Dear Diary,
I remember meeting Philip once when I was
a child. He wasn't a very pleasant boy even
then. I don't know why I thought he'd change.
Angel watched the shadowy landscape pass by the carriage window as they travelled through the darkness in the late summer evening. Tentatively flexing her hands resting in her lap, she felt the ropes cutting into the skin of her wrists and grimaced. At least her feet weren't bound. Not that it made much difference.
Resigned to her current circumstances, she turned her head to give her travelling companions a cold look. No one had spoken since she'd been unceremoniously tossed into the vehicle to discover that Philip wasn't alone. After climbing in behind her and rapping at the ceiling to make the driver set the carriage in motion, her captor sat down on the bench next to his accomplice. Angel had to scramble up on the opposite bench with no aid, a feat that had not been the easiest in a moving carriage with her hands bound.
"I must admit to being surprised to see you," she said coldly, tired of the eerie quietness. "That Philip would want revenge doesn't surprise me, but I never expected to find you here. But then you always played dirty. What's in this for you?"
Joan's blue eyes flashed angrily as she regarded her. "You always did underestimate me," she sneered. "Perfect little Angel, never doing anything wrong. Always the one with the biggest room and the prettiest toys. Everyone catered to you because you're the viscount's sister."
That was hardly an answer to her question, but Angel didn't argue. It was clear their memories of their life growing up together were wildly different. She may have had the biggest room, but only because she already lived there when Joan and her parents moved in. Had they been able to shift Angel into another one without James noticing, she had no doubts they would have. Her cousin sounded jealous... But of what? Aunt Christine certainly had found fault with plenty of things in their time together. Enough to make Angel doubt her own worth and consider marrying a man like Philip.
But she was no longer that scared girl who bowed under her aunt's oppressive comments. Nathaniel and his family—even James—had helped her find her voice. To stand up for herself and her own wants. She would cower no longer.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "You've always disliked me, but to commit a crime... It is a step further than I would have considered."
"The marquess should have been mine!" Joan snapped. With a frustrated toss of her dark hair, which was loose and spilling down her shoulders, she continued, "I don't know what you did to make him marry you. Seduce him, I suppose. But it should have been me."
Angel could do little but stare. Joan had always coveted anything Angel had, and had resented any time she could not have the same—or better yet, take Angel's. But this was a human being they were talking about. Her husband.
"Nathaniel showed no interest in you," she said, trying to keep her tone calm and reasonable.
"He did." Joan shook her head, unwilling to consider otherwise. "You're lying. He was ever so polite any time I sought him out, and I just know he would have been mine if you had not interfered. You always take everything from me."
"What?" Angel glanced at Philip to see if he would help her make Joan see reason, but he sat quietly with his arms crossed, his cold eyes disinterested in their conversation. Frustrated, she turned back to her cousin. "Joan, I have never taken anything from you."
"You stole my parents! Then the man I intended to marry. And you already had one lined up!" Joan's arm flung out to indicate Philip, hitting him in the chest and eliciting a grunt. "Why would you discard a perfectly suitable match for you if not to take something I wanted out of spite?"
The conversation was making less and less sense. Lifting her bound hands to rub her aching temple, Angel tried to understand her cousin's twisted worldview. "I didn't take your parents, Joan. Mine passed away, and you and your family moved in so I wouldn't be alone. You can hardly claim that Aunt Christine and Uncle George cared much for me. Their attention was still fully on you."
"But they were wholly mine before then." Joan crossed her arms over her chest, her blue eyes burning with intense emotion. "My earliest memories is having to share my parents with a whiny child who never spoke. Who cried any time she was left alone in a room. They had to be with you at all times while I was left on my own."
"I..." Angel frowned, remembering what James had told her about the period after their parents passed away. "I don't remember those days," she admitted. "But you must understand, I didn't do any of those things to take your parents from you. It wasn't out of spite. I was traumatised after losing my parents in an accident."
Joan only scoffed.
"I'm sorry," Angel said, feeling sad for the child Joan had once been. It must have been a big change for her as well, moving from their more humble cottage in the Midlands to Hefferton Place, and seeing her parents suddenly taking care of another child. A child who could not be left alone. "It must have been difficult for you, but I never intended to take your parents from you."
For a moment, Joan's countenance softened and hope sprung in Angel's chest, only to be swiftly dashed when Joan's eyes hardened again. "But you do not deny taking the marquess?"
"Nathaniel is my husband, but I did not take him from you." Angel shook her head. "He was never yours."
"He would have been," Joan insisted.
It was time to change the subject. They were getting nowhere. Angel looked over at Philip, who remained quiet, brewing in his own resentment and ill will.
"What brought the two of your together?" she asked.
