Runaway Miss (23 page)

She held her breath. Someone was coming. There were sounds, a pattering and panting. More sheep, perhaps. Or was it human? Then with a joyful bark, Nipper raced into her hiding place, wagging his tail. She laughed and hugged him. ‘Nipper, what are you doing here? Chasing rabbits, are you?’ She looked up as the light from the entrance was blocked, but she knew it could only be Sam and was not afraid.

‘I guessed this was where you’d be,’ he said, sitting down beside her. ‘What you run away for?’

‘Someone was after me. A bad man. You won’t tell anyone where I am, will you?’

‘But I gotta tell Mr Lord. He’s in a real fret about you, shouting at everyone and cursing and I don’ know what. It ain’t like ’im at all. It ain’t fair to let ’im worrit so.’

‘I’m sorry about that, Sam, truly I am, but I’m too afraid—’

‘Seems to me,’ he said, with the wisdom of the very young, ‘you’d have no call to be afeared if you was with ’im. ’E can beat any man alive. Why, ’e nearly choked Mr Maddox to death, he was that mad. I never saw it, but Lizzie did.’

‘Whatever did he do that for?’

The boy shrugged. ‘I reckon ’e thought ’e knew where you was, but o’course he didna’ and they was soon friends ag’in. Come back, miss, come back. Mr Lord is ‘urtin’ bad for you.’

‘Oh, Sam, I wish I could.’

‘Then if you won’t go to ’im, shall I tell him you’re ’ere?’

‘No.’ She paused, sorry indeed that Alex was in a stew over her disappearance. ‘I tell you what you can do. Tomorrow, as soon as it gets light, you can come and walk with me to Bowness and then I will let you go back and tell Viscount Malvers that I have decided to go home. That should set his mind at rest.’

‘You mean you are goin’ to stay ’ere all night?’

‘Yes, why not? You lived here longer than one night, didn’t you?’

‘I weren’t alone. I had Ma and Lizzie and Nipper.’ He stopped, thinking. ‘I’ll leave Nipper with you. ’E’ll be company and ’e’ll scare off any bad men wot come.’

‘Thank you, Sam. I should like that. And Sam, when you come back, will you bring me some food?’

‘’Course I will.’ He left her cuddling the dog, trying not to cry again.

Alex refused to go to the ball, though Jeremy tried to persuade him. He had never felt less like dancing. Mrs Summers had gone, taking Lizzie with her. She had some crazy notion that if she dressed Lizzie up in Emma’s clothes and said she had taken on a new companion, it might serve to distract Lord Bentwater.

His lordship had been watched the whole day. He had wagered vast sums on the rowing races without having any knowledge of the rowers or the conditions on the lake; he had watched the abduction of the maiden and her rescue by the invaders with wry amusement and had even sought Alex out
afterwards to congratulate him. ‘Good show, Malvers, though I am surprised to find you in the role of rescuer and not abductor.’ He had eyed Charlotte up and down appreciatively. ‘You know, I was given the impression that the lady in question would be someone we both know.’

‘Really? I cannot think why you should think that.’

‘No matter. A sudden change of plan, I expect. I will call at Highhead Hall tomorrow, if I may.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘A mere courtesy, Malvers. Sir George will have arrived by then.’

He had relayed this conversation to his aunt and put her in a panic. ‘I cannot refuse to entertain my friend. And she will expect to see her daughter here. Oh, what am I to do?’

‘She might be relieved to discover she is not here, Aunt. And by then I shall have located her and you can safely tell Lady Tasker, in confidence, of course, that she is in a place of safety.’

‘Are you sure you will find her?’

‘I am determined on it.’ The regatta was over and had been a huge success and now he could put his mind to finding Emma and nothing on this earth would ever separate them again. Alone in the house, he paced back and forth, back and forth, wondering how he was going to do it.

When Amelia and Jeremy came back from the ball with an excited Lizzie who had not danced, but was thrilled to stand behind Mrs Summers’s chair and watch the lovely ladies in their colourful dresses and the handsome men whirling past her and tap her foot to the music, they found Alex slumped in a chair in the drawing room, fast asleep. Amelia covered him with a rug and left him there. Time enough in the morning to tell him that Lord Bentwater had attended the ball as a guest of the Rector and that he and James had appeared very friendly. Jeremy had seen them too. ‘There’s our culprit,’ he had told her, nodding towards James.

