Potomac 02 - Beside Two Rivers

by RITA GERLACH

  Fiona hurried away, muttering beneath her breath and glancing back over her shoulder.

  Ethan regarded Eliza with a great deal of anxiety. “Eliza?”

  She nodded. “I am shaken, Ethan. I never expected he would come to me. I thought I’d been long forgotten.”

  “Obviously not. And this explains the letters.”

  “He must have had them with him, and then they were stolen. Do you think that?”

  “I do, and you can see he has suffered.” He turned and saw the verger help Hayward to the settee. Reverend Reed crossed the room and drew Ethan aside. Eliza went to Hayward, and picking up a throw that lay across the settee, tucked it over his body.

  “Where did you find him?” Ethan asked.

  “We were called to Havendale, sir.”

  “Then Miss Darcy—why did she not come with you?”

  “It is urgent I unfold to you the sequence of events that have occurred this day, sir,” Reed said. “For I believe Miss Darcy to be in a most desperate situation.”

  A tremor shot through Ethan. “Tell me, sir.”

  “I was requested at Havendale after she sent Mrs. Burke, who told me of Mr. Morgan’s unexpected arrival and condition. Seeing the moment was not to lose, I traveled to Havendale with my verger, Mr. Snead. Miss Darcy would have sent word to Fairview for you and the lady to come, but she feared Mr. Langbourne would not allow you entrance, and do harm to her father.”

  “But why has Darcy not come with you?” Ethan asked once more.

  “She was prevented.”

  “By whom?”

  “Mr. Langbourne.”

  Ethan drew in a breath. “By force?”

  “You might say that. It was a most startling situation.”

  Ethan glanced over at Eliza. Still she had her face turned to the window. There was need for their conversation to be quiet, and so Ethan lowered his voice. “What happened?”

  “As we laid Mr. Morgan into the rear of my wagon, with Miss Darcy about to board, Mr. Langbourne burst out into the courtyard with a pistol in hand and with eyes like live coals. I told him to stand down, but he raised his weapon at me and ordered Miss Darcy away. He recognized Mr. Morgan, and as a man of God I cannot repeat the foul words he spoke. With his weapon turned upon the poor man, Darcy hurried to her father and put her body between them.”

  Fear rippled cold through Ethan’s body. Darcy. No, Langbourne would never have fired his pistol. He looked at Reed with a plea. “She is …”

  “Unharmed, sir.”

  “Why would he be so cruel and prevent her from leaving? She has done nothing to incite his anger.”

  “She has indeed—by harboring Mr. Morgan, whom he despises. Langbourne has set out to reap vengeance upon Hayward and Eliza by keeping Darcy from them. And you, sir, are also on his list of enemies. He said he would do all in his power to dissuade her from you. And, if I may repeat the words, he swore to shoot you like a dog if you were to set foot at Havendale.”

  Ethan set his mouth firm, clenched his jaw and fists. “He cannot keep her against her will. I will go to her.”

  Reed placed his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “I wish you godspeed, sir.”

  28

  Ethan raced Sanchet across the moors. The smooth mounds ascending above the valley shadowed the rocky edges of bluffs on the hillsides. His hands grew slick inside his leather gloves, and the wind cut through his hair, almost blinding him. Sanchet kicked up clots of earth and heaved his girth with the pace of his hooves.

  In the distance, Havendale came into view and Ethan’s brow furrowed as his conviction surged through his body. Sunlight flashed over the glass in the windows that faced him and a host of sparrows flew above the chimneys. He’d find her, loose her from Langbourne’s hold, and return to Fairview with her.

  Sanchet flared his nostrils, snorted, and flicked his ears. Suddenly a horse and rider plunged around a bend, followed by one other man on a smaller horse. The rider jerked hard on the reins and skidded the black roan to an uneasy halt in front of Ethan. His crony waited beside him. Langbourne stared hard at Ethan, all color washed from his pinched face. The sky grew darker—an ominous sign that came with the breeze and roughened his hair. His large horse snorted at the flap of wings alighting out of the trees behind Ethan.

  “Turn back, Brennan. You are not welcomed on my land.”

