Edenbrooke (4 page)

The horses were still spooked and threatened to rear up when I grabbed the reins. It was not easy to convince them to move, especially to move backwards, and at one point I was afraid we were going to run right over James and Betsy. As it was, it took much too long to position the carriage.

I was sweating, my hands shaking. I tried to hurry and tripped on something. I sprawled hard in the dirt, scraping my hands on the little rocks in the road and hitting my cheek on the ground. I struggled to stand, my skirts getting in the way, and found my reticule at my feet. The highwayman had not wanted my money? I stuffed my reticule into my gown and turned back to the task at hand. Now came the difficult part—moving James up to the door of the carriage and lifting him inside.

I took him by the shoulders, Betsy by his feet, and we dragged him, in an agonizingly slow fashion, inch by inch, pausing frequently to set him down and catch our breath. When we finally had him at the door to the carriage, I looked at the height of the step from the ground and nearly cried. My arms shook with fatigue, and we still had to find a way to lift him up.

I put his shoulders back on the ground and looked grimly at Betsy. She slumped against the carriage.

“We must do it, Betsy. I don’t know how, but we must.”

She nodded, and we each took a boot, pushing his feet into the carriage. Then we climbed over him and into the carriage. We pulled and tugged on his legs until we had his hips through the door. I climbed back out and jumped down, sure that if he was still alive, he must be bleeding profusely with all of the pushing and dragging we were doing. I lifted his shoulders and shoved against him while Betsy pulled on his arms. We finally managed to fold him into the space. I shut the door quickly before he could unfold and drop back to the ground.

“Keep pushing on his wound!” I called through the broken window.

“How can I? He’s all folded over.”

“Just try!” I climbed up on the driver’s box, teetering as I realized how high up I was, and grasped the reins. At least I knew how to drive a carriage, thanks to my father’s training. The horses moved restlessly under my unfamiliar touch. “I wish James was driving as much as you do,” I muttered, slapping the reins across their backs.

We seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. I drove on and on, until my arms and shoulders burned with fatigue. It was not easy to keep four spooked horses under control.

When I finally saw a light in the distance, it was the loveliest sight I had ever seen. As we drew nearer, I was even more relieved to find the unmistakable marks of an inn. “The Rose and Crown” hung on a rough-hewn wooden sign above the door. I pulled into the yard and climbed down from the carriage, my legs shaking beneath me.

I hurried to the door, but in my urgency, I opened it with more force than was necessary. It banged loudly against the opposite wall. A tall gentleman standing by the bar looked my way, his attention captured, no doubt, by the noise of my entrance.

I walked to him as quickly as my weak legs could carry me.

“I need help in the yard. At once.” I sounded authoritative to the point of rudeness, but I was so anxious about James’s state that I did not care.

The gentleman raised one eyebrow as his gaze swept over me, from my disheveled hair (where had I left my bonnet?) to my muddy boots. “I am afraid you have mistaken my identity.” His words were clipped, his tone cool. “I believe you will find the innkeeper in the kitchen.”

I blushed at his disdainful look, and then my nerves, strung so taut with everything that had happened, suddenly snapped. How dare he speak to me like that? Anger flared hard in my chest and pride reared its head. In that moment I felt as strong and haughty as Grandmother.

I lifted my chin and said, “Pardon me. I was under the impression that I was addressing a gentleman. I can see that I was, as you said, mistaken.”

I registered briefly the look of shock on his face before turning toward the open doorway behind the bar. “Hello! Innkeeper!” A stout, balding man appeared, wiping his hands on his shirt. “I need help in the yard at once!”

“Yes, of course,” he said, following me out the door.

I opened the door to the carriage and there was no need to explain. It was a horrible scene: James bent over on the floor, Betsy looking up, her face chalky pale, the dark stain of blood on both of them. I was appalled, even prepared as I was for the sight.

I was immediately thankful that this innkeeper was a man of action, as well as large in stature. He reached in, lifted James in his arms, and carried him into the inn. I nearly cried as I watched him do easily what had taken Betsy and me such a long, torturous effort to accomplish.