"We understand each other," Joan replied. "We have the same priorities in life."
Why wouldn't Philip speak? He hadn't uttered a word since he burst in through her window and aimed a gun at her. Having been getting ready for bed, she was still wearing nothing but her white nightgown, and the chill of the evening was seeping into her bones in the drafty carriage. Philip had told her that if she screamed, he'd shoot anyone who entered the room, so she'd gone with him to keep everyone safe.
Had anyone noticed she was gone? It wasn't long since they left the house, but it had been late and everyone had retired for the night. It was how Philip had so easily walked her through the house and out the front door. Once outside, he'd tugged her along through the garden and past the old stone wall to where the carriage waited. Most likely, no one would notice her disappearance until the morning when she didn't come down for breakfast.
With her heart sinking, she looked out the window. They were going quite fast, judging by the speed at which the trees and landscape swept past in the darkness. A sliver of fear travelled down her spine as she remembered another time in her life when she'd been travelling in a carriage after dark. Needing a distraction, she turned back to her captors.
"What are you planning to do with me?"
"Philip left a note behind. If your dear husband doesn't pay us a hefty price for your safe return, he will never see you again."
"What happens if he doesn't pay?"
A smirk contorted Joan's normally pretty face. "I almost hope he doesn't."
The fear was now less of a niggle and more of a biting, snapping beast threatening to engulf her. Angel's bound hands gripped the fabric of her nightgown and held on as if it would somehow anchor her in the storm. Through her misery, she could hear Joan continue to ramble on, apparently needing to gloat and prove how ingenious their plan was.
"With the money, Philip and I will travel to America," her cousin continued. "We can make a good life for ourselves there. I would have preferred to stay in England..." She chuckled to herself. "But when they find the marquess dead, that just won't be possible anymore, will it?"
Angel's attention snapped back. "Dead?"
"Yes." Joan stared at her with shining eyes. "When the marquess comes to where we will tell him to drop off the money, Philip will shoot him. We can't have any witnesses now, can we?"
"No one takes what's mine," Philip said coldly, choosing that moment to speak.
Before Angel knew what she was doing, she threw herself across the carriage and her body connected with Joan's with a force she'd not known she possessed. Her cousin gasped for breath. Taking advantage of the stunned shock, Angel scrambled over to the window, unlatched it, and stuck her head through to get a better look. They were driving along the ridge of a steep hill, and they were going much too fast on a road still muddy and slippery from excessive rainfall.
"Stop the carriage!" she shouted towards the driver.
"Get back inside!" Philip snarled behind her, and she could feel his hands on her ankle.
"Angel!"
Her head whipped around to see a handful of shadowy figures on horseback following in the distance. Nathaniel! Before she could shout a reply, Philip gripped her waist and pulled her back inside, none too gently. Just then, the carriage hit a rut in the road. Angel and Philip, who had both been standing, fell to the floor, while Joan bounced in her seat. With her hip hurting from the fall, Angel glanced outside. They were picking up speed. The driver must have seen the approaching riders as well.
She inhaled sharply as she suddenly felt the carriage list towards the edge, having gone too close to the sharp ridge. They hit another rut in the road, throwing the carriage off course. No longer able to find a grip on the slippery surface, the vehicle slid towards the hillside, which leaned into a river below. They were tossed across the small space with a painful thump as the carriage careened down the hill until it hit a rock with enough speed to tilt it enough to make it tip over and land on its side.
Chilling tendrils of fear grabbed Angel as they fell, all three tumbling over one another, limbs and dresses intertwining. Memories of the last time she'd been in this situation rose to the surface, pushing through the fear. While the carriage carrying her and her parents had turned down a hillside—one much steeper than the one they were sliding down now—her mother had done something desperate that probably saved Angel's life. Wrapping her tightly in a cloak and blanket, her mother closed her in a compartment underneath the carriage seats. It had been just big enough for a small five-year-old girl and had hindered the worst movements for her, while her parents had been tossed around the carriage as it tumbled down the hill. In the enclosed space, and with the protective layers of fabric around her, Angel had made it with only a few bruises.
As the carriage with Philip and Joan still slid down the hill on its side, Angel remembered the horror of when the one in her past had finally stopped, and she'd got the hatch open to crawl out of the small compartment. The sight that had greeted her. The broken bodies of her parents, their eyes staring unseeingly. She screamed. She wasn't sure if it was in the past or present. Or both.
The carriage came to a sudden halt, jerking her back to reality. She lay still for a moment, trying to get her bearings. Everything hurt, but she didn't think anything was broken. They were at an odd angle, leaning against a large boulder. Joan must have bumped her head because she sat on the floor with her hands covering her face with dark, wet tendrils trailing down her cheek from a gash by her hairline. The door on the lower side of the carriage was wedged against the boulder and impossible to open, and the other was too high for Angel to reach. Especially with her hands bound.
