Page 78 of My Hellion, My Heart
She was a highwayman.
Instinct alerted him to the movement of a person inside the carriage far larger than that of a small child. Her accomplice, he presumed.
Henry reached into his own jacket pocket for his pistol and gnashed his teeth. He had not bothered to change into his riding clothes. He had not even stopped to retrieve his bloody pistol for the six-hour ride to Essex.
He felt the cold butt of a gun poke into his ribs as the women in distress pressed close to whisper into his ear. “Inside we go, love. Careful, now.”
Henry wasn’t afraid. He could handle one woman and one gun. What he didn’t know was how many accomplices lay in hiding, not counting the large one inside the carriage. His brain calculated the odds of escape and survival as she shoved him toward the side of the coach.
“I don’t want to have to hurt you,” he warned through his teeth.
“Do ye now?”
Henry lunged forward, knocking the gun out of her palm with one stroke and sending it skidding across the dusty road. He had seconds before the hulking person in the carriage came to her assistance. His pulse pounding in his brain, Henry kicked a leg out, catching her in the backs of hers. She went down like a sack of bricks. This was it. His opening to escape.
Out of the corner of his eye, he detected movement. Another assailant? No, it was someone on a horse that looked vaguely familiar. A boy. Squinting, he recognized one of his stableboys from the mews and the leather harness he carried. Along with his pistol. Stevens must have sent him to deliver it.
Henry hesitated, deliberating whether to run toward the boy or into one of the nearby houses for cover as he’d planned to do.
“Get ’im, Crow,” the woman on the ground screamed.
Henry turned to run, but his hesitation cost him dearly as something unforgiving crunched into the side of his head. Pain flowered in angry waves behind his eyes, making him reel and sway. Dully, Henry looked around to see Crow the coachman, an ugly lumbering beast of a man, wielding a wooden log in hand. The log came toward him again, but Henry was far too disoriented to duck.
It caught him square in the skull.
The last thing he saw as his vision ebbed was the boy riding closer. Henry wanted to warn him to stay away, but no words came. And soon, his thoughts disappeared altogether.
Chapter Twenty-One
Even as a morning person, waking alert and ready without the hazy grog so many others complained about, Irina had always enjoyed a quiet breakfast, especially one after a brisk morning ride.
She preferred chocolate to tea, and would sip it slowly while reading through whatever material was available at the table. Countess Langlevit had always kept papers and journals and pamphlets in the breakfast room, and at Bishop House, Lord Dinsmore would part with his copy of theTimesas soon as he was finished with it, though there were always littletsksof disapproval from Lady Dinsmore, should the countess be seated with them. Irina would claim to only be reading the gossip columns, but would happily peruse all the pages, sometimes reading whole articles, other times scanning them quickly.
The morning following her outing to Yardley Botanical Gardens, Irina sat at the breakfast table without her usual calm. Her short ride in Hyde Park had done nothing to temper her anxious spirits. She tapped her foot, the inked headlines made little sense, and she had drained her chocolate within minutes. She couldn’t concentrate on anything it seemed, and the flutter of restless energy in her stomach and chest also made her limbs feel achy with idleness. It was as though her body knew she had to do something but her mind was at a complete loss as to what.
“My dear, are you quite well?” Lord Dinsmore asked from his chair at the head of the table. It wasn’t a long and grand table like the one in the dining room, but a smaller, square table that seated no more than a half dozen people. They were the only two breaking their fast at the moment, though Lady Dinsmore would be arriving shortly, Irina imagined. She nearly wished the countess would arrive, if only to fill the silent room with her chatter.
“Oh yes, of course,” she answered, knowing it was the only acceptable answer. The truth was certainly impossible. Admitting to the Earl of Dinsmore that she could not stop thinking about the salacious way Lord Langlevit had knelt before her in broad daylight, in a public space no less, and set his mouth to the most private part of her body would have given the man a case of apoplexy.
It had even been givingherheart stutters and random flashes of heat and longing. If only they hadn’t been interrupted…if only he could have continued stroking her, caressing her with his tongue and teeth, making her feel equal parts goddess and sinner. It was deliciously wicked, the effect the man had on her.
A rash of warmth swept over her chest, and Irina forced her mind back to her plate and the half-consumed toast and marmalade. She wasn’t hungry, though.
Braxton, the Dinsmore’s butler, entered the breakfast room with his straight-backed, hiked-chin posture and a silver salver in his hand.
“Her Highness has a letter,” he announced and bringing the salver to Irina, bowed as she reached for it. He was, Irina noted with amusement, even more starched with her than he was with his employers. She smiled at his show of propriety as she slit the envelope. The stationery was of Lady Langlevit’s pale-pink stock, and Irina was anxious to hear news of her health. Its downward turn over the last handful of weeks had been startling and concerning, and there was a small palpitation of fear as she unfolded the letter. However, as she noted Lady Langlevit’s own scrawling script upon the paper, the tightness in her chest abated.
Dearest Irina,
Let me put your mind at ease by announcing that I am feeling leagues better than I have been of late. Truly, Doctor Hargrove has commented numerous times over our last few visits that I seem to be on the mend. He has even given me the nod to take a short holiday in Brighton with Lady Umbridge, which I will be departing for on the morrow.
Irina eyed the date at the top of the letter. It was dated from two days before, and so by now Lady Langlevit was already on her way to the southern coast. If she recalled correctly, Lady Umbridge was Lady Carmichael’s mother, who lived in Breckenham. Two days ago, both the countess and Lady Umbridge would have still been in the dark about the dissolution of Henry and Rose’s engagement. Perhaps it was for the best for now…they could take their holiday in Brighton still anticipating the joining of their families. If it made Lady Langlevit happy and helped to improve her health, more the better.
Irina finished reading and folded the letter again.
“Good news, I take it?” Lord Dinsmore said as he guided another kipper onto his fork. “You’re smiling,” he added.
She felt the grin upon her cheeks then. “Yes. The countess is feeling much better and is on her way to Brighton.”