  A muscle in Ethan’s cheek jerked. “How will you prevent me from going on? I am here for Darcy.”

  Langbourne sneered as his horse sidestepped. “I forbid you to trespass, and the law says I can shoot any man who does.”

  “The law also says a man may hang for kidnapping.”

  “You speak nonsense.”

  “You deny you are keeping her here against her will?”

  “Certainly I do.”

  “I have been told what you did, how you kept her back on threat of murdering her father in cold blood.”

  “Whoever told you that is an utter fool. Darcy made the choice to stay. She has not resigned herself to a reunion with either parent.”

  “I was told differently.”

  “She has grown close to her grandmother and will not leave her.”

  “Yes, but not at the expense of her parents.”

  “Her father is nothing more than a stranger to her. And her mother? Well, Darcy has so little recollection of Eliza. There is no attachment.”

  “Is it not time you stop punishing Eliza? You have a wife and owe it to her to let the past die.”

  Langbourne steadied his restless horse and laughed. “You know nothing of my wife.”

  “I know that she is unfortunate. It is broadly known you have a mistress.”

  “You have reminded me, Brennan, the tongue is the weapon of women, cowards, and fools.”

  “Truth is the weapon against evil, sir.”

  Scarlet rage rose in Langbourne’s face. “You will not turn your horse and leave my property?”

  Ethan moved his horse a pace forward. “Let me pass.”

  “No, sir!” With angry stares, the other drew up beside Langbourne and widened the barrier between the two men.

  “Let Darcy tell me to my face she will not leave with me,” Ethan said.

  Langbourne made no movement to stand down. Instead, he stared at Ethan and moved his hand close to his pistol. Ethan knew he was serious and would carry out his threat. It would be better to live for Darcy than to die.

  “I will not allow you to go any further,” said Langbourne. “Even so, you would find her gone for all your efforts.”

  Ethan clenched his jaw. “What do you mean?”

  “I have sent her away.”

  “You are a liar, sir. Darcy knew I would be coming for her.”

  “Did she? Well, she told me she believes you to be a scoundrel for not telling her about her mother and wants nothing to do with you or her. Can you not see, Brennan? She did not send Hayward to Fairview out of the kindness of her heart. She threw him out, no matter what that vicar may have told you.”

  The urge to pull Langbourne off his horse and strike him down raged through Ethan. Was it not time someone humbled him and sent him to wallow in a mud hole, his fine suit of clothes ruined, his pride spoiled?

  “And there is another issue.” As if to test Ethan’s restraint, Langbourne narrowed his eyes and said, “You know Hollen was employed by me?”

  Ethan smirked. “I do. That is over too.”

  “It will never be over.” Langbourne leaned forward, his eyes spiteful. “Darcy will be the blade to twist in their hearts, and in yours—when I have ruined her.”

  With those words, Ethan spurred his horse forward and threw his grip onto Langbourne’s coat. Langbourne raised his arm and pushed him back. His servant hurried to his aid. The horses reared, stomped the ground, and twisted. Langbourne’s hand flew to the grip of his flintlock pistol.

  Then without hesitation, with no second thought flickering over his chiseled face, Langbourne ordered his man to move away and leveled the pis
tol at Ethan.

  29

  A tap, tap on the window stirred Darcy from a restless slumber. No harsh wind, no rain—only a sighing through the eaves of the house. She lay quiet, struggling against weary emotion, aware of the stillness in the house. She sat up, and though the chill in the room struck her, she threw back the blanket from her legs, swung them over the side of the bed, and stood. Despair lingered in her breast and she folded her hands against her heart to pray.

  Running her hands across her eyes, she worried about her father and estranged mother, aching for Ethan as her vision cleared, for she had cried herself to sleep. “When he is told what has happened to me, he will come,” she said aloud.

  She could not escape the image of Langbourne trudging out into the courtyard with his fists clenched. Hate burned in his eyes as he raised his pistol and swore to shoot her father. Intruder, trespasser, fiend, he had called him.

