The Dream Read online

  She patted the pocket of her cloak, the thick bundle of letters tucked safely inside. They were too precious to put in her bag, which had been tied to the back of the coach.

  So intent on her musings, it took a moment for the noise outside to register.

  Shots.

  Shots were being fired.

  The colonel jerked upright in his seat. “Bloody hell.”

  “Stand and deliver!” a shout came from outside.

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “Highwaymen. I don’t believe it. Don’t you worry, Mrs. Smith, I’ll not let the blackguards harm you. Stay back in the shadows.”

  The carriage halted, and the door was thrown open.

  Colonel Ludlow barreled out. Emily sat motionless in the dark interior. She could see nothing past the dim glow of outer lamps on the carriage’s side.

  The Colonel’s back was to her. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked.

  “We thought we’d stop you for some pleasant conversation,” a voice replied. “Now empty your pockets while my partner retrieves the cargo.”

  “Utterly outrageous. The Dragoons will be crawling all over this land by morning. When I report this…”

  “You,” said another voice, “unfortunately, won’t have such a worry.”

  Another shot rang, the silence that followed heavy and still. She watched as Colonel Ludlow weaved and fell to the ground.

  She fisted her hand against her mouth. Oh dear God. She did not come all this way to die.

  The door was jerked back open and a man with a large hat, pulled low over his face, motioned for her to move. “Come, my pretty, no need to hide.”

  Her muscles froze. The man smiled, she saw the flash of his teeth.

  “Come.” He reached for her and she struck out at him.

  Did the man think her simpleminded? There was no way she was about to get out so he could shoot her.

  “Mademoiselle, I tire of this game.”

  She kicked out at him, but he leaned in.

  Someone shouted from outside. “Let’s be away, mon ami.” Another shot sounded and she heard a moan before something, or someone, thudded off the driver’s box.

  The carriage lurched at the gun’s report, and the man tried to clamber halfway inside. He mumbled in another language. French maybe? She’d heard it occasionally before.

  The coach picked up speed and the man hurried to climb up the open doorway. They hit a bump and the carriage jolted. Emily slammed against the side, throwing her arm out to catch herself.

  The man was muttering and climbing up the outside of the coach. Oaths mumbled on the air and his booted foot thumped against the windowsill. What was he doing? His dark form disappeared from the carriage doorway. The horses. The unlatched door banged open and closed against the coach.

  His booted foot disappeared from the windowsill and she heard him above. What would happen when he did slow the coach and gain control of the cattle? He would shoot her. They’d shot everyone else.

  The carriage slowed. His loud shouts reached her over the clattering wheels.

  Emily stood and braced herself, looking out the open doorway. She was not about to let the man shoot her or worse, and she’d been through worse. There was simply no way she could endure that again.

  The ground, glowing from the carriage lamps, blurred beneath her.

  The man’s warnings to the horses were apparently going unheeded. With a silent prayer, Emily bunched her skirts in one hand, holding onto the doorframe with the other. Carefully, she stepped onto the steps that were still lowered. The carriage hit another pothole and she almost lost her footing.

  The cold rain needled against her face. A flash from above lit the ground around her. Hedges grew close to the road.

  She dared a glance toward the driver, and hoped she’d make it.

  On another prayer, she shoved off from the carriage, and for a moment felt free as the air blew around her.

  Then she hit the ground, rolled and rolled.

  Her head and shoulder slammed against something and everything grayed.

  A horrible grinding noise splintered across the air, mixing with someone’s shout.

  Rain ran down the side of her face. She tried to move, but pain exploded in her head and the ground tilted.

  Voices filtered through the rain. Another shout.

  “Stupid wench.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  Pain seared through her shoulder and the world went black.

  * * * * *

  “Explain to me again, Ravensworth, why it is we find ourselves gallivanting around the countryside at dawn, and a wet and dreary dawn it is too?” Lockley asked.

  Jason didn’t even look at his valet, used to his man’s constant complaints.

