Stand and Deliver Your Love Read Free Page A

Finally he managed to move him up to stand beside the fallen tree and then scrambled up onto the rough trunk. He patted the horse and talked to it before easing himself up across its back. The horse moved before Byron attained a secure position and as a result he was forced to use his injured arm to push himself into a sitting position. “Son of a whore!” The horse threw up his head and Byron bit his lip to smother the next curse on his lips. He held the broken pieces of rein tight, closing his eyes as waves of nausea and dizziness engulfed him. Leaning his head against the side of the horse’s neck, he retched into the mud at its feet.
    When the nausea passed he sat up and nudged the horse into a slow walk. Bacchus limped around the fallen tree and down the road in the direction of London. Icy rain ran down the back of Byron’s neck, through his torn overcoat, soaking his shirt, the warmth of the horse between his legs doing little to heat his chilled body. Only the chattering of his teeth and the horse’s limping gait kept him from slipping into unconsciousness.
    His pain fogged mind wandered. Why could I not have died? Why have I been spared death while my servants are taken away from their friends and loved ones? I have no one and I do not want anyone, yet here I am alive. Fate is cruel and unjust. I should have died. Is fate throwing my mortality back in my face? Maybe I should just get off the horse. If I lay down by the roadside and demanded fate take me now to end my heart’s pain, would whoever is in charge of life grant my request?
    As if sensing his suicidal thoughts, the horse picked up a shuffling trot making the hitch in his stride more pronounced. Byron hunched forward in pain, leaning against the animal’s neck as he strug gled to keep from passing out. Bacchus neighed and quickened his trot. An answering whinny echoed from the dark roadway ahead. Byron squinted through the rain but couldn't see anything at first. Then he caught sight of a light moving toward him. As he got closer he was able to make out a coach drawn by two horses, a lantern swinging back and forth on a hook at the side. Soon the jingling of the horses’ harnesses carried over the steady pelting of the rain.
      He cupped a cold hand to his mouth. “Halloo!”
    “Hold up ,” the driver shouted when he spied him. The horses slowed to a walk and came to a standstill. The coachman lifted the rifle by his side and pointed it at Byron. “Who goes there?”
    “It is I, Lord Byron Cobbett, the Marquis of Hampton.” He fumbled to keep an anxious Bacchus in check.
    “Why do you ride out without a carriage on such a devilish day?”
    “My carriage over turned a few miles back. My coachman and valet are dead.”
    The man lowered the gun, motioning for Byron to come forward and repeated the tale to the occupant of the coach.
    Byron eased off the re ins and rode up alongside. Weary and cold to the bone he leaned his head on Bacchus’s neck. “I have been hurt and ask for assistance, good sir, for I fear I cannot dismount on my own.”
    The door to the coach swung open and a woman’s voice called from within, “Samuel, help his lordship down and bring him in out of the rain.”
    “Yes, Lady Willbrook.”
    Before the serv ant could do as he was bid the roadway filled with commotion. Half a dozen horses and riders burst from the bushes and surrounded the coach. The riders were dressed in black, cloths tied across the lower part of their faces. They pointed their guns at Byron and the coachman.
    “Stand and deliver!”
    Bacchus spooked and Byron struggled to control the horse with one hand. The driver of the carriage swore and whipped his horses. They bolted forward, galloping off down the road in a spray of mud. Warning shots rang through the air. Bacchus bolted in the opposite direction and jolted Byron loose from his precarious one handed perch. He fumbled in desperation to keep his grip on the wet reins but his hands slipped from the