Sovay by Celia Rees Read Free Book Online

cherries. She had meant something else entirely! Sovay blushed in spite of herself and bowed low to hide her confusion. She clearly had much to learn about what it was like to be a man.
    ‘I’d love to oblige,’ she said, taking the girl’s hand and kissing it. ‘But fear I cannot dally.’
    With that, she stepped smartly away, blew her another kiss from the door and made her escape with as much swagger as she could command.

    No sooner had she rejoined the highway than a carriage approached at speed, the coachman shouting for her to ‘Get out of the road!’ and forcing her to pull up sharp or else be spilled into the hedge.
    She bent over Brady, patting his neck, steadying him down, talking sweetly in his ear as she urged him back onto the highway. All the while, a hard knot of anger tightened inside her. She might have fallen. Brady might have been injured. Such behaviour was not to be countenanced. How dare he drive her off the road?
    By the time she had settled Brady, the coach was almost out of sight, but she knew it. James Gilmore had boasted often enough about the elegant chaise that their family owned, with its dark blue lacquered paintwork, high, slender-spoked wheels painted in black and gold, the very latest in springs and suspension, pulled by two fine sporting horses, perfectly matched and mettlesome.
    She imagined Sir Royston rocking inside the carriage, intent on who knew what meddling business. Her fury redoubled. He had plotted against her family, sent his son to spy on them, brought that rabble to invade her house and terrorise her father’s people, and now he’d nearly run her off the road! She had not intended to play the highwayman again but she spurred Brady on, cutting across an expanse of rolling heathland, determined to teach Sir Royston a lesson.
    She had found a deserted stretch of road at the top of a slight rise, just as the carriage was coming into sight, and waited until it was almost upon her before she rode out.
    ‘Stand and deliver!’ she shouted, pistols held high.
    The coachman hesitated, then thought better of it. He brought the horses to a halt.
    Sir Royston’s head emerged, demanding to know what the devil was going on. When he saw Sovay, his eyes widened.
    ‘What have you stopped for, you damned coward!’ he yelled to his coachman. ‘On. On!’
    The driver raised his whip and looked as though he would obey him. Sovay let off a shot and he put it down. She trained her other pistol on Sir Royston.
    ‘You!’ she shouted. ‘Out of the carriage!’
    Sir Royston emerged, his broad face mottled like spoilt beef.
    ‘Fill it.’ Sovay threw a saddlebag down to him. She cocked her second gun. ‘All you have!’
    ‘Will I? Be damned.’ He smiled and his small eyes gleamed malice. ‘I know that horse, and I know your secret, missy!’
    He made a lunge for Brady’s bridle, which caused the horse to rear and kick him in the chest. Sovay had to fight hard to retain her seat as the coachman took advantage of the sudden turmoil to reach for the weapon he kept in the box at his feet. Sir Royston lay winded and gasping, while the coachman loosed off a shot at Sovay.
    Brady shied and the ball went wide, but the coachman had another gun ready and his second shot was unlikely to miss. Sovay wheeled Brady away and trained her own gun at the driver. The shot missed but he loosed the reins in panic. The highly strung horses, maddened by the loud reports, bolted, overturning the carriage.
    Sovay rode off, spurring Brady across country. That had not gone exactly as she would have planned it. Any satisfaction she might have felt at leaving Sir Royston roaring in the road, his beautiful coach spilled in a ditch, was eclipsed by the knowledge that her secret was out. James must have told his father. She would deny it, of course. Who would believe such a preposterous thing? Nevertheless, doubts set in and, however much she might have relished seeing Sir Royston rolling in the dust, she knew him