Flowers From The Storm (35 page)

“Shev,” he called quietly. “Come here, my dear fellow, and see if this will fit you.”

The duke gave her another brief glance, and then walked past her into the bedroom.

A looking glass hung over the mantelpiece. Maddy saw that she appeared no better than the men and attempted to make something of her hair, but with no brush or comb it seemed a hopeless task. She would have to keep her hood close.

She poured coffee, hoping that might clear the sleepy disorder from her brain. Durham seemed to have some plan— he’d mentioned a post coach, which meant that he intended for them to travel quickly.

Nothing but the mail would be faster, and no mail left before evening. A post coach would be swift and as anonymous as a ticket at the booking office— but to where? She hoped it was not too far. Then again, if she was to be hung for a kidnapper, perhaps she should wish it would be Scotland. Or America.

Or the moon.

As it fell out, it was Bath—or the Great Road in that direction, at any rate, in a beautiful black-and-red post coach emblazoned with the device of the Swan with Two Necks and gleaming in the lamplight of a frosty morning. Durham would not reveal to Maddy their final destination; in fact he had become somewhat close in his speech to her. When she protested the distance, he would only say that they weren’t bound for Bath itself.

Jervaulx and his friend slept in the coach. They made a disreputable pair, with Durham stretched across the forward seat and the duke propped uncomfortably against the opposite window from Maddy, wrapped in a borrowed great coat, unshaven and hatless, which was Durham’s peculiar notion of how a gentleman going into the country “for his health” ought to look. Maddy had agreed to this description of the duke as basically compatible with the truth, but she would not bend so far as to call him “Mr.

Higgens” and present herself as his sister. Not even to avoid transportation or hanging. Without going out of her way to volunteer the information, she was his nurse, if anyone should ask, and her name was Archimedea Timms.

As a result of this stance, she wasn’t allowed out of the coach except at the busiest inns, where no one paid much mind to any individual traveler amid the clatter and jingle of the horses ready-saddled, the shouts of the arriving postilions and the stage passengers hurrying in and out for a brief refreshment. Even then, she only descended alone or with Durham. He insisted that the three of them oughtn’t to be observed all together, in order to confound any pursuit. He’d paid a full fare to secure the fourth seat in the light and graceful post coach so that they would not have to travel with a stranger, and after the first change of horses and postilions no one even looked inside as long as he leaned out the window to bestow the tips. Even the dogs had been left behind with Mark, mightily unhappy, but far too conspicuous to be seen with the duke.

It was a wonder to travel so fast, in a well-sprung vehicle on an excellent road, ahead of all the stage coaches and sometimes passing even a privately hired chaise. She was not certain that she approved of the post coach. It seemed a prodigious expenditure of effort in the interest of earthly business. It must be a vain thing to go on in such a headlong rush through the early morning darkness. The horses galloped the whole of each stretch and pulled up lathered after half an hour to be replaced by a waiting team within two minutes. With the gentlemen asleep between changes, Maddy had ample time to watch the ghostly white mileposts spin past and to reflect on the speed with which she was plunging into oblivion.

With dawn, long blue shadows from the trees lapped across fields sparkling with frost. She could see glimpses of a huge castle in the distance, bulwarked round with towers and high walls. Banners at the turrets caught the first sun. Maddy leaned forward to watch as the rays turned the stone to pinkish gold.

“Wwui-sor.”

The duke’s voice startled her. She turned and found him watching her sleepily, his shoulders braced against the side of the coach in an awkward position.

The vehicle bounced over a rough section of road without slowing a dot. Maddy caught the strap.

Jervaulx’s head bumped hard against the wall, while Durham almost rolled off his seat. Durham caught himself, cursed, and pushed back into place, bracing with one foot on the floor, readjusting his hat over his eyes.

