But they were not dreams he would support. Would he not counsel her to do as she’d already decided? To abandon the frivolities of the heart in favor of duty, family, devotion? If he knew the nature of the things she wanted, it would blacken his opinion of her, and at this moment, she was grateful for his friendship.
It was easier to let him think she was merely grieving an imminent loss.
And she was.
It was only that what she stood to lose was far more than he imagined.
She tried to formulate a vague response that would not reveal more than she had already said, but something cold bit her cheek, and then her eyelash, and then her hand.
“Damnation!” she cried.
Henry winced, but did not comment on her cursing. “I’m sorry. I said too much. You haven’t asked for my counsel.”
“It’s not that, Henry,” she said. “It’s snowing.”
He looked up at the sky, which was grayer, but still cloudless. “No it isn’t. Don’t jest.”
“I’m not jesting.”
He held out his hand. She watched a single snowflake float lazily down and melt atop his glove, staining a dark patch onto the leather.
“See?” she moaned.
“Just a few flurries, with any luck,” he said. “Nothing to fret over.” But his jaw was tense, and he resumed his agitated worrying of the reins.
As they drove on, the sky became more ominous, and the flecks of ice became more regular, until they fell in fat, wet flakes.
Within a quarter hour, the flakes became a storm. The wind picked up, blowing up snow from the fallen drifts along the road. At first it was pretty, swirling about in the air, mingling with the fresh snow falling from the sky. But as the wind became more forceful, they could scarcely see five feet ahead of them. Henry’s driving slowed from a clip to a trot to a crawl.
He bowed his head.
When he looked up, there was a blackness in his eyes she had never seen in them before. “He was right.”
“Pardon?”
“My father. He was right.”
He looked so chagrined she wanted to insist that it wasn’t true, though there was no denying that on this small point the man had been correct.
“We need to seek shelter,” Henry said, in a tone that made her want to press him to her breast. It held a touch of resignation, and a touch shame. It was like his father was here, perched between them in the gig, gloating.
“I’ll stop at the next house we encounter.”
She had to summon the fortitude to inform him that this would not be possible.
“We aren’t near any houses,” she said carefully. They were close enough to her village that she knew exactly where they were. The road here ran alongside a river that marked the boundaries of several large estates, with nothing but forest and farmland for miles. At their current pace, it could be hours before they found a dwelling. And turning off the carriage road in search of a path through the forest would be futile, for the dainty, single-axle curricle would not survive the rough roads in such limited visibility.
“There is an old mill along the stream up ahead. We can take shelter there until the snow stops.”
Henry leaned forward, squinting, and they drove on and on, at an ever-slower pace. She could feel the wheels skittering on the frozen ground beneath them and prayed they would not break.
Finally, when her eyelashes felt as if they were frozen into icicles and even Henry had begun to shiver from the cold, she saw the faint outline of a water wheel.
“There,” she said, pointing in the distance. “The mill.”
Henry stopped at the side of the road.
They stumbled about in the snowbank that had formed over the hedgerow until she found a low gap where there must be a footpath. She kicked at it until she’d dislodged the heavy snow to find the latch.
No smoke came from the chimney and no lights flickered in the windows of the mill.
“It’s empty,” she called to Henry. She went back to help him unharness the horses.
He led the pair of mares through the gate, coaxing them in a soft voice toward a small shed that leaned against the millhouse. While he tied them up, she retrieved their satchels from the curricle, and tried to let herself inside. But the door was locked. She trudged around to see if there was another entrance, but there was only a window beside the doorway, which did not budge when she tried to open it.
“The door’s locked and the window’s frozen shut,” she grunted.
Henry came up behind her and tried rattling the glass loose. But even with his superior strength, it did not move.
She looked at him anxiously, a wail rising in her throat at the increasing likelihood that they would be spending the foreseeable future huddled in the shed with the horses.
“Stand back,” he said. He removed his cravat and wrapped it around his gloved hand. And then he made a fist and sent it flying through the window.
An eruption of glass and snow burst all around them. He repeated the gesture once, twice, three times more, like he was pummeling a man to death. Each time, she could not help crying out, picturing his flesh tearing through the fractured glass.
He beat back the jagged panes with his elbow, grunting with effort, and if she was not mistaken, rage. He beat back the glass until there was just enough room for a small man to climb through the window.
Henry was not a small man.
“Wait, let me,” she cried, as he hoisted himself up and began to jam his broad shoulders through the jagged space.
“Nonsense, you’ll be injured,” he said, gritting his teeth with the effort of wrestling his way inside.
For a moment, he disappeared.
And then he stood in the open door, his red hair askew around his head, the sleeve of his coat torn, and a rivulet of blood falling from his hairline.
“Welcome, my lady,” he said with a deep, courtly bow.
She did not find this amusing, given he was bleeding. “Henry, you’re hurt.”
“Hit my head,” he confirmed. “Nothing terrible. Not as bad as my hand.”
He lifted his right hand up. Despite the cravat, his glove was shredded from the glass.
