The Countess (Madison Sisters #1)(26)
Author: Lynsay Sands

"Does Christiana like – " Richard began, and then grabbed for something to hold on to as a loud crack preceded the carriage suddenly pitching to the side. The next moments were a chaos of shouts, and whinnies as the three men were tossed about. The carriage seemed to rol and crash end over end, and then everything suddenly went stil and silent.

For one moment, Richard was too dazed to be quite sure what had happened and where he was, but then he heard a groan beneath him and realized the lumpy something he was lying on was either Daniel or Robert. He also became aware that something heavy lay on top of him, making it hard to breathe. Grimacing, he lifted a hand to touch whatever it was and was rewarded with another groan and a heel or elbow – he wasn’t sure which in the darkness –

dug into his groin as whoever was on top of him began to struggle to get off.

"Lord Woodrow?"

The darkness surrounding them was suddenly relieved when the carriage door was yanked open above them and the driver peered in with a lit lantern in hand. It was then Richard realized the carriage had come to a halt on its side. He grunted as the man on top of him unintentional y jabbed him in the side as he struggled to sit up. The fel ow then reached up for the opening and began to pul himself out, but it wasn’t until he was halfway through the opening, his face lit up by the driver’s lantern that Richard knew it was Robert.

"Damn, Richard, get off me, I can’t breathe," Daniel gasped beneath him, apparently recognizing Robert as wel . Richard immediately began to move, doing his best not to elbow or otherwise poke his friend as he did. Of course, that was impossible and he muttered several apologies as he shifted his weight to the side. Kneeling in the overturned carriage, he then turned back to ask, "Are you al right?"

"Battered and bruised, but otherwise fine I think," Daniel said grimly, sitting up beside him. "You?"

"The same," Richard said on a sigh and then glanced up to the opening and the stil waiting driver. Robert was now also peering back in at them.

"What happened?" Daniel asked his driver as he stood and began to pul himself through the opening.

"I’m not sure, my lord," the driver said unhappily. "We were riding along fine and then I heard a crack, and the carriage pitched and began to rol . Fortunately, the carriage body snapped just behind the boot and the horses weren’t dragged with it or they would have died for certain."

"And you weren’t hurt?" Richard heard Daniel ask the man as he fol owed him out of the carriage.

"I was tossed, but landed on a bush. I’m al right," the man muttered, and then added with disgust, "But the coach is a wreck. I don’t think it can even be fixed."

"As long as everyone is al right," Daniel said and raised an eyebrow in question at Robert.

"Fine," the other man assured him, easing to the edge of the carriage to leap down. "I got an elbow in the face during one of the rol s and wil probably have a black eye, but otherwise am fine."

Daniel grunted at this news and moved to inspect the two wheels on the upraised side of the carriage. Richard shifted to the edge of the carriage to look them over as wel , but both seemed fine so they fol owed Robert to the ground and moved to peer at the broken wheel.

"That’s a rather straight break," Daniel muttered suspiciously as they peered at the spokes.

"You think they were cut?" Richard asked peering at what remained attached to the carriage.

"Those three spokes certainly look like they could have been," Daniel pointed out. "The rest are more splintered and natural-looking breaks. They probably snapped under the pressure when those three gave way."

Richard frowned at the suggestion and straightened to glance around. "I agree.

The question is if it was deliberate, who did it and why? And when?"

"The why is easy," Daniel said quietly. "As far as George’s kil er knows, the poison didn’t work. As for when . . ." He peered back at the broken wheel. "It couldn’t have been done in town. There were four of us in the carriage this morning on the way to Radnor. The wheel would have given out under that kind of weight before we left London. Besides, you weren’t even in my carriage on the way out of town."

"So it was done at Radnor or one of the three stops since we left," Richard reasoned and glanced around again. He didn’t doubt for a minute he was the target, but he was more concerned with the possibility that someone may have fol owed them from London and might yet be fol owing them.

