A Lady of Persuasion (21 page)

A general cheer rose up again. The old man saluted with even greater vigor, sending the epaulette of his uniform askew.

Bel understood it now. The crowd took amusement at this old man’s expense. He must present himself as a candidate in every election, with no serious hopes of winning, and the people of the borough took from him a hearty laugh. It was pathetic, really. Poor thing.

“Others?” the man in the yellow coat called out.

“I nominate our esteemed incumbent, local freeholder and my friend, Mr. Archibald Yorke.” It was Toby’s voice. Wasn’t that a bit odd, Bel thought, for a man to nominate his own opponent? But perhaps it was a show of good sportsmanship on Toby’s part.

Mr. Yorke mounted the platform, accepting the crowd’s generous applause with a gracious nod. He spied Bel in her carriage and tipped his hat, his silvered hair glinting white in the sun.

A twinge of conscience pinched her, to think that Toby would usurp not only this old man’s seat in Parliament, but this accompanying measure of public respect. How sad for Mr. Yorke.

But then she remembered Lady Aldridge’s dislike of the man. Bel trusted her mother-in-law’s judgment. Besides, Mr. Yorke was a
Tory
, which meant he sat in opposition to nearly every cause she intended to champion.

Mr. Yorke has had his time. It’s Toby’s turn now
.

“All right, then that’s done,” the returning officer said. “Any others?” he asked, in a tone that said he expected none.

Mr. Yorke tapped him on one yellow-covered shoulder. “I have a nomination to make.”

The crowd quieted, seemingly as confused as Bel by this statement from the incumbent MP.

“But you’re already nominated,” the officer replied.

“I know, but I’d like to nominate someone else.”

“Someone else? Well, I don’t know that you can.” The officer riffled through his sheaf of papers. “Seeing as you’re already a candidate …”

“I’m a freeholder in this district, aren’t I?” Mr. Yorke asked gruffly. “Well then, I can nominate a candidate.”

“Er … all right.”

“I nominate Sir Tobias Aldridge.”

The crowd reacted with silence. Men looked from one to another, seemingly uncertain whether to laugh or applaud.

Bel decided to pity their indecision. As Toby mounted the platform, she clapped heartily, and soon a wave of polite applause built, sweeping toward the stage. Toby removed his hat and made an agile bow. The interest level of the ladies scattered through the assembly increased appreciably. They did not merely look; they gawped.

And who could blame them? Oh, he looked so handsome. The golden highlights of his hair caught the sunlight and reflected it to dazzling effect. The white gleam of teeth in his charming, boyish grin was visible even from here, at the edge of the square. Had he not been attired in such elegant clothes and so animated with youth and vitality, one could have mistaken him for a purloined Greek sculpture. A possessive sense of pride swelled her heart, to think that this tall, dashing figure of a man commanding the admiration of hundreds—he belonged to
her
.

“Well, this is interesting,” the man in the yellow coat said, scratching the back of his neck.

“Seems we may actually need to count votes this year. We haven’t done that in a generation.”

“Speeches!” someone called from the crowd.

The request was quickly seconded, and soon the whole assembly clamored for oration.

“Speeches! Speeches!”

“All right, all right.” The yellow-clad man indicated Mr. Yorke. “We’ll hear from the incumbent first, if you please.”

Bel had not heard many political speeches in her life. In fact, this one counted as her first. Still, Mr. Yorke’s address from the hustings struck her as very odd. For one thing, it was short—

barely a few minutes in duration. For another, he spoke not a word on any matter of legislative importance. He merely reminded the electors of his years of service in the House of Commons, cobbled together a few phrases about service and progress, and promptly ceded the floor.

Bel was almost offended on Toby’s behalf. Did Mr. Yorke think so little of Toby’s threat to his candidacy that he would first nominate Toby himself, then make only the slightest attempt to woo the electorate? While the crowd rewarded Mr. Yorke with a smattering of polite applause, she sniffed and busied herself arranging the folds of her skirts across the carriage seat. Well, perhaps she should be grateful for Mr. Yorke’s overconfidence and underestimation of her husband. Once Toby took the platform, he would charm the votes right out of the old man’s pocket.

A roar of excitement rose up from the milling throng. Bel looked up to see the ancient Colonel Montague shuffling to the center of the stage. Merciful heavens, why did they have to put the old man through such humiliation, just for a bit of entertainment? Did so little of interest happen in this borough?

The crowd hushed as Montague snapped another open-palmed salute.

“Duty!” The word creaked from the old man’s throat.

“Duty!” the assembly echoed, at a volume magnified one thousandfold.

“Honor!” Montague called.

“Honor!” came the unified roar. Fists pumped in the air.

The aged colonel raised both arms as high as he could. Which ended up being barely shoulder-level. “Vigilance!”

“Vigilance!” the crowd returned, overlapping the colonel’s own cry. It was clear this was a familiar litany to everyone in attendance.

Everyone but Bel, that was. She looked around the square. Hadn’t Toby called this a sedate borough, not prone to rioting? Over the waving arms of the crowd, she managed to catch her husband’s eye. He gave her a carefree shrug and a cheeky wink, apparently unconcerned. She could not say the same for the team of horses, who stamped and whickered with each rousing cry.

“My friends and neighbors,” Montague addressed the crowd, “our noble country faces a threat.

An enemy more pernicious than any Moorish infidel or encroaching barbarian.”

Who on earth did he refer to? Surely not Napoleon. The Battle of Waterloo was three years ago now.

“No, our enemy attacks not from without,” the old man continued, “but from within.” His voice trembled, as did his raised fist. “Yes, I speak of traitors. Those vile betrayers who would raise arms against their own king.”

