Chapter Two #2
A scraping, crunching rumble grew nearer, and a figure drew closer—lumbering and armless. Dumfries scrambled backward, curling into a ball as much as he could. Sophie swallowed the lump in her throat and stayed silent, hoping whatever it was would pass them without noticing.
Noah emerged from the fog, dragging one of the coach’s ruined doors. “Let’s get you on this and drag you back to the wreckage so we can stay together.” He moved as gently as possible. Still, Dumfries whimpered and moaned with every shift of his weight.
Sophie rested the lantern on a rock that came almost to her waist. “Give me your neckcloth, Noah.” He obeyed without question, and Sophie knelt beside their wounded charge. “This is going to hurt, but there’s nothing for it.”
She lifted Dumfries’s wrist high on his chest, only stopping when he screamed in pain. Then she secured it using the neckcloth as a sling. “That should keep the jostling to a minimum.”
Noah nodded once, quick and sharp. “You light the way. I’ll pull him along.”
*
Every muscle in Noah’s body was screaming in pain when they reached the hull of the coach. Dumfries wasn’t large, but anything inert was heavier. Then there was the weight of the door.
He lowered it as gently as he could, his arms shaking in relief, but the driver still cried out in pain.
“Should we move him again?” Sophie asked in a whisper. “He’s in a bad state.”
Noah looked into her eyes, fringed by thick, dark lashes. Her nose was smudged with soot, and the moonlight gave her skin an otherworldly glow. She was a beacon he would always find.
“Noah?”
He blinked to gather his wits. “Probably not. But we’ll need to keep him warm until help arrives.” He retrieved the hatchet. “You find a blanket; I’ll see about something for a fire.”
She disappeared into the coach to scavenge, never once complaining or asking for direction. He admired that about her. She might ask his advice or rely on his education, but she knew her own mind and could manage on her own.
His boots sank into the spongy peat as he went in search of kindling. All he found was heather. It was soggy at the top, but dry enough near the base to snap in his fingers. He had an armful in minutes.
Her mouth turned down at the corners when he returned.
“I know. It’ll burn in minutes.” He dropped his burden at her feet. “We’ll have to chop bits of the coach for a heartier fire.”
Dumfries whimpered under her ruined coat. She had used her petticoat to make a pillow.
“Don’t mind him,” Sophie said as she began stacking part of the heather in a circle. “He’s worried about incurring Middleton’s wrath.”
“He ought to worry about freezing to death.” Noah went to work with the hatchet, hacking at existing holes where the work would be easier. He had enough firewood in a few minutes, but he kept going.
Sophie was going to need it.
He’d carried his third armload of wood back to their makeshift camp before Sophie looked up at him from the small blaze she was tending. “That’s enough to last for several days.”
Noah squatted to meet her eyes. “I’m going for help.”
She stared out over the blanket of fog that ebbed and flowed like the sea. “I don’t think we should split up. We’re not that far from the road. Another coach—”
“There won’t be no other coach,” Dumfries shouted. “Everyone had sense to lock themselves in for the night, except you city folks who can’t be bothered to listen.”
Noah hated to leave Sophie with a man who was one step above a wounded animal, but he had to admit that the driver was right. No one was coming. The road was in the state it was because coach traffic was uncommon. And coaching inns existed for a reason. No one traveled at night.
He should have seen sense back in Egton Bridge, but he hadn’t liked the look of the inn or the gazes men were casting on Sophie when they thought no one was looking. Even Middleton’s clerk had been distracted more than once.
Not to mention that Noah wanted to be free of her before he did something that changed their relationship irrevocably—like telling her how he felt.
“He’s right, Sophie. And you know he won’t make it through the night if we don’t find a doctor.”
“Then we’ll go together.”
Noah shook his head. “We can’t leave him here alone.” He took her hand in his. Her fingers were chilled. Her grip was tight and hard. “You know that.”
