by Liz Tyner
He moved to the carriage house doorway and found it barricaded over. His brother had protected the place well. The solid front door wasn’t boarded over because it had a latch from the inside.
He touched the small scabbard at his hip, ignoring the house key, and went around to the back. Wooden shutters covered a pair of windows. There was another set of openings across from these two to let air circulate and remove the heat. The settling of the barn had made the bar crossing the shutters sometimes need a bit of a nudge to free so the windows could be opened. The one he now stood in front of had warped differently. During construction, he’d been annoyed at the unevenness.
‘Do you even know where we are?’ she asked suddenly from behind him.
‘Five miles from the best tavern I’ve ever seen.’ He tapped the shutters. ‘A tavern that does not allow women because they spoil the ale and conversation.’
He pulled the blade from his scabbard, and starting from the bottom, pushed the blade into the crack and slid it smoothly upwards until he felt the resistance of the board on the reverse side.
Applying more pressure, he used the knife to lift the bar and, as soon as he was certain it had been released from the clasps where it had been nestled, he slid the blade back a bit and pushed the tip up so it rested against the board and with a nudge, he heard the wood fall to the inside of the house. The shutters slid open as if an unseen hand guided them. Stale air hit his nostrils.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned, facing her.
‘Wouldn’t it be better to break in at the door?’ she asked.
He pressed his lips together, then put the blade away. He would not be able to shove hard enough to push the door open with the board across it. Five men couldn’t.
Brandt leaned closer, voice low. ‘I want you to have the true criminal experience of climbing in a window.’
‘I am fine with doorways.’
‘Very well. You may break in the door for us.’
Her eyes darted to the side. ‘You’ll have to show me how.’
He leaned close, his forehead almost touching her hat brim. ‘Through the window. I’ll heft you inside.’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘We’ve nowhere else.’ He raised his brows. ‘Nowhere.’
She gave a shuddery shake of her head. ‘The reason I wanted that dress… I have a few coins sewn inside for emergency. With it, and what I had in the pouch you gave me, we can hide at an inn. For some time if we need.’
‘Nigel. We have no inn and we can’t have anyone see us.’
‘Surely—’
‘Nigel. Thunder. Lightning. Saddles.’ He slapped his leg, hitting behind his thigh. ‘Saddles.’
She took a few steps from under the roofed stalls and appraised the sky. ‘The thunder has faded. And a few sprinkles shouldn’t bother us.’
‘If our backsides are as tired as they are, think how poor Hercules and Apple must feel.’
She turned in the direction of Apple and sighed.
‘Perhaps inside the carriage house won’t be so bad.’ Marching up to the window, she rested both hands on the frame and peered inside. ‘Black as a wash kettle.’
He nodded. ‘You and I could sleep here in the horse stalls, I suppose. The hay’s old, though. Would be more stick than soft. Probably full of mice. Mice that tend to leave little presents behind.’
Her head turned to him, but then she looked back at the window.
She let out a sigh. ‘It’s truly dark in there.’ She moved backwards and he had to sidestep to keep her off his feet. ‘I don’t see how you’re going to fit through that window.’
‘I wasn’t planning to go through it.’
‘Brandt,’ she whispered. ‘I believe I heard a mouse. Or a rat.’ She looked back at him. ‘Rats have sharp teeth.’
‘They only bite if you get between them and their food.’ He moved behind her and put both hands at her waist to give her a nudge through the opening.
He got several sharp kicks to his shins and stumbled. Her shoulder connected with his cheek and the jaw where he’d been punched at the tavern.
With all the grace of an eighteen-year-old youth, he grabbed the sides of her trousers near her waist, lifting her and giving her a push. He kept a firm hold on her trousers and, before he realised what he’d done, he felt her legs slipping from the trousers as she tipped over and through the windowsill. She was going headfirst into the darkness and he couldn’t control her descent. He grabbed tighter, managing to trap her ankles, a bit of her nightrail and her feet near in his face.
