A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)(51)

“My friends and neighbors,” Montague addressed the crowd, “our noble country faces a threat. An enemy more pernicious than any Moorish infidel or encroaching barbarian.”

Who on earth did he refer to? Surely not Napoleon. The Battle of Waterloo was three years ago now.

“No, our enemy attacks not from without,” the old man continued, “but from within.” His voice trembled, as did his raised fist. “Yes, I speak of traitors. Those vile betrayers who would raise arms against their own king.”

Now Bel was thoroughly confused. At the moment, England wasn’t even under the rule of a king. No one in the crowd seemed especially concerned about infidels or traitors, however. The general mood remained one of amusement.

“We must quell the rebellion,” Montague went on. “It is the moral imperative of every Englishman to stamp out the uprising, seek out the treasonous brigands, and bring them to justice. Secure England’s rule and God’s dominion, before the traitors come after you.” He leveled one bony finger at the assembly and swept it in an arc, pivoting to stare down individual members of the crowd.

For a moment, his bent finger and wild-eyed gaze rested on Bel, and she shifted nervously on the carriage seat. She began to understand the large turnout for these proceedings. This was high drama indeed. How the carriage driver could sleep through it all was beyond her.

“Attack is imminent,” the old man warned, his voice cracking as its pitch soared. “The peril is real.” With a shaking hand, he withdrew an old-fashioned pistol from his coat and waved it in the same arc his finger had just traced. The general mood of the onlookers went from amusement to concern. Apparently, this was not part of the script. A nervous murmur rippled through the square, and the horses danced with unease.

“I call on every able-bodied man to join us. To take up arms with the Montague Militia. To secure our home county by answering the call: Duty! Honor! Vigilance!”

Montague pointed the pistol heavenward and called out, “Make ready!”

From behind her came a chorus of loud clicks. Bel pivoted in her seat to see a half-dozen men lining the rear edge of the square. One of them was the burly fellow who’d helped Colonel Montague onto the platform. In unison, the men lifted muskets to their shoulders, pointing the barrels high into the air above the assembly. Accordingly, the people in the assembly threw themselves to the ground. Somewhere a woman screamed. Bel wasn’t certain, but it might have been her.

“Aim!” the colonel ordered, tightening his own bony finger over the trigger of his pistol.

“Fire!”

A salvo of shots fractured the silence, and then panic poured through the cracks. Deafened by the booming shots and smothered in acrid smoke, Bel could scarcely tell her boots from her bonnet. All around her, people swarmed and shouted. The pair of carriage horses reared and whinnied, and the landau rocked on its wheels before lurching forward into the crowd. And now there was no doubt about it. Bel really did scream.

The carriage driver, finally startled awake, hauled on the reins. “Ho, there! Ho!”

But the horses’ panic would not be quelled. They charged forward, dragging the carriage on a wild, serpentine course through the square. Before them, people leapt and dove, scrambling out of the way. Bel clung to the door sash and prayed, expecting at any moment the carriage wheel would meet with a human obstacle and leave a maimed or lifeless body in its wake. Instead, the carriage wheel met with an inanimate obstacle—the stone border of the sidewalk—

and for a heart-stopping moment, the landau teetered on its two left wheels. Bel was thrown against the side of the cab, and the driver—

Oh, God. The driver was thrown completely. The landau righted itself with a bouncing jolt, and Bel looked up to see the driver’s box empty and the reins dangling. Then the reins, too, slipped from view.

With them went her last shred of hope. There was no way she could stop this carriage. Even if she could somehow leap the gap to the driver’s seat; even if she could somehow retrieve the reins—if an experienced coachman could not slow these horses, Bel had no hope of doing so herself. In their panic, the horses would drag her on until one of them stumbled or the carriage overturned. In all likelihood, she was going to die. It was only a matter of how many human and equine lives went with her.

Her impulse was to shrink low in the carriage and simply close her eyes until it was all over. But she couldn’t even bring herself to move that far. Instead, she remained frozen, clutching the seatback and door sash in white-knuckled grips as the horses continued their frenzied rampage through the square.

Between the threats of musket fire and an out-of-control carriage, much of the crowd had already dispersed, the people squeezing into any available building or doorway. The remaining onlookers huddled around the hustings platform itself—on it, under it, clinging to its girders. And, having careened off the sidewalk and altered their course, now the horses were headed straight for them.

No.

No, no, no. Not all those people.

“Run!” she cried. And the people obeyed, fleeing the spurious safety of the wooden platform for the edges of the square. They scattered in different directions, but wise souls that they were, they all ran away.

Except for one. One man was running straight at her.

Toby.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Bel’s pounding heart rate kicked into a gallop.