Runaway Lady. Claire Thornton
you think I’m going to let you wander the open heath, chirping at a strange horse, you must have taken leave of your senses.’ Harry scanned their surroundings once more. ‘You hired me to protect you.’
‘I didn’t know we were going to get waylaid by highwaymen,’ said Saskia, torn between annoyance and an absurd feeling she should apologise to him for the inconvenience.
‘Hiring me was rather like building a roof to keep out the rain and discovering it does equally well to keep out hail and snow,’ said Harry, from his tone obviously not pleased about it.
‘I don’t see why you’re in such a bad mood,’ said Saskia, sitting on the floor of the coach with her feet dangling towards the ground. Surely he couldn’t still be grumpy because he’d had to hug her for a few moments? ‘I’m a novice at being shot at—in fact, this is my first time,’ she pointed out, ‘but you must be used to it.’
‘I’m used to sandflies, but that doesn’t mean I like them.’
‘We weren’t attacked by sandflies. In any case, you’ve clearly led a very adventurous life. I really don’t see how much difference there is between fending off highwaymen or—’
‘The henchmen of your lord’s jealous former mistress,’ Harry interrupted drily.
‘Ah…well…’ Until Harry’s comment Saskia had temporarily forgotten her excuse for needing his protection. She’d told him she wanted him to keep her alive, but he couldn’t really have supposed the jealous mistress meant to kill her. More likely he’d assumed the other woman just wanted Saskia to be physically humiliated. No wonder he wasn’t best pleased at finding himself attacked by pistol-bearing highwaymen.
She remembered her money pocket and reached back into the coach to retrieve it. ‘I was going to give it to them,’ she said, when she saw Harry looking at it.
He nodded. ‘I didn’t make my reputation by letting bandits steal the goods,’ he said, ‘but it was a wise choice. If a man demands your money or your life, always give him the money.’
Despite the warmth of the summer’s day, Saskia wrapped her arms around herself. ‘What if he can only get the money after you’re dead?’ she said.
Harry looked directly at her for the first time since he’d released her from his embrace. His expression was guarded, but his eyes searching. She wondered what he saw and whether she had revealed too much in that involuntary comment.
‘I could only catch your horse, sir,’ the coachman called.
Harry raised his hand in acknowledgement, but kept his gaze on Saskia. ‘You do everything in your power to remain alive until you can remove the threat,’ he said.
The highwayman’s horse had gone for good, so Harry put the dead man on to his horse and sat beside the coachman on the way to the next village. The coachman was still shaken and he wanted to talk about what had happened. It took all Harry’s self-discipline to tolerate the other man’s anxieties and questions. He was still experiencing the after-effects of violence himself. That surge of diamond-cold ferocity in response to danger had served him well on many occasions. He knew it always took time to shift from that split-second lethal intensity to his usual equilibrium. But today his fight to bring his body and emotions under his control was much harder. From the moment he’d seen the highwayman levelling the musket he’d been driven by deadly fury at the threat to Saskia. And when the immediate danger was over and he’d seen how shocked she was, he’d been compelled to take her into his arms. To comfort her. To assure himself that she was indeed unharmed…
But he’d never before held a woman while the hot blood of combat still pounded through his veins. While he was still filled with rage at the enemy. Within a few heartbeats his battle-roused body had been invaded by a different kind of lust. A driving compulsion to satisfy his fierce desire for a woman—for Saskia.
He’d wanted to touch her. To stroke her. To press her hips against him—to thrust himself into her—
As she’d trembled with fear in his arms he’d fought a bitter battle with himself, furious and disgusted with himself that he could experience such savage physical need to take her when she was so vulnerable. She’d turned trustingly to him for comfort. If she’d known what he’d been thinking—feeling—she’d have been more terrified of him than of the highwaymen. The image of another woman screaming in powerless fear flashed into his mind. Despite his self-control, he shuddered.
‘You did right,’ said the coachman. ‘Sewer dregs like that don’t deserve to live.’ With a nod of his head he indicated the highwayman.
‘I’ll not lose any sleep over him,’ Harry said curtly, realising the coachman had misunderstood the cause of his shudder. ‘But it’s inconvenient. We’ll lose some time over this.’
A few minutes later they reached the next village. It consisted of an inn, a church, a blacksmith’s, a baker’s and a cluster of houses. The arrival of the coach and the dead highwayman drew a small crowd of interested locals, one of whom was the constable. Several of the men recognised the corpse as Jem Crayford. According to their excited comments, he’d been a notorious local villain who had plagued the neighbourhood for the past eighteen months. But the forms still had to be observed. The constable asked Harry a few questions and then went in search of the magistrate.
After that, Saskia and Harry were urged into the inn, the innkeeper’s wife in particular making a fuss of Saskia. Harry’s eyes narrowed briefly as he realised Saskia was being taken out of the taproom into the landlady’s inner sanctum. He almost protested, but he was used to the separation of the sexes and it made sense to him that, after being exposed to male violence, Saskia needed the comfort of other women around her. Though she was quite calm, she was very pale and he could see signs of strain in her face. She threw one questioning glance at him and then allowed herself to be carried off.
A tankard of ale appeared in front of Harry.
‘Good riddance to the villain,’ the blacksmith observed. There was a mutter of agreement from the other men.
‘He was well known in these parts?’ Harry asked.
‘Crayford made the Dog and Duck alehouse over yonder his headquarters,’ said the blacksmith. ‘Boasted about his exploits, so I heard, but there wasn’t any solid evidence against him. Those who knew anything were too frightened to speak out—afraid they’d end up at the bottom of a well.’
‘Did he often hurt those he robbed?’ said Harry.
‘He shot coach horses as a warning to his victims.’ The blacksmith’s expression was grim. ‘After that, most people he held up were too terrified to do anything but hand over their valuables.’
‘Indeed,’ said Harry, thinking of the musket that had been aimed at his heart. He had no doubt that death, not terror, had been the intended outcome of that shot.
Saskia was grateful for the kindness of the local women, but she couldn’t afford to relax her guard in their company. Harry had introduced her as Sarah Brewster, and given the impression she was a respectable widow travelling to Portsmouth on unspecified business. Saskia was far more comfortable in that role than portraying herself as the mistress to an unnamed lord, but she still had to watch everything she said. Oddly, it reminded her of times during her married life when she’d found herself surrounded by her female Dutch relatives.
When she’d first arrived in Amsterdam she’d been a new wife. Much had seemed strange to her, but she’d assumed she’d eventually have a secure and comfortable position within Pieter’s family. After his accident she’d increasingly felt out of step with the other women. She hadn’t been in Amsterdam long enough before the accident to develop any deep friendships, and afterwards she’d rejected the role of ‘poor Saskia’, instead putting most of her energy into taking care of her merchant husband’s business. It was far more common for women to take part in business in Holland than in England, but Saskia had married into a wealthy family and none of the