A Lady’s Secret (21 page)

P
etra crouched in the cart, the second pistol in hand, praying for a clear shot. Her first had been wild, a distraction, but this time she’d kill the monster dead, dead, dead—if only she had a clear shot. She wasn’t good enough to risk firing with Robin partly in the way or even close by.

She was shaking, too. She’d never seen a serious swordfight before. The weapons clashed and whirled in the rising sunlight. Hard bodies lunged and twisted in moves she was sure weren’t found in any book of duello. Varzi’s man tried to trip Robin. Robin recovered and hammered at the man’s face with his pommel. It was only just avoided.

Death was often only an inch away.

Robin, sweet Robin, Cock Robin, was fighting well, but he didn’t have the skill and experience of Varzi’s man, and she didn’t have a clear shot. Coquette was at the back edge of the cart, yapping in distress. Heaven knows where Dan Fletcher was. Perhaps the attacker’s second shot had struck him.

It was up to her.

Saint Peter and Saint Veronica, aid us both. This isn’t fair!

She gasped when a blade slashed Robin’s coat sleeve. Had it slashed flesh? No, he didn’t seem affected. Varzi’s man had a swelling bruise on his temple, but had escaped the worst of Robin’s blow. Both were breathing hard and probably hampered by boots and coats. They drove each other up and down the road. Petra braced the pistol on the rim of the cart, sighting carefully, but they moved so fast and she couldn’t risk wasting her only shot. At one point the Italian twirled, slashing backward, almost catching Robin unawares.

White flashed.

Coquette! How had she managed the jump down? But there she was, yapping and snapping at the boots of the man who attacked her beloved master. With an evil grin, the man moved to spear her.

Robin beat his blade aside and thrust—right through the man’s shoulder.

Petra leapt up with a cry of victory, but even as Robin wrenched his blade free and the blood ran, the man tossed his sword into his left hand and slashed Robin’s thigh.

Robin staggered, his leg buckling. The Italian jabbed at his shoulder as if trying to repay the wound. Robin caught the blade on his hilt and pushed it aside, but he was unsteady now. Petra remembered her pistol and raised it two-handed, knowing she had to fire.

But Dan Fletcher appeared then, running up behind the Italian with a bludgeon in his hand. He smashed it into the man’s head and the Italian cried out, then crumpled to the ground.

Petra simply stared for a moment, but then she remembered to uncock her pistol before discarding it and running to support Robin, whose leg was pouring blood. “Sit down, sit down!” she cried, arm around him. “How bad is it?”

“If I sit, I’ll never get up,” Robin muttered, pale and heaving for breath. “Damn Varzi to the lowest depths of hell. Is he the devil incarnate? Where is he? Where?”

He was trying to stay on guard.

“Not here, I’m sure of it, or you’d be dead. Come lean on the cart, then. Mr. Fletcher, your help, please.” Coquette was frantic, so Petra scooped her up one-handed and exchanged her for the bloody sword. Robin, despite pain and exhaustion, found strength to soothe and praise the little creature.

Oh, sweet saints in heaven, how could she bear to leave this man? He’d fought for her, risked death for her, been wounded for her. She helped support him to the back of the cart and put the sword on the cart bed. Then she knelt to press her hand over the bleeding wound. “It’s not gushing, thank God, so you won’t die of it, but I need a bandage. I can’t use my petticoat with an open gown.”

“My shirt,” he said. “But someone should tie up that man before he comes round.”

“Likely he’s dead,” Dan Fletcher said. “I bloody well hope so. But I’ll check.”

Robin put Coquette in the cart and took off his coat. Petra watched Dan Fletcher go to the fallen man, cudgel in hand, and stir him with his boot. “Dead all right,” he said, and came back.

Petra had seen death before, but not so suddenly and violently.

“Petra?”

She looked up to see that Robin was naked from the waist up, which did nothing for her spinning head. She hastily took the shirt and tried to tear it, but the hems and seams were too strong and there were no weak spots in the expensive linen.

“Knife,” she muttered, raising her skirt, trying to keep up the pressure on the wound. But of course both knife and sheath were gone. She caught Robin staring and let her skirt drop. “Mr. Fletcher! I need you to cut up this shirt.”

The man appeared, a big knife in his hand, and made short work of it. “Nasty furrin’ type,” he muttered.

