“I want it done soon,” the dark figure spoke to his pair of burly companions. The loud mingling of the patrons around them - filling their tankards, reciting stories in raised, drunken voices, sampling the wares that the ale wenches offered - made a perfect cover as the shrouded stranger spoke his business.

“I don' know if it can be done so quick like, sir,” the larger of the two sour faced mercenaries said, stroking his thick beard with his thumb and index finger. The giant towered above the dark stranger by at least a foot, yet the greasy-skinned scoundrel dared not provoke the quiet man.

“Yeah,” the second chimed in with a sly smile, “a thing's like yur askin' takes planning...”

The stranger pulled a handful of gold coins from his purse. Laying them on the table, he peered into the larger man's dirt brown eyes. With a smirk, he said, “Will this help to speed along your planning?”

The man scooped the generous stack of coins with one hand and weighed them in his palm, thoughtfully running his fingers over their smooth surface. The polished gold caught the glow of the surrounding candlelight and winked alluringly back at him.

“Right so,” the man nodded, stuffing the coins into a pouch on his belt. The smaller man scowled and reached a greedy hand for the giant's stash in protest, only to receive a swipe from the giant's eating knife. The sliver of a cut swelled with blood. Grabbing at his wounded hand, the man withdrew with a muttering of curses.

“Wha' you have to go and do that for, Brutus?” the smaller man whined.

“Shut it, Arl,” the giant snarled as he turned his attention toward their mysterious benefactor.

“So, what's this 'ere job, and why's it so urgent?” Brutus asked with an incline of his head.

“There's a carriage.” The man spoke slowly and plainly, not willing to offer a great deal of explanation. “It belongs to an earl. He's staying in the city. Watch it. As soon as it leaves, dispose of it, and anyone inside. Make it look like a robbery. Don't let anyone see you.”

“Who's the carriage a-carryin'?” the man called Arl inquired.

“A family,” the stranger responded in a smooth, cold voice. “Two men, and a small girl.”

“Sounds like a walk in the park,” Brutus said with a satisfied grin.

Arl turned to both men, looking visibly shaken.

“Now, wait a minute,” Arl said in a nervous whisper. “I don't thinks I like the sounds of that.”

“Sound of what?” the shrouded man asked, his ire stoked.

“Killin' a family?” Arl asked. “I mean, a child an' all? That doesn't seem right.”

“Well, well,” the dark man said looking at Brutus. “It seems your sniveling friend here has a conscience.” 

Arl rubbed the back of his neck anxiously under the scrutiny of both men, especially under the suddenly amused gaze of his monstrous cohort.

“Yeah?” Brutus growled. “Don' ya be worryin' none, sir. He'll do his job...” Brutus challenged Arl with a knifepoint to his chin. “Or I'll be throwin' his sorry arse in for free.” Arl leapt back out of the knife's reach. Brutus flashed him a broad, crooked grin. “Won' cha, Arl?” 

The amused tone of Brutus's voice masked an underlying threat. Arl turned his head to look at his hands, troubling his leather vest with his fidgeting fingers, responding to the giant‘s threats only with silence.       

“Wonderful,” the man said, rising to leave. He pulled out another gold coin and tossed it to Arl, who caught it with one shaking hand.

“That's for your conscience,” the man scoffed. “Now, go, do your job, and do not fail me.”

The dark man turned to leave, smiling beneath his hood.

‘He will pay,' the man thought, sealing the family's fate. He took one final look at his hired thugs, thoroughly satisfied with himself. ‘He will pay for the way he treated me...for the way he banished me.'

With a flourish of his heavy cape, the man strode quietly out of the inn.

***

The noon sun had just begun its slow decent into the horizon when Blaine helped his husband and daughter into their carriage.

“I wish we could stay longer,” Kurt said with a sigh. “There were so many things I had still hoped to do.”

“As did I,” Blaine smiled at his young husband. “But I need to keep you and Beth safe. Besides, what better place is there to hide than Paris?”

“I guess you are right, my lord,” Kurt said. “I've not yet been to Paris.”

“You're going to love it,” Blaine promised, kissing Kurt on the cheek.

Beth peeked her angelic face out of the window and pulled a face at Blaine. Blaine laughed at her, tousling her hair.

