Echoes of a Promise
Page 22
She shouted across to Andrew with all her might and signalled the direction she had seen the man taking. Whipping the wedding veil from her head, she hitched up her skirt, then sprang from the carriage and began to run hard towards the place where the figure had disappeared into the tangle of overhanging trees.
From far behind, she heard Andrew roaring at her to stop, but terror lent strength to her legs and she ran faster into the willows, brushing aside the low branches that slapped at her face. Suddenly, she burst into the open and found herself stumbling across an empty hillside field ploughed for planting. Andrew and the Sikh were closing in behind her now but there was no sign of the figure she was trying to chase.
‘A man!’ she panted when they caught up to her. ‘I saw a man – and I think he was carrying something. Where could he have been going?’
Andrew and the Sikh looked around, then pointed towards a hamlet lying on higher ground beyond the ploughed field. They began to run in that direction, with Andrew veering to the right, the Sikh to the left. She had no hope of keeping up with either of them but, panting hard, she continued to follow until her attention was caught by something on her right. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed what appeared to be a hut lying near a fold in the hillside across a distant meadow.
Some instinct drove her to turn in that direction and, as she ran, she cried out to Andrew repeatedly until she had caught his attention. He saw her frantic gestures, though from his own position it would have been impossible for him to see the almost-hidden thatched-roofed hovel nestled close into the fold of the hill that she was racing towards.
The man inside the hut was ready for her. The thin little melon-seller had either seen or heard her approach and he burst from the low entrance, uttering a throaty hiss and brandishing a curved knife in one hand. Victoria could hear Annabelle’s muffled screams coming from the dim, stinking interior and, ignoring the talons of terror tearing into her, she thrust her way inside, dodging the man’s lunge in her direction.
How could she defend herself? She snatched up a stool that was standing against a wall and, as he came at her again, she swung it wildly with all the force she could muster.
It caught him on the shoulder and, as he staggered sideways, she saw Annabelle fighting to scramble from a sack on the earthen floor. The child’s eyes were wide, her cheeks drenched with tears and in one hand she was grasping a little wooden doll from the painted elephant’s howdah.
‘Out, out, out, quickly, Belle, run outside as fast as you can. Now!’ she shouted over the child’s screams. ‘Papa is coming. Run to him now! Run, run, run.’
The man made an attempt to snatch the child as she fled screaming from the hut, but his fingers missed their mark when Victoria held the legs of the stool and struck out at his wrist. His face twisted in a mask of fury and his eyes burned into hers as he spun towards her. Saliva pooled in the corners of his mouth, and with a snarl, he raised the knife high and swung it downwards.
Victoria could see the flashing blade coming towards her throat and heaved the stool at him. It missed, but it was enough to unbalance him and change the knife’s trajectory. From that moment, everything around her began to happen very slowly, as if in a dream.
The blade missed her throat and sliced through the right shoulder of her gown, embedding itself in her flesh. She cried out. Staggered. The pain was sharp. Blood gushed and a red stain spread over the lace front of her beautiful wedding gown. The wretch had ruined it! It seemed odd to be feeling this rush of anger when she was just about to die.
She didn’t want to die! ‘Oh, Andrew! Andrew!’
Her legs gave way; she felt herself falling backwards – down, down – and when her head struck the hard floor, she became aware of nothing more.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Victoria lay lost in a thick, black cloud of nothingness. There was no memory of how she came to be here. No memory of who she was. The pain was returning. Her head. Her shoulder. Why did she feel this pain?
Somebody was close beside her. So close she could feel warm breath on her cheek. A deep, husky voice began to speak softly, and she felt herself floating in the flow of his words. Such tender words.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
Running footsteps approached. ‘Mama! Mama! Is Mama awake now?’
‘Hush, Belle. Not yet, but soon, sweetheart. I’ll lift you up so you can kiss her cheek. There – very gently now.’
A childish voice had called her Mama. Who was the man so close to her pillow? His scent – it was his scent that began to stir faint memories. His voice – the soothing words he spoke. She wanted to hear more. He lifted her hand and touched his lips to each finger and, somehow, she knew that this was how it should be. There was something she must tell him, but she had no memory of what it was.
The black nothingness began pulling her down into itself again when a different scent came to her side. She tensed. This man, who wafted the aroma of herbs and strange unguents and mumbled words she couldn’t understand, lifted her head and placed a sip of something vile on her lips.
