Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) (20 page)

Her feet sank sharply into the sand as she tried her best to increase her speed. The buckskin breeches clung crusty and cold, rubbing at her thighs. She fell in front of the man; his face was turned into the sand. Sobbing, she pulled at his shoulders, heaving at his bulk. As his shoulders rolled over, his head did too. Her breath caught as she stared into James’ face.

Despite the clear morning, the wind from the evening before had not abated. It stung now, whistling through her clothes, catching sand from the beach and whipping it into the air. James’ overlong black hair fell lankly across his face. Even in repose he was darkly handsome. Harriet turned her face away as more sand arced through the air. Shelter—they needed shelter from the sand and the wind.

Grabbing James beneath his arms, she heaved him slowly across the beach, his arms flopping by his side, his legs dragging heavily in the sand. She stumbled twice, nearly plunging headfirst into the stony ground further along the beach.

She could not go much further than five yards before collapsing with James’ weight across her legs in the lea of a large boulder. Hugging his body to her, she stared sightlessly out to the sea, exhaustion blinding her.

The crunch of stone scraping against stone reached Harriet as she lay in a stupor. She woke, her mouth dry, her head aching. How much time had she wasted? She had warmed up partially, but James’ body lying across hers was still icy cold. Reaching out a tentative hand, she pressed two fingers under his chin but felt no pulse. Sitting up sharply, she grabbed at his wrist—she couldn’t find one there either.

Her head whipped round as she heard it again; steady crunching footsteps from far down the beach. Wearily, she grabbed hold of the boulder and levered James’ body from her legs. Propping herself against the rock, she opened her mouth to shout.

“Hallo!” She took a deep breath “Help! It’s Harriet and Lord Stanton. We need help,” she attempted to cry. All that came out was a reedy whisper. She waved her arms in the air. The figure far down the beach stopped.

Brushing her still sodden hair from her eyes, she tried again. “Come quickly—it’s Lord Stanton, he’s been hurt!” Her heart caught in her ribs. Gasping, she leant heavily against the rock. “I, I think he’s dead.”

Oh God, giving voice to it made it so much more real.

The figure paused but then turned and walked away. Not just walked, but began to run away. With deep gasping breaths, Harriet fell back to her knees and fumbled at James’ neck again. He couldn’t be dead. Just because she had voiced her fears didn’t mean that it was so.

Harriet rested her head on his side and closed her eyes, listening to the sound of the wind around her. She was alone, but with the shell of the man that she had wanted so long. Softly her fingers traced the cut material of her shirt. He had dived in after her and unhooked her from the rock. James had been true to his word, he had come back for her when it mattered. Pushing her face into the crux between his back and his neck and lying by his side, she curled around him against the rock.

She didn’t know how long she lay like that. Reinforcements should have come. But they didn’t. Perhaps the person had been a mirage, a figment of her exhausted mind. Even the crew from the
Rocket
should have come looking for her body. All the villagers would go out looking if someone was lost at sea. Sooner or later their bodies would be washed up on the beach, whole or incomplete.

Brushing James’ hair from her eyes, she stayed as she was, gazing sightlessly at the boulder that loomed above them. James’ face pushed up against the rock, its color rising from light to dark grey from the night’s downpour of rain.

Harriet lifted her head out of the sand.

That wasn’t right. The rock should have been wet all the way down; it shouldn’t have had a chance to dry. Harriet sat up, uncaring of the pain, and leaned over. The area that was dry was right next to James’ mouth.

“Bloody hell.”

He was still alive.

Hope blossomed in her rib cage and a burst of life trickled through her veins. Despite her body warmth, James was still freezing, and the icy wind chilled them both. Pulling her matted hair away from her face, she studied the cliffs that loomed above her. Behind them the entrance to a shallow cave showed as a black hole against the dull brown of the rock face. They were not far from where the old smuggling entrance to the stone mine lay.

She pushed herself to her feet, a feeling of lassitude overwhelming her. Pushing it back down, she groaned and, bending almost double, haltingly dragged James across the beach to the cave. He moaned softly for the first time as she hauled him inside. It was the sweetest music she had ever heard.

