The lieutenant shouted for me to stop, but I couldn’t. A frantic swishing sound grew steadily at my back as I burst through the doors and ran for the back room.
The man behind the bar yelled at me and raised his rifle but I kept running.
As I came through the second set of doors to the private room, Mr. Pluckrose’s pistol, which had been raised towards Henry, ready to fire, instead swiveled on me.
That was when the frantic black mass flooded the small space and swarmed Mr. Pluckrose. Shouts of alarm rang out at the same time as the familiar pop of the pistol being fired.
My body fell hard on the old oak floor, a searing pain grazing my left side.
I could hear the screams of Mr. Pluckrose as the crows clawed at his face.
Above the roar of fluttering wings, I could hear Henry calling out to me. But the pain was too much for me to make out what he was saying.
I was vaguely aware of his hands as he lifted me into his arms.
Chapter 44
One Hell of a Day
Eileen arrived back to Oxwich on the last train. She’d been mindful of being followed and had as a result taken several precautions, making her trip quite a bit longer.
What did this other wayfarer want?
Chills ran up her spine as she recalled the cold look the woman had given her. Not a friendly acknowledgement, of that she was quite sure. It was a sort of predatory look.
But why?
Wayfarers were a strange bunch, but not evil. At least not in her experience. What did this woman have against her? Eileen was not about to ask.
Might this have been the same one who had tracked her daughter down? Emma had believed her name to be Alex.
A bone-chilling breeze blew through the deserted street and it gave Eileen an uneasy feeling. Her clothes were still damp from standing in the rain and all she wanted was to curl up next to a fire with a hot cup of tea.
She hoped that Emma would not be angry at her for leaving without word, but she’d needed to do this.
Seeing Charles, his shocked expression still engraved in her mind’s eye, had unleashed a whole array of emotions. She still loved him. Did he still think of her? How would Emma take the news that the man she’d grown up calling Dad was not in fact her father? Would she be angry? Would Charles accept Emma?
Too many unknowns.
The one thing that rang true, however, was that no time or distance had changed the way she felt about him. That had to count for something.
She arrived at Miss Crabtree’s townhouse in time to greet a man dressed in a long black greatcoat and holding a leather satchel on his way out.
“Good evening.” He bowed his head to her as he came down the steps.
Concern drove her to scramble up the steps.
Who was this man? Was everything all right?
George the butler opened the door to her immediately.
“Miss Redford.” He nodded politely, a somber expressing tugging at his face.
“George, what’s happened?”
“The doctor just left and—”
“The doctor?” Eileen stumbled through the door and raced up to Emma’s room, which stood empty.
George was talking to her from the entrance, but she didn’t listen. All she cared about was making sure that her daughter was all right.
“Where is she?” Eileen hurried back down the stairs and headed towards the parlor.
The butler, not able to keep up, simply waited for her to return.
“There’s been a situation…” The butler fumbled with what to say.
“Miss Redford?” Miss Crabtree called from upstairs. “Do come up here, child.”
She did as she was told, climbing the stairs two at a time.
The old woman stood in the hall, looking concerned.
Would someone just tell me what’s happened? Eileen wanted to shout.
“Are you all right? What’s happened?”
Miss Crabtree’s voice shook when she spoke.
“Well, dear, there’s been an accident of sorts. Emma is alive”—she paused, and Eileen let out a breath of relief—“and we are hopeful that she will pull through completely, but…”
Eileen cursed herself for having left. “Please, where is she?”
“In here, dear.” Miss Crabtree gestured towards her own bedchamber down the hall. “I thought the extra space would be beneficial.”
With that, Eileen practically ran down the hall, her legs feeling numb and awkward.
The door stood ajar and she walked straight in, surprised to see not only Henry but another older gentleman by his side.
“Lord Drake,” she croaked when she saw him, his eyes rimmed red and one swollen, definitely turning black, his white shirt speckled with blood. “What’s happened?”
Emma lay sleeping in a white nightgown, her hair a mass of wavy blonde.
Without hesitation Henry gave Eileen a hug. The man next to him bristled slightly at the sight of such a display.
“She was shot trying to protect us from Mr. Pluckrose.”
Eileen heard a low squawk and noticed a very large bird in the corner of the room perched on the back of an armchair. Henry followed her gaze.
“Don’t ask,” he said with a wry look. “It seems he’s quite attached to your daughter.”
“Daughter?” the man next to Henry interjected with surprise.
Henry rolled his eyes.
“Miss Redford, this is my father, Lord Pembrooke.” He looked to his father, who was pursing his lips. “Father, this is Miss Clayton’s mother.”
Confusion mixed with curiosity. Eileen knew they looked more like sisters with them so close in age.
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Redford. Your daughter…” He hesitated, disbelief marking his tone. “She’s a remarkable young lady,” he said.
“Thank you, my lord,” she answered graciously and then looked to Henry. “Will she be okay?”
Her teeth bit the inside of her lip to quell her nerves. She sat on the edge of the bed and took Emma’s limp hand in hers. Tears stung her eyes.
“We are of course hopeful,” he said, looking worn and anxious himself.
