thunder of galloping hooves grew terrifyingly louder. Her skirts were still bunched around her waist, her knees exposed to full sight as she fumbled with her coin pocket. She couldn’t be found like this. Her second pocket with the bills of exchange would be discovered. She gave a desperate pull and the coin pocket was safe in her hand. She shoved down her skirts with shaking hands and scrambled forward to look out of the window.
Two horsemen were bearing down on the coach, pistols in hand, their faces hidden by scarves. She threw herself back from the window. Instinct propelled her to the door on the other side of the coach. If she could get far enough from the coach before they reached it, perhaps she could hide on the heath amid the gorse and bramble bushes?
She wrenched open the door. The first thing she saw was Harry’s riderless horse galloping away across the heather. The second thing was Harry’s body, lying motionless on the ground. Until that moment she’d almost forgotten Harry. She was too used to dealing with crises on her own. A sob of shock and denial caught in her throat. He’d been hit. Dear God, he’d been hit by that first lone shot. Maybe he was dead. He couldn’t be dead.
The money and her bills would have to be their salvation. She prayed the highwaymen were too sophisticated to place value only on gold. She would give them all she had so they left quickly and she could tend to Harry’s wound.
There was a second gunshot, much closer and louder than the original shot, followed almost immediately by a third. She heard shouts of rage and pain through ringing ears. The relentless rhythm of hoofbeats faltered. It was only then she saw Harry’s head was up and smoke was rising from the pistols he held in each outstretched hand.
He speared one glance at her as he sprang to his feet. ‘Stay out of sight,’ he barked, and disappeared from her view as he ran towards their attackers.
He wasn’t hurt. She didn’t believe any man who’d been shot could move so easily. She sagged with momentary relief—but the danger wasn’t over yet. Harry had told her to stay out of sight, but she had to know what was happening. She crawled to the other side of the coach and opened the door closest to the highwaymen a tiny crack so she could look through it without showing herself at the window.
One of their attackers was on the ground. She was just in time to see the other disappearing into a stand of trees some distance from the road. He was swaying in the saddle, but he didn’t fall while she was watching. Sword in hand, Harry approached the prone man, wary and alert as he satisfied himself the highwayman was no longer a threat.
Saskia pushed open the door. Only her hand, clinging to the bottom of the window, prevented her from pitching headfirst onto the stony, dusty road.
Harry looked up at her. In that first searing glance she saw the dangerous predator within him fully exposed. He was still in a state of complete battle readiness, poised to strike at any threat. His eyes burned with feral intensity, his lips were drawn back in a silent snarl of warning. She jolted in shock, but as she stared at him the ferocity faded from his face. He still held his unsheathed sword. His body was taut with readiness, but his expression was now almost disconcertingly emotionless.
‘I thought they’d killed you!’ she gasped.
‘I shot him,’ Harry said grittily, indicating the man on the ground. ‘I winged the other one.’ He looked up at the coachman. ‘You did well. When you’ve calmed your team, catch my horse—and this poltroon’s as well, if you can.’ He nudged the fallen highwayman with the toe of his boot.
‘Yes, sir,’ the coachman said in a shaking voice. ‘I thought they were going to kill us all.’
Saskia remained where she was, suspended between the floor of the coach and the door, too overwhelmed by the sudden violence to be fully aware of her awkward position or try to extricate herself from it. She watched Harry approach her. He strode across the ground with fluid, powerful grace, sheathing his sword with an ease that spoke of years of practice.
He bent to catch her around the waist and lift her out of the coach. She was trembling so badly her legs couldn’t support her. Harry’s arms closed around her, holding her up and holding her tight against him. She clutched his coat, pressing her face into his shoulder. She could smell the burnt powder from his pistols. He’d killed to protect them.
She’d been afraid when she’d overheard her aunt and Tancock plotting her murder in Cornwall. She’d been terrified when she’d fled from Tancock in London. But her panic on those occasions had been akin to the fear experienced in nightmares. Horrifying, but without the gut-wrenching intrusion of immediate, brutal violence. For several moments her teeth chattered so badly she couldn’t speak, even if she’d wanted to. She clung to Harry, taking comfort in the steadiness of his hard-muscled body. He was breathing a little faster than normal, but he wasn’t shaking. He’d responded to the highwaymen’s attack with speed and ruthless efficiency. For the first time in years she allowed herself to lean on someone else’s strength. Harry didn’t murmur any soothing words, nor did he give her any comforting caresses. But he continued to hold her close while she slowly regained her composure.
As her mind gradually cleared, she realised they weren’t standing still. Harry was supporting her weight in his arms as he kept moving slowly around so he could watch in all directions. The feel of his hard body against her was an illicit pleasure. As her shock receded she felt a different kind of excitement flow through her veins. It was so long since she’d been held in a man’s arms and been so directly aware of masculine strength. There was nothing lover-like about Harry’s behaviour, but his silent embrace was seducing her attention away from everything else that had just happened.
But it was a deceptive seduction. Even as she became aware of the intimacy of their position she felt a change in him. When he’d first lifted her from the coach he’d held her in an undemonstrative but comforting way. Now there was a rigid tension in the arms around her that felt humiliatingly like rejection. He was still holding her, but subtly easing her away from his body as if he’d had enough of her emotional outburst. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt that kind of silent rejection. No words spoken, but the unmistakable awareness that the man she was clinging to did not want her so close to him. Hurt and mortification burned through her, but experience had taught her how to hide her feelings and make light of such awkward moments.
She released her grip on Harry, but didn’t try to move away because his arms were still a steel band around her and she refused to embarrass herself by struggling. Instead she lifted her head and forced a jaunty note into her voice as she asked, ‘Will you drop me if a new danger appears?’
His jaw was locked rigid, his face so stiff she thought he must be fighting the urge to push her away, but to her surprise his expression seemed to soften slightly at her words.
‘It would depend on the nature of the threat,’ he said. He set her on her feet with precise carefulness and immediately stepped away from her. ‘If I see anyone else levelling a musket at us from the shelter of the trees—as I did earlier—I would take you down with me when I drop. But I doubt there will be another attack now.’
‘I hope not.’ Saskia rubbed her hand up and down her arm. Even though she knew he hadn’t welcomed their brief intimacy, she felt exposed and shaky without his steady strength to lean upon. She tried not to feel hurt that he didn’t want to be close to her. She’d hired him to get her safely to Cornwall, and so far he’d carried out that task very effectively. He had no obligation to like embracing her. ‘What are we going to do now?’
‘Take up the body and deliver it to the local constable,’ said Harry.
‘I don’t want him in the coach with me.’ Saskia gave an involuntary shudder at the prospect of travelling with the dead man.
‘If the coachman manages to catch both loose horses, you won’t have to.’
Saskia looked around and saw that so far he’d only caught Harry’s horse.
‘I’ll help him—’
‘No, you won’t,’ Harry said crisply, not looking up from where he was searching