  “We could have taken the carriage. Why you insist on riding all this way…”

  “Consider the fresh air good for your fair disposition, Lockley.”

  “Fair disposition?” The disdain in Lockley’s voice made Jason smile.

  He glanced at the man who acted as his valet, but in truth was much more than that. Lockley was a small wiry fellow, narrow of face and features and who did not have a single adventurous bone in his stiff, perfectly starched and attired, body. Jason enjoyed bantering with him. “I’ve not heard another whine like yours since I dropped Irene, my last mistress.”

  Lockley breathed deeply through his nose. “I do not whine. I prefer the comforts of a carriage. Of all people I don’t know why you chose last night of all nights to be out and about. One should not venture out into storms if one can help it.”

  Well, he hadn’t exactly known it was going to rain. The storm that hit was quick and furious and over almost as soon as they’d stabled the horses at an inn. As soon as the rain cleared, they set off again, much to Lockley’s dismay at not being able to stay for a hot breakfast. They would have been home hours ago if not for the problems at the docks, the meeting with Sir Taber, and then the storm.

  He fingered the scar across his face. He hated storms.

  “My lord.” Lockley cleared his throat. “That was uncalled for. I do apologize.”

  Jason only nodded. He opened his mouth, the stinging blithe reply on the end of his tongue when he saw something lying across the road ahead. The graying dawn cloaked whatever it was in shadows and a heavy fog. They were still several minutes from his estate.

  He clicked to Fury, urging his stallion into a canter.

  A carriage lay on its side, pieces scattered over the road behind it, part of the top crushed and broken. One of the horses neighed in pain, still connected to the wreckage. Jason jumped off Fury and walked slowly to the animal, talking softly. It would have to be put down. From the looks of things, the horse’s leg was broken.

  The gelding barely lifted its head.

  A carriage door lay to one side of the road and two wheels were missing. One of the remaining ones broken, its spokes splintered, lay at a crooked angle off the axle.

  Jason, expecting the worse, looked inside what was left of the carriage.

  It was empty. Relief coursed through him. He’d rather not stumble upon some poor unlucky soul, mangled from a carriage accident.

  He scanned the ditch and hedges to see if anyone lay hurt.

  “Lockley, you take the right side of the road, I’ll take the left.” He pulled a pistol, the one he always carried with him when traveling, from his waistcoat and put the poor horse out of its misery. The shot echoed in the silent, shrouded morning. Fury shifted as Jason swung back up into the saddle.

  There was one of the missing wheels, wet and gleaming, splattered with mud, crushing a stand of blue flowers.

  A few more yards down the road and a bundle caught his attention. A black bundle lying against the hedges and an old oak tree.

  Jason maneuvered Fury off the roadway and onto the wet grass, hopping down. It was a cloak covering a body. He knelt beside the person, a young girl.

  His muttered curse was
lost in the fog. “Lockley!”

  Carefully, he eased her over. A gash along her head left a ribbon of blood running across her forehead and down the left side of her face. He pulled his hand away to check her pulse and noticed his hand was smeared with blood.

  On another oath, he jerked the cloak back. A gunshot wound ripped open the front of her left shoulder, the black gown shiny and crusted with blood. Easing her up against him, he saw the entry wound had been in the back. He could not believe what he was seeing. A gunshot wound? A woman shot in the back?

  He eased her down and laid his hand on her chest. She was breathing, though faintly, and the beat of her heart was weak. Her clothing was soaked through. How long had she been out here? He glanced around, frowning. All night?

  “My lord?”

  Damn last eve’s storm.

  It was a risk moving her. He’d been in battles and situations to know what happened with blood loss and wounds. More than likely, she’d get an infection. If she didn’t die, it would be an absolute miracle.

  He pulled at his cravat until he’d loosened it. With quick practiced moves, he tied the material around her shoulder, the bandage awkward in its location. The bleeding was sluggish, but still glared through his pristine white silk.

  “Give me your cravat, Lockley.”

