Damsel in Disguise by Susan Gee Heino Page B

The man was young and scared for his life. Unlike Julia, cooperation would come easily here.
    The carriage driver had found some rope and begun binding the criminal. The poor driver had been hurt in the earlier struggle, and he was only too grateful to let Rastmoor relieve him of this duty. The driver leaned with a heavy sigh on the carriage, still keeping his pistol at the ready should anyone need an assist. Rastmoor bent to further restrain the nervous highwayman.
    “Over here,” he said, grabbing the man and strategically moving him to sit where he’d have an unobstructed view of his friend’s tortured body lying in the bloodied dirt. This turned out to be a wonderful motivator for the young man.
    “We wasn’t supposed to be killing no women and children,” he said quickly, his eyes begging Rastmoor to believe him. “I swear, that wasn’t what I signed on for. Just a simple robbery of some London gent, that’s what I was told.”
    “Just a simple robbery, was it?” Rastmoor asked, yanking the ropes unnecessarily tight.
    “Ouch! Yes, a robbery,” the man said and gave another yelp. “Well, all right. It was supposed to look like a robbery, but Hank said the boss really wanted this man done away with. But I swear I didn’t know about that until we got out here. I don’t go for that none, killing and all, so Hank said he would do the deed.”
    “Yet you were content to share the purse, no doubt.”
    “A man’s got to make a livin’, don’t he?”
    “And murder makes a hefty living, I’m sure. But tell me, who is this boss you were working for?”
    The man shrugged. “Don’t know, and that’s the honest truth. Hank did the meeting with him, and it don’t look like he’s talking much more tonight, does it?”
    “No, it doesn’t,” Rastmoor had to agree. “So I guess you’ll have to do his share. Where did he meet this boss?”
    “I don’t know! I swear it, sir, I don’t. Warwick most likely, but to tell the truth, I don’t know. Hank just comes back from meeting him and he says we’ve got to get this carriage tonight, on this road at this time. So we do, only it turns out to be the wrong carriage.”
    “Obviously. So tell me, which London gent were you expecting to find here?”
    “Don’t know, sir. All Hank says is we’ve got to come up and down this road looking for a bloke with a broken axle; that would be our man. But we got confused. We found this here carriage sittin’ still and thought it must be the one. It wasn’t. I guess they was just taking a rest, or something. Soon as we come up on them, off they go. Hank says we’d better follow, so we did, and now here we are.”
    Well, that was information enough to confirm his suspicions. That axle had been broken intentionally, and he had been the intended target of this ambush. Damn, but it had to be Fitzgelder’s doing. He must have found someone to sabotage the carriage axle. But how? Rastmoor and Lindley had left Dashford’s just this morning. Could Fitzgelder have gotten to one of Dashford’s servants and persuaded him to do this? It seemed impossible; Dash’s men fairly worshipped him, and Mother’s letter clearly placed Fitzgelder in London. How else could he explain this, though?
    Well, he and Lindley had stopped for a quick luncheon break in Warwick, hadn’t they? That must have been where it happened. Yes, that made perfect sense. Their carriage had been left in the care of strangers for half an hour at least. Anyone could have tampered with it, damaging the axle to weaken it. These outlying roads were heavily rutted and rough. Anyone would have known the axle had no chance of lasting through their journey; they’d be left as easy prey for these thugs. By God, it was purely luck they hadn’t met up as intended.
    Unless, of course, it had not been purely luck. Lindley certainly had been in a hurry to get them off the road, hadn’t he? Rastmoor would have been just as happy to work at attempting to bind the axle