Elisabeth Fairchild (24 page)

Alexander rode into Appleby soaked to the skin, the rain fitting his mood. He went straight to the apothecaries only to be told, as he had been told all morning, that he had just missed Miss Foster.

Defeated and chilled to the bone, he stepped from the shop, and taking up the gray’s reins, turned toward the King’ Head stables. As if to underscore his failure, the rain, which had been falling steadily, gave itself to greater vigor. With bowed head and deflated spirits, rain trickling uncomfortably down the back of his neck, he ran.

Ran straight into another running figure, head bowed against the deluge. He almost did not recognize her, face streaming wet, her hair looking darker, and much bedraggled, so soaked was she, despite the dripping bonnet that covered much of her head.

Penny Foster.

“Mr. Shelbourne!” Her breath plumed in the cold, rain running like tears upon her cheeks, the signboard above the stable door banging in the wind. “I must ask you to stand well back from me.”
He did not step back as she asked, did not relinquish his hold on her shoulder. “At last I find you, after searching all morning, and this is how you would welcome me?” His eyes gleamed with amusement beneath rain-beaded eyebrows. “It will not do, Penny. It really will not do.”

He bent his head, as if to kiss her, right there in the middle of the street where anyone might see them, and as much as she would have secretly loved him to do just that, she held him at arm’s length, saying, “You must not. I fear contagion.”
“Your warning comes too late,” he said, undeterred.
“Are you ill, sir? Fevered?” She pulled off her glove that she might press her bare hand to his forehead.
He nodded, and indeed his forehead was warmer than her chilled fingers.

“Half sick with love,” he said, taking her hand in his, turning it palm upward, that he might kiss away the raindrops. “Fevered with need.”
She tried to free her hand, to push him away. “I would not make you ill, sir. Too much do I care for your well-being.”
“Do you?” He smiled, his wet face unexpectedly beautiful as he slid his hand inside the cover of her cloak, seeking the warmth of her waist. “Ah, but you are the cure, my dear.” He drew her closer. “Come. I would get you out of these wet clothes. I would warm you as you have never before been warmed.”

“No,” she said, arms forceful, though she was desperately in need of warming.

He silenced her with a kiss, lips trailing, kissing raindrops from her cheeks, lighting a fire with his breath, with the touch of flesh upon fesh, that coursed into the heart of her, and down, down, into the most private part of all that she was.

“I thought you had given up  on me,” he whispered, voice husky. “That the child meant more to you than I.”
“I am serious,” she pulled away as he nuzzled her neck, warming her ear lobe with his breath. “According to the apothecary, Felicity has . . .”

“German measles,” he said, both hands under cover of her cloak, encircling her waist, drawing her closer, a purposeful look in his eyes. “Had them when I was a lad.”

At that, all the fight went out of her. She allowed him to kiss her forehead without complaint or resistance. She did, in fact, lean her head ever so briefly upon the solid comfort of his shoulder, sliding her cheek across the wet wool lapel of his coat, into the hollow of his neck. Breathing deep the wet, manly smell of him, wondering if her breath on his chin aroused him as much as he had arouse her, she said, “Will you come with me?”

“Where?” He leaned back, desire blazing in the depths of his eyes like fire, a conflagration that threatened to consume her.

“To Wharton,” she said, and watched with regret the dimming of that brightness and warmth.

“I must let Val know Felicity has the measles. To expect the rash, and the returned fever,” she explained.

“Of course.”

How crestfallen he looked, how cool his gaze as a pucker formed between his brows, as his hands left her waist.

“Val was in a bad way when I left him,” he said, wiping the rain from his nose with the palm of his hand.

She shivered, suddenly chilled to the bone, hungry for the return of his touch, for the heat in his eyes. “Drunk? Or ill?” she asked.

