Four

Emma rested the brim of her bonnet against the coach window, watching her home grow smaller as they rolled away. She wondered if she would ever see Waverley again. A lump formed in her throat at the thought, yet the place had become almost strange to her.

A house, after all, was nothing more than wood and stone. It was the people inside who made it a home. Once her papa had died, her home had died with him. Waverly might have been hers by right, but it was no longer her home.

Emma took a breath and exhaled it in a short burst. She was ready for a new adventure. She was ready for a new home. She was more than ready to escape the danger of being locked away in an asylum.

The coach bumped over the frozen road and they settled into a rocking pace. It had been a desperate rush to leave without attracting the attention of Regina. Though Emma did not ask for help from the staff, as she did not want to put them at odds with Eustace, they had helped her without words, preparing a basket of food and leaving it in the kitchen, whisking her packed bag to the coach, so she would not have to carry it through the house, and most of all, not saying a word.

Her need to leave immediately meant she had to take her own coach, sneaking out while Regina was taking her afternoon rest. Emma would not take her own coachman, knowing he would be dismissed if he helped her, so she made a last-minute hire of a man who was visiting one of the villagers to act as her coachman—at least until she could reach Portsmouth.

“Well, here we are, on the start of an exciting journey.” Emma gave a bracing smile to Sally, her young maid.

Sally stared back at her in wide-eyed dismay, clutching her ragged bandbox on her lap. One of the difficult aspects of running away was the inescapable need to have a chaperone. To arrive in Portsmouth unchaperoned would be unthinkable. The Earl of Langley had arranged for a suitable chaperone to escort her across the Atlantic. If Emma arrived without a maid by her side, it would certainly prevent her from being deemed acceptable to marry the grandson of an earl.

The young maid some four years her junior was a questionable chaperone at best, but she was better than no one. Sally was a relatively new addition to the house and had not impressed anyone with her industriousness. Regina had recently informed Sally that she would need to look for a new position, giving her two weeks to leave Waverley. Given the circumstances, it seemed a perfect match for Emma to offer Sally the option to accompany her.

“I hate traveling by coach,” whined Sally. “Makes me sick. And I hate the cold. My feet are like ice.”

“Part of an adventure is leaving our comforts behind and experiencing something new,” Emma said, trying to soothe her.

“You never said nothing about leaving comforts behind,” cried Sally, and instantly burst into tears.

After an hour, Emma gave up trying to console her maid. She found Sally’s demonstrative wailing not at all helpful in Emma’s attempt to cling to the brighter side of their adventure. The brighter side was admittedly rather hard to discern.

And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.

—Deuteronomy 31:8

Emma repeated the verse in her head, reassuring herself. Her faith had sustained her since her father had passed. The verse from Deuteronomy seemed particularly appropriate, for, like the Israelites, she was going to a distant land to find a new home.

They traveled on for hours, stopping only briefly for a change of horses. Emma watched the sun dip farther and farther down on the horizon. She wished to put as much distance as possible between herself and her stepbrother, hoping to reach Portsmouth that night.

The coach swayed and bumped along and Emma noted the coachman had picked up the pace after getting fresh horses. She had impressed upon him the importance of getting to Portsmouth, and he was trying his best to accommodate, though perhaps with a little too much haste.

They took a turn so violently that Emma was thrown from one side of the coach to the other, crashing against the wall. She struggled to right herself, fumbling at the window to yell at the coachman to slow down. Before she got the chance, the coach swung the other way and she slid with a yelp to the other side. The coach lurched suddenly, and she experienced the sickening feeling of falling. With a crash of grinding rock and splintering wood, she landed in a heap on the side of the carriage.

The window shattered as the coach was drug on its side until, with a sudden jerk, everything came to a stop. Emma found herself sitting on the door of the overturned coach, gasping for breath. She was bruised and her left shoulder smarted.

“What happened?” asked Sally, wide-eyed from waking from her nap in a much different position than when she started it.

“We have experienced an accident,” said Emma, her voice calmer than she felt. “Nothing to fear,” she added, more to herself than to Sally.

Sally gasped. “I knew we were going to die in this coach!”

“I grant you that we have experienced a mishap. However, we do appear to be very much alive.” Emma attempted to disentangle herself from her own skirts so she could stand up, carefully avoiding the broken glass.

