Escaping Notice (29 page)

She dragged the rope with her. The rough length was her link to
Hugh and safety.

Finally, almost running out of rope, she reached the stairs.
They were stone, projecting out of the rear wall of the tower, and
they offered firmer footing. The rope would not reach to the floor
above, so she reluctantly abandoned it and started to climb.

The sounds behind her grew louder as Hugh forced his way through
the door. Rain splattered around her, the large droplets splashing
gritty mud and leaves from the broken windows.

“Helen!” A shrill, fearful voice rang out, distorted by the
increasing volume of rain.

“I'm here!” Helen called back. She hurried, her hand brushing
against the rough wall on her left.

Reaching the first floor, she peered around. A huddled shape lay
across the room, under a gaping window. She took a step forward.
Despite the muffling sound of water hitting, she could hear and
feel the wooden planks bowing, weakened with rot, beneath her
weight. She dared not cross the floor.

“Ned — we will get you out. Do not worry.”

“I can’t move!” He wailed, pointing upward. “I fell through the
floor.”

His quiet sobs wracked her heart, distracting her. She could not
think
. She stepped forward and paused, hardly able to stop
herself from creeping towards him over the dangerous floor.

In a frantic effort to distract the distressed child, she spoke
in a teasing tone. “Honestly, I cannot imagine why you stopped at
just one floor. You could have fallen through both and saved us all
quite a bit of trouble.”

“Wha — what?” At least his crying stopped.

“Well, if you had fallen through both, we could have simply
picked you up down there and gone home without all these
histrionics.”

“Are you laughing at me?” his voice wavered, on the verge of
tears.

“No, dearest. But I need you to think clearly. Lord Nelson would
have expected it, you know, from one of his captains.” She glanced
down the stairs. “Hugh? Hugh!”

A gray veil of mist and rain combined with the Stygian gloom of
night to obscure her view of Hugh's progress. However, she thought
she heard the sound of wood hitting wood. Then a sharp crack.

“What is it?” his calm voice answered.

She flicked a quick look at the floor, not wanting to further
alarm Ned. “We are up here, on the first floor of the tower. Ned
has fallen. He is hurt.” She stated the facts, striving to keep the
panic out of her voice.

“My leg,” Ned confirmed.

Hugh was silent, giving her the impression of deep thought. “I
have almost got the opening wide enough to get through the door. It
will just be another few minutes.”

And as if to prove his point, he broke off a chunk of wood with
a loud snap.

However, with the increasing violence of the storm, she did not
know how much more Ned could endure. He was exposed under the
window, and the wind was blowing sheets of rain through, drenching
him. Despite his efforts to remain quiet, his soft, terrified
crying echoed the sounds of the rain.

Taking a deep breath, she edged along the wall. She could almost
feel the emptiness below the rotting floorboards as she slid her
feet along. She forced everything out of her mind except the next
step.

At the corner, she moved faster. The floor seemed more solid
here with two walls joining to support it. She stretched a hand
along the wall, ignoring the ache of her scraped hips and stabbing
pain in her shoulder. “Ned! Listen to me, I am coming to get you.
It won’t be much longer.”

“Helen,” Hugh called. “Do not move. If you fall through the
floor, too ….”

“I'll be careful.” She swallowed, her throat dry despite the
water running over her face. She rounded the second corner, a few
yards away from Ned. “I’m almost there, Ned.”

Sliding forward, she moved slowly, stretching to step over any
spongy sections of the floor. It was an agonizing business and as
she neared Ned, the boards grew increasingly soft.

Finally, she stood close enough to stretch her hands out into
the darkness.

“Ned,” she said. “Can you see my fingers?”

“No-oo,” he wailed. “I’ve a splinter in my eye!”

“Do not fret.” Her fingers sought and touched him. She pulled
him close, wrapping her shawl around him. He buried his face in her
shoulder and sobbed harder. “We must wait for Hugh.” She stroked
his wet hair. “Just hold on. Hugh is coming.”

“Yes,” Hugh’s voice reached them, floating upwards through the
darkness. His boots scraped the stone stairs. “Can you bring him
down to me?”

Ned’s grip on her tightened. She shook her head. “I cannot carry
him.”

