Myriah Fire (4 page)

A company of merry gentlemen stumbled out of a tavern singing quite loudly, out of tune and not at all concerned with this deficiency. They spotted Myriah and called out robustly for her to stop awhile. She chuckled but kept up her proud chin, urging her horse to move at a faster pace.

“Humph!” grumbled Tabby. At last they reached the toll-gate. After watching Tabby attend to the fee, Myriah gave her horse his head. They bounded forward in rhythm with one another, and Myriah’s restlessness lost itself in speed. How she loved riding freely.

Tabby caught up after some effort and called to
his
mistress to slow her horse into a canter. “Don’t be all hell and fire, m’lady … leastways not in the dark! Ye’ll be planting yerself in some rut or other and giving that stallion ye say ye love so much a strained fetlock!”

She laughed but did indeed ease her spirited horse into
a
slower gait. After the docile rides in Hyde Park, this carefree exercise created euphoria, banishing Myriah’s concern.

Tabson felt it incumbent upon himself to bring
his
mistress to a sense of reality and dispel the sweetness of her fantasy with his gruff practicality. “’Twill not serve, m’lady, and well ye know.”

“Hush, Tab, I won’t have you growling at me.” Myriah laughed.

“Growl, is it?” said the man, sticking out his lower lip. “And what will
ye
be calling it when yer papa bowls down upon us at Guildford House?”

Myriah sighed, and a slight crease marred her brow. “Oh dear … he will do so, I suppose.”

“Hang me if he doesn’t! Then what will ye say? Fine set-to there will be!”

“Oh, Tabby, I never thought of that. Papa will be angry to be sure, but he and grandpapa are good friends …”

“Humph! Lord Guildford will take your side in the matter, and it’s plain as pikestaff
yer
papa is bound to take umbrage. A rare set-to there will be!” grumbled the elderly man.

Myriah’s frown deepened. “Oh, Tab, you are taking too doleful a look at the whole thing. I shall fix things up right and tight. See if I don’t!”

To
this her groom had little to say. However, he continued to mumble incoherently. Myriah lost her patience and moved her horse forward, leaving Tab some distance behind her.

When they reached Tunbridge Wells, the horses were watered and rested for a few minutes. Then once again they set south on the main pike. The adventure had lost its initial thrill for Myriah, and her mind was now busy with the problems facing her. There was Sir Roland, who surely would be upset. She had done him an injustice leaving as she had, allowing him to believe she had acquiesced to her father’s outrageous plan. But then, she had not missed his expression, which told her he had not been completely fooled.
But Papa—
there was no telling what
he
might do, though she was fairly certain he would post down to her grandfather’s in the morning … and then there would be a scene.

The road meandered past rich green farms and through meadowlands boasting of spring wildflowers, whose scent was carried on the growing breeze. The aroma infiltrated her senses, and for a moment she just breathed it in and sighed. Feeling rejuvenated, Myriah said, “Just look about at all this glory.”

“Look at what, m’lady?” asked her astonished groom as he came up alongside her. “What can ye see in the darkness? ’Tis half-daft to try!”

“Oh, Tabby, don’t vex me so! I can see … with
my
mind’s eye, and I do so love Kent!”

“Aye!” Tabson agreed, relenting, for it had been his home as well, and he too was heartily sick of town life.

They maintained a steady pace for the next half hour without speaking. In her haste Myriah had neglected to put on a riding hat, and her fiery ringlets had tumbled down upon her shoulders. The breeze was stronger now and whipped the long, thick locks across her cheeks. With an exasperated sigh she reined in, pulled off a glove, and pinned back the wayward tresses.

Tabson looked up at the sky and mumbled a complaint that made Myriah raise her eyes heavenward. “Oh dear …”

Clouds had gathered and obscured the moon’s glow, and a low mist had set in and seemed to be getting thicker. They had been on the road for nearly three hours, and Myriah knew their horses would soon need a proper rest.

“We are nearly there, are we not, Tabby?” She pulled a face and added, “This mist is dreadful.
I
can barely see ten feet in front of me.”

“Humph,” agreed her companion.

For the next thirty minutes they continued, the silence
punctuated
now and then by an unladylike exclamation when Myriah found herself off road and in the thicket. At last
a
fingerpost loomed up at the crossroad, and she rode up to the narrow white wood.

“Dymchurch three miles—oh, no, Tab,” Myriah exclaimed. “We must have taken the wrong turnoff—we are heading in the wrong direction.”

“Humph. Thought the air a bit too salty. Nothing for it, m’lady. We’ll have to take the coast road. It cuts through the marshlands farther down, and we can follow the river a bit to Northiam.”

“Oh, Tabby, I am so tired. We’ve been traveling for hours—how much longer do you think it’s going
to
take?”

He scratched his head.
“One … maybe two
hours if this mist holds up.”

