The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [126]
“That is kind of you. I do appreciate your concern. I should appreciate it even more if you would explain the nature of the danger to me.”
“I don’t wish to. I wish you to trust me. Don’t you understand the need to trust me? Tell me you understand.”
She looked at his austere profile and said, “Yes, Douglas, I understand.” She returned to her novel.
Douglas brooded in solitary silence for nearly an hour. Then he called out the window of the carriage for John Coachman to stop. They were deep in the country. There were no people about, no dwellings, no cows, nothing of any particular interest, just trees, blackberry bushes, and hedge rows.
Alexandra looked up, alarm in her eyes.
“No, it’s just that I imagine you would like to stretch a bit, perhaps relieve yourself, in the woods yon.”
She did wish to relieve herself, but she imagined that it was Douglas who had the need as well and thus the reason for their stopping.
He helped her down, clasping his hands around her waist, swinging her to him, hugging her close for a brief moment, then setting her on her feet. “Go to the maple copse. Be brief and call if you need me. French isn’t necessary, but if you would like to, I shall be listening.”
Alexandra smiled at him, saying nothing, and gave him a small wave as she walked into the midst of the maple trees. It was silent in the wood, the maple leaves thick and heavy, blocking out the sunlight. She was quickly done and was on the point of returning to Douglas, when, quick as a flash, a hand went over her mouth and she was jerked back violently against a man’s body.
“This time I’ve got you,” the man said, and she recognized Georges Cadoudal’s voice. “This time I’m going to keep you.” She had neither Douglas’s pistol nor James the footman nor John Coachman. But she had Douglas if only she could free herself for just a moment, for just a brief instant.
She bit his hand and his grip relieved for just a moment. A scream was ready to burst from her mouth when she heard the whoosh then felt something very hard strike her right temple. She went down like a stone.
Douglas was pacing. It had been a good ten minutes since she’d walked into the maple wood. Was she ill? He fretted, then cursed, then walked swiftly toward the wood, calling, “Alexandra! Come along now! Alexandra!”
Silence.
He shouted, “Aidez-moi! Je veux aller à Paris demain avec ma femme!” Even as he shouted that he wanted to go to Paris on the morrow with his wife, he felt his muscles tensing, felt his mouth go dry with fear.
There was more silence, deep, deep silence.
He ran into the woods. She was gone. He looked closely, finally seeing where two people had stood. There’d been no struggle. There hadn’t been a sound. Georges had taken her and he’d either killed her or knocked her unconscious. No, if he’d killed her, he would have left her here. Douglas continued his search. He quickly found where a horse had stood, tethered to a yew bush. He saw the horse’s tracks going out of the woods, saw that the hooves were deeper because the animal was now carrying two people.
He had no horse. There was only the carriage. He couldn’t follow. It was another hour before the carriage bowled into Terkton-on-Byne and he was able to obtain a horse that wasn’t so old and feeble it swayed and groaned when it moved.
He was furious and he was scared. He was back at the maple wood in half an hour and he was tracking the other horse within another ten minutes.
He prayed it wouldn’t rain but the building gray clouds overhead didn’t look promising. Cadoudal was heading due south, toward Eastbourne, directly on the coast. Was he intending to take her to France? Douglas’s blood ran cold.
It began to rain two hours later. Douglas cursed, but it didn’t help. The tracks quickly disappeared, but he had this feeling that