As fast as he could he lowered the small strongbox onto a piece of
likely vegetation, then slid himself into the water too, grabbing the largest intact
piece for himself. He had just gotten up onto a piece of moss that more or less
supported him, when behind him – with a loud, vortex-like rush-water sucked.
And the coach went down suddenly as if something underneath it had hold and
pulled. In seconds, all that remained was the vehicle's far corner – and a lot
of glugging bubbles as its interior below the surface took on water and sludge.
Then silence. All but for the faint whimpering of the woman up
ahead.
Sam lay on his piece of bog moss – it was thick and spongy –
drenched, muddy, and breathing like a man who had … well, who had just spent
the last twenty minutes trying to survive to this moment. Now that he had, the
moment itself didn't look too promising. God knew where the horses had gone. He
realized it was late in the day. The sun was low. Soon they would be without
light in this desolate hole of a place.
The good news was that, if he kept himself mostly flat and his
weight dispersed, he could scoot on his wet belly along the floating, green blanket.
Up ahead, he saw Mrs. Brown's beautiful backside crawl up onto what looked to
be real land. Hallelujah. A few minutes later, he was dragging himself up onto
the same plot beside her.
She sat, clutching her knees to herself and crying. "I'm not
very brave," she said.
He laughed. "You were a crackerjack. I don't think I've ever
seen a woman so hell-bent on staying alive. You did fine, real fine." He
added to distract her, "And I liked the way you tucked up your skirt. You
have about the prettiest bottom I've ever seen crawl across pond scum."
Through her tears, she made a face, a glare, at him. Though she
stopped crying. She wiped her eyes.
Good for her, he thought. She'd be back to her old uppity self in
no time.
When he stood and surveyed the situation, though, three hundred
sixty degrees, there wasn't much to survey. He turned this way and that with
nothing but rocks, tufts of grass, or bog in any direction: not a single sign
of civilization. He couldn't even be sure which way the road was, though it had
to be close.
Across the mire, he saw what looked to be deep wheel marks where
the vehicle had entered the water, but there was no telling if the road was in
the direction the tracks indicated. In fact, he was fairly certain it wasn't.
The last part of the ride had been so wild, he could only guess how many times
they'd veered off one course then another. Two or three times at least—
It surprised him when he heard, "Thank you."
He frowned down at the woman sitting with her arms around her
legs.
She said again, "Thank you. Thank you for getting me out of
that thing before it sank." Then with perfect illogic, she swung her
fisted forearm back and knocked him across the shin.
"Hey," he said. "You're welcome. I think. What was
that for?"
She looked up and around, over her shoulder, to frown her wide,
watery eyes at him. "Hey nothing. You threw my bag—"
"To see if it would float." He snorted. "Is
gratitude a difficult concept for you?"
"Throw your own bags."
"Mine are on their way to
Dover
, to enjoy a
honeymoon I won't be having."
Relentless, her lip trembling, she said, "Y-you threw
me
on that – that – that
scum
, when you didn't even know if it would hold
me."
"The coach was sinking. Did it matter?"
"
You
didn't try it first."
No, he hadn't. Why not? "You were lighter. It might have held
you but not me." Good. That sounded good.
It was, apparently. She scowled a second longer, her look going
from ornery to uncertain, then her mouth formed a word:
Oh
. She nodded.
She turned around, wrapping her arms around her knees again, then
asked, quieter, "So you wanted to save me, if possible, before you
drowned, if you were going to? Is that it?"
"Sort of." No, what he wanted was to smack her. But he
said instead, "So you wanted my help, but you're not very grateful because
you don't approve of the form it took? Is that it?"
After a pause, she said, "Sort of."
He thought he saw a smile, just a crack of one, before she threw
him a look, a raise on one eyebrow, then made a face, ew. Demonstratively, she
lifted, a pinch of wet dress, her pinky held out delicately, the hem heavy with
mud. In her prissy English accent, she said, "Your day to save
women."
"Yeah, I'm the king of it."
"As an act, it's a trifle rough around the edges."
"It beats the bottom of a bog, you have to admit."
She admitted nothing. They both sighed.
"Here," she said. With a crooked finger, she invited him
to bend down.
He squatted, an arm balanced over his knee, to see what she
wanted, half expecting her to tweak his nose or slap his face.
