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Authors: Marsha Canham

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BOOK: Swept Away
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The air was sharp with the conflicting scents of soap and liniment. Two beeswax candles glowed inside glass hurricanes on the bedside table, another pair sent feathers of black smoke drifting over the sconces that hung above the fireplace.

It was the first time Annaleah had seen Althorpe since he had been removed from the kitchen. Not nearly as frightening or imposing as he had appeared on the beach, he lay perfectly still in the middle of the wide mattress, his hair a splash of black across the pillow, his arms on top of the blankets, resting flat by his sides.

The vicar slowed when he approached the side of the bed. His expression altered slightly for an unguarded moment--crumpled in actual fact--then cleared with a determined breath. Calmly, he leaned over and touched a hand to his brother’s forehead, his cheek, then pressed his fingers against the side of his throat to feel the strength of the pulse.

“He has not wakened? He has not moved?” The questions were directed at Broom, who shook his head in the negative.

The long, gentle fingers continued to probe the back of his brother’s neck. When he located the huge lump at the base of the skull, his mouth twisted into a grimace.

Annaleah, standing at the foot of the bed, had followed the movements of the vicar’s hand on his brother’s forehead and cheek, but remained to linger on Emory Althorpe’s face when the probing fingers moved on. Cleaned of sand, with the long, dark hair brushed back off his brow, Anna found herself thinking that her aunt had done him no disservice when she said he was handsome. Exotically lush, dark lashes lay in black crescents on his cheeks, complimented by the bold slash of eyebrows above. A nose that was straight and prominent lured the eye to a mouth that was wide and generous in shape, a square jaw, a neck that was more of a column rising above the powerful bands of muscle that shaped the upper breadth of his shoulders.

“I used to say in jest that he had a hard head,” the vicar murmured. “With such a blow as this must have been, I wonder that the crack has not gone straight through. I am no doctor, but should he not have moved by now, or at least showed some signs of stirring?”

“He did open his eyes on the beach,” Annaleah offered. “Very briefly, to be sure, but he did open them. And...while I cannot be absolutely certain...I think he may have even been trying to tell me something.”

“He spoke to you?”

“His voice was very low and difficult to hear above the surf, but I believe he said: ‘They have to know the truth.’ He said it twice, in fact, and the second time he was most adamant, adding the words: ‘Before it is too late.’”

“Too late? Too late for what?”

“That was the exact question I asked, but he did not answer.”

Before the vicar could question her further, Florence Widdicombe arrived in the room, slightly out of breath and leaning heavily on Willerkin’s arm for support.

“Well, now that you have seen him,” she said from the doorway. “What do you propose to do with him?”

“D-do?” He straightened and looked genuinely taken aback. “I...I am not sure. Naturally, I have no wish to abuse your hospitality any longer than necessary--”

“Pish.” Florence cut him off with a wave of the cane. “Just tell me if it is true. Has there been a warrant issued for his arrest?”

The vicar’s expression crumpled again. “Yes. Yes, it is true. The envoy from London showed it to me himself.”
“Rupert Ramsey? That black-beaked toady?”
“He comes straight from the foreign office, from Lord Wessex himself.”

“He could come straight from Lucifer and I would still question his intentions. I would question anyone who would dare enter a church in the middle of service and glare about the congregation as if he suspected them all of wanting to
take
coins from the alms basket, not add them.”

“Yes, well, there have been soldiers at the vicarage half a dozen times in the last week alone, and each time they insist upon searching the premises. My wife is nearly beside herself with fright.”

“I can well imagine,” Florence said wryly. “But surely you do not believe any of this rubbish about Rory being a Bonapartist, do you?”

The vicar seemed to know better than to be startled by Florence’s candor. “Whether I believe it or not is of no consequence. A witness has reported seeing him in Rochefort the night before Napoleon surrendered to the captain of the
Bellerophon
. There was also a report that his ship, the
Intrepid
, slipped through the blockade a few evenings later and was bound for England.”

“Why the devil would he be so foolish as to come here if half the country is looking for him?”

