He screamed at them that he would continue until they caught their quarry, that he would kill them both if they did not soon find the devil woman. He demanded that they go faster, faster, weaving crazily this way and that. Then suddenly the demands and orders stopped, and were replaced by wordless, high-pitched shrieks of agony. For a minute or two Pablo and Pedro ran on, not realizing that their master had collapsed. They would have continued to run on even longer, except that in his convulsions of agony, Dom José fired the pistol.
This brought the men to an abrupt stop. Both understood that their only safety lay in overpowering Dom José before he had a chance to load the gun again. They ran back with frantic haste, only to find their master limp on the ground. Pablo darted forward and seized the gun. Then both stood still, gasping with shock. After another minute Pablo called his master’s name softly. There was no response.
Although both knew from his stertorous breathing that Dom José was alive, he was clearly unconscious. Pedro suggested timidly that they leave him. Pablo called him a fool. If they did not bring Dom José back and prove there was no wound on him, he pointed out, they might be accused of murder. This way, dead or alive, they would be blameless. They secured all the empty pistols in case Dom José should suddenly revive, then one took his shoulders, the other his feet, and they began to carry him away.
Pedro was completely lost and even Pablo had no idea where they were, but he was not worried. He knew the road was south of them, and he could judge direction well enough. Somewhere they would come out on the road that ran between Lousa and Góis. They could then lay Dom José by the side of the road, and one of them could quest east and west until he found the break through which they had entered. Once Carlo brought the horses out, they could consider whether to send for help or try to bring Dom José back to La Casa des Ermidas.
Perce nearly fell out of the tree when the shot sounded seconds after the screaming stopped. He dragged the one loaded pistol out of his pocket and looked wildly around, but there was no sign of the men, no sound of running or brush tearing. After that, he listened for what seemed like hours and hours without hearing another unnatural sound. He was aware again of his inability to judge time and felt in his waistcoat for his watch. That was little help; he had forgotten to wind it since he last went to bed aboard the naval cutter. It had stopped sometime near when he had reached the dower house the previous night.
After what seemed an interminable period of silence, Perce heard a bird twitter, then another. Little birds were nice he thought with the maudlin sentimentality of the utterly exhausted. His eyes closed involuntarily while he thought of how nice little birds were, how sweet, how shy, how reassuring their peeping voices were. He jerked up, and his eyes shot open. Birds only peeped gently where everything was peaceful and quiet.
Perce’s brain stuck on that for a while, because it seemed to him that Dom José was madder than a rabid dog and would not be easily dissuaded from the chase. The word “chase” made Perce think of horses, and he remembered how the gelding had neighed, like a scream. The horse would not have made that sound unless be was hurt. But he could only have been hurt by a bullet, because none of the men had been close enough to strike him. So the gun had been aimed deliberately wide of the targets, Sabrina and himself. Then Perce recalled that Dom José had shouted at his men before they fired, probably he had ordered them to shoot. Could that mean they had not wished to shoot? Perce closed his eyes again but not because he was sleepy now. He was trying to visualize what he had seen but not really absorbed because his attention had been fixed on Dom José. After a time he had become relatively sure that both men had been standing still, that they had done nothing even after Dom José had shouted that second order, almost certainly to reload.
Perce put the facts together with the surmises, and added in the hysterical shouting and the single shot, which was clearly not directed at Sabrina or himself. Then he considered the sudden and protracted silence, the return of natural sounds to the woods. After that, he went over the whole scenario in his mind for fear his exhaustion was addling his wits. Finally he heaved a sigh and dropped the blanket and food bag to the ground.
A few musical and startled squawks were followed by silence. No more happy peeps. It seemed to prove that there had been no intrusion into the area during the time he could hear the birdcalls. In that case, it was possible that his guess was right. Losing their taste for hunting an innocent woman, Dom José’s men had turned on their master and overpowered him. Perhaps that was when he had screamed so oddly. Perce wondered briefly whether he had been hurt or killed when the gun went off, but he did not care. He needed all his attention to get to the ground.