Now Bel was thoroughly confused. At the moment, England wasn’t even under the rule of a king. No one in the crowd seemed especially concerned about infidels or traitors, however. The general mood remained one of amusement.

“We must quell the rebellion,” Montague went on. “It is the moral imperative of every Englishman to stamp out the uprising, seek out the treasonous brigands, and bring them to justice. Secure England’s rule and God’s dominion, before the traitors come after
you.”
He leveled one bony finger at the assembly and swept it in an arc, pivoting to stare down individual members of the crowd.

For a moment, his bent finger and wild-eyed gaze rested on Bel, and she shifted nervously on the carriage seat. She began to understand the large turnout for these proceedings. This was high drama indeed. How the carriage driver could sleep through it all was beyond her.

“Attack is imminent,” the old man warned, his voice cracking as its pitch soared. “The peril is real.” With a shaking hand, he withdrew an old-fashioned pistol from his coat and waved it in the same arc his finger had just traced. The general mood of the onlookers went from amusement to concern. Apparently, this was not part of the script. A nervous murmur rippled through the square, and the horses danced with unease.

“I call on every able-bodied man to join us. To take up arms with the Montague Militia. To secure our home county by answering the call: Duty! Honor! Vigilance!”

Montague pointed the pistol heavenward and called out, “Make ready!”

From behind her came a chorus of loud clicks. Bel pivoted in her seat to see a half-dozen men lining the rear edge of the square. One of them was the burly fellow who’d helped Colonel Montague onto the platform. In unison, the men lifted muskets to their shoulders, pointing the barrels high into the air above the assembly. Accordingly, the people in the assembly threw themselves to the ground. Somewhere a woman screamed. Bel wasn’t certain, but it might have been her.

“Aim!” the colonel ordered, tightening his own bony finger over the trigger of his pistol.

“Fire!”

A salvo of shots fractured the silence, and then panic poured through the cracks. Deafened by the booming shots and smothered in acrid smoke, Bel could scarcely tell her boots from her bonnet. All around her, people swarmed and shouted. The pair of carriage horses reared and whinnied, and the landau rocked on its wheels before lurching forward into the crowd.

And now there was no doubt about it. Bel really did scream.

The carriage driver, finally startled awake, hauled on the reins. “Ho, there! Ho!”

But the horses’ panic would not be quelled. They charged forward, dragging the carriage on a wild, serpentine course through the square. Before them, people leapt and dove, scrambling out of the way. Bel clung to the door sash and prayed, expecting at any moment the carriage wheel would meet with a human obstacle and leave a maimed or lifeless body in its wake.

Instead, the carriage wheel met with an inanimate obstacle—the stone border of the sidewalk—

and for a heart-stopping moment, the landau teetered on its two left wheels. Bel was thrown against the side of the cab, and the driver—

Oh, God. The driver was thrown completely. The landau righted itself with a bouncing jolt, and Bel looked up to see the driver’s box empty and the reins dangling. Then the reins, too, slipped from view.

With them went her last shred of hope. There was no way she could stop this carriage. Even if she could somehow leap the gap to the driver’s seat; even if she could somehow retrieve the reins—if an experienced coachman could not slow these horses, Bel had no hope of doing so herself. In their panic, the horses would drag her on until one of them stumbled or the carriage overturned. In all likelihood, she was going to die. It was only a matter of how many human and equine lives went with her.

Her impulse was to shrink low in the carriage and simply close her eyes until it was all over.

But she couldn’t even bring herself to move that far. Instead, she remained frozen, clutching the seatback and door sash in white-knuckled grips as the horses continued their frenzied rampage through the square.

Between the threats of musket fire and an out-of-control carriage, much of the crowd had already dispersed, the people squeezing into any available building or doorway. The remaining onlookers huddled around the hustings platform itself—on it, under it, clinging to its girders.

And, having careened off the sidewalk and altered their course, now the horses were headed straight for them.

No
.

No, no, no. Not all those people.

“Run!” she cried. And the people obeyed, fleeing the spurious safety of the wooden platform for the edges of the square. They scattered in different directions, but wise souls that they were, they all ran away.

Except for one. One man was running straight at
her
.

Toby
.

Bel’s pounding heart rate kicked into a gallop.

Dear God, no
, she prayed.
Not Toby
.

While everyone else in the square had spent the past thirty seconds fearing for his life, Toby had apparently used the time to shuck his topcoat. His arms were blurs of white linen as he leapt from the hustings platform and dashed out to meet the stampeding team.

“Toby, no!” she screamed.
“Muévete!”

Madre de Dios
. She needed to warn off her English husband, and suddenly her tongue could only work in Spanish. He was going to die, and it would be all her fault.

Even now, the horses were gaining speed, bearing down on him. Any moment, he would be trampled, dragged under the carriage. She only prayed God would be merciful enough to take her with him.

As if he’d come to his senses, Toby drew to a halt. Just in the perfect place for the horses to brush past him and the carriage wheels to grind him up.

But it never came to that.

As one horse came abreast of him, Toby changed course, now running alongside the panicked beast. He grabbed its mane with both hands and jumped, vaulting onto the horse’s back. Bel looked on in disbelief as Toby grabbed the reins near the bit and tugged with one hand, pulling the horse’s head to the side. The team and carriage followed, turning in a tight spiral.

Flung against the side of the cab once again, Bel muttered incoherent prayers and imprecations in her mother’s tongue. All the while, Toby soothed the horses, and her, with his deep, steady baritone.