Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) (21 page)

His eyes fluttered closed again, the coldness dragging him under.

The next time he woke, he was warm, too warm, despite the continuing darkness. A shadow danced at the edge of his vision.

“Who is it?” He was surprised that his voice didn’t waver.

A face bent over his, and curls of hair fell on his face. He groaned inwardly, his thoughts more lucid this time. He might have known that she was mixed up in his own personal torment.

“James,” Harriet said softly. “You’re awake.”

“Surprise,” he said weakly.

Harriet shivered and clasped her arms around her slim waist. “You’ve been unconscious for a while.”

James tried to sit up. “What?” he repeated after her hazily. His shoulder pulled tight.

Harriet knelt alongside him and held out a hand. “The night the lord spent with the schoolmistress in the cave,” she muttered, “Brambridge would be agog at the tale.”

James sat up with a jerk and ignored her hand. “No.” He stared at her as she slowly drew her hand away. He fell back onto the soft sand and put a hand to his head. “Hells bells.” If anyone found out that they had been stuck together in that cave for twelve hours, Harriet was right—he would be called to account for compromising her.

“There’s no need to act so disappointed.” Harriet rocked back on her heels and stood. She crunched across the sand to the opposite side of the cave.

“Harriet.” James groaned as she refused to look at him. “Harry.”      

Harriet glared at him across the tops of her hands.

“You don’t really know me,” he said with effort. So what if she was the only woman
he
wanted to know well at all? James grimaced and, clenching his stomach muscles, propped himself up on his elbows. He couldn’t marry her. Marie Mompesson was the only woman that stood between him and the estate and he’d vowed to take it back at all costs. Once he married her then perhaps he would be at peace with his father’s ghost.

Harriet cocked her head to one side. Her hair cascaded over her shoulder. James blinked; he’d seen that look before. It normally heralded something rather terrible, akin to a verbal kick in the shins instead. It was also strangely alluring. He closed his eyes.

“Aren’t you lucky, my lord.” Harriet’s voice was barely a whisper above the wind howling outside the cave. James opened his eyes again. Harriet looked away from him, down at her breeches, and plucked at the tea stain that mottled the buckskin. “Being neither of quality or aristocracy, I have no reputation to be ruined. I am merely a maid and cannot be compromised.”

God help him if a sigh of relief escaped from his mouth. It hadn’t been as terrible as he feared.

Harriet looked up at him quickly, and then away again. But not before he had seen the hurt glistening in her eyes.

“I can’t marry you, Harry. You have to believe me. Even if the stars aligned for us I couldn’t. Father’s estate… there are certain conditions. They prevent me from marrying you.”

“Conditions?” Harriet’s voice was filled with disbelief. “I don’t believe you. That’s archaic. Don’t you have other estates that you were awarded during the war? The paper was full of it.
Major Stanton awarded ten prime hectares of Kentish coast line,
Major James given rights to prime Yorkshire farming country
? Why bother with Brambridge?”

James clenched his fingers into a fist. Yes, he had other estates. But he didn’t get any profits from them. He gave them all to the workers on the estate, injured soldiers every last one of them. He’d done it a week after he had arrived in London. Soldiers without legs, arms, feet littered the streets. The government refused to provide for them. He had got off lightly himself, but that was just luck. A few more inches and that shell would have blown him to pieces.

James had banked on his father’s estate to provide him with his own income. And he would damn well have it.

“Brambridge is mine, Harriet. Nothing will stop me having it.”

Harriet stared at him. “It’s your father, isn’t it? You don’t really care about Brambridge. You never did—you spent most of your time on the
Rocket
.” She put a hand to her mouth and then back to her side. Standing, she shook her hair as James stared at her open-mouthed. He followed her with his eyes as she marched round the fire and stood towering over him. “Your father was a fool, James. And you are fool just like him. Can’t you see he is still leading you on a rein from beyond the grave, just as he did in life?”

“You don’t understand, Harry.” He wanted to put a hand out but he didn’t have the strength.

