Elisabeth Fairchild (11 page)

Leading the gray to the local livery, he took rucksack in hand and walked eastward as the stable lad pointed, uphill to Horthwaite, then to Peeping Hill. Behind him the Eden valley grew smaller. Above him clouds threw shadow over the sun. An eagle keened.

This march into spaces uninhabited, gorse-draped foothills swallowing him, swallowing sound, brought a sense of peace unlike even that he had found at Ullswater. Here was a grimmer, more sterile beauty, fewer signs of life, in the distance the jagged knife’s edge of the fells. Here, one might think uninterrupted, or not think at all, only climb, one foot after the other, higher and higher.

Had he ever known Val to be sober, truly sober? Was the child his?  And Penny Foster? Was she the slut Val claimed? He could not bring himself to think so. All Alexander knew was that he wanted to see her again, to speak to her, to hold her in his arms.

Then what? Were his intentions honorable? What sort of relationship was the son of a Viscount and a young woman who had born a child out of wedlock destined to be?

He stopped often to look back.

Out of the wide green ribbon of the river the rippled fabric of the Pennines rose abruptly, a line of steep, gorse covered foothills.

How did one open the eyes of others when blind oneself?

Below him, in a cleft, four white-faced sheep bleated. Herdiwicks, the area was known for them.

The past unfolded in his memory again, the white faces of the young men below, as one of them dropped to his knees, wine red staining the lapel of his uniform. Four French Guard surprised, no more than boys, and yet they were the enemy.

He had been careful with his aim, careful to make every shot count. He would not have them suffer. They looked up at the crack of that first shot, startled, easy targets, squinting against the sun. The second man fell before they reacted to the danger. The youth crouched to shoot wildly. He winged a nearby boulder.

The older man ran.

His own shot did not go wide. The youth looked down, bewildered, fingering the bloody spot, unwilling to believe he was done for despite his show of courage. He fell face down, pistol cradled in his arm.

Alexander watched the old man who ran while he reloaded, the barrel hot in his hands as he thrust the wad home. He considered letting the coward live, but then the carbine was tight against his shoulder. His orders were clear. The enemy must be stopped--halted in mid stride.

Lambs to the slaughter.

Cupid. The men had dubbed him Cupid thereafter.

“How did you manage it?” he was asked as the bodies were examined. “Clean shots, all of them, right through the heart.”

Awe in Val’s voice. Gleeful admiration.

How had he managed to do it?
 
Time and again?
No glee. No pride did he take in the accomplishment, only a growing weight of sadness, of personal accountability for the taking of lives.

I would not let them suffer,”
the voice inside his head tried to justify his actions.
I could not.

Never again,  God,
he  thought.
Never again will I pick up a gun to slay my fellow man. This thing I do most solemnly  and reverently vow.

A distant rattle of bells and the sheep below him ran, dirty white cotton against the rusted green of the hillside. He turned his face to the peaks again with the feeling that here, so close to heaven, he was heard. He must climb higher, though, must mount what was known as the Beacon to reach the High Cup, the stable lad had said.

Like the empty feeling that came with his memories the cup opened up before him, a bowl shaped abyss, massive, symmetrical, littered with boulders. The uneven lip was basalt, steep and craggy--cracked.

He stopped at a rivulet of water named Hannah’s Well, wet his handkerchief, and mopped his neck and brow. Not the exertions of the day made him sweat, but those of the past.

There rose within him a need to shout in this place with none but God to hear. And so he threw back his head and cried out like a man possessed. “Forgive me!”

Give me, give me,
bounced back at him, no answer but the faint howling of the wind through the rocks above, and the cawing of a pair of startled crows.

The birds took wing: twin crows with raucous cries, a flutter of pipits exploding from a bank of winter browned parsley fern.

Penny leaned against the cold rock, heart beating fast. That cry! It could be none other. Cupid! Her Cupid!

All day she had thought of him, of the kindness he had demonstrated at Fiona’s. She had imagined him here, talking to her in firm but gentle voice, comforting her, looking at her with troubled eyes.

Was this cry for forgiveness meant for her? Did he know she waited? Wept?

A clatter of sliding rock. He stood somewhere below the obelisque, her seat with God and Lady Anne. They often held private discourse here. She leaned over the edge, caught sight of dark hair, thick as broom bristle, the beak of his nose protruding. She could not simply let him walk by.

 “Up here!”

He looked up, sun in his eyes, a streak of moisture on his cheek. “Miss Foster.”

For the first time since she had met him he seemed awkward in raising his hand to shield his eyes.

“You heard?” he asked.

“I should think God himself heard.”

He dropped his hand, dropped his gaze. Not her forgiveness he begged.

And yet she deliberately fostered that mistaken assumption, to put him at ease. “You’ve no need to ask my forgiveness,” she said. “It is Val should be here, on his knees.”

He smiled, unbending a little, squinting up  again. “Small chance of that. Hean barely lift his head today.”

She nodded, understanding at once. “What brings you so far from Appleby?” she asked, unprepared for his answer.

“I hoped to find you,” he said.

Chapter Thirteen

Cupid--she had to admit she still thought of him as such--scrambled up the staggered sandstone sides of the enormous, jutting rock formation to join her. And when he squeezed into the crevice where she rested, and she must scoot sideways to allow him room, so small was the space she had chosen, his hip settled dangerously next to hers, and their shoulders bumped provocatively. The muscle of his thigh flexed, and she felt it--Lord help her! how she felt it--from hip to toes.

Heat bloomed in her chest, rising to her cheeks, sinking to the apex of her nether regions. She longed for the flexing of his muscles again.

Lady Anne, Lady Anne, what do I do now?

