Gayle Buck Read Free Page B

coachman. Victoria stood up and discovered that her shoulders topped the side of the chaise. With the coachman’s solicitous help she scrambled over the side of the chaise to the road.
    Victoria stood on the damp gravel and surveyed the scene. The uneasy team shifted, hooves clopping softly the soaked ground. One of her portmanteaus had been thrown from the chaise and opened on impact. White shifts had tumbled in the damp roadway. The chaise itself lay on its side and even her untutored eye found the cause of the accident. A large rock sat behind the off wheel of the chaise.
    The coachman joined her a brief moment. “The axle is broken in two, m’lady,” he said regretfully.
    “We shall have to return to the inn, of course,” said Victoria resignedly.
    “Aye. Or mayhap ye would prefer to wait here with the lad while I ride one of the leaders to Belingham Manor for help,” said the coachman.
    Victoria bit her lip, scanning the overcast sky. The trees crowded close, looming across the narrow section of road. The wind rustled through the branches overhead and tugged at her skirts. She wondered if the weather would hold. It was not to her liking to be caught out at night in a downpour without better shelter than the disabled chaise. It occurred to her that she had not seen the postilion since the accident. “Where is the boy now? Is he all right?”
    “Eh, Jem was thrown and he is a bit shaken, m’lady. But he will protect ye, never fear. I’ll just leave the blunderbuss with him,” said the coachman comfortably.
    “Very well, then,” said Victoria, deciding quickly. “The boy and I shall await your return from Belingham.”
    The coachman nodded and walked over to the team, at the same time calling to the postilion, who came slowly from around the chaise and abruptly sat down, holding his head. The coachman shook his head and clucked soothingly at the horses as he began to undo the traces.
    A swiftly moving chaise-and-four swept around the bend in the road. The sun’s dying rays illuminated the scene of the accident and the sharp-eyed driver pulled on his reins. A passenger thrust his head out the carriage window, his dark hair wild in the swift passage of the wind.
    Victoria drew a thankful breath at sight of the slowing vehicle. She moved out of the roadway to stand in the deepening shadows at the road’s edge and brushed a loose curl back from her brow. All at once she felt somehow foolish to be found in such straits.
    The chaise-and-four had not come completely to a stop before its door was flung open and a man swathed in a greatcoat leaped out. The stranger strode swiftly in her direction. “Have you been injured?” he called sharply.
    Victoria started, recognizing the deep voice. She sighed, thinking that it was simply too provoking to be rescued by the same man twice in the same evening. She stepped out of the tree shadows and met him as he came up. “I am perfectly well,” she said calmly, though she still felt unnerved. “Once more I owe you thanks for your timely appearance, my lord.”
    “It appears to be one of my better habits this evening, said Lord Damion dryly. He seized the opportunity to satisfy his earlier curiosity. “Forgive me, but my memory seems to have deserted me. I have forgotten your name, madame.”
    “I am Lady Victoria March,” Victoria said without thinking as she readjusted her bonnet over her hair.
    “The devil you say!” There was a mixture of animosity and distaste in Lord Damion’s voice.
    Victoria steeled herself against his unfriendly tone, realizing that her prior instincts had been correct. Coolly she looked up at him. “Indeed the devil it is.” She noticed that the coachman was bent over the postilion and heard a low exchange between them. Dismissing Lord Damion’s displeasure as unimportant, she joined the coachman. “Is the boy hurt badly?”
    The coachman pulled the boy up, supporting him around the waist when he was on his feet. “Naught wrong with