* * * *
Charlotte could not remain sore with Will, but she could not return to Darton Hall, either. She mustered her resolve and decided she would not be relegated to the role of the fretful female, pacing anxiously about her chamber, helpless to do anything but wait for news.
When the three of them rode from the grounds of Theydon, Charlotte at first steered her horse northward to make for Darton Hall. She rode a distance until she felt she had granted Lewis and Will a safe enough lead upon her, and she reined the roan southwest again, making for Beech Hill.
This path, well off the established highways, led her deep into the bowels of Epping Forest. The woods were shrouded in the shadows of nightfall, draped in heavy folds of fog. Trees twisted and twined their way across the surreal landscape, their autumn-barren limbs splayed in the shadows like the desperate hands of those buried alive groping and clawing their way outward from graves.
She heard no evidence of Lewis and Will ahead of her, and grew fearful that in her haste and the dark, she had lost her way, turned too far south. The longer she rode without any sign or sound of them from ahead of her, the more dismayed and alarmed she became; the more her certainty that she had become lost grew, and the more frantic she became at the prospect of wandering the ancient, creepy acres of Epping Forest in the dark.
She was nearly panicked by the time her horse stumbled headlong and at a full gallop out onto a rutted stretch of muddy road; the northward highway from London. Realizing where she was, and gasping aloud with relief, Charlotte drew back on her reins, bringing the roan to a halt.
She stood in the middle of the deserted highway, and looked about in all directions, straining her ears to hear above her own ragged breath, the panting of her weary, winded horse. There was nothing. Moonlight seeped through the fog, offering pale, muted illumination. She was in the wrong spot; either she had come too far south and had yet to reach Beech Hill or she was somehow too far north, and ahead of the hill. She could not hear any hint of hoofbeats or a carriage along either direction of the highway, and she frowned.
“Damn it,” she muttered. Here was all she bloody needed: to miss the fray entirely, spend the night lost in Epping Forest, and be teased about it—and her own stubborn insistence on following—when it was all over and ended. She looked down at the horse; its velveteen ears had pricked at the sound of her voice.
“Any suggestions?” she asked, but the horse apparently had none. It snorted for breath, letting its heavy hooves shuffle in the dirt, but offered no other counsel. Charlotte looked around again, struggling desperately to get her bearings. In Epping Forest, this proved a difficult enough task in the full light of day. At night, it seemed hopeless.
The sharp report of gunfire made her flinch reflexively, and she jerked her head toward the sound. It came from a distance, resounding against the overhanging ceiling of moon-infused fog, echoing along the channel carved through the trees by the highway. She froze in her saddle, her eyes flown wide as the din rolled through the forest; the roan pranced anxiously in place, startled and alarmed.
“Whoa, now,” she whispered, patting her hand against the nag’s neck. She caught the sound of distant voices, unintelligible but loud enough to carry, shouting out, overlapping, and again canted her head, following the noise. She jumped, gasping softly at another report of gunfire, and another and another.
“Bugger me,” Charlotte said, jerking on the reins, kicking her horse to a gallop as she charged toward the sound. As the horse ran, as Charlotte clasped the reins in one hand, and reached with the other for her pocket. She slipped her pistol in hand, sliding her finger against the trigger and drawing the doghead back against her thumb.
She caught sight of something coming toward her, moving fast—a man on horseback. She had less than a second to realize his approach before he burst out of the fog and upon her, darting past at a broad gallop. She whirled, looking over her shoulder, unwilling to risk a shot at someone she did not recognize and who might well be Reilly, Lewis, or Will. Instead, she pulled on the reins, leaning her weight to the left as she turned her horse around in mid-stride. She drew it about and spurred it forward, galloping in pursuit of the man.
She saw him plainly ahead of her, darting in and out of the mist, but she still could not see enough to chance shooting friend rather than foe. “Damn it,” she muttered again, kicking the horse, forcing its pace to quicken. The roan was tired, but fleet-footed yet; the margin of space between Charlotte and the man closed. As she drew alongside of him, she had no time to draw her arm up and shoot. She saw his profile clearly and gasped to recognize him.
Cheadle!
Charlotte acted without thinking. She swung herself around from the saddle with her horse still spurred to a frenzied gallop. She hooked her boot heel loosely in the stirrup for leverage and launched herself at Cheadle. She plowed into him, hooking her arms around him, and heard him utter a startled cry as they tumbled together in a tangle of arms and legs from the saddle.
They hit the ground hard, with Charlotte atop Cheadle. The impact whoofed the breath from them both and they fell apart, tumbling and sprawling against the unforgiving dirt and rock of the road.
Charlotte came to a halt lying face-down, breathless and stunned, her mouth filled with dirt and grit. Her pistol was lost, rattled from her hand, and her head swam from having rapped repeatedly and hard against the ground. She shoved her hands beneath her and struggled to sit up, spitting and coughing.
A large hand seized her tightly by the hair— Cheadle. Charlotte yelped as he dragged her, struggling and staggering, to her feet.
His other hand clamped against her face, and he leaned toward her, his brows furrowed. He saw her face plainly for the first time, and his eyes flew wide in surprise. “You!” he gasped, and Charlotte rammed her knee into his crotch.
He cried out hoarsely, doubling over at the waist, his hands falling away from her. He staggered backward, buckled over and breathless. Charlotte whirled, bolting. She saw a misshapen shadow and a wink of moonlight off brass against the ground ahead of her—her pistol—and darted for it. Just as she stooped, reaching for it, Cheadle plowed into her from behind. He had recovered somewhat from her blow and tackled her; Charlotte hit the ground, grunting with his heavy weight collapsing against her, snuffing the breath from her lungs.