It
was
warmer at the back of the cave, but not by much. She collapsed into the sand next to James as a shadow crossed the small entrance to their shelter.

“He was around here. I saw him with my own eyes. He was trying to run away but tripped on one of the stones here, see. I reckon he was running away, sir. My lord.”

Harriet crawled slowly back to the edge of the cave. Peeping round the pillars of stone that supported the mouth of the cave, she counted some twenty men and women. Amongst them strutted Granger, the lawyer from Ottery St Mary. He had laid off most of the estate workers and raised the rent on the tenant cottages, Janey’s included. He was accompanied by his son, Samuel, who did all the dirty work. Harriet blinked in surprise. Edgar stood at the front of the crowd with Lord Anglethorpe. Harriet had only seen Lord Anglethorpe once before. He kept himself to himself at his house on Berale Estate when he was down from London.

Samuel stood ramrod straight, his massive shoulders bunching as he threw his hands in the air and pointed down the beach. Harriet watched as Edgar raised his eyebrows and shook his head. His voice carried with the wind to where she sat. “I’d run away too if I had drowned the new riding officer Carmichael in an inch of water, sir.”

Samuel gestured again towards where the stream that ran off Fountain Vale met the beach. “Hooh. Yes. Just think, of all the bad luck, coming back in on the
Rocket
and getting caught first time round by the riding officer. Wouldn’t that make you mad?”

“Mad enough to kill?” Lord Anglethorpe looked quizzical.

Edgar rubbed his hand against his mouth. “Of course, sir. Lord Stanton, or Major Lucky as he was known in the war, killed many men. He was no stranger to it. I understand that some of the things he did as a lowdown scout were reprehensible. And of course there was that riding officer two years ago.” He coughed. “Strange that it should happen again.”

“Hmm, yes, I had forgotten that,” Lord Anglethorpe murmured.

Harriet gasped as anger flooded her. Those fools, not fools, traitors, were trying to frame James for something he didn’t do. No one had known whether he had killed the riding officer two years ago. Apart from her that is. In fact no one had much cared then because the customs man had been universally hated. And this time again she knew it was untrue. She had been with James all the time he was on the boat, and in the water. Unless he had suddenly grown wings, there was no chance that he had managed to kill a man in that time.

Why were they colluding against James? The penalty if found guilty was hanging; and the country magistrates would hang a man on the most circumstantial evidence. The townsfolk practically bayed for blood. It would be different for James though. As a lord he would be taken to London and tried by his peers. Peers who were old and easily led.

Skirting a large log of driftwood, Harriet crawled silently to the back of the cave. James had moved slightly and was now lying on his back, his head turned to the side. In the dim light from the cave opening, Harriet could see for the first time blood and pus seeping from a wound in his shoulder.

“Everyone split up. I want you to search every inch of this beach. We’ll find him, and then traitor or no, he’ll answer to the King’s justice.” Edgar’s strident voice organized the groups of villagers into pairs and sent them off in all directions.

Catching sight of the driftwood she had just walked round, Harriet drew it to lie in front of James’ supine figure. It didn’t cover him well at all. She was in the middle of dragging another log in front of him when the cave mouth darkened. Throwing herself down in the sand behind James, she held her breath.

Mr. Granger’s voice echoed in the close confines of the cave. “Go on, go to the back of the cave, Samuel.”

“But Pa, it’s very dark in there.”

“Well, let’s get a torch then.”

“Someone told me it was haunted.” A tremor crept into Samuel’s voice. “Haunted by that Fairleigh that was killed.”

“Nonsense. He wasn’t killed anywhere near here,” Mr. Granger snapped. “Now get in…”

James moaned and moved slightly. Putting out a questing hand, Harriet laid it on the back of his neck. James’ moaning tailed off.

The men’s voices stopped suddenly.

“Did you hear that?” Fear laced Samuel’s voice. A scatter of shale fell from the ceiling as the sound echoed around the cave. “I ain’t going in there, Pa. Go in yourself.”

Harriet held her breath as their heavy footsteps crunched away. After a short pause, lighter ones followed.

