Kitty’s stomach fluttered with nerves as she set Herald’s head up the long sweeping slope to Fenton Edge. There was no hurry, so she held the horse to a steady trot. She had come early deliberately. Adam had said he would come in the note Davey had brought back from Kelridge Place, so she would get there early and watch his approach—at least until he disappeared into the trees at the base of the Edge. He would have to ride around to the south side before he found a way up and that would give her time to prepare herself and to plan what she wanted to say. Not that she hadn’t already planned it, and practised it, ad infinitum. But she needed to make sure she missed nothing out. She had all her logical answers ready and must make sure she didn’t allow emotion to cloud her judgement. And she would pray that her honesty would tempt him to stay at Kelridge Place where they could at least see one another from time to time.
She would stand firm. She would refuse to be swayed, even though she loved him to distraction and believed that he loved her. And it was because she loved him she must let him go. She would not…could not…trap him in a childless marriage. He would say it did not matter to him, but it did. It should. He had many others relying on him now…his workers, his tenants. It was Adam’s duty to sire an heir to take on that responsibility.
She reached the top and dismounted, tethering Herald to the same bush she had used before. She stripped off her riding gloves, removed her hat and unbuttoned her jacket—she had dressed with such care in her best riding dress, with her midnight-blue spencer and matching hat, but now, with the sun still high in the sky and not a breath of wind, she was close to being uncomfortably hot. She hurried across to the edge of the escarpment, eager to catch her first glimpse of Adam.
There he was—and her heart leapt to see him—astride a grey horse, cantering along a track that crossed a field far below. Kitty squinted, trying to make out his expression even though he was clearly still too far away. She estimated he had ridden three of the four miles that separated Kelridge Place from Fenton Edge, which meant she had plenty of time before he joined her, so she sat on the grass and watched his steady progress as she rehearsed her arguments in her head. He disappeared from view as he reached a tree-lined lane that edged the field. Kitty watched, waiting for him to reappear. And waited. She frowned.
Where is he?
He should have turned to his left once out in the lane. After about a quarter of a mile, there was a junction, where he would turn right on to the road that curved around the base of Fenton Edge, bringing him round to the gentler slopes to the west and south. Kitty jumped to her feet, her heart suddenly thundering.
What has happened?
She moved closer to the steep drop, peering down, trying without success to penetrate the canopy of the trees. Then, she spied a movement. Her heart leapt but, within seconds, her stomach lurched, filling her mouth and throat with the sourness of bile. The grey horse was there, yes. But he was tied to the back of a carriage drawn by two brown horses. A man—she could only see the top of his cap, but he was all dressed in black—drove and…she squinted again…she could just make out another figure through the carriage window. Although she couldn’t quite make him out, she would swear he was not Adam.
She whirled around and ran for Herald, tore his reins free and mounted, using a nearby rock. She urged him into a canter and sent him careening down the slope, angling him to the left as they descended. He seemed confused, wanting to head for home, but Kitty insisted. As the terrain levelled out, she urged him even faster, bending low over his neck, his mane whipping her face. There was no time for thought. Or to plan. If she was wrong, if for some reason Adam had met friends and accepted a ride in their carriage, then she would laugh at her own stupidity later. Once she knew he was safe. But the image in her head, as she headed for that road that would lead her around to the other side of the Edge, was of Adam, his arm bleeding after he had been shot.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why did we all so easily dismiss the threat?
Too late to regret it. She thrust aside the pointless recriminations that threatened to engulf her. They would slow her down too much. All she could do now was concentrate on catching that carriage. After that…no point in even thinking about it. She would catch it and then she would do whatever she could.
They reached the road at last and she reined Herald to the north. They did not slow until they reached the junction with the lane the carriage had been on. No sign of anything or anyone. She listened, but heard nothing other than her own heaving breaths. But there was only one direction they could have taken. She set Herald to a ground-eating trot, sitting erect in the saddle, craning her neck to try to see…anything.
* * *
Ten minutes later, she slowed. A roadside gate afforded her a view across a paddock and, on the far side, she spied a small, enclosed carriage with a pair of brown horses hitched to it—their steaming coats glistening with sweat—next to a ramshackle wooden-sided barn. The barn stood in a yard behind an abandoned cottage, its thatched roof long caved in and its window glass shattered, which was set back from the road and fronted by a large garden enclosed by stone walls. Kitty could see no sign of the grey horse, or of Adam or the men she had seen earlier.
