Allison Lane (3 page)

She paced the floor as she considered her dilemma.  The suggestion that Fosdale might lock Cecilia up so he could foist Elizabeth on Symington was no joke.  He would never allow interference with his schemes – especially by a female.  With Cecilia around, no gentleman would even look at Elizabeth, which was another reason he would strike the instant Symington appeared.  She wouldn’t put it past him to lock them in a room together, then cry rape.

So how was she to escape?

She took another turn about the room.  Symington was calling to buy the Chaucer, so he would not stay long.  She stifled a shudder at the loss, for she had no chance of preventing its sale.  Fosdale had no interest in books. 

Keep your mind on business!
  The situation was too critical to permit sidetracking.

Idiot!
  Her feet came to an abrupt halt.

The solution was so obvious that she swore at herself for not seeing it sooner.  If she was not here, then no one could trap her, and Fosdale would not object to Cecilia’s flirting.  She need only stay away for a week.  By then, Symington would either be gone or in love with Cecilia.

Her great-aunt lived on her uncle’s estate in the next valley.  Uncle Jason’s family was in Carlisle for the winter, and no one had checked on Aunt Constance in nearly a month.  How was the woman enduring this endless rain?  Calling would raise no questions, particularly if she left without discussing it first.

It was perfect.  More than perfect, she realized when she noted that the rain had actually stopped falling.  Dry skies would explain her precipitous departure, for sunshine was becoming a rare sight.

Her mother would shut herself in her sitting room for the remainder of the day, as she always did after a confrontation with Fosdale.  He would stay in his study, plotting to rid himself of an unwanted daughter.  Cecilia would be perusing her wardrobe, planning her own campaign.  It would be hours before anyone missed her.

Satisfied, she packed a bandbox and called for her horse.

CHAPTER TWO

A fortnight later, Elizabeth pulled her hood lower as Aster picked a careful way along the path.  Little had gone right since she’d fled Ravenswood.

Today it was the weather.  It had seemed to be clearing when she’d left Bornhill Park.  Instead, the storm had roared back in, stronger than ever, with freezing gales and heavy rain. 

She shivered, resisting the urge to hurry lest Aster slip on this steep slope.  Heather and gorse covered the mountainside, offering no shelter, though once she reached the valley, trees would protect her from the coldest air.  Maybe.  Wind screamed through the pines below, whipping their supple tops as if they were stalks of grain, sending waves rippling across the stand that made it resemble a lake.

The path dropped into a fold.  Birches shook their bare branches, rattling like the bony fingers that figured so prominently in Uncle Jason’s ghost stories.  Or like the clicking needles of a thousand demented knitters fashioning a shroud around her living body.

Don’t be so fanciful.
  It was the scent that had raised that last image.  The air was ripe with rotting leaves and damp soil, just as it had been the day they had buried her grandfather.

The premonition of danger that had assailed her for the past hour was merely the product of the same vivid imagination that had cursed her for years, she reminded herself, hunching deeper into her cloak.  Sights.  Sounds.  Smells.  All arose from the storm.  It was annoying, of course, for the cold wind cut through her clothing as if it did not exist.  But it could not harm her.

She had been away longer than she’d originally planned, but that was good.  Even if this relentless weather had delayed Symington’s arrival, he would be long gone by now.  She would have heard if Cecilia had snared him.

Fosdale had been incensed at her escape, of course, sending a strongly worded command that she return home immediately.  She had refused.  And fate had smiled on her, for he could hardly chastise her decision.  When she’d arrived at Bornhill Park’s dower house, she had found Aunt Constance abed with a debilitating chill.  The superstitious staff had been dosing her with concoctions that were worsening her condition.

Elizabeth had sent the footman back to Ravenswood with a note that described Constance’s illness and hinted that the lady had summoned her niece to provide proper care.  No doctor served this remote part of Cumberland, so Elizabeth’s knowledge of herbs and her skill in treating injuries made her the logical person to call on in times of need.  She had even helped the midwife on occasion, though Fosdale remained ignorant of that last activity.  Since innocent maidens were not supposed to know about such earthy subjects, her expertise was another means of discouraging unwanted suitors.