"Is that a carriage I hear?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes, and it’s moving quickly. We’d best get off the road." Daniel cal ed to his driver to warn him and the man immediately urged the horses onto the grassy verge.

He then moved back to the edge of the road with his lantern and lifted it in the air to swing it back and forth to get the attention of the approaching vehicle.

"A coach and six," Robert muttered as the vehicle careened around the bend and into view on the moonlit lane. The oncoming coachmen spotted Daniel’s driver and swerved to miss him. He didn’t slow, however, but raced right past them.

"Wasn’t that – ?" Robert began.

"Yes," Richard said grimly, having recognized the Radnor coach with Christiana, Suzette and Lisa al gaping out the window at them.

"I did tel you they would not take our leaving sitting down," Robert said with amusement.

"You didn’t say they would fol ow," Daniel pointed out.

"Why spoil the surprise?" Robert laughed.

Richard rol ed his eyes and then watched the Radnor coach return from the direction it had gone. He wasn’t surprised to see it returning. However, he was surprised when it pul ed to a halt next to them and the women did not immediately pile out exclaiming with concern over their wel -being after their accident. Instead, it sat silent and stil , the driver glancing uncertainly from the men to the stil closed coach door and back.

"Time to face the music," Robert said dryly, heading for the door.

Daniel grunted and then glanced to his own driver and ordered him to tie the leads of their horses to the back of the Radnor carriage and then join the driver on the front. They would stop at the next inn to leave the horses. Daniel’s driver would stop there as wel to arrange for someone to col ect the broken carriage and see if it could be fixed.

"Hel o ladies," Robert said cheerful y as he opened the carriage door and got inside.

There was a polite chorus of hel os and then silence, Richard noted as he approached the open door. Glancing in, he saw that Robert had settled next to Christiana on one bench seat, leaving Suzette and Lisa on the other. His gaze moved over the women’s sour expressions as they peered back at him and he sighed, but said, "Hel o ladies," as he entered as wel . This time, however, there was no response and thick silence reigned as he squeezed onto the bench seat between Robert and Christiana. There was also no response when Daniel entered with the same greeting. It was obvious the women were holding him and Daniel responsible for leaving without them, and despite being with them, Robert was not being held accountable. At least not by Christiana and Suzette, Richard thought as he tried to find a comfortable position on the seat. Lisa alone was glaring at Langley. The carriage started forward then, and Richard found himself jolted and then tossed against Christiana as they turned to head toward London. He quickly tried to ease back to give her more room, but found himself pressing uncomfortably against Robert to do so. Muttering with irritation, he gave up trying to force more space on the narrow seat and simply lifted Christiana onto his lap and slid over into her spot. the narrow seat and simply lifted Christiana onto his lap and slid over into her spot.

"Put me down," Christiana cried at once.

"This is more comfortable," Richard said.

"Perhaps for you," she snapped.

"For you too," he said confidently, relaxing and wrapping his arms around her waist. "You are just too angry at me to admit it."

She twisted sideways across his lap to scowl at him and asked, "Why ever would I be angry at you? Just because the three of you snuck out like a trio of cowards leaving the poor pastor to explain you’d headed back to London without us?"

"We thought we were doing you a favor at the time," Richard said quietly. "You would have been much more comfortable waiting at Radnor with your maids."

"The maids are fol owing in Robert’s carriage," she announced, and then added grimly, "And if you’d thought you were doing us a favor, you would have told us yourselves you were leaving."

"I didn’t say I thought you would believe it a favor," he said calmly. "Just that we knew it was."

Christiana snorted and turned away, folding her arms angrily across her chest.

"Oh, aye, we would have been terribly comfortable waiting at Radnor not knowing what was happening and worrying ourselves sil y. My, I can’t think why we fol owed you with so much to look forward to."

"Wel , I’m glad you did. Thank you. We could have been stuck out there on the road al night," he said solemnly. Christiana stil ed, and then turned to peer at him suspiciously in the light cast by the lantern outside the window. After a moment, she relaxed enough to ask, "What happened?"