Kitty slid from Herald’s back and tied him to the gate before running along the road until she reached the track that led up to the side of and behind the cottage, only to find the barn and the carriage were now hidden from her sight. A flash of white further along the road caught her attention, however, and she looked in time to see a riderless grey horse disappear from view. Her insides curdled with fear and she looked around her helplessly. She had no weapon. What could she do? She eyed a nearby hedgerow. A stick? Hopeless. What use a stick against two men? A rock? The broken-down stone wall that edged the cottage’s garden would provide plenty, but what would she do with one? Or even a hundred? Never had she felt her own sex and its lack of strength so keenly.
She hesitated at the end of that short track, ideas darting into her head, only to be dismissed almost immediately. Then her nose twitched and she fought a sudden urge to sneeze, squeezing her nose between two fingers, as the creak and rumble of carriage wheels reached her. She jerked her head up in time to see the horses’ heads emerge from behind the cottage and, beyond them…her heart bounded into her throat as she took in the lazy spiral of smoke above the cottage roof, rising and spreading in the still, summer air.
Oh, dear God! Adam! Then… Don’t panic! Don’t freeze.
She could do nothing to help if she was seen. A glance up the track confirmed she still had time to hide before the driver spotted her, so she scrambled over the wall and crouched low, her heart beating so loudly she was afraid they would hear it. As the carriage drew level with her, she risked a quick look through a chink between the stones and caught one fleeting glimpse of two men on the box of the carriage. Her blood chilled and her insides turned liquid as she saw they were masked, with mufflers drawn up to cover their lower features. Sick with fear, she realised they would see Herald if they turned back towards Fenton Edge, but luck was on her side. The carriage turned north, away from the Edge and towards the village of Kelworth, beyond which lay Kelridge Place. She risked lifting her head high enough to peer into the carriage window as it passed her by, but there was nothing, and nobody, to be seen.
She didn’t bother clambering out into the road again, but sprinted through the abandoned garden, brambles catching and tearing the skirt of her gown. She reached the cottage and raced around to the back, terrified at what might await her. She skidded to a halt, taking in the three fires spaced out along the base of the front of the barn, including one at the bottom of the big double doors that had been firmly wedged shut by two large poles, one end against each of the doors and the other ends jammed into the dry earth in front of them.
‘Adam!’ Her scream reverberated and she both longed to hear him answer and dreaded hearing him, still clinging to the hope she had misunderstood everything and that he was even now waiting impatiently for her on top of Fenton Edge.
She started at a loud crack from the far side of the building and peered up to see thicker smoke rising, pluming black above the ridge of the barn roof. The sight jolted her into action and she fell to her knees, scrabbling at the bare dry earth in front of the doors and throwing it on the fire set there. It took time…too much time…to smother it. The other two fires had taken hold of the tinder-dry grass and brambles that grew right up to the side of the barn. There was no dry earth close by either fire and a quick scan of the yard revealed no shovel to help her douse them in time to stop the flames that even now licked up the side of the barn.
She leapt to her feet and lunged at the nearest pole, tugging at it for all she was worth, but it was wedged too tightly and wouldn’t budge. Sobbing with frustration, she tried the other pole but, like the first, it was wedged solidly into the earth. Then, with a flash of inspiration, she moved to stand underneath it, allowing her to push it upright instead of trying to pull it. She shoved at it with all her might until the top end lifted away from the barn door. She didn’t have the strength to topple it right over, but she had loosened it sufficiently for it to slip sideways down the barn door until the entire pole lay on the ground. Grunting with the effort, Kitty rolled it, bit by bit, until she could open the door wide enough to slip inside the barn.
Smoke had fingered its way inside, roiling and curling up to the roof and escaping through the many gaps in the tiles. It immediately caught in Kitty’s lungs and she coughed, her eyes smarting. Remembering Edgar’s nightmares about his frantic, futile efforts to save his first wife from the blazing wing at the Hall, and the things he blamed himself for not knowing—that he should have covered his nose and mouth, he should have kept close to the floor where the air would stay clearer of smoke—Kitty dropped to her knees and screamed Adam’s name again.
She ripped off her spencer and held it to her nose and mouth, her eyes darting all around the dim interior of the barn. She could see further, down here at floor level, and she could see a man, lying on his side. Unmoving.
‘Adam?’
A pathetic, choking sob, muffled by her jacket. She crawled to the huddled figure, grabbed its shoulder and heaved with all her might until it toppled over on to its back. He groaned and his arm flailed.
Oh, thank God!
