Southampton Row - Anne Perry [136]
“Now, where are you going at this time o’ the night? Mistress Pitt, isn’t it? From Harford way? You shouldn’t be out at this hour. Get lost, you will. Or have an accident.” It was a man’s voice, deep and with a lift of sarcasm to it.
Tellman heard Gracie gasp with fear. The fact that the man had used Charlotte’s name meant that he knew them. Was it intended as a threat? Was he the watcher who had told Voisey where they were?
The horse shook its head as if someone were holding its bridle. The darkness prevented Tellman from seeing. He hoped it also prevented the man from seeing him. How did he know who they were? He must have been watching and ridden ahead, knowing they would come this way. If he had seen Tellman go to the cottage door and then carry the boxes out, then it meant he had been there all the time. He had to be Voisey’s man. He had come ahead of them here into this lonely stretch of road between Harford and Ivybridge to catch them where there was no one to see, or to help. And there was no one—except Tellman. Everything rested with him.
What could he use for a weapon? He remembered packing a bottle of vinegar. It was half empty, but there was enough in it still to give it weight. But he daren’t ask Gracie for it aloud. The man would hear him. And he did not know how she had stacked the basket!
He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Vinegar!”
“Wha . . . oh.” She understood. She slid back a little and started feeling for the bottle. Tellman made some move himself to cover the sounds, climbing off the box and slithering down the side of the cart until his feet touched the ground. He felt his way around to the back, hand over hand on the rough wood, and was coming around on the other side when he made out in the gloom the figure of a man ahead of him. Then he felt a smooth weight against his forearm and Gracie’s breath on his cheek. He took the vinegar bottle from her hand. He could see the dark shape of Charlotte, with her arms around the children.
“It’s you again!” Gracie’s voice came clearly from just beside him, but she was speaking to the man at the horse’s head, drawing his attention. “Wot yer doin’ out ’ere in the middle o’ the night, then? We’re goin’ ’cos we got a family emergency. Yer got one, too, ‘ave yer?”
“That’s a shame,” the man replied, the expression in his voice impossible to read. “Going back to London, then?”
“We never said we come from London!” Gracie challenged him, but Tellman could hear the fear in her, the slight quiver, the higher pitch. He was only a yard away from the man now. The vinegar bottle was heavy in his hand. He swung it back, and as if he had caught the movement in the corner of his eye, the man swiveled and shot out his fist, sending Tellman sprawling backwards onto the ground, the vinegar bottle flying out of his grasp and rolling away on the grass.
“Oh, no you don’t, mister!” the man said, his voice suddenly altered to a vicious anger, and the next moment Tellman felt a tremendous weight on top of him, knocking the air out of his lungs. He was no match for the man in strength and he knew it. But he had grown up in the streets and the instinct to survive was above almost everything else; the only thing greater was the passion to protect Gracie . . . and of course Charlotte and the children. He kneed the man in the groin and heard him gasp, then poked at his eyes with stiff fingers, or at any piece of flesh he could reach.
The fight was short, intense and absolute. It was only moments later that his hands reached the unbroken vinegar bottle and he finished the job, cracking the man over the head with it and laying him senseless.
He scrambled to his feet and staggered around to where the other horse was standing with a dogcart pulled across the track, and led it off onto the side. Then he ran back and with difficulty in the dark, took the bridle of their own horse and led it past, before climbing up onto the box again and urging it forward as fast as it was capable of going. The east was already fading a little