‘Supposing,’ she thought to herself in some consternation, ‘His Lordship decides to defy the rioters? Supposing he refuses to give in to their requests?’
The idea had not occurred to her before. She had imagined that, incensed though he would be, Lord Colwall would not leave her unprotected in Captain Swing’s hands.
She was suddenly still in apprehension.
Supposing, because she meant so little to him, he considered it more important to stick to his principles than to rescue her?
If he sent for the Military, it was unlikely they could arrive before late tomorrow, perhaps even the next day!
She was rather vague as to where soldiers were likely to be stationed in that part of the country, but she had a vague idea that she had heard someone say there were barracks at Worcester.
If Lord Colwall had received the letter at luncheon time, how long would it take a groom to ride to Worcester and the men to march back?
Natalia found it difficult to think clearly. So many new possibilities appeared to present themselves. So many problems she had not visualized before.
“Oh, come for me! Come for me,” she found herself whispering.
She felt as if her need for Lord Colwall must wing its way across the fields and tell him how greatly she longed for him.
She was afraid now. Afraid he did not care enough to save her, and was indifferent to her suffering because she had angered him last night. Also he might well not realise the urgency of coming to her rescue.
Supposing she was left here indefinitely?
Then Natalia told herself sharply she was letting her imagination run away with her, as had happened so often before.
It was no use thinking such things. He would come—of course he would come!
He might be angered with her, but he would wish to protect his wife from unpleasantness.
“Come for me! I want you, I want you!” She found herself murmuring the words aloud and realised as she spoke that her lips were very cold.
‘I must walk up and down again,’ she told herself, and then felt it was almost too much trouble.
She wrapped her arms across her breast but her back was cold as ice, and now she could feel the chill of the frost on her ankles.
The room was becoming darker and darker. Now it was impossible to see anything.
‘I ought to ... walk about,’ Natalia told herself again and knew she was afraid.
Afraid of being alone, afraid perhaps although she knew it was nonsense, of the ghost which it was said haunted the old Mill.
It was very quiet. The rooks which had been ‘cawing’ in the distance as they went home to roost were now silent. Somewhere there was a drip of water, and occasionally a sudden scuffle as if a rat ran across the floor.
Natalia felt herself shiver in horror at the very thought.
An owl hooted a long way off, so far that she could barely hear it.
Then suddenly, unexpectedly, as she sat shivering and afraid, she heard footsteps! Heavy footsteps coming up the rickety stairway!
She wanted to cry out in gladness that someone had found her—that she was saved!
But as the cry came to her lips, she bit it back.
Perhaps it was not Lord Colwall ... but a labourer bringing her some food.
She heard the bolt being pulled back and as the door swung open there was the golden light from a candle-lantern.
For a moment she could not see who held it, until as she stared, trying to penetrate the darkness behind the light, a mocking voice said a little thickly:
“Good evening, Your Ladyship...”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Captain Swing came into the room and held the lantern high above his head.
Natalia thought that he was looking at her in rather a strange manner, and instinctively she took a step backwards and put her hand up to the collar of her jacket.
He gave a low laugh and pulled the door to behind him. Then looking around, he saw a large wooden nail protruding from a wall on which he hung the lantern by its ring.
“Have you heard from His Lordship?”
Even to her own ears Natalia’s voice sounded rather frightened.
“Not a word!” Captain Swing answered. “So I thought, My Lady, we might pass the time while we are waiting for his surrender by getting to know each other.”
There was something in the tone of his voice and the way in which he slurred his words which told Natalia that the Captain not only had been drinking but was dangerous.
His eyes flickered over her and she felt a sudden apprehension—a fear that she had never known before in the whole of her sheltered life.
With a tremendous effort she raised her chin proudly.
“I have nothing to discuss with you, Captain Swing, as you must well know. If His Lordship has not answered your threatening letter, then doubtless he has sent for the Military. Until they come to release me, I prefer to be alone.”
“Brave words, My Lady!” Captain Swing said sneeringly. “But since your husband is treating me in such an arbitrary manner, it is up to you to make amends for his incivility.”
He advanced across the floor as he spoke, and Natalia moved backwards until she was against the wall.
“I do not ... know what you ... mean,” she faltered.
“I think you do,” Captain Swing replied. “You are very pretty, and pretty women must learn to be generous with their favours.”
By this time he was close beside her and put out his hand.
“Do not dare to ... touch me!” Natalia cried.
Now that he had made his intentions plain, she managed to twist aside and rush to the other side of the small room.
The Captain had drunk too much to move swiftly, but there was no doubt that the liquor had inflamed him. His eyes in the light from the lantern were terrifying, as with a smile on his thick lips he pursued Natalia.
Again and again she avoided him, but she knew that because the room was small, she had little chance of escape.
Finally he pinioned her in a corner and laughed at her efforts as she twisted and fought against him.
“Let me go! Let me go!”
He was breathing heavily and she realised that his pursuit of her had excited him.
