Page 64 of The Virgin Who Humbled Lord Haslemere
“Let me worry about Kenilworth—”
“No! Benedict, wait.” Jane clung to his hands with icy cold fingers. “You should know what you’re risking. The duke isn’t the only one with secrets. Freddy is…h-he’s not Kenilworth’s heir.”
“Not his heir?” Benedict stared at her, numb with shock, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Jane—”
“Time to move on, Haslemere.” Brixton had climbed out of the ditch and was approaching the carriage, clutching three pairs of boots in his hands. “I took their boots. It’ll slow ’em down, but they’ll find their way out of that ditch sooner or later. We’d best be gone before then.”
“No! Where are you going?” Jane’s eyes were wild as she clawed at Benedict’s coat. “Don’t go! Benedict, please. He’ll come after you. He’llhurtyou—”
“It’s all right, Jane.” Benedict cupped her head and eased it down to his chest, but over her head, he met Brixton’s gaze. “Take Freddy and Jane in my carriage, and Brixton? You and Lady Clifford will takecare of them?”
“Aye. We’llkeep ’em safe.”
Benedict nodded, but his throat was tight as he led Jane to his carriage and handed her up. “Go with Mr. Brixton, Jane. He’ll take you to Lady Clifford. All right there, Freddy?” He leaned into the door, a false, reassuring smile on his face, but as soon as he got a look at his nephew, it vanished.
Freddy’s eye was swollen closed, and his cheek shadowed with ugly black and purple bruises. Benedict stared at the boy’s injury, rage and grief swelling in his chest until he was gasping for breath.
He held out his arms to his nephew, and Freddy dove into them with a strangled sob. Benedict gathered him tightly against his chest, stroked his hair, and murmured soothingly to him until the boy’s trembling eased. “I’ll see you soon, all right, my boy?” Benedict forced a smile, and chucked Freddy gently under the chin. “You’ll take care of your mama forme, won’t you?”
“Yes, Uncle,” Freddy whispered.
“Good boy.”
Benedict gave Freddy a gentle squeeze and set him back in his seat, but before he could close the carriage door, Jane grabbed his arm. “Benedict, I’m begging you to leave it be. I can’t…if something should happen to you…I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t lose me, Jane.” Benedict pressed a kiss to her forehead.“I promise it.”
“Close the door, Haslemere,” Brixton called down from the coachman’s box. “Well, lass? Are you coming, or not?”
Benedict turned to find Georgiana standing behind him, her dark red gown streaked with dirt, her face white. She was silent as she watched him close the carriage door, an expression he couldn’t read in her eyes.
“No,” she said at last, shifting her gaze to Brixton. “I’m going with Lord Haslemere. You’ll tell Lady Clifford, Daniel?”
“Aye, lass. I’ll tell her.” Daniel brought the ribbons down, and the horses started with anervous jerk.
Within moments the carriage was off, swallowed into the darkness.
Chapter Fifteen
Georgiana didn’t know where they were going, but wherever it was, Grigg was wasting no time getting them there. Or perhaps he was just in a great hurry to get themaway fromhere.
She gazed out the window, but she didn’t see anything. She didn’t hear anything, and she didn’t say a word, just sat dumbly on the seat, thinking about…nothing. Such a thing had never happened to her before, but it was as if her head had been pumped full of fog, and every coherent thought was lost in the mist.
Was this what it felt like to be in shock? Yes, that was likely what was happening. Her brain, bombarded with too many appalling things to consider at once, had chosen not to consider any of them. It was rather comforting, really, to thinkabout nothing.
She might have stayed in her blessed fog forever if Benedict hadn’t cleared his throat. “I’ve never objected to speechlessness in a lady before, but right now, it’s making me nervous. Say something, would you?”
Georgiana turned to find a pair of dark eyes fixed on her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again without utteringa single word.
Say something,say something…
But where did she even begin? With the coachman and two footmen they’d left bootless at the bottom of a ditch? The traveling coach they’d just stolen? Snatching a duchess out from underneath her husband’s nose? The pistol ball that had nearly left Benedict facedown on the road, his life’s blood draining into the dirt beneath him?
Now she’d allowed herself to think, one terrifying image after another whirled through her head, each one more awful than the last. But as the disturbing scenes chased each other across her eyelids, one stood out from the rest, and made her blood run cold. “Did you…did you seeFreddy’s face?”
Benedict didn’t reply right away. He seemed to be struggling with his emotions. At last he gritted out, “I saw it.”
Georgiana shuddered, a chill deeper and colder than any she’d ever felt before seizing her and shaking her like a ragdoll. She’d never forget the sight of the boy’s face when she’d flung open the coach’s door and held out her arms to him. He’d been white as a ghost, his mouth twisted with fear, his eye blackened and swollen closed, the tender skin underneath it purple, and an angry red gash across his cheekbone. The wound was the same size and shape as…