Petra hoped he didn’t think her foreign, and pressed a pad of cloth over the wound. She used long lengths of sleeve to bind it tightly. How to fix it? She wiped her hands on the bandage, then pulled out the sapphire-and-pearl pin and used that. She watched the wound for a minute or two, but the bandages didn’t soak with blood.

She rose, blowing out a breath. “It will be all right for now, I think, but you need a bed and a doctor. How far to Stowting?” she asked Mr. Fletcher.

“Eight miles or so.”

“He shouldn’t be bounced along that far.”

“You’d be right there, ma’am. My niece Sarey’s place b’ain’t far.”

“I am here,” Robin said in a teeth-gritted tone, “and freezing. Pass me my coat, if you please.”

Fletcher did, and Robin put it on, but a long, lean, muscular stretch of chest still sucked at Petra’s attention. She gave in to temptation and touched him there. “I need to see whether you’re really cold,” she said. “No, but your heart’s fast.”

“Hardly surprising,” he murmured. Their eyes met, and perhaps he was capable of lust even when wounded, the impossible rake.

Petra took her hand away. “Are we still in danger here?” she asked softly in French.

He replied in English. “No point in keeping secrets from Mr. Fletcher, my dear. My apologies for putting you in danger, sir, but I had no idea they would find us here.”

“They?” the man asked, looking around, but he didn’t sound afraid so much as alert. A smuggler’s brother, after all.

“Only one here, I think.” Robin quickly gave Fletcher the sister-nun story.

But the man eyed them. “Begging your pardon, sir, but it don’t seem to me as you two treat one another as sister and brother. Wouldn’t say as the lady was even English, if it comes to that.”

Robin looked at Petra, seeming at a loss for once.

“You’re correct,” she said with a rueful smile. “In truth, I am Italian, and Robin and I eloped. My family has sent people after us. Ruthless people, as you see.”

“Ah,” the man said. “And you’re a
contessina,
are you? Sounds important, that.”

Always a mistake to think country people stupid.

“It is,” Robin said. “Are you still willing to help us?”

“Don’t see why not, sir. Just like to know what I’m dealing with. So you reckon that ’un was alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s get you up into the cart.”

When Robin, pale and breathing hard, was in the cart, his bandaged leg straight out, he said, “What about the body?”

“I’ll just roll it out of sight for now,” Dan Fletcher said and did so, scuffing away any blood at the same time. He climbed back onto the seat and clicked the horse into motion. “Be a rough few minutes, sir.”

They jolted off. Robin gritted his teeth and endured.

“I’m sorry for not firing,” Petra said. “I was afraid I’d hit you.”

“Your first shot startled him.”

“But you’re wounded.”

“It’s a scratch.”

“It is not. It could fester—”

He closed his eyes. “Petra, that doesn’t help.”

He was so pale now. “Very well, very well. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of you.”

His lips twitched. “Isn’t that my part in this play?”

“Be quiet.”

He hissed at a particularly sharp jolt, and she checked the bandage again. Some red blood showed.

“They must have split forces,” he muttered. “I should have anticipated that. Varzi had time to think on the voyage. If we’d taken another ship, we wouldn’t have to go to Dover, so he sent his man to watch the road out of the nearest alternative port. Plague take it, I feel so stupid.”

She squeezed his hand. “I didn’t think of it, either.”

“But you’re the damsel and I’m the knight errant.”

“Robin!” But then she said, “I know, I know, it’s your way.” She had to say it, though she knew she shouldn’t. “You do have a temperament that I could like.”

He smiled ruefully into her eyes until another jolt made him wince. “Fencing is much more enjoyable at Angelo’s.”

She didn’t know exactly what he meant, but knew it was a joke of sorts.

“I have a very sorry record,” he said. “Thus far, you’ve saved me from having my throat cut, rescued yourself from Varzi’s man, and are now stopping me from bleeding to death. I only survived that encounter back there with Coquette and Fletcher’s help.”

“Nonsense. Without you I’d be that man’s prisoner, and without you neither Coquette nor Fletcher could have done anything. The way you leapt out of the cart was brilliant. You took him completely unawares. Now be quiet and let me take care of you.”

“As my lady commands,” he said, and shut his eyes.

The last bit, down a rough lane, was the worst, and Petra breathed a prayer of thanks when they lurched into a farmyard and stopped. The bandage was now mostly red, and she was applying pressure again.

