RIDING TO SAFETY
Rufus held Amabel against him as they rode. He felt her warm weight press against him heavily and he sighed. He knew she was asleep.
“Don't wake up, dear.”
He whispered the words softly, not wanting to lose the opportunity to talk to her, to tell her all the words he knew must remain forever mewed in his heart. He loved her.
Strange, but I fain thought I didn't know what love would feel like.
He had no siblings, and he and his father had never been amicable. He hadn't any cousins, even. However, he did know love.
Brothers on the field and off it. My bond to my comrades feels like this. But different. The depth of it is the same.
He sighed. There were other things, of course, that he didn't feel for his brothers-in-arms. The things about her that set his loins on fire, for example. He chuckled, noting that.
My poor body.
He held Amabel close, aware now more than ever of the soft weight of her body molded to his arm as they rode. He could feel the hard curve of her breasts pressed to his arm, and the swell of her buttocks as they pushed against his loins with every inch of rise or fall in the track.
He smiled to himself. He would reach Buccleigh in a state of hopeless arousal at this rate. There is nothing I can do about it. He would just have to hope that, once she was safely lifted from his horse and in the care of her relatives and friends, he could calm himself.
He sighed, breathing in the perfume of her hair where it rested on his chest and knowing that he would probably not be able to find rest.
He wished he could have her, could know her. Could hold her and kiss her and squeeze her fingers and tell her all the words inside his heart. However, he must be silent. She was not his.
The path widened and the light shone brighter here. He realized he could distinguish the path more clearly because it was no longer a path, but a road. The path through the forest had been earth, packed by the passage of horses and the boots of mankind. However, this was a cobbled roadway. Heading east.
Right. We're almost there now, he told himself. Almost to Buccleigh.
He rode out of the clearing. He had no idea how far ahead he still had to go. The night was cold now and even with his cloak over them both, his arms wrapped round her waist wrapping them both, it was cold.
The sky was clear today. It'll be freezing out. And there'll be frost, also, tonight. He sighed.
They would be lucky to reach Buccleigh tonight. With bad luck, they'd face a slow death on the road from cold.
“Sir?”
Rufus stared. Now the trees were animate and talking to him. He sighed. It was the head injury. Making him see things. Not see things, hear things. He was too tired to quibble semantics.
He rode on.
“Sir. Wait?”
He stopped.
“Fine,” he said with doleful resignation. “If you're a tree, talking to me, Lord have mercy and let me die of cold right now. If you're not, I do blessed well wish you'd come out. It's disconcerting.”
He paused. Just as he was about to conclude that it had been his imaginings and he was going truly insane, something rustled.
“Sir.”
A boy appeared. He was perhaps fifteen; it was difficult to tell in the pale starlight. He was wearing a long tunic and was barefoot. An aching bruise scored the side of his white face. His arm was hanging at an odd angle and Rufus thought someone must have broken a bone in his shoulder, somewhere high up. He moved the arm and Rufus revised his judgment, guessing it instead to be mostly bruised.
“Yes?” he asked, more gently this time. If he left him out here, the boy would freeze, certainly.
“Sir. Please, help! The lady...oh.” He stared up at the pale countenance, just visible from under the swathing cloak. He recognized Lady Amabel, clearly, for he stared, throat working, then he sobbed. “She's well.”
Rufus nodded. “She's certainly alive,” he said gently. “You're a servant in her retinue?”
“I'm a stable hand,” he said with some apparent affront at being mistaken for a page or footman. “I was riding with her ladyship. Can you help?” he added.
Rufus nodded. “They took your mounts?”
The boy nodded mutely.
“Right,” Rufus said with a sigh. “You can ride with her,” he said reluctantly. “I'll get going.”
He slid off the horse, steadying Amabel as he did so. He heard her sigh a long breath and wished the youth had stayed where he was for a moment – how dare he risk waking Lady Amabel?
“Oh, milord!”
Rufus sighed. “That's Sir Rufus to you, lad. And mind you take a good seat back from her. I'll not have you waking the lady...she's worn out and needs rest.”
“On my word,” the boy said. He scrambled lithely up into the saddle and took a seat behind Amabel. He was clearly terrified to harm her, for he hesitated to reach forward to grip the reins, and Rufus, trying to hold her steady, sighed softly.
“Hold her up, boy.”
The youth bridled at the diminishing terminology but did as he told him.
“We'll wrap her warmly. Here. You too,” he said and, mouth hard-set, teeth clamped against chattering, he shrugged out of the thick fur-lined, woolen cape, handing it up.
Then, trudging along in the darkness, the three of them headed onto the road.
“You stayed to help her?” Rufus asked, indicating the slumberous lady with his head. She had slipped forward a little and he reached to steady her, barely trusting himself to touch that sweet thigh.
“Yes, sir,” the boy said, aghast. “I'd do anything for the Lady Amabel. Else I'd lose my life.”
Rufus nodded. He felt a grim smile twist his mouth. She does that to people, he wanted to say. She makes you devoted. Steals your soul.
He didn't say it, though. He simply nodded and walked onward.
The youth said nothing for a long while. Rufus sighed.