Proper food and the discontinuance of buckbeans and cobweb pills had eased Constance’s nausea.  Bark teas, licorice, and a well-heated room soon had her back on her feet.  With no further excuse for staying, Elizabeth had headed home, acutely conscious that time was pressing.  If she had known the visit would last this long, she would have brought some of her work with her.

She shivered as another gust of wind raced down the mountain to slam into her side.  Aster staggered.  If only it would stop raining.  But the clouds showed no sign of dissipating. 

Incessant rain was not uncommon, particularly in spring, but this year the storms had been longer and stronger than ever before.  Even the oldest of the village residents could recall nothing like it.  Streams that usually bubbled now roared, racing with frightening power down the slopes.  Rivulets appeared in new places, waterfalls thundered, wind-whipped trees dropped branches or toppled altogether.  She had already passed several places where rock and mud had broken loose from hillsides, blocking paths or sweeping them away.

She reached the pines that clustered along the river, then turned downstream.  Aster’s hoof sank fetlock-deep in mud.  Before setting out, she should have made sure that the clouds were really thinning, but she had been too anxious to reach Ravenswood. 

Another blast of wind made her shiver.  She had been foolish to believe that she would come to no harm outdoors.  The storm’s fury was building to new heights.  Could she safely continue, or should she seek shelter?

Urging Aster onto stonier ground, she mulled her options.  No one lived on this side of the river, though Sadie Deacon had a cottage on the other side a mile below the bridge.  But that was a mile out of her way.  Ravenswood’s park was opposite where she stood, with the house only two miles beyond the bridge.  The park wall would protect her from the wind for half that distance.  She couldn’t stay here.  The only shelter she had passed since cresting the ridge was an empty shepherd’s hut half an hour ago, but it was uphill, exposed to the full fury of the wind.  In the worsening storm, it would take nearly an hour to reach it – if she could at all.  Away from the trees, even Aster might make no headway.

So Ravenswood must be her goal. 

A tree crashed somewhere to her left, reminding her that the forest presented its own dangers.  Aster readily broke into a trot.  He was a steady mount, but the storm was making him nervous.

If only it hadn’t rained so long.  The house was barely half a mile from where she rode.  She had often forded the river along here, for it usually spread across a thirty-foot bed as it picked its way around myriad boulders.  But today, water topped the high bank, raging far beyond its usual bounds in its race to the sea.

By the time she reached the last bend before the bridge, the path was gone.  The flood had picked up speed, gouging away the bank and devouring the path, part of a meadow, and everything else in its way.

She retreated toward the trees, choosing the rockiest ground to improve Aster’s footing.

“Damnation!”

A boulder toppled into the torrent as rapacious water consumed another chunk of land.  Even as she swerved farther from the river, ten feet of ground collapsed beneath Aster’s hooves.  He screamed.

For once, she ignored his predicament, fighting to free herself from the sidesaddle.  Too many ladies suffered injuries from being trapped when a horse went down.  And she might become one of them, she admitted grimly, ripping at her habit skirt, which was caught on the leg rest. 

Aster plunged and twisted in a frantic attempt to regain his footing.  The motion threw her hard to the right, freeing her leg.  But her shout of relief was lost as muddy water closed over her head.  She sent up a brief prayer of thanks that poverty had prevented her from trying that newfangled leaping head – which would have locked both legs in place – then struck out for the surface.

* * * *

Randolph cursed his grandfather as he stared out the carriage window.  Why couldn’t he have proposed this journey during the summer when the weather would be reasonable?  Nothing had gone right since he’d left the duke’s bedroom.

In his haste to get this errand behind him as quickly as possible, he’d overstepped on the stairs and fallen.  The resulting bruises kept him in bed for three days.  But at least the delay had set his immediate fears for Whitfield’s health to rest.  The duke had appeared to be much better when he had taken his final leave.  So the doctor had been right – not that it would release him from his promise.

He sighed. 

