He couldn’t afford to be exhausted. Too much depended on his strength. He didn’t know if he might need to use force to protect her, but he must be prepared.
He ignored as best he could the protest from muscles which wanted to spring into action and moved to the window, trying to see out as much as he could.
Miranda stepped closer.
She removed his coat and held it out to him. He reached out, but stopped. The scent that was like a child which she compared to love might be on it. The soft scent of her skin. His arm dropped.
‘You might need it,’ he said. They remained motionless, her holding out the coat and him not moving to take it.
‘It’s too warm.’
‘The air is getting colder,’ he insisted.
‘Not that much and I can wrap up in—’
She didn’t lower her arm.
He took the coat, clamped his teeth together and turned away. Yes, she could wrap up in the covers. ‘By all means.’ He erased all emotion from his voice and suspected that she heard he’d done so.
She scurried to the bed. He heard the movements and imagined the covers were being neatly divided into two piles. One for the male in the room, the other for the female.
The stubborn part of him caused him to put his coat on and the wool surrounded him with a feminine scent, but he refused to feel it. He would not acknowledge it. He wouldn’t. It was too soft, too fragile, and could seep into him.
He waited, inhaling softly.
He sat on the bed and, sure enough, a bundle of covers lay beside him. He pushed them to rest with the others.
The old woman had done well on the softness of the bed, but she’d sorely misjudged on size. He no longer cared. He lay down and stretched, letting his feet hang from the end because he would not encroach on Miss Manwaring’s area.
He wasn’t really attracted to this governess. He was having some problem caused by celibacy, he supposed. His friends had warned him, explaining that to avoid women was to court disaster. The needs would build up inside him and then he’d lose all sense of logic and propose to the first woman he saw.
That had been proven correct in a very large way.
After he’d been so duped, he’d not wanted to risk that type of experience again.
He had truly misjudged her. Her husband had showed up one day, concerned about Chalgrove cutting his wife’s funds. He hadn’t. A small lie Susanna had told.
He’d been so blinded. And she’d been lying to her husband as well.
She’d lied. She’d laughed. She’d cried. And if there were more emotions she could have shown to her advantage, she would have.
He put his arm across his eyes, but he couldn’t keep from being aware of Miranda. He peered out.
He saw the outline of her arms stretching over her head and heard a yawn. Then she began her little fluffing ritual. First, she righted the pin which she had retrieved and felt to make sure her hair remained in place. Then she straightened her sleeves and brushed down her skirt.
She didn’t really seem scared. Inwardly, he sighed. She might end up transported, which would devastate him. He couldn’t let her be on a ship with criminals, no matter what she’d done.
‘You are not as frightened as I would have expected you to be,’ he said.
She let out a huff. ‘It is as you said. If it were about murder, we would be dead. So much effort would not have been spent on holding us. And we are going to get out and I will never, ever see this cottage again.’
She picked up the broken glass he’d discarded and began chipping away at the door.
‘Save your strength. It can’t work fast enough.’
‘I know. I just have to try.’
He spoke, scrubbing his knuckles over his chin. ‘I can hardly wait to see my valet’s face when he sees me. It will almost make the whiskers worth it—if he survives the shock.’
‘You sound as if you care for a...a servant?’
His eyes challenged her. ‘I’ve spent more time with the man than any other except my father and uncle. In my youth, he was a footman who did not like to be surprised with rocks in his pillow.’ He smiled. ‘He knocked on my outside window in the dark after telling me a ghost story one night. He waved a white cloth against the glass on occasion. My mother finally discovered Wheaton was telling me the stories and forbade it. She said it caused too many imaginations.’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘They were not all imaginations. A few years ago, Wheaton told me he nearly broke his neck climbing that tree outside the window in the dark with a broom in his hand.’
‘That was cruel of him to do to a child.’
‘He really didn’t like grass snakes. He’d told me they sent ghosts to people who caught them—after I’d put one on his shoes while he was wearing them. I forgot about the ghosts...when I found another snake. After two snakes, he took measures to make sure there wasn’t a third.’
‘I cannot imagine a servant acting so.’
‘You have not met Hector Wheaton.’
He lay, listening to the scratches and scraping sounds she made. Every few minutes she would give a soft grumble, or groan or complain about the wood or the tool. Her squabbles with herself charmed him.