“You know, I'm glad you came,” he murmured. The young man's toes were turning blue and he winced, seeing it.
“Why?” he asked. His voice was chattering with cold but he managed to keep it commendably still. “Why're...you...glad. Sir?”
“Because I don't know where in the devil we are. You're from here, so I trust you know the way to a nearby town? Is anywhere closer than the castle, the Duke of Buccleigh's landholding?”
The youth nodded, making Rufus feel weak with sudden relief.
“There is? How many miles? In which direction?”
He heard Amabel stir and thought his anxious voice disturbed her. He coughed, lowering his tone. “Please?”
“The town is that way,” the young man said confidently. He pointed to the left. “Place called Astmorland.”
Rufus let out a long sigh. Whew.
“Is it far?” he asked.
“Mile, half a mile?” the boy shrugged.
Rufus did a rapid mental calculation. That would take them roughly half an hour. Mayhap less.
“That closer than or further than Buccleigh?”
Again the boy made a scornful noise. It was subtle scorn, but it was there. Rufus reined in the impulse to box his ears. After all, the boy was all that was standing between Amabel and a slow death on the road.
“Yes,” the boy replied. “Buccleigh's a good five mile on.”
“Right,” Rufus nodded tightly. “We're going to Astmorland.”
They went left.
It took twenty minutes. During that time, Rufus went through the entire catalog of marching tunes he knew. He hummed them under his breath, vaguely, more of a rhythm of breathing rather than an actual tune. I don't want to wake the lady.
Within the last five minutes, he was humming tonelessly, starting to notice he couldn't feel his toes. His fingers were long numbed. He was desperate. If they didn't reach the town soon, they would die. He was just thinking of what he could do...perhaps get them all down off the horse and huddle under the bush somewhere...
Lights. There, up front.
He stared. There, perhaps five minutes away, was a village. Spread out on the hillside, he could see a cluster of houses with lights in the windows still. He thought he might actually cry of relief.
“You're right,” he called to the boy. “Thank you!” he felt his heart soaring. “And thank Heaven too. This is a miracle if ever there was such.”
The boy grinned. “Aye, seen plenty o' them, sir. Reckon finding you was one, back then.”
“Aye,” Rufus nodded grimly. “I've seen plenty o' them too.”
He led them down toward the gate.
“Who goes there...?” A sentry called out dully, voice aching with sleep. Rufus felt a moment's pity for him, borne of his own vigils. Then he coughed, irritation replacing the pity rather fast.
“It's Sir Rufus Invermore. And a wounded lady. And some fellow by the name of...”
“Brogan, sir. Brogan Brodley.”
“Exactly. Him too.”
They paused. “Occupation?” the sentry croaked.
“Oh, for...” Rufus breathed. “Occupation is defending the royal peace. If you make me stand out here and freeze myself, I'll take that as breaking the aforementioned peace and have your head.”
“Very well, very well,” the sentry grumbled. “You know the way, sir. Cannae have strange bods abroad at this hour of the night. Bad for the town, so 'tis. Very bad. Dangerous, sir.”
Rufus sighed. “I know.”
He heard the man sliding back the bolts as he carried on explaining how dangerous an act he was now doing, and then he was walking on, leading the horse behind him into the town.
“Thank you,” he said with the faintest taint of irony.
“Good, fine sir.”
Rufus rolled his eyes. “Inn?” he said. His brain was weary with the cold and forming sentences was becoming increasingly harder. “Where do I find the inn? The nearest inn. Before I freeze.”
“Oh! There! Across the street. First on the right. Round arch into the front delivery yard. Can't miss it.”
“Thank you,” Rufus forced through chattering teeth. Then he, the youth called Brogan Brodley, and the lady Amabel were walking down the street of the small, cobbled and brightly lit town, into the inn.
Inside, Rufus leaned against the door, Amabel in his arms, Brogan beside him, and did his best to stay upright.
“We need a room,” he hissed. The sudden warmth was scalding him, his cheeks flushed and paining. “Two rooms, actually.”
“Shilling and sixpence sir.”
Rufus shut his eyes. He didn't have the money on him anymore. Sleeping in the stable was not going to work. These two might die out there.
“Sir?” the boy whispered.
“What?” he asked. He felt lethal. All he needed was the young man trying to explain why it would be perfectly alright to sleep in the stable and he would finish him.
“Sir,” the young man said again. His eyes were huge. “I got the money. Look.”
He produced a silver piece.
Rufus wanted to cry. He sighed instead.
“Thank you, lad.”
“Don't mention it.”
They paid the innkeeper, who was staring at the unlikely trio as if they might be a wild hallucination sent to torment him, and then shuffled wearily up the stairs.
Rufus stayed on his feet long enough to tuck Amabel into the bed in the room where a fire was still burning. He looked down at her, chafing her still-sleeping hand to ensure the blood flowed still. Then, slowly, knowing it was wrong of him but unable to resist it, he kissed her brow. Then he walked out.
“We'll take th' other,” he sighed at the youth.
They fell in through the door together. Rufus saw the boy sit by the fire, crying out in torment as the warmth reanimated his toes. Then he collapsed onto the bed and was soon asleep.