He frowned, all light, humor and love gone from his features. Worry traced lines in the corners of his mouth. His eyes looked more gray than green in the shadow of his hat brim. “Quite possibly both,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Together they set off in the miserable rain, as the clock tower above St. Lawrence’s marked half-past-one, both of them hungry, cold, and deeply concerned, she, most definitely for the child, he for Val, and even more importantly--for the two of them. He had intended to kiss Penny Foster in the street, to tell her how much he loved her--to ask her to be his. He began to think the rain, and his failed attempts to find her, an omen of sorts, an indication that he was not meant to leave Appleby on the morrow after all. That he was to get on with the making of life rather than the taking of it.

And now that he had found her, had held her in his arms, and stood ready to offer her all that was left of him--once more, the child came between them. And while he could not in any way fault her for her concern--indeed, he joined her in worrying about poor little Felicity with Val as her protector--he was sure now he had been right in what he had told her father. She cared more for the child than for him. And the truth of it was devastating.

She looked at him often as they rode. He could see the movement of her bonnet out of the corner of his eye, and yet he could not bring himself to look back at her, fearing she must see his disillusionment, his hopelessness in the face of that which he had begun to hope for most.

He shivered in a cold that went all the way to the depths of him. He was reminded most vividly of other weides in the rain, of a similar sense of hopelessness, one he had hoped to banish in the warmth of his love for her. He focused on the bobbing mane of the gray, up and down and up and down, and soon they would be there. He glanced at the rump of the pony, gone before his horse in the lane. It was the same pony’s rump that he had seen that first day, on the road into Appleby. A brown rump, grayed by the mist. He had asked her then if she needed his assistance, and she had refused him. Would she ever need him as he now needed her? He did not think so, and with that thought, he wondered, would he ever be warm again?

He had wanted to kiss her!

She could tell by the way he had looked at her that he had wanted to hold her closer, and more, so much more. She had seen desire in other men’s eyes, but never like this, never coupled with such warmth, such affection, such softness.

She blushed to remember it, and all for her, and wondered if a matching desire glowed in her eyes as she glanced at the tall figure on the rain-drenched horse beside her. She could not deny she wanted what those heated looks promised. She wanted his hands beneath her cloak--wanted all that she had once refused Val.  She imagined unbuttoning her bodice,  and peeling the cold, wet clothes from her back, that he might warm every inch of her with touches, and kisses, and the brush of bare flesh to bare flesh. Her breasts throbbed with need.

She wanted to lie with Alexander Shelbourne, to give of herself as she had never given before. She wondered if he knew, and flushed to think that he might, her cheeks heated and rain chilled at the same time.

She felt no embarrassment at all for her rain bedraggled state. In his eyes she was beautiful, desirable--kissable. She even began to think he meant to offer the future she had despaired of: a future that included marriage,  respectable connections,  perhaps even children--a house full of children.

“Do you still mean to leave tomorrow?” she called out to him, over the splashing thud of the horse’s hooves as they turned into the avenue of trees that led to Wharton Manor .

He tipped back his head to answer, but a shout, much muted by the rain, interrupted his answer. A dark figure waved frantically from the hillside to their left, calling to them again. He was draped in a long cloak, and overshadowed by a broken-armed umbrella.

“Who is that?” Alexander asked.

“I do believe it is Yarrow.” Penny frowned. “Though why he should be out in this dreadful downpour is beyond me.”

Yarrow, not at all his orderly, austere self, drenched hair dripping into worried eyes,  half walked, half slid down the slope, so great was his haste in approaching. Out of breath he leaned into the side of the gray, his pitiful umbrella dripping a curtain of rain. “He--he  has taken her onto the fells,” he  said.

“Has he gone mad?”

Yarrow nodded balefully. “A man possessed. Would not listen to a word of reason. Sent me after you, he did, when she grew feverish, and refused her medicine. When I returned to tell him you were not to be found, he held her limp in his arms, covered head to toe in a red rash.”

Penny gasped, terror gripping her heart.

