Lisbon (17 page)

The defile was farther than it had appeared to be from below, and when they reached it they sank down on the ground to rest before attempting an even more difficult climb toward the summit.

Beside them the dappled mare stood swaying slightly, her head drooping.

Tom studied the defile, which narrowed as it trended upward. He could not see the fork Wend's father had described, but there could well be one up there. It was a chance he felt they had to take, for they could not risk letting daylight find them exposed on the mountainside. 
He looked at the horse. Her hooves would ring on the rocks and the sound would carry. He remembered the lanterns. They might be out of earshot of the men who carried those lanterns—or they might not. Anyway, this was where they and the horse would part company.

He stood up.

“She’s been a gallant mount, this mare, and she’s saved us more than once. ’’ Tom stroked the despondent animal’s mane. “But she needs to find water and grazing and she won’t find it up this rocky way, nor have time for it when we make our bid for the border.” In fact a tired, wavering animal would be a liability, for there would be some nearly level terrain to cross between here and the border, and while he and Charlotte could drop to the ground and lie still in reeds or rushes, a horse would stand tall—and it was doubtful that he could persuade a strange horse to lie down on order. “We'll have to manage on foot from here on, Charlotte.”

He took the mare’s bridle and turned her gently around, gave her a light dismissing slap on the rump. Obediently— thankfully, he thought—the mare sidled off, sliding a little on the slippery short grass, but heading ever downhill.

They were both silent as they watched the mare depart, because without her they had lost so much of their power to maneuver. They were committed to the mountain.

They looked at each other for a long moment and then they started up, climbing ever upward until at last Tom thought that Charlotte could stand no more and ordered her to rest.

“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go exploring. If I can find this place Wend's father mentioned, it will be a bit of luck for 
us.”

Charlotte was glad to rest and wait. When Tom came back he looked well-pleased.

“It’s a bit tricky to get to,” he said, “but it’s up there, just like he said.”

He led her upward to a place where there was a fork in the defile. He took the fork to the right and she clambered up after him to a place breathtakingly near the summit. It 
was indeed a sheltered spot she saw as she looked over a low wall formed by a fallen boulder into a scooped-out place that must have been created when the rain washed out a softer section of rock. On three sides the rock walls rose sheer save for a natural overhang that loomed over one side of an almost level stone “floor,” scoured almost smooth by rain. Off the main defile that led on up to the crest of this rugged peak, this tiny natural terrace was as private—except for the cleft entrance through which she now looked—as if they were in a small courtyard surrounded on three sides by house walls, a terrace over whose low uneven entrance barrier Tom had already vaulted and where he was now standing.

“Watch out you don’t walk too far that way.” He waved his hand at the fourth side, where the flat terrace wall seemed to disappear. “There’s a sheer drop that goes down forever, with a cascade rushing by at the bottom.”

“I can hear it,” she said. And indeed she could. The sound was making her thirsty, but there was no water up here. Unless it rained.

Without waiting for him to help her over, Charlotte leapt over the low boulder to join him. Her skirt caught on a jagged outcrop of rock as she sprang, an outcrop split away by last winter’s frost perhaps. It caught her by surprise and twisted her to the side so that she landed in a tumble of wide skirts on a pile of loose rocks instead of the terrace floor, worn smooth by rain.

Instantly Tom was bending solicitously over her.

“Are you hurt?” he asked sharply, for an injury now could be a desperate thing.

“No.” In the fitful moonlight she gave him a wan look and tried to struggle up, only to fall back with a sharp low cry. “My ankle,” she amended bitterly. “I seem to have wrenched it as I fell.”

Above her Tom bit his lip and frowned. He bent down and scooped her up. Reproach her he would not, for she had been as gallant as the mare, and full of spirit all of this wild ride into the unknown. He carried her to a sheltered spot cupped out of the protruding rocks above them and carefully laid her down.

“If it rains, you’ll have some shelter here,” he explained.

“Oh, Tom.” Charlotte’s voice was uneven and filled with anxiety. “I’ve ruined our chances, haven’t I—getting hurt?”

“Of course not,” he said soothingly. But he had a sinking feeling all the same. How badly her ankle had been injured, they would know by morning. Meantime . . .

“I’ll climb up to the top and have a look,” he told her restlessly.

He made his way over the low boulder that resembled a terrace wall, and back down along the way they had come over this broken pathway to the fork in the defile, and then climbed up the main defile until he reached the summit. There atop the highest rocks he looked out across a vista that seemed to include the whole of the British Isles.

The night wind blew his hair, and the moon was hiding behind a cloud so that the entire wild landscape had a devil’s darkness about it, mysterious, remote. From this high vantage point, seemingly on the roof of the world, he could see the lanterns of his pursuers moving about like fireflies in the darkness far below. So many of them. In an irregular line from east to west those lanterns swung, barring the way to Scotland.

It was worse than he had thought. He exhaled a deep slow breath. Penetrating that barrier would be difficult enough for a strong man. For an exhausted girl with a strained ankle it would be impossible. But perhaps they could hide here for a time until the searchers decided they had somehow slipped through the net; perhaps then the searchers would go on a wild-goose chase into Scotland; perhaps—

It was then that he heard the dogs. A faint distant baying echoed in more than one place. First he heard it faint and far off to the east. He cocked an ear and waited tensely. The sound was echoed by a distant baying far to the west.

It was then that he knew that they were lost. There would be no time for Charlotte’s ankle to recuperate, no flight into Scotland. No future.

