by Lex Croucher
The rain was picking up, but Georgiana had no choice now but to go on; she put her head down and began to run towards the Walters’ house, as fast as her tired legs could carry her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I
t was quite easy to determine which way was northwest when standing in a familiar front garden, but after two hours of walking in the driving rain, Georgiana couldn’t have navigated herself out of a puddle – and she was, unfortunately, currently ankle-deep in one. Her dress was plastered to her body and her hair was a mess of heavy, saturated tendrils that she had to keep pushing out of her eyes in order to see. If she had followed the road, she would have made it somewhere familiar eventually, but in her panic she had rashly decided to take a more direct route to speed up her journey and avoid detection. She had taken short walks through the meadows and wooded lanes that surrounded the Burtons’ house before, and knew there to be many pathways and easily traversable routes, but this far away from civilisation, all she could see for miles around was undulating moorland.
It was not an encouraging sight.
The weather that Georgiana had taken for a quick summer storm was showing no signs of abating, and although her hurt feelings and fury had propelled her for the first twenty minutes of her journey, they had turned irreversibly to despair around the time she realised she could run no longer. Since then, she had been trudging through the mud with the increasingly unsettling feeling that she had made a terrible mistake. Chiefly, she now had to admit that she had no idea where she was.
Occasionally she could just about make out the faint glow of sunlight through the thick cloud, and used the position of the sun to reorientate herself – but come to think of it, she wasn’t entirely convinced that Betty’s house was actually due north-west in the first place. It was at least west-ish, or west-adjacent, but she was quickly learning that this wasn’t enough pathfinding knowledge to justify a solo expedition without even a bonnet to keep off the rain. She had planned a quick getaway, imagining that by now she would be with Betty and that all would be explained; instead, she had managed to get thoroughly and completely lost on the moors.
There was nothing to be done except walk, and nothing to do while walking but think.
Georgiana understood why Frances was so angry. She could only imagine how bad it had all looked to her, and how betrayed she must have felt. It was perhaps taking things a little far to go to Mrs Burton before asking Georgiana to explain – to try to ruin Georgiana’s life with lies and scurrilous accusations, and in front of her parents, no less – but Frances had been hurt, and hurt badly. Georgiana longed to see her so that she could make her understand; to tell her that she now knew exactly what kind of person Jeremiah was, and what it had cost her to find out.
Her parents could not have picked a more fantastically ill-timed moment to pop in for a cup of tea.
Georgiana wasn’t concerned, she decided, about disappointing them. It was quite freeing to admit to herself that really, they had been disappointing her for a very long time – it was only fair to return the favour. In one summer, the Burtons had managed to be more involved in Georgiana’s life than her parents had ever been; and it was Mrs Burton that Georgiana pictured now, hurt and bewildered and stunned in the corner of the dining room.
Her parents could go to Hell, for all she cared.
If she ever made it to the Walters’, Betty would tell Mrs Burton what had really happened at the party. Even if her parents were determined to lock her away, at least the Burtons would know the truth, and perhaps they would be able to persuade her mother and father not to behave quite so medievally. Georgiana thought guiltily that she would have to be almost entirely honest with Mrs Burton if their relationship were to ever recover, and just live in hope that she considered a bit of drinking and smoking – and perhaps some illicit kissing, if Georgiana could bring herself to admit to it – to be less horrifying than fornication and attempted murder.
Thoughts of said illicit kissing should have brought her great joy, but now only sent icy fingers of regret and anxiety skittering across her chest. It was hard to untangle it all: the scent of oranges; the feeling of Thomas’s gentle hand on her jaw; the expression on his face over Betty’s stricken form; the pain of Jeremiah’s fingers pressing harder and harder into her skin. She wanted to tell Thomas what had really happened, to find and pull at the singular thread of truth, but that also meant telling him what Jeremiah had done. It had been hard enough to tell Betty.
It was, Georgiana thought desperately, a complete and utter mess.
The Georgiana of just three short months ago would be both impressed and appalled at who she had become this summer. Out on the moors, with seemingly endless time and space to consider what had led her there, she finally felt the true weight of it hit her. She had not been a good friend to Betty, who only wanted a companion. She had not been a good friend to Frances, who had behaved badly, yes – but who had also come to her for comfort, needing support, and been forsaken by Georgiana when she was at her very lowest. Frances had been right – Georgiana had, just for a moment, dared to imagine herself a person of consequence in her own right. She had pictured herself among London society come the autumn, such a success that nobody would ever recall that she had no right to be there in the first place. She had imagined all that power and status almost within her grasp, as laughable as it felt now. She would never be able to replace Frances Campbell – and becoming the sort of person who lied and schemed and abandoned people outside balls wouldn’t change that fact.
Everything Thomas had said about her had been entirely, dismally true.
All of this self-reflection was, of course, immaterial if she was going to die right here on the moors from a potent combination of exposure and a severe lack of common sense. The thought of how hard she would need to work to make things right should have been enough cause for her to give up, flop face down in the grass and resolve never to get up again – but she gritted her teeth and soldiered on, with no idea where she was heading, but the faint hope that it might be something like the right direction.
