That he could so utterly and completely dismiss her struck to her very core. As the moon began to rise over the moors Anne’s tears only worsened; the soft silvery glow, embellished by the burn of candles and lanterns along the roadway leading to the Roxborough estate, caressed the red and tear-stained face of Anne Hatley, who stared at the contract beneath her foot, its surface scored with mud and the violent marks of her foot having driven it against the stone. A teardrop fell from her jawline, splashing upon the inked pages, splotching against the crumpled line where he had inscribed his name. All she had left of him, splayed in fading black across that paper.

“Lawrence Strauss, Duke of Amhurst.”

She felt cold. She had stormed out of the mansion in her gown, and she had not even noticed the cool breeze along the hills; she hadn’t noticed the absence of the sun, for her heart burned too hot with rage and want for the duke that it had kept her warm and safe. Not only that, but hope - hope that he would embrace her, and the warmth she remembered of their time together in the manse, had kept her skin hot.

Now, without him, she felt only cold.

The wind howled through trees, their branches and leaves whistling and swaying overhead, the moon peering as it rose higher; she could see only the lightest tone of orange at the edge of an endless dark blue, stars beginning to glimmer and twinkle as night rose into view. Cold, lonely night; she had spent thousands of nights alone, laying upon her bed, and had never thought of how empty it would feel one night, when she had only the memory of a man she longed to spend every night left in her life with to entertain her. She dreaded that thought; she dreaded trudging up the stairs alone, with no one to hold her; with only her tears to warm her cheeks, and only memories of that afternoon to haunt her.

She took a deep breath and heard a rather disconcerting noise - horse hooves and creaking wagon wheels upon the cobblestone road leading to the manor’s entrance. Her heart skipped in hope, and she wanted it so dearly and so tragically to be him, coming back to her; instead she saw another carriage, one she only vaguely recognized, its colors ostentatious and its broad, strong horses even more so. Suspicion filled her eyes when the driver pulled the vehicle around so that its grandiose doors swung open to her, and its occupant triumphantly descended the stairs leading to the cabin - and with scorn in her gaze she beheld a sight unfortunately familiar, one she had not ever wanted to see again.

“Ah, m’lady! I’m so pleased to see you’re here, and not held up in some manner of monkeyshines,” the loud and boisterous and utterly intolerable Earl of Carteret, a slime of a man, exclaimed as he spread his arms broadly and approached her heedlessly. “Our meeting this afternoon did not sit right in my stomach, you see, m’lady. And I had hoped to meet with you, and your father, over dinner - to discuss matters of your estate. As I don’t see the Lord Strauss here,” he said with a smug smirk spreading on his lips, “I can presume you’ve properly disposed of that odious little wretch,” the earl laughed. “He’d be positively no good for you, that I can assure you. Your father and I had a lovely meeting days past, and it was quite clear he favored me, and I hope that I shall convince you to feel the same. It should be quite easy, after all, shouldn’t it?” he certainly enjoyed hearing himself speak, and he clearly assumed all others did as well, as he advanced upon Anne and quite shamelessly grasped at her wrist with his grasping fingers, pulling her close to his side. Anne felt cold - even colder, against him, in his flamboyant baby-blue suit jacket, and with his showy and incorrigible demeanor. She tried to pull away from his side, but he growled in response.

“I wish only to see the sheets of my bed after the day I’ve had, and most certainly, no matter what sort of dinner my father may have had prepared, I shan’t ever want to share it with as intolerable a presence as you, Martin of Carteret,” Anne spat, struggling as the earl nonetheless threw his arm across her shoulder as if they shared some manner of kinship. She had seen the slug do the same to the giggling and chattering femmes at the party that night, and she had hated when she saw it then and there, but now that she had become a victim of his demeanor, she rued every breath of air he took. “Un-unhand me!” she struggled.

