Perchance to Dream (A Twist Upon a Regency Tale Book 4) by Jude Knight

Author:Jude Knight [Knight, Jude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, romance, Historical
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2023-09-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

The post rider who had gone with the horses told John that the Tenbys had finished their first post at Landeneau. Apparently, Tenby’s servants had brought three carriages to await their master’s arrival.

The post rider was able to give John a good description of them, the first and most luxurious carrying Lord and Lady Tenby, the second with, so the post rider said, the little mademoiselle, her attendant, and two other servants. The dresser and the valet, he gathered.

The baggage carriage followed behind with lesser servants.

John set out the next morning, confident he’d have little trouble following their trail. All he had to do was ask after an English milord and his lady traveling with a little girl and an entourage in a procession of three carriages. Even a blind man would probably be able to tell him and Thorne which way their quarry had gone.

He started at Landivisau, where he and Thorne changed horses at the same inn as Tenby had used the previous morning. These horses carried them east to the next posting inn at Landeneau, where John received his first check. Tenby’s party had not changed horses at that inn or any other before or after the town.

He wasted nearly an hour making sure they had gone no farther before retracing his steps to the road that ran south from Landivisau. He had a piece of luck after an hour on this new road, when he stopped in front of a tavern in a little village, where several old men sat on benches in the sun smoking their pipes.

In his halting French, he asked after the carriages he was following. “They have kidnapped my daughter,” he explained.

One of them spat on the ground at his feet and muttered something that John could easily interpret, having heard more than his fair share of French expletives. It translated, roughly, as an instruction to go away and commit the solitary sin, and was followed by the epithet rostbif.

One of the others, however, admitted to seeing the cortège, the previous morning. They had over a day on him, but surely, he could catch that time up? He and Thorne pressed on.

A barrow holder in the marketplace at Quimper had seen the three carriages stop at the largest inn in the town, and the innkeeper confirmed that the Tenby party had eaten lunch before proceeding. John paid them both for their information, and bought pastries from the innkeeper for him and Thorne. They had cut an hour off the Tenbys’ lead, and would cut another by not stopping to eat.

A boy sweeping the inn at Rosperden said they had not stopped there, but he had seen them pass. They had changed horses again at Quimperle, in the middle of the afternoon. John and Thorne rode on through the Breton countryside, confident that those they pursued had stopped at Hennebon, perhaps for the night.

But there was no word of the three carriages at Hennebon, where John and Thorne faced another choice of roads.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.