“I'm going to get you!” Blaine teased the giggling girl, who settled in the farthest corner of the carriage with her doll clutched in her arms. 

“Are you sure it is safe to travel the road at this hour, husband?” Kurt asked. He swallowed a lump lodged in his throat. All morning since the encounter with Puck, Kurt found himself plagued with an uneasiness he could not find words to explain. Blaine had been determined that they away as soon as they could get the carriages ready. Kurt was relieved at first, but now, as they readied to depart, Kurt found the uneasiness growing stronger.

Truth be told, he would have felt safer if Blaine had decided to return to the country, to their beautiful manor. 

Blaine sensed his husband's apprehension. He took Kurt's hand in his and held it gently.

“I promise to keep you safe, my love,” Blaine said. “Whatever it takes. Besides, I have traveled this road at all times of day, in all kinds of weather. The horses are strong, the carriage secure, and our driver...” Blaine paused a moment to point to a stout man in a tricorn hat checking the fasteners of the horses' bridles, “is prepared for any danger.”

Kurt smiled and sat beside Beth, who was making her doll wave to the servants outside the window. Blaine climbed into the carriage, closing the door behind him. He sat on the bench across from his husband and daughter and smiled at the pair. 

Blaine turned his head when he heard a knock at the carriage door.

“Once we get the second carriage hitched up, we'll follow right behind, my lord,” Geoff, his butler, said.

“Very well,” Blaine said. He knocked on the carriage roof with the knuckles of his balled fist, signaling to the driver they were ready to depart. The driver called to the team, cracking his whip above their heads, and the horses started at a trot, ambling down the stony path. 

Marley stood out from the other servants and waved, watching the carriage round the bend with her master and his family inside.

“God keep them,” she whispered, crossing herself. “Please, keep them safe.” 

The large black carriage wobbled evenly from side to side as the horses trudged along at an easy gait down the narrow dirt road. Blaine peered cautiously out the carriage window. With the shade pulled down to block out the cold, he could only see a sliver of the night sky as the thick material swayed with the constant movement of the coach. The moon rose full and luminous in the cloudless evening sky. A dozen times he had made this same journey at night without any incident. Rarely did robbers even roam this road as it was fairly well trafficked at nearly all hours. Still, something about the ominous moon standing alone in the starless sky cast a troubling shadow upon him.

He didn't like Puck finding Beth, or that Puck attempted to take his family away from him. He wasn't particularly fond of the idea of being in debt to Adam Crawford, of all people, but thank God he had been there. Blaine didn't want to think about the outcome of their altercation had the young baker not happened along.

Blaine looked across the carriage at Beth, curled up against Kurt's traveling coat and sleeping peacefully. Her round pink face and naturally red lips made her the picture of a tiny cherub. She had such brilliance, such promise. His eyes moved to look at his handsome young husband, sitting by Beth's side, a protective arm wrapped around her shoulders in sleep. Blaine smiled. Never in his life had Blaine felt so proud of anything. Surely someone was looking down on him.

The lure of sleep tugging at Blaine's eyelids, he readjusted his position on the carriage bench. He leaned his head against the wall of the coach and shut his eyes. 

‘Just a quick nap,' he decided. Just a moment to rest his eyes before he continued his vigil of looking out the window. Besides, if something were to become amiss, the horses would warn them. Before Blaine even realized that he had closed his eyes, he fell sound asleep.

A troubled whinny from the team jarred Blaine from his slumber. Amazed that he had actually allowed himself to drift to sleep, Blaine spun around on his seat in the carriage to see where the trouble was. Kurt heard his husband shift and sat up as well, his eyes fluttering to blink away the sleep that filled his head.

“What is it, Blaine?” he asked as he reached out to touch his husband's arm. “What is all the alarm?”

“I do not know, my love,” Blaine responded in a tense whisper. “Do not speak for now.” 

Blaine moved forward and slowly pushed open the shade to peer into the night. He could see nothing from the window, only the passing of tree branches strangely close to the side of the carriage.

‘Surely he could not have taken us into the forest?' Blaine wondered as he tried to secure a view of the road. The carriage rolled to a stop, the horses' steps coming to a halt with no instruction from the driver. 