Philip did not have that problem. He pushed past both of them as he shoved the door open and climbed out.
"Philip!" Joan yelled, but he was gone.
Horses' hooves approached, and there were men shouting. The dull sounds of someone climbing up on the carriage gave Angel hope, and a moment later Nathaniel's beloved face appeared in the open doorway.
"Angel!" His face was pale, with deep lines around his mouth and eyes, and his dark hair stood on end. He looked like he'd been to hell and back. "You're alive! Are you all right?" he asked frantically. "Are you hurt?"
Her eyes burned and tears poured down her cheeks. It didn't matter that the danger was over, the relief of seeing him overwhelmed her. "I'm fine," she hiccoughed. "But I can't get out."
Holding her hands up to show him her tied wrists, she saw his eyes darken, and he cursed loudly. Shifting his body further onto the side of the carriage, he leaned his chest on the open door and reached inside. "Take my hands. I'll lift you up."
She glanced down at Joan, who stared back glumly. "What about her?"
"We'll get her later," he grunted.
Not feeling the need to stay in the carriage to keep her cousin company, Angel reached up. Nathaniel grabbed hold of her arms and hauled her out of the carriage. The moment he got her down on the muddy ground, he pulled her close and held her in a grip so tight she could barely breathe, but right then, she didn't mind. She couldn't stop crying, and her hands were still bound, but she was so happy to be back in his arms that nothing else mattered.
Finally, he seemed to realise he couldn't keep squeezing her forever, and he held her out in front of him to get a good look at her. She had no idea what she looked like, but she couldn't imagine it was a great sight. Dark clouds gathered in his eyes as he took in her appearance. His hand came up to stroke the hair from her face, and she could see exactly when he saw the darkening shadow on her cheekbone.
With a low curse, he helped her up the hillside to the road where three footmen stood with Philip and a man she assumed was the driver between them. A fourth footman stood with their horses, including the ones from the carriage. Fortunately, the driver had been quick thinking and cut the animals loose before the carriage went down the hill, and they seemed all right if frazzled. But who wasn't?
"A knife," Nathaniel barked, upon which a footman produced one from his boot and handed it to him. After making quick work of the ropes tying Angel, he returned it and said stiffly, "Joan is still in the carriage. Get her out of there."
A footman walked to the ridge, half-walking and half-sliding down the hillside. With only two footmen left by him, Philip turned and ran. Cursing, Nathaniel followed and caught up with him in seconds, the two men falling to the ground in a mass of limbs.
"Damn you!" Philip shouted. "You ruined everything. She was meant to be mine."
"Never," Nathaniel growled as he hauled the other man to his feet. "You're not fit to kiss her feet."
"I hope you're enjoying your ice queen," Philip spat. "I should have broken her in for you when I had the chance, maybe she—"
Nathaniel's fist stopped his vile barrage. Philip tried to fight back but had nothing against the sheer fury of Nathaniel's attack. The footman left the driver, who made no attempt to leave and pulled on his master's arm.
Stepping away and letting the footman grab the other man, Nathaniel asked, "Did you really think you could get away with this, Chettisham?"
Philip glared at him and wrestled free of the footman's grip. "I hoped so," he said coldly. "After you and Gowthorpe let everyone know of my financial status, no one will marry me and my credit has gone bad. I was desperate for money."
"So you resort to kidnapping and ransom," Nathaniel growled, and before anyone could react, his fist connected solidly with Philip's chin, sending him sprawling to the ground. "Go to hell, Chettisham. Don't let me see your face again."
The other footman returned from the carriage with Joan, and using some of the rope that had bound Angel, they tied Philip's hands behind his back.
"My lord," a footman said. "Take your wife back home. It's cold and dark. We will deal with these three."
Returning to Angel's side and taking her in his arms, Nathaniel nodded tersely. "Bring them to the constable and explain what happened."
Angel shivered. The bottom of her nightgown was already soaking up the wet mud they stood in, and her slippered feet fared no better.
Noticing her distress, Nathaniel's face softened. "You must be freezing in that gown. Here." He shrugged out of his riding coat and helped her into it. While much too large, it warmed her and smelled of him, making her feel safe.
Lifting her up on his horse, he sat up behind her and draped her across his lap before turning the horse back home towards Davenhall. She leaned her head against his shoulder and put her arms around his waist, focusing on nothing but the heat from his body and the pulse racing under her ear. They rode in silence, his posture stiff as if still seething with rage, while she was too tired to talk. Once the danger had passed, she felt as if all the energy had been sapped from her body and she only wanted to sleep.
~~~~~~