Alex woke with a start, surprised to find himself in a chair and fully dressed. How could he have slept when Emma was lost, wandering about somewhere too afraid to come back? He flung off the rug and stood up. It was not yet fully light. He went to the window to pull back the curtains in order to see the time on the clock that stood on the mantelpiece. Clouds scudded across the tops of the hills; it looked as though it might rain again.

He heard a sound. Sam was crossing the yard from the stables and looking furtive. He watched him make his way towards the kitchen. Sam was not one to rise before he had to. Alex left the room to go to the kitchen, half-expecting to find Lizzie there, raking out the fire before Mrs Granger came to start on the breakfasts. The kitchen was in darkness. He stopped in the doorway, knowing the outside door should have been locked and bolted. Stealthily, the window was thrust upwards and Sam climbed in over the sill. Alex smiled and waited.

The boy crept across the kitchen and into the larder. Alex could hear him moving about. A minute later, he emerged, pockets bulging, and left the way he had come. His behaviour puzzled Alex. The boy was well fed and knew if he felt hungry he could ask for food, so why creep about in the dark stealing it?

Alex crossed the floor, unbolted the door silently and went out into the yard. Sam was trotting down to the gate, not returning to his bed. He followed, smiling to himself. The boy went down the road, crossed the bridge and set off up Loughrigg Fell. By now Alex had guessed his destination. He was right. A hundred yards short of the old hut, Nipper came bounding out to greet him, wagging his tail in ecstasy. Sam stooped to fondle the dog and then hurried into the hut. Alex moved closer and stood outside.

‘Did anyone see you coming?’

‘No, ’twas still dark and they was all asleep.’

‘Everyone?’

‘Reckon so. They went to a ball last night. I heard the carriage come back real late. I brought you some pecker.’

‘Thank you, Sam. I’ll keep it for later.’

‘You still set on goin’?’

‘Yes, I am, and we must set off at once or I will miss the carrier.’

‘I wish you wouldna’. I don’ know what Mr Lord will say when I do tell ’im. He’ll fly into the tree tops, I knows ’e will. He’ll say I should ha’ told ’im sooner.’

‘He won’t be angry with you, Sam.’

‘Ma will be, if ’e ain’t.’

‘If you are worried, you do not have to come with me. Go home and no one will be the wiser.’

‘Ain’t leavin’ you to go alone, not nohow.’

‘Then let’s go.’

Alex hid behind the building as they came out and started off down the track. He let them go a hundred yards, then followed. He was elated. She had been found and now he could keep her safe, though she was making a fair job of doing that herself. After two nights alone on the fell, she seemed cheerful, ready to be her old intrepid self, to meet whatever befell her with stoicism, so long as she did not have to come face to face with Bentwater again. But perhaps it was not just Bentwater she was afraid of, perhaps it was him too. He had been prodigiously clumsy in the way he had asked her to marry him and she had likened his manner to Bentwater’s. He hadn’t deserved that, had he? But he would not give up. Curious about her intentions, he crept closer.

‘Where you goin’?’ the boy asked.

‘I told you. On the carrier’s cart to Kendal.’

‘Then what?’

‘I am going home to London, Sam. It’s where I belong. My mother needs me. I should never have left.’

‘Why did you? Was it ’cos of the bad man?’

‘Yes.’

‘But Mr Lord ain’t a bad man, is ’e?’

‘No, Sam, he is a very good man.’

‘But you are angry with ’im.’

‘No, I’m not angry with him. But when the bad man comes, he will blame Viscount Malvers for hiding me. He might be arrested. And Mrs Summers too. And I shall still have to go with the bad man.’

‘Seems to me, you’re in a fix,’ Sam said.

‘Yes, and I have to get out of it as best I may.’

They had reached the road and were walking towards Waterhead. Alex left them and returned to Highhead Hall. He did not go inside, but saddled his horse and rode out again. If he went across country, he would be in Kendal before the carrier’s cart arrived.

Emma climbed down from the cart and shook out her skirt. After two nights sleeping in it, and sitting on a sack of grain the carrier was delivering in Kendal, it was looking very bedraggled. And her hair was all over the place and, though she had tried to comb it out, it was still full of knots. She smiled grimly. No one would mistake her for Lady Emma now, would not even mistake her for Fanny Draper. She had sunk even lower.

