Reckless Angel (37 page)

They steered clear of the roads, where they might run into a troop of Parliament's soldiers on the lookout for any suspicious traveler. An old woman and a lad riding at night would be certain to draw attention, although not as much as a wounded man and a young woman. But fortune smiled upon them, and the closest they came to a dangerous encounter was chancing upon a troop of soldiers camping in a field. They managed to see the troop in time to turn back and skirt the
field unnoticed, but the incident left them both with sweating palms and fast-beating hearts.

Daniel's anxiety grew apace as dawn streaked the sky and they circled Oxford. They would need to take the open road from this point and Henrietta was slumped against him, barely conscious. He now held the reins himself in one hand, the arm in its sling concealed beneath his cloak.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered, “you must sit up and take the reins while we are on the lanes, in case we are stopped.”

She struggled upright. “I beg your pardon. Did I fall asleep?” She stiffened as they rounded a corner. A troop of soldiers were striding ahead of them.

“Ride straight through them,” he instructed softly. “We are on our way to assist at a birthing in Headington. I think 'tis the next village.”

Her back straightened, her head came up. She pulled the knitted cap lower over her brow and pressed her knees against the gelding's flanks, urging the weary beast into a trot. Daniel hunched forward, his hood concealing his face, and adjusted his skirts so that they completely covered his boots.

They came up with the soldiers.

“I give ye good day, good sirs,” Harry called down, her voice strong and cheerful.

“Where be you off to at such an hour?” demanded a trooper.

“Why to a birthin' in Headington,” she responded. “'Tis a breech, and old granny ere is the best midwife fer miles.”

The trooper raised a hand in acceptance and he and his fellows stood aside to let the gelding through.

“'Tis to be hoped they do not realize how the horse is flagging,” she muttered, kicking the animal into a canter until they were out of sight. “In another couple of miles, we can take a shortcut over Shotover Hill. Perchance there'll be no one but poachers abroad there at this hour.”

She sounded relatively robust, Daniel noted with re
lief, even as he summoned up his own last reserves of strength. Twice more they were hailed by soldiers and Harry produced the same explanation for their dawn journey. A cheeky, begrimed urchin and a silent, shrouded old woman on such an errand gave rise to no suspicions, and at last they were able to turn off the lane and onto the common land of Shotover. The horse stumbled in a rabbit hole, but recovered, whinnying unhappily, laboring up the bracken-covered slope. They crested the rise, and Harry suddenly sighed, her shoulders sagging.

“There is Osbert Court.” She gestured toward a stone gatepost. “We are here.” She slumped against him, finally defeated.

Daniel tightened his supporting arm around her waist and simply took the reins again, guiding the horse through the gateposts. As if he sensed journey's end, the gelding lifted his drooping head and stepped out along the driveway to the long, low, thatched house at its end.

“They'll still be abed,” Harry murmured weakly. “Go around the back to the stables.”

But as he turned the horse, the front door swung open. “God's grace, Harry, but I thought 'twas you from the window, although I could not credit it.” Will, in his nightgown, ran out. “The messenger brought news of my son from my mother. But, oh, Harry, I do not know how to tell ye of the battle…I have not been able to sleep, worrying…” Then his voice died as he took in Harry's extraordinary companion. “Sir Daniel…Can it be…?”

“One of Harry's brighter ideas,” Daniel said dryly, resigned to the inevitable reception. He shook back the hood of the cloak and slid to the ground. “Lift her off, Will. I cannot with one arm, and she's too fatigued to manage alone.”

Will's beam would have melted the Arctic snows. “I cannot believe y'are safe. Tom and I were to leave this morning for Kent. We thought it safe enough, since we've not been disturbed by troops here, and there's
none to suspect we've been at the battle. Tom has been so wretched. Oh, Harry, how did ye contrive it?” He lifted her down gently. “Come within.”

Esquire Osbert, summoned from his bed, arrived in the parlor just as Sir Daniel Drummond, with Will's help, was divesting himself of a voluminous print gown and calico petticoat.

“Good God!” he ejaculated.

“Quite so, Osbert,” Daniel said with a tired grin, holding out his good hand. “We must impose upon your hospitality for a short while, I fear.”

“For as long as ye care to. We've had no visits from Parliament's men and no reason to expect any, so the house is safe enough.” The squire, taking the hand, looked from the grubby urchin slumped on the settle to the wounded man. “But I understood ye to be taken prisoner, Drummond…Henrietta?”

“Aye,” Daniel affirmed, and his smile shone with pride and tenderness. “Henrietta…reckless as ever upon her errands of mercy…contrived my escape. I owe her my life.” He bent to brush her forehead with his lips. Then he returned briskly to the matter uppermost in his mind. “She's to be put to bed immediately. D'ye have a woman who could assist her?” He gestured to his useless arm. “I would do so myself, but, as you see…”

“I will fetch old Nurse,” Will said promptly. “She has known Harry since we were children.”

“I do not need to be put to bed.” Henrietta spoke up, her voice sounding strangely stiff and distant. “And I do not care to be spoken of as if I were not here. When do we start for London?”

“
You
are going nowhere, my elf,” her husband said firmly.

“Eh, Sir Daniel…eh, but I can't believe my eyes!” Tom's voice, hushed with astonished wonder, came from the doorway. “I was sure ye'd be a prisoner by now.”

“So he was,” Henrietta said. “Until I came along.”

