4. Chapter 4- Lily
Hours later, when Lily crested the last small rise and saw the road into Stannington, the church steeple, and beyond that, smoke tufting from the building she knew to be the inn, her face crumpled with relief.
It had been a difficult journey, but she’d made it.
Now all that was left was to relax in her warm room and wait for this Mr. Abeer to fetch her.
The sun was nothing more than a faint smudge of brightness hanging low behind the clouds as she fought her way up the embankment to the road leading into town. Thistles snagged at her gown while low branches tried to tug the cloak from her shoulders, nearly choking her several times.
Not for the first time, Lily regretted the five brocade gowns rolled within her carpetbag.
They were practical, but heavy. All that difficulty was behind her now, however.
When her feet hit the solid packed earth of the country road, she took a moment and tilted her head back.
The sun had finally managed to peek through the clouds.
The light sent steam curling from the road.
She was steaming too, she realized with amusement. Wisps of moisture rolled from her wet garments as if she were a pudding fresh from the oven. Lily had just pointed herself toward town when she heard them—hoofbeats, coming fast along the road behind her.
Her heart clenched and she darted back off the road, ducking behind the thick trunk of a gnarled oak tree. Though her journey from Ballam Hall had taken her the greater part of the day, it was only seven miles by road.
Seven miles was not so great a distance if one had fast horses. And who else had the occasion to be riding pell-mell down the country road? This was a quiet hamlet, very remote. By the cadence of the pounding hoofbeats, Lily could tell there were at least two riders.
It’s Lord Hayes, she thought, her breath catching in her throat. Lord Hayes and the Magistrate.
With her next breath, she declared herself silly. It was probably the local farmer’s boys, racing their horses. Young men did that often for amusement, did they not? Surely her luck couldn’t be that poor, could it?
But then his deep voice snaked through the air, winding around the protection of the oak tree to reach her.
“Head into town,” Lord Hayes said. “Ask at the church and the inn, as well as anyone you see on the street.”
“You truly believe she made it this far, my lord?”
Lily recognized the voice of George, the groomsman, and sagged against the tree in partial relief. The magistrate must not have arrived yet.
“Where else would a young woman run to, other than to town?”
“And she didn’t say where she was going?”
There was a pause in which Lily was certain she and Lord Hayes were thinking the same thing—he hadn’t asked where she was going to meet her brother. And thank goodness he hadn’t, or Lily might have told him.
“Just check the town, George.” Lord Hayes sounded exhausted, as if he were the one being chased on foot across the countryside, not her.
“Of course, my lord.”
Hoofbeats cantered toward the direction of town. Lily glanced at her surroundings. The oak she hid behind was so large it had shaded out any other trees. Only thin and sun-starved underbrush had taken shelter beneath its mighty branches.
There wasn’t any possibility of slinking away, and not just because there was no cover for at least a dozen feet or so.
The same oak that shielded her had dropped a hundred thousand leaves in its lifetime.
She was surrounded by the dried, decaying things.
If she took a step in any direction, he was bound to hear her crunching movements.
Lord Hayes remained on the road, right where the main road met the smaller one into town. Every few seconds, there was a reminder—the huff of his horse, a stomping hoof, the creak of his leather saddle. And then, a heavy sigh that spoke of regret.
It intrigued her, that sigh. Despite the little voice inside screaming not to take the risk, Lily couldn’t help but peek around the trunk ever so slowly.
Lord Hayes was framed by the waning light.
Shafts of slanted sunshine broke through the trees on the opposite side of the road, casting his strong profile in a backlit glow.
Lily thought he looked like some sort of harbinger of doom, seated as he was upon his large black horse, his black cloak thrown back from his wind-tousled dark hair.
Steam still rose from the road as well as his horse.
Thankfully, Lord Hayes faced the town, one gloved hand holding the reins, the other fisted atop his thigh. As Lily watched, he tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and sighed again, soaking in the sunlight just as she had minutes ago.
“Sarah, where are you?” he murmured, desperation tinging his voice. “Where did you go?”
Lily was exceedingly grateful he didn’t know her true name.