“M’lady, I believe it’s rather customary for women like you to invite men like myself to see you to dinner, particularly when we’ve already arrived on your doorstep and have important business to discuss, don’t you think so?” the earl refused to take no for an answer, his probing grasp rolling along her back, until he quite contemptuously squeezed on her rear. Her eyes opened wide and she yelped at his utterly prurient gesture.

“H-how dare—” she could scarcely summon a sound before he had latched his grasp at her waist. “Come, now. Let’s see what your father has had the kitchen work at,” the earl insisted.

“You are clearly not hearing what I say, Martin of Carteret,” Anne hissed. “I have no interest in accompanying you to a funeral, much less to a proper dinner, and whatever business matters you may have to discuss with my father concern him and not me,” she explained, struggling at his grasp. He squeezed tight at her waist, and suddenly he threw off that rakish mask he wore so proudly; now, she saw what lay beneath his boastful and womanizing exterior, and what she saw utterly terrified her. His voice grew to a hoarse and dangerous whisper as his eyes skewered her with a threatening glare.

“I think this business he and I share quite involves you, you little harlot,” the earl snarled, breathing hot through clenched teeth. “In fact, it quite involves you and only you. For you have a matter of an unsettled estate to manage, and your father is quite beholden to whomever decides he wishes to have you as his own, Anne Hatley of Roxborough,” he tongued her title with utter contempt. “Now, I shall become proper viscount of these lands, and you will be my viscountess - proper, compliant, and behaved, willing to bear for me any number of heirs I require, because that is a woman’s place in this world, and I will ensure that you know it,” the earl demanded. “You don’t have much of a choice. No woman does. And for that I will do with you what I need, and you and your father will be happy and dance along with my choices, because you have no alternatives,” he growled.

“I have love,” Anne sputtered back, begging in her mind that her love would return to save her.

“Love? Hah! Love, with whom? That worthless, spineless fool from Amhurst? What, have you so stupidly fallen in love with a man who has no idea how to treat a woman?” the earl guffawed, pulling Anne tight against his waist. “Love is learning - and you will learn all I need you to learn in due time, and you will love me and yourself for it.”

“Get away from me!” Anne exclaimed, tugging at his grasp; and when he refused to let her free, she resorted to living up to her reputation as so utterly unladylike, by bringing her palm up in a stiff strike against the assaulting earl’s nose. He roared in pain, eyes shocked, clearly not expecting so righteous a response from the rather petite girl he had decided to claim as his own. Instead, she broke free of him and ran; when he moved to intercept, she stamped her heel hard onto his foot, bringing another dolorous howl to the winds. The earl grasped at his nose, which had begun to swell and bleed; Anne spat at him as she rushed to the stables for safe haven.

“Bertold! Are you here?” she shouted, her mind rushing, on fire after the encounter with the earl. “Please, Bertold, are you here?”

“M’lady?” the skinny young blonde man appeared, yawning lazily, from the rear of the stalls. “Shall I prepare Midnight for you? So late in the evening?”

“Please, Bertold, I need to...” she did not quite know what she needed to do. When the earl had touched her, grabbed her, taunted her, she could think of only one person - only one thing. No matter how much she held hate in her heart for him at this given moment, she could not stop thinking of him. She did not know that she would ever be able to, because when she had said she had love - she had meant it.

“I... I need to go to see... someone,” she stammered. Bertold heard a cry of anger from without, no doubt the howling vitriol of the Earl of Carteret; fear in her eyes, Anne pleaded quietly with the stable boy. “I need to get away from here, for now, Bertold, please—”

“Of course, m’lady,” he answered with a hasty nod, rushing off to the rear of the stables to find the proper bridle. As he left, Anne braced herself against her jet-black steed’s stall; her head spun, her heart pumped, and she could scarcely bear all the emotional tumult she had endured on this day alone. No matter how often she closed her eyes, she saw him; reflected in every tear she shed. She wanted to ride, away from here; away from England, away from all people and places, and out into the ocean, where she could swim and swim until she reached France. She could drink a proper wine and live as a pauper; she could find her freedom in anonymity, the freedom she had always lusted for, but she would never find fulfillment without him.