“The baby?” Eileen asked, forgetting their present company.
The earl looked to Henry in shock. Like a fish out of water his lips opened and closed.
“It does not look good, I’m afraid.” Henry was beyond caring what the earl thought, his only concern for Emma’s health.
“Lord Pembrooke,” Miss Crabtree called to the earl. Both Henry and his father turned to her. “Would you care for some tea and cakes?” she said with raised eyebrows, indicating that he did not have a choice in the matter.
“Very well,” the earl said reluctantly and followed the old woman from the room.
When the earl was out of the room Eileen kissed her daughter’s forehead.
“I should have been here.” Her comment was directed at no one in particular.
“Nothing would have changed. You know your daughter is impossibly stubborn,” he tried to tease but it came out stilted. “She saved my life once again, putting her own at risk. I’m torn whether to throttle her or kiss her.”
Henry blushed at his own admission.
“Perhaps she’ll be deserving of both,” Eileen teased. “I have the same dilemma, you see.”
All they could do now was hope for the best.
The danger of infection weighed heavily on Eileen’s mind.
Chapter 45
A Visitor
There was a heavy feeling in my chest that I couldn’t seem to shake. My breath felt shallow and difficult. Was this what a heart attack felt like? A feather-light tickle bristled my nose and I was desperate to scratch at it.
My eyes fluttered open and I noticed the light on the ceiling as it danced around hypnotically, its blurry contours slowly coming into crisp focus. There was a strong wind outside that howled and banged against the windows. A crisp fall day.
On my chest
was a mound of feathers, like a dead weight. Hence the reason for my difficulty in breathing. I blew, startling the mass and causing it to shift.
Harold’s head swung around and his eyes, like tiny little lenses, focused onto my face.
Seriously?
“Get off me.” I squirmed under his weight. Who knew that he could be so heavy? “I can’t breathe.”
“Emma!” Henry was immediately at my side, looking rather disheveled, a blanket folded over a nearby chair.
Had he been sleeping in that chair?
“Can you remove this bird from me?”
Henry gave me a dubious look. Clearly, the bird was commander-in-chief in here.
“Harold! Off!” I shouted at him but he simply proceeded in cleaning his wings.
Opening the window wide, Henry tried to coax Harold to take flight. But the stubborn bird was having none of it. We both gave up.
“How are you feeling?” he asked me, running a finger gently along my face.
“Horrific. I need a toothbrush, stat.” My mouth felt furry. I dreaded to imagine what my breath was like.
Again Henry studied me, his eyebrows arched with amusement. “The fact that you’re not making any sense at all tells me that you are well and truly on the mend.”
His smile reached the corners of his eyes. I noticed that his eye looked nearly normal again.
“Henry, your face—it’s healed? That was fast.”
“Two weeks does not exactly amount to a speedy recovery, but in your case that is true.”
“Two weeks?” I was stunned into silence.
The bed tilted slightly as Henry sat on the edge of it. Beaming at me like a mischievous child, he took my hand in his.
“We were quite worried about you for a while.” His expression took on a more serious note.
A dreadful thought snaked through the fog of my mind. I remembered a pistol pointed at me and the searing pain in my side. The smell of gunpowder flooding my senses.
“The baby?” I wasn’t sure I could meet his gaze. What would I see there?
“As stubborn as you, to be sure.” Again his relief was like a breath of fresh air.
Harold, feeling the shifting of my body as I tried to sit up, reluctantly hopped to the foot of the bed. For the first time I noticed the bandage on his left wing.
“Is he all right?” I asked as Henry helped me sit up.
“It seems so, he’s no longer dragging the thing along, so my guess is that he could take flight if he was motivated to do so.”
“What happened?” The whole thing was a bit foggy now. I remembered charging into the room, the flutter of wings at my back and a pistol suddenly pointed in my direction.
“I thought perhaps you would be able to shed some light on that. From where I stood, which was at the end of Mr. Pluckrose’s pistol, you can imagine my surprise when a flock of birds charged through the small room with you at the helm. What on earth possessed you to launch such an attack?”
“Pluckrose, I realized far too late, was involved in the initial plot against your life, so I thought he might be more interested in killing you and your father than collecting the money.”
“That did become apparent. I’m afraid he revealed his intentions moments before you stormed us. Isobel again was at the heart of it. At least now it is in the hands of my father, who was in the midst of murderous rage against his beloved daughter last we spoke. You may rest assured all has been set to rights.”
“And Isobel?”
“Dealt with accordingly, and no longer any concern of ours.” His thumb stroked the top of my hand, sending a tingling sensation through my arm. He leaned down and seared a kiss on my palm, the sensual gesture stirring up a typhoon of pleasure. Injured or not, I wanted to yank him down on top of me and lose myself in him.
The air between us had become charged. His eyes, like large pools of blue, invited me to dive in.
How was it humanly possible to crave a man as I craved Henry? His touch was like liquid fire through my body.
A light knock at the door sent Henry jumping to his feet. Some form of propriety still had to be maintained. For both our sakes.
He cleared his throat and shifted his position uncomfortably. I couldn’t help but smile, knowing that his arousal was the cause of his discomfort.