His brief stop at Wyndport had stretched into more than a week.  Ever since the accident, the marquess had suffered one ailment after another.  This time it was a fever that kept him muttering deliriously about ghosts and other spirits he alone could see. 

So Randolph had stepped in to approve plans for the spring planting.  And he had remained at Wyndport until the worst of the fever had passed.  But the illness had postponed their inevitable confrontation over replacing Jackson. 

He stared at the steadily falling rain. 

When he got back, he must have a serious talk with his father.  The man had long had a keen interest in agricultural reform, assuming a leading role in the management of Wyndport, adopting Coke’s successes, and devising experiments that led to his own.  But his failing health would no longer permit him to monitor daily operations.  He needed help.

Jackson was excellent at carrying out instructions, but he lacked the understanding and the decisiveness necessary to run a large estate on his own.  His dithering would aggravate the situation if a crisis arose while the marquess was too ill to issue orders.  Randolph had enough to do on his own estate.  He didn’t have time to run Wyndport, especially if he must spend the Season in London.

So they must replace Jackson.  The new steward would also have to oversee the manor staff and Wyndport’s other concerns.  It would leave the marquess with nothing to do, but too many decisions had been delayed in recent months because Wyndport was ill and Randolph wasn’t available.

At least the delay at Wyndport had allowed him to spend time with Lord Sedgewick Wylie, who had been visiting his own father’s estate nearby.  Sedge had been his closest friend since childhood, though they saw each other infrequently these days.  Sedge had not only commiserated with him over Whitfield’s demands, but he’d volunteered to accompany him to Cumberland and provide moral support.

Randolph absently fingered his card case as a gust of wind shook the carriage.

Sedge’s presence had made the journey bearable despite frequent delays.  In fact, it was the only thing keeping him sane.  He couldn’t remember a wetter year.  Even the turnpikes were muddy morasses, and side roads like this one were nearly impassable.  The one-week trip had already stretched into two.  He never wanted to see another raindrop.  Or another mud-filled ditch.  Or another ramshackle inn with poor service and worse food.  Even the best room last night had offered poorer accommodations than his stable boys enjoyed at home.

Every new delay and every fresh discomfort had increased his trepidation.  What if Whitfield or his father suffered a relapse while he was out of touch?  Could he ever forgive himself if he was unavailable when needed?

But those were fears he carried with him wherever he went.  It was the new ones that bothered him now.  Whitfield’s insistence had raised a premonition of disaster that he had firmly ignored.  But it lurked in a corner of his mind, prodding him each day and bursting into fresh dread when he had awakened this morning to the realization that it was the Ides of March.

He snorted at himself.  Shakespeare aside, this day was no less propitious than any other.  It was only the ceaseless rain that played on his nerves – and an aggravating suspicion that Whitfield had been less than forthright.

“What do you think happened to the baggage coach?” asked Sedge, abandoning his own perusal of the soggy countryside.  They were climbing a gorse-covered ridge that afforded no protection from the wind, and they’d already squeezed past one mud flow that nearly closed the road.  There was no way of knowing if worse lay ahead.

He shrugged.  “Perhaps they passed us.”  The suggestion was unlikely, of course, though he wanted to believe it.  “They wouldn’t have expected to find us at the Swan and Garter.  That was the worst inn yet.”

“Too true.  There wasn’t even a wench to warm my bed.”  Sedge laughed at the expression on Randolph’s face.  “I do love to make you blush.  But you need not chastise me.  I wouldn’t have trusted anyone in that place anyway.”

“Nor I.”  He sighed.  “I hope the baggage coach was not cut off by that bridge problem.” 

It was the first time either of them had uttered the fear they had shared since breakfast.  A harness strap on the baggage coach had broken while changing horses the day before.  That sort of repair usually took less than an hour, so Randolph had continued on, knowing their valets would catch up by evening.  But they had not.

At breakfast, they had learned that a bridge had collapsed the previous afternoon – a bridge they had crossed after leaving the baggage coach.  It was unlikely that anyone had been on it when floodwaters swept it away.  But this corner of Cumberland was so inaccessible that negotiating the detour would take days, even if the weather cooperated.