I LOOK TOWARD THE door of the anteroom, imagining the guard on the other side in the corridor. “There’s a window in Mr. Temperley’s office,” I whisper, nodding at the other door. “But even if we could get out that way, we’d still have to climb the gates.”
“Then we’ll climb the gates.” Even in the dim room, his skin retains its warm glow, and he looks taller than I remember, pacing toward the office door. He tries the handle. “Locked.” He looks back at me, concern in his eyes. “I have a horse waiting just beyond the grounds. Do you feel strong enough to run?”
“But there’s nowhere to run,” I say, starting to panic.
He takes two long steps back, and then rushes at the door, driving his foot into the wood. With a splintery shudder, it starts to give. He kicks it again, again, until it’s hanging loosely on its hinges.
My mouth hangs open a bit as I stare. He smiles. “After you, Lady Katherine.”
I get hold of myself and run to the office window, hearing the warning slap of approaching feet from the hallway beyond. Thankfully, Mr. Temperley felt no need to put bars on his own personal window.
“Quickly,” William cries in a tight, authoritative voice. He props the door back into place, and then shoulders Mr. Temperley’s desk against it, forming a barricade we both know can’t last long.
At a glance I can see that the lock on the window is hopeless, so I grab blindly for the heavy brass paperweight on Temperley’s desk. Shielding my face, I send it sailing through the window. Heavy fists beat against the blocked office door in response to the sound of shattering glass.
“Move aside, Katherine, now! They’ll try to catch us on the grounds; we must hurry.” William pushes his weight against the wooden framework of the window, shards of glass raining onto the thick tweed at his shoulders. Finally, the whole frame gives way. He leaps with surprising nimbleness to the ground below, and reaches back to retrieve me.
My leg scrapes across the window’s raw edge as I tumble into his arms, but I barely wince. For one moment we’re in each other’s arms, surrounded by fallen stars of window glass. Then we run. Muck sucks at my feet, and each breath claws at my bruised ribs. I can see William checking his speed to keep apace with me, and I force myself to go faster, faster.
“Stop!” cries a voice at our backs. Cosley. “You cannot take that girl!”
The run to the gates is even more surreal by daylight. Once we reach them, William boosts me up, and we both begin to climb. The spikes at the top stab menacingly into the sky, but I can just slide my body between them. William stands fully upright atop the fence, slipping his legs through, then half climbs, half jumps to the ground below. He puts his arms up to meet mine, and then we’ve done it: We’re over the gates.
His horse is loosely tied a few paces away. Though she’s just a middle-aged brown mare, a bit temperamental if I had to guess, I think she is the most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen. Cosley and another guard, Mr. Smith, are pounding toward us as William fumbles her free. By the time she’s untied, I’ve already swung myself into the saddle. “Let me take the reins,” I cry. “Get up!”
He swings fluidly into place behind me as the men fumble at the locked gate. I hear Cosley scream a curse as we start to ride away. The horse pulls against me at first—cantankerous, just as I suspected. “Left, left!” cries William, his body warm and close behind. I swing the horse’s head around, and soon I’ve got her in a hard trot, which I bring up into a gallop as soon as I’ve got a feel for the marshy road. The trees here are ancient and high; we ride between walls of black trunks. The shouts of Temperley’s men quickly fade, replaced by the whipping cold air of the outside world.
When we’re far enough away, William makes me slow down so that he can transfer his coat onto my shivering shoulders. “We must go back for Dorothy,” I say through gritted teeth, wringing my frigid hands.
He reaches around my shoulders and takes my fingers in his, rubbing them to warmness. “You will never go back to that place,” he says. “We’ll help her as soon as we can, but you will never see the inside of Temperley’s again.”
The true desperation of my plight before his arrival starts to sink in, and my face streams with silent tears. We ride over sunken lanes and open fields, pausing to let the horse drink at streams as we pass them. My body is warmed by the coat and by his nearness. He directs me to the most remote paths, and we see no one. The world feels abandoned, as if we are the only riders for miles.
When it’s become clear that we’re not being followed, I break the silence. “How did you know where to find me?” I ask him. “I thought Henry would have told you I’d returned to America.”