He jerked when, with the edge of her wet dress, she reached up and
dabbed at the corner of his mouth. "The cut here opened again," she
said and pressed.
With her thumb and finger, she took hold of his chin, bracing it
against the pressure as she held her skirt against the side of his lips to stop
the bleeding. For a full minute, she had a little routine: She pressed,
stopped, contemplated the corner of his mouth, frowned, wiped gently, then
pressed again, the whole time her brow knit with concern.
Sam was discomfited, then slowly wooed by the process. She had a
temper, but it didn't last. And her fingers again – he couldn't shake the
awareness of how soft they were. Unusually soft, smooth; now cool and dewy from
their crawl across a floating quilt of green. The wet hem of her skirt had a
sweet odor, an organic scent that reminded him of lily pads, water lilies –
white, long-necked flowers with pale pink centers, their stalks swollen with
water. Mrs. Brown here and the English bog were a surprising combination, the
smell oddly, powerfully redolent of
Texas
, where water –
where life – was clear and he didn't feel lost.
"There," she said.
As she let go, he flinched. Yessir, his mouth stung again. Freshly
opened up.
Mrs. Brown's expression pinched with empathy for the fact, her
lips compressed. She lifted her little wad of wet skirt. It hovered in the air,
offering to dab at his mouth again, her eyes so full of generous sympathy – so
surprising and sweet – he didn't know where to look.
He shook his head. "It's all right." He let himself drop
backward onto his rump to sit beside her, resting his forearms onto his knees.
She said, "What an awful day."
"The worst," he agreed.
"Yours especially. I'm sorry about your wedding and
honeymoon."
"That's not even all of it. I came over here for a job, one
of the requirements being I was married, a stable family man." He laughed
dismally. "I'm pretty sure I'm fired now." He looked over at her
there beside him. "Your day hasn't shaped up much better."
"Mine started out well." She shrugged, then took a deep
breath. "But at least now we're over the worst. All we have to do is find
the horses and get back on the road."
Yeah, that was all they had to do. Piece of cake.
Looking around, she queried, "What became of the
driver?"
"He fell off, I imagine. He's probably lying in the road
somewhere, fuddled and wondering what happened."
"Do you think we should look for him?"
"Where?" he asked. More importantly, "How?"
"He might be hurt."
"I hope he is," Sam said with feeling. "We'd be
dead, if it was up to him. Wherever he is, he's on his own so far as I'm
concerned." He thought to add, "Will your husband be worried?"
She stared at him blankly for a second, then nodded vigorously.
"Yes. I'm sure."
"Good. Then he'll send someone out after us when we don't
arrive on the coach in a few hours."
Again she nodded, though the way her eyes lifted to stare solemnly
out across the bog said no one was coming with help.
After a moment, he broke into her solitude by asking, "Is it
still bleeding?"
She looked over at him, her gaze dropping to his mouth where his
tongue tasted blood.
"A little."
She leaned toward him, studying the cut. Pieces of her hair had
come down, shaken loose. A long bronzy-gold piece lay in the curve between her
shoulder and neck. The strand bent with a little curl at the end. It looked
soft, floppy, and shiny as a satin ribbon.
He found himself watching her kind expression at close range, the
way she bit her lip and mulled over whether she needed to dab his mouth again.
He played on her tenderheartedness, touching his fingers to the place as he
opened his mouth gingerly, wincing to demonstrate how much it hurt.
Her own mouth was wide, her bottom lip full, while her top one was
so thin it was almost not there. Yet he couldn't help but think, Mrs. Brown of
the dimpled backside sure had an elegant pair of lips.
She was a pretty woman, he realized. The contour of her face came
from bone and hollow. On the thin side. But with genuinely pretty features.
High cheekbones, a delicate jaw, a narrow, straight nose. And that wide,
well-made mouth.
Enough. He took his hand away, twisting the lower part of his face
sideways – askance, amused – letting her know he could move it, that he was
pulling her leg. Then countered any offense she might take with his most
boyishly charming smile – or half of it, anyway.
His antics startled a laugh out of her. A triumph. She had a fine
laugh. Then, bless her heart, she looked down, blushing like no married woman
he knew. Yep, a sweet little liar.
Sam ended up laughing with her, downright entertained.
