Page 23 of A Lady Most Wayward
Olivia felt the tears spring to her eyes. She had seen the blank stares of fellow patients in the Home for Wayward Women. She remembered the sobbing cries in the middle of the night when the darkness seemed eternal. It wasn’t uncommon for women to take matters into their own hands. To reclaim a small sense of control by choosing how they ended their lives, even if they couldn’t control how they lived them. She could imagine it far too clearly, and it broke a piece of her heart away. No wonder Philippa kept herself so carefully separated from others.
‘And you endured for ten years if your story is to be trusted.’ Philippa spoke the last words like an accusation, but Olivia couldn’t rise to the barb. Not this time.
‘I couldn’t die. My daughter needed me, and I knew one day, Percy would release me. At least, I hoped he would. His obsession was too great to let me linger there forever.’ She never imagined speaking to anyone of her time in bedlam. She guessed Philippa felt the same about discussing her lost love. Yet here they were. Revealing secrets when there was still no trust between them. They were playing a dangerous game.
Acting without thought, Olivia leaned forward and took Philippa’s hand into her own, squeezing it. ‘Hope is a strange thing. It can give us the strength to survive the most hideous experiences, but it can also be a cruel master, twisting our choices in a desperate bid to gain what amounts to nothing but false promises in the end.’
A gunshot interrupted whatever Philippa had been about to say. She pulled her hand free and reached into her pocket.
‘Bloody hell!’ The coachman’s gruff cry was the only warning they had before the carriage picked up speed and careened wildly over the rutted lane.
Fear sharpened Olivia’s senses. She was acutely aware of the pounding hooves, the worn velvet squabs she gripped tightly to keep her seat, Philippa’s face hardening into the lines of a fearsome warrior, and the sharp sting of adrenaline coursing through her veins.
‘Highwaymen.’ Philippa pulled out a pistol. ‘Do you know how to use this?’
Olivia looked at the weapon as though it were a snake ready to strike. If she admitted her ignorance, the duchess would know Olivia had been bluffing when she threatened her in the ballroom. Not that it would matter if highwaymen killed them both.
‘No.’ She shook her head as they hit a bump, and the carriage tipped dangerously to the left before righting itself.
‘You pointed a weapon at me that you had no idea how to use? You shot it at my butler!’
‘I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even know it was loaded.’
Another gunshot sounded, and the unmistakable grunt of their driver caused fear to coalesce into panic. Olivia was quite certain she would toss up her accounts all over Philippa’s smart travel ensemble.
Philippa grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard. ‘The past doesn’t matter. Forget it. Remain calm. Look at me. Right here. Focus on me.’
The stern command was impossible for Olivia to ignore. She stared into Philippa’s calm blue eyes, and the panic ebbed.
‘They are going to stop the carriage. When they open the door, we aren’t going to wait for their demands. We are going to attack first. Take this gun.’ Philippa released Olivia and picked the gun up from her lap. She shoved it into Olivia’s shaking hands. ‘I have another. All you need to do is pull back the hammer, here, and point and pull this trigger. Do you see?’ Olivia lifted the heavy weapon and tentatively pulled back the hammer until it clicked. She was pointing the gun straight ahead, right at Philippa. The duchess shoved Olivia’s hand to the left, so the gun pointed at the door. ‘Bloody hell. Just don’t shoot me. I’ll never live down the embarrassment of being wounded with my own gun.’
‘Right. Sorry. I won’t.’ Olivia shifted on her seat to gain better balance as the carriage slowed. There were no more sounds from the coachman, and she feared he might have been hit by one of the shots. Possibly both. ‘I can’t do this.’ She swallowed bile rising in her throat. She wished her hands weren’t trembling so terribly. No one would believe she could hit a target with the gun shaking like a leaf in a windstorm.
Philippa had pulled a second gun from her other pocket and glanced at Olivia. ‘You can and you will. Because you must. If you don’t, you will die. Didn’t you tell me your daughter needs you alive?’
It was the exact harsh advice Olivia needed to hear. Pushing her fear down into the pit of her stomach, she thought of Hyacinth. She wasn’t going to let some foolhardy highwayman rob her of a chance to save her daughter. Not after everything she’d endured. Taking a deep breath, her aim steadied as the carriage came to a stop. The sound of men shouting to each other, at least three different voices, and horses stomping near the carriage, had Philippa reaching into her magical pockets for a dagger.
‘How many weapons do you have in there?’ Olivia shifted her focus from the door to Philippa and then back again.
‘Not enough if there are more than three men. These guns only have one shot, and then they must be reloaded.’ She stopped speaking as the brass handle twisted.
The door opened, and just as a head appeared, there was a mighty bang. Sulphur and acrid smoke filled the carriage, making it difficult to see. The man now lay half in and half out of the door. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing. What parts of him Olivia could see were covered in blood.
‘They’re armed,’ a deep voice shouted from outside the carriage.
‘They killed Stewart!’ another screamed.
‘And we shan’t hesitate to kill the rest of you if you don’t depart immediately,’ Philippa called, eerily calm. She took Olivia’s gun from her hands and gave her the expended weapon. ‘Get down,’ she hissed. Olivia slid from her seat onto the floor, kicking to push the dead body out of the carriage. He landed on the ground with a wet thump. Philippa lay flat on her belly on the bench, her head peeking through the window next to the door. ‘There’s only two of them,’ she whispered to Olivia. ‘We might have a chance.’
Wemighthave a chance. Marvellous. Imightbe sick all over myself.
Using the butt of the gun, Philippa broke the glass out. Olivia covered her head as shards rained down. She craned her neck to watch Philippa slide closer to the wall of the carriage. Olivia wanted to warn her to stay down, but she couldn’t form words. Philippa sat up enough to aim her pistol out of the window. Another mighty bang had Olivia covering her ears as more smoke and the choking taste of sulphur made her gag.
‘One left.’ Philippa wasn’t whispering any more.
‘Fucking hell!’ A high-pitched cry emanated from outside the carriage, followed by the sound of hooves pounding the ground. When the thundering became nothing more than a distant rumble, Philippa looked down at Olivia.
‘He’s gone.’ The duchess calmly brushed glass from her skirt. ‘Come on, then. Let’s get out and see what kind of mess we’re in.’
