Death at Dawn - Caro Peacock [14]
‘I think it would be best,’ he said at last, ‘if you permitted me to escort you back to Dover. You surely have relatives who –’
‘Why don’t you answer my questions?’
‘They will be answered. Only for the while I must appeal to you to have patience. In times of danger, patience and steadfastness are the best counsel.’
‘How dare you sermonise me. I have a right to know –’
Two men were coming towards us along the path from the cemetery gates. A four-horse coach was waiting there, but it didn’t look like a funeral coach and neither of them had the air of mourners. One was dressed in what looked like a military uniform – buff breeches and highly polished boots, jacket in royal blue, frogged with gold braid – although it was no uniform I recognised. The other appeared to be a coachman and had brought his driving whip with him. The man in black seemed too absorbed in the problem I presented to hear their heavy footsteps on the gravel path.
‘Is this man bothering you, missy?’
The hail from the man in the blue jacket was loud and cheerful, with tones of hunting fields in the shires. I thought he was probably some English traveller who had happened to be driving past. His hearty chivalry was an annoying interruption and I was preparing, as politely as could be managed, to tell him not to interfere, but there was no time. The man in black spun round.
‘You!’
‘Introduce me to the lady.’
‘I’ll see you in hell first.’
Both the words and the cold fury were so unexpected from the man in black that I just stood there, blinking and staring. Unfortunately, that gave the hearty man his chance.
‘Such language before a lady. Don’t worry, missy, you come with us and we’ll see you safe.’
He stepped forward and actually put a hand on my sleeve.
‘On no account go with him,’ the man in black shouted.
I shook off the hand. It came back instantly, more heavily.
‘Oh, but we really must insist.’
Laughter as well as hunting-field heartiness in the voice. I tried to grab my arm back, but the fingers tightened painfully.
‘Let her go at once,’ said the man in black.
He advanced towards us, apparently intent on attacking the hearty man, who must have been around thirty years younger and three or four stone heavier. It would be an unequal contest, but at least it should give me a chance to pull away and run. But the hearty man didn’t slacken his hold on my arm. He jerked his chin towards the coachman, who immediately grabbed the man in black, left arm round his windpipe like a fairground wrestler, and lifted his feet off the ground. The man fought back more effectively than I’d expected, driving the heel of his shoe hard into the coachman’s knee. The coachman howled and dropped him and the whip. The man in black got up and took a step towards us, seemingly still intent on tearing me free from the hearty man. But the coachman didn’t give him a second chance. He grabbed the man by his jacket and twirled him round. As he spun, the coachman landed a punch like a kick from a carthorse on the side of his bony temple. The man in black fell straight as a plank. He must have been unconscious before he hit the gravel path because he just lay there, eyes closed, face several shades more grey.
‘I hope you haven’t gone and killed him,’ the hearty man said to the coachman, still keeping a tight hold on my arm.
‘Let me go at once,’ I said.
I’m sure there were many more appropriate emotions I should have been feeling, but the main one was annoyance that my man should have been silenced before I extracted any answers from him. At this point, I still regarded the hearty man as a rough but well-intentioned meddler and simply wanted him to go away.
‘Oh, we can’t leave a young English lady at the mercy of ruffians in a foreign country. We’ll see you safely back to your friends.’
He assumed, I supposed, that I had a party waiting for me back in town. More to make him release his grip on my arm than anything, I accepted.
‘Well, you may take me back to the centre of town if you insist. My friends