When the lightning started, Georgiana had almost made it to a small copse of trees; they were groaning with the effort of staying upright in the gathering wind, thrashing about as if under attack. With the lighting came thunder, rolling through the dark sky above her and making her gasp with how close it seemed. She was sure she had been told that it was unsafe to be the tallest thing on the landscape when lightning struck; but then, perhaps it was also deeply unsafe to take shelter under the tallest thing around, and she eyed the trees that she had previously considered her salvation with utmost suspicion. Deciding that she would likely drown if she did not, she determined to entrust herself to the trees, finding the least wet knot of roots beneath them and sitting down to rest her aching legs until the weather let up. It smelled like moss and damp earth, and she breathed deeply, the relative stillness welcome after hours of feeling as if the howling wind were snatching the air from her lungs. The thunder rumbled on, the rain continued to fall, but the air was thick and sticky with summer heat, and despite her sodden dress she found herself nodding off against a rough pillow of bark, feeling as if she had expended every ounce of physical and emotional strength in her reserves.
She awoke in a panic when a large thunderclap seemed to shake the ground beneath her, and opened her eyes blearily just in time to see more lightning streak through the sky not too far from where she sat, followed by another ear-splitting boom. She was shivering – it was much colder now – and to her horror she realised that it had grown dark around her.
Incredibly, it only now occurred to her that she should truly be afraid; if it had been impossible for her to find her way by daylight, how would she manage by night? And how could anybody else find her, when she herself had absolutely no idea where she was? All she could do now was sit in her misery, wait for the light of morning and hope earnestly that she was remembering correctly that there were no wolves left in England.
If she had the strength to do it, she might have cried. She supposed it was at least a rather dramatic way to meet her doom. She had, after all, always wanted to play the leading role in some grand, exhilarating story.
Admittedly, not one that ended like this.
She wasn’t quite asleep, but she wasn’t quite awake either when she heard a curious sound that didn’t seem to be part of her dreams. It was getting louder, and once she realised what it was, she was scraping her hands on the roots in her haste to get up, staggering to her feet to meet it. Dawn was attempting to break, and in the unreal, rosy gloom a chestnut horse was cantering towards her across the moor, splattered with mud up to its flanks, its rider bent low over its neck.
She raised her arms feebly and tried to call out, but found that her voice had died in her throat. Luckily the rider seemed to need no encouragement; they came straight for her and pulled up in a rearing halt just before the trees, disembarking in one swift movement and ridding themselves of the hat that had obscured their face on the approach.
‘Oh,’ said Georgiana stupidly. ‘Oh. It is . . . absolutely ridiculous that you are here.’
Thomas Hawksley was dripping wet, caked in mud, and sporting an expression of such deep concern that it utterly obliterated whatever meagre resolve had been holding Georgiana together until now. She took a deep breath, made to say something ridiculous (she was considering ‘come here often?’), and then instead burst into loud, mortifying, unquestionably ugly tears.
He walked towards her, already opening his arms, and she sank into them, her body shaking with cold, exhaustion and instantaneous relief.
Thomas didn’t let go for a very long time; when he did, it was to take off his ruined coat and wrap it carefully around her shoulders. She pulled it tightly around herself, retreating back to the knot of roots so that she could collapse shakily onto them as he quickly attended to his horse.
Every second he was not touching her now felt like a terrible loss, and when he returned to sit next to her, she wordlessly reached out a shaking hand. She could have expired with joy on the spot when she felt his warm, gloved fingers interlace with her own. She met his gaze, and for a moment all the complications fell away; it was simple and right and good to just sit here and hold his hand as dawn broke over them. As filthy as he was, she knew that in comparison she must look like a garden statue that had been left to mould; she turned away, suddenly self-conscious, and he seemed to read her mind, offering her his handkerchief to wipe her red, tear-streaked face.
‘How . . . ? How on earth did you find me?’ she asked, once she had composed herself and abated the attractive flow of mucus from her nose.
‘You are sitting underneath the only trees for miles around. The only distinguishable landmark, really. It would have been harder not to find you, once I was in the right sort of area.’
‘Oh. Right,’ Georgiana said. ‘But . . . why are you here at all?’
‘Unfortunately Mrs Burton was under the impression that you might be dead. I called on Miss Walters this morning to inquire after her health, and your aunt was there with two people who purported to be your parents – they said you had been missing for many hours, and they had taken the carriage to the Walters’ to see if they might find you there. Betty and your aunt were quite . . . hysterical.’ He looked a little pained at the memory, and then his expression became serious. ‘You are exceedingly lucky to have a friend as forgiving as Betty Walters.’
‘I know,’ Georgiana said, taking a deep breath. ‘I was dreadful to her, Thomas. I know I was. I’ve told her how very sorry I am, but it’s not enough – I shall keep telling her and showing her until she knows it to be true. You were right at the ball. Betty Walters is a true friend, and I have behaved like a complete and utter cad. I displayed unforgivable weakness of character. I will do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen again, because that . . . that is not the sort of person I want to be.’
‘Well,’ Thomas said, sighing, and then smiling weakly at her as if she were an idiot he had accidentally become partial to, ‘I’m glad to hear it. I had just recently made up my mind to be very fond of you, and it would have been a shame to reverse the decision so soon.’