She would have liked to go into the Woolpack and ask for a room so that she could make herself look respectable again, but she dare not spend the money. Besides, they knew her in there; she had been in with Alex and Mrs Summers several times. Instead she went and sat on a bench to wait for the coach going south.

She shifted along when someone came and sat beside her, but did not look up from studying her filthy hands. She really ought to have gone down to the lake and washed them, but that would have delayed her and she might have missed the carrier.

‘Emma.’ The voice was no more than a whisper.

Startled, she looked at the man who sat beside her. ‘Alex!’

He smiled lopsidedly. ‘Did you think I would not find you?’

‘Sam—’

‘No, not Sam. At least, not knowingly. I wondered why he found it necessary to break into the house and steal food, so I followed him.’

‘Oh.’

‘Why run, Emma? Did you not trust me to protect you?’

‘You might have tried, but Lord Bentwater is very powerful. If he brought Runners with him, he will have you arrested, though you have done no wrong. And dear Mrs Summers, who has been so good to me. She does not deserve that.’ She spoke in a flat, hopeless tone and would not look at him for fear of weakening. Already she was shaking. Before he arrived, her resolve had been fixed, but now she knew it was going to be a hundred times more difficult to maintain.

‘I agree she does not. But she is very anxious about you, as I have been.’ He paused and took one of her grubby hands in his. ‘Emma, I have been out of my mind with worry, imagining all manner of disasters. If anything happened to you, I should not want to go on living. I love you to distraction.’

She turned and looked at him at last. ‘You cannot mean it. I have been nothing but trouble to you.’

He was about to retort sharply that he was not in the habit of saying things he did not mean, but thought better of it. That was a soldier’s retort, not a lover’s. ‘Emma, I do mean it. I have loved you for a long time, possibly ever since we left London. I love your courage, your compassion, your determination, but
more than that, I love your luminous eyes, your aristocratic nose, your bright hair, your kissable mouth.’ He touched each item with a gentle forefinger as he spoke. ‘Your sunny smile and your tears, every little thing about you, the person you are even when you are at your most infuriating.’ He smiled. ‘You do not know how many times I have cursed you in the last two days for leading me such a dance.’

‘I am sorry, but you never said any of that before.’

‘No, and I regret I did not. I regret more than anything that clumsy attempt at asking you to marry me…’

‘Oh, so that was what you were doing.’ In spite of everything, she could not resist teasing.

‘Yes, and I made a mull of it. My only excuse is that I have never proposed to a lady before and I could not seem to find the right words.’

‘Have you found them now?’

‘I do not know. Shall I test them out?’

He slipped to his knees on the cobbles. She laughed. ‘Alex, do get up, you will have everyone looking at us and that is the last thing I want. We are not out of danger, far from it.’

He resumed his seat beside her as the sound of a horn heralded the arrival of the stage. ‘Emma, I love you dearly and what I want most in the world is to make you my wife and spend the rest of my life devoted to your happiness. So, my darling, will you wed me?’ He was obliged to raise his voice at the end because the coach clattered into the yard and the noisy business of disgorging passengers and changing horses was begun.

‘Oh, Alex, you know I love you, but what about my so-called betrothal to Lord Bentwater?’

‘You told me you had not accepted him.’

‘Of course I did not. That won’t stop my stepfather saying I did.’

The coachman approached them. ‘Are you wanting to board the coach, miss? If you are, we are about to depart.’

‘No, she is not,’ Alex said. The man went away and climbed up on the box.

‘Alex, I cannot go back to Waterhead, not while Lord Bentwater is looking for me. I had much better take the coach and go home.’

‘No point in that. There is no one there. Sir George and your mother are on their way here.’

‘Oh!’ She watched the coach leave, not sure whether she felt sorry or relieved. ‘What am I to do?’

‘I have had an idea.’ He picked up her bag in one hand and took her hand with the other. ‘Come on.’

Meekly she followed as he led her to the Fleece Inn. It was only a small establishment, but as its guests had come only for the regatta and had departed that morning, it had vacant rooms. The proprietor came forward as soon as he saw Alex. ‘Mr Lord, I have your room ready.’ He looked from Alex, obviously the gentleman, to the bedraggled woman standing beside him and wondered at the incongruity of it. In spite of her problems, which did not seem nearly so insurmountable now she was with Alex, Emma smiled. Mr Lord, indeed!