Tom stared. “Well, I never. I said you was a wild hoity maid when we took you off the field at Preston.”

Daniel laughed softly. “That good deed has brought me more blessings than one man in one lifetime is entitled to, Tom.” He turned back to the still figure on the settle. “Sweetheart, I want you in bed,
now
.”

“But I shall be fit directly I have had something to eat,” she enunciated, frowning hard in concentration as she picked her words. “Then we can go to London to the girls. I have been thinking that we could borrow a cart. 'Twould be easier for your arm. You can keep your granny disguise and I will drive the cart. If we fill it with produce, then we will draw no attention, and once we are in London no one will ever question us.”

Her plan was received in disbelieving silence, a silence broken by the arrival of an elderly woman in cap and apron who seemed to find nothing untoward at this strange gathering in the early morning. “Well, now, Miss Henrietta, what have you been up to this time?” She bustled across the room. “Fair peaky, ye looks, even under all that dirt.”

“But are we not to go to London?” Henrietta looked at Daniel with the enormous, desperate eyes of one pushed beyond the limit of endurance. “Do not leave me here…Please do not leave me again, Daniel.”

He was sitting beside her, her head clasped to his breast, almost before the forlorn plea had left her lips. “Dearest love, I do not intend leaving you ever again, not for so much as a minute,” he promised with instant comprehension. His wife was at breaking point. The fear and desperation subsumed for so long under the need to plan and to act was now taking its toll, rendering her more vulnerable than he could ever remember seeing her. “Tom will go to London and bring the children here.”

“Aye, that I will, Lady Drummond,” Tom agreed hastily. “I'll be off within the hour and bring the little maids to ye. Now don't ye worry about a thing,” he added awkwardly, scratching his head before turning and stomping out of the parlor.

“Come, elf, I will take you abovestairs, and Nurse will put you to bed.”

“'Tis a peppermint caudle she'll be needing, I shouldn't wonder,” the woman said. “Always was partial to them, was Miss Henrietta. Come along, m'dear. Master Will says y'are with child. Ye've more than yourself to take care of, these days.”

Henrietta yielded the dikes of self-determination. She was aware of being undressed, of warm water laving her skin, of soft linen covering her body, of sweet-smelling sheets and the deep embrace of a feather mattress, of hot, thin, wine-spiced gruel spooned into her obediently opened mouth. And all the while, she was aware of Daniel, who never moved out of her line of vision, who spoke gently to her, caressed her cheek with his finger, brushed her mouth with his, held her hand until she slipped into merciful, healing oblivion.

Daniel gazed upon his sleeping wife and wondered how such a wondrous, magical creature had been shaped, how such a loving and giving spirit could have emerged from the arid soil of her childhood. And he wondered what he had done to deserve the gift of her love, the immeasurable joy of her self to inform his life.

 

“Did Daddy really dress up as a lady, Harry?”

“Most definitely not a lady, Lizzie. A veritable crone in print and calico.” Laughing, Daniel came into the sunny bedchamber, where his wife lay propped upon pillows in the big bed and his daughters were sprawled in most indecorous fashion across the quilt.

“What an adventure,” Lizzie said wistfully. “I wish I could have an adventure.”

“I don't,” Nan said, clambering off the bed and going to hug her father's knees. “Daddy was wounded, and he hasn't let Harry get out of bed for a week. I do not think adventures are at all nice things.”

Daniel bent to hitch her up onto his hip, awkward because of his one sound hand. “I think ye have the right of it, Nan. I have certainly had enough of adven
turing. Mistress Osbert and Julie and the babe are arrived. Why d'ye not go and greet them?”

“You just want to be alone with Harry,” Lizzie observed, sliding off the bed.

“Impertinent minx,” her father said, but there was a chuckle in his voice. “Off with you!” He set Nan on her feet, pointing with an imperative finger to the door. The girls followed its direction, Lizzie casting both adults a mischievous grin over her shoulder.

“Do you think that child is taking shameless advantage of my reduced mobility?” Daniel inquired, mildly curious, as he turned the key in the door.

“I shouldn't be at all surprised,” Henrietta replied, smiling.

“Mmmm…well, she's going to be in for a shock one of these fine days,” he said amiably, sitting on the bed. “I must find them another governess. Unbutton my shirt, will you, love. 'Twill be quicker if you do it.”

Henrietta chuckled in mischievous comprehension and her fingers moved nimbly, pushing the shirt off his shoulders, easing it over his bandaged arm. “Am I to understand that matters between us are now to return to normal, husband?”

“You are,” he answered with a complacent smile. “I have been restrained quite long enough. 'Tis time you resumed your conjugal duties, madam wife.”

“Anyone would think I had been neglecting them through choice,” she murmured, aggrieved, lying back on the pillows and kicking the bedcovers aside. “I thought 'twas your wound causing the difficulty.”

“I do not make love with my arm.”

That was certainly true, reflected Henrietta some considerable time later, stroking the dark head resting against her breast. “Will we go home now, love?”

“Aye,” Daniel said, pressing his lips into the soft curve of her bosom. “'Tis time for the peace of surrender, my elf. The world we knew is defeated. We must fashion a new one from the materials given us. England is still for Englishmen, be she a Puritan commonwealth or no.”

“And a man can still tend his land, care for his children, enjoy his wife,” she said with that same mischievous chuckle. “And this wife would like to be enjoyed again, if you please.”