“One or two hours! Why, it must
be
past
two in
the morning.
Good lord
.”

“Best
be
moving on,
m’lady. Dymchurch be
no place for lingering at night.”

“Why?” asked Myriah, surprised.

“Because it ain’t!”

She was too
weary to
press him further and this time allowed
him
to lead the way.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the mist vanished, and only the dewy grass and moist bushes retained evidence of its earlier visitation. Low, flat, and marshy lands were dark and eerily foreboding in the blackness.

The road was lined by narrow dikes, glistening rills, and shadows that teased Myriah’s imagination. She spurred her horse forward, passing her groom. A chill and strange sensation seized and swept through her. All at once, the eerie feeling made her pull her horse up short, sure that she had heard something …

Tabby halted his horse directly behind her and leaned forward in his saddle. “What be that?”

“Hush,” commanded his mistress, listening intently.

Again the sound came to her ears, and this time she could identify it. A horse—it was the snort of a lone horse. She squinted through the darkness, zeroing in on a clump of evergreens and shaggy bushes. There—she saw it! The animal had shaken its head, and she caught the movement, following the line down the horse’s nose to a dark clump at its hooves.

“Oh no, Tab!” Myriah uttered worriedly, her heart racing.

She couldn’t really see, and yet instinct—a certain ‘feeling’—told her someone lay injured beside the horse. Without another word she closed the distance to the object of her interest, slid off Silkie, and went down on her knees beside a young man.

His face was half-hidden by his arm, and his fair hair was free of the hat that had fallen beside his limp form. She pulled the heavy material of his riding coat away from his chest as she eased him onto his back. Tabby had by this time jumped off his old roan and was leaning over both her and the unconscious stranger. “He is hurt,” she told him.

“I see that, m’lady—must have had a bad fall.”

However, in an attempt to give the man some air by loosening his garments, Myriah’s hand had come in contact with something warm and sticky. Horrified, she pulled her hand away. “Oh … oh, no … Tab … it’s blood …”

Her groom knelt beside the unconscious stranger and examined him. In short order he found the wound through which the man seemed to be
losing his life’s blood; it was located in the young man’s upper left arm.

“Tabby, I’ll have to make a tourniquet. Fetch some water from the dike.” She tore off a length
of
her muslin underskirt and handed it to him. When the groom returned, he placed the cool, wet cloth on the man’s forehead while Myriah tore another strip of cloth, saying fretfully, “Oh, I
do hope I
can remember the knack of it. When Sir Thomas took a bullet last hunt
ing
season a tourniquet saved his life until the doctor was fetched, and I watched how it was done. Do hold his head up, Tabby … that’s it,” she said, slipping the material ’round his biceps above the wound.

“Now, Tabby, we’ll need some of that heathenish brew you call whisky.” She saw that he was about to deny the possession of any such thing and added, “’Tis not the time to tell me round tales.
You
have not been my dearest Tab all these years without
my
knowing you. Now do get it, Tab.”

The groom grumbled heartily but
a
moment later produced a bottle of the questionable libation, which he put to the young man’s pale lips. The fiery liquid proved to
be
potent indeed, for the lad coughed fitfully, and his eyes fluttered open. His lips parted, but he said nothing as he stared
up
into Myriah’s face. Again the whisky was sent down his throat; again he coughed and squinted at her.

Myriah watched as he attempted to focus. He whispered hazily, “Flaming beauty …”

Myriah realized he was still dazed and took command of the situation. She grabbed the bottle from Tabby and forced more of the burning brew down the injured man’s throat.

The young man suddenly tried to sit up. “I remember … my horse …”

“Right here. Your horse is right here. What has happened to you?”

He stared at her and smiled. “I took a fall and have no doubt landed myself in hell, beauty.”

Myriah laughed out loud. “That, sir, is no compliment! I have always thought men were supposed to declare themselves in Heaven after being brought round by
the
attending heroine.”

He looked up at her in puzzlement. He certainly was hazy, and he had suffered a loss of blood. Myriah frowned as she watched him trying to regain control of himself. His voice when it came was faint and gravely troubled.

“Heaven? But you don’t look like an angel …”

Myriah again laughed and arched a friendly brow. “Indeed, ’tis a lamentable truth, I must say, but still shabby of you to remark on it!” She sighed mockingly. “Ah, but there is yet time to alter your hasty opinion once I put you into the hands of your local doctor.”

“NO!”
objected the young man, cutting her off and making a feeble attempt to raise himself up, only to collapse back down.

“But, sir,” returned Myriah, prohibiting such action with a firm hand on his chest, “you have sustained a nasty wound, and it must be attended to at once by someone far more experienced than I.”

“Please, ma’am … if you … would be so good—just help me get to my feet?”

“On no account,” Myriah replied authoritatively.