Chapter 17 #3
“Listen, my lord. Please.” She slipped under his arm, too aware of the feeling of Tom’s fingers in her hair, on her neck, just moments before.
“I thought I could discover my past without suffering any injury from it. I thought I could face the future with you if I were unfettered by all of these questions.” She hugged her arms. “But the truth is, as much as I wish to imagine my life began the day you rescued me under the elm tree, we both know it did not.”
“What are you saying?”
“That I cannot have both. I cannot have this.” She swept her hand to the cottage, ashamed that the tears finally lost control and rolled free. “Whatever I felt for Tom is … still there, somewhere inside me, whether I wish to admit it or not.”
“This is not your fault.”
“Nor is it yours, which is why I cannot allow you to suffer for it.” She smeared the tears with the back of her sleeve. “If things were different … in another life, I may have explored this new sentiment for Tom. I may, eventually, have loved him back.”
Lord Cunningham handed her a silk handkerchief.
She dabbed her eyes dry, and a mantel of duty fell over her shoulders, heavy and stifling. But she would grow stronger. This would be easier to carry. If she owed anything to anyone, it was to Lord Cunningham.
The one who had saved her life.
Protected her.
Now loved her—the Meg of today, not yesterday. “I gave you a promise, my lord, in the hopes I might please you. I gave that promise in haste. I need time to think. To choose how much of the old Meg Foxcroft I wish to carry into the future.”
“You wish to withdraw your consent to our matrimony?”
“I wish to postpone my answer, if you are not averse to it. And in the meantime, you must know I shall not be so unkind to you. If there are any more lessons with Mr. McGwen, they will be conducted at Penrose Abbey, with you present or any chaperone of your choice.”
“You are fair, you are forthright, and you are perfect.” He dipped his head up and down in acquiescence. “It shall be as you have deemed it.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
The back of his hand dragged down her cheek, smearing away the last of her tears. “No, my darling. Thank you. For making me realize, all over again, how much I love you.”
She was struck with the impression it would be right to return his sentiment. But the words gathered on her tongue, then dissolved, and she said nothing back.
The up-down rhythm of the horse stormed the uneasy waves in her stomach. Forget it. She had done what needed to be done. Hadn’t she known that from the start of her lessons? That this was only temporary?
She had not said anything to Tom. Likely because she was a coward.
She’d only returned to the cottage long enough to slip back into her still-damp clothes and bid Tom a murmured goodnight.
He had not spoken back.
Only looked at her, as if he knew. Did he understand her so well?
In the distance, several low-pitched hoots echoed across the night. One footman rode ahead, Lord Cunningham beside her, and another footman behind. The field sloped into a grove of trees, and beyond the wooded path, Penrose Abbey would be waiting.
Home.
She swallowed. Why was she doing this? Pretending to grieve the loss of adventures she’d only ever resisted? She’d spent all of her time with Tom McGwen accusing him. Then quarreling with him. His offenses were to blame, of course. What were they again?
Violence.
His potent, unexpected kiss.
Always doing what she did not expect.
Somehow, in light of him sitting on the floor untangling her hair or grinning beside her in church or showing her his absurd fishing boat with boyhood pride, none of the offenses seemed so reproachful.
Never mind.
This was better.
As she’d told him today, one who had no shame did his deeds in the light. What was wrong with restricting their visits to the proper course of conduct? Why couldn’t they sit and take tea together like anyone else?
A twig snapped in the grove.
“Whoa.” The footman paused ahead, lifting a hand in warning. He twisted in his saddle and surveyed the woods around them.
“What is it, Snell?”
“Heard something, my lord.”
Meg’s chest thumped, then settled as a hare-sized shadow leapt from a shrub. The creature darted across the path and disappeared.
She dismissed a pent-up breath. “It was nothing.” When would she no longer require guards for her every outing? Or cease feeling eyes on her back?
The horses moved forward again, hooves crunching pine needles and leaves—
A blinding flash of light, heat on her face, a boom exploding her eardrums.
The horse reared beneath her. Screaming, she groped for the animal’s mane, but her body was already midair.
No. She slammed into prickly earth. Craned her head up.