“A Dufton cobbler, name of Nichol . . .” She addressed her lap, afraid of the look in his eyes, afraid of his closeness, most afraid of her own sense of longing, “climbed up here one day with his bag of tools . . .”

She risked a glance. He smiled, as if he read her mind.

She faltered. “And a pair of boots he reheeled while he sat enjoying . . . ”

 He leaned closer, blocking the wind. “The fine scenery?”

She nodded, unable to look away once their eyes met, warmer now that he was here, warmer in a way that hummed with anxiety and a very unfamiliar sense of anticipation--of potential. “Thus it is called . . .”

“Nichol’s chair?” he suggested, eyes full of mischief, a smile tugging his lips.

Oh, Lady Anne! 
He had already heard the story, and yet he had not stopped her, just as she did not stop him when he leaned closer, to kiss her.

Lady Anne forgive her, she kissed him back, and enjoyed the sweet, breath-catching surrender of it, the dizzying, heated intoxication of lips, hands and breath, until those hands began to stray, first to the small of her back, then lower still, to the curve of her hips, and his lips parted hers to the wonder of his tongue, and a desperate, sweet greediness for more flooded her unlike anything she had ever before experienced.

Remembering herself,  of what he must think her capable, she pushed away, saying, “You forget yourself, sir.”

“Do I?” A pained look ghosted through his steady gaze.

“I know I do,” she said.

The heat in his eyes cooled. “You do not find my kisses to your liking?”

She shook her head, and stared at her hands. They seemed so calm folded in her lap. “I have never . . .” The words caught in her throat. “Never liked anything better,” she said.

She dared look at him then, and took a deep fortifying breath, that she might resist the brightened heat of his gaze.

“It is just, I would not have you think . . . ill of me.” she said.

He laughed. “Do I demonstrate in any way that I think ill of you?”

Her face flushed. “I . . . I would not have you believe . . .”

He waited, desire unveiled in eyes that traveled every inch of her face with flattering interest. The corners of his mouth tilted upward. His tongue moistened his lower lip. His breath when he exhaled faintly warmed her cheek.

“The worst of what everyone else believes me capable.” She said it softly, afraid he might hurt her with just such beliefs.

“Dreadful scene, last night.” He brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.

She looked away, remembering, humiliated, his touch unsettling.

“Val is ever at his worst when he has been drinking,” he said.

It pained her that he made attempt to excuse his friend’s behavior.

“He did always drown himself in the bottle after a battle,” he went on.

She felt compelled to say. “He drank too much before he went away.”

“Did he?” He seemed surprised. “I always assumed . . .”

“A dangerous thing,” she cut him short.

He cocked his head quizzically.

“Assumptions.” She rose, clutching the rough support of cold sandstone, careful not to brush against his leg, his arm. Her knees felt weak, made of aspic. The blood thrummed in her veins.

“Don’t go.” He caught her hand.

She did not break away immediately, weak to his touch, susceptible to his beseeching look.
Lady Anne give me strength!

“Do you think Felicity is mine?” she asked.

He was not quick to answer, and yet his opinion lurked in his gaze. Pity there. He pitied her.

She shook him off, shaken, crestfallen.

“Whose is she?” he asked.

She was tempted to tell, if only to change the way he looked at her. The secret, the past, ached for release.

“Will you not tell me?”

“I cannot.” She concentrated on the placement of her hands, her feet, beginning the descent along the rock face.

“Why?” He called after her.

Danger here. In falling. In trusting. He was Val’s friend. She must not forget. Kisses did not change that.

“Talk to me,” he begged, approaching the edge.

A pebble hit her head, loosed from beneath his boot. “Back away!” she admonished.

“Do I get too close to the truth?” he asked.

“Danger there as well,” she warned, voice sharp.

She made her way down in a thought-filled silence, knowing he meant to follow, determined to be on her way before he could catch up. She could not tell him. The reasons no one knew to date still held true. It would be wisest to distance herself from him, from his roving hands, and all too tempting lips. She might reveal too much, and regret it.

And so she set briskly off up the rise of the Cup as soon as her feet hit the ground, murmuring, “Lady Anne, help me.” deaf to his cries of “Wait! Please, wait.”

He fell.

Not a long fall, nothing broken, but his knee was badly skinned, his wrists as well, and when he tried to rise he winced, and sank back down with an oath. Tenderness troubled his ankle every time he moved it. “Damn!”

Miss Foster might help if he could only convince her to turn around, but he hated to beg. He tried to rise, regretted the attempt at once as pain shot through his ankle, and sank back down again with a groan. What he really needed was some sort of crutch.

Gritting his teeth, he untied his neck cloth and then attempted to remove his boot. The pain was considerable. He sted and closed his eyes, debating the best course of action. Did it make sense after all, to remove the boot?

He must beg Miss Foster to return. He looked up at the sound of footsteps clattering on stone, relieved to find her on her way back. Out of breath she stopped, towering over him, breast rising and falling in a most provocative manner.

“Broken something?” she gasped, her tone full of fear and sympathy.

He shook his head. “I think it is only a sprain. No way of knowing without getting the boot off, and I do not think it will go back on once it is off.”

“Swelling?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I bind the ankle outside the boot, then?”

“Immobilize it? Kind of you to offer.”

She sat down before him, no matter that it muddied her skirt, no matter that she had been bound and determined to separate herself from him a quarter of an hour ago. Cradling his bootheel in her lap she carefully bound the ankle.

He watched her as she worked, distracted by the curls escaping bonnet’s edge, by the sensation of her hands on his leg, by the potential intimacies of the lap his boot heel so casually plumbed. “Thank you for returning,” he said.