‘Release me.’ She screeched out the word, startling him.
Brandt opened his hands and she tumbled the rest of the way into the other side.
He could not help it. The thump and the little ‘eep’ gasps made the edges of his lips turn up.
Then, he heard a scream and a sob, and he grasped the edge of the window base and leaned in, his hands reaching to pull her back to safety.
He could make out nothing in the darkness except he thought he saw her flailing arms around her head as she sat on the floor.
‘Spiders. Webs. Nose,’ she spat out.
He could hear the sound of her spitting and rasping.
‘Harmless. The pests have eight legs to run away faster.’ Brandt put as much tenderness in his voice as he could. ‘The door behind you is barred. Could you make your way to it, so you might get to the pump and wash your face?’
After a few more sputters, she clattered over something, thumped against the door and scratched at the latch. She called someone a foolish addlepate and then opened the door and rushed out.
He led her to the pump, watching as she splashed water on her face and arms. Then he left her so he could unsaddle the horses and secure them for the night.
When he returned to the pump, she said, ‘Kidnapping is more heinous than I expected.’ She grasped the edge of her opposite sleeve and pulled it to wipe her face. He didn’t know if she wiped the cobwebs, water from the well, or, from the waver in her voice, tears.
‘I believe we should change our plans and sleep in the main house,’ she said.
‘We will not,’ he spoke more firmly than he intended. ‘We are going to sleep in the carriage house.’
‘The carriage house,’ she pointed out, ‘is full of bugs.’
‘Whose rest you disturbed. I am sure they will forgive us and share their home.’ He turned, wanting nothing more than a soft pillow—or the soothing stench of a tavern—which he’d left behind. He looked at the road. One direction and then the other. A tavern each way. He looked up. A few stars twinkling through the clouds. She still chattered away behind him, explaining her distaste for bugs and mice.
He pushed his hand over his forehead, moving the hair from his face.
He was tired of the ale. Tired of the bawdy jests and the morose faces. The woman’s chattering about bugs was of no more or less import than the talk at the tavern and she would still be able to string her words together in the proper order come morning. Even if he didn’t want to hear them. He didn’t need to shut them away with the drink. He could just ignore them.
He picked up the saddlebags. She’d stopped talking. But then he saw her shadow moving about. Even in the rough clothing, her silhouette shouted to him. She rubbed a hand over her arm, shook out the waist of her shirt and patted back her hair.
He turned away, refusing to look at her.
‘Maybe the main house is better. We might find candles.’
‘I have some,’ he said. ‘We can use the stable master’s room and the saddle blankets to make pallets on the floor.’
‘If you had followed my plans, I would have a mattress.’
‘Ah, but this way it’s truly an adventure.’ He briefly shut his eyes. Adventures were for other people. Not him.
He had to start a fire so they’d have light—something servants always managed before he’d moved to his boarding house. But he’d learned the skill in his youth.
In
side, with a small nest of dried brush, he struck steel to flint, and after the bit of tender ignited, so did a small fire in the fireplace. He then fed it a few sticks from outside.
She sat, her head in her hands, the hat on the table, and he heard another sigh. ‘I didn’t realise so many duties would need attended to.’ Raising her head, she looked at him. ‘I cannot even find a chamber pot.’
‘One uses the outdoors.’
She put a hand to her chest. ‘A true lady could never…’
‘This is not London…’ He mimicked her tone.
She snapped her toes against the floor, before dropping her head back to her hands. ‘The governess warned me about life without servants. But she did not mention that or itchy clothing.’
He turned to the saddle blankets, leaving her to ponder her plight—of living without servants—except himself.
Brandt went to the saddle blankets and put one on the rope bed, so she would be able to rest her dainty back and his dainty back would have to make do with the floor. He would have groaned, but he didn’t wish to give her the satisfaction. No telling how old the mattress was and he didn’t know if it had husks in it or something softer, but she would have to make do.
‘You want me to sleep there?’ she asked.
‘I’ve slept on worse,’ he grumbled, thinking of the tavern.