Harriet gave a bitter laugh and strode towards the mouth of the cave. “Oh I understand, James. You’re more like him than I thought.” She looked back over her shoulder as she crouched down on the rocks at the entrance to the cave. “I’ll get help for you. Don’t bother to look for me when you are back in Brambridge. It shouldn’t be too hard. The new Lord Stanton shouldn’t fraternize with
maids
if he wants to keep his standing in the country.”

With a lithe movement, she slipped out of the cave and into the shadows of the rocks beyond.

James’ elbows collapsed beneath him. He had been wrong; she had skewered him just like he had known she would.

CHAPTER 21

Blearily, Harriet left the cave opening and stepped heavily onto the beach. A man lingered on the beach some way into the distance, watching the shoreline. Backing into the shadow of the rocks, she drew her breath. Her hands shook with anger and embarrassment. What had she expected? That James would get down on one knee and propose to her after one kiss? He was right; they barely knew each other. She bowed her head. She had given exactly the same reasons to Bill.

James wasn’t indifferent to her, she knew that. She could see it in his glance. The way he had kissed her for goodness sake. And he had to know that she loved him, had
always
loved him. But he’d told her himself, as they rowed towards the boat. He’d warned her with the last stanzas of the Kubla Khan poem, but she had been so lulled by his voice she had barely listened.

And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Harriet leaned her head against the cool rock and waited as her breathing slowed. He had made it perfectly clear to her that she was not what he wanted. Brambridge Manor came above everything. She would not take her words back, James
was
more like his father than she thought if he valued riches above all else. With one last breath, her fingers stopped shaking and her heart beat slowed. In the shadow of the rocks, she felt very cold, as if the wind had whipped right to her insides. The warmth generated by James’ proximity that had kept her going finally flickered and died.

Weaving her way blindly in and around the large boulders, Harriet reached the dense undergrowth at the cliff bottom. Searching along the undergrowth, she finally found the opening, and made her way up the old smuggling path and up to the entrance to the stone mine.

She had expected the path to be relatively overgrown; however it was clipped back here and there. The soil in the makeshift steps bore footprints from after the recent rain. The mine itself was dank and forbidding. Little light shone in from the entrance. She stopped, one foot inside. Her heart pounded in her chest as she touched the dank stone walls. Could she really do this alone, again?

A few paces into the mine, the memories of two years before swept over her, the disorientation, the stillness only punctuated by trickling water. Harriet bowed her head and took another step forward. There was no other way off the beach without being seen. Her life, and James’, depended on it. She put her hand back on the wall. That’s what she had found before in the mine. A ledge quarried at waist height. Just right for a man to reach out with his hand and trail his finger along in the dark to find his way out of the mine. Lifting her head up, she pushed her finger forward along the stone, and began to walk.

It took but ten minutes to reach where the deepest stone miners were working.

They didn’t notice her. The light from their candles only spread as far as the wedges that they had driven into the wall. The noise in the echoing space was tremendous. A cutter looked up from his work and briefly around the cavern. His eyes passed straight over Harriet. In her male clothing and in the dim light she didn’t attract attention. She quickly found the cart rails that took the stone out of the mine and followed them up to the giant arched exit.

The entrance to the mine was full of milling ponies and carts of shale. The mine foreman stood in the light archway leading to the outside, shouting angrily. Harriet stepped neatly into the side shadows and flattened herself against the wall. From there she could see Edgar, astride his horse on the road that led out of the mine, shouting back at the mining foreman. Behind him the road to safety stretched into the trees. There was no way she could get round him without being seen.

The sides of the archway to the mine had crumbled where the hillside had eroded into the mine entrance. Grabbing hold of tufts of grass and branches, Harriet pulled herself up the edge of the cavern, through a small hole and over the cliff top. At the top she rested, clutching at her strained stomach muscles. It was only a short walk downhill, she reminded herself, and then she would be in the relative safety of home. Pushing herself awkwardly to her feet, she stumbled along the short grass, skirting a flock of sheep. The path led down the back of the hill, through the woods and straight to the rear of the cottage.