She realized what true freedom was - not simply the freedom to choose one path or the other, or the freedom not to bear the stigma and expectations of society. Love - knowing one soul so intimately, and wanting to give yourself to it, while that soul felt the same way - true love was true freedom. Her heart hurt because she had tasted it, but only a taste; and now she knew she could not simply live, no matter how free, with only a taste of the love she felt for this man.

“I’ve found the proper bridle m’lady—”

“Hurry, please, Bertold,” Anne pleaded, pulling open the door to Midnight’s stable and leading the horse out. Bertold lashed the saddle and equipment to the creature as fast as his hands could move; she could hear the clopping of carriage wheels, and she sighed in relief, hoping that the intolerable earl had finally departed the estate. She would deal with whatever manner of political fallout fell upon the Roxborough estate later; now, she had more pressing matters to engage with.

“All ready to ride, m’lady,” Bertold announced, nodding to his mistress. He went to fetch the stairs, but instead Lady Roxborough simply threw herself atop the horse, bracing herself against the stall door and setting herself astride the animal.

“No need,” she said, haste in her words and her manner. With a yip, she set Midnight upon the path; as the horse carried her quickly out of the stables, she saw that the carriage - and its miscreant of a rider - had disappeared into the night, as best she could see. Good, she thought to herself. They set off down the path - darkness had crept in, paths covered in dirt and mud from the bluster of wind and the snap of cold, and before long they had passed through a pair of trees and the manor - and all its brilliant, life-giving light - had vanished behind them.

“Hyah!”

Anne’s voice carried across the moors; she raced atop Midnight’s back as the horse bucked and brayed anxiously, leaping along the cobblestone paths, through dusty trails and along pathways coated in dead leaves, with nothing but the moon to keep the path visible. A few lanterns dotted the main arteries cutting through the estate, but as she took a detour onto darkened, muddy trails, the light began to fade. The numerous crisscrossing pathways had never seemed so painstakingly jagged and mazelike as they did now - when she needed to make every second count, her mind burning with passion for that she would love, whether he could realize the value of it or not. She needed to see his face again - to tell him he loved her, and that as a stubborn woman, as stubborn a woman as ever has been born of noble blood, she wouldn’t simply let him decide alone who was worthy of whom. She raced against time; she raced against her own doubts. She raced against a night that only grew darker and more dangerous as each second passed, threatening to stop her forced and hasty march across the roads.

“Midnight, here! Hyah!” Anne had never been the most talented rider, but she had enjoyed enough long days on Midnight’s back to know the pathways on the outskirts of the manor quite well; she reasoned if she cut across here, she could arrive quicker at the main road leading towards the Duchy of Amhurst - she could meet him at those crossroads. She spotted a sideways path and took quickly to it, the moonlight reflecting in a puddle of mud that Midnight whinnied as the horse’s hooves splashed through the puddle. The long and sloping road saw little traffic from carriages and merchants, on account of its steep and awkward slopes, but a lone rider would have none of those troubles. Dashing past darkened, swaying and leafy shapes and tall, unkempt grasses, Anne and her proud mount barreled through mud and tangling vines, the muck growing thicker with each cloven footfall. As blackened trees blurred past, tossed about by a cold wind that shivered along Anne’s lightly-clothed spine, she saw him everywhere - in everything. Her father had been right about her - she was proud, but most of all, could be quite stubborn. Stubborn enough to put herself at great risk... riding alone, a woman, in the dark, without a lantern... she had left in such haste that she had not asked Bertold to prepare a torch or lamp for her, and worse, she had driven her steed from the most populous roads, into darkened territory.