‘You don’t have to tell me. I saw your bed.’
Compared to this, his bed was royal fare.
Then she sat on the bed and a rustling movement sounded from inside the bed. She jumped up and stepped away from it. ‘It’s got something in it.’
‘Probably a mouse,’ he spoke, then paused. He looked around. No sign of mice in the carriage house. ‘More likely a garden sn—’
‘A snake?’ She clutched his arm. ‘A snake?’
‘Probably a garden one.’
Now she stood behind him. ‘Toss it out.’
Looking through husks for a snake didn’t seem to capture his imagination, or perhaps it captured it too well. That was a better job done in daylight. ‘I’ll move the mattress out and we can check it later.’
He pulled the mattress away and looked at the sagging ropes on the small frame. Perhaps it was best she didn’t sleep on the ropes anyway. It looked like a mouse had been on the premises and done a bit of gnawing.
He dragged the mattress from the bed. She watched as if a monster snake would leap at her. He took it outside and slung it out of the way. Probably have two snakes in it by morning. He went back to the room. ‘You can sleep on the floor.’
‘No.’
He paused, watching her. ‘Sleep standing up then. I’ve heard it’s invigorating.’
Highly unlikely he would get any sleep with that look on her face. Best to appease since he couldn’t put her out with the mattress.
He took her saddle bag and handed it to her. ‘Your pillow.’ Then he took the saddle blanket and held it out. ‘Your tester bed.’
She took it and raised her eyes to his, and had the same expression he felt if he’d had to get back on the horse. He turned, put his saddle bag closer to the wall the most distance from her and lowered himself.
And he reached his hand out to the side of his bed. He stopped in mid-air. A habit to reach for the brandy bottle at his side. Without thinking, he’d reached for the glass. He put his clasped fingers behind his head and gave a mild shrug. Blazes. He wasn’t even thirsty. He was sleepy. Sleepy and tired and somehow relaxed.
‘I feel a bit rough after all the time in the saddle. I fear I’m not as strong of constitution as you.’ She still stood in the middle of the room.
Air from the blanket brushed against him when she spread it.
‘A little close, aren’t you?’
‘If that snake returns, he’s getting the both of us.’
*
She didn’t know their leaving hadn’t been an option because he could never have got back on snivelling Hercules. He swore the beast had tried to nip his ear when he’d tied him, then the horse put a hoof too near the toe of Brandt’s boot and breathed a particularly heated, damp snort of air into Brandt’s face.
Brandt rested his head on his saddlebag and listened to the rustles of movement, breathed in and shut his eyes.
Little grunts, groans and sighs filled the air while she worked getting that blanket on the floor just right.
A blanket on the floor.
She settled and he sat up to see that she’d rolled the blanket tight and put it as a barrier around her head. A snake detour, he supposed. He settled back to rest his head.
She stilled. ‘How long do you think I will have to stay here until I get the ransom?’
‘A few days,’ he muttered, knowing he lied. But he was sleepy and he didn’t want to explain about the house, or get into any arguments. He had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all and, if she didn’t because she was upset about the plan, he could wager the house that she’d even keep the horses awake with her complaints.
He wanted to shut his eyes, doze off and not drink. He knew his muscles would be jittery in the morning. Both from riding and from staying from the tavern. But it was the closest he’d felt to peace in a long time and he wanted to savour the moments of it.
‘A few days?’ She raised her voice and then he heard an illegible word. ‘Do you think there are any dressmakers in the area who might have a current La Belle Assemblée for me to use in selecting some new gowns?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t expect so.’ She paused. ‘Are any seamstresses in the area?’
‘I doubt it. I think the maids make the day dresses and the women make a trip to London for a seamstress for their evening wear.’
‘I can manage. I’m planning to live in the country for the rest of my life. I will learn to make do. Perhaps even sew my own clothing. Mrs Caudle says she can teach me.’
Country life would be safer for her. And his mother would teach her how to run a household, just as she’d taught Mary.
