Chapter 2 #2
She sat forward hastily to pull back the curtain over the window in the door. But she could only see the pitch-black darkness and the heaviness of the rain still falling from the sky overhead.
The grooms had suggested stopping for the night at the inn five miles away when the rain first began to show signs of growing heavier, but Georgiana had refused.
She was very conscious of the fact she had made a promise to the Duke of St. Albans, to pass on to his friend, that she would reach Moreland Park before the end of May. As today was the last day of that month, Georgiana had been determined to honor that promise.
It had taken far longer to make the necessary arrangements for her to leave London than she had expected.
First, she had needed to write to Julia and Amanda, to gain their agreement for the deceit as to where she intended going when she left London.
Then she had needed to speak to her mother and sisters so she could explain that her intention was to visit with her friends in the country for several months.
Her mother had, of course, protested, but only because she did not like the idea of Georgiana surrounding herself with so much grief when they were already in mourning for the earl.
Georgiana had assured her mother that the country air would restore her.
It had been a longer journey than Georgiana had expected, and not an altogether comfortable one, despite the luxury of the ducal carriage.
They had finally made it into Norfolk yesterday, but the roads were not the best, and it had taken far longer to reach the coast, which was her final destination, than Georgiana would have wished. Hence, her refusal to stop at the inn earlier.
Unfortunately, the storm had become worse and the shelter less frequent on the barren landscape the farther they traveled toward the Norfolk coast.
The original inn being farther behind them than Moreland Park was in front of them, they had been forced to press onward to their final destination, despite the rapid deterioration of roads that had now become mere tracks awash with the heavy rain.
But they now appeared to have come to an abrupt halt, and along with those worrying noises from the horses, the carriage was being rocked dangerously from one side to the other.
It made Georgiana feel something akin to the seasickness she had suffered when she had traveled by boat with her parents to the Isle of Wight for a holiday when she was their only child and her father had not yet become bitter when he realized his only children would be three useless-to-him daughters.
Quite what she would have done next, Georgiana had no idea, because the door beside her was wrenched open by one of the grooms and her arm grasped in his tight hold.
“You need to get out, miss.” He took the lit lamp from inside the carriage to help light the way as he pulled her toward the open doorway.
“Quickly now, before you’re carried away in a driverless carriage,” he urged as the carriage began to lurch forward.
Georgiana only just managed to stumble down the steps.
The wind instantly blew her bonnet off her head, and only the ribbon tied beneath her chin prevented it from being taken away completely.
The moment her booted feet touched the ground, they slid from beneath her, and she tipped forward in the mud.
She looked up in time to watch as the St. Albans ducal carriage, and the two horses pulling it, shot away into the darkness.
The silence was instant, even if the darkness was slightly alleviated by the lantern still being held aloft by the second groom, who looked to be as covered in mud as she now was. “You all right, miss?”
Was she?
It had seemed like the start of an adventure for her to travel alone to Norfolk and take up employment with the Duke of Moreland.
A heady excitement in a life which had so far mainly consisted of a childhood spent avoiding her father’s cutting cruelty, and then as an adult attending balls and other Society entertainments, where her mother, at least, had hoped Georgiana would eventually find a suitable beau to marry.
But nowhere in that perceived adventure had Georgiana envisaged sitting in a carriage for days on end, watching the scenery become flatter and flatter the moment they entered Norfolk, before she was rudely deposited onto the muddy ground and then forced to watch as the carriage and horses disappeared into the darkness.
“I am well, thank you,” she nevertheless answered the groom calmly. “Are the two of you uninjured?”
“Yes, miss,” the grooms answered in unison.
“What on earth happened—” Georgiana let out a bloodcurdling scream—she had always wondered what one of those sounded and felt like when she read of it in a book, now she knew it was exactly as described!—as an apparition separated and rose from the muddy ground a few feet in front of her.
Revealing a ghoulish mask of a distorted face covered in mud and blood and dominated by two bright and gleaming green orbs that stared at her with venom in their depths.
Georgiana let out another terrified scream as that apparition began to rise to its feet.