Sabrina’s condition was worse than Perce’s because she was less accustomed to extreme physical exertion, and the emotional shocks she had suffered had been greater. She had jerked to attention when the single shot was fired and peered fearfully around through the pine needles that surrounded her. The quiet that followed the shot had no particular meaning to her. Indeed, she was only semiconscious, barely aware enough to cling to her perch.
The double thud when the food bag and blanket landed startled her into full awareness. It took a couple of minutes for Sabrina to realize what had woken her from her half sleep. By the time she perceived the objects on the ground, there was a violent agitation of the tree next to hers.
“Perce,” she cried in panic, thinking he had fallen asleep, “don’t fall.”
“I hope not,” he wheezed, pausing to rest. “It seems ridiculous that it’s harder to get down unencumbered than up carrying those bundles.”
Sabrina instantly concluded that if Perce was climbing down and speaking to her loudly enough to be heard, the danger was over. She could not guess what had brought him to this decision, but she was perfectly willing to trust him. The wave of relief that swept her lifted her out of the dullness of exhaustion into a febrile euphoria.
“Perhaps it’s because no one is chasing you with a gun,” she suggested, giggling.
The branches began to wave again immediately, and Perce’s legs appeared, followed by his body. When he was set in the lowest crotch, he turned his head toward the tree that held Sabrina. “That was an unfair hit,” he remarked severely. “It was true, but unkind. However, I am about to get my revenge. It’s your turn to come down next.”
On the words, he jumped from the crotch, sprawling forward when he landed but rising quickly enough to assure Sabrina he was unhurt. Then he went to the bottom of the tree and looked up, and a wave of cold fear passed over him. From this angle she was quite visible, much, much too far up the forest giant.
Perce swallowed, and his face went blank. “Well?” he urged.
Sabrina was sitting on a branch with one leg on each side and her back against the trunk of the tree. She thought carefully, but she could not remember how she had achieved the position. First she lifted one leg in an attempt to place her foot on the branch, but she tipped dangerously, saving herself by clasping the trunk behind her. She looked down at her lover through a net of branches.
“Monster,” she said. “You pushed me up here. Don’t you dare stand there looking like a fish. Get me down.”
He scratched his head and looked around, “What we need is a ladder,” he remarked. “A lady shouldn’t climb trees at all, but a ladder would simplify the situation immeasurably.”
“You idiot,” Sabrina gasped, enraged by the London-dandy tone of voice and gently bemused expression, which implied that a servant would come hurrying up with the requested article any moment. “Where are you going to get a ladder in the middle of a forest?”
“I don’t know,” Perce drawled, now looking up and down the tree in which Sabrina seemed to be trapped, “but a little ingenuity…a little positive thought…”
Sabrina reached out, tore off a small branch, and threw it down at Perce. He moved his head just enough to avoid it.
“Tsk, tsk. How very unmaidenly.”
“It‘s a long time since I was a maiden, as you should know,” Sabrina rejoined. “And you and Philip made sure I was never maidenly.”
“Ah well, if you can’t resist the impulse, there’s a much better branch on the limb above you.”
Instinctively Sabrina looked up. The branches, a little offset from each other, marched upward like—Perce’s remarks gave her the smile immediately—like the rungs of a ladder. She looked down again, this time not at Perce himself but at the branches. Downward, they were also well spaced for climbing until about six feet from the ground, but that was no problem; Perce would lift her down. She transferred her eyes to his face. It was still as blank as a bad painting, giving no indication of the thoughts behind.
She was very annoyed with Perce. Philip had always been quick to extricate her when she had called for help, whereas Perce made her find her own solution. Often when she emerged scratched or bruised or half drowned and knew she would have to explain her condition to Leonie and Katy, Sabrina felt furious with him. Then her irritation faded. Yes, but she had also always felt a rich satisfaction in having saved herself—and the need for explanations certainly sharpened her wits. Then she grinned. At least she wouldn’t have to explain this to Leonie.