Jervaulx sat upright. He rubbed both palms over his face, then rested buried in his hands for a moment, his elbows propped on the greatcoat over his knees. The coach swayed along the road. Maddy thought perhaps he would wake up fully now, but instead he turned and lay down again, this time in the opposite direction. Since he was far too tall to fit into the available seat, this position necessitated that he lay his head in Maddy’s lap—which he did, brazenly, with no more warning than a deep sigh as he settled into position.

“Jervaulx,” she said sharply.

His only answer was a slow smile, perfectly uncivilized viewed in profile against the shadow of his beard, as if he were some indolent Gypsy happy to sleep beneath a hedgerow.

It being impossible to hold her hand in the air for the remainder of the journey, she found it obligatory to rest it on his shoulder. She held it there so lightly that on each bump it lifted, until he reached and caught it, entwining their fingers, and made her bear down solidly on his shoulder. They were both without gloves, Maddy having left hers far behind in the chapel, and Jervaulx’s elegant white ones forgotten in the rush.

Maddy watched the countryside grow bright, the castle at Windsor a massive landmark that appeared and disappeared among the hills and hollows of the road. He moved his head restlessly, snuggling closer.

With his free hand, he reached and adjusted hers so that her fingers rested against his temple and cheek, just touching his face each time the carriage rolled. Maddy pretended to ignore it. She reasoned that if the duke had been an ordinary patient—an ailing child or a sick neighbor—she certainly would have been glad to provide whatever comfort she could on this fatiguing journey. She told herself that Jervaulx tired easily, and that the events of the past twenty-four hours would have been enough to exhaust even a person in full health. Indeed, Maddy herself felt the fluttery weakness of too little sleep and too much apprehension.

It was just that his hand against hers felt so full of heat and life—firmly locked with her fingers, his shoulder pressed steadily close, his body not quite as passive under the rock of the coach as it should have been.

He made a sleepy mutter, shifting, tilting his chin up as if he could not find the most comfortable position.

His skin was scratchy with new beard, rough against her palm. She didn’t think he was asleep at all, and she was certain of it at the next change. As the coach rocked to a halt amid the whistles and shouts of the postilions, Durham rolled over and sat up. Jervaulx didn’t stir. After a brief glance at him and Maddy, Durham made an exaggeratedly thorough search in his pockets for his purse.

He finally found it. As he got down, Jervaulx kissed her fingers. She snatched them away. The duke sighed and nestled closer in her lap, without ever opening his eyes.

Durham put his hand on the window frame and smiled faintly at her. “I suppose I ought to bring your breakfast out to you, Miss Timms?”

Sometimes, in daydreams, Maddy had imagined a garden. It never had a house with it; it was just a garden, with room for everything she might want to plant. It had lavender around each of the beds and a low wall with the countryside beyond. In the spring, there were peas and asparagus, tulips and hyacinths; in the summer, vegetables and hollyhock, larkspur, sweet williams; in the autumn, the trees in the corners were heavy with fruit, hanging low over Michaelmas daisies and guelder roses. It wasn’t formal, this garden, as the straight paths and majestic lawns at Blythedale Hall were formal, meant only for strolling and creaturely talk. It was a working garden, with the flowers planted between more practical things.

The first morning that she woke and looked out the leaded window of the rectory at St.

Matthews-upon-Glade, she saw it. Her garden, or the disreputable remnants of it anyway, catching early sun, casting shadows, a thousand stems sparking fire as they bent in graceful arches beneath the dew.

It was a long-abandoned chaos, a disarray of weeds and old growth, the stone footways barely visible under ragged clumps of grass and autumn-dead foliage—but it was her garden. The dry stone walls enclosed half an acre, with fruit trees planted in each corner, and in the middle a simple urn. Beyond the wall, a pasture, vivid green, sloped down to a village. The houses spread out along the valley, all built of the same silvery gray stone, glinting light through the long finger of mist that blew up through the trees.

