Grace let out a sharp cry as Lord Wesley pointed his pistol at Devlin’s heart. She saw the snout of the weapon sway slightly. Wesley’s words were slurred. He was drunk. Mad with rage. Good heavens, had he followed them from the Isle of Wight? Why? She glanced desperately up and down the lane but a close copse of trees shielded them from the main highway, and she could see no houses close by. Nothing surrounded them but a stretch of fields and meadows, flat planes of gray that disappeared into the ominous black line of the woods. Wesley had forced them to drive onto this lane off the high road with his gun pointed at the coachman, but Grace sensed Wesley had only succeeded in halting them and moving them because Devlin wanted to do this. He could have rode on; he could have done something, she was certain. He seemed to have surrendered too easily. Now she stood at Devlin’s side on the quiet lane, her gaze trained on the muzzle of a drunken madman’s pistol.