“What the devil possessed you to come up here?” Hugh asked in
frustration when he reached the first floor. He eyed them as he
wrapped the rope into a large coil.

“I've got the necklace — your necklace,” Ned whispered through
shaking lips. “But they started that search. I couldn’t let them
steal it again, I just couldn’t.”

“Oh, Ned, I'm so sorry. I should never have involved you,” Helen
said.

“I just wanted to help.” Ned broke down into weak cries. “And
now we're going to die.”

“We are not going to die,” she repeated bracingly, though her
confidence was faltering.

Creating a loop, Hugh tied a slip knot and threw the rope
towards Helen and Ned, keeping one end in his left hand. Helen
flung up an arm to protect Ned as the rope slapped her
shoulder.

“Grab that,” Hugh said.

She obediently picked up one of the coils.

“Can you carry Ned, Helen?”

“No.” She shook her head, pulling the boy closer. The skin of
his cheek felt like ice.

“Then place the loop around your chest, just under your arms.
I’m going to lower you through the window, Helen. Once you get
down, take off the rope and give it a tug. I will pull it up and
lower Ned the same way. You will have to catch him, Helen.”

“But ….” Helen closed her eyes, trying not to think about
dangling from a rope in the rain and wind.

“That floor will not bear my weight and you cannot carry Ned.
What other alternative is there?” He twitched the rope to remind
her to shrug it over her head.

She slipped it over her shoulders and sat on the windowsill.
“Ned, I am going down first. I will catch you when it is your
turn.”

“I … I don’t know if I can,” Ned said.

“If you cannot do this, then how will you be a sailor? You will
have to climb the rigging — this is precisely the same thing.” She
grasped one of his frozen hands and gave it a squeeze. “I will be
waiting for you.”

Before she could think too much about it, she swung her legs
outside. For a moment, she clung to the sill, balanced on her
waist. The rope under her arms tightened. Her fingers slipped over
the rough sill. She took a deep breath and let go, gripping the
rope.

Her booted feet clattered and slipped on the stone of the tower,
but somehow she caught a crack with the toe of her boot. The rope
pinched painfully, compressing her chest, but she was able to catch
enough breath to shout, “Go!”

Slowly, Hugh lowered her. She scrabbled down the wall, skirts
flapping in the wind. When she reached the ground, she slipped and
fell over the rubble and twisted vines, but she was on the blessed
ground.

“I’m down and safe!” To her own surprise, she actually sounded
confident. She loosened the rope and slipped it off over her head.
After a tug, it slithered up the wall and disappeared through the
window.

In the distance, she thought she heard the deep rumble of Hugh’s
voice and Ned’s high, terrified answer.

“Are you ready” She called, cupping her hands around her
mouth.

No reply.

She re-positioned herself at the base of the tower, trying to
find firm footing. When she glanced up again, shielding her eyes
from the rain, a pair of legs hung out of the window. The wind
carried the sound of Ned’s crying. The rumble of Hugh’s voice
sounded again, although Helen couldn’t make out the words.

Finally, the boy turned round, bracing his hips on the sill just
as Helen had done, before he gripped the rope. His dangling feet
brushed the wall. He screamed in pain, but Hugh kept paying out the
rope, slowly lowering the boy.

He squirmed and flailed at the constriction around his chest
with increasing panic. “Hurts!” he gasped. “Stop — it hurts!”

“No!” she called sharply. “Keep going, Hugh. We cannot stop, I'm
sorry, Ned. We have to get you out ….”

His dark form, hanging in mid-air, made Helen think with anguish
of a hanged man, dangling just inches off the floor. One of his
feet hung down at a strange angle, and his cries diminished into
heart-crushing, exhausted whimpers of pain.

“Ned! Ned, listen to me,” she called. “You are almost down.” She
touched his straight leg, and then he was in her arms. “I can’t
hold you. Brace with your good foot.” She eased him down. He turned
and wrapped his arms around her waist, clinging so tightly she
could hardly breathe.

For a moment, Helen feared the boy was too far gone into the
depths of shock to do more than lean against her. But at last, she
heard him sniffle. He wiped a sleeve over his face and then again
under his nose. He shrugged off the rope and gave it a tug. It
slithered away into the darkness above them.

