Read If You Were Mine Online

Authors: Rebecca King

Tags: #fiction, #romance, #mystery, #historical romance, #regency romance, #historical mystery, #mystery suspense, #mystery action adventure romance

If You Were Mine (2 page)

BOOK: If You Were Mine
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Isobel
slowly opened her eyes. All of her senses tuned to any signs of
movement in the hallway before her. She now knew what the term
‘deathly silence’ meant. Standing enshrouded in the inky blackness
of the house that had once been so familiar to her was almost
claustrophobic.

Scenting
her first taste of freedom for several long and very painful weeks,
Isobel wanted to run as fast as her feet would carry her, straight
out of the building and as far away as she could get. It took all
of her willpower to ease away from the strangely comforting
solidity of the bedroom door, and almost too slowly, take the first
steps across the upper hallway towards freedom.

There
was no moonlight to penetrate the thick blackness that settled
around her. Gosport Hall was her grandmother’s former residence; a
large sprawling house that had been full of happy times and plenty
of teasing laughter. There wasn’t any part of the rambling abode
she didn’t know in minute detail. Most of her childhood had been
spent chasing her older brother Peter through the long, draughty
corridors that were as familiar to her as her own home in
Oxfordshire, Willowbrook.

Now,
with the gaiety and laughter of her formative years nothing more
than a faint echo of her distant past, Gosport’s once lavishly warm
and inviting rooms stood cold and empty and alien to her. The heavy
wooden shutters remained closed even during the daytime, leaving
the rooms feeling isolated and damp. Thanks to her uncle’s greed
and carelessness, the rooms held a menacing air that permeated the
bones, and made one constantly cold and uncomfortable.

Isobel
fought back a pang of longing for those sweet fun-filled days of
her youth. She had learnt the hard way that those days were now
gone for good. Life could be truly cruel and unforgiving to those
of the weaker sex, and she was no different.

Throughout her early childhood, her parents rarely talked
about her father’s younger brother, Uncle Rupert. His was a name
shrouded in myth and mystery. In her youthful imaginings, Isobel
had frequently dreamt he was a pirate buccaneer on his many ocean
adventures, or a dastardly highwayman full of dangerous intentions.
The reality was not as adventurous, or anywhere near as magical as
all that. The reality was harsh, brutal and unforgiving. The man
was evil personified.

With a
reputation of gambling, and shady business dealings, his entire
livelihood was questionable. His associates from the lower end of
the social spectrum were just as mysterious and equally as brutal.
Rupert’s wealth materialized from no reasonably identifiable
source, and seemed to vanish again just as quickly. Nobody knew
what he actually did to earn his place in society, or his living.
Had they had the temerity to ask, his cold ruthlessness immediately
surfaced, leaving you feeling distinctly threatened, as though you
had crossed some imaginary boundary into territory that was far
from safe.

It was
the stark reminder of just how brutal her uncle could be, that gave
Isobel the strength she needed to make it to her goal. At the far
corner of the sprawling mansion lay her brother’s old
bedroom.


Oh God Peter, why did you have to go and leave me like this?”
Isobel’s voice was a mere shiver in the cold midnight air. She
watched in horror as her breath fogged before her when she
whispered, and immediately slammed her mouth shut, her blood
pounding in her ears as all too familiar fear threatened to
overwhelm her.

Tears
stung her eyes. Ignoring them, she softly eased towards her elder
brother, Peter’s room, and the brief sanctity she knew it offered
her. At the far corner of the main building to her own room, she
knew that a rose trellis used to run the length of the house.
During his wayward youth, Peter had often used this method of
escaping the house, and in doing so had secured a trellis, strong
enough to carry his weight, tightly to the wall. Isobel fervently
hoped the ravages of time hadn’t rendered it useless, since it was
her only way out.