Night had fallen completely and he hadn’t planned to sleep, but realised he had when her movements awoke him. The bed moved as she crawled between him and the wall. He’d never had a woman get into his bed so stealthily. For some reason, he found humour in her plan to enter the bed quietly. She might as well have jumped on it. Keeping the bed still was impossible. The light mattress moved like a dinghy in high winds.
He could tell she had positioned herself away from him and her body rested board straight.
If he tapped her side and shouted, she’d probably not stop jumping until she ricocheted off the ceiling.
He lay immobile, not wanting to let her know he’d awoken.
The governess soothed him more than any tavern songs, or boisterous friends or nights with his family.
She was delicate and yet not. A woman who’d walked out of an uncomfortable life and made a new one that suited her better.
He didn’t sleep, but lay there thinking about her as if she were a country away and a lifetime from him.
In the darkness, thunder cracked over the cottage and she jumped, wakening.
Without thinking, he clasped her hand. ‘It’s just thunder.’
She stirred, but didn’t speak.
The wind picked up again and the rain started softly, then increased, and drops pounded on the roof and into the room.
He rose, standing barefoot on a damp floor, and took a step where a puddle had formed. A puddle made from the leaks in the roof.
‘Off the bed,’ he said, jumping nearer her. He tugged her arms, lifting her to her feet and on to the floor.
With a heave, he pulled the bed, stationing it under the leak in the ceiling. He jumped on to the mattress again, gauged the strength by pushing with both palms, then with a fist, slammed the spot where the water ran in. The rotted wood gave way.
His hand could fit inside the hole he’d made and, in a matter of minutes, he’d rammed the remaining boards to and fro enough times to weaken them, showering himself in waterlogged splinters and the odour of rotting, wet wood.
Grabbing the largest piece he’d broken loose, he used it as a battering ram, increasing the opening. Pounding against the roof, cracking reverberated with the water rushing down. Water drenched his hair and rotted wood splintered as it landed on his cheeks.
He slammed the board upwards again, making a large rupture. Water flooded over him as he opened the planks to the torrent above him.
He couldn’t see the sky, but he could feel the freedom.
The opening had widened enough, but was slippery. He’d pounded away the damaged rot and found a strong section that he couldn’t loosen.
Reaching up, he clutched the slippery boards, jumped and threw himself upwards. He climbed on to the top of the house.
‘Toss up my boots,’ he said, ‘and put on your shoes.’
He grabbed the heels as she shoved them up and slid his feet into his boots.
‘Let’s go.’ He crouched at the opening, lying on his stomach and reaching in to take her hands.
She lifted her arms and he raised her through the broken timbers with enough force that he had to roll and she sprawled over him.
‘I could have planned that better.’ He held her for a second, then released her. ‘But I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t.’
He manoeuvred to give her a chance to right herself.
Standing, he tugged her hand, keeping her near. Water drenched them.
‘Take care,’ he said and steadied them, ignoring the pounding rain and concentrating completely on the task in front of him.
When they got to the edge, he didn’t pause, but twisted and lowered himself, jumping to the ground.
‘Now,’ he called out, arms raised, and she tumbled into his arms.
He didn’t give her a second to think, but gripped her hand and pulled her into the woods.
‘Follow me.’ He guided her among the trees, close to the two ruts which had more weeds than any well-used road would ever sport.
Thick trees lined the cart path.
Brambles pulled at her, tearing her clothes, slapping cold, wet splashes on to her skin.
Mud tried to suck her feet into the ground, but she kept running. But not fast enough. She couldn’t keep up with Chalgrove’s legs.
Breathing became harder, then almost impossible. She put a hand at her side and stopped, pulling herself free.
She let her breath catch up with her. ‘I am not a racehorse. The briars catch on my dress.’
He pushed a limb aside and backtracked, stopping at her side. ‘You’re right to slow down. We’ll have a break in the downpour eventually. But it’s almost daylight. The ruts are hard to see in the dark and I don’t want us to stray off the road.
‘How will we...?’ She tried to pull more air into her lungs and forced herself not to shiver. Water pelted down on her.
He held her, concerned as she struggled for air. ‘I doubt she’ll try to recapture us without her helpers. But we might stumble across her camp. We need to keep quiet, although they’ll not be able to take us back. They can’t have planned on us escaping and I can’t imagine more than one guarding the place—or even one, in this rain.’