The ground shook beneath her as a second explosion engulfed the footman ahead. White flames ate him. Smoke mushroomed. She smelled gunpowder and charred flesh in one revolting, gagging breath.
My lord?
Pushing herself up, she squinted through the orange-lit haze of smoke. The second footman limped toward her, gun drawn, holding on to his knee. The horses were gone. Where was Lord Cunningham?
There.
She caught a faint flash of him, his billowing carrick coat, as he galloped his horse through the trees. She blinked hard. Out of control. Yes, his horse was out of control. Or he could not rule the reins. Not with the blast.
She was too dazed to think of any other reason he might be running away.
The footman’s garlic breath puffed heavily in her face. His weight bore into her, causing a dull ache in her neck, as she lumbered him through the tangling undergrowth. “Keep going,” she panted. “We are nearly through the trees.”
She was not certain where else the man was injured. Had he been thrown? Was that blood dripping beneath his livery sleeve?
“Down.” His trill voice made her drop.
They hit the ground just as a rock whizzed into the air above them.
Then footsteps, plowing closer … more than one.
“They’re h–h–here.” Someone she did not recognize. Another rock, bouncing off a tree trunk. “Give me th–that lantern.”
Terror trickled through her. Slow at first. Then gushing as light spilled into the darkness. No. Help. Tom.
“Run.” The footman elbowed her in the ribs, and the pain sprang her off the ground.
She hoisted his arm. “Come.”
“Go without me!”
“No. Please.” Awareness sharpened everything. The light swimming in the corner of her eye, the dark figures racing toward her, the cold stickiness of the footman’s blood on her hands.
Then a rock struck her shoulder. She ducked overtop the servant, whimpering, as a second belted her spine. Tom, please. He was not coming. She knew that.
Two bony hands grabbed her shoulders and reeled her into a tree. Her hair snagged in the bark as she sank to the ground.
They peered over her, both of them, and the swinging lantern light ousted the shadows.
One was tall. Deathly thin. Dark-circled eyes and ragged layers of mismatched clothes.
The other was young. Fifteen, maybe sixteen, with dented cheeks and a turkey-feathered hat. “Kill her,” he spat. “Hurry up.”
The other grabbed another rock from his pouch. “W–w–wants her alive n–now, ’member?” With a growling noise, he cocked back his fist—
A gunshot blasted behind them, and her hands moved over her face. She moaned as the boy’s sharp fingers snatched her arm and dragged her from the tree.
“Someone’s here,” he gasped.
Curses.
Fire catching the treetops.
“Get the girl and let’s get—”
“N–no time. Run.” He said something else, something muffled about not going to Bodmin Jail for the likes of thirty guineas, before the boy released his hold. They darted through the trees, disappearing before she’d made it to her wobbly feet.
“Sir.” She didn’t even know the footman’s name. She stumbled to him, dropped down to her knees, and unfastened the brass row of buttons. Her fingers shook. “Are you well?”
“My gun,” he rasped.
She glanced at his bloody hand. He still held the weapon. Why had he not fired?
He grimaced in shame, lips losing color. “Never had to kill anyone before, Miss Foxcroft.”
“They are gone now. This may hurt.” She extracted his injured arm from the sleeve of his coat, then ripped fabric away from the wound. The white of a snapped bone protruded through the flesh of his lower arm. “I need to get this wrapped until we get to Penrose and Dr. Bagot can—”
“Move over.”
Meg whirled, muscles coiling for action, but the man emerging from the bushes didn’t point his gun. Indeed, he did not even look at her.
“Stay away from him,” Meg spat.
He knelt next to the footman anyway, and with deft and wrinkled fingers, straightened the broken arm and pressed the bone back in alignment. “Rip off a portion of your petticoat. I’ll need it to secure this break.”
Meg hesitated.
The footman’s eyes rolled back and his head fell sideways in unconsciousness.
“Hurry up, girl. Now.”
She did as he said, knees shaking, and watched the white-haired man wind the bandage with as much efficiency as Dr. Bagot.
“Who are you?”
Still, he did not glance up at her. He moved to the footman’s leg and probed. Several seconds passed before he grumbled under his breath, “I’m your uncle.”