Maddie ignored her and went to help Mr. Dover up. Poor man. He wasn’t used to these types of adventures.
She wished she weren’t either.
JACK AND NICK CHASED the men within a few yards of the village before the men realized the brothers weren’t any real threat.
One moment Jack was whooping and hollering, trying to distract the men lest they realize he hadn’t fired any shots, and the next the men had turned on them and Jack was screaming for Nick to go back.
Nick barely got his horse to retreat before the first shot rang out. Jack cursed and bent low. He glanced behind him, saw his brother riding fast and hard, and veered his mount toward the trees off to the side of the road. Nick followed. They were too vulnerable out in the open, and Jack hoped they could lose the men in the woods.
He couldn’t lead them back to the carriage. That would put the women in too much danger. Damn fool woman put herself in enough danger as it was. Lady bloody do-gooder Madeleine.
He ducked to avoid low-hanging branches as another shot rang out. It chipped the bark of the tree beside him, and a spray of wood flew in his face.
Jesus, that was close.
Nick had entered the woods to his left, and Jack steered his horse toward his brother’s. The animal was moving considerably slower as the foliage grew thicker, but that was just fine with him. He wanted the foliage thick. Nick glanced back and slowed enough for Jack to catch up.
“Let’s find a good place to ambush them,” Nick suggested. “Maybe somewhere near water. We leave the horses in sight so they think we’ve paused to let them drink.”
“You think they’ll keep following us? It’s almost full dark.”
Nick was silent for a moment, then said, “I still hear them behind us. They’re mad as hell by now.”
Jack sighed and then brightened. Ambush it was, then.
“If we can waylay them for a bit,” Nick was saying, “we’ll have enough time to get back to the carriage and grab the girls. Hopefully, Miss Brittany isn’t stupid enough to let the other two horses run off.”
“And the carriage?” Jack asked. He had a bad feeling he already knew the answer. “The axle’s broken?” He’d heard that awful pop and screech and known it wouldn’t be taking them any farther.
“Clean in two,” Nick answered, his voice muffled as he bent to clear a low branch. “We’ll have to ride on horseback.”
“That’ll be interesting.”
“Up ahead,” Nick said. “Hear it?”
Jack listened and caught the distant gurgle of a stream. Behind him, he heard their pursuers calling out. They were coming closer.
Jack grinned. He loved a good ambush.
MADDIE PACED THE LENGTH of the carriage for the tenth time that night, rubbing her cold arms with her equally cold hands. Now that it was dark, the temperature had dropped, and she was freezing.
She really shouldn’t have worn the white and lavender muslin. All those times her cousins had made her dress in boys’ clothing for their adventures, and she’d never appreciated how practical it was.
Now she was shivering in her thin dress, her dainty slippers ruined and so thin that she felt every rock and pebble in the road.
She passed Ashley and Mr. Dover, both sitting dejectedly in the carriage. She couldn’t bear to look at her friend or her fiancé, much less sit with them. If they knew what she’d been doing in the woods with Lord Blackthorne, they’d hate her.
How had she turned from the girl everyone called kind and tenderhearted into a girl capable of betrayal and adultery?
Well, it wasn’t adultery yet, not technically, but what did it matter? She was a horrible person, even more so because she’d enjoyed her treachery.
“Stop pacing,” Ashley said. “It’s too cold to be outside.”
“I’m colder if I sit still,” Maddie answered, beginning to pace again. With each step forward she chided herself for her stupidity in planning this ridiculous elopement. With each step back, she told herself to think positively.
Everything would work out in the end.
Not that she had any proof of that. Nothing had worked out so far. In fact, things had only become worse. At first it had merely been the inconvenience of having Ashley along. Then, as if having her friend tag along on her elopement weren’t bad enough, they’d been kidnapped by Lord Blackthorne and his brother, Don Juan.