“Said he was entirely to blame. Said he were not fit to live with such guilt.”
“Do not say she is dead,” Penny begged.

The old butler looked away uneasily, mouth pursed. “I am afraid she may well be, Miss. The maids tell me she was delirious, that he had to hold her down to force the quack’s concoction. They were afraid to go near her--near him--when she went limp, miss.”

“I should never have left them.”

“And where are they, now?” Alexander asked grimly.
Yarrow pointed up the hill. “Did not so much as stop to put on his cloak.” He shook the sodden garment in his arms. “Just  stepped out into the wet, left the door open, the rain peltering in.”

“How long ago?”

“Cannot be far. On foot, he is.”

“We must go,” Penny said,  kicking the pony into motion.

Alexander would have followed her at once, his hands had lifted the reins with that very end in mind, but another shout gave him pause, and as a streak of black and white charged up the hill after Penny, he knew without turning who it was.

“So, it is you delays Penny in her errand,” Mr. Foster said irritably, his nose very red beneath his dripping hat. “I began to worry about my girl when Wharton’s man came asking after her, and she long since due at the Manor to my way of thinking.”

“Perhaps it is best you are here with the dog, after all.” Alexander said. “Come, we’ve no time to waste.”

Artemis led the way, the three of them following, the Foster’s fell ponies clambering up the hill with ease. Alexander’s gray, heavier, and less familiar with the landscape, hesitated now and again, and slipped among the rocks.

The rain-laced sky, brooding, went from the dull gray of a dove’s breast, to the darker gray of the gun barrel protruding from Mr. Foster’s saddle--a carbine, much like Alexander was used to shooting.

“Where are we going?” Foster shouted. “Would she visit her mother again, in this dreadful weather?”
Alexander kept his eyes on the horizon, what little they might see in the eddies of the mist, and shouted back at him,  “Her mother?”

The old man nodded grimly, rain bouncing from the brim of his hat. “The ravine,” he yelled.  “Where she jumped.”

Alexander goaded the gray to keep up with Foster’s pony, the awful words resounding in his mind. “Let’s hope that is not where he takes her,” he said.

Foster turned to glare at him, confused. “He? Who?”

Ahead of them, Felicity kicked her pony to greater speed.

“Val!” Her shout blew back at them. “Wait! Val.”

There they were, shadows in the mist: a man staggering, something heavy in his arms, a pair of legs dangling, a bit of cloth fluttering limply in the wind. He turned his head, ever so slightly, as if he heard Penny’s cry,  but his pace never slackened. He simply kept going, doggedly climbing the final slope to the ridge.

“We’ll never get there in time,” Mr. Foster shouted as he raised quirt to the winded pony. “The ravine is on the far side of that ridge.”
Alexander reined the gray to a sudden standstill, his response  instinctive. “Give me your gun,” he said.

She kept riding, knowing she could never reach them in time, knowing Val was unstoppable,  and yet she could not stop gigging the pony’s ribs though the game little beast already went as fast as was prudent . She could not stop bruising his rump with the quirt, could not allow her world to step over the brink again--not again--without trying to halt disaster.

Thunder sounded behind her, and yet it was not thunder. A bee sang by her ear, and ahead of her Val staggered, tried to take another step, but his legs no longer worked right. He lurched, shifting the weight in his arms, falling to his knees with a howl.

The pony shook its head, and slowe She looked back, as the truth of what had happened sank in. Her father stood holding the horse, his pony. Alexander rose from one knee, smoking gun in hand.

For a moment their eyes met. For a moment the significance of his action left her stunned--breathless. Had he killed Val? For her? For Felicity’s sake? Had she driven him to this?

He dropped the gun, hands shaking, heart quaking, the sound of Val’s cry of pain ringing in his ears. Instinct took over. He swung into the gray’s saddle, sent the horse charging up the hill, his arms still vibrating from the blast of the gun, his mind in turmoil. Had he killed Val? Had he missed him and shot the child?