  When Darcy stepped between them, Langbourne shoved her aside. Her father cried out and struggled to rise. He shouted to Langbourne not to harm her. Reverend Reed’s verger shielded her father, and Reed rebuked Langbourne for his cruelty while trying to reach Darcy. Langbourne demanded Reverend Reed to remove Hayward, himself, and his verger, off his land. But no amount of stern words could sway him from keeping Darcy back.

  The room stood at a high point of the house, on a floor of rooms that had gone unoccupied for years, with only Madeline’s and hers lived in on the eastern wing. Cold and with little furniture, and one window made of rows of diamond-shaped glass laced with black leaded seams, it felt detached from the rest of Havendale.

  She rubbed her bruised wrist. In an iron-like grip, Langbourne had pulled her back into the house and up three flights of stairs, thus injuring her. At least he relented, convicted by Reverend Reed’s stern words, and let her father go. But what good did it do to keep her from leaving with him? He railed it was for her own good—and for Madeline. He would not allow her to abandon her grandmother. She had to do her duty. Her obligation was to her—not to the parents who had abandoned her. And how dare she bring into his house a dirty ragtag prodigal, a man who defied the family, who stole Langbourne’s choice, and ran off like a felon to a foreign country?

  “I do not care who he claims to be,” Langbourne told her. “He has no connection to this family—not anymore—and is not welcomed. You, on the other hand, are Madeline’s granddaughter, and you will do your duty by her by obeying me. You will accompany her to Meadlow, and what you do afterwards I care not. But I will not have you abandon her like her sons did. Only know this: you will have no help from me if you decide to leave Meadlow.”

  Langbourne seemed one man with two minds. He had sympathy in one regard, for Madeline—that she would not leave Havendale alone, that her granddaughter would be the greatest comfort for her during this transition. But at the same time, he had no compassion whatsoever on poor Darcy or her father, and showed such ire toward Ethan that it caused Darcy to tremble inwardly.

  To punish her disloyalty, he ordered her to stay put. One of his men would keep an eye out if she dared to leave. Darcy did not argue. The mad gaze in his eyes, the harsh tone of his voice, the clenching of his teeth frightened her.

  “You may leave your room when it is time to leave,” he said. As he stepped out the door, Darcy caught a glimpse of a man waiting in the hall. His head closely shaved, his eyes small and close-set, he nodded to Langbourne. He closed the door for his master, and Darcy set her ear against it and listened to Langbourne’s footsteps fade away.

  In an attempt to brush away the muck that covered the diamond-shaped panes, she nicked her finger on a crack in the glass. It stung and she put it into her mouth to soothe the wound. Her hem would have to do. She picked it up and rubbed a few panes until the muted day shone through—the sky slate, windswept mist crossing the land. She could not see the courtyard below, for the window stood too high. Shifting her gaze to the grassy plains beyond and to the lane that led to the house, she anticipated Ethan would appear mounted on Sanchet, spurring him toward her. For several anxious minutes she kept her hopeful eyes fixed upon the gate, and soon her expectation turned into anxiety.

  Her stomach ached from nerves and a lack of food, and she hugged her arms to endure it. But her thirst caused her to crave water and she wished some were in the old white pitcher that sat on the table beside the bed. Running her hands over the sleek curved handle, she looked down into it. It was empty.

  The room grew airless, and she tried to unlatch the window. Rust had sealed it tight and it would not budge no matter how much she struggled. Her need for air drove her to keep trying. If only she could feel the relief of the wind against her.

  The hoofbeats of a horse came faintly to her, and she hurried back to the window, where she saw men on horseback moving toward each other at a brisk trot. “Ethan,” she breathed out in a hopeful sigh. The other man she realized was Langbourne, along with one of his cronies. “Oh, Lord. Do not let Langbourne forbid him.”

  Desperation welled inside as she watched the scene outside in the misty distance. She gripped the edge of the window, as Ethan pushed Sanchet forward and grabbed Langbourne. Langbourne twisted away, moved back, and aimed his pistol. She gasped, and fear struck her cold that he would fire.

  “No, Langbourne! Do not do it!” she cried, tears rising in her eyes.