Brave, resourceful. Soft-hearted to the point of being
soft-headed. Double-dealing somewhere. And, given the way that skirt came up
into those bloomers, no slave to propriety.
By God, he liked Mrs. Brown or whatever her name was, faults and
all, prissy or not.
After a moment, she asked, "Why are we laughing?" though
the question only made her laugh harder. From deep in her belly the sound
burbled with little sharp skips, like a rippling brook that could flash now and
then, almost blinding in appeal.
"Nerves," he answered. He took off his boot, dumping out
water and mud.
"Nerves," she repeated.
"Plus I'm flirting with you, and you like it – while both of
us are wet, muddy, and out in the middle of a moor, where it's probably
downright dangerous to be stranded. You have to admit, that's pretty
funny."
She quieted and looked at him. "Are we stranded, do you
think?"
"No," he lied. "Of course not." He laughed
again, a snort this time, then said, "So," turning to look into her
dishonest gold eyes, "here's what I think: First we go through the satchel
and strongbox and see what's worth hauling with us. If we hurry, that should
leave us with maybe as much as an hour of daylight. Then we either chase after
the horses, hoping to catch them and ride them. Or walk in the most likely
direction of the road, then hope someone comes along. What'll it be? It's your
call."
4
The
light that lies, In woman's eyes.
"The
Time I've Lost in Wooing"
Irish Melodies
, c. 1807
T
he strongbox contained two bottles of gin wrapped in a clean shirt
and pair of socks. The odd-shaped satchel with something hard at the bottom –
Sam thought of it as the ironing-board bag – belonged to the good Mrs. Brown,
who didn't want him to go through it: only carry it.
"It holds a lot of private things," she said.
They argued. She won. The satchel wasn't heavy enough for him to
put the energy into the debate that she was willing to. He picked the odd thing
up by its handles.
"You carry the gin," he told her, handing her the
bottles, one wrapped in the shirt, one in the socks. "It could be our
dinner."
They decided to go after the horses, mostly because, though the
animals had galloped off a ways, they were visible around a rocky rise near the
horizon. Two had broken loose from the others, the remaining four presumably
behind the dark outcrop of granite. It was Sam's intention that they walk up to
the animals – a fifteen-minute trek, he estimated, if they could approach the
horses without spooking them or having to give chase. Once close enough, he and
Mrs. Brown here would decide on the two horses most willing to be ridden,
improvise riding bridles from the coaching tack, then take to the road
bareback: a good, solid plan, even if the riding part was a little tricky for a
"lady's maid," but he could always take her up on his horse if she
couldn't ride without a saddle.
Thus, with Sam carrying the elongated satchel and Mrs. Brown
carrying a wrapped bottle of gin under each arm, they took off on foot, heading
toward the distant silhouettes of the two horses that looked fairly calm – in
fact, the animals appeared to be happily grazing on low bushes.
The land itself proved less accommodating. It was uneven and hard
to cover at a steady rate, spongy in places, stone-hard in others. There were
no trees to speak of, only the occasional cluster of scrubby vegetation. And
rock, everywhere dark gray rock. It lay in random bits, in buried chunks or
loose under a person's feet. It topped the smallest hills in stacks that stood
in the clutter of their own deterioration.
The generally flat vista was broken regularly by stony ridges that
erupted from the ground like the prows of ships emerging from a rolling ocean
of land. Grim landscape. Gray and still. Walking across such terrain, it didn't
take Sam long to realize that the only lively, colorful thing in it, Mrs.
Brown, had something wrong with her foot.
"You havin' trouble walkin'?" he asked.
"No," she said immediately. Then, "Well, yes. I
twisted my ankle earlier today. It hurts a little. I can walk on it,
though."
He smiled – her first impulse had been to lie – but contained
himself as he held out his free arm.
After a second's hesitation she took it, transferring that gin
bottle to the crook of her other arm, carrying the bottles against her chest.
As they tromped along, she let herself lean on him ever so
slightly every right-footed step. The feel of her weight reminded him of half
an hour ago, her arms around his neck as he'd pulled her out of the coach. He
could've worn her like a bandanna; she was as light as sunlight. Where she
linked her arm in his, where she held on, her fingers gripped like a vice, yet
their hold was feminine, soft and warm through his sleeve; he was surprised
again by the contact, the contradiction.
