Alex woke her in the silver light before dawn. All she wanted was to nestle down beneath the covers, curl up next to him and dream, but he was already up and dressed. He rubbed her shoulder.
“Wake up, Caroline.”
She made a face and rolled over, but he pulled the blankets back, letting the cool air waft against her sleep-warmed skin.
“I’m awake.” With a sigh, she rose, pulled on the black gown, and braided her hair, tucking the ends up to make a respectable bun.
“Here.” He set the hat atop her head and pulled the veil down. “No one will recognize you.”
“I hardly recognize myself.” She studied the somber figure in the glass. The veil set a thin scrim of darkness between herself and the world. She lifted it back up. They were safe enough here. When they met other travelers, then she would pull it down.
“Come. The horses are ready, and I asked the innkeeper to provide us food for traveling.”
Caroline followed him to the threshold, then turned back. “My letter to Uncle Denby.” She snatched it from the table.
“We can post it downstairs.”
He held open the door to the servant’s stairs, narrow and dark, redolent with smells of baking bread. They emerged to find the innkeeper waiting with their provisions, and a thick wool shawl for her. Behind him, in the kitchen, she glimpsed a woman kneading dough and singing to herself.
Alex paid the man, instructed him to post her letter, then hurried Caroline out the back door. The clear, still air of morning wrapped them as dawn broke, a line of pale orange to the east. A groom was holding two horses. They whickered softly and one stamped its foot on the dew-wet ground.
Alex secured the sack with their provisions behind his saddle, then helped her mount. In moments they were off. She spared a wistful thought for the comfort of the inn’s bed. Likely the blankets were still warm.
Mist edged the fields as they rode, bearing north and east. Ahead of them the sky brightened, the road stretching forward, empty.
The hours passed quietly. Alex seemed increasingly wrapped in his own thoughts as he drew closer to his home and whatever waited for him there. Every conversation Caroline began trickled back into silence after a few brief exchanges. The words seemed too heavy to sustain themselves.
Or perhaps it was that they were both exhausted still. They had not spent the entire night in sleeping, after all. Her blood beat with the memory of their lovemaking.
They stopped when the sun was high, and rested in the shade of the hedgerow, sharing the simple fare the innkeeper had provided. The air had warmed, filled with the insect drone of early summer.
Caroline took a hunk of brown bread. “Alex.”
He looked up, startled, as if she had interrupted him. “Yes? Would you like more cheese?”
“Tell me about where we are going. Ravensbridge.” What had driven him from his home? She could not voice the words. Was there a lost love waiting for him, biding the years until his return? Her heart clenched at the thought. “Did you grow up there?”
Shadows gathered in his eyes. “Yes, until I was sent to school.”
“Do you have any brothers? Sisters?” She could not bring herself to ask about his parents—already she felt him withdrawing.
“One brother. Older.” He wrapped the cheese back in its packet, his movements controlled. “If you’re finished, we need to keep going. We’ll skirt York and be on the moors by this afternoon.”
Another several hours of riding passed with little but strained silence between them. Caroline tried not to fret, but there were too many problems weighing on her. Her uncle must be mad with worry, and Pen as well, who knew something of the danger Mr. Simms represented. And what of the Twickenham school? There would be no endowment now from Viscount Keefe. She shuddered just thinking his name.
The terrain changed, fields giving way to rough heather. Alex shaded his face with one hand, glanced at the sky, then the hills rising on their left. At the next crossroads he turned his mount east and beckoned her to follow. His shoulders were tight, his expression set.
Worry squeezed Caroline’s breath as she prompted her horse after him.
At length they came to a bridge, double arches of stone spanning a dark river. The water moved slowly beneath, reflecting the clouds beginning to stack up in the sky. He drew rein on the near side.
“Pull the veil down.” His voice was low, strained. “We’re getting close.”
She tugged the netting over her face, then looked at him. Face taut, he stared, unmoving, across the bridge.
“Alex?” She prodded her horse next to his and set her hand on his arm. Even through his coat she could feel the tension coiling through him. “Are we riding on?”
His lips thinned. “Yes.”
Still, it was another long moment before he urged his mount forward. The horse’s hooves thudded on the weathered stone as they crossed, and on the far side it seemed the air carried a chill.
Or maybe it was the expression in his eyes that made her shiver: cold, remote, as if he were traveling away from her to a place she could not follow.
