He handed her up to the seat, then hesitated, his head for once level with hers. Then he blew out a breath. "I'll come with you."

She fixed him with a strait look. "That would defeat the purpose."

"No. It won't." He returned her gaze steadily. "If this Vale and Catriona are as good as you say… perhaps she can help me, too."

She stilled; he remained were he was, their gazes locked, her eyes searching his, verifying his meaning… hesitantly, she reached out one hand.

He did the same.

Their fingers touched, slid, twined.

A detonation ripped through the night.

Chapter 18

Amanda's fingers clutched Martin's; his hand locked over hers. They stared up the road to the bend around which the coach had gone. Another shot rang out, hard on the echoes of the first, shredding the silence.

Martin cursed and clambered into the curricle.

"Reggie!" Amanda's eyes were wide.

"Hold on!' He glanced to make sure she had before slapping the reins to the leader's rump.

The team bolted, but he held them, steered the curricle at top speed toward the bend, checked only at the last minute to trot smartly around it.

Pandemonium lay ahead. The coach lay slewed across the road, the horses screaming, kicking, half out of the traces. The coachman, one arm tucked to his body, was hanging onto the harness with his good arm.

He saw them; face pinched with pain, he nodded at the coach. "The gen'leman…"

Martin halted his horses, swiftly tied the reins, then leapt down and raced to the carriage. Amanda all but fell out of the curricle, then she was on his heels. "Reggie!"

Moonlight played on one white hand, palm up, fingers gently curled, resting, lifeless, on the edge of the open window set in the carriage door.

Martin reached the coach. He lifted the hand, opened the door.

"My God!" Amanda stared past him at a scene beyond a nightmare. Eyes shut, Reggie lay slumped back, half on and half off the seat. All around him, black pools gleamed dully in the poor light. Blood. Everywhere.

"Watch out." Martin hauled himself up by the doorframe; he stepped over Reggie, then bent over him, pushing aside Reggie's cravat.

"He's alive."

Amanda's breath left her in a rush; she felt giddy but fought off her faintness. Frothing up her skirt, she grabbed her petticoats and started ripping. Martin grabbed the first long strip she pulled off. He'd untied his cravat, folded it into a pad; he bound it into place with Amanda's strip.

"It's a head wound. Looks like the ball hit him above the temple-high enough, thank God. It's ripped a groove along his skull but didn't lodge."

"But the blood." Amanda kept ripping and handing strips up; Martin used them to secure his makeshift bandage.

"That's the danger. Head wounds always bleed profusely." He tied a knot, waved aside her next strip. "We may need it later."

He straightened as far as he could in the confines of the coach. Amanda crowded the door; reaching in, she took Reggie's hand. Closed both her hands around it. "He's so cold."

"Shock combined with blood loss." Martin pulled down folded blankets from the rack above the seat. "Thankfully, you came prepared for Scotland."

He shook out one blanket and laid it over the other seat. From the door, Amanda helped straighten it, fighting to keep her lip from trembling.

Martin shot her a glance. "I'm going to lift him across, then we'll wrap him in the blankets. You stay with him while I help the coachman, all right?"

She nodded.

"You won't faint because of the blood?"

The look she threw him told him not to be daft. Martin read it with relief. He was going to need her help; hysterics, Reggie couldn't afford. He lifted Reggie, angling his body, an awkward maneuver in the limited space. The instant he laid him down, Amanda was up in the carriage beside him, shaking the second blanket out and tucking it about Reggie's still form.

He glanced at her face, saw grim resolution. Squeezing her shoulder, he edged past her and jumped down.

The horses were quiet, but the coachman was sagging. He hadn't been able to free the beasts, just calm them. "Mr. Carmarthen?" he asked.

"He's alive. Here-sit down." Martin caught the man, helping him to the rising bank, keeping one eye on the restive horses. "How's your arm?"

"Shot went right through. Missed the bone, thank God. I tied my kerchief 'round the hole. Painful, but I'll live."

Martin checked the wound; satisfied, he asked, "What happened?"

"Highwayman."

Straightening, Martin returned to the horses, crooning, soothing; he set to work disentangling their harness. He glanced back at the coachman. "Think back-describe what happened, step by step."