She made one tremendous effort to push him to one side, and then as they struggled he tripped her and she fell backwards on to the floor so violently that her head hit the bare boards.
For a moment it knocked her half-unconscious. Captain Swing flung himself upon her.
She felt nauseated by the brute force and the smell of him.
His breath exuded raw spirits, and his body pinioned hers as effectively as if she had been chained to the ground.
She wanted to scream, but she was breathless from fright and from her efforts to escape him.
Terrified she thought he would kiss her, and turned her face away, but instead he tugged violently at the front of her riding-jacket.
She put up her hands to prevent him—striking at him, trying to pull at his wrists.
But the buttons burst and now her jacket was open. He snatched the green scarf from her neck and flung it onto the floor.
The blouse she wore for riding was made of silk and tore easily beneath his fingers.
He was like an animal, plucking at the chemise next to her skin until her breasts were naked. It was then that Natalia screamed.
She screamed and screamed as his hands touched her and screamed again as he started pulling violently at her velvet riding-skirt.
It was tough and the waist-band resisted him, but brutal and primitive in his desires he had the strength of a wild beast.
Natalia was helpless beneath him.
She heard her own voice screaming and the sound of it echoing round the small room. Then she knew despairingly that her strength was failing and her efforts to fight off the maniac on top of her was of no avail.
She thought she must die of the horror of it. She thought she must go mad at the thought of what he was about to do.
>
“Help ... me ... God ... help ... me.”
Suddenly there was a violent explosion which seemed to shake the whole building.
It was deafening in Natalia’s ears, and Captain Swing collapsed on top of her, crushing her beneath his weight.
For a moment ... everything seemed to go black ...
Someone was pulling the Captain roughly from her body and she knew who it was!
She wanted to speak but her voice had died in her throat. She could only watch Lord Colwall—her eyes wide and terrified—as he dragged Captain Swings body across the room by the collar of his coat.
For a moment Natalia was unable even to move her hands.
She felt paralysed from the rough impact when Captain Swing had fallen on top of her, and the fear which seemed to have numbed her mind.
Then as she heard Lord Colwall going down the rickety stairs dragging the body with him, she put her hands slowly and feebly, as if they hardly belonged to her, across her naked breasts.
It was difficult to breathe, difficult to think, and yet she found herself listening and waiting for Lord Colwall to return.
She heard a splash in the Mill pool and then he was coming up the stairs again.
With an almost superhuman effort, Natalia tried to raise herself from the floor. He reached her while she was still making the attempt.
“Come,” he said. “I will take you home.”
She was trembling and so weak that even when he had drawn her to her feet he had to support her.
He picked up her scarf and put it round her neck. Then taking from his shoulders the black cloak he was wearing, he covered her with it and fastened the buckle.
She stood quite still, her hands across her breasts, her eyes wide with shock.
“It is all over, Natalia, you are safe,” Lord Colwall said gently.
She walked unsteadily towards the door, his hand supporting her arm. As he left the room he lifted the lantern from the nail, and it lit their steps down the stair-way.
As she reached the bottom something large and warm hurled itself against her, raising his great head to lick her cheek.
It was Herald!
“You must thank Herald for finding you,” Lord Colwall said. “I felt certain that if anyone could track you down it would be he.”
With his arm around Natalia he drew her outside the barn and she saw by the light of the half-moon climbing up the sky that there were two horses tied to a broken fence.
She knew one of the horses had belonged to Captain Swing, and that once he had reached the barn it would not have been difficult for Lord Colwall to guess where she was imprisoned.
His Lordship’s horse was fidgeting a little, but the Captain’s was quiet and apathetic.
Lord Colwall glanced at it.
“Wait one moment,” he said.
He propped Natalia as if she was a doll against the doorway of the barn. She watched him without speaking as he went to Captain Swing’s horse, undid the girths and lifted the saddle from the animal’s back.
Then he slipped off the bridle and walking the short distance to the Mill pool threw them in. There was a loud splash as they hit the water and Lord Colwall chucked the lantern after them.
He retraced his steps, saw that Captain Swing’s horse was unconcernedly cropping the grass, and picking Natalia up in his arms, he set her on the back of his stallion.
Just for a moment she balanced precariously, and then with the quickness of a man who is extremely athletic, Lord Colwall swung himself into the saddle behind her.
He put his left arm round her holding her close and picked up the reins.
Natalia turned her head to hide it against his shoulder and then, as if the closeness of him released the tension that had gripped her, she burst into tears.
She cried despairingly, tempestuously, her whole body shaken by the violence of her reaction as a child will cry who has been frightened beyond endurance.
“It is all right,” Lord Colwall said soothingly. “You are safe.”
His horse was moving slowly.
“You must forgive me,” he went on, “if I was a long time in coming for you, but I returned home only just before dinner to find the note telling me you had been taken as a hostage.”
His arm tightened around her and, although Natalia was still crying, she was listening.