‘I can’t believe anyone’s out in this. I know she isn’t.’ Miranda said the words without thinking and she didn’t really know why she felt so certain except—except she knew that the old woman wouldn’t be standing in a downpour.
She would be snug somewhere. In a cart with a stale oilcloth over her, or in another house nearby.
Miranda had lived in the house they’d just left. She should have kept in mind the direction to the nearest village, but she wasn’t sure in the dark which way they should run.
He pulled her closer, under a large tree, shielding her from some of the rain.
‘You’re shivering,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think it would be so cold for you.’ Taking her hand, he sat and pulled her on to his lap. Wrapping his arms around her, he shielded her from the rain with his body.
‘Your nose is cold.’ But having his arms around her made her heart beat faster and filled her with warmth. She clasped his chest, snuggling tight, sharing his body heat.
The rain lessened, but neither of them moved, waiting until daybreak, sitting huddled against each other.
He dislodged her as the light began to shine around them. All the rain had stopped and the chaffinches began to call. Pulling her to her feet, he scouted the countryside and the fresh scent of the morning gave promise.
‘I don’t even know for sure which way to go, but we’ll keep moving in the same direction.’
They arrived at a turn in the road, with a side path going away from it.
Chalgrove paused.
‘It’s that way,’ she said, pointing.
Chalgrove stepped to Miranda’s side. He put a hand at her shoulder, the smallest clasp, yet holding her motionless. ‘When were you here last?’
‘As a child.’
His eyes, intense, ignited her senses in the same way a spark flared gunpowder. She lowered her gaze, taking in the cheekbones, the column of his neck, finishing at the bristles of his beard. She could see the corded tension of his neck.
‘I will find out.’ His words left no room for doubt. She’d spoken to Willie in just the same tone when he had been caught outside with one of Polly’s dolls ablaze and a lit candle at his side after he’d heard the story of Joan of Arc.
Chalgrove stood in front of her. ‘You are better off explaining it from your point of view than letting me learn of it from a magistrate.’
‘The fortune-teller spouts nonsense and curses and fables of unicorns. And when she talks in her sleep, I’d say she even lies then.’
‘How do you know this?’ He moved closer, so close she could scent the wet leather of his boots and the dry warmth of his face.
She couldn’t meet his eyes.
‘Don’t expect me to be able to tell you her machinations. I can’t.’ She stepped away and her arm slid from his. She couldn’t even fathom her own mind, much less anyone else’s. ‘How can I understand a daft old woman’s intentions? I’ve not seen her from the time of my early childhood until she locked me in the room. She was old to me even then and she told my mother’s fortune.’
His eyes narrowed. And she shivered inside.
Without speaking, he took off walking again.
She kept up until she got out of breath. Tugging on his arm, she caught his attention.
He stopped and, after observing her, took her to the wooded area beside the ruts and pulled her close, waiting. They were caked in mud and he embraced her, keeping her aloft, yet letting her rest.
‘You know she will hang.’ He dropped the words in the air and they formed images in Miranda’s mind.
Miranda could feel her own feet dangling. Her father and stepmother had attended a hanging. Her stepmother had returned home with a whole basket of tales and had recalled the first vibration of the trapdoor, who stood where, what they were wearing and every utterance. The condemned man’s last words had been repeated at least twice.
Soirées did not get as much attention.
‘I know you want to have justice.’ She closed her eyes, speaking softly. ‘I am alive, though. I am unharmed and, should I be able to resume my duties, I want no more of this. I don’t want to see the woman killed. She’s addled. She must be. I have no coin to steal.’ She pleaded, hoping to convince him. ‘What good could come of her death?’
He reminded her of a stone wall, each rock chiselled into place so firmly it couldn’t be moved.
‘Satisfaction.’ His brows creased. ‘Others being safer.’ A soft breeze blew through the leaves, chilling her, and he must have noticed because he pulled her even closer. Her palm flattened against his chest and he didn’t feel like a stone wall any more, but more like a blanket.
She gazed up and found him watching her.
‘If I were to leave this be, who’s to say what she’ll do next?’ His voice was soft, gentling.
Miranda could hardly think to speak. ‘I know she’s addled,’ she repeated. She clutched his arm, letting her hand rest on his sleeve, savouring the closeness between them. ‘I know I should hate her. But I don’t.’