Still, a broken neck is better than a life at his merciless
hands
, Isobel reasoned starkly, moving
silently toward the looming doorway before her. She entered the
bedroom, easing the door closed with a quiet click. On first
glance, it was evident that little had changed. Covered in dust
cloths and old sheets, it was clear that the furniture hadn’t been
moved in some considerable time. Dust motes were clearly visible,
even through the darkness confirming that the room hadn’t been
aired either. However, despite the ravages of time, the faint scent
that was distinctly Peter still hung in the air.

Isobel’s
chest tightened with a wave of grief so strong, she wasn’t sure her
knees would support her, and she leaned briefly against the wall to
gather herself. She desperately longed to lie down on the bed and
give in to the sobs that threatened to choke her, but with each
passing moment, dawn was approaching and the risk of discovery
increasing. It was imperative to both herself and Kitty that she
got out of the house.

It took
several minutes of jiggling the stubborn metal latch on the bedroom
window before the old ironwork finally released, and allowed her to
slide the rickety frame upwards. A quick peek at the wall outside
revealed the trellis was still where Peter had secured it.
Carefully easing her leg out of the window, Isobel paused and
scowled downward into the gloom. Peter had once said that scaling
the trellis was risking his neck, and he had been unencumbered by
skirts. Frowning down at the crumpled and soiled linen of her
dress, Isobel slowly eased her leg back into the room and turned
towards the darkness with a frown.


Now what?” She muttered, considering her options. She
certainly wouldn’t get very far dressed as she was. Although she
was not in finery by any stretch of the imagination, she was still
easy to recognize. She would fall victim to every ne’er do well
within one hundred miles! If she was to survive the first day
alone, she could not afford to leave any trail for her uncle to
follow.

When
Peter had ventured into the village, he had been dressed as one of
the locals, not as the eldest son of a lord. Frantically searching
her memory, she vaguely recalled him mentioning a small drawer
hidden in the bottom of his linen press. Several moments later, she
pulled out a somewhat musty pair of buff breeches and rough cotton
shirt, along with a smelly pair of old boots, a thin jacket, flat
cap and a long riding cloak.

Without
hesitation, Isobel quickly donned the clothes; carefully making
sure the telling mound of her breasts was tightly bound with torn
off strips of her petticoat. Dubiously, she squinted through the
darkness at the size of the boots before she tied the boot laces
together and hung them around her neck for later. She quickly put
her dress, along with her shawl, into the hidden drawer. She eased
it closed, relieved when she was rewarded with a soft
click.

Feeling
somewhat reassured by the lingering scent and ephemeral presence of
her elder brother, she returned to the window and eased herself out
into the darkness of the night.

Her
heart thumped heavily in her chest when her fingers locked tightly
on the crisscrossing timbers of the trellis. She fought the surge
of bile in her throat. Glancing down into the gaping maw of inky
blackness beneath her, she willed her trembling in her knees to
stop long enough to hold her upright, and she fought desperately to
let go of the trellis long enough to slide the window
closed.

You’ve come this far, don’t let it beat you now,
she castigated herself. She slowly eased the
window silently downward, and began to make her way through the
rough thorn-laden rose bushes to the ground below.

Isobel
fought to keep her knees from buckling when she reached the safety
of the solid ground. Thankful for the small mercy of being in one
piece, she eased Peter’s boots onto her chilled feet, pulling her
meagre jacket and cloak around her thin shoulders with a shiver.
She wished briefly she had taken the time to bring her shawl
regardless of the strange looks she would draw. Ruefully she looked
downward at her masculine attire, and considered the eyebrows that
would be raised should she wear a shawl to match. Now that
certainly would draw attention!

A shiver
of cool night air ruffled the loose folds of her thin shirt, making
her shiver. Isobel pushed away from the house and took off across
the yard, careful to keep off the gravel and deep within the
shadows of the low standing hedgerows.

Within
minutes, she had disappeared among the shadows of the woodland to
the side of the house, a mere wisp of a memory in the night. Her
tread was so thin and silent that anybody bothering to look out
into the gardens would have seen little but the shifting of the
shadows in the darkened garden. Certainly, nothing that would
forewarn of the looming change of events that was to
come.

