Puritan Bride. Anne O'Brien

the death of the Lord Protector and the return of the King, months when local government had lost its grip in many local areas and it was taking time to rid the countryside of this scourge. But he could see no one in the deep shadows cast by the stand of trees or on the open road before them.

      ‘What’s amiss, Jenks?’

      ‘Can’t rightly say, my lord. But something spooked ‘em for sure.’ Jenks was too preoccupied for long explanations. ‘God preserve us! Don’t just sit there, Tom. Get down! But watch that devil at the front. He’s got one of his forelegs over the traces. If you don’t hold him, he’ll have ‘em all down—and then where’ll we all be?’

      He pulled hard on the reins, bracing his feet, but the horses continued to sidle and plunge on a knife edge of control.

      Viscount Marlbrooke sighed, removed his gloves and shrugged off his heavy cloak and coat in anticipation of some intense physical action. Shirtsleeves would freeze him to the marrow, but they would be far more serviceable than braided velvet. It had been a long day of travel over poor roads and ice-edged ruts, but now he was almost home and he had been anticipating a warm fire and hot food, allowing his thoughts to wander. The moon had enabled him to recognise some of the local landmarks: a small copse, the old oak by the bridge, now missing many of its branches, the Wyvern brook. Soon they would reach the crossroads. If they turned left, Marlbrooke knew that Glasbury Old Hall was within an hour’s journey. But now there was no reason to travel in that direction. Nothing of value or comfort remained there. He had brooded in silence, eyes veiled by heavy lids, wedged into a corner of the coach. If they turned right, as they would, he would be at the Priory within fifteen minutes. Only Winteringham Common to cover with the village in the distance and he would be home. It was still difficult to think of the Priory as home. But he would work on it. The coach had slowed even more as it began its descent of a small hill to the parting of the ways. Marlbrooke had stretched his limbs in impatience to reach the end of the journey. Perhaps his mother would still be awake, certainly if the pain was bad. She would be keen to know of his visit to Downham Hall. To hear of his assessment of his prospective bride. What would he tell her? As little as possible other than that she was young and not totally unwilling. Indeed, there was little more that he could tell her, other than that the lady had dark hair. And a somewhat confrontational manner. And any number of decided opinions, one of them a devastatingly cynical view of the motive behind his offer of marriage! He had smiled a little at the vivid picture that came to mind, sighed and stretched again in growing discomfort.

      Then he had been shocked into alert wakefulness.

      Now as he watched Tom leap to obey Jenks’s orders, the Viscount jumped from the carriage to help the young groom.

      ‘What in hell’s name got them in this state?’ he shouted up to Jenks, who still wrestled with the reins. He grabbed hold of the head of one of the lead pair, preventing it from snatching at the bit.

      ‘Couldn’t make it out, my lord. Somethin’ over there, at the edge of the trees. One minute we was travellin’ sweetly enough—next, two dark shapes bolted across the road under our very noses, and then all ‘ell broke loose as if the devil ‘imself was after us. Begging your pardon, my lord.’

      The horses began to quieten, enough for Marlbrooke to give his attention to the young lad—Jed, he thought—sitting next to Jenks on the box. His face was bone white in the moonlight, his eyes glazed, wide with shock, and his mouth dropped open. He was paying no heed to the crisis at hand, but had his gaze fixed on the group of elms next to the signpost. In his rigid fingers he grasped an old pistol, which Jenks had ordered him to take up at the first sign of trouble. His whole body was paralysed with terror.

      ‘What is it, lad?’ Marlbrooke shouted. ‘What did you see?’

      The lad shook his head, witless, unable to speak beyond a croak. When the moon suddenly disappeared behind a rogue cloud, plunging them all into black darkness, it was too much. Jed shrieked and raised the pistol in a wild swing, causing Jenks to haul heavily on the reins, jabbing at the horses’ mouths.

      The lead horse began to plunge again, pulling its harness out of Marlbrooke’s grasp. He cursed and momentarily stepped aside out of the range of the flailing hooves, dragged Tom to his feet away from any obvious danger.

      ‘Put the gun down, lad,’ Marlbrooke ordered, but was given no time to see the result of his command. The horse trembled beneath his calming hands and sidled in a frenzy of panic. The Viscount braced his legs, clenched his hands, now slippery with sweat, on the loose reins and hung on. There was nothing here of the effete courtier who had earned Mistress Harley’s censure at Downham Hall. The muscles in his shoulders and thighs strained as Tom risked life and limb to untangle the traces from beneath the deadly hooves. Sinews corded in his forearms and sweat broke out on his forehead as he fought to prevent them making a dash for freedom. Jenks continued to handle the reins with all the skill born of thirty years’ experience. Then their combined efforts prevailed. The horses steadied. Marlbrooke focused again on the source of Jed’s terror.

      ‘What did you see?’

      ‘Take no heed of the boy, m’lord. His granddad’s been telling him the tale of the highwayman, Black Tom, hung in chains at this very crossroads twenty years ago—until his eyes was pecked out by the crows and his flesh rotted on his bones. Jed thinks that he’s still hanging there, creaking and rattling. Or his ghost is lurking in the bushes.’ Jenks clipped Jed on the back of the head with a large hand and ignored the squawk of pained surprise. ‘And his granddad’s a fool for filling his head with such stuff.’

      Marlbrooke released the lead horse with a final gentling caress down a sweat-slicked shoulder.

      ‘Ghosts and skeletons, is it? Now. Hand me down a lantern and let’s see what the problem is.’

      ‘Take care, m’lord.’

      He took the lantern handed down by Jenks, lit it, and went towards the shadowed verge. He would wager he would find no footpads lying in wait. Or decomposing skeletons. And it was as he thought. He returned to the coach, handing back the lantern.

      ‘Nothing to alarm you, Jed. Just a night kill. A young deer who did not run fast enough. And the shadows you saw under the horses’ feet would be foxes, I expect, as we interrupted their feast. The horses would have smelt the fresh blood and panicked. Far more prosaic than a chained skeleton, I’m afraid. Take us home, Jenks.’

      Just as he made to swing up into the coach again his attention was caught by a distant sound, carrying clearly in the frosty air.

      ‘Horseman approaching fast, my lord,’ Jenks confirmed. ‘From the south.’

      ‘And travelling too fast for such conditions,’ the Viscount agreed grimly. ‘We had better stay and warn him.’

      They waited as the rattle of hooves drew nearer, saw a dark shape emerge from the darker surroundings and Jenks called out, either a greeting or a warning. The rider reacted and began to rein to a halt beside the coach. No one could have foreseen the outcome as the moon emerged once more to bathe the road in its stark and unforgiving light. Disturbed by the commotion, a hunting barn owl lifted from its perch in the elms to glide across the road, large and shadowless, its white shape and soundlessly flapping wings ghostly in the moon’s illumination. In a return of mindless terror, without waiting for any orders, Jed raised and fired the pistol.

      Chaos erupted around them once again. The ridden horse shied, reared, plunging as its feet came into contact with an icy patch on the road’s surface. Caught without warning, the rider cried out and was instantly flung to the ground with bone-shattering force. The horse made off, maddened, coat flecked with foam, the moon glinting on the whites of its eyes as it determined on putting distance between itself and the source of its terror, but the rider remained slumped on the floor, a dark shadow, motionless. Jenks once again, with renewed oaths, became engaged in a struggle for control of his restless team as they reacted to the sharp crack of the pistol above their heads, ordering Tom to look lively whilst berating Jed in colourful terms for his gormless stupidity.

      This left Marlbrooke, the horses once again manageable, if it was possible