“I can't see,” Ned whispered.

“Never mind. You are safe now.”

Braced against the tower, Helen stared upwards at the sky, rain
pelting down over her face. Her body shivered under her heavy,
sodden clothes. She seemed to have been there for hours, intensely
aware of her exhaustion and aching bruises, before she saw the
golden light of Hugh’s lantern shining as he came around the corner
of the broken, splintered wall of masonry.

When he saw them, Hugh smiled and reached out to help them over
the rough terrain. “No rest yet.” He flicked a quick glance over
Ned. “You did well, lad. Solid bottom. You will make a fine sailor
if you don’t kill yourself first.”

“I don’t think he can walk, Hugh.” She pressed the small boy
against her. “His ankle ….”

Hugh crouched and grasped Ned’s knee to lift his leg. The boy
whimpered, but bit his lip to avoid crying out.

“Broken,” Hugh said. “There may be other bones, as well.”

“His eyes ….” she said.

Holding up the lantern, he brushed Ned’s face and then grinned
at her, his teeth gleaming white against the damp darkness of his
beard. “Full of dirt. Must sting like the devil, but no lasting
damage.” A low, thoughtful hum sounded, deep within his chest. “Go
on back to the house, Helen. We will follow. Let them know we will
need a physician.”

“I will carry the lantern.” Helen took it away from him before
he could protest.

He gripped Ned’s thin shoulder. “Are you ready, lad?”

Ned nodded, though his lips trembled.

Helen staggered ahead of Hugh, glancing over her shoulder every
few feet. Ned's small head bobbed against Hugh's chest and after a
few yards, he seemed to go limp. He had fainted — a mercy, perhaps.
Her feet dragged over the rough ground, but all she could think
about was Ned.

“He will be fine,” she chanted under her breath, trying not to
remember the icy chill of his skin. “
Fine
.”

The lights of the house twinkled through the rain. Although they
had reached the smooth path through the garden, Helen stumbled.

If Ned indeed had her necklace in his pocket, then she no longer
had any excuse to stay at Ormsby. The truth would have to come out.
She’d have to leave.

She glanced over her shoulder again as they neared the house.
She couldn’t leave. If Ned had a broken ankle, she’d have to stay
to nurse him. Unfortunately, whether she liked it or not, her
adventure was swiftly coming to a close.

Ned would have to be restored to his true family. And Hugh would
go back to Second Sons and his inquiries. Such a man would not be
interested in a useless wife, even if she managed to convince her
family that her association with him had not ruined her.

Although to own the truth, her life did feel ruined. She was
about to lose two men she had inexplicably grown to love, and she
could see no way to prevent it.

“
Take
great care how you contract new acquaintances ….” —
The Complete
Servant

Helen led Hugh past the stables, only to find Miss Elvira and
Miss Esther Leigh rounding the corner of the house.

“Is that the child?” Miss Elvira asked. The question sounded
accusatory, reminding Helen that servants were to be neither seen
nor heard. Most of all, servants should never, under any
circumstances, cause any disruption in the smooth running of the
household.

“Yes,” Hugh replied curtly.

Miss Esther moved closer, eyeing Ned critically. “It is Edward!”
She glanced at her sister, then she rounded on Hugh. “You kidnapped
him! You will relinquish him immediately! And you can be sure we'll
report you to the local magistrate. I suppose you expected a lavish
ransom because he's the nephew of the Earl of Monnow. Well, there
will be none of that now!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hugh replied testily. “Would we work in
the earl's house if we had kidnapped his nephew? Ned — Edward — ran
away of his own volition, hoping to join the navy. He refused to
tell us who his family was. And frankly, I can't say I blame him. I
would not want to be at the mercy of your tender care, either.”

The sisters glared at him like twin furies, their fists tight at
their sides. “How dare you! We did our utmost for him, the
ungrateful little beast. As for you, you will be dismissed. Without
a reference, mind you. There will be none of your impudence
here.”

“I don’t expect one.”

Helen, watching the outburst, felt too exhausted to be
surprised. She laid a hand on Hugh's shoulder. “Hugh — Edward is
hurt, we must get the doctor. We can discuss this later.”