Her cloak caught at one arm, and she took it off and dropped it. Then, with a good grip on the limb above to steady her, she found she was able to lift first one foot and then, twisting, the other to the branch she had been sitting on. Pulling herself up was another problem. She was stiff and sore, every muscle screamed with pain. Sabrina glanced down, tempted to forgo the satisfaction of independence, but Perce was watching with just a touch of a smile. Sabrina set her small, determined jaw and hauled herself up to a standing position and began her descent.
An entirely new problem presented itself when she began to climb down. After a few branches her skirt caught on a small side twig. Sabrina used several very unmaidenly epithets as she tried to kick it loose, and glanced down briefly. From the lines around Perce’s mouth she assumed he was trying not to laugh.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she exclaimed. “I’d like to see you do any better wearing a skirt.”
“Can you take it off?” he suggested, his voice as flat as his expression.
The suggestion struck Sabrina as inordinately funny. She had a vision of herself, as from below, crawling down the tree in her lace-edged pantalettes. Now that was something she would never be able to explain to Leonie, she thought, giggling helplessly.
“Don’t laugh,” Perce shouted. “Come down here at once!”
Some movement of her shaking body had freed her skirt, and she descended another two levels, but the giggles continued to rack her. It was so silly, Perce sounding as if she were a naughty kitten deliberately lingering in the tree. She was convulsed by a sudden mental image of a kitten in lace-edged pantalettes.
“Stop that!” Perce roared.
But it was too late. Sabrina’s foot slipped from one branch while she was reaching down for another. For one second she hung, then her tired hands could support her no longer and she fell.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sabrina did not realize that she had been hysterical until she found herself sitting on Perce’s abdomen on the ground. She did not remember the fall, except that there was a sharper ache near her right shoulder blade, which, she assumed, had been caused by hitting a branch. Immediately after the new pain, the sounds Perce was making forced themselves on her, and she rolled off him, realizing he was whooping in an effort to catch his breath. He had broken her fall, and she had knocked the air out of him.
“It serves you right,” she said. “Why did you make me laugh?”
There could be no immediate reply, of course, but after a while Perce stopped wheezing and turned to his side. “I didn’t intend to make you laugh, you nitwit,” he sighed. “There was nothing I could do to help you down, and I had to give you something to think about so you wouldn’t decide you were stuck in the tree and get paralyzed or so scared that you fell. What the hell were you laughing about?”
She told him, and he shook his head. “I thought you were teasing me.” She paused for a moment and then added, “I don’t think I can go on any farther, Perce.”
“We don’t have to.” He told her then what he had deduced about Dom José from the sounds he heard. “I can’t believe there’s anyone within hearing distance,” he concluded. “The noise we’ve been making would surely have brought them. We’ve both got to sleep ourselves out. Then we’ll decide what to do next.”
Sabrina promptly closed her eyes, which had only been half open anyway. Perce was strongly tempted to follow her example, but he knew they would suffer for it later. It was quite warm now and he thought, might well get hot as the day advanced. However, if they slept as long as he thought they might, it would be better to prepare against chill. He levered himself up, looked around, and decided they could stay where they were. Years of fallen needles carpeted the ground under the pine tree where they had ended up.
Biting back a groan of protest, Perce got to his feet, gathered their scattered possessions, hung the food bag from a branch above their heads, and spread the blanket near Sabrina. He was so tired, he actually considered rolling her over onto it, but his better nature prevailed and be lifted her and set her down gently. She did not stir then or even when he pulled off her coat and drew her cloak over her. He did not remember pulling off his boots, taking off his coat, and lying down.
When Sabrina woke, she stared up into the branches of the pine tree above her unbelievingly for a few minutes. It was just barely light enough to see, and she was aware of sunrise and of thirst and hunger. Then memory returned together with the aches and pains of bruises, scratches, and muscles protesting unaccustomed exercise. None of that mattered. If the pain was there, then Perce was there too, and she was safe. She turned her head, smiling, and found him looking down at her.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said softly.
