Darkness In The Flames (6 page)

Chapter Five

“Hell and devil confound it—“

The woman with a death grip on the reins of the small carriage swore fluidly as her maid grasped at the strings of her bonnet and hung on for dear life. Spooked by a shrieking owl in full pursuit of a fox right across the lane in front of them, the horses had panicked and there was nothing she could do to pull them up.

“
Mrs. Byerly—
“ It was a scream of terror and preceded a rather nasty turn in the country road that the darkness had concealed. The frightened cry only made things worse, spurring the poor beasts into a galloping frenzy.

Katherine battled the runaway pair, rising to her feet and bracing herself as the small vehicle swung wildly. The brake would have been useless even had she been able to reach the handle. The road sloped—their momentum was accelerating—there could only be one outcome.

They weren’t going to make it
.

“Jessie—
jump.
Jump
now
.” Katherine kept the carriage steady as best she could but there was no way she could see if her maid had followed her instructions.  She felt the offside wheels leave the rutted surface and she swayed precariously, trying to give Jessie a few more seconds to find a soft spot to land.

Then she jumped, a moment of free falling terror that seemed to last an eternity. The ground rose up to meet her, hard and unforgiving.

And blackness descended upon the mind and body of Mrs. Katherine Byerly. Before she succumbed, a flash of insight crossed her mind. This was retribution for her appallingly awful actions.

She should
never
have run away.

*~*~*~*

“Sir Sidney,do come, sir. It’s right dreadful is what it is…“

Sidney’s housekeeper shouted at him through his half open study door, jerking him out of his snooze. The sun had not yet risen, but as was his habit these days, he’d dozed off over some book or other.

Usually he’d head off to his bed at this time, sleeping away some of the daylight hours like his son. But apparently that was not going to occur today. Something—in the words of Mrs. Tooting—
right dreadful
had happened.

He followed her from the house into the curved gravel driveway that graced his own front door.

There he found a scene of chaos, with several voices raised at once. They seemed to be clustered around an open wagon, which held what could well be a corpse. “If you’d all be
quiet
for a moment…”

Silence fell. Sidney recognized his stable boy. “Tommy, tell me
what
is going on?”

The lad respectfully touched his forelock. “I was comin’ back from me Mam’s, Sir. Went over yestereve’ and stayed the night with ‘er, since she’s a bit poorly-like.”

That earned him an approving look from Mrs. Tooting, and he blushed. “So as I was a’comin’ down the road yon, the one that curves over the down near the Chyne, I heard horses whinnying and crying something awful.”

Another man stepped forward. “I was headin’ out for me fields, Sir Sidney.”

Sidney recognized a local farmer and nodded. “Go on.”

“I heard ‘em too, and when we got there, well…” He looked down. “’T’were just terrible.”

Sidney looked at the wagon. “An accident?”

Both men nodded and the small crowd moved aside so that Sidney could near the body. Or bodies. It seemed there were two unmoving bundles in the shadows of the cart.

“We didn’t know what else to do wi’ her, Sir.” Tommy chewed his lip. “T’other one was gone, she was. Neck snapped clean as a whistle.”

Sidney sighed. One of the women lying wrapped in some loose thing was alive, that was for sure, since her pulse throbbed beneath his questing fingers. But she was injured too. How extensively remained to be seen.

“Had to put down one of the ‘osses,” said the farmer sadly. “T’other had kicked through the traces. Scratched and bruised up a bit, but he should make it just fine.”

“Seein’ as how you knows about herbs and medicine an’ all, Sir Sidney, we brung her along here. I hope we done right?” Tommy looked extremely anxious now.

Sidney turned to them. “Take her inside please. Mrs. Tooting will tell you where. And yes, Tommy, you did the right thing. I doubt the doctor will be back in the village for a few days. By the looks of things this poor woman won’t last that long.”

Mrs. Tooting frowned. “Are you sure, sir? This
is
a bachelor establishment, you know. Perhaps she’d be better off with young Mr. Trethearne and his wife.”