James moaned again. Sitting up, she squinted at the entrance of the cave and back down to where he lay. She fought the urge to laugh hysterically. They would have been plainly visible had the Grangers taken two steps further into the cave mouth. As it was they must have appeared like boulders, just as she had thought when she had first seen James’ body on the beach.

Awkwardly dusting the sand from her hands, Harriet stood and trod softly back to the front of the cave. She watched as the search party combed up and down the beach, but not once did they come back to the cave.

Finally, Lord Anglethorpe seemed to shake his head and glare at Edgar who swept his arm at the beach. But the lord didn’t appear to listen, turning his back on the gathering and stalking towards where the road met the shingle. Edgar and the Grangers formed a huddle and exchanged heated words. Yet despite this, after five minutes they all shook hands and trudged towards the road.

Stumbling through the churned up sand she had created, Harriet sank to her haunches and examined James’ face in the dim light. It was still too pale. With numb fingers, she pulled at her sewing knife and used it to cut short strips of the drier fine linen of her chemise that had lain close to her body. She balled up the material and laid it in a hollow in the sand, piling the dry driftwood over it. Picking up a small rock, she lay on her front and pushed her hands underneath the pile of wood. She struck at the rock with her knife. A small spark flared and then darkness descended again. Frantically she struck at the rock, but it seemed that the first time had been luck.

She could not get a fire going. A burst of hysterical laughter bubbled from her mouth. Help was not coming. Edgar and his cohorts would surely be back before they could leave. She would have to get help. But not before she had patched James up.

Groaning with the effort, she pulled his shirt off him and laid it over the rocks to dry in the little heat of the cave. The wound on his shoulder began to weep as soon as she removed his shirt. The shirt had stuck into his skin, temporarily closed the wound, but without stitching he would lose more blood. Gently rolling his body onto his side, Harriet swallowed. James’ well-muscled back was covered in scars, long white old scars that had turned white with age, overlaid with pinker, jagged scars that still showed the marks of stitches. As she examined him, a trickle of blood oozed down his shoulder.

She would need to stitch his shoulder together. Harriet licked her lips. She had done it before and she could do it again. Hoping that the seawater had cleaned the wound and grateful that James was still unconscious, she set to with her needle.

It took much less time than it had when she stitched Tommy. But the wound still wept slightly, although closed with neat stitches. Harriet gazed at her precious embroidery inside the sewing pouch and then at James’ pale face. He needed it more than her. She would gladly give it to him for saving her life. Ripping the strip in half, she wadded one half into a pile, and then, pressing it onto the newly stitched wound, wound the other half around his shoulder and the padding to hold it in place.

Looking at how James was now lying, Harriet knew he would need more heat. Lying down behind James, she inched herself round his body into the same position as when she had thought that he was dead. Edging her body closer, she gasped as the bare skin exposed by the rents in her chemise grazed his cold skin.

With her right hand she softly began to rub his body from the shoulder to the hip, and then further down the thigh. The friction drew forth some heat from his body. Tentatively she pressed closer.

CHAPTER 20

It was the only pleasant dream that James had had since returning from the Peninsular. At one point a lithe, catlike body had rubbed up against his body, stroking his chest, rubbing his back like a wanton feline. And then its touch had gone lower, to his belly, and explored around the soft hair of his navel. But then it had stopped, and James had groaned. God, he was cold. So cold, but this little cat was determined to heat him up.

Then the heat had gone away. The cold was agonizing. Where had she gone? He wanted more, heat everywhere, rubbing itself up and down against his cold skin.

He opened his eyes, his lids fluttering as little light filtered in. Hell. That was where he was, the only place he was going after the number of men he had killed. Flames of orange danced in front of him. Oh, to be so close to heat and yet so cold. A shadow moved across his vision. He blinked as the flames resolved themselves into a mass of fiery red hair above a body made for sin. From his position on the floor he could see the curve of her inner thigh clad in breeches that clung lovingly to her body. This must be purgatory. He had seen enough scenes in the Roman Catholic churches of the countries he had marched through. Orgies of people conducting lewd acts on each other as the flames consumed them. This must be the warm up. Oh, he nearly wanted to laugh. If only he was warmer.