Betsy stepped down from the carriage and wobbled a bit. I wrapped my arm around her waist, steadying her as we walked inside and followed the innkeeper up the stairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that arrogant gentleman standing nearby, but I ignored him.

The stairs seemed almost too much to ask of my tired, trembling body. The innkeeper reached the landing ahead of us and turned to a room on the left. I just wanted to find a bed for Betsy and then see to James. But a robust woman planted herself in front of us as soon as we reached the landing.

“What is all the to-do about?” she asked, hands on her ample hips. “This is a respectable inn, it is, and I’m not one to put up with any strange goings-on.”

I lifted my chin. “My coachman was injured and my maid is on the verge of collapse. Please be so good as to show us to a room.”

She snapped her mouth shut with a startled look, bobbed a curtsy, and said, “Pardon me, miss. I was not aware . . . yes, of course.” Then she waved me to a room on the right of the landing. I gathered from her reaction that she had not recognized me as a lady until I spoke. The thought rankled.

It was only after I helped Betsy sit on the bed that I noticed how stricken she looked. She had suffered quite a shock, what with firing a pistol and then holding a bleeding man while I drove.

“Lie down,” I said. I was relieved that she felt no need to talk about it, but merely collapsed across the bed, one arm thrown across her face. I watched her with some concern until the innkeeper’s wife (for so I assumed she was) bustled in with a basin, a piece of soap, and a towel.

“In case you want to wash up,” she said with a pointed look at my hands. I glanced down at them. Yes, they looked nearly as ghastly as Betsy’s. She hesitated at the door and said, “You look like you could do with a nice hot meal. Come down to the parlor, and I’ll have something prepared for you. It’s mighty hard to withstand such things on an empty stomach.”

I nodded and thanked her quietly, relieved to find that she was helpful after all.

When I submerged my palms in the basin of water, I felt every red welt and raw scrape. I hissed at the sting as I soaped my hands, washing all the way up to my elbows. The water in the bowl turned red, and my empty stomach heaved at the sight. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, fighting off the wave of nausea that washed over me.

I left Betsy snoring on the bed, her mouth hanging open like a hinged gate, and crossed the hall to the room I had seen the innkeeper enter with James.

James lay on the bed, eyes closed, while the innkeeper cut away his shirt. He moved deftly as he cleaned the wound, his face quiet and composed, his hands roughened by work but clean. I felt infinitely better knowing that James was in this man’s large, capable hands.

“Doctor will be here shortly, miss,” he said. “I’ve seen worse wounds than this—looks like he might have been clipped—can’t even see a bullet lodged in there.”

At the sound of his kind, gruff voice, relief flooded through me with such force that my knees went weak. “Thank you,” I said, my words choked by emotion.

The innkeeper looked sharply at me. “You’d best sit down, miss. You look none too good.”

“No, no, I’m fine,” I said, but I did notice that the ground seemed unsteady and my knees were shaking.

“Go warm yourself by the fire. There’s nothing for you to do in here.”

I nodded, feeling my head float in a strange, detached way. A chair by the fire sounded heavenly. I turned from the room and started down the stairs just fine. But somewhere halfway down, my legs trembled and my knees buckled underneath me. I sat down hard on a step, willing myself not to tumble down the staircase. The walls started to waver, the floor heaving up. I covered my eyes with one hand, my other hand braced against the wall, and struggled to keep my sense of balance.

A strong hand suddenly grasped my arm above the elbow. My eyes flew open in surprise. It was that hateful, arrogant man from earlier, standing a few steps below me. He looked at me with a strange expression on his face. It almost looked like . . . concern. What did he want? I tried to ask him, but the walls were falling in on me again. I closed my eyes tightly.

“I think you’re about to faint,” a low voice said.

Whose voice was it? It was too nice to belong to that man. I shook my head and said weakly, “I don’t faint.” And then darkness rushed up while I swooped down. We met in the middle and it swallowed me whole. I was relieved that it didn’t hurt.