Only then, did Anne notice that something did not feel quite right. She heard not only Midnight’s hooves fall upon the derelict cobblestone roadway, but a second... and even a third set of steps, echoing down the paths. Anne felt it odd... practically none dared travel this roughly-hewn path. Anne tried not to worry about those extra hoof-falls, though her heart began to thump in her chest when she noticed the sound had begun to draw closer with each further step Midnight took, and now the phantom hooves fell so fast that they outpaced the sound of her own. Midnight stepped through a morass of muddy puddles, her pace slowing briefly before taking to the bridge up ahead - a rickety bridge of crumbling stones drawn across the river bank, the rushing sounds of a shrunken stream gushing along her ears. The bridge rose tall above the stream, and she dashed across it quickly... but not so quickly as she heard the stones rattle with the passage of a heavy burden just behind her, and when she finally glanced back, she saw a carriage, catching up to her, lantern lit bright.

Her heart stopped and terror froze the blood in her veins as a realization struck her hard as a musket-blast to the back. He would not give up - not so easily, and he would do anything he had to prove his point. Anne tightened her profile against the horse, urging Midnight on, spurring the creature into a fevered run as she heard horse hooves clopping behind her. The threat of losing a man’s love loomed as dark as the deep, starry night that had fallen over the trees, and no longer did only her fear chase her, but now something more threatened to claim her love, her comfort, her future, and now - her life. 

“Midnight! Hya!” She glanced over her shoulder as she called to her steed; she felt Midnight’s pace slowing, the power of a single horse driven to its limit not quite as great as a slave-driver pushing two horses along the dark paths. Anne had pushed the poor horse hard, and now it threatened to leave the two of them stranded and in his clutches. Her hands shaking, Anne gripped the reins tight, leading her tired mount back to the roadway. Midnight gave her all, galloping along; even the horse pushed hard to blaze a trail safely for its master. She realized too late that the path ahead would slow her steed’s pace a great deal, and she led the creature down a side path, hopping along a rocky ridge - but it was too late. She had made a grave mistake, and as the earl’s carriage pursued her, catching up to her, she closed her eyes.

She saw him; her love, the only one who could still her heart. She wondered in that moment if she would ever see him again.

“M’lady! Come now, don’t lead me on so crass a chase across these beautiful lands! It’s dark, and dirty, and you’re out riding in darkness, alone,” she recognized that odious man’s speech as he hung from the opened door of the carriage. Midnight had slowed to a gentle gallop, and the chauffeur of the Carteret carriage had pulled his vehicle up alongside the poor creature.

“Midnight! Here, hya!” Anne tried her best to ignore the man, leading Midnight through some trees; the earl followed close behind, the path narrowing - but damnable fate saw that it did not narrow enough to cut off his approach. When they cleared the trees, the chauffeur drove hard until the earl could see her again.

“Come, now, I do love it when a woman plays hard to get, but my patience is nearly expended now,” the earl exclaimed with a haughty laugh. Hanging from the side of the carriage he grasped out at Anne, who kept herself tight and low to Midnight’s mane; the horse whinnied as it felt the earl’s grasping hands reach for its reins.

“Help! Help me! Please, stop,” Anne exclaimed, tears forming at her cheeks. The earl didn’t abate for even a moment.

“I told you you’d be mine - and you had no choice in the matter,” the Earl of Carteret bellowed as he grasped at Anne’s dress, trying to tug her off of her steed. “You should have listened to me. The harder you make this, the worse things will be for you, and for your father.”

“Just go away,” she pleaded. “Please.”

“I will HAVE what’s MINE! And not you, or Lawrence, or ANYONE will get in my way!” the Earl roared as he flung himself from the carriage, landing on the back of Anne’s horse. Her heart beat hard as she tried to shake him off, pulling away from the road and into the trees. The devil was not deterred, and grasped at Midnight’s reins; the creature cried out and bucked and tried everything it could to free itself of the man, as he struggled with poor Anne.

Anne closed her eyes as they converged back onto the main road - praying someone, anyone, would see them. Someone would stop this.

“Stop this damnable beast and speak to me! LOOK AT ME!” the earl shouted into her ear.

All she cared about was him. All she could see when she closed her eyes was him. Even with this demon of a man trying to control her, to have her for his own twisted and nefarious purposes, with her life and freedom on the line.

Would she ever see him again?