He didn’t think anyone at the boarding house could connect him to this estate.
He sat and clamped his jaw while she rustled around twisting the saddle blanket this way and that trying to stretch it again so nothing could crawl over it.
Ladies’ maid. Companion. Butler. Groomsman. Footman. At least she didn’t expect him to fluff her pillow. But only because she didn’t have one.
But she did something to his senses. Made him imagine lace against feminine skin. Lace on underthings floating in the outside breeze on a washday.
He so hated the reminder of washdays.
But then he imagined, of all things, sliding a freshly laundered nightdress over her body. The crispness of the cloth against the softness of her skin and his hands running—
He groaned and turned over, trying to find a comfortable spot as far away from the thoughts of her as he could. Sleep. Was that too much to ask for.
‘Is anything wrong?’
‘Not if you stop speaking and let me sleep.’
‘I wasn’t talking, but I won’t if it bothers you.’
He didn’t answer. She sighed. Nothing more than a gentle breath. And then she sniffed. And then she moved. It sounded as if she put an elbow under her head. Then she breathed in and out a little more loudly than usual. And he lay there, listening to her. Waiting to hear what movement she’d make next.
He didn’t know what kind of mire that he’d got himself into. It wouldn’t matter, though. He’d left the world around him once before and leaving it a second time would be much easier than the first. He had a life among the tavern folk and he belonged there.
*
A thumping noise jarred Katherine awake. Her insides clenched with fear. Augustine had found them. She’d told Brandt not to leave the shutters open, but he had. He’d not even been concerned with bolting the door and merely pressed it shut.
Silence followed and she moved only her eyes, pretending sleep, but looking for the origin of the sound.
This time she heard a rustle and, when she looked to the direction of the noise, she saw Brandt moving in his sleep.
Even in the night’s darkness she could tell he moved in the grasp of an unpleasant dream. She watched, amazed to see someone so strong unaware of his movements.
Brandt gave short groans from his lips and pushed against the wall, caught up in some imagined world. He rolled to his side, moving as if a rabid animal had bitten him. She couldn’t bear the moans, or the sight of him fighting in an imagined world.
Sitting, she reached out and, with only fingertips, touched his shoulder.
‘Brandt,’ she whispered, amazed at how much warmth flowed from his bare skin. The hint of perspiration and the floral scent he always had about him touched her nose. She rested her other hand on the overheated skin of his side, moving gently to soothe. Within seconds, she felt the tenseness ebb from his body.
‘…forgive me.’ His words blurred into the darkness. ‘Forgive me. I came home without you.’
She touched his tensed hand, then clasped his fingertips. ‘It’s all right,’ she murmured, her words almost lost even to her own ears. ‘It’s all right.’ Her words floated in the night air.
His answer mixed with a rumble of sleep breathing, but his hand held her fingers like a lifeline. She moved, resting against the floor, and put her arm around him. She waited, knowing she’d return to her bed as soon as he fell deeper into sleep.
Brandt’s breathing returned, almost becoming the rhythm of a lullaby to her, and she felt herself relaxing. She dozed, waking briefly to snuggle into the warmth around her.
*
‘And I thought you didn’t like me.’ The voice rumbled into her ear, waking her.
She blinked, shaking the sleep from her mind, then sat as proudly as her shoulders would let her, scooting on her bottom to put distance between them. She met his gaze. ‘I sleepwalk.’
He shook his head towards her. ‘And I knit in my sleep.’ Eyes blinked. ‘Once woke up to find a whole shawl in my bed. I had no idea how it got there until I saw the needles.’ Voice full of innocence, he asked, ‘That ever happen to you?’
She didn’t respond.
Enough light seeped from the embers that she could see him plainly. He didn’t need to be so unpleasant. She’d spent an hour with her nose buried against his skin and she had no complaints. Before, when he’d been naked, her mind had been overwhelmed and she’d not been able to comprehend much. This time, with only his upper half unclothed, she’d been able to take stock.