This was such a relief to hear that Georgiana felt fresh tears threatening to brim over. She blinked them away with a tremulous smile.
‘I can hardly . . . Well, I can hardly blame you for thinking ill of me. I have done everything so terribly wrong. Were they – was Mrs Burton very angry?’
‘No, just . . . concerned,’ he said. ‘We were all concerned.’
‘My parents?’ Georgiana asked, seeing the answer in his frown before he replied.
‘Ah . . . yes. Well. They did seem a little angry.’
‘I wasn’t trying to . . . I don’t know – do away with myself or anything,’ she said sheepishly. ‘I was in a bit of a predicament and I didn’t know what to do. I was actually on my way to see Betty, but I . . . Well. I’m not particularly good with directions.’
‘Where do you think you are right now?’ he asked, and she looked around, as if the moors might hold more answers today than they had yesterday.
‘Er . . . about five miles north-west of the Burtons’?’ she asked hopefully.
He laughed, but not unkindly. ‘You’re only about two miles from home. You must have gone back on yourself; if you had carried on this way, you would have only encountered moorlands for at least another day.’
Georgiana shuddered at the thought, and was glad that she had spent an uncomfortable night in the embrace of a tree rather than stumbling in the darkness towards her inevitable annihilation.
‘Thank you. For coming to find me, I mean. Despite . . . well, despite everything.’
‘Seeing as you can hardly make it to the far end of a garden or into a wine cellar without almost falling to your death, I felt someone should attempt to recover you before you walked off a cliff,’ he said, squeezing her hand. ‘Why were you in such haste to return to Miss Walters? Your aunt did not manage to explain that part.’
Georgiana took a deep breath, and then everything came out in a rush.
‘Frances got . . . Well, she got the wrong end of the stick about something. She thought I’d done something to hurt her, and instead of asking me about it, she decided to go straight to the part where she exacted her revenge. She told terrible lies to my aunt, to my parents. They want to send me away, because they think . . . they think me utterly ruined. I know why Frances is angry, I really do understand, but I wish she’d just given me five seconds to explain. She thinks I’m entangled with Jeremiah, of all people, of all the ridiculous . . . Well. If only she hadn’t seen me with him in the orangery—’
‘The . . . orangery?’ Thomas said gently, apprehension in his voice.
Georgiana tried to brace herself to say it all out loud; she knew that Jeremiah was the villain of this story, but she still dreaded telling it. Especially, it occurred to her now, the part where he had forced himself on her just a few feet away from where she and Thomas had shared their kiss. She did not want him to get the impression that she was some sort of serial orangery-kisser.
‘I was looking for Cecily, but I found him instead, and I didn’t realise how inebriated he was – I should have left, really. But, no . . .’ She shook her head. ‘He shouldn’t have done it. I tried to get away, I did try, but it was too late, and he grabbed me, and . . . well. He wouldn’t let me go.’
‘He . . . what?’ Thomas said slowly.
Georgiana winced. ‘I know it’s nothing really in the scheme of things – a stolen kiss, I’m sure it happens a thousand times a day, but . . . Well, I didn’t want to kiss him, Thomas. And I don’t think he wanted to stop there. He hurt me, he was insistent, and we were interrupted, thank God, but it was truly . . . It was frightening. It wasn’t like it was . . . well. Like it was with you.’
Thomas had gone very quiet, staring down at their hands. She wanted to prompt him to speak, feeling more nervous the longer h
is silence went on, but held her tongue.
‘I’m going to kill him,’ he said quietly into his lap.
‘No, you’re not,’ Georgiana said, pressing her thumb lightly into his palm. The contact seemed to help him come to his senses.
‘No, I’m not,’ he said, sighing and shaking his head before finally looking at her, ‘But good God, Georgiana, somebody ought to. Are you . . . ? Are you hurt? Are you all right?’
‘A little. I don’t know. If I’m not all right now, I think I will be,’ she said, unconsciously touching her fingers to her collar and hoping it was true.
‘I knew he was lost,’ Thomas said wretchedly, ‘but not this lost. Perhaps it was right in front of me, and I did not – or did not care to – see it. Somebody needs to do something – to knock some sense into him.’
‘Please don’t,’ said Georgiana, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Really. Betty says there’s no soap in prison.’
He didn’t laugh. He was looking at her intently, checking her for signs of damage, and as she watched, his gaze travelled down to the neckline of her dress. With excruciating gentleness, he reached out and lifted the fabric an inch or so away from her skin. Georgiana had not yet checked for bruises blossoming there, had not wanted to see herself marked by Jeremiah’s hand, and yet she could tell from Thomas’s thunderous expression that she was.
She felt embarrassed for some reason, self-conscious, as if this was evidence of some failings of hers – but when she looked at Thomas he seemed close to tears. She put a hand to his face, trying to offer him some sort of comfort, and he gently gathered it in his and pressed a kiss to her fingertips.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Georgiana bit her lip and thought for a moment before speaking again.
‘He went to bed with Frances, you know,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t think . . . I don’t think she wanted to do it. Not really.’