  With his life in danger, Ethan relented to whatever Langbourne ordered him to do, turned his horse, and galloped off.

  “Come back,” she whispered. Her hopes dashed, her heart sunk in her breast. She slipped to the floor, covering her face with her hands, cried a little, then dashed the tears from her face.

  After a wait, she scrambled to her feet, hurried to the door, and opened it. The hallway, silent and empty, stretched before her, and the light from a far window beckoned. Langbourne’s henchman already snored in a chair, leaning back against the wall. She hesitated, afraid she might wake him, pressed her hands behind her on the wall, and slipped away.

  If she were to go down the main staircase, she might face Langbourne. She could not allow him to control her like this, to force her to obey his will and be a pawn in his quest to hurt her parents. She had to escape Havendale and make the trek to Fairview no matter the conditions.

  She could see the servants’ stairwell but a few yards away. In desperate haste, she made for it, and stepped down the first few steps without making a sound. Then they creaked beneath her footfalls at a place where there were neither windows nor light to guide her. Placing her hands against the plastered walls, she slowly made her way down, taking care not to trip. The plaster, chipped away in places, scratched her palms as she felt her way through the dark, down to the kitchen—a flagstone-floored room with a huge stone fireplace where the coals had long turned to gray ash.

  An empty copper kettle hung from an iron hook, and the table was swept clean of dishes and crockery. Something scurried across it and caught her eye. She gasped, her throat tightened, and she drew back. On its hind legs, a small brown mouse stared at her with black eyes. It nibbled a crumb between its hairless pink paws, blinked, and then hopped to the other end of the table, leapt to the floor and scampered under a cupboard. It poked its whiskery head out from beneath it and wiggled its nose. Darcy crept past the little creature and dipped a ladle into a barrel beside the door. She drank, and the water soothed her parched tongue.

  She looked out the window at the vast fields. Her cloak lay near the front door, and she thought if she could retrieve it without Langbourne seeing her, she’d slip out. But there she was, so close to another door where she could go at once. She moved toward it. Considering how cold it would be to cross the moors without a covering, she hesitated.

  Then a presence fell behind her and she froze. A chill raced up her back and prickled over her skin. Setting the ladle back down in the water, she turned to see Langbourne.

  “A keen wind blows.” He jerked open the rear door, moved just outside it. “Come, breathe it in. Look out at the mo
ors in the distance. If you wander across them you’ll meet with danger—even death. You are a stranger here and do not know the ways of the moors.”

  Darcy lifted her head. “I am a Morgan. I have my father’s blood in my veins. I am no stranger to such a place.”

  “So you were planning to leave and take the risk? That would have been foolish, Darcy. You have no idea how many souls have gotten lost on these moors and frozen to death in the night. Some have gone missing and were never found.”

  “You have no trouble.”

  “I grew up here and know it better than most.”

  She did not answer. Instead she moved to the door. Langbourne stepped closer and she backed up against the table. “Why must you be so troublesome, Darcy? I demanded you remain upstairs for your own good.”

  “Your henchman is more troublesome than I, sir. He could not stay awake long enough to notice I slipped out. He forgot to lock the door.”

  “Yes, and I have sent the incompetent fool on his way without his pay.” He paused and leaned back against the table. “You have a sharp tongue, Darcy.”

  “My tongue was parched, sir. For you left me without water. That is one reason I left my room.”

  He grunted. “I dare not ask what the others were. Is there a reason we cannot be friendly to each other?”

  “Friendly? You expect my friendship after what you did to my father?”

  “We see things differently, but I should hope you will think on my actions. I only meant to protect you.”

  “I do not need your protection, for I was in no danger. He is my father no matter what he has done. I am to honor him.”

  “Once you are at Meadlow, and have time, you will come to realize I am right and you are wrong.” Langbourne ran his fingernail over the edge of the table. “You should not have left your room. I had planned to come to you and sort out our differences.”

  It grew in his eyes again—that wanton look of desire. She despised it, for his gaze should have been for Charlotte. She wanted to run. He snatched her arm, tightened his grip, and drew her close. Fear trembled through her body. His eyes, sharp as daggers, grew enflamed.