Chapter Four
Sophie snatched the scone from Noah and took a bite so large she had trouble chewing it. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.” She put her hand over her mouth to avoid spewing crumbs all over his coat like an uneducated urchin.
His laughter, deep and soft, made it impossible to breathe and swallow at the same time. And, when she fell into a choking fit, she spat crumbs all over him anyway.
“Are you well?” The concern in his voice was as warm as his hands on her shoulders. It would be so easy to sink into his embrace, to pretend that he belonged to her.
She nodded and stepped back, wiping the stinging tears from the corners of her eyes. “That’s what I get for forgetting my manners. Thank you for thinking of me.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. After a moment, he sighed a long, tired sigh. “Of course.”
Of course he was tired. He’d trekked no telling how far to find help, only to bring them back in the dark. He had to be freezing, exhausted, and starving.
For his troubles, she’d thrown herself at him and pelted him with half-chewed scone.
“I think we’re ready to leave, Noah.” Eddie had his arms loaded with their meager belongings.
She felt as homeless as she looked, bundled in Noah’s too-large coat with sleeves that flapped like a bat when she gave directions.
It should have been a relief to leave, to see the men prepared to shovel dirt over the fire that had been her one comfort. But the ruined coach reminded her of the money, time, and effort wasted in making this trip. If Dumfries died from his injuries, that would be more guilt heaped on top.
Sophie stared out over the waves of fog. And there was the crying. She couldn’t turn her back on this place without knowing they weren’t leaving anyone behind.
“There’s someone out there, Noah.” She looked up at him. “I’ve heard her all night.”
“Sophie, the men talked about this in the pub. It’s the wind and the way the fog muffles the rustling heather. You only think you hear—”
“I have no imagination, and I’m never excitable.
” Those were two luxuries for which she’d never had the time.
Even her fantasies about Noah had proven to be a waste.
“I won’t go until I’ve had a look, because if we leave some girl out here to battle the elements and take her only fire, I won’t be able to forgive myself. ”
He nodded and cast a look over his shoulder. “We’ll be back in a few minutes. Sophie has heard something.”
The other man started to argue and then thought better of it. “We don’t have much time if we’re going to get the old man back to town,” Eddie said.
Noah lifted a lantern high and took her hand in his. “Come with me.”
Two steps, and they were surrounded by fog so thick that it was difficult to tell up from down. Sophie gripped Noah’s hand and focused on the circle of light that surrounded them.
“Which way?” he asked.
Sophie closed her eyes, recalling the cries and praying the wind hadn’t tossed them about before they reached her. “Right.”
He led her deeper into the heather, where the branches reached for their clothes, pulling at them to abandon their search and stay on the moor forever. Moisture beaded on the wool coat, turning the black silver, and making Sophie feel like part of the fog.
Their candle was giving up its fight as well. In the fading light, Sophie stubbed her toe on a rock and tumbled forward. Only Noah’s embrace kept her from falling into the mass of branches.
“Perhaps I am mad.” She braced her hands on his forearms for balance. “We should go—”
“Quiet,” Noah barked as he raised the lantern. “Hello? Can you see the light? Come toward it. We’re here to help.”
The gray shape coming toward them in the fog raised the hair on the back of Sophie’s neck.
The girl came into focus. She wore a summer dress, a light cloak, and once-white gloves that stopped at her wrist. She might have been out for tea if not for the carpetbag she clutched in front of her like a shield.
“Are you lost, miss?” Noah asked as he stepped forward. “Shall we take you home?”
When she heard the last word, the girl turned on her heel and ran back the way she came. “No,” she wailed. “Please, not there.”
“Wait.” Noah shoved the lantern into Sophie’s hand and caught their phantom in five long strides. “We won’t force you to go anywhere, but you can’t roam the heath.” She collapsed into his arms, and he lifted her with a grunt. “Can you get her things, Sophie?”
“I think so.” Sophie was dubious as she approached. The girl acted as though she was carrying everything she owned. However, the bag was surprisingly light.