They walked along beside each other, neither speaking, while Sam
in surreptitious glances studied the young woman so reluctant to take help, yet
so much better off for it.
What a funny girl she was. Pretty, yet fragile somehow. The hand
that gripped his arm was lily-white, small with a faint pattern of blue veins.
Though well kept and, God knew, soft to the touch, it looked bloodless. Her
complexion was pale. From angles, she seemed frail, as if she were built of
delicately laid match sticks – he could have put his fingers around her wrist
with a knuckle to spare. She didn't have a lot of bosom, though what there was
sure was round: small but plump – unexpectedly ample for a girl as slim as a
bedslat.
In contrast, he couldn't help remembering that backside of hers,
seeing it again somehow in the movement of her hips. A healthier-looking female
backside did not exist. And those breasts, now that he noticed, bobbled as she
kept pace – probably average-sized breasts, though on her long, thin rib cage
they looked … almost voluptuous. A skinny woman with a swinging backside and
breasts as round as peaches.
After a few minutes he said, "You're keeping up just fine,
hurt ankle or not." Nice hair, too, he thought, though some of her curls were
down. Her hat was askew – he decided not to tell her, because he liked it that
way.
"Yes, I am," the woman on his arm said cheerfully.
"Though my family would be full of cautions if they knew." She looked
down, watching her feet as she added, "My tonic went down with my
drawstring in the coach."
"Your tonic?"
"My medicine. It stimulates my circulation, the doctor
says." She laughed again, though a thread of worry ran through her
laughter before she rallied her good humor. "I suppose I must circulate on
my own now, hmm?"
Sam stared at her a minute, wondering how much to believe. He
asked, "So you live with your family, but you're a lady's maid?"
"Um – yes." She blinked at him, hesitated, then lied; it
was so obvious. "My parents are in service, too. At the same house."
He smiled, nicely he hoped. "The cook and gardener," he
proposed. Might as well make it easy on her.
Her eyes fixed on his, a troubled look, but then she nodded, a
single abrupt agreement. Either she didn't like lying or didn't like help with
it; she wasn't enjoying herself.
"So the cook and gardener give you a hard time about your
health?" he asked.
She made another quick nod.
"Really? Your family really worries?" Should he, he
wondered? How ill was she? And with what?
She nodded again, this time almost sadly. Resignation.
Sam felt his own smile falter. "You're worrying me."
Her light brown eyes widened as she looked up, turning them fully
on him. "Oh, no! There's no point. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said."
She cleared her throat and looked straight ahead then, standing away from him a
little, marching off steps. Then he did worry, because, he could see, she was
trying to manufacture confidence in her next words: "I'll be fine,"
she said. As if by convincing him she could believe it herself. She was scared
to death.
"So what's wrong with you exactly?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Nothing so far as anyone can
tell. My parents just think I shouldn't strain myself."
"What's wrong with your parents then?"
She laughed, taken aback – and delighted – with the notion, then
said, "Oh, they just fret. When I was little, I was sickly. To this day,
half the time, food doesn't agree with me. The air makes me sneeze. I'm careful
not to take too much exercise; the doctor says it's bad for me, and he's probably
right – I don't have the stamina for it. My family is, oh, rather watchful over
my health." She laughed. "While I try not to be. I think they make
more fuss than is good, but it's hard to fight them." She bowed her head.
"One of the reasons I came to
Devon
was to get
away from that. To feel … free, self-reliant for a few days. Though I have to
say—" She frowned, laughed, her giddy mixed feelings again as she rotated
her head to take in their austere surroundings. "This is a tad more
self-reliant than I had intended." She laughed again, this time at
herself. Very charmingly, he thought.
It was about then – they had been walking perhaps ten minutes –
when the two damned horses ahead of them lifted their heads, looked right at
them, then swung around and trotted off, one of them disappearing behind the
stand of rocks completely. The lone horse stopped at a new position, again as
far away as they had already come, and stared back at the two people following
him, as if an envoy sent to tell them,
We horses want no part of the
creatures who brought us to these circumstances.
Sam and Mrs. Brown slowed. They approached more leisurely, less
obviously. But five minutes later, the one visible horse did the same thing
again, putting more distance between himself and his approaching, would-be
masters.
"Shoot, will ya look at that," Sam said, halting.