Sobs of relief swelled her chest and choked her throat, but there was no time for emotion. If they were to get out of the barn, she must rouse Adam. Somehow. A glance overhead confirmed the flames had not yet reached the roof beams, but it was surely only a matter of time.
She shook Adam. He groaned again, his eyes screwed shut. She put her lips to his ear.
‘Adam.’ She fought to keep her voice steady and low, but the tremor was there nevertheless. ‘It’s Kitty. You have to help me. I can’t move you by myself.’ She slipped her hand behind his head, feeling the sticky warmth of blood. ‘Adam.’ It was an effort not to scream at him…shriek at him to wake up…but she needed him to come back to her, not to retreat back into oblivion, driven away by shrill pleas that would serve no purpose. ‘Come. You can do this. Adam… I love you. I cannot bear to lose you again.’
A sob broke free. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him. ‘Please…’
She was sure he was coming around. His breathing was erratic, his forehead puckered and his eyes were still screwed shut. If he were unconscious, surely all his muscles would be limp? She didn’t really know, but she took them as good signs. She twisted to look at the door. So near. When she again glanced up at the roof a thrill of fear leapt through her as she spied flames licking along the heavy beams.
She scrambled to her feet. She grabbed Adam’s hands, stretching his arms over his head, straight out behind him. She leaned back and pulled with all her might. He didn’t budge. Worse, he snatched his hands from hers and she was powerless to stop him. But that must mean he had some idea of what was happening to him.
‘Adam Monroe!’ she bellowed at him before bending double as she was seized by a paroxysm of coughing. She dropped again to her knees by his head. ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’
He stirred, mumbling.
‘Move, Adam. Fire! You have to move because, as God is my witness, I will not leave you. If you choose to stay here and burn, then I will burn right alongside you.’ She cradled his face and lowered her mouth to his, kissing him. ‘I love you, Adam. Help me. We can only do this together.’
One eye slitted open and his hand went to his head. ‘Hurts,’ he whispered.
She shook him again. ‘It will be better soon. We have to get you—’
Again, she was overtaken by a spasm of coughs, but she saw Adam’s other eye open and a look of horror suffuse his features as his gaze swept their surroundings. She put her lips to his ear.
‘Adam. If you do not help me, we will both die.’
She didn’t waste her breath with more words. She shuffled around on her knees and thrust her arm behind his neck, straining to lift him into a sitting position. His groan was almost smothered by the crackle of flames. She glanced behind them again. The doors were still untouched by the fire, but for how much longer?
‘Adam! Stay awake! When I pull you must help me.’
She scrambled to her feet and stood behind him, then stooped to push her hands under his armpits.
‘Bend your knees. When I pull you must dig your heels into the floor and push with your legs.’
His head was still upright, so he was awake. She prayed he was aware enough to understand what she wanted him to do.
‘Now!’ She pulled back and could have sobbed when she saw him bend his knees up, just a little, and then straighten his legs, using his feet to shuffle himself backwards.
‘Again!’
Little by little, they neared the door.
‘Hie! Is there anyone in there?’
Her blood turned to ice, despite the heat that had slowly built inside the barn. The sweat trickling down her back raised gooseflesh and she shivered. Those men. Had they come back? She didn’t even have a clue what they looked like. Then an ominous, low roar grabbed her attention and, with horror, she saw the main roof beam engulfed in fire—the flames almost alive as they danced across the inner surface of the roof, greedy and gleeful as they hunted more fuel.
She had no choice. ‘Help!’ It was barely a croak. She took the two steps to the door and thrust her arm out, waving frantically. She could have gone outside, but she would not leave Adam. The air was fresher there, however, and she filled her lungs, which just made her cough even more. She crouched down, waiting for the fit to pass. Then tried again. ‘Help!’ This time, it emerged as a shriek. She waved again, then returned to Adam, who was again flat on his back.
‘Push with your feet or, heaven help me, I will never speak to you ever again,’ she growled into his ear.
He moaned, but he did as she demanded, and they continued to inch towards the door.
Then everything happened with a whoosh. Literally. As the doors were flung open, the fire leapt with life, the walls all around the barn alive with flames. Strong hands grabbed Adam, and Kitty found herself swung up into the arms of someone who ran out of the barn, cradling her. Dazed, she stared over his shoulder at the burning barn and she winced as, with a loud crack, the roof caved in. Tears leaked from her eyes. She raised them to her rescuer’s face.
Grenville Trewin.
She gasped and the energy she had lacked a moment ago now surged through her. She struggled.
‘You! Let go of me! Put me down!’