“Lead the way,” Noah said as he stepped behind. “Just hold the lantern high enough that I can see.”
Every ten steps, Sophie had to stop and switch hands.
“Is the bag too heavy?” Noah asked. “I’m not certain I can carry it and her.”
“It isn’t that,” Sophie said as she ignored her muscles’ protest. “It’s the lantern. Why are you so tall?”
“Blame my grandfathers,” Noah quipped. “I inherited my height from them.”
More than once Sophie had wished for her grandfather’s height. It would have made driving so much easier if she had more leverage on the reins. “And all I got from grandda was his stubbornness.”
Noah’s laughter thinned the fog a bit, and the heather no longer clung to them. It was easier to walk. The murmurs of their rescuers grew clearer.
The girl in Noah’s arms began weeping in relief.
Shouts mingled with thudding boots, and someone screamed ahead. There was a crack, and a high-pitched whizz flew past Sophie’s ear, like a hummingbird homing in on a flower, close enough to ruffle her hair.
She had been shot at once, by a lout who was bent on robbing her, and she would never forget the sound of it. She turned back to see Noah stumble. The girl flailed for balance.
“Noah!” Sophie dropped the bag and ran back to him, her heart pounding in her ears. “Noah?” she choked from her tight throat as she pushed the girl aside and ran her hands over him from his head, down his arms, and across his chest. “Are you shot?”
He blinked up at her. “Shot? No. I lost my balance.” To prove his point, he stood and checked his clothes for blood and bullet holes.
Sophie looked at their newest addition. “What’s your name?”
“Nancy. And I can’t thank you—”
“Carry your own bag, Nancy, and walk on your own two feet.” Sophie spun on her heel and marched out of the fog.
The rescue had fallen apart. Several of the men were fighting to control a flailing, ranting Dumfries, who was waving the pistol in the air.
The doctor was torn between restraining his patient and scolding the others for upsetting him.
Eddie was in front of the team, keeping the horses from bolting.
Sophie marched to Dumfries and wrenched the gun from his hand. “If you weren’t nigh onto dying, I’d kill you myself.”
“It’s the lady come to take me,” Dumfries cried as he pointed toward the fog.
Noah and Nancy emerged arm in arm like they were walking in the park.
“I’ll be damned,” one man breathed. He looked to Sophie and dipped his head. “Begging your pardon, miss.”
If he was, then Sophie would be too.
Because it took everything she had to watch the girl on Noah’s arm and not shoot her out of spite.
*
“How long have you been on the moor?” Noah asked Nancy as he offered her the last scone.
“I left after tea today.” The girl inspected the fluffy treat and brushed her glove over the top of it to ensure it was clean.
Then she broke off a dainty corner and nibbled as though she feared it might be poisoned.
“I didn’t think it would take that long to walk to the village, or that the night would fall so quickly.
” She shuddered. “The fog was terrifying.”
Noah couldn’t help but compare her to Sophie, who carried her grandfather’s pocket watch so she always knew the time and read the weather forecasts the way vicars read the Bible.
And she had gobbled her scone—pocket lint and all.
His Sophie always had a level head.
His Sophie.
He wasn’t certain the exact date he’d begun thinking of her like that. It might have been after her first successful report at the Lending Circle meeting, when she had gone from accepting help to offering it. She had smiled all the way home that day.
It might have been the day she had challenged a brute of a driver to an early-morning race along the Serpentine, and taken his ill-treated horses as a prize.
She had spent weeks in the mews with them, softly praising them for every small improvement as she brushed their copper coats to a high sheen.
It might have been the day Matthew Foster introduced them and she met his gaze steadily and shook his hand with a businesslike determination.
“I don’t think your companion likes me,” Nancy said as she looked past him to where Sophie sat, head on her knees, his coat a woolen puddle around her feet.
Her hand had trembled in his as they had walked into the fog, but she had been intent on rescuing Nancy.
Just as she had fretted over being a nursemaid in the dark but had done it anyway.