"It looks like three spokes in the front left wheel may have been cut. The whole wheel col apsed under the stress when they gave," he answered promptly, deciding there was no sense keeping the information from the women. It was better if they were prepared and had an eye out for trouble too. Christiana turned sharply to peer at him. "Cut? Are you certain?"

Richard hesitated. "Not completely, but the breaks on three spokes side by side were almost straight across while the others were jagged and splintered."

"George’s poisoner?" she asked unhappily.

"That would be my guess," he acknowledged.

"What? George was poisoned?" Suzette asked at once, and Richard glanced over to see that Daniel had drawn the young woman onto his own lap to make room on their side of the carriage. Suzette was sitting, arms crossed and expression grim like her sister, apparently not real y happy to be there either.

"It seems George may have been poisoned," Christiana explained. "Daniel and Richard smel ed bitter almonds by his mouth."

"Almonds aren’t poisonous," Suzette said at once.

"Bitter almonds are used to make cyanide," Lisa explained solemnly, drawing every eye her way. Shrugging, she said, "I read a lot."

"She does," Suzette said dryly and then turned to Christiana. "What else don’t we know?"

"You know everything I know now," she assured her. "And I only found out about the poison after the wedding. I just hadn’t yet had a chance to tel you."

Suzette nodded and then turned to spear Daniel with a look. "What else?"

"That’s it," he assured her.

"And why didn’t you tel me yourself before this?" Suzette asked.

"It wasn’t my secret to tel ," he said simply.

"Where have I heard that before?" she asked dryly, turning back to face forward again, apparently not appeased.

"So we have a murderer as wel as a blackmailer," Lisa murmured thoughtful y.

"Or do we think they are the same person?"

Richard and Daniel exchanged glances.

"They don’t know," Suzette said for them when neither man spoke.

"Wel . . ." Lisa frowned. "Surely it wouldn’t be easy for someone to get poison inside the townhouse without being discovered?"

Richard almost piped up to say that they had got George out without discovery, but then realized that wasn’t true. Daniel had been caught in Suzette’s room by Suzette, and he would have been caught there too had he not thrust the body at the man and rushed out to lead the women downstairs. He hardly could have done that were he a stranger to the house. Had he been a stranger, they both would have been caught in Suzette’s room. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been easy for an outsider to get the poison in undiscovered.

"So it is probably someone in the townhouse who did it," Christiana fol owed her reasoning.

"Someone could have paid one of the servants to do it," Suzette suggested.

There was silence as everyone contemplated that. It seemed the most likely scenario, but no one was eager to embrace it. Members of the ton depended on the steadfast loyalty of their servants. Without it the number of scandals made public would probably treble. Of course, it happened on occasion that a servant wasn’t as loyal as one would hope, but it was never something anyone wished to consider.

"I shal have to question the servants when we arrive back in London," Richard said with a sigh, acknowledging that a betrayal by one of the staff was most likely what had happened.

"That leaves the blackmailer . . . if it isn’t the same person who paid someone on staff to administer the poison," Lisa said.

"It is someone who knew what George did last year and that he took Richard’s place," Christiana said, her expression thoughtful. "There can’t be many who know that. I hardly think he would trust that information to many people."

"No," Richard agreed, and asked, "Who among his friends do you think he would have trusted with the information?"

Christiana snorted at the question. "You are asking me? I daresay you would know that better than I. I haven’t even an idea who his friends were. No one ever came to cal , and he certainly didn’t deign to tel me where he was going or with whom when he went out."

"Do you have any idea, Daniel?" Richard asked, glancing to his friend.

He shook his head. "I have been stuck at Woodrow since Uncle Henry died last year, trying to bring the estate back up to scratch. I only left because I received your letter from America. I didn’t even know you – or George pretending to be you – had married. I have no idea what he’s been up to this last year or with whom."

"It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out," Robert put in. "There’s nothing the ton loves more than a good gossip. A question here or there should tel us who George considered a trusted friend."