His pursuers below were determined men. With the help of their dogs they would comb these hills, scour them like the rain. The dogs would find the mare he had set free, too tired to be far away, and then the dogs would find
them.

The thought of his own death did not move him so much—he had faced death with courage on many a slippery deck. But what of Charlotte? He had a sudden horrifying vision of Charlotte being attacked and savaged by dogs and
then
carried away to her bridal bed and a man who only wished to use her young innocence to cleanse himself of the results of his own debauchery.

As if to blot out the picture, he closed his eyes.

And opened them with a savage gleam.

He would fight! When he heard swords clanking or horsemen coming up that narrow defile—and surely he must, for horses’ hooves would ring on the rocky surface and alert him—he would hurl down stones upon them, he would loosen boulders, he would send man and beast careening down the mountainside to their doom!

Sadly, common sense returned.

Stones
. . . against muskets, against long swift swords. He had foresworn the ball and the blade as emblems of a trade he despised, put them out of his life in an effort to be worthy of Charlotte. Regret for his rashness poured over him. God, to have a cutlass in his hand and a pistol in his belt at this moment! He could not even defend himself properly against armed men!

He would fight—aye, he would do that, he would throw down his boulders, he would dart about trying to dodge the musket balls that would be aimed at him—he would fight, but in the end by sheer numbers they would overcome him. And if they did not kill him on the spot, which was likely, they would carry him off to a magistrate to be hanged nice and proper for horse thievery, or more likely for trepanning, for her uncle would doubtless swear he had kidnapped Charlotte with a forced marriage in mind— and the penalty for trepanning was death. Looking down over those winking lights far below, he had the eerie 
feeling that he was already dead, that the same evil fate that had placed him willy-nilly aboard the
Shark
had contrived to bring him here to Kenlock Crag so that the gods might laugh to see him struggle against overwhelming odds.

It was only after Tom had accepted the fact that tomorrow’s dawn might be the last that he would ever see that he began to think, and after a while his eyes lit up and he glared down into the darkness.

They would have him—naught could be done about that.
But they would not have Charlotte!

Tom came down the short distance from the peak with his mind made up.

“What did you see?” she asked, even as he vaulted over the low wall.

“Lanterns.”

Her breath caught.
“Lots
of lanterns?”

He nodded.

She was looking up at him, fear in her eyes. “Enough to bar our way to Scotland?”

“I’m afraid so.” He sighed.

They were both silent for a space. He stood looking down at her, thinking how lovely she was, how untouched, and how vulnerable.

“Then if we can’t try for Scotland, what do you think we should do?” she asked in a low voice. “Try again to go around the base of this mountain and strike out for Carlisle?” He nodded again. “It’s possible. ”
And it was, if miracles still happened.

“We could take a ship from Carlisle,” she said wistfully. “We’ve no money for passage,” he felt constrained to point out. “And now no horse to trade for passage.”

“Yes, but your mother lives in Carlisle, Tom. Surely at a time like this she would help us?”

She would not, but why should he spoil the illusion?
Let 
Charlotte dream a little longer. The dream would be over soon enough.

“Yes, we'll go to Carlisle." He tried to sound convincing. “To my mother. "

“Shouldn't we be starting?" she asked in a small voice.

“Not yet, there's plenty of time before morning. "

Fear crept into her voice at his offhand tone. “And if my foot is better, we could be in Carlisle tomorrow night," she said unevenly. And then, “Oh, Tom, hold me!"

He sank down beside her. It was exactly what he had had in mind. There was only one way to save her once he was done for, and that was to render her no longer a virgin. That would turn away the evil lord who would use her for his disgusting purposes, and there were others, men of wealth and power, men who could take care of her as he could not, who would covet her for her beauty and for all that she was. That tall fellow who had come out with her into the garden at Castle Stroud, for instance—and there would be others. He was not the only man who would fall in love with a girl like Charlotte. At Castle Stroud he had seen the great candlelit chandeliers and heard the strains of music floating out, and he had known what it meant. The gentry of Cumberland had discovered Charlotte now, and hers was a face they were not likely to forget. She could escape her uncle and men such as Lord Pimmerston and find for herself a bright future . . . with his help.

There was time—time enough for his purposes, at least. For there were other mountains about, and the searchers might well waste their time climbing those first. Even if they chose this crag, they might search a long time before finding the narrow defile he had taken—and in any event they probably would not attempt the ascent before morning.

Charlotte had moved over a little to give him room on the smooth rock surface. Hot desire for her welled through him every time he touched her—even brushing her skirt could bring a dark flush to his cheeks—and now . . .

He reached out ever so gently to take her in his arms, and she went into them, burrowing deep, as if to seek cover. Tenderly he stroked her golden hair. Making her 
his—even though it was only for a night—would make death worthwhile, he thought, and felt her quiver as he leaned down and dragged his lips over her own, traced a warm line with them along her smooth cheek, over her chin, and down her pulsing white throat to bury his hot face in the enchanting area between her young breasts.

Charlotte quivered beneath this sweet assault. Shyly she rubbed her cheek against Tom s dark hair and moved her body a little, the better to fit against his own. He was undoing the hooks of her bodice now, and she made no move to stop him. There was a purposefulness in him tonight, and of a sudden the reason for that purposefulness knifed through her.

“Tom," she whispered.
“You think were going to die
,
dont you?”

His head came up and he looked into her troubled eyes, lit by the fitful moon that had slid from behind the clouds to bathe the border country in its pale radiance. He would lie to her no longer.

“I don’t mean to let them take me alive,’’ he said quietly.