What I would give to spend a whole afternoon snuggled together in bed. Running my fingers through his thick dark hair…
“Emma, darling, you have a visitor,” my mother said, taking in Henry’s guilty expression with pursed lips. Her eyes shifted between the two of us before she raised an eyebrow at Henry, as if to say, Time to go.
A second of hesitation.
“Of course,” he stammered. “Miss Clayton, so lovely to see you recovering so well.”
With a wink he bowed to me and left the room, my mother on his tail.
The door opened further and the countess walked through, her cool gaze taking in the decor of the room as if she was hunting for real estate.
Wow, now this was a shocker.
Surprise and curiosity. That was what I was feeling. I no longer harbored any ill feelings towards the countess, but she was a rather interesting personality.
Finally, her gray eyes rested on me. Not in a predatory sense but more out of intrigue
So here you are, they seemed to say.
“Miss Clay-ton,” she said, dragging on the second syllable as if she were holding a musical note.
Interesting greeting. What was one supposed to say to that?
I resisted the urge to match the drama of her own tone.
“So nice to see you, Lady Pembrooke,” I attempted politely.
“We can dispense with the pleasantries,” she said with a wave of her hand, like she was swatting away an annoying fly. “We both know why I’m here.”
No. Actually I don’t.
“There have been allegations against my daughter,” she continued as if it was no more than rumors. She let her words hang in the air.
“Yes.” I wondered how she was going to try to turn this around. Allegations was a huge understatement.
“We all know that she is in fact quite wretched and capable of everything she’s been accused of.”
Shock slapped me across the face.
“But what I don’t understand is why, after everything she’s done to ruin you, you’d not seek your own revenge. Lord Pembrooke told me you wished to keep the matter away from the justice system and I can’t for the life of me understand your motivation.”
Um, how to answer? My motivation was not to do with Isobel as much as her future heirs, but that was not something I could say. I also thought of the vulnerability that I’d seen that day on the bridge.
“We are all capable of terrible things. Sometimes our actions are not a true reflection of what we are inside,” I offered by way of explanation.
In Isobel’s case I knew this was a bit of a stretch.
“Well, you place me at a disadvantage, Miss Clayton.” Her words were crisp.
Say what?
My look of surprise spurred her to continue.
“Now I am in your debt. You have shown compassion where I have shown you none.” She straightened the folds of her expensive dress. “I know what you must be thinking.”
I can guarantee you don’t.
“You wonder how a woman such as myself could have allowed and possibly even encouraged Isobel’s temperament.” She looked at me with a glimmer of emotion. “Isobel craved things that were always just out of reach, certainly to a woman.” She stroked the fine lace on her collar. “That was not the way I had been raised. Serve and obey. We are bought and sold or traded. That’s just the lot we are born into. I pray you shan’t ever have daughters, Miss Clayton. Still, I should have been firm with her about the ways of the world, but I wasn’t. Perhaps I wished that she would be strong enough to deal with life’s endless compromise.”
Despair pulled at her skeletal features, making them look even more severe.
A sharp laugh escaped her taut lips, like a hyena’s cry, mocking and eerie.
Jesus Christ, please don’t do that again. The hairs on my arms stood on end.
Harold chose that moment to speak up, startling the countess. Her hand rose to her chest as if to catch her breath from the fright.
“Harold!” I scolded.
“Interesting pets you keep, Miss Clayton.” Her lips pursed in disgust. She took a small step away just to be safe.
“Well, sometimes your pets choose you.” I gave Harold the stink eye.
“It’s no wonder you’ve captured Henry’s attention so. He always had some interesting choices in companions.”
The woman could not help herself.
“That in mind,” she continued, “I feel like we should clear the air between us and start anew.” Her steely eyes met mine. “What do you say, Miss Clayton, could we put these misunderstandings behind us?”
Misunderstandings?
Geez, when you put it like that, I thought sarcastically.
Could I trust this woman? Did she also wish me harm?
I decided to accept the olive branch, however brittle it might be.
“Very well, Lady Pembrooke, I accept your apology.”
Her tight smile showed her discomfort. I knew quite well that the idea of an actual apology made her uncomfortable.
“I would be happy to start fresh.”
Hopefully this was not a decision I would come to regret.
Chapter 46
Leaving
The crush of people on the Waterloo docks in Liverpool was almost suffocating. Large travel trunks and merchants’ cargo were stacked near the ramps to ships, funneling all the foot traffic through narrow passages. Cages with chickens and small goats took up another side of the docks, from which the nasty fumes of manure permeated the air.
Isobel pinched her nose to avoid the unpleasant smells. Although the rain had yet to fall, the sky looked gray and ominous. Any minute she would be fighting the crowds for any small bit of shelter. Her aunt and uncle were walking towards her with their passage tickets. Trailing behind them, three men carried their trucks and luggage. At least she wouldn’t be forced to travel in steerage with all the riffraff. She and her aunt were to share a private cabin.
The Wayfarer's Daughter: A Time Travel Romance (The Wayfarer Series Book 2) Page 19