As it was, the sound of her fake first name in his deep timbre was nearly enough to make her fall from behind the tree.
She considered the shock a warning of her own exhaustion and eased her way back around the trunk until she was fully concealed, safe once again—at least for the moment.
It was nearly half an hour later, the sunlight mostly gone, by the time George returned from Stannington.
“No one’s seen her, my lord. It seems she didn’t pass this way.”
“Did you tell them to send word if she arrives?”
“Yes, sir. Just like Belsay. Just like Ogle. I still don’t think it’s possible she made it this far on foot. We would have seen her on the road if she’d come this direction.”
“Phillip said he saw her leaving by the back field.”
“But surely she would have used the road eventually. And if she didn’t, there’s no way she made it this far.”
“Which direction do you think she went, if not east?” Lord Hayes asked.
“I think she must have turned north or south. I think we’ll return home and find that Phillip or Matthews has news of her. Perhaps she’s safe at home already.”
Lord Hayes gave a deep, noncommittal grunt.
“If not, you can have Mr. Belfour’s hounds in the morning, my lord. Those beasts have tracked a fox halfway across the county, four days after it was last spotted.”
Lily nearly gasped; her heart pounded. They were going to set the dogs after her?
George continued, “If anything, there’s very little we can do with night coming on. Surely she’s made it to wherever she was going, or she’s met up with someone.”
“None of the servants ever saw her with a man,” Lord Hayes snapped. “She’s never mentioned one to anyone. Save for the one she received this morning, she’s had no letters. And she said that one was from her brother.”
Lily pressed the back of her gloved hand to her mouth. He’d questioned the servants? Asked them whether she kept company with a man? The knowledge reinforced her decision to run without explaining herself truthfully.
For Lord Hayes certainly didn’t understand—or care, more likely—what such questions could do to a young lady’s reputation.
Miss Sarah Hughes would never be able to show her face in this part of the country again.
If Lily had entrusted Lord Hayes with her true identity, the man would only have besmirched her real reputation.
“Then perhaps her brother met her on the road, my lord,” George said gently.
“We’ve seen no carriages, no carts.”
“Which serves to prove that she never travelled this way. I’d wager she headed toward Harnham, my lord.”
There were long moments of silence in which Lily prayed Lord Hayes would listen to his groomsman.
“Very well,” he finally said. “We’ll take this road a bit further, then turn back at Clifton. Perhaps she went northeast instead.”
George sighed but didn’t argue. Soon, two pairs of hoofbeats headed north along the main road.
Lily sunk to her backside and resisted the urge to weep.
All her hopes of soon washing her hands, of resting before a fire, or even more impractically, ordering a warm bath, disappeared. Lily would have to skirt the village of Stannington entirely, keeping her distance from the houses on the outskirts, lest a dog’s alarmed bark give her away.
Lily bit back a groan. While George had been in the village, the sun had nearly set.
The grey gloom of sunset had given way to full dark.
The moon cast only a dim light—barely enough to see the ground in front of her.
Perhaps Lily should have been thankful—brighter moonlight would have made it easier for them to see her at a distance, to catch her.
She had made it seven miles. That was only about halfway to Blyth, and now it was night. Lily shook her head. Her gown was soaked through to the knees. She took a deep breath and tried to channel her sister Claire’s practicality, her sister Beatrice’s stubbornness.
Though it was shocking, Claire would probably point out that Lily had dry gowns with her.
Granted she wasn’t in the safety of her bedroom, but it was dark, and she was well hidden behind an oak tree.
What was more important—the infinitesimal chance that someone might see her change, or the importance of reaching Blyth?
Lily clenched her teeth and yanked at the leather straps of her carpetbag.
She selected her darkest brocade gown—a navy blue on grey.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she untied her cloak, yanked at the front lacings of her wet gown, and whipped it over her head, exchanging it for the clean one as quickly as possible.
Once she was redressed, she ensured that her purse with her earnings was still well tied, refastened her cloak, rolled the dirty dress into a ball and shoved it back into the carpetbag.
On a whim, she refastened the ties of the bag before she abandoned it.
Perhaps a hunter might find it and bring the gowns back home to his wife, where they could still be of some use.