The coachman sighed. "He must'a been waiting for us-can't see how it could'a been otherwise. We came round the bend, and I saw him there-"

The man nodded; Martin glanced over the horses' backs to the entrance of a lane leading east. A bigger lane lay to the west; he didn't look that way.

"He was sitting his horse, calm an' patient. Couldn't tell he was a highwayman. He just looked like a gen'leman waiting for someone. Mr. Carmarthen had told me to stop there, so I slowed. The bugger waited'til we was almost level, then he reached under his greatcoat, came out with a pistol and shot me. No warning, nothing. Cool as you please."

Frowning, Martin unravelled a tangled rein. "What happened next?"

"I yelled, grabbed my arm and fell off the box. Then I heard the second shot." The coachman paused, then added, "After that, all I heard was the horses' screaming, and the horseman galloping away."

"He didn't come up to the carriage?"

"Nope. I'd have seen if he had."

"So he just turned and rode… which way? He didn't pass us."

"He went that way." The coachman again nodded to the lane east. "Just turned his horse and galloped off."

Martin considered the lane as he checked the realigned harness. "There's a shortcut to Nottingham that way." And from Nottingham, a good road that dropped back to the Great North Road, and thence south to London.

He returned to the coachman. "You're in no condition to drive, but we'll need you to keep Mr. Carmarthen from rolling around in the carriage."

The man let Martin help him up. "Sheffield's the next town."

"Unfortunately, it's too far for Mr. Carmarthen, and it'll be so late by the time we reach there, getting anyone to open up for us would be a feat."

The man grimaced. "Aye." He nodded to the carriage. "Will he be all right?"

"With luck, but we need to clean the wound and get him warm quickly." Martin glanced at the surrounding countryside, silent and empty. "The temperature here will plummet in the next few hours."

Having ascertained that the coachman's name was On-slow, Martin beckoned Amanda out of the carriage. "Onslow will watch Reggie while I drive."

Puzzled, Amanda scrambled out, frowning when he closed the carriage door on Onslow. "What about me?"

Martin led her to his curricle. "They aren't my horses and I've driven them hard. They're tired and reasonably biddable. Can you manage them?"

She stared at him. "You want me to drive them?"

"No. But it's the only way not to leave them out all night. It'll freeze before dawn and they've run for hours and haven't been rubbed down."

It was only then that Amanda noticed the temperature. She glanced around and shivered. "Where are we? Where are we going?"

Martin's already grim expression turned grimmer. "We're in the Peak district-it's high, so it's cold, and will get a lot colder through what's left of the night." He drew in a breath, his eyes meeting hers. "Reggie's not out of the woods. If we can tend the wound, keep him warm-with luck, he'll pull through. But shock combined with blood loss compounded by serious cold… we have to get him to shelter soon."

She got the distinct impression he was convincing himself, not her. "So where…?"

It suddenly occurred to her that he knew where they were. He confirmed it by nodding to the lane leading west. "We go that way." He grasped her waist, lifted her to the curricle's seat. She settled her skirts; he untied the reins and handed them to her. "You can drive a team, can't you?"

"Of course!" She took the reins.

"Follow a good ten yards back, just in case I have to stop suddenly."

As he turned away, she asked, "What lies that way?"

He didn't look back as he strode to the coach. "Hathersage." He took another two strides before adding, "My home."

In daylight, it would have been an easy drive; in fitful moonlight, every nerve was taut as she urged the tired horses along in the coach's wake. At least the lane was wide. It led due west, dipping, then rising, winding onward and upward between wood-covered hills.

They reached a river; the coach trundled slowly, carefully, across a stone bridge, then turned north. She followed, easing the horses along. Hired nags, they were not as responsive as she would have liked, but she managed to keep them plodding.

A village lay sleeping, scattered cottages standing back from the lane. A church stood at the end; as they passed it, she felt a rising breeze. Looked up, sensing a change in the landscape-and discovered the countryside open and spread before her. Rising up all around her. Twisting on the curricle's seat, she marveled at the towering cliffs hovering darkly over the valley, over the patchwork of fields and coppices, at the river tinkling softly beside the lane, moonlight reflecting in silver ripples.