Cherished Enemy (12 page)

“Whatever is it?” she whispered.

“A reb, likely,” he answered softly. “And they're hot after him.”

“Are we—”

He clapped a hand over her lips and hissed, “Be still!”

The drums were coming closer, the beat fast and imperative, and now there were other, more terrible evidences of the hunt: a flickering glow against the sky, a great crashing and trampling, and many excited voices, the loudest howling, “I tell'ee I got him fair! Seed 'un go down, I did.”

“Ar, well he might have goed down, but he do have got up again, Ern, and he run over this way, says I!”

Even as that triumphant claim resounded, they heard stumbling, uncertain footsteps, a sobbing panting. Rosamond gasped as a tattered figure burst through the hedge and half-ran, half-staggered towards them.

Victor swore under his breath, then stepped forward.

The fugitive reeled to a halt and stood swaying, his breathing loud and harsh in the sudden silence.

Rosamond crept from the shadow and peeped over Victor's shoulder.

The rebel was young and woefully thin, his hair bedraggled, his eyes sunk into dark hollows, and his clothing in rags. One claw-like hand was pressed to his shoulder and showed the wet gleam of a dark stain. “Don't—for the love of God…” he gasped out, “
don't
give me … up…”

He began to retreat, his left arm hanging useless, his bloody hand extended as if to fend them off. Victor strode forward and the fugitive pleaded sobbingly, “I've—I've come … so far. Just a—another mile or—or two, and I'll … take ship. Have—mercy …
Please!
”

It seemed to Rosamond that everything was happening very slowly. Ever since Harold's death she had wondered what she would do if she was ever faced with just such a situation, and she had decided with cold and implacable anger that had she access to a gun she would seize it and hold the evil traitor at bay until help came. That in some small way, she might thus avenge dear Hal and all those other fine young Englishmen who had fallen so needlessly, so cruelly, because of the vaulting ambitions of an ill-advised Prince. Well, here was the moment. And she did nothing more than to stand in helpless shock, staring at this pitiful, half-starved, wounded boy, listening to the broken voice that held so much of exhaustion and despair. There was no trace of a Scots accent. An English Jacobite, which somehow was that much more reprehensible. But watching his weakness and pain, she could not but pity him.

Victor strode closer and the fugitive stumbled backwards, his young face contorted with fear and anguish.

The drums were beating again. Much nearer. The torches were bobbing towards the lane. Rosamond recovered her wits and ran to seize the doctor's arm. “I do not want his blood on my hands. Let him be! They'll take him at all events!”

Victor wrenched away. The fugitive shrank back, scarcely able to stand now, but his voice rising in shrill panic. “No! Do not! I
beg
you…!”

But Victor sprang forward, and struck hard and true. The Jacobite crumpled, and rolled into the ditch.

Sheer brute force was something that Rosamond had never witnessed. She was appalled, and with a small whimper threw her hands over her eyes. Victor ran back and grasped her arm. Recoiling from his touch, she fought to free herself, but his grip was iron and she was dragged along willy-nilly.

“Savage!”
she cried, her lips trembling. “There was no need for s-such cruelty. He is just a boy and—”

“You must ha' forgot, ma'am,” he sneered. “He is a Jacobite. An enemy of the State. As you so justly remarked in Paris—he brought this on himself.”

“He—he was man enough to m-make his choice, yes. But he has p-paid dearly, from the look of him, and—”

His harsh voice cut remorselessly through the faltering words. “And because he is ‘just a boy' and has a bullet through him, you'd be willing to help him escape—is that it? Where is the courage of your convictions gone to, ma'am?”

At once enraged, she beat at his bruising hand. “My convictions will never change! But nor will I cease to feel a horror of needless cruelty! He was weak and hurt so badly. You could have detained him without causing him more pain!”

“Nonsense! You, one perceives, would be so noble as to tend and restore the traitor, only to hand him over to worse suffering, which is no more than hypocrisy, Madam Shall-I-Shan't-I! Or do you ask that I help him escape?”