  It was already dangling from his valet’s hand.

  Jason looked up. “Thank you.”

  As he was tying it off, he glanced at the ground, saw the bloodstained grass and froze.

  Could just be the light.

  Reaching over her, he put his finger in the hole in the ground. It wasn’t deep. With a little digging he found what he was looking for.

  He pulled the lead ball up out of the ground.

  “Surely that’s not…” Lockley started.

  Jason narrowed his gaze at his man. “What does it look like?”

  “The ball.”

  “Precisely.”

  “But that would mean…”

  Jason looked back down at the woman, all dressed in black.

  “That would mean that whoever attacked her, stood above her as she lay here and shot her in the damn back.”

  The thought chilled his jaded heart.

  “I shall fetch the doctor at once.”

  Jason nodded as he jerked his Garrick off and wrapped her in it, the heavy layers of coat all but swallowing her small form. Standing, he gently lifted the woman in his arms. He handed her off to Lockley as he mounted Fury, and then took her back. He looked down into a pale, oval face. The woman was light and small. Jason still wasn’t certain if she were a woman or a young chit—not that either mattered at the present.

  “Find out what you can,” he said to his valet. “Surely she wasn’t traveling alone. I want to know what happened.”

  They took off, not speaking, their horses neck and neck until the road split. Lockley took the right road into the town of Himpley Downs and Jason the left, to Ravenscrest Abbey.

  Fury’s hooves flew over the ground with little urging and Jason let him have his head.

  He held the woman tight against him and hoped—he knew against the odds—she would not die.

  Chapter Two

  Jason reined Fury to a stop on the gravel drive outside his home, Ravenscrest Abbey. He yelled for Grims, his butler, as he carefully dismounted and a stable lad ran to grab the reins of Fury.

  The woman’s head lolled on his arm as he ran up the steps. The door was thrown open.

  “My lord?” Grims asked, his eyes wide.

  At any other time, Jason would have taken great delight in startling his staid butler, but not now.

  “Tell Mrs. Meddows to heat water.” He took the stairs two at a time. “I need clean strips of cloth and a fire roaring in the grate.”

  Without thought, he headed to his room. As he eased her down on the bed, he vaguely thought he might have chosen a guest room, but this one was kept ready for his arrival. Besides, he noticed he’d already marred the counterpane with blood.

  He heard Grims barking orders to maids, the scurry of activity, but it all seemed to be happening outside of him. All his attention was on the small woman lying on his bed.

  Heavy curtains shut out the day’s waking light. He strode to the window and jerked the drapes back, wishing the sun were higher in the sky to afford better light. Candles. Quickly, he lit the candelabrum. The heavy silver clunked as he set it down beside the bed.

  Her cloak was soaked and his fingers fumbled at the clasp. Finally, he loosened the garment, pulling it free and tossing it to the side. He needed something to cut…

  He jerked the knife out of his left Hessian, a habit he’d picked up during his darker days and one he’d not been able to put aside. The sharp blade of his dagger made easy work of the shoulder of her black gown. In no time, he’d cut the crusted material away from her wound. As he sliced her white linen chemise, he realized that perhaps the woman might have a care to her propriety, but he did not think it important at present. Still he was careful to only expose the wound and her left arm.

  Blood had congealed and dried, though parts of the exit wound still seeped sluggish dark liquid.

  A clatter from the across the room made him glance at his butler, who never lowered himself to lighting a fire. The man was now on his knees trying to get the logs aflame.

  “Thank you, Grims.”

  “If I may, my lord, what happened?”

  Jason eased her over to remove the material from her back. The question itself was impertinent, but Jason stood on less propriety than his normally stalwart butler.

  “All I know is that the woman’s been shot in the back while she lay helpless on the ground. Lockley went to fetch the physician and to see if he could find out anything more.”

  The noises quieted from the grate.

  Her gown was crusted and dried, and he winced as he pried the stuck edges off the wound.

