Free Sally James by Fortune at Stake Page A

horse, and later the horse he had taken himself came back in a terrible lather.’
    ‘I took the black and he was chasing me,’ Susannah explained.
    ‘What happened? Why are you here now? Where did you spend the night?’ he demanded anxiously and she giggled.
    ‘I shot Lord Chalford in the arm and he hit his head - ‘
    ‘You shot Everard?’
    ‘Yes, why not?’
    ‘Why not? I should think it would be perfectly obvious why not! You might have killed him and then we’d have been in a pretty pickle.’
    ‘Would you have preferred him to rape me?’ Susannah asked quietly and Julian flushed angrily.
    ‘Of course he would not have done that,’ he replied stiffly. ‘He is a gentleman.’
    ‘That is far from the impression he gave me. I did not think his behaviour gentlemanly when he abducted me and tried to imprison me. No doubt he behaves differently towards girls he thinks are ladies, and well protected, compared with the manner he adopts to servant girls who cannot object for fear of losing their posts.’
    ‘You are mistaken. Is he badly hurt? His arm, you said?’
    ‘Yes, it was only a graze, but it startled him and his horse threw him. He hit his head and was unconscious for some time, but a farmer helped me take him to an inn, and I have been nursing him, because he was delirious.’
    Julian looked at her in horror.
    ‘You spent the night with him, at an inn?’ he asked, incredulous. ‘Oh, my God! The scandal!’
    Susannah laughed suddenly.
    ‘You need not despair. I did not reveal my name, nor his, though no doubt that will become known when his people are sent to the inn. However, I have no doubt he can survive any scandal! Not that he was in any state to be a threat to me,’ she added soothingly.
    ‘People will not consider that,’ he pointed out. ‘The fact you were with him is enough.’
    ‘Would it have been better for me to have spent the night at Monkswood?’ she demanded.
    ‘No, of course not, and that is why I followed you there.’
    ‘And found the bird flown. What happened?’
    ‘His people have been out searching for him all night. I have been helping and came back here to change my horse for a fresh one.’
    ‘Did you manage to send any messages to Aunt Sarah to tell them what had happened?’
    ‘No, of course not. I’m not so much of a gaby. I sent to tell grandmother we had been delayed, so she will not worry and go sending off to discover why we did not come. I hoped to bring us out of this coil without anyone else being any the wiser.’
    ‘Good, and we still can. We will send a message to Monkswood and then post back to find the carriage. Poor Jane must be hysterical. I wonder if Lord Chalford took her for me?’ she asked with a laugh.
    ‘She will not give us away?’ he asked anxiously. ‘I can trust all the others if I say it was a bet that went wrong and I don’t want my grandmother worried.’
    ‘Jane will keep her tongue between her teeth,’ Susannah reassured him. ‘Now I am starving, for I had almost no dinner last night and only bread and butter this morning, so do let us eat.’
    She refused to discuss the matter further and after their meal Julian hired a chaise to convey them back to where he had left the coach.
    He looked horrified when she produced the gold coins and explained she had taken them from Lord Chalford, and suggested using them to pay for the hire of the chaise.
    ‘I could not use his money!’ he exclaimed. ‘You should not have taken it.’
    ‘Would you have had me walk to London?’ Susannah asked tartly and, when she threatened to leave them in the parlour of the inn if he did not intend to use them, for she had no intention of taking them to Lord Chalford himself, Julian said despairingly she did not understand the niceties of behaviour amongst friends.
    Susannah almost snorted with disgust.
    ‘You condone abduction, and the rape of servants, but refuse to spend his money on things we would not have had to purchase if he had not