“I’m so sorry,” Emeline whispered. “I’m so – terribly sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Ralph looked down, wiping his wife’s mouth where the blood had puddled, though was bleeding no more. “’Tis my fault you’re here. You should hate me. But now I can hold my dear wife, and kiss her again. I couldn’t before, it hurt her too much if I put just an arm around her, for it squeezed them terrible lumps and made her scream with pain. But now she’s all mine. She were so beautiful when I married her. You couldn’t tell it now. But that’s how I still see her, and always will.”
Emeline stood slowly, hugging herself, shivering although the fire still spat and flickered. “I’m going to try and get away,” she said. “I don’t think I’m sick yet but I won’t risk going back to the inn or seeing my sister. If I manage to get away, I’ll buy some medicines in the next village and bring them back to you.”
Ralph said, “If them in Restlebury guess you come from here, they’ll hang you.”
“Doesn’t everyone around here know each other? So they’ll know I’m not a village girl. I’ll make up a story. I’ll say I’ve come from Weymouth. That’s where I was going, before all this happened.”
Ralph turned back to the limp body cradled against him. “Go to Weymouth, lady. Go now,” he said, “afore they catches you. Don’t you worry for me. I got two days more, I reckon, then will go to be with my Maud again. We can work our way through Purgatory together, and then we’ll wake healthful and happy. One day we can run through the poppy fields like we used to. Will they have poppies, do you think, in heaven?”
“I’m sure they have great pastures of poppies, and roses, and buttercups,” said Emeline, reaching for the door handle. “I’m going now. If they catch me, I’ll be back sooner. If they don’t – I’ll come back with the medicines tomorrow. Some for you, and some for me.”
No one saw her leave. Emeline closed the cottage door very quietly behind her. She stood one moment on the step looking up into the falling twilight, the wind in her face as she took one deep breath of freedom. Then she started to creep, a step, then two, keeping always to the shadows. She was under the cover of the trees within three breaths, and then deeper into the wooded slopes. The village she had left was tucked into a dip between rises, and the rises were thick with beeches. She avoided the dulling light and chose the damp shadows. She didn’t care that she was lost. She wanted only to escape the patrol with their sticks and their sentence of death.
Her hems, still mud stained from the thief’s boggy trap, now trailed in the undergrowth, sodden and heavy. and her ruined headdress barely clung to her head. Her thick russet curls escaped their restraints just as she escaped the village.
She was shivering and utterly wretched as she came through the trees onto the path. Not a path she recognised, just beaten earth and narrow, a ditch of muddy trickles either side and a view over the reedy grasses to the land stretched out beyond. It was growing quickly darker but the first glimmer of milky stars spun their sheen as the moon peeped, a hanging spoonful of silver behind the trees. Far off, and darker than the sky, Emeline saw the thin strip of ocean where she had hoped to find her husband, though no flicker of moonlight yet glinted on the water’s sullen edge. She stared one minute longer, as if it brought her nearer to Nicholas.
Plodding along the pathway, she headed away from the sea. Ralph had told her the direction to aim for the next village, and she hoped eventually she might find someone to ask. As long as the patrols did not find her first. She had no purse, but she wore a broach she might sell, its tiny pearls and amethysts still pinned to her gown. She also wore, as always, the ring Nicholas had given her. She would do what she could in order not to sell this, but if death was so close, even such a precious token seemed of less importance. In the meantime, feeling ever colder and more miserable, she searched only for a place of cover where she might curl and sleep and for a few hours dream away the cloying stink of sickness and promise of death.
The sound of galloping horses was unmistakable, shaking the ground beneath her feet. Two men or more, racing through the night, and in their hurry would surely take no notice of her bedraggled shadow. The patrols had been on foot, but she did not know if there were others and it was too late now to risk danger. Emeline moved back against the little ditch, ready to scurry under the trees if the riders stopped. The first horse was a blurred and looming shadow, closing fast. An old horse, steaming and frothing, forced to run beyond its strength. The rider leaned low, urging his mount, and the hooves drummed, shaking the ground. She heard others further behind, but did not know or care how many. She stood quite still, her heels almost in the drain waters. It was so long now that she had been continuously frightened, she barely noticed the increase in her heartbeat.
Then the horse was on top of her, a bandy puffing bay doing its best for its master. The horse and rider came abreast, the reverberation so pronounced Emeline felt she bounced. She wrapped her arms around herself, bowing her head, unmoving, becoming a small part of the night.
The horse passed. But just three steps more, and swept around with a swirl of skirted coat and a whistle of wind, neighing, alarmed, thundering hooves and rearing in startled alarm; the rider turning his horse so abruptly it nearly stumbled. In a second he was out of his saddle, leg swung over the horse’s neck and leaping to the ground. His boots hit the dust with a thump and a kick of dirt, his coat flashed white fur trimmings almost in her face. In the darkness Emeline staggered back, terrified and confused. Then she was in his arms.
“Dear sweet Jesus,” said the voice she recognised, muffled into her neck, tickling her ear, forceful and urgent. Then the warm mouth was hard on hers, kissing her.
Emeline thought she might faint. “I’m dreaming. Or am I sick already? Am I delirious?” Nicholas held her so tightly she could hardly breathe, though not for one moment complained. His magical appearance, his reassurance and his protective strength smothered out the chill and all the fear was swept aside.
He said, “I’m real enough, my love, but are you?”
She peeped up at him and the moon reflected in the blue brilliance of his eyes. She whispered, “I was looking for you. And then everything went wrong.”
“I’ve spoken to Avice. So although I know why you ran from the Strand House and my wretched father,” he frowned, half delighted, half worried, “but this time – from the inn and even from your sister. Why run away again? And to run into danger. Of all nightmares, the pestilence.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to,” she mumbled. “I’ll tell you everything. But I really, really need to sit down.”
“You’re sick?” She lost her footing and was lifted from the ground, her feet flew, his arms around her back and beneath her knees, carrying her as though she weighed no more than the bucket of water which had started it all. He said, “My horse will carry us both. I’ll take you back to the inn.”
She shook her head, then leaned it against her shoulder and said, “I can’t. Not back there. And I can’t come near you either. You have to put me down. I can’t breathe on you.”
“A little late for that.”
“It’s what you did and what I have to do. Not to risk anyone else –”
She struggled but he carried her to his waiting mare and tossed her up into the saddle. “I seem to have heard those words before,” he murmured, “but you’ll face nothing like that alone, my sweet.” Then, his foot to the stirrup, he mounted quickly behind her, one arm to the reins and the other around her waist, and spoke directly to the back of her ear. His voice was a little warm breeze. “I’ll ride slowly – the poor beast is exhausted anyway. In a few moments David and Alan will catch up with us. But I need to understand, and I want details.”