‘My freedom was taken. And nearly my teeth.’
She waited, trying to come to terms with the fate he intended for her grandmother, but she couldn’t.
‘Does it really matter to you?’ Words spoken tenderly, but with something else beneath them.
Miranda didn’t speak. He knew it did.
The knowledge caused her to waver and he held her. He rested his chin against her hair, embracing her.
‘Let’s move on.’ Chalgrove spoke ever so softly against her hair. A pang of regret settled inside Miranda.
He released her, except that he clasped his fingers around hers.
His hair was finger-combed. The rain had caused his locks to curl around his ears. His shirt had lost all starch. His mud-caked boots were no more presentable than her shoes. He had passed needing a shave and sported enough hair on his face to begin a beard.
His eyes softened. In that moment, she knew he was going to kiss her. His mouth was nearer and her breasts warmed. She waited, lips parted, the moment bringing her body alive with yearning.
But he stopped and his mouth moved into a rueful smile instead of a kiss. He stepped back, his hand releasing hers. ‘Forgive me, Governess. We’ll have time to sort this out when we arrive in London.’
The sensations he caused didn’t completely melt. But he’d called her Governess for a reason. He’d wanted to erase the attraction between them.
He looked into the distance. ‘The magistrate will gather as many constables as it takes. I have the means to hire an army of men.’
It was as if he warned her.
All the warm sensations he’d given her evaporated.
Now, she just had to hope he never found her grandmother, or discovered their relationship. Not that her grandmother could keep anything quiet. A woman, who from the best of Miranda’s recollection, never hid in the shadows and enjoyed calling attention her way.
Her grandmother had even complained when she’d had to stay inside the house, blaming the walls, the weather and, again, the stars...even in the bright of day—for bringing such a curse on her. The stars got credit and censure for everything that happened. But no magistrate would ever go after the stars.
Chalgrove would not take it well that her grandmother had abducted him and he already understood they had some connection.
She’d not forgiven her grandmother either. Hardly. But the old woman had once kept her fed and clothed. Plaited her hair in the mornings.
Miranda wanted to keep her alive. And she didn’t want to see the woman in a gaol. She was tougher than all the other criminals and would likely be playing her tricks on them, but still...her leathered skin wouldn’t be a match for a rope.
She followed his movement, reaching out to his coat, grasping one of the buttons and gazing up. ‘You must know I would never have wanted this to happen.’
‘I do.’ He brushed his knuckles across her cheek and gave a soft shake of his head, and the power of the touch infused her.
She smoothed at her dress and avoided his eyes, then realised, by doing so, she raised more questions in his mind. But her mother had tried and tried to impress upon her that women of quality told the truth. Impure women’s words were glossed and shined, and arranged for their own use—their words like pictures on the walls of their minds. For decoration and display and to capture attention.
She didn’t want to ruin her reputation, cast aspersions on her dead mother for taking in a waif, then lose Willie and Dolly at the same time if her employer judged her a risk. Even the children’s reputations might be hurt because she’d lived with them and been in their father’s employ.
‘I don’t want to see her hanged.’
‘You should.’
‘She is daft.’
Suddenly, a memory she’d hidden eased into Miranda’s mind. Of her, and her grandmother, setting out, walking on that very road, a bucket with bread in it, and going to the fair and, on the way, sleeping in a carriage stall beside a tavern, smelling the sheep dung from the pasture nearby.
A grand adventure and they’d returned with a pack slung over her grandmother’s back full of purchases bought with the money made telling fortunes.
Miranda lugged the refilled bucket home, dirtier, more tired, and feeling just as big as her grandmother.
That had been a glorious day. She’d felt richer than she’d ever been since, knowing about the purchases in the pack and knowing that they’d all be eating well for some time.
Her grandmother could spin any thread of conversation into a fine feast, but she’d pushed her luck too far this time.
Miranda quickened her steps, not wanting to linger in the past.
Chimney smoke filtered through the trees, the burning wood aroma mixing with the scent of the wet woods around them. They both stopped at the same time.
‘We’ll be back in London within hours and justice will follow.’
He took her hand and turned her so that their eyes met. It was as if he gave her one last chance to tell him what she knew.
But she couldn’t speak.
The kiss was a whisper against her lips. A whisper of goodbye. An end of their time alone.
Then, still holding her hand, he strode away and she could barely keep up with him.