alongside the panicked beast. He grabbed its mane with both hands and jumped, vaulting onto the horse’s back. Bel looked on in disbelief as Toby grabbed the reins near the bit and tugged with one hand, pulling the horse’s head to the side. The team and carriage followed, turning in a tight spiral. Flung against the side of the cab once again, Bel muttered incoherent prayers and imprecations in her mother’s tongue. All the while, Toby soothed the horses, and her, with his deep, steady baritone.

“Ho, there,” he told them. “Easy now.”

Holding the reins firmly, he kept the team turning in a circle, murmuring succinct commands and words of assurance. Gradually, the hoofbeats slowed. Bel’s thundering pulse slowed, too. Toby eased up on the bit, steering the team off the green and onto a side road. They ambled on for several minutes thus—Toby droning on in a hypnotic monologue, holding tight to the reins, never turning his attention from the horses. As they moved away from the center of town, the dwellings they passed grew smaller, further apart. The cobblestones paving their path gave way to dirt, muffling the horses’ hoofbeats. The world felt very quiet. Finally, Toby drew the team to a halt where a wooden stile marked the boundary between town road and country lane. Sliding down from the horse’s back, he lavished pats and verbal praise on the mare as he looped the reins around the stile.

Then—at last—he turned to Bel.

“Softly now,” he said, approaching the carriage door and unlatching it with a gentle click. “We don’t want to startle them again.” He held out a hand to her.

Bel stared at it. She’d been clutching the onto carriage with both hands for so long, she couldn’t muster the courage to release them.

“It’s all right now,” he said, in the same deep, soothing tone in which he’d spoken to the mare.

“Give me your hand.”

That tone worked on her, too. She gave him her trembling hand, and he helped her down from the landau—slowly, cautiously—supporting her with one arm about her waist. There were no people milling about the nearby cottage; presumably its occupants had assembled at the square. Wordlessly, he led her over to a low wall of stone, beyond which farmland spread like a rumpled quilt.

Lifting her effortlessly, he set her on the wall and stood back a step. His eyes scanned her from head to toe as he assessed her condition. “Are you well?” he asked, frowning with concern. With sure fingers, he untied her bonnet and set it aside. He lifted one of her arms, then the other, running his hand along each to test the soundness of her bones and joints. “You’re not injured? You took such a blow with that turn, I’m concerned for your ribs.” He placed his hands flat against her torso, framing her ribcage.

“Toby,” she said quietly.