He’s so close behind me that I can feel his voice in his chest. “That’s what I was told, yes, when I came to the estate with the papers you requested. For five days running I’d been turned away at the door, told that you were indisposed or unable to see me. Finally, Mr. Carrick, that abominable man, told me you had set sail the day before. I didn’t believe it, that you’d leave without saying good-bye, and I insisted on speaking to Henry. When Mr. Carrick went to fetch him, your dressing maid, Elsie, came to me. She looked frightened—so frightened I had to take her seriously when she told me you’d been spirited off in the night. When Henry did finally come to the door, he was as cool as ever, and repeated what Mr. Carrick had said.
“I rushed to Bristol, hoping that, of the two tales, Henry’s was the true one. There I learned that you had not yet boarded a ship. So I thought on Elsie’s claim, and surmised that you would be in this place. I have known of it for some years, because of payments made from Walthingham to the proprietors.”
His tale first made me angry, and then warm with confused happiness.
“There is something else,” he said. “As I waited at the harborside, I took out the watch you gave me. I thought I might figure out why it had stopped running, and began fiddling with it. But when I opened up the back … well, I discovered something remarkable.”
“What?” I ask breathlessly.
“I’ll show you soon. Let’s keep on toward Walthingham. No, we’re not going to the estate—but to somewhere safe, nearby.”
We ride on. Mr. Simpson calls out from time to time to direct my path, but is otherwise silent. Always his hands are sturdy at my waist, keeping me upright and brave. Soon I start to recognize the terrain, and understand that we’re nearing my land—the land that is mine to sell or to keep, that I will not allow to be stolen from me. “We mustn’t get too close, Mr. Simpson. What if Henry is out riding today?”
“I’m taking you somewhere we won’t be found. Here, let me have the reins.”
He leads us straight through the trees and over the unused tracks. When we skirt the edge of Henry’s quarry, I can orient myself again—the house is nearly a mile away as the crow flies, and we’re moving away from it.
Now the sun has dipped to the level of our eyes. Orange light spills over the rocks and paints my skin gold. “We’re here,” he says softly, pulling the horse to a halt. He ties her up in a copse of trees, where she’s unlikely to be seen, then turns to study the tree line.
“It should be just through there. Keep behind me, now.”
The air, though biting cold, feels wonderfully fresh on my skin. We duck into a tunnel of tight-packed pines, the air between them heady with resin. I keep my eyes trained on Mr. Simpson’s back under his dark tweed coat as he sweeps the trees’ piney arms from our path. They shush closed behind us, hiding our trail from prying eyes. Soon the scent of pine and snow melt is overtaken by a more civilized smell—that of fire and cooking meat. I clutch the back of Mr. Simpson’s coat.
“Almost there, Lady Katherine.”
Finally, we break into a clearing just large enough for a single horse to graze. Across the way is a rock wall, with a low entrance carved into its front and darkness yawning beyond.
I think of my tiny cell at Temperley’s, and the dingy, claustrophobic white of the straitjacket. My forehead feels suddenly damp. “I can’t go in there.”
“Hold tight to my hand.” He extends it toward me, and I grasp at it and squeeze.
The smell of smoke is stronger here, and when we bend forward at the cavern entrance I can see that the darkness within is dancing, and laced with color. Once we’ve advanced a few yards, the rock ceiling is high enough for us to stand straight. A few paces more, and the pathway weaves left, leading to a cavern the size of a bedchamber at Walthingham. Near the back is a low, smoky fire, a spitted rabbit slung over it. The shapes of a table, a sofa, a mattress piled with furs swim out of the dim, and I nearly stumble over a slatted wooden chair piled with books.
Someone squats next to the fire, his head downturned. As we approach, the figure unfolds into a tall man with striking light eyes. I gasp and step behind William. McAllister watches us but does not speak, running rabbit-greasy hands over rough breeches.
“It’s all right, Katherine,” Mr. Simpson says. “He’s going to help us.”
“How do you know we can trust him?”
“I would trust him with anything. You see, Simpson is my mother’s name. But Mr. McAllister is my father.”