“This Ramsey fellow is convinced there will be another attempt made to rescue Bonaparte. He is further convinced that Emory will be involved.”

The vicar paused and looked down at the still form. “This is my first glimpse of him in nearly three years,” he said softly. “I have not even known where he was or how to reach him so there was no need to lie to the authorities when they questioned me.”

Florence’s eyebrow crept a little higher and seeing it, the vicar flushed.

“I have always stood in staunch defence of both my brothers, even when it seemed the pair of them were determined to take flights of fancy. But if what this Ramsey chap says is true, if Emory has been working for the Bonapartists, then this was no minor act of familial rebellion. The charges are real, the warrant is real and I am a minister of God as well as a loyal citizen of the crown. It would be my bounden duty, in both capacities,” he added hoarsely, “to send for the constables and turn him into their care. If he is innocent, the courts will clear him.”

“And when they find him guilty?”

“If he is guilty, I....”

“I did not say
if
he is found guilty,” Florence pointed out, thumping her cane on the floor for emphasis. “I said
when
he is found guilty, which he surely will be when all of those licentious fat fools who sit in Parliament decide they need someone to hang in Bonaparte’s place.”

Annaleah stared at her great aunt in surprise. Old and withered and eccentric though she might be, there was a hard light in her eyes that betrayed a keener intelligence than she obviously cared to show the world.

“Because of their misguided sense of
noblesse
oblige
,” Florence continued, “ the vaunted House of Lords will undoubtedly decide they cannot justify taking the axe to Bonaparte’s throat. All the same, they will be desperate to spill someone else’s blood in his stead, and the man accused of unleashing the plague upon the world a second time will suit their needs perfectly. Regardless of Emory’s guilt or innocence, therefore, he will be condemned, executed in a public place, and his remains left there to rot for months afterward so the people can spit and jeer and throw spoiled fruit at the rotting corpse. It will not be a fair trial. It will not be a trial at all, but a monkey court with that carrion-eater Ramsey leading the parade.”

The vicar blanched and a visible tremor brought his hands together in a tight clench. “Wh-what else can I do? If I take him back to the vicarage, they will find him the next time they come to search. If I take him to Windsea Hall and they find him there, Arthur will suffer for it.”

“We could keep him here, could we not?” Anna heard herself say. “Widdicombe House is probably the last place the soldiers would search for dangerous criminals.”

The vicar and her aunt both turned and stared at her in surprise.

“At least until he is able to defend himself,” she added in a self-conscious murmur.

Florence pursed her lips and agreed with another thump of her cane. “My niece is absolutely right. This is the safest place to keep him for the time being. Few of the villagers have reason to come here, and none of my people have ever been accused of having loose tongues. Mister Broom will see he behaves and Willerkins will shoot him if he does not.”

The vicar shook his head. “I cannot ask you to put yourselves at such risk.”

“You are not asking, dear boy. I am insisting. I am all for justice and loyalty, and I would kiss the king’s feet if they let him out of Bedlam long enough. At the same time, I will not condemn a good man on rumor and speculation. I would be curious to know what this proof is that they claim to have against him; I should think you would be too.”

The vicar drew a large white square of linen out of his pocket and dabbed it across his brow. “I suppose it would only seem natural for me to make inquiries. I shall have to do so with the utmost discretion, however, for I would not want Lucille to become more alarmed than she already is by all this fuss. She has been pleading with me to let her go to London; perhaps this would be a good time.”

“I trust she was not at the vicarage when Throckmorton fetched you away?”

“No. No, she was taking lunch with the ladies of the Foundlings Society. She has become quite involved with charitable works of late. I believe the time she has spent with Poor Arthur has opened her eyes to the need for compassion and kindness in the world today.”