"We're no closer to riding out of this trouble than we were when we
crawled out of that swamp." He looked at the woman beside him. "Maybe
you should wait here. I'll go get 'em and—"
"No, it's going to get dark. I don't want" – she
hesitated – "I don't want us to become separated." She lowered her
voice; it quavered. "I'm afraid," she said, as skittish as the
horses.
He let out a breath, nodding, frowning under the brim of his hat,
then started to walk again. He could see her point. By her careful movement, he
was pretty sure her ankle hurt more than she wanted to let on; she was trying
to be brave. What to do with her and the horses, though?
When, ten minutes later, the last horse in sight bolted again to
just this side of the stand of rocks, Sam let out a long, windy sigh. "Sit
down," he said. "You have to wait here."
"No—"
"You have to." The sun lay on the horizon behind thick
clouds, making the sky glow, while it gave every rise and bump of the moor the
faint, long, fantastical shadows of early twilight. "I'm leaving you here.
I'm running that way" – he pointed west – "at an angle away from
them, then I'm circling back around behind that outcrop of rock—"
She turned to face him. "You can't leave me here alone—"
"I can, and you have a part to play, so listen to me. It's
getting dark, and I don't have time to argue."
"I'm coming with you—"
He put his fingers over her mouth, which made her mad. She shoved them
away. Before she could say anything, though, he told her, "Stop
complaining. Listen."
"You stop. Stop acting as if you have everything taken care
of. As if I had no say."
He snorted. "All right, what's your plan?"
Silence. She pressed her pretty mouth tight, scowling up at him.
After a moment, she admitted, "I don't have one."
"Then, till you do, can we try mine out?"
More glaring, more lip pressing. "Oh, jolly good," she
said. She meant the opposite. "Certainly. Whatever you say. You're a
one-man Wild West show. I'll just stand here and watch."
"Listen, Liddy" – it just came out.
Lydia
, Liddy; close
enough. It sure as blazes beat calling her
Mrs. Brown
, when she was no
more a missus than a fly and Brown probably wasn't her name anyway. "I'd
feel insulted if I wasn't so busy feeling bad for you. You're worried, scared
witless, and it's addling your brain."
She blinked, frowned, and drew her head back, still mad, then
surprised him. "Fine," she said grudgingly, "what do you want me
to do?"
Well. All right then. "I'll go round that rise and send the
horses around this way. I'll run them toward you. When you see me come out from
behind them, stand up and wave your arms. Make a lot of noise. Turn them back
toward me. We'll get them between us, and I'll latch onto one, one way or the
other."
Her bottom lip pushed out, she nodded. Her chest, those fine,
wobbly breasts, rose and fell like she was running a race. Poor thing. She was.
Against him. Against herself. Against her own bucking fright – she didn't think
for a second she could take care of herself, and she didn't have much more
faith in him.
Before he could think about her more and reconsider, he left her
there.
Without looking back, Sam sprinted toward the sun. He paced
himself, taking long, even strides, watching the ground as best he could in the
fading light, trying to keep himself on the even tract as he ran parallel to
the rise of granite.
The big shock came as he rounded on the high rocky rise. He
slowed, then moved around it till he could see the horses: In the dim light he
spotted not six but at least a dozen, a small herd. They weren't the coach
horses at all. They were ponies. Wild ponies. And they scattered, every last
one of them, in all directions, the moment they caught the drift of his scent and
movement.
Sam stood there stunned, watching small, bushy-tailed ponies flee
him at a gallop. Stupid. Oh, so stupid, Sam. You've known horses all your life,
yet you mistake
these
for horses twice their size? Up close, they
weren't anything like the coach's horses, except maybe in color; a couple of
them were shiny brown with long black tails and manes. How could you be so dumb
as to see a coach team in a couple of short, shaggy animals? Idiot … pea-green
fool … what a waste of time and energy … all for the wrong horses … a long walk
for nothing…
He was berating himself pretty fiercely, feeling lower than low as
he trudged up to
Lydia
. She was
sitting on a big rock there in the twilight, her head bowed, waiting for him.
Oh, she would really light into him now, he thought. And he'd just let her. He
had it coming. She was more than half right. He really was a Wild West cowboy
sometimes – full of show and jingle, wanting not just to fix things, but to fix
them spectacularly, while being so damn stupid sometimes he wanted to shoot
himself. He didn't feel like he was worth spit—