Sovay Read Online Free PDF

had not been liked by all. These could be enough to bring him under attack, get his house ransacked. It had happened in other places.
    Gabriel saw his duty clear. He should stay here. Anyway, it was probably too late to stop Sovay now. What she was doing was madness, but she was brave and determined and would not be deflected. He had always admired her for that. She could ride and shoot as well as any boy, but she was heading into unknown danger. He could not help but worry for her. She was headstrong and stubborn with a temper on her which could eclipse any sense of caution. He remembered her and Hugh from when they were children. If you know someone then, you know them for life. They could throw a veil over their true natures: Hugh with his learning; Sovay with her ladylike accomplishments, but he remembered different. Mad, the both of them, competing with each other, neither with any sense of danger. He had got them out of scrapes without number, lied for them, taken the blame for them, suffered many a beating and never minded because he loved both of them in very different ways. Would he hang for her? That was the question now.
    He went to the tack room for his cloak and hat and took the blunderbuss down from the wall. It was an old-fashioned weapon, kept in case of intruders, but it was loaded and effective at close quarters. Beside, he didn’t have time to find another. He knotted a kerchief to pull up over his face, jumped on Belmont, the horse he had been about to put between the shafts of the hay cart, and galloped for the moor.

    Once up on the common, Sovay plucked a fresh sprig of broom. Captain Blaze. She smiled at the name as she inhaled the musky scent from the bright yellow flowers. She fixed the sprig to her hat with a diamond pin that she had acquired from some young fop and tucked some into Brady’s bridle.
    She stationed herself at the crossroads, adjusted the black eye-mask and green kerchief and loosened her weapons. Soon, she would pick up the sound of hooves on the flinty road.
    The horses slowed as they toiled up the long hill, but as soon as they reached the summit, the driver cracked his whip, ready to make a speedy descent. Sovay rode out and the horses shied but showed no sign of stopping. A guard sat next to the driver, weapons at the ready, another sat at the back. The coach company was taking no chances after the recent rash of attacks.
    The guard took aim as the coach swept past. Sovay felt the heat of the ball as it just missed her cheek. The driver yelled, and his long whip curled out again to lash the rumps of the sweating horses.
    ‘Stop!’ a voice called out from below her. ‘Do as he says!’
    Sovay glanced to the side to see that another had joined her. He was similarly disguised in hat and travelling cloak with a scarf pulled up to hide his face, but he was riding a heavy horse and wielding an ancient musket.
    ‘A clod on a carthorse,’ the driver spat over the side. ‘If I ain’t seen it all. Get out of my way!’
    ‘Carthorse he may be,’ Gabriel answered, ‘but he’ll have your rig over in a second.’ He waved the blunderbuss. ‘And this’ll blow a hole right through you. Do you want to try either one?’ The guard at the front looked nervous. The piece was ancient, but it could cut a man in two. ‘Throw your weapons down, both of you!’ Gabriel shouted as he rode up to join Sovay who had her own gun trained on the guard at the rear.
    A large face appeared and the window was filled with a man’s bulk encased in a Bow Street runner’s red waistcoat and blue jacket.
    ‘What’s the delay?’ he shouted up. ‘Drive on! Drive on, you scoundrel! Shoot the villains, you cowards!’
    The guards ignored him, throwing their weapons down. Gabriel nodded to Sovay, who rapped on the door of the carriage. The passengers alighted one by one.
    ‘Damned dogs!’ the man in the red waistcoat shouted up at the driver and guard as he got down. ‘In it together, I shouldn’t