“Miss Potter has cared for herself and those around her for most of her life. She may be sharp at times, but she worries more than people give her credit for.”
Noah could still feel her hands on him as she had searched for a wound after Dumfries shot at them. The pleasant shock of it had stolen all his thoughts, so that he didn’t think to hold her until she was already marching away.
“It is…odd to see a young woman traveling alone with a man so far from home,” Nancy said. “The ladies I’ve tended would never consider such a trip without a maid or a chaperone.”
The statement was loaded with the same judgment that they faced in London. Innuendo and assumption followed them everywhere, it seemed.
“Miss Potter is as much of a lady as your former mistresses.” Noah looked down his nose at Nancy. “And if she hadn’t been here to fight for your rescue, you would still be shivering in the fog.”
The girl’s eyes grew wide at the rebuke, and her chin might have trembled—though that could have been a trick of the moon. He couldn’t be bothered to care. Women like Nancy and her employers accepted Sophie’s help in and out of cabs every day without taking a second look.
Part of that could be explained by her work costume that made her look like ever other driver—she was just a shorter, thinner man. But when she dressed as a woman, which she did when she wasn’t working, the men of Society treated her worse.
Noah lifted his gaze from the silly maid and assessed the attention of the other men in the cart. They were still reveling, this time over their success rather than bravado, but their eyes constantly shifted to Sophie. Just like every other bloke on the street in London.
She joked that it was because of her hair, cut short to make it easy to care for and to make her look like any other lad atop a cab.
Noah knew better. She was alive in a way most people—male or female—didn’t dare to be.
Costume or not, she was impossible to ignore.
And her nontraditional choice with her hair made men wonder how lax she would be with other social standards.
Noah shifted his position, moving closer to Sophie, and met the gazes of those who dared to wonder. She was his.
That was the only thing that had kept him going in his rush for help. She was his responsibility, his to protect, his reason for success. His to love.
Whether he ever told her or not.
He wanted to believe that her touches were more than impulse or worry. However, in her regular day, she always kept distance between them. It had taken her six months to call him by his first name, for God’s sake.
The wagon slowed, but they were still jostled as the wheels rattled over the bridge that signaled their return to Goathland. Sophie raised her head.
“Is that a railroad?” she asked, her voice low and soft.
“It is. They have a spur line here.” Noah wished for enough light to see her eyes.
He wanted to know if she was as lost as she sounded.
Because that timid note to her husky alto was something he only heard when she felt at sea over a decision or an event.
“They’ve only just moved it over to steam.
I’ll look at the timetable and see if they can get us to Pickering in the morning. ”
He desperately wanted to see her face. “Sophie?”
The driver pulled the team in front of The Moorland Arms. The rescuers went to work lifting Dumfries from the lead wagon under Dr. Grant’s supervision.
The other boys clambered down and into the inn, anxious for a warm fire and a tankard for their trouble.
One offered his hand to Nancy and lifted her down.
Noah couldn’t move. Sophie’s empty stare contradicted her clenched jaw. He’d seen her battle tears before, usually born of frustration, and he had seen her bite her tongue to keep from lashing out.
He had never seen either battle directed at him.
“I acquired you a room before we set out,” he said. “And I asked the innkeeper’s wife, Siobhan, to have a warm bath waiting. She’s lent you a nightdress.”
Noah would have never asked, but the woman had offered, and she had been neatly dressed.
“Thank you.” Sophie drew herself straight and stepped over his legs to get to the edge of the cart, where she leapt to the ground without assistance. She was inside with her bag while he was still watching her go.
She never looked back.
“Are you going to sleep in there?” Eddie asked, a jaunty smile on his face. “There’s a right party happening. The lads are spinning tales about you walking the ghost out of the fog. You’d best get in there and buy the first round.”
Noah leapt over the side, and let the landing jostle his teeth. It was a good way to dispel any foggy fantasies and remind him that he was in the real world with a job to do.
A job. Nothing more.