“Oh no,” she said. “Are you cut?”
“Luckily, if I am, I’m too cold to feel it.” He winked at her.
Apparently, this is what it took for Henry Evesham to develop a playful air: a deadly ice storm and a flesh wound.
Despite the cold and her dread at what awaited them, she laughed.
He laughed too, dropping his shoulders and leaning against the door. “It seems we invite perilous luck when we venture out together.”
“We are indeed quite doomed.”
But now that she knew he was not hurt, and they would not freeze, she could not repress a glimmer of gladness at their fate.
Perhaps they would tour the English countryside forever, courting disaster, making each other smile at the oddest things. She could imagine worse existences.
Like marrying William Thatcher.
She brushed off the thought and stepped inside to look about the mill house. There was a hearth at the rear of the snug room, and, thank fate for this one small miracle: a basket of twigs and a pile of wood. If they could get a fire lit, perhaps they would not freeze.
“I have a fire steel in my satchel,” Henry said. He tried to fumble through the leather bag to retrieve it with his uninjured hand, but seemed to flounder, for he was right-handed.
“Let me,” she said. She found the tool in his bag and crouched in front of the hearth, arranging twigs into a pyramid and lighting a flame. She blew on it until the tiny flame had grown into a small, feeble blaze. Henry knelt beside her, shivering.
All she wanted was to touch him.
“We must do something about your hand,” she said decisively. “Here, let me remove your gloves so I can see the wounds.”
Chapter 21
Henry held himself still as Alice attempted to peel the leather from his hands, pausi
ng now and then to pick out tiny shards of glass. Normally he would be rigid with nerves at a woman touching him so intimately. But he was growing so used to Alice’s nearness that he sometimes failed to mark the sin of it when his hands found hers. And besides, the cuts smarted so fiercely that he could think of little beyond pain.
(Liar.)
Alice accidentally nudged a tiny shard of glass deeper into his palm and he sucked in his breath and snatched his hand away from her, tucking it to his chest.
“I’ll just leave them on,” he said.
She looked at him with a mix of frustration and affection, like he was a disobedient child. “No you bloody won’t, you goat.” She gently pulled his hands back to her lap. “Wounds left unattended breed sickness. I wish I had some brandy to give you for the pain.”
“I wouldn’t drink it if you did,” he muttered, to distract himself.
“I know,” she sighed. “You are a tiresome, saintly man.”
She said this with a wry smile that lightened his mood. Her manner made him feel well nursed in a way he was not accustomed to. It was like a balm after the harsh raillery from his father. His father who must be even now looking at the window and smiling, rubbing his ever-knowing wrist in vindication.
The thought made Henry want to smash another window.
“Don’t move,” Alice told him, rising.
She fetched an old pot attached to the wall with a nail and stepped outside. When she’d returned, the pot was filled with snow. She set it next to the weak fire, then returned to the business of slowly, painstakingly, freeing his hands from his gloves.
When she was done, she held both of his hands in hers, turning them over to observe his injuries. His left hand had only a scrape or two, but the right one was pocked with little cuts and smeared with blood.
“My father will be so smug.” He had not meant to say that aloud, but Alice looked up at him with a malevolent glint in her eyes.
“Your father is a plague-bepissed weasel whose opinion matters naught.”
“Alice!” he cried, unable to avoid laughing at the sheer fluency of her expletives, however he felt obligated to disapprove of them.
“What? You told me I must be honest,” she said piously, albeit with a grin.
She went to the fire and retrieved the pot. The snow had melted into icy slush.
“Plunge,” she instructed, looking at his hands. He obeyed her, dunking his stinging flesh into the cold water.
When he lifted them out, she used the sleeve of her dress to clean away the remaining smears of blood.
His thoughts flashed to that night in the meeting house, the maid offering to wash him. To the dream he’d had of Alice, performing a similar act.
Despite the chill in his raw hands, and the innocence of Alice tending to his injuries, he flushed.
He shouldn’t let her do this, if he was going to corrupt her Christian-natured gesture with sinful longings. He pulled away from her. “You’ll ruin your gown,” he said, by not entirely convincing way of explanation.
“Better than your hand,” she said, snatching the hand back. She leaned over him to dab carefully at the worst cut. She was so close, he could smell her hair. He wanted to lean in and bury his face in it. Pick her up and put her on his lap and absorb that smell into his skin.
Evidently deeming him well enough to survive, or perhaps sensing that if she lingered he might pounce on her and never let her go, she stood. “There you are.”
She walked over to the hearth and added two large logs to the fire, grumbling as she tried to coax the feeble embers to light the wood.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Come here and blow on those a bit,” she said. Her accent, amidst the cold and the stress of their situation, sounded more like a countrywoman. He found it charming, because he knew it meant she wasn’t being careful.
He knelt down to blow on the embers, praying to God they would light, for he had never been this cold in all his life.
Alice took the pan outside and came back with clean snow. “To melt for the horses,” she explained.
