The Heiress - Lynsay Sands [107]
Suzette eyed the older man with worry, glad to see that while he, like her, was a bit banged up, he seemed mostly fine.
“Good,” Jeremy said as Thompson led her father to stand in front of him. “Sit him on the ground next to his daughter.”
Thompson urged her father around to her side, and pushed on his shoulder to make him sit. He then glanced to Jeremy for further instruction.
“Now go see if the one horse can be saved.” Jeremy waved his freshly reloaded pistol toward the struggling animal.
The driver glanced to the horses and frowned. In the short time since she’d first looked, the live horse’s struggles were already growing weaker. She suspected the weight of the horse on top of him, along with his position, was smothering the poor creature, and guessed the driver had decided as much too when he said, “He won’t last the amount of time it would take me to free him. Besides, two carriage wheels broke in the turn, we can’t use the carriage anymore anyway.”
“Just check the damned horse,” Jeremy snapped.
Thompson scowled belligerently, but turned and stomped toward the horses. He hadn’t taken three steps when Jeremy retrieved the blunderbuss from under his arm and shot the man in the back. The driver barely seemed to hit the ground before Jeremy tossed the empty blunderbuss aside and turned his newly reloaded pistol on Suzette and her father. “Up.”
Suzette gaped at him and then turned to peer at the unmoving driver and back. “You just shot him. In the back. For no reason.”
“No one blackmails me,” he said coldly. “Now get up.”
She stared at him with disbelief, unable to believe anyone could be so cold. “But—”
“Shall I shoot your father too? Would that make you more agreeable?” he asked grimly.
“Hardly,” she snapped, her shock giving way to anger. “You wouldn’t be able to get me to do a damned thing if he was dead.”
“I didn’t say I’d kill him, I said shoot him,” Jeremy pointed out calmly. “A warning shot in the arm, perhaps?”
Suzette got abruptly to her feet, and then turned to help her father up as well, when he was incapable of doing it on his own with his arms bound behind his back.
Once they were both upright, Jeremy caught her arm and jerked her so that her back was to him. “Hands behind your back.”
Suzette hesitated, but supposed she didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t risk his shooting her father, so slid her hands behind her back, her mouth tightening when she felt him binding them with some sort of cloth. His cravat, she realized when he finished and moved up beside her.
“Now, start walking,” he ordered, gesturing with his pistol.
Suzette hesitated, her eyes sliding to the horses. “What about the horse? He will suffocate to death if we just leave him.”
“That’s his problem,” Jeremy said with unconcern. “Thanks to your foolish attempt to escape, he’s useless to me now anyway. His death can be on your conscience.”
Suzette didn’t respond, but she scowled and thought bastard very loudly in her mind as she began to walk.
Chapter Fifteen
Why are we slowing?” Daniel asked with a frown, leaning to the window to peer out. It was full night now, but with a new moon that cast the landscape in shades of gray. Still, he didn’t at first see anything that would cause them to stop.
“It looks like there has been an accident,” Richard said, peering out the opposite window.
Daniel slid along the bench seat to peer out the window Richard was looking out. Sure enough there was an overturned carriage on the side of the road ahead.
“You don’t think it could be Danvers’s carriage, do you?” Robert asked, slipping from the bench seat he and Richard were sharing to crouch on the floor and look out as well.
Daniel frowned at the suggestion and banged on the wall of the carriage to signal his driver to stop. This time he did not leave Richard or Robert to get out while he waited in the carriage. Daniel had the door open and was climbing out the moment the carriage stopped. He even managed