They left the river behind as the road wound onto the moors. She had not imagined the chill. The wind was beginning to rise, bearing the scent of the sea, and dark clouds scudded in from the east. Caroline halted a moment, gripped the corners of the sturdy wool shawl, and knotted it more firmly about her. When she looked up she found him watching her, a dark figure against a darkening sky, the wind lashing his black hair.
The road skirted along the top of a rough cliff. Alex guided his horse along the edge, glancing constantly down at the tumbled boulders as if searching for something.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
There was no answer. Perhaps he had not heard. A gust blew her veil, lifted the horses’ manes and tails. The sky was full of dark clouds now, the sun obliterated. Across the rolling expanse of heather a gray curtain of rain moved toward them.
“Alex—”
“There.” He pointed ahead to a sharp bend in the road, then dismounted, leading his horse forward. His limp was more pronounced than she had ever seen it.
Her mount twitched as the first fat drops of rain reached them. The storm was coming, but Alex was intent. He bent and touched the ground as if feeling something that radiated through the earth, and when he rose his cheeks were wet. Rain or tears, she could not tell.
“This place marked me—gave me my limp.” It did not sound like Alex, his voice emerging flat and distant. “It was here I struck the rocks in the dark of night, fleeing the horror of my own making.” He took another step toward the cliff, his coat whipped out behind him by the wind. “I had been driving as fast as the team would pull. More than once the wheels nearly went off the edge.”
He turned to her then. There was no trace of her lover in those haunted eyes—only a man grimly stepping into the tempest of his own past.
“I wanted to die.”
Caroline brought her closed fist to her mouth, her heart clenching. Drops tipped over the brim of her hat and clung to the veil like dew on a spiderweb.
He continued, voice remote. “The carriage upended and the horses dragged it until it caught here. My leg was trapped under me, torn. I clawed my way forward, cut the harness as the carriage tipped.” He pointed down over the face of the cliff. “There. I should have gone with it over the edge.”
She nudged her mount forward and saw the wreckage below, weathered and melting into the landscape, the outlines of what had once been a carriage, broken at the bottom of the cliff.
The sky opened then. Sudden, violent, the rain was on them, chains of water flung down from the black clouds. The wind whipped her sodden hair into her eyes. Her mount gave a shrill whinny. They had to find shelter. They had to leave this place.
“Alex!”
He had mounted again, but sat staring down, still trapped in memory; rigid and unmoving while the storm lashed about him.
Caroline prodded her mount as close as possible to his, then reached for him, lacing her fingers through his hair. She pulled, bringing his face down to hers, fastening her lips over his cold mouth, infusing everything of life she could into a single kiss.
For a heart-stopping instant there was no response. Then he breathed, lips moving against hers, a spark flashing between them. He lifted his head, his expression alive again. Their gazes met. Midnight shadows speared her through, his look more frightening than even the elemental fury unleashing around them.
Thunder coiled through the air. He shouted something, then bolted his horse forward, down the winding road into the valley. Her mount was glad to follow. She gave it its head, barely able to see the dark silhouette ahead in the driving rain. Hoof beats mingled with the drum of her own heart, the rasp of breath, the gather and release of the horse moving beneath her.
They pelted through the storm for what felt an eternity. She was dimly aware of passing hedgerows but did not consider what that meant until her mount turned off the main track, following Alex’s horse across a plowed and muddy field. Ahead a shadowy bulk revealed itself—a barn. Shelter.
He was already off his mount and shoving the half-door wide. He caught her reins as she rode up, and guided her into the dim, hay-scented safety. Outside, the storm flung itself against the building, the wind pressing through the cracks. She slipped down from her horse, the folds of her black dress sodden and dragging about her, and they waited silently, numbly, for the torrent to spend itself. At last she spoke.
“What happened, Alex? You fled so far. You said you would never set foot in England again.” She saw in her mind’s eye the wrecked carriage at the base of the cliff. What had he run from that night—and what was he returning to?
He said nothing, his hands clenched into tight fists.
“You can tell me.” She let the words carry her trust, her promise of understanding. “I know you are a good man—”
“I am not a good man!” His voice was harsh and raw, driving her back a step.
“You are.” Her own heart raced in response. “What could you have done that requires you to live your whole life in shadow? Why must you wall yourself away from those who love you?” She took his hand in hers, cold, unresponsive. “From those you love. Why must this stand between us?”
He jerked his head up. “Can you bear to know the blackness in my heart, Caroline Huntington?” The words were as sharp as broken glass.
“I…” Her throat was dry. “I must know.”
His eyes burned with despair. “Then I will show you.”