“I am sure it has,” Florence murmured dryly. “Which is why you are probably right, Vicar. It might be best to send her on a little holiday until this matter is resolved. ‘T would be a pity to involve the poor child in a moral dilemma of such magnitude.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 4

 

Exactly sixty-two hours passed without so much as a twitch or flicker from the still form on the bed and Annaleah began to wonder if she had just imagined seeing his eyes open on the beach. She had tried not to show too much interest in the patient’s progress; after all, it was hardly proper to linger in a bedroom with a naked man, regardless if he was awake or not. But her aunt, who had taken the precaution of removing Emory Althorpe to an attic chamber under the eaves, was not able to maneuver the steep and narrow stairs. Anna was dispatched in her stead and after the first dozen or so trips, when his condition remained unchanged, she began to grow resentful as well as impatient.

By the end of the second day, her travels up and down the stairs had become so tiresome, Annaleah offered to relieve Harold Broom while he caught up on some of his household chores. It was midway through the third day, while he was away refilling all the large water kettles in the kitchen and fetching his noon meal, that she looked over at the bed and found Emory Althorpe looking calmly back at her.

She was sitting on the window seat, her legs curled beneath her, idly tracing a pattern in the grime on the glass pane. The shutters were opened wide and where the sunlight poured around her shoulders in a thick haze, it turned the flown wisps of her dark hair into a fiery coppery halo. Her gown was white muslin and the combined effect of the bright sunlight and the streamer of sparkling dust motes caused her to body and skin to glow with an almost unearthly, blurred luminance.

Annaleah was blithely unaware of this. She was only conscious, suddenly, of eyes as deep and dark as the blackest of sins staring at her.

For a very, very long moment, that was all they did: stare at one another.

Anna could actually feel the blood draining out of her face, and the strength melting out of her shoulders, her arms, her legs. She turned instantly cold, was completely paralysed to the point where she forgot she had to breathe.

“Am I dead, then?” he asked in a rough whisper. “Is this the end of it?”

Anna’s lungs emptied on a gust and she tore her gaze away from the bed long enough to glance at the door. Broom had been gone over an hour and should have been back by now but he was not, and she was entirely alone with a dangerous criminal, three long flights of stairs away from a smattering of old servants who were too deaf to hear her scream and too old to wobble to her rescue anyway.

“No.” Her voice sounded equally cracked and ragged and she had to swallow to make her throat work properly. “No, you are not dead, sir.”

The long black lashes closed and opened slowly again. He blinked a second time, then a third as if he still did not believe the soft, glowing vision before him was real. In the next instant, when he tried to turn his head to identify the rest of his surroundings, any lingering doubts were removed as his lips parted around a grunt of pain so pure and involuntary it brought Anna jumping to her feet.

“You should not try to move, sir. Not until you are fully apprised of your injuries.”

“Injuries?” His left hand moved with the ease of a hundred pound weight, inching up off the bed to grope clumsily at the lump on back of his neck. The swelling had gone down considerably over the past two days, but it was obvious by the look on his face that the pain was excruciating.

“Wh-what happened?”

“You were found half-drowned on the beach. My great-aunt, Dame Florence Widdicombe, had you carried up here to the house, where you have lain for the past two...nearly three days without moving. We were beginning to wonder if you were ever going to waken. Your brother has stopped by at least twice each day and is quite beside himself with worry.”

“My brother?”

“The vicar. Reverend Althorpe. S-Stanley,” she stammered finally, not knowing exactly how much familiarity was permitted under the circumstances.

He frowned again. “
How
long did you say--?”

“We found you early Monday morning, and today is Wednesday, not quite noon. Of course, we have no idea how long you lay on the beach, or floated in the water, or...” she started to ramble desperately as the bottomless black eyes searched her face again “...or if you fell off a ship in the Channel, or if you took a tumble off the docks, or the cliffs...”

Her voice trailed off as, thankfully, he looked away. This time he seemed to brace himself for the pain, meeting it with a clenched jaw. He scanned the bare walls, the high peaked roof, the lamp that hung from a long chain off a wooden beam. His inspection halted briefly at the open door then went on to locate the rail-backed chair, the washstand and painted china pitcher, the cluster of towels hanging on a wall peg. There was more, including a bottle of tincture and one of laudanum that drew forth another frown, but his gaze skimmed them quickly before flickering back to Annaleah.

BOOK: Swept Away
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