A black-and-white dog raced out barking. A trim young woman grasped its collar and called, “What’re you doing here, Uncle Dan?”

“On my way to Ashford,” he said, climbing down.

“Had a bit of bother.”

“There’s a surprise. Custom’s men?”

“Nay. Taking this couple to Westerhanger and we was held up by a highwayman.”

“Dan Fletcher, talk sense!”

“I am. Clear as day, he was. Furriner, too.”

“Where is he, then?”

“Dead. I tucked him out of sight.”

The woman rolled her eyes, but didn’t seem shocked.

A young man came to the door of a shed in shirtsleeves. “What’s up, Sarey? Uncle Dan?” he added in surprise.

Dan gave the story again, then introduced Robin and Petra to Tom and Sarah Gainer. Two young children came to the farmhouse door to gape, soon joined by an older girl. A lad of about twelve ran from somewhere, excited by a change from routine. The whole family was brown-haired, fair-skinned, and robust.

Mistress Gainer had come over to the cart. When she saw the bandage on Robin’s leg, she exclaimed, “Lawks! Get him inside, you dolts. Kit, ride Maisie to the doctor.”

“No doctor,” Robin said sharply.

“But, sir—”

“He’s likely right, lass,” Dan Fletcher said. “Don’t want questions asked.”

Certainly the smugglers wouldn’t want scrutiny, nor did Robin. He and Petra had just landed illegally, after all.

“It’s a simple wound,” Robin said.

Petra didn’t argue at this point. When she’d seen it, she’d decide.

The two men carried Robin into the house in a hand cradle. He was silent, but it clearly hurt. All the way Mistress Gaines exclaimed, “Highwaymen? In broad daylight? Well, I never! What’s the world coming to?”

Inside the house she rushed ahead to throw a rough cloth over a bed, and then Robin was eased onto it with bolsters behind so he could sit up. He was still carrying Coquette, who now wriggled free to sniff at his bloody bandage.

“What on earth is that?” the farmer’s wife cried, reaching for a stick.

“A heroine,” Robin said, stroking her. Always stroking.

“A what?”

“A dog,” he said. “Small but brave. She risked her life for me.”

“A rat could eat that,” Mistress Gainer said, unimpressed.

The farmhouse dog had come with them and was staring at Coquette as if recognizing something that called itself dog, and even female dog, without the slightest idea what to do about it.

Mistress Gainer shooed her dog out. “So you fought a highwayman, sir. What a turn.”

“Not quite a highwayman,” said Dan Fletcher, standing hat off by the door. “Seems as these two are eloping, and he was one as wanted her back. Back to Italy.”

“Italy! Well, I never. Proper wicked that be, coming over here to make trouble.”

“I’m sorry,” Petra said.

“Oh, not you, ma’am. But are you Papist, then?”

She might as well have said
Might you be carrying the plague?
“Not now,” Petra lied.

“Ah, that’s good. You off, then, Dan?”

“Can’t linger. Seems as if there was only one, but tell Tom to keep an eye out.”

Robin asked, “Will there be trouble with the magistrates? I’ve no mind to be delayed here, and I’ve no wish to make trouble for you.”

“No need for them to know anything about it, sir.” The man touched his head in a kind of salute.

“Wait,” Robin said, and twisted to dig out money, gritting his teeth.

“Stop that.” Petra hurried to his side, but she hadn’t thought what sliding her hand into his deep pocket would mean. Heat rushed to her cheeks as she dug for the coins there, and his breeches bulged. She heard their hostess choke on a laugh.

Robin might even be blushing as he took the coins she found. He offered Fletcher a guinea. “Poor payment for my life, sir. Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir, but you held your own. Never seen fighting like that before, I ain’t. Don’t care if I never see the like again. God save you, sir.” He touched his head again and left. Soon hooves plodded away.

“I have to help with the milking,” Mistress Gainer said. Her husband had already left. “Can you see to his leg, ma’am?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ll get you some rags, hot water, and salve, then.”

“Thank you for your kindness, ma’am,” Robin said, showing dimples. The woman went pink. She might be a decent wife and mother, but she wasn’t immune to his charm.

“Go on with you,” she said, and bustled off.

Petra soon had a bowl of hot water, some clean rags, and a pot of green salve. She took out the jeweled pin, set it aside, and then unwound the bloody bandages, but the pad was stuck. She soaked it, but had to rip the last bit off.

“Plague take it!” he cursed.