Cheadle uttered a gravelly, furious cry, like a snarling animal, and shifted his weight, grabbing her shoulders and flipping her over onto her back. “Rotted bitch!” he said, leaning over her. Charlotte struggled beneath him, kicking her feet futilely, balling her hands into fists and swinging wildly.
“You rotted bitch,” he said again, seizing her by the wrists. “This is your doing, is it not? Do you think you have stopped anything? Do you think you have saved anyone?”
His hands moved, releasing her arms, but before she could strike him, his palms mashed against her throat, crushing the wind from her. Charlotte gagged, her mouth open wide as she struggled vainly to whoop in air past the massive, mashing strength of his palms. She fought wildly beneath him, planting her heels against the dirt and bucking her hips, trying to throw him off her.
“Do you think you have saved your love?” Cheadle said, leaning over, putting his full weight behind his hands, throttling her. Charlotte drove her fists against him; it was like pounding her hands against a mountainside for all of the effect the effort had.
“Do you think you have saved your brother?” he said. “You have only hanged them the more, you bitch. They will hang for the earl’s murder, and for yours.”
Charlotte strained to suck any air past his hands; there was none to be had, and she could see tiny pinpoints of dazzling light dancing in her line of sight. She could hear the sounds of her life strangling from her, a desperate, sodden cawing. Shadows seemed to be swooping in from every side, engulfing her, drowning her vision. She abandoned the attempt to beat Cheadle away, and reached out, flapping her hand desperately against the ground, fumbling in the dirt, groping for
her pistol. She felt her fingertips brush against the polished brass cap of the butt, and she pawed at it.
“Lord Roding will grieve deeply for your loss,” Cheadle said as her eyes rolled back, her eyelids fluttering, her mind abandoning her. “He will scream until his throat is raw from the strain to see them all from Tyburn. You have prevented nothing. You have only killed yourself.”
Charlotte curled her fingers around the pistol, and with the last waning, feeble ounce of mettle and strength she could summon, she swung the barrel around, her finger closing against the trigger. The report of gunfire was loud and sharp; the air between her face and Cheadle’s suddenly filled with a blinding flash of sparks and a thick, stinking cloud of smoke. She felt his hands wrench away from her as he slipped sideways. She forced the sole of her boot against his gut and heaved mightily, shoving him off her.
Charlotte gasped for breath, nearly gagging, as she rolled over. She clutched at her throat, dragging in mouthful after mouthful of blessed air. Her arms and legs felt tremulous and weak. She struggled to draw her knees beneath her, to rise, but she stumbled, unable to manage. She looked over her shoulder, her vision blurred and swimming with tears. Cheadle lay sprawled in the dirt behind her, his legs spread wide, his hands flopped out to either side of him.
Charlotte still held the pistol clutched in her hand. She whirled it against her finger, grasping the hot barrel in her palm and leveling the butt like a club. She crawled toward Cheadle, terrified to breathe, her voice whimpering helplessly, hoarsely from her throat. She expected him to whoop suddenly in a loud breath, to leap up from his prone position and attack her again.
She stopped beside him, kneeling upright to look down upon him, keeping her pistol raised and at the ready in her hand. The gunshot had caught Cheadle nearly square in the brow; she could see the entry wound where the lead pellet had punched through his skull. Blood oozed down the side of his head, glistening and black in the pale, dim moonlight. She realized what she had mistaken for shadows at first glance was really more blood. It pooled beneath his head in a dark, broadening circumference.
Charlotte’s breath escaped her in a low, fluttering moan. Her fingers loosened about the pistol, and it dropped to the ground as she shook. It began as a slight twitch, no more than a shiver in her shoulders, and it ran through her, a deep, uncontrollable shuddering.
She heard approaching hoofbeats marking a furious pace, and she jerked about, her eyes widening in bright new alarm, her hand darting for her pistol. She saw a horse rein to an abrupt halt ahead of her on the road, its hooves kicking up a swirl of dirt about its legs. She saw the silhouetted outline of a man astride the horse, his arm outstretched, moonlight flashing off the brass-adorned barrel of his pistol.
“Charlotte?” someone called out, and she nearly swooned in relief, the strength in her arm fading as again, her gun fell to the ground.
“Will!” she wanted to scream, but her throat was damaged, her voice no more than a warbling croak. “Will!”
He swung himself down from his horse, the broad tails of his great coat billowing gracefully about him. He ran toward her, crying out her name, his voice sharp and shrill with panic. “Charlotte! Oh, God, Charlotte!”
His boot heels skittered in the dirt and loose gravel, and he fell to his knees beside her, clutching at her. She felt his breath shudder against her, and she tried to lift her chin, to raise her lips to his.
“I… I am all right,” she whispered. “I am not hurt. Cheadle… he… he is…”
Will raised his head, gasping as he looked beyond her shoulder toward Cheadle’s fallen form. She felt him stiffen against her, his arm tightening about her shoulders reflexively, protectively.
“He is dead,” she said. “He… I saw him ride past me, and I… I followed him.”
“You shot him?” Will whispered, looking down at her. She nodded against the warm shelter of his chest. “With that little pocket flintlock of yours?” He sounded incredulous, and when she nodded again, he laughed softly. “I will be damned.”
“I… I bloody told you,” she croaked, looking up at him and managing a frown. “I told you I could handle a pistol.”
He laughed softly, folding himself over her, embracing her fiercely. “I stand corrected, then,” he whispered, kissing her hair. “By my breath, I will never doubt you again.”