She nodded. “I could go, and you—”
“No.” It was his job to let Sophie take the lead on many things.
This was not one of them. “I won’t sit next to a fire and watch you stride off into the dark alone.
If for no other reason than my mother raised me to be a gentleman.
” He straightened and brought her up with him.
“Goathland cannot be that far, and I’ll stay on the road. Perhaps I’ll find the horses.”
“The horses will be halfway to Pickering by now,” Dumfries cried. “They’re smarter than any of us.”
Sophie’s lips were pressed together so hard they had a white line around them. She turned on her heel and went to the skeleton of the coach.
Noah heaved a sigh. He’d expected her to be more reasonable about this. She was always so practical.
“You’ll need this.” She returned with his topcoat.
He took it, but only to drape it over her shoulders. “You’ll need it more.”
She shook her head until her hair moved with her. His fingers flexed with the memory of touching it, of learning it was as silky as he’d imagined.
“I have the fire, and you—”
“Will be moving fast enough to avoid the cold,” he said. His coat swamped her, making her look small and fragile, and very alone—nothing like the who had stomped out a blaze without a whimper. If he continued on those lines, he’d never leave her.
Sophie pulled his gloves from the pockets. “Then at least take these. They won’t fit me anyway, and I’m not giving them to Dumfries.”
“I’m leaving you the hatchet in case you need more firewood.”
“You’ll need a weapon.”
Now wasn’t the time to tell her that he boxed in the evenings at a club started by a friend from Oxford. “I can protect myself just fine.”
She retrieved the lantern and shoved it at him. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t such a gentleman.”
If he wasn’t, he’d pin her to the coach and kiss her until he was drunk on the taste of her. That could keep him warm for days. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise.”
She ducked under his arm and wrapped her arms around him, quick and tight. “I’m holding you to that.”
Noah didn’t have time to gather his thoughts before she released him and stepped out of reach. He’d lost yet another chance to hold her.
All he could do was nod and take a step away from her, and then another. And another still. When he finally gave in and looked over his shoulder, the fog had swallowed her whole. The only hint of her was the orange glow of the fire.
Noah faced the road and lengthened his stride, ignoring the cold and his bruises, thinking only of how quickly he could return.
The world was cold and quiet without her next to him, and her scent lingered on his shirt.
That woman, the one who didn’t want to be without him, the one who fretted over him and embraced him—she was completely different than the Sophie that froze to stillness every time he touched her and couldn’t wait to release his hand.
Was it just that she was afraid of being out here alone? Was it only the result of the danger and being so close to death? Would she change again once they were safe in London?
“Dear God, let me get back to her in one piece so I can find out.”
Noah lifted the lantern and focused on the steps in front of him. He ignored the damp cold seeping under his skin, the hulking shapes of heather, and the wind through the grass.
When he stopped for rest, he checked the stars to make sure he was still headed south, though he wasn’t certain what to do if he wasn’t. He wasn’t prepared to hike overland when the road was sure to lead somewhere.
Along the way he rehearsed what he would say to Sophie when he returned, the questions he had always wanted to ask, and the things he wanted her to know. It didn’t matter that talking aloud to himself made him sound like a nutter. No one was around to hear him.
He descended a hill, turned a corner, and came to a stop.
There was a fork in the road.
“Blast. I should have asked Dumfries.”
Though it wouldn’t have done any good. The man was half mad from pain and fear.
“I could flip a coin.” He raised the lantern first one way, then the other. The road looked the same in both directions. “The wrong way could lead me nowhere.”
To the left, up ahead, came the creak of wheels and the rattle of harness. A coach. Where there was a coach, there had to be something.
“Hello!” Noah called. “Anyone there?” No one answered. “We’ve had an accident. Our driver is gravely injured.”
There was nothing but the sound of the coach, growing fainter by the moment.
Noah drew a deep breath, turned to the left, and lengthened his stride. The driver would have to stop eventually.