“I can’t!” The words came out in a cry, followed by a shocked silence. Then Fenrush managed to calm himself. “I find I am unable to perform adequately, due to my illness,” he said in precise little voice, “and I have no intention of sitting and watching.”
“You’ve liked it well enough before,” Collins pointed out, unmoved.
“Do not dare to question me!” Fenrush cried. “You will follow my orders or I’ll find someone who will.”
The possibility of that was far-fetched, but no one remarked on it. “Yes, sir,” Collins muttered, then lumbered down from the coach to join his accomplice. “Just keep her company, Mr. Fenrush, and we’ll be back.”
The voices, the coarse laughter faded quickly, and she was alone with the man who wanted her dead. She raised her lids and looked at him calmly, racking her brain for distraction, but words failed her when she saw his face.
Tears were pouring down his fat cheeks, splashing onto his soiled shirt and stained waistcoat. His lower lip was trembling, like a child’s, but he made no sound whatsoever, he simply sat there and wept.
She blinked, momentarily at a loss. Was he regretting the horrible things he’d done, the things he’d planned? Should she feel compassion for him as well, for a life gone so terribly wrong?
Fuck that, she thought succinctly, using the word she’d always tried to avoid, as she eyed the surgical saw. Could she throw herself on him, somehow manage to grasp the knife with her bound wrists and free herself before he could stop her? Was that her best chance, when the two more able-bodied men weren’t around? How likely would it be that she’d succeed?
And then Fenrush raised his weeping face, his eyes meeting hers, and she froze. Those eyes, overflowing with tears, held no sorrow. Instead, they held a mad glee, and Emma knew she was going to die.
Chapter 28
“You’ll kill yourself!” Noonan shouted at him.
The light carriage was in a ditch, one wheel thrown a dozen feet away, and if they hadn’t jumped in the last minute they both would have been dead. That wouldn’t have helped Emma, Brandon thought, scrambling down into the ditch to help Noonan release the panicked horses.
“We survived, didn’t we?” he shot back, running a soothing hand along the back of one of a matched set of bays Benedick kept for the light, fast curricle. It took all he had to keep from communicating his panic to the gelding, but he knew he had to take the time or he’d end up sabotaging himself again.
“If you hadn’t been driving like a madman and taken that corner too fast we wouldn’t have lost that wheel. Now we’ve got to find a new carriage somewhere, and we’re miles from the nearest village.”
“No, we don’t,” Brandon said grimly, leading one of the high-strung horses up the embankment. “If you tell me you can’t ride without a saddle I won’t believe you.”
Noonan looked horrified in the early evening shadows. “It’s a carriage horse, lad! Not one for holding your weight or mine!”
“They’re strong enough to pull the curricle with two passengers. You can stay behind—I won’t. We’re still a good two hours from Rippington, and I need to stop that bastard before it’s too late.”
He surveyed the horse for a moment. It was nervous, eyeing him warily. He’d ridden bareback often enough as a child—he and his brothers had tumbled around their country estates like wild savages, his mother used to say, and his sister had joined in as well. They would ride, swim in the ocean, play bandits in the forests and wiz
ards and fairies in the caves. He’d been Oxtaine the Foolhardy, Benedick’s name for him, and he’d need every ounce of that foolhardiness to get to Emma in time.
Noonan was watching him, skepticism writ on his face. “He’s not used to being ridden—he’ll try to buck you off.”
“He can try.” He surveyed the horse, which stood at least fifteen hands. Somehow taking a flying leap at a pony in a field had always seemed simple enough when he and his siblings had been ready for a lark. It no longer looked quite so easy.
“And how are you planning to get up on that big monster? His back is as high as your shoulders.”
He swung his head to look at Noonan. “You’re giving me a leg up.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I pummel you and climb on your fallen body,” he snapped.
“You and what army? You may be bigger and younger but you’ve forgotten one thing.”
“And what’s that?” said Brandon.
“I fight dirty.” Noonan then let out an exaggerated sigh. “You don’t even know the girl is there—it’s just a guess.”
“I know,” he said, completely certain. He didn’t dare consider any alternative.
Noonan scowled. “There’s no making you see sense, is there?”