Stacie grinned. “Nothing could be easier. We’ll simply have to organize some quiet dinners for just the four of us. Perhaps we can add their museum curator friend, Wiggs?”
Smiling, Henrietta tipped her head in agreement, and they continued to where the children were playing.
The rest of their stay went in meeting and being greeted appropriately by the Broughams’ three boys. Stacie was pleased to find that Frederick and Hubert had progressed to first-name terms as well. As soon as the children rushed off, the talk turned once more to musical matters. Both men seemed a trifle stunned by how very much they had in common; it was transparent that both had dispensed with the shields they had, apparently, kept high for well-nigh tw
enty years.
Men! Stacie had to smile.
By the time Frederick asked for the carriage to be sent for, and he and she rose to depart, and Henrietta and Hubert walked them to the door, it seemed clear, at least to both ladies, that the basis for an ongoing friendship had been laid.
“Perhaps you might come for luncheon next time,” Henrietta suggested.
“That would be lovely,” Stacie responded. “And we must, at some point, have you come down to stay at Brampton Hall.” She caught Hubert’s eye. “I’m sure Hubert will be keen to see Frederick’s collection.”
Although interest flared in Hubert’s eyes and Frederick didn’t look at all opposed, neither man said yea or nay; instead, they exchanged a somewhat startled look, as if only then realizing that their wives had formed an alliance, possibly even more definitely than they had.
As they shook hands and took their leave, Stacie couldn’t help but reflect on the irony that, courtesy of the attacks and whoever was behind them, she had made two female friends in as many days.
The curricle, drawn by Frederick’s bays, had been brought around to the gravel before the porch. Frederick and she descended the steps, and he handed her up, then climbed up himself, and with last waves to the Broughams, who were standing on their porch, they rolled off down the drive and turned onto the road back to London.
“Well,” Frederick observed, as he tooled the bays along the macadam, “while in the matter of learning who is behind these attacks, that was a waste of time, I’m…happy that Hubert and I had a chance to talk.” He glanced sidelong at Stacie. “We never really have, you know.”
“So Henrietta told me. Clearly, you both needed a shove, and odd though it seems, this business of the attacks provided it.”
“Indeed.” After a moment, he sighed. “While we were talking of music, it was easy to forget the reason we were there, yet we’re now left with the question of, if not Brougham, then whom?”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Stacie, distinctly sober now, nod.
“More,” she said, “I think we need to question whether getting their hands on the book is, in fact, the motive driving whoever is behind the attacks. You questioned that from the first, and I think you’re right. It’s not about the book—we need to think what other motives someone might possibly have.”
Crack!
Stacie shrieked and gripped the railing as the curricle lurched, then an even mightier crack rent the air, and the right wheel spun away, and the seat dipped precariously.
Not again!
Frederick tried to stand, catch Stacie, and fling them from the curricle, but this time, he’d been driving and was on the dipping side. He had a split second to decide—stay clinging to the seat and risk getting trapped under the wreck or leap into the middle of the road?
His earlier imagined vision of Stacie’s lifeless body in the wreck of the gig swamped his mind, and he chose the latter. Wrapping his arms around her, he flung himself bodily back—away from the disintegrating curricle and onto the macadam.
He clutched Stacie to him, trying his damnedest to land with her atop him, and caught a fleeting glimpse of a coach and four thundering up the road toward them.
Then he landed on his back on the road. His shoulders thumped down; his head followed.
Sharp pain exploded through his skull, and blackness engulfed him.
Chapter 17
They landed heavily, and Stacie lost her breath. For a second, she lay slumped on Frederick’s chest, then she managed to lift her head and haul in some air. She looked up—and saw horses bearing down on them, but before she could even open her mouth to scream, the coachman, shock written all over his face, was hauling on the reins and swerving the beasts to a stamping halt on the verge.
Yells and calls reached her, but she couldn’t make sense of them. She looked down at Frederick, “Are you all right?” on her tongue, only to find his eyes were closed. She registered how deathly still he was just as his hands slowly slid from about her and fell, lifeless, to his sides.
“Oh no!” She scrambled off him. Kneeling by his side, she patted his cheek. “Frederick?”
Not so much as a muscle twitched.
She stared at his chest. It rose and fell steadily. “Thank God.”