Blaine knocked on the roof of the carriage with his cane to get the driver's attention.

“Driver? Why have we stopped?”

Now completely awake, Kurt sat quietly, fearful as he stared deeply into his husband's befuddled face. Even the air seemed to still around them as the oppressive night pervaded the carriage.

Bang! Bang!

They heard shots fire. Suddenly, Blaine heard shouting from above them.

“Do you see them?”

“I don't. Did you get them?”

“I don't know. I think I hit one.”

Blaine deduced that his footman or driver must have shot at the robbers, or whoever may have spooked the horses, and hit their mark. With a gut-wrenching lurch those thoughts were dashed as the carriage shot forward, the horses nearly screaming as they bolted into the night.

They heard more shots fire and a dull thud as something heavy landed atop the carriage, then rolled off the roof into the bushes. Blaine heard hoof beats quickly approaching the carriage, bearing down on them until they seemed directly outside the carriage door. Blaine could hear a scratching on the door, as though someone were trying to force their way in. Clawing his hands at the walls, attempting to keep his balance as he stood awkwardly in the cabin, Blaine tried to cross to the opposite side of the coach and lift the shade to peek out.  Before he could reach it, the covering burst into flame. 

A wild fiery creature of some sort flew through the window and landed on the floor. Blaine looked down in horror to see a burning torch lying at his feet. The velvet interior of the coach lit immediately. Kurt screamed, struggling and stomping at the blaze. From across the licking of the growing fire, Blaine spied Beth creeping backward on her bench, trying to escape. Blaine managed to grab off his traveling coat and tried to snuff out the fire consuming the floor of the carriage. 

The carriage meandered wildly, and Blaine knew with a sickening stab of reality that his driver and footmen were dead, the horses careening madly out of control into the wood. Singed by the flame and trying to escape, Blaine kicked at the carriage door with his good leg to bust it open, but it would not budge. Something had been lodged in the door handle outside to block the door from opening. Blaine continued to kick at the door, praying with every breath of smoke he inhaled for some means of escape.  Beth, her face blackened with soot, stood on the bench, her face twisted into choking sobs. Blaine tried to reach across the flames to touch his daughter, touch her hair, her clothes, anything that would connect him to the crying girl, but the heat of the fire repelled him. 

Kurt noticed the burning shade coming loose from the carriage. He grabbed Blaine's cane and batted at it until it broke free and flew off into the night. A surge of cold air fanned the dying flames, and blew the ashes around, but it quelled them long enough for Kurt to make it across to Beth.

“Follow us!” Kurt screamed, grabbing Beth in his arms and leaping through the window of the carriage into the dark.

Blaine's eyes went wide, but he followed behind, sitting on the ledge and dropping out backward, landing hard on his tailbone in the hard-packed dirt of the road.

“Blaine!” Kurt screamed. Blaine could hear his husband's footsteps, labored by the weight of Beth in his arms. Blaine tried to stand, but his prosthetic leg had dislodged and he couldn't get his footing.

“I'm here!” Blaine called into the dark, wincing at the idea that the bandits who attacked their carriage might be hiding in the trees, waiting to ambush them.

Blaine saw the carriage topple side-ways. The coach railed and turned completely over. The horses continued to drag the fated coach through the labyrinth of trees before the conflagration lit the hitch. The horses stampeded in an anxious attempt to escape being burned alive only to trip and slide full long off the side of a rocky cliff into the jagged rocks below.

“What…what do we do now?” Kurt asked, shielding Beth against the sound of the horses screaming in pain.

“We wait for the servants to come with the other carriage,” Blaine said, wrapping his arms around his husband and daughter. “They weren't too far behind. Then we go back to the manor.”

“In London?” Kurt asked in fearful surprise.

“No,” Blaine said, “in the country. It's remote and I know it well. The city is too crowded. It would be too easy for us to be attacked there.” Blaine smiled, gaze fixed on Kurt's eyes shining at him in the dark. “I am sorry, my love. Paris will have to wait.”

Kurt kissed Beth and kissed Blaine, holding them both, thankful to have them still.

“It can wait,” Kurt said. “Let's go home.”