She
trudged on through the long hours of the night, feet aching,
desperately considering the options available to her. Valiantly
ignoring the increasing pounding in her head and empty rumble of
her stomach, she briefly stopped to drink from a tiny stream on the
outskirts of a small hamlet just as dawn rose above the
horizon.

Although she blessed the foresight of her elder brother for
putting the boots into the drawer with his clothing, she wished his
feet had been somewhat smaller because the boots had started to
chafe the tender soles of her feet, and she was already sore and
uncomfortable.
How far away was Cumbria
anyway?


Oh dear Lord,” Isobel groaned. She wished she had taken a few
moments to purloin one of her uncle’s horses, but knowing Rupert as
she did she knew he would take great delight in having her arrested
for horse theft. At least on foot, although slow, she could vanish
relatively easily. As long as she kept out of sight and away from
the busy roads, she should be fine.

Fear
compelled her to ignore her physical discomfort and continue
onwards. She stopped once or twice to study the mileage stones
knowing that as long as she went in the opposite direction to
London, she would be heading north and towards Cumbria and far away
from Gosport Hall, and Rupert.

Vaguely,
she could recall going through Cumbria as a young child to visit a
distant relative, and knew it was some considerable distance away.
But as a child her perception of the passing countryside from the
window of a speeding carriage, was vastly different to those of an
adult on foot. Nothing looked familiar. She had only her wits and
her vague sense of direction to guide her, and that knowledge
didn’t fill her with much confidence at all.

Having
spent most of the night walking, exhaustion was looming. She had no
idea where she was, but could only hope it was several miles away
from her Uncle Rupert. As an excellent horsewoman, she knew that
the distance she had spent most of the night and day creating could
be easily covered on horseback in half the time, and given her dire
situation, time and distance were of the essence.

Kitty
would almost certainly have been discovered by now. Isobel prayed
that the woman hadn’t been suspected of helping her, and had been
considered a victim of Isobel’s duplicity, and left
alone.


Now, where to?” Isobel gasped, her breath coming in shallow
pants. Tears pricked her eyes as a sense of isolation and
loneliness swept through her. She tipped her head backwards and
looked at the twinkling stars through the heavy canopy of trees.
Dusk settled over the horizon, and already it had begun to grow
cold. There was a fine tremor in her fingers from exhaustion and
hunger that had grown worse throughout the day. Despite the threat
of discovery by her uncle, she knew she couldn’t physically
continue for much longer.

How she
longed for the solid comfort of a chair, a warm fire and a good
meal. She had spent most of the day walking through fields and
skirting towns. For miles and miles, she had trudged onwards,
ducking low to avoid farmers and the watchful eyes inside passing
carriages. So far, she had not seen any sign of her uncle or any of
his servants, but knew that although she couldn’t see him, it
didn’t mean he wasn’t there somewhere.

As far
as she could tell, the only eyes that had seen her had been those
of sheep and cows. She could afford to rest for a little while. She
simply had to. Carefully, she dug into her cloak pocket and removed
one of the two remaining apples she had purloined from an orchard
earlier that afternoon. With a tiny pang of guilt, she bit into its
ripe sweetness, closing her eyes briefly to savour the tangy
moisture of the juice upon her tongue. She could not remember ever
being as thirsty as she was now. She quickly devoured the apple,
considering how she would get herself to Coniston while she had the
strength.


Up in the Lakes.” Kitty had said, but how did one go about
finding Annie in the Lake District?

Deciding
she would face that bridge when she came to it, Isobel eased
herself down onto her back in the long grass, out of sight, on the
edge of the trees and carefully covered herself up with her cloak
as best she could. Immediately, she was encased in meagre warmth
that did little to soothe her aching limbs, yet within seconds she
fell into an exhausted sleep.

BOOK: If You Were Mine
11.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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