“No, I do not! He is a vicious traitor, however young. But that is not to say we must become unfeeling barbarians! And if it be hypocrisy to tend the wounds of a dying boy, or say a prayer over him—oh, very well—sneer! I vow you are ill equipped to be a physician! Have you no pity for
anybody?
”

He jerked her to face him, the hands that had been so gentle before now painfully hard on her shoulders. “I have pity for you, ma'am. And for what might befall you are we thought to be involved in this ugly business.” He threw a hand over her parting lips and said in a low threatening growl, “Now
close
that pretty mouth, and
keep
it closed, and with luck we may not be named accomplices.”

His arms folded tight about her. Near hysteria with shock and outrage, she struggled, but he held her firm, and then there was no more time. The drum-beats were scant yards away; many men were pushing through the hedge, and suddenly they were caught in the glare of high-held torches, eager hunters were all about them, civilians mostly, but several soldiers, the flickering light glinting on razor-sharp fixed bayonets. So many faces, hard-eyed, flushed and brutalized by the savagery of the hunt. All eager to find that weak and helpless boy in the ditch and drag him off to a nightmare of torture and the final horror of execution.

Rosamond thought miserably, ‘Does any human being deserve so ghastly a fate?' And then the full ramifications of their situation came home to her. What if they should really be suspected of coming here to meet him? Her knees turned to water, and despite herself she shrank against the doctor, petrified with fear.

“Well, looka this,” jeered a big fellow, thrusting his torch at them.

“A lover and his lass,” said a very young officer, grinning broadly.

Victor swung Rosamond behind him and in a voice of ice demanded, “Ensign, are you in charge of this rabble?”

The officer stiffened. “This is no rabble, whoever you are, but an official search for—”

“'Tis most decidedly a rabble! Your search is unruly and poorly organized. Your men should be strung out, not all clinging together like a bunch of nervous girls! Who is your commanding officer?”

“Ar—and who might
you
be, me Lord High and Mighty?” put in a weasely-looking man with a very dirty face, whose eyes had been running appreciatively over what he could see of Rosamond.

The other searchers pressed forward, muttering resentment of the doctor's high-handed manner.

The ensign, however, was not unacquainted with such arrogance and said uneasily, “I must request your identity, sir.”

“Robert Victor. Captain, Fourteenth Light Dragoons. No longer on active service.” Rosamond started in horrified dismay, and his fingers bit hard into her arm as he went on, “Nephew to Colonel Archibald Cunningham, who at present commands our occupation forces at Inverness. This lady is Miss Rosamond Albritton, daughter of Colonel Lennox Albritton of Lennox Court near Chichester. I am escorting Miss Albritton and her aunt back to their home, and I am also compiling a report on the conduct of our troops and their methods of tracking down fugitives. I shall ask again for your name and your C.O.”

The ensign had heard of the dread Colonel Cunningham and was flustered. “Walter Trumbull, sir. At your service. My superior officer is Major Hilary Broadbent.” Looking unhappy, he added, “I apologize, Captain Victor, an we startled the lady. But this is not a game, and—”

“The more regrettable that it should be conducted as one. I take it you are
supposed
to be in pursuit of a fugitive?”

The ensign wet his lips. “We are tracking a fugitive who is in most desperate case and was seen running this way. Did you by any chance catch sight of a ragged young fellow—probably wounded?”

Rosamond tensed and held her breath.

“We did not,” lied Victor with firm emphasis.

Aghast, Rosamond started to protest this falsehood, but his fingers tightened so brutally on her arm that she was hard put to it not to cry out.

“Too busy, belike,” leered the weasely individual, undaunted by this young fire-eater.

“Your man would appear to have given you the slip whilst you chatted with us,” added Victor briskly. “I would recommend, Ensign, that you get after him in a more orderly fashion. As for you, sir”—he turned so suddenly that the weasely man gave a little leap to the rear—“take your greasy eyes from the lady, or I will close 'em for you!”

The weasely individual drew back snarling epithets about flash culls what interfered with a man a-doing of his duty to king and country.

Victor's lip curled. “Ensign—you have my sympathy. Good evening to you.”

He took Rosamond's arm and led her away, en route seizing Trifle by the collar and dragging him bodily from his interested investigation of the still figure lying in the mud of the ditch.