Sidney frowned. “They’re a good five miles the other side of Jacob’s house, woman. That’s more than two hours from here, and you know it. Besides…” He glanced once more at the unconscious form. “She’s wearing a wedding ring. I expect there’s a husband looking for her. She’ll be gone soon. If she survives at all.”

So without further ado, the men gently lifted the gate from the back of the wagon and bore the fragile burden lying on it into St. Chesswell, preceded by a grim-faced Mrs. Tooting.

Finally, the house settled again, and Sidney had chance to view his newest houseguest under the stern eye of his housekeeper.

“How bad is she, sir?”

Sidney sighed and pulled the sheet up over her still form. “Hard to tell. I can see no obvious injury. No broken bones, I think her ribs are intact, and other than the scratches and bruises, she’s in one piece. But it’s this one bump on her head that troubles me.”

He ran his hands through her hair. “A large one. Looks like she may have hit her head on a rock or something when she was thrown from the carriage.”

“Is that why she’s still sleeping?” Mrs. Tooting moved nearer the bed, smoothing the hair away from the woman’s face in a comforting gesture. “Poor thing.”

“It could well be the cause of her unconsciousness. Nasty things, head injuries. We’ll just have to wait and see.” He stood up. “Have someone near at hand for her in case she wakes, Mrs. Tooting. She’ll not know where she is or what happened and I’d as soon not frighten her further.”

His housekeeper nodded. “Very good, sir.”

“I must rest a bit. Wake me if anything changes…” He yawned. “Probably the best thing she can do right now is sleep. Give her body a chance to heal itself.”

Sir Sidney left the woman to the care of his housekeeper and headed off to his room. He was exhausted, no nearer a solution to Adrian’s problem than he had been for several weeks now and facing this new development.

He needed sleep. With any luck he’d awaken before his son, which would give him chance to warn Adrian of their unexpected guest.

It would also give him time to work out a good way to tell Adrian something else about their guest—she had
red hair
.

*~*~*~*

Pain
. Shattering, stultifying, unbearable pain.

It washed over Katherine in waves, bringing tears to her eyes as she gasped for breath. Even the act of breathing hurt, as if her very lungs were bruised.

Returning to consciousness through a red mist of agony, she fought to raise her eyelids. To see where she was.

To see if she was dead.

Although if she was, there was going to be a serious discussion with St. Peter about the quality of the after-life. It shouldn’t hurt like this. It shouldn’t feel like knives running down one’s body or the solid weight of a boulder on one’s chest, not to mention a headache that was nearly blinding in its intensity.

Mustering every ounce of strength remaining inside her, Katherine opened her eyes and blinked away the tears and mists of unconsciousness.

She was in bed, in a room—a nice room to judge by what she could see from her vantage point—and a fire was blazing in the fireplace, sending dappled shadows across the walls and canopy.

The sun must be setting. How long had she been here? Was it the same day of the accident? Where was she? Somewhere along the south coast, that much she knew…but after Lymington she’d lost her way and the darkness hadn’t helped.

Vague memories oozed back into the quicksand of her brain, images of horses pulling fiercely on their harnesses as she tried to hold them. The sound of Jessie, her maid, screaming.

Oh God.
Jessie
. Where was she? Was she alive? Was she in this house too? Where was this place?

Panic rose inside Katherine’s throat and she struggled to cry out.

A shadow crossed the room and dimmed the light from the fire. “Sssh.” As if sensing her distress, a hand rested on her forehead. A cool hand, large and firm, it stroked down her cheek, soothing and easing her confusion.

“Sleep now.” It was a man’s voice, strangely comforting.

Too weak to protest, Katherine Edgeworth Byerly did as she was bid.

She fell asleep.

Chapter Six

Sidney glanced at Adrian over his glass of port. “I expect you heard the news?”

“About the accident? Yes. Nasty business.”

“There’s something you should know, Adrian…”

Adrian stopped him with a wave of his hand. “If you’re going to tell me about the red-haired woman in the guest room, no need to.” He permitted himself a small smile at Sidney’s exasperated snort. “Any idea who she is?”