“I had to make a quick decision,” he continued, “whether to send for the Military, which would have taken a long time, to summon the farm labourers and force them—at pistol point if necessary—into telling me where that fiend had put you, or to try to find you myself!”
He paused for a moment as if remembering how hard the decision had been. Then he continued:
“I decided the best and quickest way would be to take Herald to the threshing barn where I guessed you had encountered the rioters.”
Natalia was still crying. The tears were running down her cheeks and there was nothing she could do to stop them.
At the same time she was listening to Lord Colwall’s deep voice, knowing that nothing mattered now he had found her and she was safe.
Even so, the evil from which she had so narrowly escaped still seemed to encompass her with a band of terror she could not break.
One of her hands clutched at the lapel of Lord Colwall’s coat.
She wanted to be sure he was really there; she wanted to hold on to him; to know that she need not be stricken with that frantic, petrifying fear which had made her scream and scream as Captain Swing had lain on top of her.
“How could you have been so foolish,” she heard Lord Colwall say, “as to ride alone without a groom?”
She did not reply and he answered his own question.
“They told me at the Castle you were coming to join me, and how should you know there was danger for you, of all people, in this quiet countryside?”
There was a note of fury behind his words, and as if the very word “danger” evoked again the agony through which she had passed, Natalia went on crying.
Yet at the same time she knew within herself that gradually the comfort of Lord Colwall’s presence, the feel of his arms encircling her, was dispersing much of the nightmarish terror which had overshadowed her.
‘I am safe with His Lordship,’ she told herself, ‘and he is holding me close to him as I have always wanted him to do!’
She tried to feel the rapture that she had always known she would feel if she was ever in his arms.
Yet while her mind told her it was what she had craved, her body still under the spell of Captain Swing’s violence, she could only shiver at the memory of the experience.
Natalia had never known violence and had never seen it.
Now she thought she would never be able to forget the weight of his body on top of hers, the roughness of his hands, or the lust in his eyes which had contorted his face until he had seemed like the very devil incarnate.
Moreover it had been an abject humiliation to realise how helpless she was, to learn that against brute strength a woman was completely and hopelessly impotent.
“Herald picked up your trail almost as soon as we left the barn,” Lord Colwall was saying. “I could not imagine why he should be leading me through the willows by the bank of the stream. Then when we came to the old Mill and I saw that swine’s horse waiting outside it, I knew I had been right to come alone.”
His arm tightened around her as he said:
“I killed that man, Natalia. Do you hear me?”
Natalia did not answer, but he knew by the manner in which she hid her face even closer against his shoulder that she was listening to him.
“I killed him,” Lord Colwall repeated, “and I am not ashamed of it! It was not murder. It was simply the destruction of a rat who deserved to die.”
His voice was sharp with contempt. Then he continued: “Because to make an explanation to the Magistrates must involve you, and because I do not wish anyone to know that you have been in contact with a man of his depravity an
d reputation, we will, neither of us, speak of this again.”
He paused then said insistently:
“Swing is dead. He is finished. The last trace of him is lost in the depths of the Mill pool and the world will be a better place.”
By now they were approaching the Castle. Lord Colwall looked up at the lights in the windows and the great stone building rising above the skeleton branches of the trees before he said urgently: “Forget what has happened, Natalia. Forget that he so grossly insulted you. In future I will protect you better. No-one, I repeat, no-one must learn that you have suffered in this manner.”
There was so much solemnity in his tone that Natalia stopped crying.
She knew that they had reached the court-yard outside the front door because she could hear the sound of the gravel beneath the horse’s hoofs.
“Leave all explanations to me,” Lord Colwall commanded.
He drew the stallion to a standstill and now raising her head Natalia saw the golden light from the open doorway, and the Butler and a number of footmen waiting for them.
They would have assisted her to alight from the saddle, but Lord Colwall jumped to the ground and lifted her down himself.
Natalia dropped her head and folded the cloak tightly round her.
“You have brought back Her Ladyship!” she heard the Butler exclaim.
“I found Her Ladyship imprisoned in the old Mill,” Lord Colwall replied. “She is very cold and it was an unpleasant place for her to be alone in at night. Send food and wine up to her room immediately.”
“Yes, M’Lord—of course, M’Lord.”
The servants hurried to obey Lord Colwall’s orders, and with his arm around Natalia he helped her slowly up the stairs.
Ellen was waiting on the landing outside her bed-room.
“Get Her Ladyship to bed,” Lord Colwall said. “She is cold and hungry.”
“Oh, M’Lady, we have been so worried about you!” Ellen exclaimed.
She led Natalia into the bed-room.
Lord Colwall turned and went downstairs again.
Ellen helped Natalia off with her cloak and gave an exclamation when she saw the buttons were burst from her jacket and her riding-blouse was torn.
“I ... struggled with the ... men who were ... shutting me up,” Natalia said as explanation.
Sword to the Heart (Bantam Series No. 13) Page 15