A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)(52)

Dear God, no, she prayed. Not Toby.

While everyone else in the square had spent the past thirty seconds fearing for his life, Toby had apparently used the time to shuck his topcoat. His arms were blurs of white linen as he leapt from the hustings platform and dashed out to meet the stampeding team.

“Toby, no!” she screamed. “Muévete!”

Madre de Dios. She needed to warn off her English husband, and suddenly her tongue could only work in Spanish. He was going to die, and it would be all her fault. Even now, the horses were gaining speed, bearing down on him. Any moment, he would be trampled, dragged under the carriage. She only prayed God would be merciful enough to take her with him.

As if he’d come to his senses, Toby drew to a halt. Just in the perfect place for the horses to brush past him and the carriage wheels to grind him up.

But it never came to that.

As one horse came abreast of him, Toby changed course, now running alongside the panicked beast. He grabbed its mane with both hands and jumped, vaulting onto the horse’s back. Bel looked on in disbelief as Toby grabbed the reins near the bit and tugged with one hand, pulling the horse’s head to the side. The team and carriage followed, turning in a tight spiral. Flung against the side of the cab once again, Bel muttered incoherent prayers and imprecations in her mother’s tongue. All the while, Toby soothed the horses, and her, with his deep, steady baritone.

“Ho, there,” he told them. “Easy now.”

Holding the reins firmly, he kept the team turning in a circle, murmuring succinct commands and words of assurance. Gradually, the hoofbeats slowed. Bel’s thundering pulse slowed, too. Toby eased up on the bit, steering the team off the green and onto a side road. They ambled on for several minutes thus—Toby droning on in a hypnotic monologue, holding tight to the reins, never turning his attention from the horses. As they moved away from the center of town, the dwellings they passed grew smaller, further apart. The cobblestones paving their path gave way to dirt, muffling the horses’ hoofbeats. The world felt very quiet. Finally, Toby drew the team to a halt where a wooden stile marked the boundary between town road and country lane. Sliding down from the horse’s back, he lavished pats and verbal praise on the mare as he looped the reins around the stile.

Then—at last—he turned to Bel.

“Softly now,” he said, approaching the carriage door and unlatching it with a gentle click. “We don’t want to startle them again.” He held out a hand to her.

Bel stared at it. She’d been clutching the onto carriage with both hands for so long, she couldn’t muster the courage to release them.

“It’s all right now,” he said, in the same deep, soothing tone in which he’d spoken to the mare.

“Give me your hand.”

That tone worked on her, too. She gave him her trembling hand, and he helped her down from the landau—slowly, cautiously—supporting her with one arm about her waist. There were no people milling about the nearby cottage; presumably its occupants had assembled at the square. Wordlessly, he led her over to a low wall of stone, beyond which farmland spread like a rumpled quilt.

Lifting her effortlessly, he set her on the wall and stood back a step. His eyes scanned her from head to toe as he assessed her condition. “Are you well?” he asked, frowning with concern. With sure fingers, he untied her bonnet and set it aside. He lifted one of her arms, then the other, running his hand along each to test the soundness of her bones and joints. “You’re not injured? You took such a blow with that turn, I’m concerned for your ribs.” He placed his hands flat against her torso, framing her ribcage.

“Toby,” she said quietly.

He did not lift his head. “Are you hurt here at all? Any difficulty drawing a breath? Do you feel any pain when I—”

“Toby.” Bel raised a hand to his lips, damming the stream of anxious speech. Then she slid her palm along his smooth-shaven jaw.

Exhaling slowly, Toby closed his eyes.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “I’m unharmed, thanks to you.”

His hands slid around her waist, and he gathered her to him tightly. Tightly enough that, had she truly suffered a broken rib, there would have been no denying it.

“My God,” he said, sighing into her hair and gently rocking her in his arms. “My God.”

Bel buried her face in the linen of his shirt, now softened with heat and the scents of both man and horse. And then she began to weep.

“Yes, darling,” he murmured, stroking her back. “Go ahead, cry. The danger is over and you are unharmed, and for that you may weep just as long as you wish. Shed tears enough for us both, if you’d be so good.”

“Oh, Toby.” After a time, she sniffed against his waistcoat. “I’ve never been so frightened in all my life.”

“That makes two of us, then.”

“Does it?” She lifted her face to his.

“No,” he said, his brown eyes growing thoughtful. “No, I think it makes us one. Doesn’t it?”

Bel nodded as he lowered his lips to hers. Yes, she understood perfectly. Nearly a week ago, they’d been married. She’d lost count of the times they’d engaged in the marital act since. But only now, in this moment, did she feel truly wed to him. As though they shared one future, one life. For better or worse, in safety and in peril. He’d risked his life to save hers, and now—now there was no more “his life” or “hers.” This was their life now. And their life began with a sweet, tender kiss.