Smoke swirled from the chimneystack as Harriet fell in through the cottage door. Agatha sat by the fire, wringing her hands. She ran to Harriet and with one look, put an arm under her shoulder and drew her over to the fire.

“Thank goodness, Harriet. Are you alright?”

Harriet could only nod as she collapsed into the winged chair.

Her aunt hurried away to fetch some water from the dish by the sink.

“Drink this first. Then we’ll talk.”

Harriet’s lips were parched. The salt had dried into her skin, and the cut on her lip stung. In the roiling emotions since dragging James up the beach, she had not had much time to notice how thirsty she was. She gulped at the water and clenched her fingers around the glass when Agatha tried to take it away from her.

“Little sips, Harriet. Otherwise you’ll be sick.”

As Harriet drank, Agatha perched on the chaise longue and smoothed her hair away from her face.

“Oh Harry, why did you do it? Janey told me where you had gone. She was worried for you, we all were.”

Harriet shook her head, continuing to drink her water.

“I blame myself.” Agatha refilled Harriet’s glass. “I should have known that you would be searching for adventure. I did exactly the same. It all ended in disaster.”

Harriet didn’t search for adventure. In fact, for the last two dull years she had yearned for it. But just recently it always seemed to find her. Suddenly she retched; the water that she had drunk spurted from her mouth. Agatha leaned forward and caught her.

“No more words from you. Straight to bed.”

“But I… James needs help, he can’t walk…” The grip of coldness caught her again and she leaned over with a retch. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she rocked backwards and forwards with a moan.

“I’ll visit Peggy. Tommy’s back at home, he’ll organize something. At the moment. Edgar Stanton has the village battened down. I’m surprised no one saw you.” Agatha placed an insistent hand underneath Harriet’s armpit and lifted her to her feet. “They wouldn’t have expected anyone to come over the cliff top,” she continued. “Stanton will have to look after himself till Tommy and Ned pick him up. There is nothing we can do for him.”

“Called for help,” Harriet muttered. The bastard didn’t deserve Ned’s help. She gasped as they started up the stairway, each jolt shaking the many bruises she didn’t realize she had.

“I know.” Agatha led Harriet into her bedroom and softly sat her down on her bed. “I must tell you, Harry. We have worse problems. That awful lawyer Granger mentioned seeing a lady on the beach. Thank goodness he doesn’t know you.”

Harriet fell back on the bed with a groan as Agatha set about pulling off her clothes.

Agatha woke Harriet the next morning at dawn. Harriet was groggy still with fatigue.

“Why did you wake me up?”

“We must leave. I’ve made some arrangements.” Agatha swallowed and sat down heavily on Harriet’s bed. “Your life is in danger. Someone is sure to reveal that you were with Lord Stanton on the beach and if he is caught he will be hanged.”

Harriet caught her breath. “He is innocent, Aggie, I know it.”

Agatha looked sideways at Harriet. “It doesn’t matter if he is innocent, or whether he thinks he is the King of Spain. They nearly lynched him once, two years ago, and are obviously trying to do it again.” She fiddled with Harriet’s counterpane and then looked up with a small smile. “Besides, there is nothing more for us here. I have given in my notice to the vicar.”

Harriet fell back on the bed with a bitter laugh and looked at the ceiling. Nothing more for her in Brambridge? No, there certainly wasn’t. She turned her face to the wall, shifting as an object dug insistently into her side. Feeling down the side of the mattress, she drew out her book of Shakespeare. The play was in two months, but they had already rehearsed three quarters of it. Already it had fired the imaginations of her pupils.

Laying it on her lap, she stroked the worn cover. Agatha reached for her hand and patted it. “I’m afraid your security is worth more than the midsummer play,” she said softly.

“The play
worked
.” Harriet stared down at the book. “The little ones were starting to come back to school to see what the older ones were doing, and the older ones were interested in reading in order to understand what might happen next. I was beginning to make a difference.” It was as close as she had ever come to one of her dreams.

Agatha sighed. “Sometimes Harry, you don’t think things through. How are you going to continue the play from your prison cell when they catch you? Do you think they’ll continue to allow you to teach, even innocent as you are?”