Rosamond felt weak and sick. She found that her teeth were chattering, and it was a few minutes before she could compose herself sufficiently to demand, “Why did you not—hand him over to them?”

His hold on her arm tightened. “Do not look back. I should have reported the reb at once, instead of which I delayed, arguing with you, madam. To have told them of his presence only
after
we had left him and then been seen must surely have aroused suspicions. They'd likely have judged we'd not meant to turn him over at all, and I daren't put us at the mercy of that crowd of ruffians. The fact is, I should never have paid heed to your babbling! Charles will rightly have plenty to say to me for having exposed you to so fearful a risk.”

His bitter words struck hard. She was still trembling, and said wearily, “My brother harbours hatred towards none, sir. He would not censure you for what you did.”

“Would he not?” He uttered a contemptuous snort. “I'd not realized he suffered a mental deficiency!”

Rosamond gave a gasp of resentment. Before she could retaliate, however, the sardonic voice went on, “I had understood your affianced was his closest friend. 'Twould seem to me that
your
attitude—or former attitude—was the more understandable.”

The implication that she had in any way betrayed dear Hal brought the sting of tears to her eyes. She declared hotly, “I
loathe
all Jacobites. But … oh, I wonder if that poor boy yet lives.”

“For his sake, let us hope not.”

It was a struggle to overcome the urge to claw him for those cynical words, but she managed to say more steadily, “Dr. Victor, I am sorry for what I said. But—when you struck him—”

“Had you not been with me, ma'am, I'd have done a sight more than that!”

“Yes. I—I quite understand what a frightful risk you took, but—you must see that in Christian charity we cannot just leave him lying there to—to die, all alone. 'Twould have been kinder to have let them—kill him quickly!”

“Ah—so you wish to be kind, do you, Miss Albritton?” His jeering laugh sounded.

Lud, but the man was impossible! Through her teeth, she said, “I ask only that his wounds be bound, or a prayer said over him if he is—expiring. Is that so—”

He checked, staring at her. “Good God! Are you run mad?”

“Perhaps I am,” she said, wringing her hands in genuine confusion. “Only—I did not realize how—dreadful it is, and … True, he is a traitor and a Jacobite and therefore despicable. But—he is also a human being! Facing death all alone. If you could simply—”

“Give aid and comfort to a traitorous rebel?” His eyes were wide with incredulity. “Burn it, but I think you
have
taken leave of your senses, ma'am! The sooner I get you safely back to—”

“I thought doctors were sworn to save life?
Any
human life! I would not let a
dog
die like that! Nor would my late fiancé wish me to do so, I know it! How can
you
—a physician—refuse aid when he—”

“Miss Albritton,” he said grittily. “Out of respect for your weak knees, I have lied to an army officer on several counts, withheld information, and properly put my head on the block. More than that I
will
not do! And—heaven help us if my deception is discovered!”

*   *   *

Rosamond listened to the clock strike each quarter-hour between half past eleven and quarter past twelve, at which point she sighed and sat up in bed. Constantly before her eyes was the glow of torchlight on merciless faces; the piteous pleading of the youthful fugitive; the ruthless savagery with which Dr. Victor had struck him down.

She got out of bed and wandered to the open casement. The breeze had risen into a night wind that bustled about fitfully, sending branches tossing and leaves whispering their endless secrets. There were many clouds now, so that often the moon's light was dimmed. She listened intently. Once, about half an hour ago, she had heard a flurry of distant shouting, but there had been no further disturbance, and she could detect neither sight nor sound of the hue and cry.

She knelt on the chintz-covered window-seat, struggling with her conscience. How hard-hearted must a person be in order to cling to one's convictions? Did hatred for a cause justify allowing a wounded boy to be left untended in a muddy ditch, to bleed to death? She could well imagine her gentle brother's horror. Charles would not hesitate an instant. However much he grieved his friend, however great the risk to himself, he would not turn his back on any living thing in pain. But the Jacobites were a scurrilous crew, and they had killed Hal. What in the name of heaven was right? What was she to do?