His heart squeezed for the poor horses. He was a fool for dragging them out into an ice storm, a bigger fool for dragging Alice. And the worst of it was, his father had been right. If they lived through this nightmare—and God willing, they would—he dreaded his eventual return home. His father’s glee at having been proven smarter than his feckless son would sting more than Henry’s shredded hand.
When the snow had melted in the pot he reached for it, hoping to spare Alice another trip outside. She swatted him away.
“Don’t even think about using them bedeviled hands, Henry Evesham,” she said. “Not after I worked so hard to save them.”
So he sat, feeling useless and yet strangely … anticipatory.
His brother’s words came to him unbidden. You always did like the small ones.
Is that what this was? Is that why he felt so curiously light despite being trapped in the snow and in acute pain?
(Yes. Phrasing it as a question will not excuse your intellectual dishonesty.)
When Alice returned, she was covered in snow from the top of her head to the hem of her dress. She looked like a frozen winter fairy.
“What?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at the smile on his face.
“You look …” (Enchanting.)
“Frozen as a witch’s cunny?” she provided.
“Alice!”
She grinned as she removed a handkerchief from her pocket, which she opened to reveal the contents of a plate of cakes he’d last seen at breakfast.
“I took them,” she admitted sheepishly. “I thought my sisters would like to try a taste of something so fine.”
He smiled. “That was kind of you.”
“Now he approves of theft,” she said mordantly to the walls. “I’ve thoroughly corrupted him.” She offered him a cake. “Will you have a nip of devil’s sugar or will you be starving tonight, Reverend?”
He rolled his eyes at her, snatched the cake with his good hand, and took a bite. He closed his eyes as the sugar hit his tongue.
He loved sweets. He truly did.
“Praise God,” he murmured.
She reached out and brushed away a bit of sugar from his bottom lip. His entire body seized at her touch. She glanced down, pretending not to notice that he’d gasped.
But oddly, she was smiling.
Together, they ate the cakes as they watched the last of the light die out through the windows.
A mouse scurried past them, startling their peaceful silence. Henry jumped and rose to chase it away.
“Oh, leave him,” Alice said, leaning back contentedly. “I love mice.”
He gaped at her. “You love mice?”
She smiled sweetly at the scurrying rodent. “Yes. They are so small and curious and clever.”
“Until they chew through the walls and leave droppings in the cupboards.”
“You sound like my mother,” she groaned. “When I was a girl, I lured one into a box with cheese and tried to keep it in my room. Mama smacked me so hard I saw stars when she found it. Marched it right outside and fed it to a barn cat, she did.”
She told the story like it was funny, but it struck him as gruesome. “That sounds upsetting for a child.”
She grinned. “Bah. I was fourteen.”
He smiled, picturing a nearly grown girl still whimsical enough in spirit to wish to keep a rodent as a pet. “Shall I catch you one to look after now?”
She laughed. “No, but thank you for the gallant offer. I’m sure the mouse found it none too inspiring living in that box in my closet. Wild creatures are better off free.”
She stood and rummaged in her bag, then came back to their nook in front of the fire holding a pile of rumpled garments. Her teeth were chattering. Perhaps she intended to don extra layers to ward off the cold.
Instead, she spread them out on the floor into a makeshift pallet. “There. We can sleep here. It won’t be
comfortable but it will be better than lying on the cold floor.”
We? She could not think he intended to share a bed with her, makeshift or otherwise.
“You rest. I’ll sit by the fire and tend it overnight.”
“It’s warmer here. And there’s room for two.”
Not with any decency between them, there wasn’t. “I’m not yet tired. You sleep. You’ve been working hard, while I’ve just sat here.”
She did not argue, just closed her eyes.
He made himself watch the fire, because it would be very embarrassing if she caught him gazing at her. He wished there was enough light to read, for he had his Bible in his satchel and he could use a bracing dose of scripture. But the fire was too small to illuminate anything beyond the circle by the hearth. So instead, he tended the fire, refusing to look at Alice, who he could hear gently snoring. When the flame became low he looked in the basket of logs and was alarmed to discover that there were only a few left. He prowled around the dark room searching for more wood, but found nothing.
He burnt what little there was left, but with the wind howling through the broken window it put off little heat.
The mill was freezing even with the fire. Without it, it would be unbearable.
Alice stirred. “Henry?” she asked sleepily. “I’m so cold. Build the fire up.”
“We’re out of wood,” he admitted.
“Then come here before it gets any colder. We’ll freeze.”
“I can’t share a bed with you Alice. It’s not right.”
He heard an expulsion of air emerge from her that sounded like a mix of sleep nonsense and curses.
She leaned over and poked his knee. “Henry. Evesham,” she said, through chattering teeth. “I will not freeze to death over some foolish notion of decency.”
“I suspect you will not freeze to death,” he corrected. “You will merely be very, very cold.”
“Henry,” she hissed. “Come. Here.”
He trudged over to the pallet and knelt on it beside her. It was wrong but he was so, so cold and so, so tired.
The Lord I Left Page 14