Chapter 4

I awoke slowly, aware first of something soft beneath me, then a low murmur of voices nearby. I could not make sense of where I was. It was not home; it didn’t smell like home. I knew I should open my eyes, but somehow I could not. So I lay still and listened to the murmur. It was very pleasant. It reminded me of something from my childhood—when I fell asleep in the carriage at night and heard my parents talking softly around me.

The carriage.

My memory came flooding back to me all at once, so vivid that I gasped out loud. The murmuring stopped, and I felt someone bend over me.

“Well? Are you finally coming to?”

The abrasive voice sounded vaguely familiar. I wrenched my eyelids open and looked into the no-nonsense face of the innkeeper’s wife. Close as she was, I could smell the garlic on her breath and count four long hairs growing from the mole on her cheek. Both served to waken my senses immediately.

“I thought you were going to faint,” she said, “and sure enough, you did.”

As I sat up, I felt an excruciating headache swell behind my eyes. I put my hand on my forehead and looked around carefully, trying not to move my head too much. I could see now that I was in some sort of parlor. A table in the middle of the room was set with food. There was a fireplace at one end and curtained windows along the long wall.

The woman’s beefy hands encircled my arms, and she pulled me to my feet. She led me to the table. “Sit down and eat,” she commanded. I obeyed her first order, grateful to be off my wobbly legs. She glanced behind me and asked, “Is there anything else, sir?”

I looked quickly over my shoulder and immediately regretted the action, as it made my head swim and the pounding intensify. I pressed both hands to my forehead as that hateful man said something to the woman—I hardly heard what—and she walked out of the room without a backward glance, closing the door firmly behind her.

The gentleman—no, he was not a gentleman; there was nothing gentle about him, he was just a plain man—did not leave with her, but he did approach the table so that I needn’t turn my head to look at him. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He was watching me. It was very unnerving. I could only imagine how I must look after traveling all day, falling out of a carriage, lifting a bloody man, and then fainting. I grimaced at the thought.

He stepped forward and asked, “Are you hurt?”

I looked at him appraisingly. He looked genuinely concerned, which surprised me.

“No,” I answered, but my voice sounded rough, my throat as dry as stale bread. I reached for the glass at my elbow and drank, hoping to clear my head a little. I decided some food was a good idea and that I would just ignore the odious man until he left.

My plan did not work.

He was so obtuse he actually walked to the chair opposite mine and asked, “Do you mind if I join you?”

I wished I could think clearly. Where was my quick wit when I needed it? There was no civil way to refuse him, and I was too tired to think of a witty retort. I shook my head and watched him walk to the door. He opened it before sitting across from me. I felt instantly more comfortable, not even aware that I had been tense about being alone with a strange man behind a closed door. As I ate, the pounding in my head turned into a slight tapping, then the low hum of a dull headache.

The man did not eat at all. He only sat there and drank a little, all the while watching me as if I might fall off my chair at any moment. I was still intending to ignore him, but I found myself studying his face in quick glances. In the tumult of the earlier commotion, I had not noticed his features before. Now that I was at liberty to see him clearly, I was dismayed by how handsome he was. He had chestnut-brown, wavy hair and a solid jaw. I wondered what color his eyes were. He obliged me by looking up suddenly.

Oh. Blue. Yes, an extraordinarily handsome face, I thought, and then I realized that I had been caught staring at him. I quickly lowered my gaze, feeling my face burn. He was handsome. That made everything worse. The food had enlivened my senses, and I soon felt with full force the awkwardness of my situation.

Resentment flared within me as I remembered his snub and the way he had looked at me when I first entered the inn. He had undoubtedly thought I was some sort of common person beneath his notice. The fact that I had looked like an unkempt milkmaid did nothing to lessen the sting. It also did not help that he was not talking to me at all. Well, he thought he was dining with some vulgar person. Of course he would not make conversation. Arrogant, hateful man! Resentment and embarrassment burned into hot anger within me.

I glanced up at him from under my lashes. If a commoner is what he expected, then a commoner is what I would give him. He probably had no wit, like most handsome people. This would be easy.

“Thank you for the meal, sir,” I said demurely, imitating Betsy’s accent. I caught a brief look of surprise on his face.