The rectory was sinfully neglected. Durham was even worse than she’d thought. Not only did he turn out to be one of the false priests—and a more unlikely man of God she’d never met, unless it might have been Jervaulx himself, or possibly Colonel Fane—he’d allowed this garden and this house to fall almost into ruin. Last night they had arrived at quarter past ten, exhausted, the duke so weary that he kept bumping into things that were perfectly easy to see. After Durham had unlocked the dark rectory and thrown open the door as if it were a welcoming palace, Maddy had been obliged to spend half an hour hunting it over for sheets to sleep upon.

They’d dined out of a paper on meat pies and cross buns bought mid-afternoon at Hungerford, where they’d left the Bath Road and struck off in a private post chaise, all three of them crushed together in a vehicle meant for two. Maddy had slept in her dress for the second night in a row, not very deeply, considering the desolate chill of the house and bedding. And now, in the morning, looking out at the abandoned garden in the sun, she didn’t suppose there would be anything suitable for breakfast, either.

She made herself as presentable as she could with no water or brush. All the furniture was covered, the hangings over the bed dark with dust. The mattress looked higgledly-piggledgy, made up with two layers of sheets and no counterpane. She feared that the little ball of dust underneath the frame had the unmistakable cast of mice about it.

In spite of the neglect, it was a commodious house. She descended the stairs, listening in vain for any sound of the men yet stirring from the bedrooms in the opposite wing. Her steps echoed as she passed through a carved screen into a spacious flagstone hall, its only furnishing a bare table of the antique sort, long and dark and massive, with legs carved in heavy globes of wood.

In the middle of it lay the paper that had held their dinner, folded over beneath a key. Her name was inscribed on the top. She took a deep breath and opened the stained document, smoothing it out.

My dear Miss Timms,

It’s my Misfortune to be forced to leave without Seeing you again, in Order to make my way backto Town with as much Speed as possible. I hope to be there by Tonight, which ought to Confoundanyone as to the distance we’ve traveled should Suspicion light on me. On my way, I will informMrs. Digby that I’ve made the Rectory available to my Ailing Friend and ask her to see to it thatyou have a Servant at my Expense. Beyond that you will have to depend upon the money from theBuckles until I receive my Ecclesiastical Revenues next month, as you find me sadly Flat at themoment. I hope that You will make Yourselves at Home. If all goes Well, I believe you may bestopping for some little time here. Rest assured that you are doing the Right Thing, Miss Timms,and please, to the Best of your Conscience
—
and perhaps even a little to the Worst of It
—
do whatyou can to Protect Him
.

Yr Servant, Kit Durham

P.S. If you please, will you tell Him that I will Think of a way to send the Dogs, unless I shootthem first.

Next month! He expected them to be here as long as that? Maddy folded the letter. She looked round the empty hall. In her bodice was the wallet with most of the duke’s three hundred pounds still intact, since Durham had paid for all the fares. She and her father could have lived two years on that.

Loud footsteps sounded on the stair. Maddy looked up just as the duke appeared in the doorway, disheveled and intense: dressed—but with nothing tied or buttoned. When he saw her, a look of deliverance came into his face. He held the doorframe, then leaned heavily against it, expelling a harsh breath.

“ ”
Lone
.“ He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“I’m here,” Maddy said.

He made a gesture with his head, back toward the wing where he and Durham had slept. “
Not
.”

“Durham has returned to town.” She held up the oily note.

Jervaulx pushed away, strode toward her and took it. He frowned down at the words, turning his head a little. The shadow of his beard had become a real darkness. Maddy wondered if there might be a shaving kit in the house or if she would have to go into the village. How safe would it be for them to show themselves? Durham had said that no one would recognize the duke here, but she was loathe to take any risk.

He looked up, smiling one-sided. “
Dogs
.”

Maddy made a face. “Yes. Thy wicked dogs will come.”

He grinned, an unkempt barbarian.

She took hold of his wrist and pulled the shirt cuff down from inside his coat. “Links?”