  “We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t die,” Grims said right over Jason’s shoulder.

  Jason paused, surprised he hadn’t jumped. Grims had the annoying habit of moving like a damn cat.

  “She’ll not die. She’s too young. Women do not die of gunshot wounds.” He had no idea where that bit of nonsense came from. Women died of carriage accidents and childbirth, but not shot in the back near his estate.

  “Of course not, my lord.” Grims cleared his throat. “Someone made a dreadful mistake.” He sniffed. “Mrs. Meddows can see to her and—”

  “She will not,” Jason interrupted. Though not certain why, he only knew he needed to see to her himself. “Besides, I’ll warrant I’ve sewn up more gunshots wounds than Mrs. Meddows.” At least his time on the Continent wasn’t completely wasted. He knew how to clean and dress a gunshot wound.

  Maids arrived with steaming bowls of water and clean strips of cloth. With Grims’ help, he cleansed her shoulder, finally ridding it of all dirt, dried blood and debris. Thankfully, the bullet seemed to have passed through the flesh without any damage to bone, at least as far as he could discern. And he felt no bits of the ball, but then he hadn’t expected to as the ball he’d removed from the ground had been intact. The metallic scent of blood teased him as his ministrations caused the wound to start seeping again. The woman had lost enough blood already and the sight of the red liquid on his hands shook him.

  “Where in the hell is the bloody sawbones?” he muttered.

  “Arriving shortly, I’m certain, my lord.”

  He pressed a cloth to the entry wound and turned her over onto her back. It would have been easier if he’d cut away more of her gown, but he’d only exposed what he needed to.

  Jason then took a glass of Scotch and poured it over both wounds, hissing for the pain she should feel. When she didn’t moan, he relaxed.

  “Here, my lord.” Grims held a needle and thread aloft.

  There was nothing for it. Jason hoped to hell the woman stayed unconscious for a little while longer. He’d rather her not feel the needle. She’d not
so much as stirred since he’d found her.

  Since the exit wound, ripping apart the front of her shoulder, was the worst, he’d work on it first.

  He cringed as he pierced the purple, jagged flesh high on her chest. Thank God the bullet he’d found in the ground beneath her had been intact. He’d have hated digging out the wound. Having been through the experience himself, he wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. On the battlefield and in forgotten alleys, he’d helped sew up wounded comrades, but this was different somehow. The young woman was slight, pale and tiny. She wasn’t supposed to have gunshot scars.

  With each pull of the needle, Jason looked to see if she moved. Her eyes remained closed and her breathing steady, if a little shallow.

  To keep his mind off what he was actually doing, he tried to think of other things. Her left hand, which lay near his thigh, held a plain gold band.

  “I wonder who she is,” Grims whispered.

  “I have no idea, and it’s irrelevant at the moment.” Though he said the words, he couldn’t help wondering the very question Grims voiced. How to get word to her husband, if she had one. Was she a widow? Or were her mourning colors for someone else? And who the blazes had attacked her? Better yet, why? The questions rolled endlessly through his mind, keeping him occupied as he stitched her up. Finally, he tied off the black thread, obscene against her pale shoulder. Taking a deep breath through his nose, he turned her over onto her side to work on the entry wound in her back.

  Damn gown.

  “To hell with this,” he muttered.

  He grabbed his knife again and went to cutting her gown. The woman might be rather irked about a ruined gown, but he didn’t care, he just needed the damn thing off. He’d replace it.

  “Grims, help me. Hold her while I cut this.”

  The older man glared at him. “This is improper.”

  Jason rolled his eyes. “So is cursing, but life does continue, my friend. Besides, she’s in no condition to have a fit of vapors, now is she?”

  Grims’ white-gloved hands stood out against the dark material of her attire.

  Jason quickly cut the gown off. He lifted her and Grims pulled it away. Her chemise was damp. No hope for it.

  “We’ll put her in something after the doctor has a look at her.” He cut the chemise away. She was facing Grims, her back to Jason.