Chapter 100

The hoof beats clattered closer, pounding along the rain-slicked road. Gabe must have thought better of chucking her out. Mrs. Hanney had been furnished with a guinea to say nothing, but then she'd rooted out Old Stumpy to carry Topaz, so Hanney knew they were planning on reaching the Stag and Maiden coaching inn. The Oxford coach was the only one leaving from there tonight. So it wasn't outside the bounds of possibility that Hanney had told Gabe that much.
The hoofbeats slowed. Splendor's heartbeat raced. She was not so far down the line with the earl she and Gabe couldn't put this back. All couples had their disagreements.
"Splen ... "
Topaz shifted suddenly to the other side of the cart. Stinking, black, muddy ground broke Splendor's fall as her feet slithered from beneath her and her nose stuck hard earth.
"Splen ... " Topaz hissed. "Ow, good evenin', sir."
"Top of the mornin'," Stumpy said. "That's a crackin' nag ye have there sor, if ye don't mind me sayin'."
She spat out a blade of grass. From what Topaz and Old Stumpy said, it wasn't Gabe. But so long as it was some kindly person who would help them get the cart out of the ditch, and herself out of this mess, she could also ignore the disappointment that flattened her veins.
"What seems to be the trouble?"
Every bit of her froze where she'd fallen with her nose two inches above the stinking black mud. Stillmore. What the hell was Stillmore doing here? No. Never mind what the hell was he doing here ... what the hell was she going to do about it? He hadn't come after her, had he?
"Well, kind of ye it is to ask, sor. Oih'd say the main trouble is the fact Oih've just finished me bottle and Oih don't have another one te come by."
She hunched her shoulders and lowered her head so the tip of her nose brushed the ground. O'Taggart, Old Stumpy, or whatever his friends liked to call him, had piped up. So long as he piped down again, she'd be all right. No one could see her. She was around the far side of the cart. And it was dark. Dark as pitch.
"Well, that's all very well for you and your bottle. But what about this lady here?"
Please, God, he didn't mean her. Please God that his gaze was as arrested by Topaz as hers was by that withered clump of bracken it might be provident to crawl behind.
"Well, sir," Topaz said. "We 'ave 'ad a little accident as yer-I means you, can see."
While Splendor thanked God for Topaz's timely intervention, it would be a big accident if Stillmore now dismounted and came around the side of the cart where she cowered in the mud. She must get out of here, even if it meant losing the cart. She could soon catch up if he managed to get it back on the road. Although really, he was hardly likely to dirty his boots and gloves in a ditch. Certainly not to help a drunk in a rag cart and a woman who looked like she'd been freshly dug up from the grave.
"So? How many of you are here?"
Terror stampeded through her veins as his horse's hooves clopped about the road. What a turn up for the books. He'd dismounted. She couldn't be found here, mud, leaves, and grass sticking to her torn clothing and her lips. She couldn't be found. Period. She eased onto her hands and knees and crawled quickly forward onto harder ground.
"Just the two of you, is it?"
"Well, sor, it depends on whether ye count the nag, or not."
Splendor pressed her palms into the bracken, muffling a shriek as a stone cut her fingers.
"The nag?"
"Aye. Clitherow, sor, is not the nag. The nag is-"
She strove to calm her hammering heart. Such damn cheek when O'Taggart was the one sprawling half-sozzled up there with rain dripping from the brim of hisstupid felt hat. She swallowed a curse as her knee slid right out from under her. She went all her length, and the thunder chose that moment to stop growling, so the almighty splatter as her nose hit the ground was probably heard back in London town.
"Our wheel is stuck, good sir," Topaz said. "Mr. O'Taggart here was going to be moving it, but he found himself waylaid. By the drink, sir. It is his curse."
"Oih don't know what ye're talkin' about. But t'is blethers."
"And I can't get down, sir. Not with my leg-broke it some weeks ago, as one does. I'll try if you want, but-"
Splendor eased the tiniest fraction of air through her dropped jaw. If Topaz troweled this on any heavier, Stillmore would run for the hills. All that was required was one of Topaz's special consumptive coughs. Then even his tracks would be dust.
Stillmore cleared his throat. "No. It's perfectly fine. Stay where you are till I have a look."
In that instant, the moon sailed like a brightly lit galleon from behind the clouds. She heard the squelch of his boots through the mud, and she lowered her head as far as it would go.
"Yes," Stillmore said. "It seems stuck fast."
She squeezed her eyes shut, praying the moonlight that iced her bones didn't illuminate her.
"Good sir, I can get down if you want ..." Topaz coughed. "I also have consumption. I shouldn't like to spit upon you by-by-"
"It's all right," Stillmore assured her. "Stay where you are just now. As for you ... "
Beads of sweat stood alongside the rivulets of rain on Splendor's forehead. She prayed to God he didn't mean her and that he snapped his fingers at O'Taggart instead. The 'you 'could be anyone after all. Besides she was probably unrecognizable
"Don't you think you should get up from there?" he said.