“Miss St. James! Miss St. James. You all right miss?” The man she had hired to be her coachman cried at them from outside.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Peters. We are quite well. Have you suffered any injuries?”

“I’m wells, miss,” he said with a concerning slur. “Lets me help you out.” The door above them opened and the head of the coachman burst through, along with a heavy dose of freezing rain.

Emma was able to climb out mostly on her own. This was fortunate, since the coachman’s attempts to assist her were clumsy and awkward, doing more to hinder than to help. As Emma drew closer to the man, she could readily smell on his breath the reason for the accident.

The coach jerked, causing Emma nearly to slide off of it. She grasped onto the edge of the door to keep from falling off. “Mr. Peters! Go hold the heads of the horses before they drag us farther into the ditch. And for goodness’ sake, man, cut them loose from the coach!”

The intoxicated man stumbled down and swayed his way to the horses. Emma shivered against the driving rain and biting wind. Concealed by dark storm clouds, the sun had set, casting them in almost complete darkness.

“Sally, give me your hand.” Emma helped to pull up her simpering maid. Once they were on top, there was no way down but an undignified drop to the ground. She was glad the coachman was otherwise occupied, so no one could witness her embarrassing egress.

“Mr. Peters.” Emma marched toward him, her impractical slippers quickly becoming water logged in freezing slush. The coachman was glibly cutting through the harness of their two horses with a knife. “We need to take these horses into the next town. We cannot stay here in this weather.” There were two horses, three people, and no saddles. It would not be her first choice to ride bareback tandem with her maid to whatever the next hamlet might be, but it was preferable to freezing to death.

“Yes, miss. Right away, miss,” said Peters in a singsong voice. He must have been seriously foxed not to feel the effects of the cold weather. He dropped the leads to the mounts and gave her a bow.

“Be careful—the horses!” cried Emma, but it was too late. The coachman made a dive for the leads, but the horses were spooked enough to bolt. The man managed to grab hold of one, but the other ran off into the night.

“Mr. Peters,” said Emma darkly. “I believe you are experiencing the ill effects of drink.”

Peters shrugged. “It’s too cold to work wi’out drink. You wouldn’t know about cold, since you’re all warm in the coach. You lofty ones is all the same.”

“Mr. Peters. Mr. Peters, what are you doing?” Emma grew alarmed as Peters grabbed the reins and jumped up onto the one remaining horse.

“You ain’t paying me enough to stand out here and freeze.”

“Mr. Peters!”

“I needs me a drink,” he slurred and galloped into the gloom without looking back.

“Mr. Peters, come back!” shouted Emma into the driving rain. He had left her. He had left her in the freezing cold.

God has a plan. He will not forsake me. Emma’s teeth chattered as she slogged back to the coach, where her maid was huddled. They were cold, wet, and alone on a lonely road at night. So far, God’s plan wasn’t looking too bright.

“Peters has ridden off,” said Emma with a determined smile, as if this wasn’t a very bad thing.

“To get help?” asked Sally with a shiver.

“We can hope so,” muttered Emma, though there was little chance of that. The pale light of a lantern on an oncoming coach filled her with relief. “Look, someone is coming. I knew the good Lord would not leave us stranded here to freeze. We are saved!”

The coach came to a grinding halt before them and two men emerged. They were rough-dressed men, with mufflers wrapped around their faces, but at least they had come to render assistance.

“You here alone?” asked a man in a red muffler.

“I fear so. We are very glad for your assistance.”

The man in the red muffler glanced at his companion, a large, squarely built man in a black muffler.

“Sad thing for a pretty bit of muslin to be out here all alone.”

Emma took a step back, a new fear growing. “What do you want?”

“Give me your money, lady,” growled the man in red, drawing a pistol and pointing it at her. “And then you’re coming with us.”

Her heart sank to her frozen, wet feet. Eustace must have hired these men to come after her. “Whatever Mr. Ludlow promised you, I can double it. The estate belongs to me, not him.” Her only chance was to try to reason with the men, though they did not look the reasonable type.

“Quit your rambling and hand over your purse!”

Behind the men, she noted another figure exiting the coach. He was a tall man, hunched over at the waist, in a black greatcoat. He slowly snuck up behind the highwaymen, knife in hand.

She froze, mutely watching the drama unfold. If the enemy of her enemy was a friend, was the man with the long knife her hero?