Olivia winced her eyes shut, bracing herself for the inevitable blow.
Fwwt. Smack. Something whizzed by her captor’s ear and shuddered into the tree above her. She opened her eyes as Borcher whirled his head around. Across the clearing, at the edge of the firelight, a man stood atop a tree stump, bow and arrow poised.
“Let her go, Phineas,” the man drawled in an irritated voice.
“Mind yer own affairs, Croome.” Borcher raised his fist again.
Another arrow whooshed by, slicing into the tree bark with a crack.
“Croome!” Borcher swore.
“Next time, I shall aim,” the man called Croome said dryly. Though he appeared a slight, older man, cool authority steeled his words.
Borcher released Olivia with a hard shove. The back of her head hit the tree, where long arrows still quivered above her. Even the jarring pain in her skull did not diminish the relief washing over her. In the flickering firelight, she looked again at her rescuer, still perched on the stump. He was a gaunt man of some sixty years in a worn hat and hunting coat. Ash grey hair hung down to his shoulders. A game bag was slung over one of them. The bow he held seemed a natural extension of his arm.
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
He nodded.
Glimpsing the stout stick by the light of the forgotten lamp, Olivia bent to retrieve it. Then turned to make her escape.
“Wait.” Croome’s voice was rough but not threatening. He stepped down from the stump, and she waited as he approached.
His height—tall for a man of his years—and limping gait surprised her. “Take the provisions I brought for these undeserving curs.”
She accepted a quarter loaf of bread and a sack of apples. Her stomach rumbled on cue. But when he extended a limp hare from his game bag, she shook her head.
“Thank you, no. This is more than enough.”
One wiry eyebrow rose. “To make up for what they did to you—and would have done?”
Olivia stiffened. She shook her head and said with quiet dignity, “No, sir. I am afraid not.” She handed back the bread and apples, turned, and strode smartly from the clearing.
His raspy chuckle followed her. “Fool . . .”
And she was not certain if he spoke of her or of himself.
Olivia walked quickly away by the moonlight filtering through the autumn-bare branches, the stick outstretched before her like a blindman’s cane. She stayed alert for any hint of being followed but heard nothing save the occasional to-wooo of a tawny owl or the feathery scurrying of small nocturnal creatures. Eventually her fear faded into exhaustion and hunger. Perhaps I should not have been so proud, she thought, her stomach chastising her with a persistent ache.
Finally, unable to trudge along any further, she curled into a ball beside a tree. She searched her cape pockets for her gloves, but only one remained—the other lost in the wood, no doubt. She again felt the firm bundle in her pocket but did not bother to examine it in the dark. Shivering, she drew her hooded cape close around herself and covered her thin slippers with handfuls of leaves and pine needles for warmth. Images of her mother’s terrified eyes and of a man’s body lying facedown on the dark floor tried to reassert themselves, but she pushed them away, escaping into the sweet forgetfulness of sleep.
Chapter 2
Send her to a boarding-school,
in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice.
Then, Sir, she should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts . . .
—R. B. SHERIDAN, THE RIVALS, 1775
Olivia awoke to birdsong and mist, her hand still grasping the heavy stick. It reminded her once more of the fire iron, and she was tempted to hurl it away. But was it not her only protection from wild dogs if not wicked men?
The sunrise glimmered through the canopy of branches, beribboned with sparse, tenacious leaves. Her limbs were stiff, her toes numb from sleeping on cold, rooted ground. She rubbed warmth into her hands, then her feet, before replacing her shoes. If she had known what would happen yesterday, she would have taken time to lace on half boots instead of wearing her flimsy kid slippers.
The dreadful scene replayed in her mind.
She’d come home late from her post at Miss Cresswell’s school. Found her father’s coat on an overturned chair. Her slippers crunched on broken glass. What had he thrown this time? A drinking glass? A bottle? A shrill cry pulled her into the bedchamber, dark, but light enough to see a chilling sight—the back of a man with his hands around her mother’s throat. Her mother’s eyes wide, gasping for air . . .
Olivia had not thought, only reacted, and suddenly the fire iron was in her hand. She raised it high and slammed it down with a sickening clang, and he fell facedown on the floor. The force of the blow reverberated up her arm and into her shoulder. Numbing shock followed like an icy wave. She stared, unmoving, as her mother sucked in haggard draws of air.