“Not a one. Nor am I absolutely sure that she’ll recover. Her head injury is the most severe, and those are damned hard to deal with. I suppose it’s mostly in the Lord’s hands at this point. I gave her a little laudanum, but other than that there’s not much I can do.” Sidney looked sad.

“If anyone can help her, Father, it’s you.” Adrian nodded reassuringly. “And she seems to be healthy enough.”

He received a sharp glance from his father. “I was a little concerned that seeing her would be difficult for you, given her hair color.”

Adrian shook his head. “My Nemesis haunts me with fire, Father. This woman has more of a dark smolder to her. I confess myself curious to know what color her eyes are.”

“And who she is. That’s what I’m curious about. She has a wedding ring, her clothes are of good quality, and she’s well-groomed. Yet there is not one single thing amongst her possessions that gives a clue as to her name.”

“The other woman did not survive, I heard?”

Sidney sighed. “Correct. She fell awkwardly. Her neck snapped. T’was quick and painless, but still a waste of a life.” He finished his port and set the glass down beside him. “She will be interred at the churchyard soon. We cannot wait for our guest to wake. It could be days or even weeks. When—or I should say
if
—she does, we’ll erect a grave marker.”

Adrian nodded. All, it seemed, was in order. Except for the mystery of the injured woman. “Would you mind if I sat with her for a while?” A smile crossed his face. “She might be the harbinger of this curse I’ve heard so much about. I’m curious.”

And he was. This would be an opportunity to evaluate his responses to a woman without concern about his nature, or any input from her whatsoever. And she might talk in her stupor perhaps, or mumble something… Finding excuses for his request, Adrian buried the notion that perhaps the softness of her skin was luring him.

He’d been lured enough by soft skin and heated hair.

“Of course.” Sidney rose from his chair. “I have work to do, and it would set my mind at ease to know you were with her. Plus it would give the servants a break. With only two girls suitable to attend our injured lass, it’s getting wearing on both of ‘em.”

Adrian nodded. “I’ll see to it.”

“Good lad.”

His father patted him affectionately on the shoulder and left the room with a smile. Adrian knew he was eager to return to his books and his studies. Picking up his own glass, he sipped a little more of the port and smiled.

The slight hint of tasting something as simple as this rich liquid was a pleasure Sir Sidney had gifted him with—a gift that he could never repay.

He wondered absently what their guest would taste like. A completely inappropriate thought, but one that slid seductively into his head as the port slid over his tongue.

With a mental chastisement, he finished his wine and quit the room, an unusual degree of anticipation lurking in his mind.

Who was she? Why was she without any identification? Who was the other woman in the carriage? Where was she from?

All valid questions, important questions. So why weren’t they uppermost in his thoughts? Adrian had no idea of the answers to any of them. And yet there was one more question overriding his desire to solve this little mystery. One more question to which he was determined to discover the answer.

What color were her eyes?

*~*~*~*

Katherine sighed and stretched, aware of warmth and a dull ache beneath her breasts. She was naked in the bed, a strange occurrence in and of itself, since the human body should always be clothed.

Who’d told her that? She couldn’t remember, nor did she care. It felt delightful, and she relished it.

Drifting back to awareness, she breathed in air that smelled
different
, unlike the sour sterile smell of…no. She wouldn’t think about that. She had left all that behind.

When she had run away.

Wits clicking into place like a well-oiled clock being wound, Katherine realized she needed to establish an identity. Had Jessie spoken with the people who were tending her? Did they already know who she was?

So many questions.

And one more plagued her…whose hands had soothed her pain?

She should have been more concerned, but something muffled her worries, cushioned her thoughts and prevented her from panicking.

She heard a door open quietly and close again. She stilled, the beat of her heart loud in her ears through the silence of the room.  Even though she’d immediately closed her eyes, she could feel a presence, a person, coming closer to the bed. A servant perhaps? The owner of the house? The lady of the house?