She gave a little moan when he touched the source of her pain. But after he’d placed a pungent substance there, the pain faded.
‘Vicky, my darling, it’s going well,’ the husky voice close beside her whispered. ‘You’re getting stronger. Keep hold of my hand. There! I won’t let you go. I’ll never let you go.’
‘I don’t know who I am.’
‘Oh, Victoria! You are my love and my strength.’ His voice broke. ‘You are the mirror that shows me my soul. You are the angel who saved our daughter’s life.’
There was a tenderness in his tone that brought a smile to her lips, though she still struggled to recall what it was that she must tell him. The nothingness began to swallow her again, but she caught another waft of his scent and the blackness lightened.
She struggled to open her eyes. ‘I saw a man—!’
‘He’s gone, my dearest, and I promise that he’ll never again trouble us – or anyone else for that matter.’
Again and again, the blackness washed over her like an incoming tide, which rose and then retreated. She saw Peter smiling at her. Emily and Martin. Aunt Honoria. The begum. Her parents. Nigel and Kitty. They all came and went, and in the fleeting moments of awareness, fragments of memory started to return.
‘Where am I?’ Her lips barely moved. Her voice was a whisper. ‘There’s something I must do….’
‘You’re safe. We’re here on the begum’s houseboat and her Healer will make you well again.’
‘Who are you?’
He gave a long sigh. ‘Who am I? I’m Andrew, the man who had the honour of becoming your husband three days ago.’
She lifted her eyelids, struggling to focus her gaze on the features of this man who said he was her husband. It was a strong face with a thin white scar down one cheek, but she seemed to be looking at him through the wrong end of a telescope. He was far away. Andrew?
‘And also, Vicky, I’m the fool who is bitterly ashamed of the harsh words he spoke to you, and who wants you to know how desperately he regrets those lies. Can you forgive my stupidity?’
The image of an irate face drifted into her mind’s eye. Andrew? What had caused him to be so angry. ‘There’s something that I must tell you, but I can’t recall what it can be.’
She felt herself floating again and fought to keep her eyelids from closing in order to bring his face back into focus. And when she did, she saw the moisture gathering in his eyes.
‘Vicky, I want you to know that I love you with all my heart and nothing means more to me than the future we’re going to share. When you’re strong enough, we’ll make our way to Mardan, but until then the whole world will have to wait until you’re ready to
travel.’
‘I can’t stay awake any longer. Please, lie here beside me and put your head next to mine on the pillow. I need to feel you close.’ His lips touched her forehead and the scent of him stirred fresh fragments of memory.
But, as she lay beside him with her eyes closed and her hand held tightly in his, images began tumbling over each other in her mind, all struggling to find a foothold on the slippery mountain of some misunderstanding that had come between herself and this gentle, possessive man at her side. How could she make sense of everything that had happened when her head ached so?
She slipped into sleep again and when she woke, the clouds had lifted further, allowing other images to line themselves up in her mind and start to form a chain of recollections.
Yes, of course – as soon as possible, Andrew must be told all about her plans to establish the Fortitude Foundation in Peter’s name. There must be no more delay. She parted her lips, drew in a breath, but when she began, her tongue seemed to be incapable of forming the words she wanted.
‘Hush, sweetheart. Just lie quietly here with me and don’t try to speak. Give yourself a little time and soon you’ll be able to recall everything.’
But did she need to recall everything? Did she want to recall everything? Memory can have a way of being selective, and at that point Victoria chose not to remember the scene at the lakeside when her new husband had hurled bitter, incomprehensible words at her in the carriage. If ever he raised the topic again she would look at him blankly and shake her head.
Whatever it was that had upset him so much that day could no longer be pertinent, so she wiped that image from her mind with the ease of a child cleaning a schoolroom slate with a damp sponge.
Andrew was here close beside her now, Annabelle was safe, and waiting ahead for them was a lifetime of fresh memories to be made.
By the Same Author
Saskia
Palace of the Winds
The Golden Pagoda
Winds of Honour
The Lady from St Petersburg
The Wayward Wind
Copyright
© Ashleigh Bingham 2010
First published in Great Britain 2010
This edition 2011
ISBN 978 0 7090 9481 4 (ebook)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9482 1(mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9483 8 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9029 8 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Ashleigh Bingham to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988