Then her mother was beside her, pulling the fire iron from her stiff fingers, and drawing her from the room, through the kitchen to the front door, both of them trembling.
“Did I kill him?” Olivia had whispered, glancing back at the darkened bedchamber door. “I did not mean to do it. I only—”
“Hush. He breathes still, and may revive any moment. You must leave before he sees you. Before he learns who struck him.”
By the light of the kitchen fire, Olivia glimpsed the welts already rising on her mother’s neck. “Then you must come with me. He might have killed you!”
Dorothea Keene nodded, pressing shaky fingers to her temples, trying to concentrate. “But first I will go to Muriel’s. She will know what to do. But he must never know you were here. You . . . you have left the village . . . for a post. Yes.”
“But where? I don’t know of any—”
“Far from here.” Her mother squeezed her eyes shut, thinking. “Go to my . . . go to St. Aldwyns. East of Barnsley. I know one of the sisters who manage the school there. They may have a post, or at least take you in.”
Her mother turned and hurried across the kitchen. Reaching up, she winced as she pulled a small bundle from behind a portrait frame.
“I cannot leave you, Mamma—you are hurt!”
Returning, her mother gripped her arm. “If he should die, it will be the noose for you. And that would kill me more surely than he ever could.”
She shoved the bundle into Olivia’s cape pocket. “Take this and go. And promise me you will not return. I will come to you when I can. When it is safe.”
A low moan rumbled from the other room, and panic seized them both. “Go now. Run!”
And Olivia ran.
The scene faded from her mind, and Olivia shuddered. She drew forth the small bundle, studying it by morning’s light. At first glance, it looked like an old, folded handkerchief, but on closer inspection, she saw that it had seams and a small beaded clasp.
Why had her mother made this? Had she foreseen last night’s events and Olivia’s need to flee? Or had she been prepared to make her own escape, from a husband whose violent temper had been escalating for months?
Olivia opened the concealed purse and examined its contents. Four guinea coins were tacked in with thread, to keep them from jingling and giving away their hiding place, she supposed. There was also a letter. She picked it up, but saw it was firmly sealed with wax. She turned it over and read the tiny script in her mother’s fine hand: To be opened only upon my death. Olivia’s heart started. What in the world? She thought once more of her father’s jealous rages—the overturned chairs, the broken glass, the holes punched in the wall. Still, Olivia had never believed he would actually harm his own wife. Had her mother feared that very thing? Curiosity gnawed at her, but she quickly returned the letter to its place.
As she did, she felt a thin disk within the folds of fabric, apparently a fifth, smaller, coin. A small tear in the lining revealed its would-be escape route. Curious, she worked the coin with stiff fingers back to the hole. As she extracted the shilling, a scrap of paper came with it. It was an inch-by-three-inch rectangle, torn from a newspaper, yellowed with age. It appeared to be a brief portion of a marriage announcement.
. . . the Earl of Brightwell of his son,
Lord Bradley to Miss Marian Estcourt
of Cirencester, daughter of . . .
Brightwell . . . Estcourt . . . the names echoed dully in Olivia’s mind. She could not recall her mother mentioning either name before. Why had she kept the clipping?
Her stomach growled and Olivia tucked away the paper—and her questions—for another time. Gingerly she rose and began pulling leaves and needles from her hair. Brushing off her cape and dress, she grimaced at a long tear in her bodice. Her shift and one strap of her stays showed. Thinking of her peril of the previous night, she shuddered, realizing the damage could have been far worse. She pulled up the hanging flap of bodice and tied it crudely to the strip of torn cloth at her shoulder. She hoped she didn’t look as dreadful as she felt.
She tried to run her fingers through her hair and discovered it was a knotted mess, her neat coil long-since fallen. She longed for a bath and a comb. No use in fretting about it now, she told herself. If I don’t get moving, no one but the trees shall see me anyway.
Olivia once more wove her way through the trees and underbrush, wondering if the schoolmistress her mother knew would really take in a stranger, and what Olivia would do if not. She bit the inside of her cheek to hold back self-pity and tears. She breathed a quick prayer for her mother and kept walking, her breath rising on the cold morning air.