“You didn’t. I’m thirsty.”
He nodded. “I am, too, but we have a problem. I don’t know where the brook is. I can’t hear a thing. It will be dark soon, I think. I don’t know whether it’s better to blunder around in the dark or stay put until morning. If we could see, maybe we could find our footprints and follow them back.”
Sabrina held out a hand, and Perce pulled her up. “Let’s see what’s in the food bag,” she suggested. “I think there were apples and oranges. I felt them when I was looking for something to chew this morning—was it this morning?”
“I think so. We’ll know pretty soon. If it gets lighter, it was yesterday morning. If it gets darker, it was this morning—unless we slept thirty-six hours, which is possible considering the way I felt when I lay down.”
While he was speaking, Sabrina had emptied the food bag completely. Sergei had done them well. He must have gathered up all the food he came across and thrown it into the bag. There were two whole loaves of bread and one that they had broken, large chunks of cheese, the remains of the capon whose legs they had eaten and part of another, a part of a ham, six apples, four oranges, and a mashed and bruised mess that Sabrina realized had been bunches of grapes and apricots.
It was this she suggested they begin on, and although some of the juice had leaked away, enough remained to quench their thirst. Then each went off to relieve nature. When Sabrina returned, Perce was comfortably settled, chewing on a strip torn from the capon’s breast. She stood over him and glared down until he looked up with an inquiring lift of his brow.
“I hope Eve shoved that apple down Adam’s throat,” she remarked.
“That sounds like a very reasonable desire,” Perce agreed amiably. “It does seem hard that she should be blamed because her man was stupid and weak-willed. But why the sudden passion about an event that, after all, was some time ago.”
“Because of all the inequities visited on the female, needing to remove a drawerful of clothing and squat
just to piss seems the outside of enough,” Sabrina said heatedly.
Perce stared up at her, fish-faced, eyes blank, mouth open “But that happened before the apple business.”
His voice was perfectly grave. Not even Sabrina, who knew him so well, could detect the smallest trace of laughter in it. Sabrina sighed slightly. It was her Perce, just the same in the middle of a forest or a fashionable drawing room. She came down on her knees beside him, feeling warmed and comforted out of the little thrill of fear that had touched her when she went off alone and he was out of sight.
It had seemed to take forever to lift her clothing and unbutton and button her pantalettes. There had been sounds for which she could see no cause. Very likely she had been making the sounds herself—her feet crackling dead leaves and twigs as she shifted position, her skirt brushing against bushes as she lifted it. Sabrina smiled a bit at her own silliness and reached toward the capon.
“That inequity, if it is one, was not devised as a punishment,” Perce said, putting his hand on hers.
Sabrina looked at him, startled, and noticed that he had swallowed what he had been chewing, put down the remainder, and wiped his fingers. Although the vacuity was gone from his face, his expression was still unreadable to Sabrina. The remark about the “inequity” could only refer to the difference in construction of male and female genitals, but Sabrina was puzzled by the oblique sexual reference and the touch on her hand. She was quite close enough for Perce to have pulled her over to kiss if he wanted to make love. He had always been very direct, quite forceful about it in the past.
A second sidelong glance at his face gave her nothing more to work on, and an old fear she had buried suddenly surfaced. Did Perce really want to marry her? She didn’t doubt he loved her. He had loved her when she was a little girl, and in that sense he would always love her. Don’t be a fool, she told herself, it isn’t only that kind of love. He’d grasped at every opportunity to behave like a lover rather than a friend. Or had he? Sabrina tried to think back. Hadn’t she invited him each time, if not in words, by clear implication? In the forest last night, she had taken off her safeguard long before Perce touched her. He couldn’t ignore an invitation like that, could he? Was this delicate invitation something he hoped she would ignore? An attempt to discover whether she still wished to claim him?
The Kent Heiress Page 39